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

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JUNE 10


1190: During the Third Crusade Frederick I Barbarossa drowns in the Saleph River while leading an army to Jerusalem.  The German emperor was one of three monarchs leading the crusade.  The other two were Phillip Augustus of France and Richard the Lionhearted of England.  From the Jewish point of view, the untimely drowning was a great loss.  “For German Jewry, The Third Crusade could have raised havoc similar to the first.”  That it didn’t was a result of the foresight demonstrated by Frederick. “His timely order not to preach against the Jews, directed to monks and priests, helped, and his warnings to the Diet (Parliament) that anyone convicted of killing Jews would with his own life helped even more.  Local marshals dispersed surly mobs hovering around Jewish districts, and Frederick let it be known that anyone who inflicted injury on a Jew would have his hand chopped off.  At the emperor’s urging, bishops in his realm threatened people who attacked Jews with excommunication.  A Jewish chronicler, Ephraim ben-Jacob of Bonna, wrote, ‘Frederick defended us with all his might and enabled us to live among our enemies, so that no one harmed the Jews.’”


1539: Pope Paul III sends out letters to his Bishops calling for a delay in the start of the Council of Trent, which would turn out to be one of the major conclaves in the history of the Catholic Church.  Pope Paul III is the Pope who is credited with starting a series of tribunals that became known as the Roman Inquisition or, more simply, The Inquisition. While the Inquisition was aimed at a variety of non-believers, over the centuries Jews, Marranos and Conversos suffered disproportionately under this scourge.


1577: Pope Gregory XIII issued a warrant that “confirmed the statutes of the (Roman) Jewish community and permitted the collection of taxes.”


1624: During the Dutch War for Independence France and the Netherlands sign the Treaty of Compiegne which enabled France to supply the Dutch with financial aid in their fight to gain independence from Spain. Since Protestant Holland’s victory over Catholic Spain was in the best interest of the Jews since the former had provided a safe haven and the latter followed a ruinous policy of anti-Semitism.


1648: Start of the Cossacks ten year war with the Poles also known as the Chmielniki Uprising.  The Jews were caught between the Russian Orthodox Cossacks who hated the Roman Catholic Poles who had been occupying their land.  Jews had served as agents for the Polish nobles managing their lands and collecting the taxes.  For this, and the fact that they were Jews, the Cossack hated them.  At the same time, the Poles betrayed the Jews, in many instances turning them over to the Cossacks thinking that this would mollify the angry horde.  It didn't but from the Jews' point of view that really did not matter since they were killed regardless of what happened. In the ten tumultuous years that followed, over seven hundred Jewish communities were destroyed and between one hundred and five hundred thousand Jews lost their lives. The ensuing sense of helplessness contributed to the rise of the messianic movement which soon followed.


1729(13th of Sivan): Rabbi Abraham ben David Yizhaki, author of Zera Abraham passed away


1749 (7th Sivan 5509): Count Valentine Potocki is burned at the stake in Vilna. The count, along with his friend Zeremba, met an old Jew in a tavern and promised to convert if he could convince them of the preeminence of Judaism. Potoscki converted and eventually settled in Vilna. Zeremba hearing that his friend converted did likewise and moved to Eretz- Israel. His presence became known and he was put on trial for heresy when he refused to recant. His ashes were collected and buried in Vilna where the inscription on tomb read Abraham Ben Abraham Ger Zedek (a righteous proselyte). The Jews of Vilna would visit his grave and say Kaddish.


1760 (26th of Sivan 5520): On the secular calendar, of Israel ben Eliezer passed away. Also known as the Baal Shem Tov he was the "founder" of the Chassidic Movement.  Born in 1700 in Lokop, Podolia and orphaned at a young age, he was raised by the Jewish community and spent much of his time alone in the nearby forests. After he married, he moved to the Carpathian Mountains and then to a small town where his wife set up an inn. At age thirty-six, he revealed himself to the community as a healer and a comforter. He received the name 'Baal Shem Tov' (Master of the Good Name) and was simply called the 'Besht'. His major philosophy consisted of worshipping G-d with joy and believing that simple prayers when uttered in earnest were more important that extreme intellectualization. The Besht believed that Tzaddikim, or righteous ones, were sent by G-d to guide the people. Though he left no writings of his own, he was immortalized by the often miraculous and magnified stories of his life as told by his closest followers.


1760:Canadian businessman and political leader, Aaron Hart, became a member of the St. Paul's Lodge of Freemasons today “making him one of the first Jews in North America to become a Mason”


1789 Birthdate of Eduard Israel Kley, the native of Wartenberg who was one of the “founders of Reform Judaism.”


1799(7thof Sivan, 5559): Last observance of Shavuot in the 18th century


1810: In Mlecice, Marcus and Maria Lobl gave birth to Katherina Lobl


1815: “Prince Karl von Hardenberg, the Prussian representative to the Congress of Vienna, wrote an urgent request to the Senate of Lubeck to grant civil rights to its Jewish population.”1818(6th of Sivan 5578) Shavuot1827: Birthdate of Thomas W. Ferry, U.S. Senator from Michigan who would be the first President Pro Tempore of the United States Senate to attend the consecration of an orthodox synagogue in Washington, D.C.


1829: Birthdate of Filosseno Luzzatto “an Italian Jewish scholar” who was the son of Samuel David Luzzatto.


1837(7thof Sivan, 5597): Second Day of Shavuot


1837(7th of Sivan): Rabbi Chaim Isaac Mussafia of Jerusalem, author of Chaim va Chesedpassed away


1846(16thof Sivan, 5606): Fifty-four year old Heimann Joseph Michael, the native of Hamburg who became a leading Hebrew bibliographer of the first half of the 19thcentury passed away. His impact outlived his death as can be seen by the fact that his seminal work Or ha-Hayyim which was edited by his son was published in Frankfort in 1891.


1849: Birthdate of David Lubin the Polish born American merchant and agriculturalist who became Director of the International Society for the Colonization of Russian Jews in 1891


1852: In New York, a Jewish peddler was arrested today on charges of having stolen a watch valued at $30 from a resident of Newton.


1859(8thof Sivan, 5619): Samuel Russell died today aboard the HMS Colossus from injuries he suffered when he fell from the main deck.  A resident of Sheerness, Russell was married to Yitta Russell.  Sun Street was renamed Russell Street in his honor.


1860: In New York, Congregation B’nai Israel purchased additional land on the corner of Stanton and Forsyth Streets on which they were building a sanctuary that was consecrated in August of the same year.


1863: James (Jacob) Seligman and Rosa Seligman gave birth to Francis (Fanny) Nathan.


1867(7thof Sivan, 5627): Second Day of Shavuot


1870: it was reported today that the fact that Sir Moses Montefiore has verified reports of the massacre of Jews in Romania has discredited claims that these attacks did not take place.


1872: “The Russian Jews” published today described a paper on the Jews of northwestern Russia that was presented at a recent meeting of the Russian Geographical Society held at St. Petersburg.  The author of the paper divides the Jews into a variety of groups and sub-groups.  According to him the Jews belong to two major groupings which differ in regard to “religion and language.”  One group believes in the Talmud and speaks a “corrupt German dialectic.”  The second group, called the Karaites, “rejects the Talmud, are not even absolute believers in the Bible… “have their own traditions which have collected into a book” that “has the same authority over them as the Talmud has over other Jews”  and speak a language that “is of Tartar Origin.  The author goes on to divide the first group into two subgroups – the Mitnagdim and the Chasidim who are called “Jumpers” by the Russians because they leap from the ground when praying – and describes the differences in their respective views and practices.  Finally, the Jews are broken down into Four Groups that include “the worldly Jews,” “the devout” Jews, “the Germans” who are followers of Moses Mendelsohn and the “Epicureans” who reject all forms of Jewish custom and ceremony as well as the Talmud.


1872: “The Romanian Jews and the Reichstag” published today reported that in May of this year  the German government has joined other European powers in responding to requests to help the Jews of Romania. The government announced that it could not interfere in the internal affairs of another country especially since none of those affected were German citizens. Germany reiterated the request of the other powers which had been made in February that persecution of the Jews stop.  The government also took credit for the release of some of the wrongfully convicted Jews. [Editor’s note- the issue of the treatment of Romania’s Jews is one that would agitate the European Powers and the United States during the last decades of the 19th century.]


1872: “The Israelites of Prussia” published today reported that “the Jewish questions” (the treatment of the Jews of Romania) is of special interest in Berlin because “trade and banking is mainly in the hands of the elect people.”  “The financial heads of the dispersed nation have joined..to make their power felt to get the other nations to act against Romania.“A Committee of the Alliance Israelite Universelle has been formed” in Berlin “as a standing council of war” that would destroy the value of Romanian bonds. “That is a strong measure, but one for which the Jews have the power.” [Editor’s Note – The view of the Jew as “the other” who is part of an international financial concern would grow along with other European stereotypes: International Communist Conspirator and impoverished shiftless vermin.]


1872: “Jewish University” published today reported that a Jewish university was opened at Berlin in May.  The Jewish community has been working on this project for several years and its opening is another example of the great strides made them in the Kaiser’s Empire.  The ceremony was attended only by Jewish officials but this should not be of any concern since there are plenty of Jews to attend the school.


1875(7thof Sivan, 5635): Second Day of Shavuot


1877: “A Jewish Suit For Divorce” published today described the adjudication of cause of action in Great Britain filed by an American Jew named Elias Isaacs naming his wife Deborah as respondent  and her lover, Bloc, as correspondent. The jury found that the respondent and co-respondent were guilty of damages but declined to assess damages because the petitioner had “conduced” (contributed to) his wife’s misconduct by separating from her for an extended period of time and not given her the protection one should expect in a marital relationship. [And people think that Jews are dull and boring]


1877: “The Place of Wailing” published today reported that the picture which Jerusalem presents that longest haunts the memory is perhaps the spectacle of the Jews wailing before the ancient wall of their city.  There in full sunlight, bowed in every attitude of grief, their faces set against those gigantic blocks which reveal…their antiquity, a group of 30 to 40 Jews are seen, perhaps a little too much as in an opera, by a long line of cold-faced Europeans.  The two groups are in startling contrast. Everything in the one speaks of the orderly life, the suppression of feel, the formality of vesture, a colorless insipidity, the outcome of our modern conventional existence; the other shows us figures, for the most part, which might stepped froth from the pages of the Bible, some of the heads of such grandeur that they might be the descendants of prophets; maidens whose contrite aspect reminds one of Ruth and Esther, surrender themselves to a sorrow which reverberates through the ages and is the one true bond which connect the grand days of old with the present.


1879: Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the point resolution reported by the Committee on Foreign Affairs in relation to treaty negotiations with Russia as to American Israelites.


1880: Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy.  Belmont was the son of August Belmont the Hessian Jew who came to the United States as a representative of the Rothschilds and built a fortune of his own.  The naval career might have seemed strange for the son of a Jews. But, his maternal grandfather Commodore Mathew Perry who commanded the naval expedition that opened trade with Japan and a maternal grand-uncle was Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, the hero of the War of 1812. 1880(1st of Tammuz, 5640: Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1882: Birthdate of John David Whiting, the native of Jerusalem who grew up in the American Colony and served as the U.S. Vice Consul of Jerusalem from 1908 to 1910 and again from 1915 to 1917.

1883(5thof Sivan, 5643): Sixty-three year old Baron Simon von Winterstein, Austrian businessman and member of the Imperial Council who also served as President of the Viennese Jewish Community passed away today.


1883: It was reported today that soprano Sophia Neuberger will be accompanying violinist Camilla Urso on an extended concert tour.


1886(7thof Sivan, 5646): Second Day of Shavuot


1886: For the second day in a row, final exams are scheduled to be given on Shavuot at Philadelphia’s Central High School despite the requests of the city’s rabbis to make other arrangements.


1890: It was reported today that the upcoming sixth annual graduation exercises for the students at the Hebrew Technical Institute will take place at the school which is located on Stuyvesant Street.


1894(6thof Sivan, 5654): Shavuot


1894: “No More New Plays To See” published today described the theatre season which has just come to the end including the fact that  Sidney Grundy has blamed the prejudice of the reviewers for the failure of his five act play, “An Old Jew.”  However, “anybody who reads the play will be likely to decide that it failed because it is a very bad play with a wildly-improbable plot and superabundance of talk.


1894: As part of the increasingly aggressive campaign to convert Jews living in the United States, Reverend John Wilkinson, the English minister who leads the mission to convert English Jews, address the meeting of the American Hebrew Christian Mission Society.


1894: Solomon Moses who has enjoyed a long association with the United Hebrew Charities is among those serving on the Tenement House Committee appointed the governor to examine conditions in this kind of dwelling in New York City.


1895: It was reported today that there 475 girls enrolled in the Louis Down Town Sabbath and Daily Technical Schools which were founded by Mrs. A. H. Louis.


1895(18thof Sivan, 5655): Forty-forty year old German born composer and conductor Martin Roder passed away in Boston where he had been serving as chairman of the vocal department in the New England Conservatory since 1892.


1898: Rabbi H.P. Mendes of New York’s Spanish and Portuguese has been elected of the newly formed Orthodox Jewish Congregational Union of America which is made up of congregations from the United States and Canada.


1898: “Minister Straus Honored” published today described “an informal reception” given by The Judeans Oscar S. Straus following his appointment as the U.S. Minister to Turkey.


1898: The Jewish Chronicle carried a vivid account of an anti-Jewish riot in Jassy, Romania — a place that the paper decided was no longer safe for Jews


1898(20th of Sivan, 5658): Seventy four year old Rabbi Samuel Mohilewer who was an early Zionist leader and proponent of the founding of the Jewish Colonial Bank passed away today leaving a legacy that included his Joseph who was also a Zionist and the rabbi at Bialystok.


1899: Louis Pearshall, Louis Stern, Isador Straus and Julia Richman are among the directors named to oversee the operations of the reconfigured Education Alliance.


1899: Captain Alfred Dreyfus left French Guiana today on board the French cruiser Sfax.


1899: As part of his ongoing “Jew-baiting crusade” Count Walter Puckler-Muskau gave a second lecture in Berlin today entitle “The Progressive Judaisation of Germany.


1899: At Rodoph Shalom, Rabbi Rudolph Grossman delivered a sermon about the plight of Captain Dreyfus entitled “Justice.”


1900: Anti-Semitic riots broke out at Tuchel, the West Prussian city that was the home of the famed pharmacologist and toxicologist Louis Lewin


1901:  Birthdate of Austrian-born American composer, Frederic Lowe.  Lowe teamed with Alan Jay Lerner to create such hits as Brigadoon, Paint Your Wagon and My Fair Lady.


1901: Birthdate of the multi-talented Englishman Eric Maschwitz.

1904: Theodor Kohn was forced to resign as an archbishop because he was born Jewish.  (Is this a reminder of the Inquisition or a harbinger of Nazi rules on race?)


1905(7thof Sivan, 5665): Second Day of Shavuot


1906: Sixty-three year old Mary Carinna Putnam Jacobi, an American suffragette and physician who was the widow of Dr. Abraham Jacobi, the pioneering Jewish pedestrian passed away.


1907: The parents of Riva (Rebecca) Hillesum-Bernstein who would be the maternal grandparents of Riva (Rebecca) Hillesum-Bernstein arrived in Amsterdam where they were re-united with their daughter and son.


1908: Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont, the son of August Belmont, who inherited a fortune large enough when his father died to marry a Vanderbilt.  In an era of matrilineal Judaism, Belmont was not Jewish and he certainly was not considered to be one as he moved through the high society of his time. But he was August’s son and the enemies of August never let anybody forget about his Jewish antecedents.


1909: First day of a two day conference held in New York that would create the youth organization known as Young Judaea.


1909: Sir Osmond d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, 1st Baronet and his wife gave birth to his oldest son Major-General Sir Henry Joseph "Harry" d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, 2nd Baronet


1910: Gustave Bauer, a banker from Madrid was elected, to the Spanish Parliament as the deputy for Corogna. He was the first Jew elected to public office since the expulsion in 1492.


1911: Birthdate of Hans Herzl, son of Theodor Herzl.


1911: After 104 performances at the Winter Garden Theatre, the curtain came down on Jerome Kern’s “La Belle Paree” the musical revue “that launched Al Jolson’s career.”


1915: In Lachine, Quebec, Lescha (née Gordin) and Abraham Bellows gave birth to Solomon Bellows who gained famed as author Sol Bellow whose famous works include Herzog and Humboldt’s Giftand who won both the Pulitzer and the Nobel prizes.


1915: The comments of Reverend S. Edward Young, the pastor of the Bedford Presbyterian Church following the yesterday’s decision by the Georgia Prison Board not to commute Leo Frank’s death sentence published today said that “The Georgia Prison Board evidently has been under the spell of Georgia prejudice against Frank” and that ‘Now is the time for the whole nation express itself to the governor” to have him grant Frank clemency.


1915: Maurice B. Kovnat, the Secretary of the Anti-Capital Punishment Society of America expressed his hope that Leo Frank’s life would be spared saying that “We trust that the fervent prayers of thousands of people outside as well as in Georgia will be heard and acted upon in like spirit.”


1915: “After a conference today with attorneys representing Leo M. Frank and Solicitor General Hugh M. Dorsey” scheduled the “hearing of arguments for and against Frank’s application for a commutation of death sentence to life for imprisonment” for June 15 at nine o’clock.


1915: The Actions Committee (Va'ad HaPoel HaZioni) convenes in Copenhagen


1915: Mrs. Helen Rothschild, the wife of a clothing manufacturer, was taken to Flushing Hospital this moring after suffering what appeared to be an accidental drug overdose.


1916: Birthdate of William Rosenberg, founder of Dunkin Donuts.  Rosenberg opened his first Dunkin Donut shop in his native New England in 1950.  Not only was he a pioneer in this particular food genre, he was a pioneer in the franchise industry.  Rosenberg was an equine enthusiast and philanthropist.  By the time he died at the age of 86 he had given millions to several causes including Harvard Medical School where a chair was endowed in his honor.


1916: “Degree of D.D., honoris causa” was conferred on Gotthard Deutsch by Hebrew Union College.


1917: A column styled "Latest Publication" published today reported that copies of “The Russian Revolution” by Isaac Don Levine and the “The Holy Scriptures,” a new English translation published by the Jewish Publication Society were available in New York City.


1917: The Confirmation Exercises at the Chicago Home for Jewish Orphans are scheduled to held today at 628 Drexel Avenue where fifteen boys and ten girls will be honored.


1917: Reverend Herbert S. Goldstein, the leader of “the new Institutional Synagogue” held “second Jewish religious revival meeting this morning in center of the Jewish district of Harlem.”


1917: The Executive Board of the Jewish Congress Association is scheduled to open a three day meeting today where it will discuss “all matters pertain to the upcoming election of delegates.”


1917: In the United States, three hundred and thirty-five thousand people chose representatives for the first American Jewish Congress. The Congress would meet for the first time in 1918 under the leadership of Rabbi Stephen Wise. Founded to ameliorate the suffering from WW I, the Congress became an advocate for civil rights and civil liberties as well as seeing to it that the Jewish point of view was taken into consideration on the national political scene.  The organization is a staunch defender of the doctrine of separation of church and state and an ardent advocate for the state of Israel.


1919: British economist William Cunningham passed away. Cunningham was the author of The Growth of English Industry and Commerce in which he described the status of Jews in medieval England.  “The Jews had no rights or status of their own; they were the mere chattles of the King; all that they had was his.  In this lay their security from popular violence: but it was a security for which they had to pay dearly.  Their transactions were all registered in the Exchequer.”  This meant that the debts due to Jewish money lenders were really due to the king.  And since Christians could not lend money interest, the English king “had indirectly a monopoly on money-lending” in his realm.


1923: In Slatinské Doly, Mechel Hoch and Hannah Slomowitz gave birth to Ján Ludvík Hyman Binyamin Hoch who gained fame as British media mogul Ian Robert Maxwell.


1923: Cornerstone laying ceremony for the New Hebrew Home for the aged at 1125 Spring Road, NW in Washington, DC.


1925: In Boston, MA, Lena (Katzenberg) and Simon Hentoff historian and author Nat Hentoff


1926: Rabbi Maurice Maser became Director of the Hebrew Home for the Aged in Washington, DC.


1926: Socialist Congressman and champion of the underdog Meyer London was buried today at Mt. Carmel Cemetery in Queens following a funeral that included a procession of 50,000 mourners and half a million on-lookers.  London may have the distinction of being the only Socialist who was condemned as an anti-American radical to have a United States naval vessel named in his honor. The U.S.S. Meyer London, one the famed fleet of Liberty ships, was launched in 1943 and was sunk by an enemy torpedo off the coast of Libya in 1944.


1928: In Philadelphia, Betty and Rabbi Simon Greenberg, the future vice chancellor of JTS gave birth to Moshe Greenberg, “one of the most influential Jewish biblical scholars of the 20th century.”


1928: In Brooklyn, Polish Jewish immigrants Sadie (née Schindler) and Philip Sendak, a dressmaker gave birth to Maurice Sendak, author of Where the Wild Things Are.


1932: In Brooklyn, Morris and Evelyn (Bayer) Ginsburg gave birth to Martin David Ginsberg Georgetown University Law Professor and famed tax attorney.


1932(6th of Sivan, 5692): First Day of Shavuot


1933: President Roosevelt submitted the name of Dr. William E. Dodd to serve as Ambassador to Germany and the Senate voted to confirm the nomination.  Dodd served with distinction, but much to his dismay was unable to convince the State Department and others of the dangers presented by the rise of the Nazis.


1933: Joe T. Robinson of Arkansas, the Democratic majority leader, gave a speech on the floor the U.S. Senate strongly condemning the persecution of the Jews in Germany.  He described what was going on in Germany as “sickening and terrifying.”  As the Senate’s leading Democrat, Senator Robinson often serves as the unofficial spokesman for the administration.  Jesse Metcalf, the Republican Senator from Rhode Island joined in the condemnation saying that “a violation of religious freedom in any part of the world is a blow at” American ideals. Senator Robert Wagner of New York expressed his “horror at the resorts of intolerance, discrimination and violence.”  Wagner’s condemnation carried additional weight since he was born in Germany and grew up there. Senator Royal Copeland spoke approvingly of Jews as a group, endorsed the comments of Senator Robinson but expressed the view that the German people were not responsible but rather they were “under a power over which they have no control.” [An early version of “the Germans are not Nazis” argument]


1934(27th of Sivan, 5694): Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky passed away. He “was a Soviet developmental psychologist whose work received widespread recognition in the Western world around the 1960s. According to Vygotsky, the intellectual development of children is a function of human communities, rather than of individuals.”


1936: The Palestine Post reported that two Arabs died and 26 Arabs and Armenians were injured by a bomb which exploded inside the Jaffa Gate on June 8.


1936: The Palestine Post reported that Mr. Ormsby Gore, the colonial secretary, told the House of Commons in London that the Palestine government was taking all possible action to protect life, property and communications in the country. The Palestine government was granted further emergency powers under the Palestine (Defense) Order in Council of 1931.


1936: “Five Arabs were seriously wounded today in as part of a round of disorder such as have become typical of the Arab anti-Jewish campaign In Palestine.”  As the Arab uprising continued, “Jerusalem was again cut off from the rest of Palestine and the world in general when telephone and telegraph lines were severed” supposedly by Arab vandals.


1938: L'Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper, publishes an article by Jesuit priest Father Enrico Rosa on the violent anti-Semitism in Germany


1940: As the Nazi Blitz of the Low Countries and France was reaching a successful climax Italy under Mussolini, entered World War II on the side of the Germans. Italy's attack on France was described by Churchill as the hand that has held the dagger has now struck it in the back. This move by Mussolini would ultimately imperil the Italian Jewish Community, resulting in deportation and death later in the war.


1940: The French government departed Paris as the German armies swept forward.  Soon an Armistice would be signed dividing control of France between Nazi occupation and the pro-Nazi Vichy Government.  Jews would be at peril in both places.


1940: As two million Parisians flee the City of Light, Hans and Margaret Rey find themselves trapped in a city that the French government has declared “an open city.”  This declaration means that unlike Warsaw, London, etc. Paris will be the one major city not bombed by the Nazis. This marks the beginning of strangely cordial relationship between the Nazis and the French which bodes ill for the Jews trapped in France including Hans Rey, the creator of Curious George and his wife Margaret.


1942: Polish actor and director August Kowalczyk escaped from Auschwitz.


1942:Today, during the siege of Bir Hakeim, part of the battle being fought against Rommel in North Africa, the British campaign headquarters of the British 8th Army issued an order to retreat. By then The Jewish Company, a volunteer unit that had consisted of 400 men at the start of the fight, had lost 75% of its men as they fought to delay Rommel's offensive for 10 days.


1942: Thousands of Jews were sent from Prague to ‘an unknown destination in the East' in cattle cars. The destination was Belzec, the site of their murder. The Jews of Biala Podlaska were sent to Sobibor.


1942:Jews gathered on the west bank of the Dniestr River before their deportation to Transnistria on the east bank of the river

1943: Birthdate of television news personality Jeff Greenfield.


1943(7thof Sivan, 5703): Second Day of Shavuot


1943(7thof Sivan, 5703): Fifty-two year old Louis Bookman the native of Lithuania who gained fame as a cricketer and footballer for his adopted home – Ireland – passed away today.


1944(19th of Sivan, 5704): In the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane, Germans kill 642 residents as revenge for the killing of an SS officer by a Resistance sniper. Women and children are burned alive in a church and the men are machine-gunned. Of the 642 victims, seven are Jewish refugees who had escaped deportation to Auschwitz by living with sympathetic Oradour-sur-Glane villagers. Included among the dead is eight-year-old Serge Bergman.


1944: Violette Szabo, an agent with the British Special Operations Executive was captured in Normandy following a gun battle in which she provided covering fire her companion, a leader with the Maquis, could escape.


1944: Reszoe (Rudolf) Kasztner, head of the Aid and Rescue Committee known as Va’adah chose “388 members of his own extended family, as well as groups of family friends” to serve as a selected groups of Jews that will be allowed to leave Hungary as a token of German “good faith” during the negotiations with Eichmann and Himmler that are being conducted by Joel Brand.


1944: Joel Brand who was being held by the British was allowed to speak with Moshe Shertok the head of the Jewish Agency’s Political Department about the deal the Nazis were offering “trade Jews for trucks.”


1945: In Italy, refugees in the Bericah Movement were photographed with soldiers from Palestine.

1948: Syrian forces over-ran Mishmar Ha-Yarden a Jewish settlement on the west bank of the Jordan River.  The Syrians had every advantage including control of the air, tanks and a full array of artillery.  Realizing the desperate nature of their situation, the Jewish settlers sent the women and children away.  The few surviving defenders were taken to Damascus.  The Syrians called the victory Faith-Allah (the Capture of God).  After the war, the Jews rebuilt Mishmar Ha-Yarden a mile from the original kibbutz.  The ruins of the original settlement were left as a memorial to those who fought and fell in the fight to create a Jewish home. This was one of the last military actions before the first truce between the Israelis and the Arabs which was slated to start on June 11.


1948: The Negev Brigade attacked the Egyptian-held police fort of Iraq Suwaydan but were driven off in defeat.


1951(6th of Sivan, 5711): Shavuot


1953” “Attackers infiltrating from Jordan destroyed a house in the farming village of Mishmar Ayalon.”


1955: Following its New York City premiere last month, “Love Me or Leave Me” directed by Charles Vidor and produced by Joe Pasternak was released in theatres across the United States today.


1959: In the Bronx Anne (née Goldhaber), an English literature professor, and Bernard Spitzer, a real estate mogul gave birth to Eliot Spitzer New York State’s Attorney General, Governor and talking television head for cable news.


1960(15th of Sivan, 5720): Charles Joseph Singer, distinguished “British historian of science, technology and medicine passed away.  He was the son of Simeon Singer, the Rabbi of London’s West End Synagogue who translated the Authorized Daily Prayer Book into English. He was the husband of Dorothea Waley Cohen, who in a manner unusual for her time was a leading historian of the Medieval Period.  There is no way that this blog can do justice to Singer’s long and distinguished career.

1962: In Los Angeles, Mickey Gershon (née Koppel) an interior decorator, and importer/exporter Stan Gershon, gave birth to actress Gina Gershon, the younger sister of Dan Gershon and Tracy Gershon.

1966: Birthdate of Gina Bellman, “a New Zealand-born British actress.”


1967: As of today, Syria had lost approximately 100 combat aircraft.


1967: At 6:30 p.m. a cease-fire went into effect on the Golan Heights effectively ending the Six Day War. There was no Arab military force that could have kept the Israelis from taking Cairo, Damascus or Amman. But as Yitzchak Rabin pointed out, the Israelis had not gone to war to cease territory. They had gone to war only after all diplomatic efforts had failed and they were faced with the choice of fighting or facing extinction. In a week’s time they had changed the map of the Middle East. The forces facing them were not "tin men." Contrary to some of the comments made by the ill-informed, the Arabs had fought hard and the IDF had suffered the casualties to prove it. The fact was that in a week Israel had gone from a nation with a noose around its neck to being victors who had reclaimed Jerusalem, seized the Golan Heights from which the Syrians had shelled Israeli farmers for almost two decades and occupied a swath of land from the Jordan River to the Suez Canal. In the weeks prior to the war, Israel had been subjected to constant shelling from the Golan Heights and blockading by Egypt of the Straits of Tiran (Israel's only southern sea outlet). Once the UN observer forces left the Sinai at Egypt's behest the stage was set for war. Within a few days, the entire Sinai was in Israel's hands, and despite being warned not to interfere, Jordan shelled Jerusalem opening that front as well. This battle led to the capture of the West Bank and the unification of Jerusalem. On the Syrian front, Israel succeeded in pushing the Syrians back to Kunetra and taking part of the Hermon range. In fewer then six days, Israel had routed all three of its neighbors losing over 700 men and having over 2,500 wounded. More than 400 Arab planes and 500 tanks were destroyed. The UN Security Council rejected a Soviet call for an unconditional pullback to the "green line".


1970(6th of Sivan, 5730): Shavuot


1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Knesset approved the Ben-Gurion Memorial Bill on its first reading. The memorial covered Ben-Gurion's home in Tel Aviv, the Institute for the Legacy of Ben-Gurion at Kibbutz Sde Boker and the Desert Institute in the Negev. There was a threat that Egged buses would grind to a halt as the cooperative was unable to pay its fuel suppliers to whom it owed IL 4m., in addition to millions it owed to suppliers of other equipment. The Ministry of Transport insisted that if the cooperative wished to obtain the IL 200m.government-guaranteed loan, it would have to deduct IL 300 per month from its members' salaries. But following the ministry's order to carry soldiers free, Egged reneged on this agreement.


1976(12th of Sivan, 5736): Adolph Zukor, founder of Paramount Studios and one Hollywood’s early movie moguls passed away at the age of 103.


1977: “Ford Honored” published today described President Gerald Ford’s speech condemning terrorism which he deliver at a dinner that was “raising funds for scholarships” for those attending Hebrew University.


1982: “After eight previews the Broadway production of “The Torch Song Trilogy” by Harvey Fierstein opened “at the Little Theatre where it ran for 1,222 performances” and for which Fierstein won two Tony Awards.


1982: Units of the Golani Brigad and the Barak Armored Brigade finished the fighting that resulted in the capture of two villages on the outskirts of Beirut.


1985: “Flesh and Blood”  starring Jennifer Jason Leigh “as Agnes, virgin daughter of an aristocrat” had its first public screening at the Seattle International Film Festival


1986: Khaled Ahmed Nazal, Secretary-General of the PLO's DFLP faction, was gunned down outside a hotel in Athens, Greece


1987: The off-Broadway production of “Bar Mitzvah Boy,”  “a musical with a book by Jack Rosenthal, lyrics by Don Black, and music by Jule Styne” opened “at the American Jewish Theatre of the 92nd Street Y.


1988: U.S. premiere of “Big Business,” a comedy directed by Jim Abrahams, co-starring Bette Midler and featuring Seth Green as “Jason.”


1991(28thof Sivan, 5751): Ninety-two year old Lena Goldman Wilentz, the wife of David Wilentz who the Attorney General of New Jersey who prosecuted Bruno Haumptmann passed away today.


1994(1st of Tammuz, 5754): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1996: Publication of Tim Janof’s “Conversation with Janos Starker.”

1998: In “King of Simon Says Is Up to His Old Games,” Joyce Walder described the career of 77 year old tumbler Allan Tresser.

1999: In Baltimore, Maryland, Anshe-Emunah-Aitz Chaim-Tifereth Israel voted to merge with Moses Montifore Emunath Israel-Woodmoor Hebrew Congregation.


2000(7th of Sivan, 5760): Second Day of Shavuot


2001: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Skeptical Music:Essays on Modern Poetry by David Bromwich and Dance with Demons:The Life of Jerome Robbins by Greg Lawrence.


2002: President Bush welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to the White House.


2003: “Wicked,” a Stephen Schwartz musical began its pre-Broadway run at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco.


2004(21stof Sivan, 5764): Ninety-two year old Margit Raizel Wolf, the wife of Franz Karl Wolf and, passed away today in Israel.


2004: Ambassador Earle I. Mack presented his credentials to the President of Finland.


2004: Effi Eitam and Yitzhak Levy quit the government to protest the plan to leave Gaza.


2004: Tzipi Livini succeeded Effit Eitam as Minister of Housing and Construction.


2005: Major General Yiftach Ron-Tal took command of Modash, the Field Intelligence Corps.


2005: In a letter to the editor of Haaretz published today, “Avraham Cykiert of Mulgrave, Australia claimed to have ghost written” Caged, the memoirs of Warsaw Ghetto warrior David Landau “and said that Landau's daughter had "doctored" his manuscript.


2006:  Bat Mitzvah of Gail Barnum, daughter of Amy and Joel Barnum.


2007: In “Adjusted Income” published today, Daniel Handler described what it is like to have lots of money made by writing children’s books.



2007: At Temple Judah, In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Dr. Howard Lenhoff describes a real and modern exodus--the rescue of Ethiopian Jews and their deliverance to Israel. Dr. Lenhoff, a graduate of Coe College and a distinguished biologist at the University of California (Irvine), was instrumental in this rescue. He is the author of author of, Black Jews, Jews, and Other Heroes. How Grassroots Activism Led to the Rescue of the Ethiopian Jews


2007: Annual Temple Judah Congregational Meeting in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.


2007: The Sunday New York Times book section featured a review of Sylvia and The Collected Stories two works by the late Jewish author Leonard Michaels.


2007: Norman Finkelstein, who gained famed for his controversial comments about the Holocaust, has been denied tenure by De Paul University


2007: The Sunday Washington Post book section featured a review of 1967: Israel, the War and the Year That Transformed the Middle East by Tom Segev.


2007:  The Sunday Chicago Tribune featured an article entitled “Facing a grim reality in Austrian Town” which tells of how beneath the quiet homes and neat hedges of Gusen, lie the remains of a Nazi concentration camp. Ironically, Mauthausen is only four miles away and it is preserved as a monument the victims of the Holocaust.  At Gusen, the citizens actually live in buildings left from the camp.  Christopher Mayer, a 32 year old artist has designed an audio tour for visitors to hear the recollections of survivors. www.chicagotribune.com/nazicamp


2007:Today, the Great Synagogue’s emeritus Rabbi, Raymond Apple, was confirmed as the keynote speaker for the International Council of Christians and Jews’ (ICCJ’s) 2007 conference in Sydney to be held in July.


2007: Ronald Lauder was elected President of the World Jewish Congress today defeating the South African businessman Mendel Kaplan and Einat Wilf of Israel


2008(7th of Sivan, 5768): Second Day Shavuot


2008: Ninety percent of the Israeli public thinks that the country is tainted with corruption and over half say that corruptibility is a necessary to prerequisite to success in the political sphere, according to the Israeli Democracy Institute’s (IDI) annual Democracy Index which was submitted to President Shimon Peres.


2008: Samuel Israel III’s GMC Envoy was found abandoned on the Bear Mountain Bridge today a day after he failed to report to prison.


2009: Release date for “Jaffa” the film whose Hebrew name is Kalat Hayam (The Bride of the Sea)


2009:Simon Schama, a professor of art history at Columbia University and a cultural critic for the New Yorker magazine, discusses and signs his new book, The American Future: A History at Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C.


2009: The Hebrew Book Fair opens at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv.As part of the Book Fair events, the Centennial Year Administration will launch 4 new books dedicated to Tel Aviv – Yafo. These four volumes, selected from 50 candidates include: A Crane Points to the Sea– A poetry book by Gilad Cahane, The Sarona Templar Colony at Times of Struggle by Nir Mann, A City with a Concept: 100 Years of Urban Planning in Tel Aviv by Natty Marom and The Lost Children: Mandatory Tel Aviv's Back Yard by Dr. Tami Razi


2009: The RSX European Open Windsurfing Championship begins at Tel Aviv’s Gordon Beach.


2009: Ken “Feinberg was appointed by the U.S. Treasury Department to oversee the compensation of top executives at companies which have received federal bailout assistance.”


2009:An American white supremacist opened fire at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum today killing a security guard before being shot himself, according to initial reports.


2010: Grammy Award-winners Susan McKeown and Lorin Sklamberg are scheduled to present Saints & Tzadiks, a project celebrating Yiddish and Irish song at the Washington Jewish Music Festival.


2010:Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak Dance Company is scheduled to perform “Oyster at Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina.


2010: Israeli writer and peace activist David Grossman has been named winner of the 2010 Peace Prize by the German association of publishers and booksellers.


 2011: The CSI Milwaukee Directors Seminar sponsored by the Coalition for Jewish Learning is scheduled to take place at the CJL in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.


2011:Police entered a sensitive Jerusalem holy site to disperse Palestinian protesters who were hurling stones today. The scene of today's violence was the Old City compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.


2011(8th of Sivan, 5771): Eighty-five year old Norman Redlich, a leading member of the New York bar and the Dean of New York University Law School passed away.  (As reported by Paul Vitello)



2011(8th of Sivan, 5771):Adolph William ("Al") Schwimmer, founder of Israel Aircraft Industries and winner of the Israel Prize died today at Tel Hashomer hospital on his 94th birthday. Schwimmer, an American citizen born in New York, was convicted in 1950 of violating the Neutrality Act for smuggling planes to Israel during the 1948 War of Independence. He was stripped of his civil rights, but not imprisoned. The American Jew was able to covertly bring the aircrafts to Israel by establishing false companies, one of which was purportedly the official airline of Panama. Schwimmer was in the Air Transport Command in World War II, providing him with many contacts that were pilots and in the airplane industry. He was able to use his contacts to transport the planes to Israel. Schwimmer was pardoned in 2001 by then outgoing U.S. President Bill Clinton. The pardon was awarded without any formal request from Schwimmer. In an interview with the Jerusalem Report in 2001, Schwimmer said he never applied for a pardon, calling it is a "complicated process". The expatriate added that "you have to express regret for what you did, and I didn't feel that way." However, the eldest son of Hank Greenspun, a close friend of Schwimmer's who worked with him when he was smuggling arms into Israel during the Independence War, is an attorney and a friend of Clinton. The younger Greenspun sent all the paperwork to the Justice Department and told Schwimmer, "I'm not asking you. I'm telling you, I sent in your application for a pardon." After the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Schwimmer joined the nascent Israel Air Force, after which he established an aircraft company that evolved to become the Israel Aircraft Industries during the 50's. Schwimmer ran the aircraft company for over 20 years, during which he became close with current President Shimon Peres. After disagreements with former Defense Ministers Moshe Dayan and Ezer Weizman, Schwimmer left Israel Aircradt Industries, becoming a "special adviser" for the Israeli government for which he was paid a symbolic one shekel a year. Schwimmer was awarded the Israel Prize for his contributions to Israeli society in 2006.


2011: Congressman Anthony Weiner acknowledged he had exchanged at least five private messages on Twitter with a 17-year-old Delaware girl, but indicated that the messages were “neither explicit nor indecent.” 


2012: 45th anniversary of the end of the “Six Days War.”  The Jews of the world gave a collective sigh of relief.  David had defeated a really big Goliath.  On June 5 when the war started the deck was stacked against Israel’s survival.  Not only were they facing an Arab alliance with a massive military, they were, in effect, facing the Soviets who were dedicated to the victory of their Moslem client states.  When the first reports of Arab claims about having inflicted heavy losses on the Israelis, people were really scared.  Remember, this was in the days before the internet, etc. so communication from the battlefield was a dicey thing at best.  By the time the war was over, there were plenty of American Jews who had been ambivalent about Israel who know took great pride in the Jewish state and became active supporters.  Despite what the revisionists might write today, that victory not only saved Israel, it created a whole new positive feeling that many Jews (and non-Jews) had about being Jewish. 


2012: As Temple Judah continues to celebrate the 90th anniversary of its founding the co-presidents of the congregation are scheduled to cook BBQ before tonight’s annual congregational meeting. 


2012: David Broza is scheduled to perform at Israeli-American Night part of the Music Under the Stars program at Eisenhower Park.


2012: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including A Difficult Woman: The Challenging Life and Times of Lillian Hellman by Alice Kessler-Harris


2012: Greater Chicago Jewish Festival is scheduled to take place at St. Paul Woods in Morton Grove, Il
 
2012:With his mind clearly on the dangers of a violent confrontation with settlers over the looming evacuation of the Ulpana outpost, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke at the annual Altalena memorial today about two principles enshrined by Menachem Begin: the supremacy of the rule of law and no civil war under any circumstance. (As reported by Herb Keinon)


2012(20thof Sivan, 5772): Eight-two year old beach volleyball player and pioneer Gene Sleznick passed away today. (As reported by Baxter Holmes

2013: The Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia is scheduled to host Yaacov Fisher who will speak on “The State of Israel’s Economy: Challenges Amidst Growth.”


2013: The U.S. government has recovered 400 pages from the long-lost diary of Alfred Rosenberg, a confidant of Adolf Hitler who played a central role in the extermination of millions of Jews and others during World War Two. (As reported by Haaretz and Reuters)


2013: As the fighting in Syria intensifies, the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar President Bashar Assad has issued a strong warning to Israel saying that he is completely serious in opening up the Golan front against Israel (As reported by Ariel Ben Solomon)


2013: Today Knesset Economics Committee Chairman Avishai Braverman…threw his support behind Bank of Israel Deputy Governor Karnit Flug to replace her boss, outgoing governor Stanley Fishcher (As reported by Niv Elis)


2014: A “dialogue between Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz and the Honorable Antonin Scalia is scheduled to take place at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.”


2014: Adam Phillips, one of the world's foremost authorities on Freud, is scheduled to join novelist and critic Daphne Merkin for a discussion of Phillips’ new biography of the father of psychoanalysis at the 92nd Street Y.


2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Family’s Past” by Ariel Sabar.


2014: Rabbi Marc Schneier, founder and president of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding and founding rabbi of The Hampton Synagogue and Imam Shamsi Ali, the spiritual leader of two Muslim congregations, the Jamaica Muslim Center, New York City's largest Islamic center and Al-Hikmah Mosque are scheduled to participate in “Sons of Abraham: A candid conversation about the issues that divide and unite Jews and Muslims” at the Skirball Center.


2014: Today, the Knesset chose year 74 year old Reuven Rivlin, a sabra born in Jerusalem whose career included three years as speaker of the Knesset  to succeed Shimon Peres as President of Israel.


2014: Twenty-five year old Alexandre Stern who worked in the communication department of the Brussels Jewish Museum and who was murdered during a shooting at the Museum on May 24 will be buried in a Muslim cemetery in Morocco this afternoon per the agreement of his father who is Jewish and his mother who is a Muslim.


2014: A Jewish teen wearing a yarmulke and tzitzit is attacked with a Taser by group of teens at Paris’ Place de la République square. In Sarcelles, two Jewish teens wearing yarmulkes are sprayed with tear gas. (As reported by Stephanie Butnick)


2015: “Anderswo” (Anywhere Else) and “Next to Her” are scheduled to be shown at the Israel Film Center Festival hosted by the JCC Manhattan


2015: “Madame Rosa, La Vie Devant Soi" which won the 1977 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film is scheduled to be shown at the Cinema South Film Festival in Sderot.2015: Art Garfunkel “is scheduled to play in Tel Aviv’s Bloomfield Stadium” (As reported by Stuart Winer)


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


This Day, June 11, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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JUNE 11



 
1509:  Marriage of King Henry VIII of England and Katherine of Aragon. Before marrying Henry, the Spanish made him promise that he would never permit Jews to live in his Kingdom.  Henry agreed which was no big deal at the time since Jews had been officially banished from the realm for centuries.  In one of those ironic twists of history, Henry would rely on the book of Leviticus when seeking to divorce Katherine.  He sought support from Rabbis in Italy whose interpretation of the divine text might be different from the prelates in England.  The Italian Rabbis did not jump at the opportunity to bail out the English monarch since they had no desire of angering the “Bishop of Rome” who had power over their existence.

 
1557: The reign of King John III of Portugal came to an end.  During his reign, John brought the Inquisition to Portugal and its colonies.  Since the Jews had been expelled from his realm the Inquisition was aimed at Conversos. Oddly enough, John met with David Reubeni in November 1525 where the King promised to supply him with ships and cannons.  The King recanted when he realize that it made sense to arming Jews while his Inquisition was hunting backsliding Marranos.


1590: The entire Jewish quarter of Posen which was built almost entirely of wood burned while the gentile population watched and pillaged. Fifteen people died and eighty scrolls were burned.


1774: Jews in Algeria escape the attacks of the Spanish army.


1776: In South Moravia, Chaile/Caroline and Salomon Strakosch “the elder” gave birth toLeopold "Löbl Jünger" Strakosch


1777(6thof Sivan, 5537): Shavuot


1807(5thof Sivan, 5567): Erev Shavuot’


1807(5thof Sivan, 5567): Sashia, the wife of Reb Nachman of Bratslav and the daughter of Rabbi Ephraim, died today from tuberculosis


1807: Curacao businessman Moses Levy Maduro Peixotto landed in North America.  He would not be able to return to Curacao and settled in New York where he served as the Rabbi for Congregation Shearith Israel 


1826(6thShavuot 5586): Shavuot


1829: Birthdate of Alphonse Millaud, the nephew of French published and banker Moïse Polydore Millaud


1832: The original version Robert le diable(Robert the Devil) an opera in five acts composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer was performed at the Haymarket Theatre in Great Britain.


1832: In Brussels, Jonathan-Raphaël Bischoffsheim a founder of the National Bank of Belgium married Henriette Goldschmidt with who had three children, Clair, Ferdinand and Hortense.


1834: Lewin Aron (`Libesch') Pinner, who served as a rabbi in Bombst and Wronke became a naturalized citizen of Posen under the terms of the Emancipation Act of 1834.


1835: Congregation B'nai Israel laid the cornerstone for the first synagogue to be built in Cincinnati, Ohio. The congregation would hire Max Lilienthal as its Rabbi in June of 1855.


1841: Twenty year old Rabbi Haim Nathan Dembitzer married Doba Duetscher.


1845(6thSivan, 5605): Shavuot


1845: In Pikeln, Russian Empire, Rabbi Benjamin Rabinowitz and his wife gave birth to Elijah David Rabinowitz-Teomim, who served as Rosh Yeishiva of Mir before emigrating to Jerusalem in 1901.


1846 In Tabor, which is now part of the Czech Republic gave Rabbi Gutmann Klempere and his wife Julie birth to Dr. Jur. Alois Klemperer


1847: The Jewish Chronicle reported that Maurice S. Mawson of Pernambuco had married Rose Phillips, the second daughter of Michael Phillips.  The bride was from Jersey and the wedding took place at St. Helier.


1849: At the 14th meeting of The Free Sons of Israel, Noah Lodge Number 1, a constitution was adopted marking the real date from which the society began working as an effective organization.


1852: An column entitled “America’s Mail – Some Additional Items” included a copy of Lionel Rothschild’s “address to the independent electors of London” in which he thanked them for their twice electing him to the House of Commons even though he has been denied his right to take his seat in Parliament and soliciting their support in the upcoming election so that the will of the people will hold sway and he will finally be seated.


1857: An article entitled "Moral and Religious," subtitled "Denominations in London," published today reports that according to Mr. Low's Handbook to Places of Worship London has 11 synagogues with 8,642 seats.


1857: Today, Kehillat Anshe Ma'arab, the first Jewish congregation closed its original burial grounds which had been established by the now defunct Jewish Burial Ground Society and had the first burial in its new cemetery.


1859: Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, who served as Austria’s foreign minister for nearly forty years, passed away. Metternich’s dealings with Jews were as devious and Machiavellian as were his dealings with anybody else.  Metternich was careful not to pursue anti-Jewish policies that would offend the powerful Salomon Rothschild.  He did come to the defense of the Jews during the Damascus Blood Libel.  But Heinrich Graetz, the Jewish historian who lived during the Metternich Era, viewed him negatively saying that Metternich was prone to treat the Jews in a manner consistent with Maria Theresa rather than with the benevolence shown by Emperor Joseph II. During the Napoleonic era Metternich said of the Jews, “I fear that” they “will believe Napoleon to be their promised Messiah.”


1859: A major silver strike known as the Comstock Lode is discovered in Nevada.  David H. Cohen was one of several who Jews worked “as ordinary muckers and miners” where they earned four dollars for spending 12 hours beneath the earth.  Adolph Sutro was a self-taught engineer who tried to bring modern technology to the mining operations.  This included the building of the Sutro Tunnel which a “passageway” designed to improve ventilation in the mines while providing an easier way to haul the ore and drain excess water.


1859: Disraeli was replaced by his arch-rival William Gladstone as Chancellor of the Exchequer.


1863: In Frankfurt,Selig Meier Goldschmidt and his wife Clementine Fuld the daughter of Herz Salomon Fuld and Caroline Schuster gave birth to Hedwig Goldschmidt


1865(17thof Sivan, 5625): Elias Chaim Lindo, the nephew of Moses Mocatta who moved from St. Thomas to London in the 1830’s where he pursued a life of Jewish scholarship that included writing The History of the Jews of Spain and Portugal passed away today.


1865: Frederick Knefler is mustered out of the Union Army with the rank of Brevet Brigadier General. He had joined the army in 1861 with the rank of Lieutenant.


1867: In Königsberg, which was then part of Germany, Pinkus and Ida Stern gave birth to Georg Joseph Stern an electrical engineer who retired from AEG in 1930 and “devoted himself to his musical compositions until he passed away in 1934.


1868(21stof Sivan, 5628): Lazar Horowitz, the leading Orthodox Rabbi in Vienna who defended the historian Heinrich Graetz against charges of heresy and whose most famous work was “Yad Eleazar” passed away today.


1870: The funeral of Mrs. D. Dinkelspiel, the wife of the Treasurer of the Hebrew Mutual Benefit Society is scheduled to be held this morning at Number 7, West 53rd St.


1871: It was reported today that the Jewish Times has taken issue with criticism published in some Connecticut newspapers of the fact that a rabbi had been asked to lead the opening prayer at the state legislature.  The Times contended Protestant, Catholic or Jew could call upon the Divine to provide support for the legislators and that anybody who questioned that was neither a Christian nor a gentleman.


1871: The Notes and News column reported on the efforts of Polish authorities to enforce the new Russian rules that require the Jews to give up their traditional garb and hairstyle – including the requirement that they shave their beards, cut off their side curls, give up their long coats and their short pants. The Jews are resisting the changes and the authorities are resorting to trickery and force to accomplish their goals.


1871: Hatzofeh B’Eretz HaChadashah (The New Land Speculator) “the first Hebrew periodical in America published its first issue today in New York.”


1872: “Jews versus Christians” published today described the efforts of various societies, many of which are located in England, to convert Jews. These efforts have met with “very limited success.”  Most Jews do not respond to these expensive attempts and the few that do “are of a sort whose private life and reputation does not render them very valuable acquisitions as citizens.”  The article continues with a repute of the attacks on the Jews of Smyrna and suggests that the money might be better spent teaching the Christians of Smyrna to behave like Christians.  The article concludes that considering the Christian violence in Smyrna, “people almost be excused for thinking that a liberal-minded Jew may easily be a better man than a Smyrna Christian.”


1876: “Consecration of a Synagogue” published today described the services consecrating a new orthodox synagogue in Washington, DC which were attended by U.S. Grant, the President of the United States and the Speaker Pro Tempore of the U.S. Senate (Editor’s note: The article fails to name the Synagogue was Adas Israel which is still located in Washington, DC.)


1876: Louis Raminsky, a Jew living on Mott Street was assaulted by Irishman named George Richardson who mistook him for a man named Rubenstein.


1877(30th of Sivan, 5637): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1878(10thof Sivan, 5638): Thirty-eight year old Lucien Levy passed away this afternoon.  Based on the note found with the body, he had committed suicide by taking strychnine. Levy, a successful New York businessman had been for a week prior to this death.


1879: An article entitled “American Israelites in Russia” published today described the attempts of the U.S. House of Representatives to remedy an inequity when it came to Jews owing landing in Russia.  Under Russian law, Jews, including Jews who are citizens of the United States are not allowed to own land in Russia. British Jews are allowed to own land in Russia under a treaty that exists between those two countries.  The House wants the situation remedied since it amounts to discrimination again American citizens based on their religion; something which the legislators feel is intolerable.


1881: Maruice Lippmann and Marie-Alexandrine-Henriette Dumas gave birth to French gold medal winning fencer Auguste-Alexandre Lippmann. 


1881(14thof Sivan, 5641): British painter and engraver Solomon Alexander Hart, the son engraver and Hebrew teacher Samuel Hart passed away.  An observant Jew, “he was the first Jewish member of the Royal Academy in London.” “Among Hart's Jewish works are: "Hannah, the Mother of Samuel"; and "The Conference Between Manasseh ben Israel and Oliver Cromwell," which was bought by F. D. Mocatta, who subsequently presented it to Jews' College.”



1881: It was reported today that there are 277,000 Jews living in Kiev; 155,000 in Kovno, 143,000 in Minsk; 119,000 in Vilna and 98,000 in Bessarabia.  The total Jewish population of Poland is reported to be 815,000.  Large communities of Jews can also be found in St. Petersburg and Moscow where they have been settling since the ban instituted by Nicholas I was overturned by his successors.


1882:A review of Spinoza: A Novel by Berthold Auerbach which has been translated into English from the original German was published today.


1882: It was reported today that a dispatch from St. Petersburg states appointing Jews as Chief Surgeons in the Russian Army has been forbidden.


1883(6thof Sivan, 5643): Shavuot


1883: “Felix Adler and Israelites” published today described the belief of some Jewish leaders, including those who are friends of Felix Adler, that membership in his Ethical Cultural Society means that Jews have joined a group that is beyond the pale of the Jewish community.  Dr/ Solomon H. Sonneschein a leading rabbi in St. Louis has written an open letter published in the American Israelite that asks his friend Adler, “Are you still an Israelite, a disciple of Moses and the prophets, a standard bearer of God’s love and truth, as understood by reformed Judaism…or have you hopelessly abandoned the faith in which you were born and bred?”


1885: It was reported today that a Jew named Solomon Ovitch has arrested for seditious practices at Kharkoff.


1886(8th of Sivan, 5646): James Koppel Gutheim, who has been serving as Rabbi at Temple Sinai, the leading Reform congregation in New Orleans, passed away this evening in the Crescent City


1887: Mrs. Abraham Bernstein, the wife of Jewish peddler living at Port Chester, found today that her husband was living in Glenville, Connecticut, with another woman. The towns are only a couple of miles apart.


1887: Birthdate of Max Sievers, the chairman of the German Freethinkers League whose inability to get a visa while living in the United States in 1939 after having fled the Nazis meant he had to return to Europe where he was evening beheaded by the Germans.


1888: In New York during trial being held in the Court of General Sessions, the defense attorney “spoke to the Jury as Christians and became very indignant” when held them that Jews do not believe “in the divinity or miracles of Christ.” He apparently forgot that five the jurors were Jewish.


1891: In Berlin, an Associated Press correspondent met today with Herr Goldberg a prominent Jewish financer who is the Director of the International Bank in Berlin and serves as Consul General for Belgium


1891: The first vice president and second vice president of the New York Life Insurance Company admitted today that Julio Merzbacher had not retired as the company’s Spanish-American because of ill health as previously announced but that he had left the company after his embezzlement of from $300,000 to $500,000 had been discovered.


1893: The new Jewish cemetery on Long Island was dedicated today by the Mount Zion Association.


1893: Timothy J. Campbell was among those who delivered a speech when “a granite monument was unveiled today” in “memory of the late Moses Mehrbach” at Cypress Hills Cemetery where Rabbi Hirsch “conducted the devotional services and made the dedicatory address.”


1893: In Atlantic City, N.J., dedication of the Jewish Seaside Home takes place. The home was the outgrowth of a project in which four cottages had been rented to provide a refuge designed to help improve the health of invalid mothers and their children. The cottages were purchased and converted into a thirty room institution which would meet the needs of these women and their offspring.


1893: George Kennan will the guest of honor at dinner in London in honor of Colonel Goldsmid “who has just returned from organizing Hirsch colonies in Argentina


1894(7th of Sivan, 5654): Second Day of Shavuot


1895: S.K. Brown, the son of an Austrian rabbi was ordained as a Baptist minister in Camden, NJ.


1897: The Jewish community in München protests against holding the Zionist congress in the city.


1898: “London Literary Notes” published today includes a review of Jew, Gypsy and El Islam in which the author, the late Sir Richard Burton expresses his admiration for Mohammedanism but “abuses the Jews.”


1898: “Mr. and Mrs. Bierman’s Garden Party” published today described the soiree given for more than 100 residents of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews who were served refreshments after enjoying musical selections played by the band from the Hebrew Orphan Asylum


1898: “New Rabbis To Be Ordained” published today described the upcoming plans for the graduation exercises to be held at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio.


1899: “Dreyfus and Picquart” published today noted that Captain Dreyfus “has done nothing, absolutely nothing to become the center of all this fury except not have sold the military secrets of France.”  The real hero of affair is Major George Picquart, the Minister of War.


1899: The ninth version the French anti-Semitic publication of Anti-Juif du Midi was published at Montpellier.


1899: “Aid Asked for a Worthy Family” published today described the efforts of the United Hebrew Charities to raise $400 for a 35 year old man, his wife and four children.  “Through overwork, both the man and the wife have become chronic invalids” and the money would be used to help them open “a notion store” that would provide them with income and allow the family to stay together.


1899: “In The Russian Capital” published today described the attack in Nicolaieff in which an unknown number of Jews have been killed or wounded. 


1900: Birthdate of journalist, producer and broadcaster Lawrence E Spivak. Spivak was one of the creators, first producers and first moderators of Meet the Press. This was the original television news interview show. It was for its time because it put a major political or other such leader on television facing the unfiltered question of four members of the working press. In various formats, this program has survived for almost six decades. Spivak died in 1994.


1901: In London Herzl attends a banquet at the Maccabaeans with Israel Zangwill and Sir Francis Montefiore and other influential and wealthy Jews. But the successes in London are merely social.


1902(6th of Sivan, 5662): Shavuot


1903: Leo Wise wrote a letter to Rabbi Zadok Kahn, the Chief Rabbi of France



1906: As a prelude to the Bialystok Pogrom, “the Police Chief of Białystok, Derkacz, was murdered, most likely on the orders of the Russian commissar and fervent anti-Semite Szeremietiev. Derkacz, who was Polish, was known for his liberal sympathies and opposition to anti-Semitism; for this he was respected by both the Jewish Bund and the Polish Socialist Party. On a previous occasion, when Russian soldiers attacked Jews in the marketplace, Derkacz had sent in his policemen to put down the violence and had declared that a pogrom against the Jews would occur “only over his dead body”.


1909: In New York, a two day conference that has created Young Judaea came to an end.


1909(22nd of Sivan, 5669):Jacob Michailovitch Gordin “a Russian-born American playwright active in the early years of Yiddish theater” who “is known for introducing realism and naturalism into Yiddish theater” passed away.


1912: The City of Sumter, South Carolina where Jews purchased land for a cemetery in 1874 and is the home of Temple Sinai, adopted the council-manager form of government, making it the first city in the United States to do so.http://www.isjl.org/south-carolina-sumter-temple-sinai-encyclopedia.html


1912(26th of Sivan, 5672): Arthur L. Welsh passed away. Born in Kiev in 1881, Leibl Welcher, came to the United States with his father Abraham and mother Deborah at the age of 10 where he would become Arthur L. Welsh.  After trying a variety of careers, including a stint in the U.S. Navy, Welsh found his calling as test pilot with Orville and Wilbur Wright.  In 1912, the Wrights had sent Welsh to the U.S. Army Signal Corps in College Park, MD, to serve as a civilian test pilot for a new plane being developed for the War Department. On June 11, 1912, Welsh, accompanied by Signal Corps Lt. Leighton W. Hazelhurst, was attempting to complete final military tests of the Wright Model C airplane when the airplane buckled under its 450- pound load. Both men were killed instantly, the first-ever fatalities at College Park. Hap Arnold who gained fame as one of the most decorated leaders of the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II was one of his most famous students.




1913(6th of Sivan, 5673): Shavuot


1913: While fighting in the Philippine Islands against rebels resisting the American occupation, Private Louis C. Mosher “risked his life” so that he could “rescue a wounded soldier under enemy gunfire.” He was awarded the Medal of Honor for this rescue.


1913: In the Bronx, Christian Steenberg, a Norwegian American and Sadie Mechanic who was Jewish gave birth to Risë Gus Steenberg who would gain fame as “Risë Stevens, the internationally renowned mezzo-soprano who had a 23-year career with the Metropolitan Opera, where she practically owned the role of Carmen during the 1940s and ’50s.” (As reported by Margalit Fox)


1915: American ambassador to Turkey, Henry Morgenthau, received an honorary degree of LL.D. from University of Constantinople.


1915: In Youngstown, Ohio, dedication of Rodef Sholem Temple.


1915: In Chicago, the Executive Board of the Anti-Capital Punishment Society of America is scheduled to host “conference for those active to save Leo M. Frank from the gallows” at the Auditorium Hotel.


1915: Tonight “former State Tax Commissioner Joseph S. Schwab, Chairman of the New York Committee on the Commutation of the Sentence of Leo M. Frank…sent a telegram to Governor Slaton of Georgia asking clemency for Frank.”


1915: Several prominent men from Illinois including Governor Dunne, Senator James Hamilton Lewis and Harlow N. Higinbotham “sent final pleas by wire today” asking Governor Slaton to commute Leo Frank’s death sentence.


1915: Based on remarks he made to attorneys representing both sides of the case, it was reported today that Governor Slaton does not want “to pass Leo Frank’s application over to his successor, Governor-elect Nat E. Harris, but to decide it himself.”


1915: In Copenhagen, at the second day of its meeting, The Action Committee (Va;ad HaPoel HaZioni) rejected Jabotinsky’s  “plan to establish a Jewish Legion” resolving  that "The Jewish Legion project stands in deep contradiction to the principles of Zionist activity... no Zionist will participate or support this activity." (Editor’s note – “Jabotinsky refuses to heed them and despite objections by the majority of Zionist leaders, moves to London where he continues to work towards the establishment of a regiment.”)


1915: It was reported that “mass meetings are being held daily throughout the state” of Georgia at which resolutions are being adopted protesting against” the commutation of Leo Frank’s death sentence.


1916: Djemal Pasha, military governor of Palestine for Ottoman Turkey, issued a warning to the Jewish settlers that the creation of future settlements would become more difficult. (This may have been in reaction to fact that a lot of the Zionists were Russians and the Turks assumed that they would make common cause with the Czar whose army they were fighting.)


1916: The Federation of the Oriental Jews of America held its third annual meeting in New York.  Joseph Gedalecia served as President and Albert J. Amateau served as secretary. The 1000 member organization's purpose was the "Americanization and betterment of condition of Oriental Jews."


1917: “The Women’s Proclamation Committee, the national women’s organization for Jewish War Relief began its Summer Campaign in behalf of the Ten Million dollar Fund which has already received a contribution “from prominent women in Kingston, Jamaica” which was sent to Mrs. Albert Lucas, the committee’s executive secretary.


1918: In Odessa, Ukraine, Rabbi Joseph J. Kaplan and Chava Lerner Kaplan gave birth to American philosopher Abraham Kaplan author of The Conduct of Inquiry.



1920: Birthdate of Irving Howe. A graduate of City College and a veteran of World War II, Howe was a professor at CUNY, Brandeis and Stanford.  A noted editor of Yiddish literature who discovered the author Isaac Bashevis Singer for an English-speaking audience, his work includes A Treasury of Yiddish Poetry. His greatest popular acclaim came with the writing of World of Our Fathers.  He was a lifelong Socialist and was considered to be one of this country's most influential literary critics until his death in 1993.


1921(4th of Sivan, 5681): Daniel Joseph Jaffé, the son of Martin Jaffé and a nephew of Sir Otto Jaffé, passed away. A noted waterworks consulting engineer, his most famous efforts were completed in China.  Evidence of his fame can be seen Hong Kong’s Jaffe Road which was named in his honor.


1922: Prominent New York merchant Louis Stern arrived in Paris having crossed the Atlantic on board the SS Homeric.


1922: In Mannville, Alberta, Canada, Max Goffman and Anne Goffman (née Averbach) gave birth to sociologist Erving Goffman,the 73rd president of the American Sociological Association


1924: In Brooklyn Morris and Pauline Faust gave birth to high school guidance counselor and author Irvin Faust.


1926: The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that “a concert hall will be erected in Tel Aviv through the efforts of Palestinian Jewish musicians as a commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the musical composer Engel.”


1929: The British High Commissioner wrote to the Mufti defending the right of the Jews to ‘conduct their worship’ (at the Western Wall) as in the past.


1932(7th of Sivan, 5692): Second Day of Shavuot


1933: The New York Times reported that the German government “is digging through the backgrounds of over 350,000 civil servants to find out who is of ‘Jewish extraction’ and thus ‘liable to dismissal.’”


1933: “The Jewish organizations of Silesia hold a conference to discuss the safeguarding of rights of German Jews.”


1933: In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, William J. and Jeanne (Baer) Silberman gave birth to Jerome Silberbman who gained fame as the multi-dimensional creator of comedy Gene Wilder.


1934: Birthdate of Murray Wolfe, successful businessman, playwright, poet, Yiddishist, and, most important of all, a first class mensch. If you did not know that Murray was a real person, you would think his life story was one of those big historic novels written Leon Uris.


1934(28th of Sivan, 5694): Lev Semenovich Vygotsky a developmental psychologist known for his socio-cultural perspective passed away. Born into a middle-class Jewish family in Orsha, Russia in 1896, Vygotsky's faith and social standing shaped many of his choices and views.


1935: In Oklahoma City, OK Sylvan N. Goldman and Margaret Katz Gold man gave birth real estate developer and philanthropist Monte H. Goldman.


1935: Birthdate of Gene Wilder. Born Jerome Silberman in Milwaukee Wisconsin, Wilder is known for his roles in “Young Frankenstein” and “Silver Streak.”


1936: As the wave of Arab violence increased, The Palestine Post reported that many Arabs were injured and a number might have been killed in a battle with police and British troops in the Ein Harod area and during a demonstration in Hebron. Arab crowds were dispersed in Jaffa where a British constable was stabbed. Arab terrorists cut telephone wires and set some forests on fire. The Second Battalion of the Dorset Regiment arrived in Jerusalem from Egypt. Over a thousand one-year-old citrus trees were uprooted in Kfar Yona and the late Field-Marshal Allenby's statue was damaged in Beersheba


1936: As the Arab uprising continued, arsonists set fire to the fields of Kfar Joshua and to the forest at Ataroth which is located outside of Jerusalem. Guards at the forest fired shots at the arsonists as they escaped.


1937: Marx Brothers'"A Day at the Races" released to popular acclaim. 


1937: Stalin moves forward with the Great Purge which was animated in part by anti-Semitism as the Soviet Dictator went after those whom he claimed were followers of Trostky and which denuded the general staff of many seasoned officer which helps to explain the abysmal showing of the Russians when the Germans invaded in 1941.


1940: As the Nazis sweep across France, Eugène Tisserant, a French Cardinal working at the Vatican writes to the Archbishop of Paris lamenting the silence of the Pope when it comes to the evil of the Nazis.


1940: “As a result of internal pressure from citizens objecting to the large number of “transient” refugees (many of whom were Jews fleeing Hitler’s Europe) who had reached Ciudad Trujillo and were waiting there to procure entry into other North and South American countries, the Dominican Congress passed a bill barring all immigration except of persons intending to make the Republic their permanent home.” (JA)


1941: Following the bombing of Haifa, which is an important naval base for the British, by German planes, the Vichy government has condemned reports by the British that the German war planes “returned” to the Aleppo airfield in Northern Syria. The term “returned” implies that the planes had flown from Aleppo to attack Haifa and the Vichy French claim that there are no German aircraft in Syria.  Syria is a French colony which is supposedly governed by the Vichy government under the terms of the surrender agreement signed with the Nazis.  


1941: Hans and Margaret Rey try to buy two bikes so that they can leave Paris.  The search is fruitless.


1941: Hans Rey spent 1,600 francs for two unassembled bikes.  He then spent the rest of the day putting them in working order.


1942:Major Liebmann and his hundred surviving men (out of a company that had been 400 strong when the fight began on June 2) linked up with the forces of General Marie Pierre Koenig of the 1st Free French Division who was in charge of the fort at Bir Hakeim. The French general had no idea that his unit had been supported by this group of Jewish volunteers. In perfect French, Major Liebmann told him that his men were fighters from Palestine, but that they could not serve under their flag because of British rules. Koenig then told him to raise their Star of David flag, and all Free French officers around him saluted it.


1942: One thousand Jews were deported from Prague, Czechoslovakia, to the “East,” where they are murdered.


1942(26th of Sivan, 5702): Ten thousand Jews from the ghetto at Tarnów, Poland, were murdered at the Belzec extermination camp.


1942(26thof Sivan, 5702): Thirty year old Herbert Baum a Jewish member of the anti-Nazi resistance was tortured to death today at Moabit Prison.


1943: Himmler ordered the liquidation of all Polish ghettos.


1943: U.S. premiere of “Coney Island” produced by William Perlberg, co-starring Phil Silvers, for which Alfred Newman received an Oscar nomination “in the category of Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture.”


1944: For the next seven days the Germans shipped an additional 50,805 Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz.


1944: Joel Brand, who is being held by the British, and Moshe Sharett continue their meetings where Brand continues to explain the “Jews for trucks” deal that he hopes will save the Jews of Hungary.


1945(30th of Sivan, 5705): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1945(30th of Sivan, 5705): Fifty-two year old Eliyahu Golomb who played a key role in the creation of the Haganah and the Palmach passed away today. Born in Russia in 1893, he made Aliyah in 1909. After working at the famed kibbutz Dagania Alef he served with the British in the Jewish Legion during WW I. During the inter-war years he worked with the Revisionists to try and form a unified Jewish military defense force. During the Arab Revolts in the 1930’s he served with the FOSH.

1948: Jordan’s King Abdullah ordered a “hunda” or ceasefire.


1948: King Abdullah visited Jerusalem and promoted Abdullah el-Tell to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and gave him command of three Jordanian infantry companies occupying the Old City. El-Tell would be the lead negotiator who met with Jewish military leaders in matters regarding Jerusalem.


1948:  The first truce between the Israelis and the Arab invaders began. During four weeks the Israelis had not only survived, they were in control of respectable amount of territory.  This included the eastern and western portions of the Galilee, the Jezreel Valley from Haifa on the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, the coastal plain as far south as Ashdod, a major portion of the Negev and the corridor that connected Jerusalem with the rest of the Jewish controlled territory.   The U.N. sponsored truce was supposed to last four weeks. 


1948: As the first truce between Arabs and Israelis went into effect, Kfar Darom was completely surrounded by Egyptian forces laying siege to the Negev Kibbutz.  The Kibbutz had been under attack since December.  The Moslem Brotherhood had tried to capture it in April and the Egyptians had begun their assault in May. Although the Kibbutz would eventually have to evacuated, its gutsy stand gave heart to the embattled Israelis and prevented the Arabs from sweeping up the road to Tel Aviv.


1948: David Shaltiel the Haganah district commander in Jerusalem began the first in a series of meetings with Abdullah el Tell the commander of the Arab Legion under the auspices of the UN.


1948:  As of today, 300 people have been killed and 1,400 more have been wounded since the battle for Jerusalem began on May 14.  The Arab Legion had lobbed more than 14,000 shells at the Jewish defenders since the British High Commissioner flew off to Haifa.


1948 (4th of Sivan, 5708):  As night fell on the first night of the truce, tragedy struck.  The Jewish commander of the Jerusalem Front, Mickey Marcus aka Mickey Stone, was shot by an Israeli guard.  Marcus was spending the night with a Palmach battalion.  When return from a trip to the latrine, Marcus was challenged by a guard.  Marcus spoke no Hebrew and was unable to respond.  The youngster fired a warning shot and called again for the password.  Marcus did not respond, but kept moving forward.  The young guard fired several more shots one of which hit Marcus, mortally wounding him.  Marcus’ most famous accomplishment was the construction of the “Burma Road” – the roadway to Jerusalem built under the threat of Arab guns that guaranteed Jerusalem would be part of the Jewish state.  Marcus’ body was taken back to the United States, escorted by several leading Israeli leaders.  Marcus was buried at West Point, the military academy that gave him the training to fight for his country during World War II and to fight for his people during the War of Independence.


1948: Syrian forces captured Bnot Ya’akov Bridge which spans the Jordan River.  The Syrians will be forced to withdraw as a result of the 1949 Armistice Agreement.


1950: “Israel notified Jordan that it was holding up the establishment of mixed border patrols” that are intended “to check Arab infiltrations into Israel” and thus limit the possibility of clash between the military forces of the two neighbors.  Israel said that its action was in response to Jordan’s failure to return three soldiers who had been captured six weeks ago.  Israel claims that three are survivors of a five-man patrol that had accidently crossed the Armistice line with Jordan. The Jordanian killed two of the Israelis and imprisoned the three survivors.  In the mean time, armed Arab gangs continue to infiltrate the Jewish state from Jordan.


1950:Plans to proceed with the construction of what is to be the "Harry S. Truman" village (Kfar Truman) in Israel were announced here tonight at the "Land for Israel" dinner of the New England Jewish National Fund. “Vice President Alben W. Barkley who addressed the 1,500 guest accepted honorary chairmanship of the project.” In a letter addressed to Dr. Harris J. Levine, chairman of the JNF which was read at the dinner President Truman wrote, “I am highly honored and appreciate very much what you are proposing to do.


1950: It was reported today that Rosemary Sebag-Montefiore the daughter of Colonel Thomas Henry Sebag-Montefiore and the late Mrs. Sebag-Montefiore plans to be married in England this October to her fiancé, Dr. Joseph Richmond, Levenson, the Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard who is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Max Levenson of Massachusetts


1951(7th of Sivan, 5711): Second Day of Shavuot.


1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel resumed the Hula drainage work with full UN authorization. Syria closed the frontier with Lebanon as a protest against the expulsion of about 1,000 Syrian laborers from Lebanon.


1952: The Israeli Foreign Ministry sent a note to the Czechoslovak Foreign Ministry “drawing attention to the ‘atmosphere of mystery’ surrounding the arrest of Mardechai Oren, an Israeli citizen.


1953 - Gunmen attacked a young couple in their home in Kfar Hess, and shot them to death.


1953: In response to a request made in March by Cardinal Pierre-Marie Gerlier, the Archbishop of Lyon, Germaine Ribière reported that the Finlay children being held Basque priests.  She was a Catholic member of the French Resistance who had rescued Jews during the war.  The Finlay children were Jewish orphans who had been baptized and were being kept from the surviving members of their family.


1954: Archeologist Yigael Yadin sent a telegram to Teddy Kollek stating that four Dead Sea Scrolls, including the Book of Isaiah, had been brought to the United States and were being offered for sale.  Yadin said they could be purchased for $250,000, what he considered a paltry sum for so great a treasure.  He said that he could raise the money from private sources but that it would take a year.  He pleaded with Kollek to get the Israeli government to provide the funds immediately.  Prime Minister Sharett agreed and authorized the Minister of Finance to provide the funds.  Thanks to the quick action, this national treasure was secured for Israel.


1957: “Philip Klutznick, president of B’nai B’rith and Moshe Feinstein, president of the Hebrew P. E. N. Club of America. Dr. Moshe Davis, Provost of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and chairman of the Hadoar executive committee were the speakers at a dinner celebrating the 35th anniversary of Hador, “the only Hebrew language weekly published in the United States.” (JTA)


1959: Yiddish author Chaim Pett who had been born in Russia in May of 1902 passed away today in New York City.


1962: CBS broadcast “Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hal” a “musical showcase” written by Mike Nichols for which Irwin Kostal was the musical director that included the introduction of “Meantime,” a song with lyrics by Al Stillman


1965: In the UK, premiere of “Repulsion” directed by Roman Polanski.


1967: During a meeting at David Ben-Gurion’s home, “Defense Minister Moshe Dayan proposed autonomy for the West Bank, the transfer of Gazan refugees to Jordan, and a united Jerusalem serving as Israel's capital. Ben-Gurion agreed with him, but foresaw problems in transferring Palestinian refugees from Gaza to Jordan, and recommended that Israel insist on direct talks with Egypt, favoring withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula in exchange for peace and free navigation through the Straits of Tiran.”


1967: “A delegation of former residents of the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem asked the municipality for permission to rebuild their old homes.


1967: Teddy Kollek arranged for 20,000 bottles of milk for infants to be taken in to the Muslim, Christian and Armenian Quarters of the Old City.


1968: Birthdate of Michelle Levin


1969: Pierre Goldman, the son of Alter Mojze Goldman, robbed the Royal Bank of Canada in Puerto La Cruz, taking 2.6 million bolívars (the biggest hold-up of that year).


1969: U.S. premiere of “Heaven With A Gun” starring Barbara Hershey as “Leelopa.”


1970(7thof Sivan, 5730): Second Day of Shavuot


1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that in view of the voices emanating from Arab organizations "inviting Jews to return to Iraq and Morocco," Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin declared that Israel would not act under threats and would deal with this issue "in fundamental fashion." Syrian troops were reported to be moving east to face the Iraqi Army which expressed readiness to man the Golan front. Both the US and Israel were concerned that both Algeria and Libya might participate in the Arab League's "Peacemaking Force" aimed to patrol a proposed Lebanese cease-fire.


1978(6th of Sivan, 5738): First Day of Shavuot


1978(6th of Sivan, 5738: Herman Barron, the first Jewish golfer to win a PGA Tour event passed away

1978: In Italy, Premier Giulio Andreotti's government scheduled a national referendum for today despite the fact that it had been told that it was a Jewish holiday and observant Jews would not be able to participate in the vote.


1981: Alan Joseph Shatter began representing Dublin South in the Teachta Dala.


1982: The Jerusalem Post published a front page photograph of 21 year old Yoav Blum an IDF soldier pictured holding a portrait of Yasser Arafat taken from the PLO’s headquarters in southern Lebanon.


1982: Israel and Syria stopped fighting in Lebanon. Israel has since withdrawn from Lebanon.  Syria finally withdrew its armed forces from Lebanon which the late President Assad liked to consider was a province of Greater Syria. Syria continues to “meddle” in Lebanon’s internal politics.  At the same time, Lebanon continues to be a battleground for a variety of political and ideological groups that have interests beyond Lebanon including the destruction of the state of Israel. Israeli casualties so far: 214 killed, 23 missing in action, one prisoner of war and 1,114 wounded.


1983: Mayor Ed Koch and Bronx Borough President Stanley Simon are scheduled to a gathering that will celebrate the 10thanniversary of Lambert Houses, the award low-rising public housing buildings in the South Bronx.


1983: Nigel Lawson completed his service as Secretary of State for Energy under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.


1983: Nigel Lawson began serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer.


1985: Seventy-year old Sir Charles Myer Abrahams who “served a flight-lieutenant in the RAFVR” in WW II and was the Vice President of the Nightingale House of the Home for the Jewish Aged and Vice President of the British Paraplegic Sports Federation passed away today.


1986: Birthdate of actor Shia LaBeouf


1989: After 153 performances at the 46thStreet Theatre, the curtain came down on a revival of Garson Kanin’s “Born Yesterday” with a cast that included Tony Award nominee Madeline Kahn


1990(18th of Sivan, 5750): Seventy-four year old philanthropist Beatrice Coleman the widow of Dr. Joseph Coleman and head of Maidenform since 1968 passed away today.


1990: Ariel Sharon succeeded David Levy as Minister of Housing and Construction.


1990: Avner Shaki succeeded Zevulen Hammer as Minister of Religious Services.


1990: Yuval Ne’eman began serving as Energy and Water Resources Minister.


1990: Roni Milo began serving as Minister of Public Security.


1997: Herb Gray began serving as Deputy Prime Minister of Canada.


1997(6th of Sivan, 5757): Shavuot


1997(6th of Sivan, 5757):Benjamin (Ben) Dunkelman passed away. Born in 1913 to Polish-Jewish parents who had settled in Toronto, he had a distinguished military career in the Canadian Army during WW II followed by service with the IDF during the 1948 War for Independence.


1998: In “Turf; The Neighbors Rally Around the Mayor of Bedford Street, William Hamilton described Lawrence Selman’s fight to spend the rest of his life at his Greenwich Village home.

1999: Polo Ralph Lauren became a public company traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol RL.


2000:The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Ordinary Resurrections: Children in the Years of Hopeby Jonathan Kozol and the recently released paperback edition of Another Life: A Memoir of Other People by Michael Korda.


2001:The Right Honourable Barbara Roche completed her term as Minister of State for Asylum and Immigration under Prime Minister Tony Blair.


2001: Five month old Yehuda Shoham was stoned to death by an unknown terrorist at Shilo.


2003(11th of Sivan, 5763): In Jerusalem, seventeen people - 11 women and six men - were killed and over 100 wounded in a suicide bombing on Egged bus #14A outside the Klal building on Jaffa Road in the center of Jerusalem.


2003(11th of Sivan, 5763): Seventeen people were killed and over 100 wounded in a suicide bombing on Egged bus #14A outside the Klal building on Jaffa Road in the center of Jerusalem. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. The victims: Sgt. Tamar Ben-Eliahu, 20, of Moshav Paran; Alan Beer, 47, of Jerusalem; Eugenia Berman, 50, of Jerusalem; Elsa Cohen, 70, of Jerusalem; Zvi Cohen, 39, of Jerusalem; Roi Eliraz, 22, of Mevaseret Zion; Alexander Kazaris, 77, of Jerusalem; Yaffa Mualem, 65, of Jerusalem; Yaniv Obayed, 22, of Herzliya; >Bat-El Ohana, 21, of Kiryat Ata; Anna Orgal, 55, of Jerusalem; Zippora Pesahovitch;, 54, of Zur Hadassah; Bianca Shahrur, 62, of Jerusalem; Malka Sultan, 67, of Jerusalem; Bertine Tita, 75, of Jerusalem. Miriam Levy, 74, of Jerusalem died of her wounds on June 12. The 17th victim, male, who has not yet been positively identified, is believed to be a foreign worker from Eritrea.


2003:President and Mrs. Bush host 70 members of the Jewish community at the White House for a Kosher dinner to honor of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s 10th anniversary.


2005: The Queen’s Birthday Honors List published today awarded a knighthood (Knight Bachelor) to Michael Kadoorie.


2005(4th of Sivan, 5765): Eighty-six year old veteran Yiddish actress Lillian Lux passed away today.

2006:Shalshelet’s Second International Festival took place today at Ohr Kodesh Congregation, Chevy Chase, Maryland


2006: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Mohr by Frederick Reuss and The Good Fight:Why Liberals — and Only Liberals — Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Againby Peter Beinart


2007: Nobel Laureate Dr. Elie Wiesel delivers the 2nd Annual Gershon Jacobson Memorial Lecture at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York.


2007: On the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War, U.S. News & World Report magazine features three articles on the subject including “A Changing Mind-Set Among Jerusalem's Palestinians,” “A Look Back at the Six-Day War” and “Marking the 40th Anniversary of the 1967 Six-Day War.” This last article was written by Fouad Ajami, a Lebanese born American professor who states that “at the heart of the war lay the willful Arab refusal to accept Israel’s Legitimacy and statehood.”


2008: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Temple Judah combines the Annual Congregation Meeting with a BBQ Dinner. 


2008: The Croatia Jewish Film Festival opened in Zagreb.


2008: The New York Times includes a review of Travel Pictures by Heinrich Heine.  Of Judaism, he writes, “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.  It gives you nothing but scorn and shame, I tell you, it’s no religion at all, just a lot of hard luck.”  “Heine refers only once, bitingly, to German anti-Semitism.  Pointing out a hunting area, he concedes the sport’s pleasure for some. ‘My ancestors, however, did not belong to the hunters, but rather to the hunted.’”


2009: “Saulie Zajdel Leaves Politics” published today provided a description of the career of the Canadian political leader.

2009: President Obama's former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright again sought to tamp down controversy in the wake comments blaming "them Jews" for keeping him away from the president. He had meant to refer to "Zionists" and not all Jews, he said in an interview on SIRIUS Satellite Radio's "Make it Plain" with Mark Thompson. “Let me say like Hillary, I misspoke," Wright said. "Let me just say: Zionists."


2009: In Washington, D.C. the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is closed for the day in honor of the memory of Stephen T. Johns who died from the wounds inflicted by an anti-Semitic white supremacist who attempted to shoot his way into the building on Wednesday


2009(19thof Sivan, 5769): Eighty-seven year old Irving Schulman, MD who helped to found the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital passed away today.

2009: In Washington, D.C., David Makovsky, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, signs copies of his new book, which he coauthored with Ambassador Dennis Ross, special advisor to the secretary of state for the Gulf and Southwest Asia, entitled Myths, Illusions, and Peace: Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East


2010: Men’s Club Shabbat, completed with the installation of next year’s Board of Directors is scheduled to take place Congregation Olam Tikvah


2010:Called up to life- Legends of the Baal Shem Tov” is scheduled to open in Gaithersburg, MD.


2010:“Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work,” comes out today.


2010:Two Border Police officers were lightly wounded in Wadi Joz this afternoon when a pickup truck rammed into them as they entered the east Jerusalem neighborhood amidst reports of potential rioting in the area. According to police, the driver of the truck, Zeyad Joulani, continued driving after hitting the officers before exiting the vehicle and attempting to flee the scene on foot.


2011:Shelby Zukin is called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah in Iowa City, IA at Agudas Achim.


2011:In New York City the duet "Heroes" is scheduled to be performed by Israeli based Yossi Berg and Oded Graf on the 4th night of the Contemporary Israeli Dance Week 


2011: Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer has decided to become a candidate for head of the International Monetary Fund, Israel's Channel Two News reported today..


2011: Representative Anthony D. Weiner planned to check himself into a treatment center today after House Democratic leaders, including Nancy Pelosi, called on him to resign and suggested he needed psychiatric counseling


2012: The Carmen at Masada Opera Festival is scheduled to come to a close.


2012: Dr. Paris Chronakis is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Greeks and Jews in the 20th Century Salonika: History Through the Kaleidoscope,” at UCLA.


2012: The Vatican is about to "indirectly recognize" Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem, according to a report published today.


2012: Forty-year old Scream star David Arquette, whose mother was Jewish, celebrated his Bar Mitzvah today at the Wall.


2013: Friends and family gather to celebrate the birthday of Michelle Levin an ashyish chayil of the first order who has done a wonderful job of creating a Jewish home for Jacob and Rachel Levin


2013: “Life in Stills” (Ha-Tzalmania) is scheduled to be shown at The JCC in Manhattan


2013(3rd of Tammuz): Yahartzeit the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory who passed away 19 years ago.


2013(3rd of Tammuz, 5773): Eight-six year old Nobel prize winning economist Robert W. Fogel passed away. (As reported by Robert D. Hershey, Jr)



2013: Chairwoman of the Knesset Committee on the Rights of the Child Likud Beiteinu MK Orly Levy-Abecasis called for “real and substantial integration” of Ethiopian pupils into the education system with their native-Israeli classmates at a meeting of the Committee on the subject held today. (As reported by Danielle Ziri)


2013(3rd of Tammuz, 5773): Evelyn Kozak, who at age 113 is reputed to be the oldest Jew in the world, passed away today.

2013: Professor Deborah Dash Moore, co-editor of Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon, film producer Scott Berrie, musicologist and conductor Leon Botstein, and Russ & Daughters, New York’s century-old purveyor of appetizers were presented with the Jewish Cultural Achievement Award from the Foundation for Jewish Culture today.


2013: A bill to reserve four places on the rabbinical judges appointments committee for women was successfully passed into law in this morning, but not before haredi MKs repeatedly stalled the legislative process due to their vehement opposition to the terms of the new law. (As reported by Jeremy Sharon)


2014: Despite opposition from 22 Arab nations, "People, Book, Land, The 3,500 Year Relationship of the Jewish People to the Holy Land" is scheduled to open today under the auspices of UNESCO.


2014: The Oregon Jewish Museum is scheduled to host a reception marking the opening the exhibition “Vida Sefaradi: A Century of Sephardic Life In Portland.”


2014: The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, DC is scheduled to host its annual meeting.


2014: The IDF said that today’s attack on a terror target in Sudaniya in the northern Gaza Strip tonight by the IAF was a joint operation with Shin Bet that targeted “global jihad-affiliated terrorists” who were planning an attack on Israel. (As reported by Roi Kais and Yoav Zitun)


2014: A day after being defeated by a Tea Party Challenger in the Republican Primary Eric Cantor — looking composed and even unusually at ease — went before the press this afternoon and announced he’s stepping down as majority leader, ending an 11-year run in Republican leadership. Cantor is the only Jewish Republican in the House of Representatives and the only Republican to have been defeated so far this year in a primary challenge.


2015: “Zero Motivation” is scheduled to be shown on the final day The Israel Center Film Festival


2015: “Every Time We Say Goodbye” is scheduled to be shown today at the Cinema South Film Festival today in Sderot.


 


 

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

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JUNE 12


816: Leo III, the Pope whose aggressive plan to crown Charlemagne gave the Jews of the Rhineland a comparatively benign ruler, passed away today.


1240: Nicholas Donin, a renegade Jew under the patronage of Louis IX, convinced Pope Gregory IX to confiscate the Talmud on the grounds that it was anti-Christian. A debate ensued with Rabbi Yechiel ben Yosef of Paris and three other Rabbis speaking in defense of the Talmud. Yechiel ben Yosef of Paris was a major Talmudic scholar and Tosafist from northern France, father-in-law of Isaac ben Joseph of Corbeil. He was a disciple of Rabbi Judah Messer Leon, and succeeded him in 1225 as head of the Yeshiva of Paris, which then boasted some 300 students; his best known student was Meir of Rothenburg. But even a scholar like Rabbi Yechiel could prevail since he was not allowed to counterattack or take the offensive in his argument making the outcome a foregone conclusion. Ultimately 24 carriages loaded with Jewish books including all of the available copies of the Talmud were burned. Rabbi Yechiel eventually left France and in 1260 the rabbi arrived in Eretz Yisroel (Land of Israel) along with his son and a large group of followers, settling in Acre. There he established the Talmudic academy Midrash haGadol d'Paris. He is believed to have died there between 1265 and 1268, and is buried near Haifa, at Mount Carmel.


1519: Birthdate of Cosimo de’ Medici whose reign was “originally beneficial for the Jews as can be seen by his issuance in 1551of “an invitation to merchants from the Levant, including Jews, to settle in Tuscany and do business there; previously; giving asylum to refugees from the Papal State; and his refusal “to implement the anti-Jewish restrictions issued by Pope *Paul IV or to hand over the Jews to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition.”  But when he wished to gain the favor of the Pope he burned the Talmud and he “rigorously applied to the obligation to wear the Jewish badge.” (Jewish Virtual Library)


1648(22ndof Sivan, 5408): Rabbi Yechiel Michael ben Eliezer, the head of the Jewish community in Nemirov was clubbed to death before his mother’s eyes during the Chmielnicki Uprising, the worst massacre of Jews until the Holocaust.


1665: The English rename New Amsterdam, New York. England had gained control of the colony as a result of winning the war with the Dutch. Ironically, Peter Stuyvesant the Dutch governor who had tried to keep the Jews out in 1654 had to leave the colony while the Jewish settlers got to stay.


1713: “Only a few weeks after the beginning of his reign,” Frederick William I, “appointed Moses Leven Gumperts of the famous Gumperts family of Cleves as Chief Court and Army Factor."


1720: Birthdate of Isaac Pinto, translator of the first Jewish prayer book published in America. A member of Congregation Shearith Israel in the city of New York, he is remembered chiefly for having prepared what is probably the earliest Jewish prayer-book published in America, and certainly the first work of its kind printed in New York City. The work appeared in 1766, and the title-page reads as follows: "Prayers for Sabbath, Rosh-Hashanah and Kippur, or the Sabbath, the beginning of the year, and the Day of Atonement, with the Amidah and Musaf of the Moadim or Solemn Seasons, according to the Order of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews. Translated by Isaac Pinto and for him printed by John Holt in New York." Pinto was the friend and correspondent of Ezra Stiles, president of Yale College, who as late as 1790 mentions him in his diary as "a learned Jew at New York." From Stiles' account it appears that Pinto was a good Hebrew scholar, studying Ibn Ezra in the original.


1755: Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher who had many Jewish friends and “believed that that Judaism is concerned only with things of this world, and lacks any formulation of the concept of immortality” received his Ph.D. today. (Jewish Virtual Library)


1773: Birthdate of Amschel Mayer Rothschild “the second child and eldest son of Mayer Amschel Rothschild, the founder of the dynasty, and Gutlé Rothschild née Schnapper.


1776: The Virginia Convention of Delegates unanimously adopted The Virginia Declaration of Rights which includes Article 16 that states, “That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore, all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience;” The declaration was drafted by founding father George Mason.


1777(7thof Sivan, 5537): Second Day of Shavuot


1782(30thof Sivan, 5542): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1796(6thof Sivan, 5556): Shavuot is observed for the last time under the Presidency of George Washington.


1796: Birthdate of George Bush “an American biblical scholar, pastor, abolitionist and Christian Restorationist academic” who was an early American supporter of the creation of a Jewish state of Israel. “In 1844 Bush published a book entitled ‘The Valley of Vision; or, The Dry Bones of Israel Revived.’ In it he denounced “the thralldom and oppression which has so long ground them (the Jews) to the dust,” and called for ‘elevating’ the Jews ‘to a rank of honorable repute among the nations of the earth’ by re-creating the Jewish State in the land of Israel. This, according to Bush, would benefit not only the Jews, but all of mankind, forming a ‘link of communication’ between humanity and God. ‘It will blaze in notoriety...It will flash a splendid demonstration upon all kindreds and tongues of the truth.’”


1799: Rabbi Abraham Azuby officiated at the wedding of Phillip Cohen and Eleanor Moses, the daughter of the later Myer Moses, a successful Charleston SC merchant.


1807(6thof Sivan, 5567): Shavuot


1807: For the first time since 1785, Reb Nachman of Bratslav observed Shavuot without his wife Sashia who had passed away Erev Shavuot.


1830:  The French begin their colonization of Algeria when they land 34,000 troops at point just to the west of the capital city, Algiers.  Initially the French administration conferred citizenship only on Frenchmen living in the colony.  The Jews, who had been living there for centuries, were, like the Arabs, treated as indigenous people and allowed to maintain their communal and judicial systems.


1832: Rabbi Aaron Worms was unanimously elected chief rabbi of Metz.


1844: Opening of the Rabbinical Conference of Brunswick “convoked by Levi Herzfeld and Ludwig Philippson.”


1847(28thof Sivan, 5607): Sixty-six year old philanthropist Abraham Muhr who fought for the full emancipation of German Jews passed away today.


1856: An article entitled “Slidell, Blemont and Buchanan” described the role of “Auguste Belmont, the Austrian Jew” who was John Slidell’s nephew by marriage in a conspiracy to nominate James Buchanan as President of the United States.  Belmont was described as an “agent of the Rothschilds.”


1859:  The Comstock Lode was discovered near Virginia City, Nevada.  As with other such strikes, Jews were among those who arrived seeking to make their fortune.  Among them were David H. Cohen and Marcus Goldbaum whose names appear in connection with numerous other strikes.  One Jew who made did make his fortune from the Comstock Lode was Adolph Sutro. Sutro was not the run of the mill prospector.  Rather he was “a self-taught financier and mining engineer” who developed a new ore extraction process and built the Sutro Tunnel that was designed to provide ventilation for the miners, “ease the hauling of ore and drain water from the mines.”  He sold Nevada interests for five million dollars and moved back to the more civilized environs of San Francisco.


1861: During the Civil War the Union began placing restrictions on trade with the Confederacy for those living in Paducah, KY. This was one of many attempts by the Union Army to deny the Rebels of many of the goods they could not produce for themselves.  General Grant’s unfortunate order a year later was actually part of this larger attempt to cripple the Confederate Army by crippling the Southern economy.  This is not meant to excuse Grant’s action but to put it into a larger context.


1862(14th of Sivan, 5622): Jacob Goodman, who had enlisted with Company D at Keokuk, Iowa, which became part of the 15th regiment died today.  He had distinguished himself at the Battle of Corinth (Miss.) where he was fatally wounded.


1867: Following its defeat by Prussia, Austria reorganized itself into the Austro-Hungarian Empire and granted legal equality to Jews living with the new constituent states.


1870: The annual examination of students of the Hebrew Free Schools of New York took place today at Steinway Hall. Several hundred students from the schools which were established five years ago by the Hebrew Free School Association took part in this rigorous, yet fun-filled annual event.  The students were quizzed by teachers from a cross section of the faculties.  They displayed “considerable proficiency” in “their knowledge of the Hebrew language and of the primary branches of English education.  Follow the exams, Alderman Henry Woltman addressed the attendees.  At the end, the principal, Mr. J.C. Noot distributed prizes to some fifty of the more “meritorious pupils.


1872(6thof Sivan, 5632): Shavuot


1872: Sir Saul Samuel began a second non-consecutive term as a member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales.


1873: According to a report published today the Hebrew Orphan and Benevolent Society has received contributions totaling $65,075.21 for the year 1872-1873.


1874:  According to a report published today the Hebrew and Benevolent Society received contributions totaling $70,688.26 for the 1873-1874 reporting year.


1876: George Richardson was fined ten dollars at the Tombs Police Court for having struck Louis Raminsky with enough force to cut the bearded Jew’s lip. Richardson struck Raminsky because he mistook him for a man named Rubinstein whom he identified as a “murder”.


1877: According to reports published today in the New York Times Jews living in Bucharest are petitioning Secretary Evarts for protection. "They are Russian and Austrians Hebrews, and comprise the very worst types of the race, refusing either to work or to pay taxes


1877(1st of Tammuz, 5637): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1878: A Coroner’s Inquest was held at the home of the late Lucien Levy to determine the cause of the death of the Jewish businessman who had died yesterday.  Among those giving testimony were his widow and his brother Henry.  After hearing all of the evidence, the coroner determined that the death was indeed a suicide and that no autopsy would be necessary.


1880(3rd of Tammuz, 5640): A Jewish child named Kate Ungerleider died at police headquarters in New York of whooping cough.  Her father who was a member of the Simon Benevolent Society had abandoned Kate and her 3 siblings after their mother had eloped with one of his friends.


1881: It was reported today that no matter of foreign policy has attracted as much attention in England was “the horrible persecution of the Jews in Russia.”  While several Jews are trying to get the government to aid their co-religionist, Baron Henry de Worms, the MP from Greenwich, who is not Jewish is leading the way in this manner.  When Parliament is sitting, “not a night passes without” without putting one or more questions on this matter to the responsible government minister.


1882: “Jews Going of Russia” published today described the mass exodus of Jews seeking to escape the oppression of the Russian Empire and the measures being taken to deal with this in the West.


1882: Joseph Wolf and Meyer Morris, two Jewish refugees from Russia who had arrived in New York two weeks ago, were under arrest today on charges that they had attacked a member of the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society when he did not comply with their latest demands.


1884(19th of Sivan, 5644): Eighty year old Rosa Gavay, passed away today at the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews today she had an accident on the elevator and fell to her death.


1884: At a time when many Jews were turning their backs on Hebrews, Protestants provided another example of their interest in the language when Reverend John M. Lansing was named to fill the newly created Gardner Sage Professorship of Hebrew at the Reformed Church in America’s seminary at New Brunswick, NJ.


1886: It was reported today that Rabbi James K. Gutheim passed away in New Orleans.  At the time of his death he was the leader of Temple Sinai.  From 1868 until 1872 he had been the “English reader” at Temple Emanu-El in New York. [Note – this was at a time when services were conducted in German]  He was praised for his working to raise the level of education and health among all the people of the city regardless of their religious beliefs.


1887: Oscar Straus, the U.S. Minister to Turkey, had his first audience with the Sultan


1887: It was reported today that “the officers and managers of the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children” are collecting funds so that, for the 9th year in a row, they can provide outings for poor and sick Jewish mothers and their children.  Last year there were seven such outings which provided service to over ten thousand woman, children and infants.  [These excursions were part of an effort in urban America to get youngsters out of the tenement districts for even a little while during the summer in the belief that fresh air would help their health.]


1889: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi Levy officiated at the wedding of Jacqueline De Leon, the daughter of H.H. De Leon to Sam Keller of Sheffield, Alabama.1890: Over 500 people attended the graduation exercises of The Hebrew Technical Institute that were held this afternoon at its facility on Stuyvesant Street1890: As of today, the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children has received $4, 017.50. 1890: Currently the officers of the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children are Nathan Lewis, President; Hezekiah Kohn, Treasurer; Joseph Davis, Secretary.


1890(24th of Sivan, 5650): Fifty year old Max Brüll de Domony the husband of Anna von Brüll de Domony passed away in Budapest.


1891(6th of Sivan, 5651): Shavuot


1891: “A Trusted Agent’s Theft” published today described Julio Merzbacher’s theft of between $300,000 and $500,000 from his former employer, New York Life Insurance Company.


1891: When Morris Vender was arraigned this morning in Newark, NJ on charges of non-support he claimed that he was divorced and produced a Hebrew language document to buttress his claim


1891: “New Hebrew Cemetery Dedicated” published today described the services led by Rabbi Bernard Drachman of Park East Synagogue dedicating the new cemetery on Long Island.  Joseph Blumenthal, the President of the Mount Zion Association which owns the cemetery also spoke to the attendees.


1892: The closing exercisies of the Louis Down-Town Sabbath and Day School took place this afternoon at Temple Emanu-El during which Rabbi Gustave Gottheil “administered the Confirmation Rites” on the graduating students.


1893: “Monument to Moses Mehrbach” published today described the unveiling ceremony led by Rabbi Hirsch in the Hebrew section of Cypress Hills Cemetery of a granite monument in honor of Moses Mehrbach, of blessed memory who was a note philanthropist who served as a presidential elector for the Democrats in 1884 and 1888.


1893: Colonel Weber, who had served as Superintendent of Immigration and who had been in Europe studying “the character and habits of those intending to emigrate to the United States said today that “the Polish Jews would dull indeed if they did not take the expulsion of their coreligionists in Russia to heart.” The new decrees, which could increase immigration to the United States are aimed at the hitherto protected classes (protection cost 1,000 rubles) including doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects, artists and university of graduates.”


1893(28th of Sivan, 5653): The body of twenty-three year old Emanuel Weltman, a peddler living with his sister Mrs. Rosenbaum was found near High Bridge this morning.


1894: The Constitutional Convention’s subcommittee on Charities and Education visited several institutions today including Mt. Sinai Hospital and the Hebrew Orphan Asylum


1894: The Governor’s Tenement House Committee reportedly found that the Tenth Ward which is populated almost exclusively by Jews is in the worst condition of all wards because “its population is three times as dense as the most crowded quarter in London.”  Some of the streets in the ward have taken on the characteristics “of European Juden Strassess and Ghettos.”


1894: Last will and testament of Dr. Benhard Grunhut which names Abraham Stern and William Ketcham as executors signed today.


1895: “New Publications” published today included a brief review of As Others Saw Him: A Retrospect, a novel about the life of Christ “given in the guise of letters from Meshulam Ben Zadok, a scribe of the Jews of Alexandria” written to a physician in Corinth.


1897: Birthdate of Anthony Eden. Eden was the Foreign Minister under Winston Churchill and his loyal number two. Eden was an ardent anti-Nazi but many claim that he was the English leader who prevented action being taken to save the Jews of Europe during World War II. Eden became Prime Minister in the 1950’s and was the British Prime Minister at the time of the Suez Crisis in 1956. Eden agreed to the ill-fated plan that included a joint Anglo-French seizure of the Suez Canal. Despite the success of the Israelis against the Egyptians, the whole project falls apart in the face of joint U.S.-Soviet support for Egypt. In the end, the British withdrew and Eden was forced from office.


1897: The 700 peasants working on the estate of Baron Daniel, the Hungarian Minister of Commerce attacked a Jewish farmer today.  When four gendarmes were called to protect him the mob rush them, hacking at them with their scythes.


1897: Birthdate of Polish-born French pianist Alexandre Tansman.

1897: The Columbia University, home of the “Temple Emanu-El Library of Biblical and rabbinical literature, numbering 3,500 books and pamphlets rich in medieval and Modern Hebrew works” will be closed today for the first time in its history so that it can move into its new facility which will open in October.


1898: More than 100 pupils attended the closing exercises of the Religious School at Temple Rodeph Sholom this afternoon at 63rdStreet and Lexington.


1899: As the Zionist movement begins to gain strength, officers of the Order of Knights of Zion in Chicago, “received official notification from the Jewish Colonial Bank of London” that it now has 100,000 shareholders.


1899: Birthdate of Fritz Albert Lipmann American biochemist and a co-discoverer in 1945 of coenzyme A. For this, together with other research on coenzyme A, he was awarded half the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1953.


1899: Birthdate of Usher Fellig who changed his name to Arthur Fellig after coming to the United States from Austria to fend off anti-Semitism.  He is best known as Wegee the American photographer and photojournalist.


1900: At St. Mathews, South Carolina, Rabbi Lesser officiated at the wedding of Flora S. Pearlstine, the daughter of I.M. Pearlstine to Jacob Jacobs of Charleston, SC.


1901: Birthdate of Ben Welden, the native of Toledo, Ohio who carved out a career as a “character actor” – one of those faces you recognize but whose name you do not know who are critical to the success of movies and television shows which in his case included the classic mystery, “The Big Sleep.”


1902(7th of Sivan, 5662): Second Day of Shavuot


1903: Sigma Alpha Iota International Music Fraternity for Women (Alpha Chapter) was founded at the University School of Music in Ann Arbor, Michigan by seven women.  Beverly Sills is one its many Laureates.


1912: A kosher kitchen was installed at Ellis Island for use by immigrants.


1912: Songwriter Al Sherman and his wife gave birth to Richard M. Sherman who joined with his older brother Robert to crease scores for films including “Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Jungle Book, Charlotte's Web and The Aristocats.”


1913(7th of Sivan, 5673): Second Day of Shavuot


1915: During today’s hearing on the petition of Leo M. Frank for the commutation of his sentence from death to life imprisonment which last for more than three months, Governor Slaton invited counsel for both sides to accompany him on visit to the National Pencil Factory so he can “thoroughly acquaint himself with the physical features of the building in which Mary Phagan met her death.”


1916: Birthdate of Irwin Allen who gained fame as a producer of disaster movies. Allen helped bring to the screen two of the most famous disaster films ever made – The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno. His name is now synonymous with the genre – a name that can also be spotted amongst the tombstones of late and great Jewish performers in LA’s Mount Sinai cemetery.


1917 The Ziegfeld Follies of 1917 featuring Eddie Cantor opened today.


1917: The three day meeting of the Executive Board of the Jewish Congress Association is scheduled to come to an in Chicago.


1918: Birthdate of Samuel Z. Arkoff. Born in Iowa, Arkoff was an entertainment attorney when he went to work for American International Pictures or AIP. As a producer at AIP he perfected a formula for low budget films in a variety of genres including gangster, horror and "blaxploitation." His studios produced everything from "The Amityville Horror" to the series of beach party movies starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. He provided the training ground for a many famous directors including Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese, and Fancis Ford Coppola, as well as such performers as Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson, and Melanie Griffin. He died in 2001 and is buried in Mt. Sinai Cemetery in California.


1920: Birthdate of Dave Berg. Berg gained famed as a cartoonist for "Mad Magazine". He passed away in 2002.

1920: Birthday of Stanley Sheinbaum, the native of New York City who transitioned from a successful career as an economics professor to being a “peace advocate” in many venues.

1921(6th of Sivan, 5681): Shavuot


1923: Harry Houdini (Eric Weiss) freed himself from a straitjacket while suspended upside down forty feet above the ground in New York City.


1929: In Frankfort, Edith (Hollander) Frank and Otto Frank gave birth to Anne Frank, one of the most famous diarists in the history of Western civilization.


1929: Birthdate of Frank Lawrence "Lefty" Rosenthal, sports handicapper and a former Las Vegas casino executive who also hosted a television talk show in Las Vegas during the late 1970s. He passed away on October 13, 2008.


1931: Mickey Cohen fought and lost a match against World Featherweight Champion Tommy Paul, having been knocked out cold after 2:20 into the first round.


1932: Birthdate of novelist Rona Jaffe.


1935: Birthdate of Sanford Morton Gorssman, the frustrated sports broadcaster who “became an Emmy-winning director of National Football Games.” (As reported by Richard Sandomir)


1936(22nd of Sivan, 5696): After a short illness, sixty-two year old Austrian author Karl Kraus passed away today.

1938: Birthdate of French journalist and essayist Jean-Francois Kahn the brother of scientist Axel Kahn whose father was Jewish and mother was Catholic.


1939: Leonard Kaplan graduates from West Point. Leonard Kaplan served as a captain, a major, and upon leaving active duty in 1947, only eight years from graduation, he was a lieutenant colonel. While in the Army Reserves, he ultimately reached the rank of colonel. His service record included the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star with one oak leaf cluster, and a Purple Heart. During World War II he served as a battalion commander of one of the first amphibious units, serving in the South Pacific for33 months.


1939:  Shooting begins on Paramount Pictures'“Dr. Cyclops, “the first horror film photographed in three-strip Technicolor.  Paramount was dominated by two Jews: Adolph Zukor, the Chairman of the Board, and Barney Balaban, its President


1940: Margaret and Hans Reys arrive at Etampes having pedaled 18 kilometers from Paris.  They find suitable lodging and spend the night


1941(17th of Sivan, 5701): Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss who worked for Murder Incorporated was executed at Sing Sing.


1941(17th of Sivan, 5701): Martin "Bugsy" Goldstein who worked for Murder Incorporated was executed at Sing Sing.


1941: Birthdate of Marvin Phillip Aufrichtig, the native of Brooklyn who gained famed as the golden throated Marv Albert whose voice brought us basketball, football, hockey and tennis championships.


1942: Anne Frank received a diary on her thirteenth birthday.


1942: George Frederick “Buzz” Beurling, who died in a plane crash after having volunteered to fly for the IAF during the War for Independence, “had his baptism of fire” this morning while flying his Spitfire over Malta today.


1942: In Khmelnik, the Ukraine; babies, children and old people were ordered to assemble. The children were taken away, never to be seen again.


1943: The Jewish community at Berezhany, Ukraine, is wiped out. On Shabbat, in the morning, the Nazis led 1,180 Jews of Berezhany to face death at the city's old Jewish graveyard, where the Nazis shot into a mass grave.


1943 (9th of Sivan, 5703): In the Lódz (Poland) Ghetto, the chiefs of Jewish police are forced to witness Nazi executions of recaptured ghetto escapees: 23-year-old Hersch Fejgelis, 29-year-old Mordecai Standarowicz, and 31-year-old Abram Tandowski.


1944: In the weekly internal report of the War Refugee Board, it states that Ambassador MacVeagh in Cairo reports there are still 5,000 Jews hiding in Greece. "Those who have been able to join the Partisans reportedly run less risk of being exterminated by the Germans, who have thus far avoided the systematic pursuit of guerilla warriors."


1944: The Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter was established in Oswego, New York by order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and was operated by the War Relocation Authority


1945(1st of Tammuz, 5705): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1945(1st of Tammuz, 5705): Sixty nine year old Theodore Hardeen, the magician and escape artist who was the brother of Harry Houdini passed away today in New York.

1946: Fifty-two of the officials and guards from the Flossenbürg concentration camp went on trial today.


1950: U.S. release of 1950 film noir “Panic In the Streets” produced by Sol C. Siegel, co-starring Zero Mostel with music by Alfred Newman.


1950: Birthdate of American journalist and author and Richard Ben Cramer.


1950: Eddie Cantor, his wife Ida and Mr. and Mrs. Yolanda Markson of Los Angeles arrived in Israel this morning on what was Mr. Cantor’s first visit to Israel. Among those greeting him at the airport was United States Ambassador to Israel, James G. McDonald. Cantor has raised over ten million dollars to support the Jewish state.  He said that as a good American it was his duty to support the young democracy and that doing so was in the same spirit being shown by the United States in funding the Marshall Plan which was designed to support the democracies of Western Europe.


1951: After first being released in the United Kingdom U.S. premiere of “Sirocco” based on a novel by Joseph Kessel, directed by Curtis Bernhardt with a script co-authored by Hans Jacoby co-starring Lee J. Cobb and featuring Zero Mostel and “Balukjiaan.”


1951: In the UK, premiere of “White Corridors” produced by Joseph Janni


1951(8th of Sivan, 5711): An unnamed Israeli soldier was killed when he sought to stop Jordanian troops from crossing the border into Israel.


1952(19th of Sivan, 5712): Rabbi Henry Cohen who “served Congregation B'nai Israel in Galveston, Texas from 1888 to 1952” passed away. Born in 1863, Cohen played an integral role in the Galveston Movement. The Galveston Movement operated between 1907 and 1914 to divert Jews fleeing Russia and eastern Europe away from crowded East Coast cities. Ten thousand Jewish immigrants passed through Galveston, Texas during this era, approximately one-third the number who migrated to Palestine during the same period.”


1952: Michael von Faulhaber, the Roman Catholic Cardinal who while Archbishop of Munich in 1933 defended the Old Testament against the anti-Semitism of the Nazis and courageously declared: “God always punishes the tormentors of his Chosen People, the Jews.""No Roman Catholic approves of the persecutions of Jews in Germany."


1954: Kenneth Nichols, the General Manager of the Atomic Energy Commissioner recommended that Robert Oppenheimer's security clearance not be reinstated. In five "security findings," Nichols said that Oppenheimer was "a Communist in every sense except that he did not carry a party card," and that he "is not reliable or trustworthy." The commission agreed, and Oppenheimer was stripped of his security clearance


1955: Outfielder Al Silvera made his major league debut with the Cincinnati Reds.


1955: Comedian Buddy Hackett married Sherry Cohen.


1959(6th of Sivan, 5719): Shavuot


1961: Walworth Barbour presents his credentials as the United States Ambassador to Israel.


1961: PM East/PM West a late night talk show co-hosted by Mike Wallace is broadcast for the first time.


1962: David Ben-Gurion sends a letter to Eliezer Steinman, in which he writes, “Today, more than ever, the "religious" tend to relegate Judaism to observing dietary laws and preserving the Sabbath. This is considered religious reform. I prefer the Fifteenth Psalm, lovely are the psalms of Israel. The Shulchan Aruch is a product of our nation's life in the Exile. It was produced in the Exile, in conditions of Exile. A nation in the process of fulfilling its every task, physically and spiritually . . . must compose a "New Shulchan"--and our nation's intellectuals are required, in my opinion, to fulfill their responsibility in this.”


1963: U.S. premiere of “Cleopatra” directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz who co-authored the script with Sidney Buchman, produced by Walter Wanger, co-starring Elizabeth Taylor and Martin Landau   During the filming of the this epic flic, Taylor, who had converted to Judaism and was married to Jewish crooner Eddie Fisher, began a torrid and public affair with her co-star Richard Burton.  Burton and Taylor both left their respective spouses, married, divorced and remarried.


1965: After 540 performances a musical version of Budd Schulberg’s “What Makes Sammy Run?” closed at the 54thStreet Theatre in New York.


1967: First Israeli ship sailed through Gulf of Eilat after the Six Days War. It was the closure of the Gulf of Eilat and the blockade of the port of Eilat by the Egyptians in May that led to the June War.


1967: The INS Dolphin arrived at Eilat


1967: David Ben-Gurion “met with Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek in his Knesset office” today.


1970(8th of Sivan, 5730): Sixty-six year old Israeli political leader Yisrael Barzilai passed away.  Born in Poland in 1913, he made Aliyah in 1934.  A member of the Knesset, he served in several ministerial positions included Minister of Postal Services and Minister of health.  Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon was named in his honor.


1972(30th of Sivan, 5732): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1972(30th of Sivan, 5732): Saul David Alinsky radical, writer and social activist, passed away. Born in 1909, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Alinsky had a passion for justice that originated from his experience growing up in Chicago's Jewish ghetto where he witnessed suffering during the Depression.


1975(3rd of Tammuz, 5735): Seventy four year old Arthur Kober, the husband of Lillian Hellman who gained his own measure of fame as a screenwriter and author whose works appeared in The New Yorker passed away today in New York.


1977: After 1,944 performances at the Imperial Theatre, the curtain came on the original Broadway production of “Pippin” the Tony-award musical with lyrics and music by Stephen Schwartz starring John Rubinstein, the son of concert pianist Arthur Rubinstein.


1979: The Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life at the University of Connecticut in Storrs which was founded by the Board of Trustees in February of 1979, was formally launched at an Inaugural Program today when Nobel Laureate I.B. Singer addressed nearly 1,000 persons


1981: U.S. premiere of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark” directed by Steven Speilberg, with a screenplay by Lawrence and story co-authored by Philip Kaufman based on finding the Ark built by Moshe.


1983(1st of Tammuz, 5743): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1983(1st of Tammuz, 5743): Academy award winning actress Norma Shearer who converted to Judaism when she married Irving Thalberg, passed away today. (As reported by Eric Pace)

1986: In an article entitled “The Jewish Freud,” Michael Ignatieff begins his review of “Freud’sDiscovery of Psychoanalysis: The Politics of Hysteri”by William J. McGrath and “Freud and His Father”by Marianne Krull with the following story. “When Sigmund Freud was twelve and out walking with his father Jacob in the streets of Vienna, his father wanted to show his son how much better things had become for Jews since the days when he was a poor peddler wearing a beaver hat and a kaftan in the shtetls of Galicia. So he told his son about the time in Tysmenitz when a gentile had crossed his path on the pavement and had knocked his hat into the gutter jeering after him, 'Jew, get off the pavement.’”


1987: U.S. premiere of “Million Dollar Mystery” starring Tom Bosley which was the “final feature-length film directed by Richard Fleischer.”


1990: Moshe Arens completed his term as Foreign Minister.


1991: Premiere of “The Boneyard, a “direct-to-video horror film” co-starring Norman Fell.


1994(3rd of Tamuz, 5754): Ronald Goldman is murdered along with Nicole Brown Simpson.  OJ Simpson was found not guilty in the criminal case.  The civil trial turned out with just the opposite verdict.


1994 (3 Tammuz on the Jewish calendar):  The Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, passed away.  Rabbi Schneerson, or simply "The Rebbe" as he was known by his followers and admirers, was the leader of the Lubavitch movement for decades.  He is most famous for the outreach program that he began which reached Jews throughout the world.  Thanks to his effort, it is almost impossible to go any place and not find a Chabad House.  He sent "lamplighters" out into to the world to bring the light of Torah to Jews who were in darkness whether they were in Moscow, Morocco or Little Rock, Arkansas.  One did not have to accept all of tenets of Lubavitch to be welcome.  For more about this remarkable man see the followinghttp://www.chabad.org/article.asp?AID=142232


1997(7th of Sivan, 5757): Second Day of Shavuot


1998: In an article describing the history of Savannah, Georgia, reporter R.W. Apple, Jr. reminded his readers of the early Jewish connection to this colonial seaport. “Only five years after General Oglethorpe's arrival in 1733 to found the last of the original 13 colonies, a group of Jews landed here, and descendants of some of them, including Sheftalls and Minises, remain prominent in Savannah's economic and cultural life. Temple Mickve Israel, built in 1876, is the only Gothic Revival synagogue in the United States; its interior has cast-iron cluster pillars, a fine Spanish chandelier and good stained glass. The temple owns the oldest Torah in America and a valuable collection of books and documents, including letters from Washington, Jefferson and Madison. Some of Savannah's prettiest squares and best antiques dealers are clustered in the same neighborhood as the temple. Prices are high, but so is quality.”


2001(21st of Sivan, 5761): Sixty-nine year old “Amos Perlmutter, a Washington-based political scientist, author and commentator on Middle Eastern affairs” passed away today.  (As reported by Wolfgang Saxon)



2001: In an article entitled ‘Anatomy of a Bagel” C. Claiborne asks “How many calories are in a plain, sesame or poppy seed bagel from a New York coffee shop? What are the ingredients and nutritional value?” and then provides the following answer: “Let us assume that you get the biggest plain, enriched bagel analyzed by the United States Department of Agriculture, 4 1/2 inches in diameter, weighing 110 grams, about 3.8 ounces. The ingredients -- flour, water, salt, yeast and malt, but no sugar, if it is a classic bagel -- are boiled and then baked. They add up to 302.5 calories, the U.S.D.A. says. On a standard nutrition facts label, the bagel would boast 1.76 grams of fat, no cholesterol, 587.4 milligrams of sodium, 111.1 milligrams of potassium, 58.74 grams of carbohydrate and 11.55 grams of protein. Vitamins and minerals include a significant amount of folate, 96.8 micrograms, from the enriched flour, but most are present in trace amounts. A bagel preserved with calcium propionate has more calcium than one without it: 81.4 milligrams, compared with 19.8 milligrams. Oddly, the U.S.D.A. does not differentiate among plain, onion, poppy seed and sesame bagels. Poppy seed, which the department considers a spice, not a food, would probably not add enough calories to make a weight watcher feel guilty. There are only about 15 calories in a teaspoonful, fewer than a spoon of sugar. Sesame seeds have perhaps 26 calories in a teaspoonful, figured at a sixth of an ounce, by volume.”


2003(12th of Sivan, 5763): Avner Maimon, 51, of Netanya, was found shot to death in his car near Yabed in northern Samaria. The Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. (Jewish Virtual Library)


2003(12th of Sivan, 5763): Ninety-three year old Samuel “Sam” Schulman a businessman and own of professional sports teams passed away today.

2004 Ehud Barak defeated Amir Peretz in his bid to be the leader of the Labor Party.


2005(5th of Sivan, 5765): Erev Shavuot


2005: Several families gather in the beit midrash at Milken Community High School in Los Angeles, where the they fulfill a commandment derived from Deuteronomy 31:19 by each writing a letter in Torah scroll that will lead to its completion.


2005:  The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported that Marv Levy, former coach of the Buffalo Bills and Coe College graduate was the speaker Coe’s Alumni weekend.  A 1950 graduate, Levy had excelled as a college athlete and student having earned a Phi Beta Kappa Key.  His topic for the alumnae address was “So You Want to Write a Book.”


2005:  The Chicago Tribune featured reviews of two books that examined the role of Jews in the military.  GI Jews: How World War II Changed a Generation” by Deborah Dash Moore examined the impact of military service on American Jews and the gentiles with whom they came in contact during the Second World War. “Company C; An American’s Life as a Citizen-Soldier in Israel” by Haim Watzman examines the impact of military service on Jews, the Jewish character and Israeli society based on his twenty years of service as an active duty soldier and reservist. The reviewer does an artful job of showing how these two books deal with similar issues from differing points on the experiential compass.


2005:The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Steinberg at The New Yorker” by Joel Smith and“Chaplin and Agee:The Untold Story of the Tramp, the Writer, and the Lost Screenplay”by John Wranovics


2006:JWA launches Katrina’s Jewish Voices, one of the first online collecting projects

2007:  In Los Angeles, The Skirball Cultural Center presents a double feature with the showing of two films, Sisai and Melting Siberia.


2007: The Jerusalem Post reported that “Eighty three percent of Jewish Israelis are satisfied or extremely satisfied with their lives, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics annual Social Survey 2006.


2007: The Washington Post reported about the programming on Shalom TV, a Jewish oriented cable television channel that has expanded in to the Washington-Baltimore region. The network offerings include a kosher cook-off program, hip-hop entertainer Russell Simmons discussing anti-Semitism, Hebrew lessons Talmud study and the “Jewish Mr. Rogers.”  Television targeting Jewish audiences certainly has come a long way since “Lamp unto my Feet.”


2007: News broke that two Bear Stearns hedge funds speculating in mortgage-backed securities were melting down. (This “was the precursor to the panics and collapses” that have led to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression which, when combined with activities of Bernard Madoff, have gutted or threatened the well-being of so many Jewish communal organizations)


2007: Ehud Barak defeated Ami Ayalon in a run-off election held today for leadership of the Labor Party.


2007(26th of Sivan, 5767): Ninety-eight year old Baron Guy de Rothschild passed away today in Paris. (As reported by Paul Lewis)

2008: Hazak Week of Study begins. Hazak is the United Synagogue's organization for Jews 55 and over.


2008: The National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) will honor Mildred and George Weissman at its Israel Benefit Luncheon today.  Shari Eshet, director of NCJW's Israel Office, will keynote the luncheon which is being held at the Jewish Museum in New York City


2008: “Waiting for the Barbarians” an opera in two acts composed by Philip Glass was performed today at the Barbican Center in London


2009: Mark Kurlansky, the author of “A Chosen Few,” discusses and signs his new book, “The Food of a Younger Land: A Portrait of American Food, Before the National Highway System, Before Chain Restaurants, and Before Frozen Food, When the Nation's Food Was Seasonal” at Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C.


2009: At Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Tessa Cohen, daughter of Terri and Brian Cohen, helps in leading Friday Night Shabbat Services as she begins the weekend that marks her Bat Mitzvah.


2009: The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. reopened to large crowds after having been closed on Thursday to honor the memory of Stepehn T. Johns, the guard murdered by a anti-Semitic white supremacist who had tried to shoot his way into the shrine on Wednesday.


2009: Opening of the Derfner Judaica Museum at Hebrew Home at Riverdale in the Bronx.


2010(30th of Sivan, 5770): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


2010: Golem with Girls In Trouble are scheduled to perform at the Washington Jewish Music Festival.


2010: The sitting of shivah by the family of Steve Averbach, who was injured thwarting an Arab terrorist attack, is scheduled to end this evening.


2011: The award winning duet "Dinner" by Israeli based Maya Stern and Tomer Sharabi is scheduled to be performed by Tomer Sharabi and Tal Kol on the fifth and final night of Contemporary Israel Dance Week.


2011: The Wisconsin Institute for Torah Study is scheduled to celebrate its 31st Anniversary and the Graduation of the WITS Class of 2011!


2011: Palestine Solidarity Group Chairman, Per Gahrton who was reportedly responsible for the segregation of the Israeli team at Malamo in 2009, is scheduled to deliver an address at the stadium where Israel will play Sweden in major international handball completion an hour after the speech.


2011: “I Married Wyatt Earp,” a musical based on the life Josephine Marcus is scheduled to have its final performance in New York.  Marcus was the eccentric Jewish daughter of a successful San Francisco family who ran away from home and ended up performing in Tombstone, Arizona where she met and wed the famous lawman.  It is because of Marcus that Earp is buried in a Jewish cemetery leading many to mistakenly assume that marshall who gained lasting fame at the OK Corral was Jewish.


2011: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding From You” by Eli Pariser, “A Most Dangerous Book: Tacitus’s “Germania” From the Roman Empire to the Third Reich” by Christopher B. Krebs and “In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin” by  Erik Larson that is a biography of William E. Dodd, FDR’s first Ambassador to Hitler’s Germany.


2011:  In a modern day story of David beating Goliath, Mark Cuban’s Dallas Mavericks defeated the Miami Heat to win the NBA Championship.


2011: It was announced that Leonid Borisovich Nevzlin had purchased a 20% stake in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, for NIS 140m. Nevzlin's acquisition leaves the Schocken family with a 60 percent stake in the company 


2011(10th of Sivan, 5771): Sixty-one year old Laura Ziskin, the American film producer who helped gives Pretty Woman and Spider Man, passed away. (As reported by Aljean Harmetz)

2011(10th of Sivan, 5771): Eighty-one year old Alan L. Haberman, the man who played a key role in popularizing the now ubiquitous bar code passed away.  (As reported by Margalit Fox)

2012: “Off-White Lies” (Orhim le-Rega) is scheduled to be shown tonight at the JCC in Manhattan


2012: In an interview given today “Ellen Riotenberg discussed her Jewish family and their background on the North Side of Minneapolis” as well as the difficulty in getting jobs “even as a trained professional if you were Jewish.”


2012: “The High Court justices who recommended state support for non-Orthodox rabbis had conflicts of interest, Religious Services Minister Ya’acov Margi charged today.”


2012: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to sponsor “A Centennial Celebration of the First Jewish Aviator” honoring Arthur “Al” Walsh.


2012: “Aided by Orthodox, City’s Jewish Population Is Growing Again” published today described the changing face of the Big Apple’s demographics.

2012: The Foreign Ministry announced today that Russian President Putin is planning to make a visit to Israel this year, although an exact date has not been set.  It would be his first visit since 2005 and comes at a time when the Russian leader is continuing to show support for the Assad government in Syria.


2012: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin said today that Israel has an obligation to remember the murder of more than a million Armenians at the hands of the Turks nearly a hundred years ago, but warned that the issue should not be turned into an attack on the Turkish government of today. The Knesset speaker made the comments at a Knesset discussion of the Armenian genocide. (As reported by Gil Hoffman)


2012: According to Joseph Berger, “After decades of decline, the Jewish population of New York City is growing again, increasing to nearly 1.1 million, fueled by the “explosive” growth of the Hasidic and other Orthodox communities, a new study has found. It is a trend that is challenging long-held notions about the group’s cultural identity and revealing widening gaps on politics, education, wealth and religious observance.


2012: “Speaking to the Haves, in a Plea to Consider All the Have-Nots” includes a review of End This Depression Now! by Paul Krugman.


2012: Seventy eight year old Elinor Ostrom, whose father was Jewish and is, as of this date the only woman to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, passed away today. (As reported by Catherine Rampell)

2013: “Wit’s End: The Satirical Cartoons of Stephen Roth featuring the works of the “Czech Jewish artist whose cartoons lampooned fascist dictators and put a wry spin on political events during the Second World War” is scheduled to come to an end at the Wiener Library in London, UK.


2013: The American Jewish Historical Society and Yeshiva University are scheduled to present a Curator’s Tour of “Passages Through the Fire: Jews and the Civil War.”


2013(4th of Tammuz): Yahrzeit of Rabbi Jacob Ben Meir Tam, the grandson of Rashi.


2013: In “Born Again” Nicole Krauss reminisces about Yoram Kaniuk , of blessed memory..

 2013: Traces of the crippling polio virus, discovered last week in Beersheba and Rahat, were found today in the sewers of Kiryat Gat and Ashdod as well. The Ministry of Health believes that the traces originated in the Bedouin village of Rahat. (As reported by Adiv Sterman & Stuart Winer)


2013: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today that Israel sought a “historic compromise” with the Palestinians to end the conflict “once and for all” and was ready to enter negotiations “without preconditions [and] without delay.”


2014: “A visitor’s center telling the story of the Eldridge Street Synagogue telling the s tory of the congregation and its place in its Baltimore neighborhood” is scheduled to open today. (As reported by Hillel Kuttler)


2014: The Israeli Film Center Festival is scheduled to open at the JCC of Manhattan with a showing of “Operation Sunflower.”


2014: In London, the Weiner Library is scheduled to host “Karl Kraus's The Last Days of Mankind as a German-Jewish Tragi-Comedy.”


2014: “David Blatt stepped down as coach of European club champion Maccabi Tel Aviv today, saying he wanted to pursue his dream of coaching in the NBA.” (Times of Israel)


2014: “A Berlin court has ordered Germany to pay the heirs of Jewish owners of a department store chain an additional €50 million ($68 million) in compensation for property seized by the Nazis” saying today that “the Schocken family lost its chain of stores, primarily in Saxony, during the Nazis’ so-called “Aryanization” of businesses in the 1930s.”


2014: The Lower East Side Film Festival is scheduled to open with a showing of “Sturgeon Queens.”


2014: “Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon today approved the extension of the IDF’s seizure of a radical Jewish learning center in the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar by three more months, saying the military’s presence in the building helped reduce settler violence.” (Times of Israel)


2014: The U.S. Senate “named Stanley Fischer vice chair of the Federal Reserve “after confirming him to the board last month.”


2014: At the age of 104, actress Rebekah Isabelle "Carla" Laemmle the daughter of Carl Laemmle, the founder of Universal Pictures who tried to save Jews from the Shoah, passed away today.

2015: Pennsylvania State Representative Brian K. Sims and, Deputy Consul General for the Consulate General of Israel to the Mid-Atlantic Region, Elad Strohmayer are scheduled to address a dinner sponsored by J.PROUD, Jewish Philly LGBTQ Consortium and the Young Friends of NMAJH celebrating a special Shabbat during Philadelphia Gay Pride Week.


2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host “Piano Games” as part of the Israel Festival.

 


 


 


 


 

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

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JUNE 13



823: Birthdate of Charles the Bald, who as Holy Roman Emperor refused to comply with anti-Semitic edicts of Amulo, the Archbishop of Lyon.  In doing so, Charles was following in the footsteps of his grandfather Charlemagne who had also refused to comply with anti-Semitic edicts issued by Christian clerics.


1299: Pope Boniface VIII allowed Jews accused by the Inquisition the right to know who their accusers were.


1489: Joshua Solomon Soncino completed the printing of Talmud Babli Hullin.  During 1489, Soncino also completed the printing of Talmud Babli Shabbat and Talmud Babli Baba Kamma


1712(9thof Sivan, 5472): Leffmann “Behrends’ daughter Genenendel who had married the chief rabbi of Prague, David Oppenheim in 1681 passed away today. 



1727: Moses Susman was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court of Judicature for having stolen property from Moses Levy that included “silver money, bag, rings and some goods and chattles.”


1777: Marquis de Lafayette arrives to help the colonists in their War for Independence.  Lafayette fell under the spell of Washington.  He was instrumental in getting French support the Americans which was key to ultimate victory.  The values of the American’s took root with Lafayette.  Despite being an aristocrat he took part in the early days of the French Revolution.  He voted in favor of a law that gave full rights to all French Jews except for those living in the northeast part of this country.   Later, when commanding French forces near the city of Metz, he assured the Jews that they and their property would be protected.  Unfortunately, not even the word of Lafayette could stop up against the Reign of Terror which was to follow. 


1782(1stof Tammuz, 5542): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1819: Carl Mayer von Rothschild and Adelheid Herz gave birth to their “eldest child and only daughter” Charlotte von Rothschild who married her cousin Lionel Rothschild in 1836.


1827: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi S.C. Peixotto officiated at the wedding of Nathan Cohen, to Clara Harris, the third daughter of Jacob Harris, Jr.


1843: In Boston, a dinner was held at Faneuil Hall to celebrate the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument. Judah Touro was honored for his role in the building of the memorial.  Bostonian patrician Amos Lawrence had pledged to give ten thousand dollars to the project if anybody would match his contribution.  Touro, who was living in New Orleans, heard about the challenge and immediately sent ten thousand dollars to Boston. The toast read at the banquet said,


Amos and Judah venerated names,


Patriarch and prophet, press their equal claims


Like generous coursers, running neck and neck


Each aids the other by giving it a check,


Christian and Jew, they carr out one plan,


For thous of different faiths, each is in heart a man


1851: Seventy-three year old Joseph Johlson the Jewish theologian who championed such reforms as Shabbat services on Sunday, sermons in German and Confirmation for boys and girls while expressing the belief that circumcision was no longer a necessary ritual for Jews passed away today at Frankfurt am Main.


1852: “Beis Hamedrash Hagadol was established at 60 Norfolk Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Its first rav was Rabbi Avrohom Yosef Asch, zt”l, who had arrived in the United States earlier that year.”


1865: In Vienna, Austrian Jewish laryngologist Johann Schnitzler and Luise Markbreiter gave birth to their second child Julius who became a surgeon.


1870: “Prophetic Disraeli” published today provided a review of “Lothair,” the first novel published by Benjamin Disraeli after he became Prime Minister and discusses the as yet untitled sequel that includes several Jewish characters and themes.


1871: While visiting Jerusalem, former U.S. Secretary of State William H. Steward today described the city as occupying “two ridges of a mountain promontory, with the depress or valley between them.” According to Seward there are 4,000 Muslims living in the northeast quarter, 8,000 Jews living in the southeast quarter, 1,800 Armenians in the southwest quarter and 2,200 Christians belonging to assorted sects living in the northwest quarter.


1877: Joseph Seligman, the famous New York financier arrived at the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga Springs, NY, as he had every summer for the past ten years. When he asked for his rooms the manager told Seligman that “he was required to inform him that” Judge Henry Hilton, the owner of the hotel, “has given instruction that no Israelites shall be permitted in future to stop at this hotel.”  After overcoming his astonishment Mr. Seligman asked, “Do you mean to tell me that you will not entertain Jewish people?” The manager replied, “That is our orders, Sir.”  Seligman wanted to know the reason for this asking, “Are they dirty, do they misbehave themselves, or have they refused to pay their bills.”  The manger replied that these were not the reason.  “The reason is simply this.” Business at the hotel was not good last season and we have a large number of Jews here.  Mr. Hilton came to the conclusion that Christians did not like their company, and for that reason shunned the hotel.  He resolved to run the Union on a different principle this season and gave us instruction to admit no Jew.” The manager expressed his personal regret at this turn of events since Mr. Seligman had been coming there for years, but he had to obey orders. An angry Mr. Seligman returned to New York where he wrote a “bitter and sarcastic letter to Hilton” and then informed his friends as to what had happened. [Editor’s Note – the treatment of Mr. Seligman would touch off a minor cause célèbre. It would also mark the “official start” of a period of increasing anti-Semitism in the United States that would include the public banning of Jews from a variety of Christian only hotels, neighborhoods, country clubs and other such institutions as well as the banning of Jews from certain professions & occupations and the creation of quota system, the most invidious of which was the one having to do with admittance to institutions of higher learning. You might think of this period as an era of Jewish Jim Crow and would persist into the last decades of the 20th century.]


1878: “Mysterious Self-Murder” published today described the last days and self-inflicted death of Lucien Levys, a prominent member of the New York Jewish Community.


1878: Lucien Levys, who took his own life for reasons which are still not clear, is to be buried today at New York’s Salem Fields Cemetery with services provided by Mishkan Israel, the congregation to which the family belongs.  Survivors include his widow, a brother, Henry and a sister, Mrs. Henry Block, all of New York City.


1878: At a summit of European powers (Berlin Congress) discussing the Balkan region, civil rights were "guaranteed" for Rumanian Jews. The populace and the government soon ignored this order.


1880: It was reported today that there are approximately 500,000 Jews living in Morocco most of whom are descendants of Jews who were exiled from Europe during the Middle Ages.  They “are oppressed, hated degraded and persecuted” in Morocco in a fashion worse “than in any other country.” The Jews work in “various arts and trades” displaying “the ingenuity, pliability and tenacity of their race.”


1881: In the Pale of Settlement Esther and Israel Pinchus Antin gave birth to Maryashe Antin who gained fame American author and immigration rights activist Mary Antin.


1882: Joseph Wolf and Meyer Morris, two recent Jewish refugees who have just arrived from Russia remained in jail because they could not pay the fine assessed them for having attacked and beaten an official of the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society.


1883: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi I.P. Mendes officiated at the wedding of David B. Falk and Cissie Solomons, the daughter of J.M. Solomons of Savannah, GA.


1884: Birthdate of Sophie Tucker. Born Sonia Kalish, she was known as "the last of the red hot mammas."


1884(20thof Sivan 5644): Boris Moses who rose to the rank of Colonel in the French Army and “became an officer of the Legion of Honor” passed away today.


1885(30thof Sivan, 5645): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1885: In New York a bill was signed “to amend the Penal Code in regard to Jews and the observance of Sunday.


1886: The remains of James K. Gutheim who was the rabbi at Temple Sinai, lay in state at the New Orleans Reform congregation until three o’clock this afternoon when they were taken to the Metairie Cemetery in suburban New Orleans for final internment.


1887: Birthdate of Bruno Frank, the native of Stuttgart who fled German after 1933 and who wrote the screenplay for the 1939 film version of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”


1888: It was reported that the staff of the Hebrew Journal plans to sponsor a reception to raise funds for the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Agency.


1889: New York State Senator Jacob A. Cantor is invited to the opening reception of the exclusive Harlem Club.  When a member learns that Robert Bonyge has proposed Cantor for membership, he publicly tells Cantor, “Jake I have known you for a long time, and I am a friend of yours, but I must stell yout that in this club we draw the line at Hebrews.” 


1890: Applications may now be filed for the Summer Session of the Hebrew Technical School which will begin when the public schools close the year.


1891(7thof Sivan, 5651): Second Day of Shavuot


1891: Archibald H. Welch, a Second Vice President with New York Life Insurance Company publicly revised the company’s previous versions surrounding their former employee Julio Merzbacher.  Contrary to the first reports, Merzbacher, a 58 year old Jewish immigrant from Austria, had not retired but had left the company after reports of major financial irregularities.  Contrary to previous reports, these losses did not total $325,000 but probably exceeded one million dollars.


1892: “Among The Russian Jews” published today provides a summary of the findings of Arnold White who had gone to Russia “to determine whether the Russian Jew was an agriculturist” or whether he had had ever been successful in that role. White’s report, which first appeared in the Contemporary Review went far beyond this and examined the conditions and character of Russian Jewry.  For those who wonder about the bravery of Jews, White answers the question “Will the Jew fight” as follows.  “If bull-dog courage be the test of manliness then the annals of the prize ring tells of brawny and burly with their fists, three quarters of a century ago in England held their own.  Three Russian generals have described the dauntless courage of Hebrew soldiers at the Shipka Pass.  In one instance a call for twenty-tive men to engage in a forlorn hope was answered by thirteen Jewish soldiers.(Editor’s note – The Schipka Pass is pass in the Balkans in modern day Bulgaria.  In the 19th century it was the site of five fierce battles during the war between the Russians and the Ottomans. )


1893: “Russian Coercive Measures” published today the comments of Colonel John Weber, the former Superintendent of Immigration on condition of Russian and Polish Jews.  New decrees “directed toward Russian Jews” include ones that will force merchants who have been in business for the last twenty years to move into the Pale.  At the same time “doctors of medicine, lawyers, engineers, architects, artists, and graduates of the university…exactly the classes representing the highest” intellect are also being forced to move into the overcrowded Jewish zone. As to rumors of a mass exodus by Jews living in Poland, Weber said, “The Polish Jews would be dull indeed if they did not take expulsion of their coreligionists in Russia to hear.”


1893(29THof Sivan, 5653): Kiva Book, Annie Katzman and Joseph Mendelsohn died when they jumped to their deaths from the burning building on Montgomery Street where they were working in various tailor’s shops. Among the injured were Israel Amberg, Meyers Mymans, Morris Nathanson, Alice Nathanson and Morris Siegel.


1893: In New York, Deputy Coroner Conway performed an autopsy an unidentified Jewish man who was found floating in the river with his hands tied together with a piece of twine.


1893: “Commissioner Senner’s Story” published today described Immigration Commissioner Joseph H. Senner’s response to an expose published in the American Israelite that claims he “is masquerading under an assumed name” and that he deserted his wife in Germany. The commissioner said this is the fourth time these charges have been made and he has been exonerated each time.  He admits to Americanizing his name when he came to this country and insists that his wife who came with him still lives with him in New York.  He feels that his decision “to renounce his Jewish faith” is what caused Rabbi Wise to publish these falsehoods in his newspaper.

1893: The British government is willing to receive a preliminary draft.



1894(9th of Sivan, 5654): Fifty five year old Moses Levy, a native of Alsace-Lorraine who came to the United States 25 years ago passed away. The owner of a successful flour and feed business in Brooklyn, he was a member of Temple Beth Elohim and a supporter of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.
1894: At the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum, the band and drum corps under the command of Colonel Martin Cohen entertained visiting officials from the New York State Constitutional Convention
1897: The annual confirmation exercises of the Hebrew Free Schools were held at the Hebrew Institute this afternoon.


1897: “The Zionist Movement” published today described the two meetings held by the New York Board of Jewish Ministers to prepare for the Zionist meeting which will be held next August in Munich.  According to them, the Zionist movement has two main objectives.  “Frist to rescue the unfortunate Hebrews who are suffering under denial of civil and social rights and to encourage them to leave their poverty and misery for agriculture in Palestine and secondly to foster” the idea of “Jewish nationality.”


1897: “The Brooklyn Board of Education” published today presented the biographies of the members including Ira Leo Bamberger, a lawyer and a Republican who is the son-in-law of Moses May, “the most influential Jew in Brooklyn.”


1898: Emile Zola published his open letter (J'accuse) in defense of Captain Alfred Dreyfus in Paris. This was part of the famous Dreyfus Affair that rocked French society for the better part of a decade at the turn of the last century and that gave rise to the Zionism of Theodore Herzl.


1898: The Yukon Territory is formed, with Dawson chosen as its capital. In 1902, when Dawson’s Jewish population reached its high point of 200, Solomon Packer was one of its leading merchants.


1898: It was reported today that during the closing exercises of the Rodeph Shalom Religious School Nanette M Beekman received a gold medal for general excellence, Eva Heyman received a gold medal for excellence in Hebrew and Florence Robison received a silver medal for best in Hebrew


1899: Wilson W. Dunlop came before Mayor Van Wyck on charges of having caused riots on the East Side by his efforts to convert Jews to Christianity with his preaching on the corners of Orchard and Rivington Streets. The Mayor told Dunlop, “You have been using the streets for a crusade against the Jewish religion.  This is a free country and you can make a fight against any religion you choose, but you can’t do it in the streets.  If you want to conduct a crusade against the Jews go and hire a hall.”


1899: “The Jewish Colonial Trust” published today described the involvement of the Jews of Chicago in this Zionist venture.  So far, Jews in Chicago have subscribed for two thousand shares in the Trust at a par value of five dollars.  The Union National Bank of Chicago represents the Jewish Colonial Trust in the United States.


1904(30thof Sivan, 5664): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1906: The rector of the University of Göttingen announced that Max Born had won ” the prestigious annual Philosophy Faculty Prize” today a month before “he was awarded his PhD in Mathematics, magna cum laude.


1910(6thof Sivan, 5670) Shavuot


1911: The Milwaukee Journal reported today that the “largest congregation in the United States” which was located at St. Louis had chosen Goodman Lipkind, the rabbi at Milwaukee’s Sinai congregation to replace Henry Messing as its new Rabbi.”


1912: Orville and Katherine Wright arrived at the home of Arthur L. Welsh's in-laws, Mr. and Mrs. Paul Harmel two days after his fatal accident.


1912: Funeral services were held for Arthur L. Welsh at Adas Israel in Washington D.C.  Joseph Gulshak, the congregation’s cantor delivered the eulogy as the congregants looked at his tallit draped casket. His pallbearers included Orville Wright, one of the famous Wright Brothers, and Lt. Henry H. Arnold.  Arnold would gain as “Hap” Arnold the five star general who led the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. “Arnold wrote in his autobiography years later about Arthur Welsh, ‘He taught me everything I know, but he knew much more.’”


1912: Portuguese government continues to favor a plan which is reported to be prepared to give Jews extensive concessions.


1913 Birthdate of Yitzhak Fundik the native of Krakow who made Aliyah in 1933 and as Yitzhak Pundak, rose to the rank of Major General in the IDF

1913: Birthdate of Ruth Willion, the Brooklyn native who married Morris Popkin in 1937 and as Ruth Popkin served as President of Hadassah and President of the Jewish National Fund.

1915: In the wake of the sinking of the Lusitania German press coverage includes the following from the Berlin Tageblatt, a daily newspaper first published by Rudolf Mosse and now run by his cousin Thedor Wolff who is the editor-in-chief under the headline “On the Way to An Agreement” – “An agreement is possible and the Washington government shows an honest desire to arrive at an agreement.”  “The hopes of our enemies…that the Stars and Stripes soon would be floating bested the Union Jack and the Tri-color are proved false.”  All indications are “that America by no means takes the position that the German Admiralty must issue an order to end the submarine warfare…”


1915: The text of the appeal from the Federation of the Rumanian Jews of America sent to Governor Slaton, which began, “Five thousand member of the Federation of the Rumanian Jews of America appeal to at this eleventh hour to exercise your power and spare the life of Leo M. Frank” was published today.


1915: In Atlanta, “another anti-Frank mass meeting was held on the Capital grounds this afternoon.”


1915: While Governor Slaton was engaged in studying the evidence today in the case of Leo M. Frank…prayers were said for the governor in several Atlanta churches” including the St. Luke’s Protestant Episcopal Church “asking that he be divinely guided in dealing with the problem before him.”


1917: Birthdate of Israel Kugler, a leader of teachers’ and Jewish labor organizations. Born in Brooklyn, to Eastern European immigrant parent, he served in the Navy during World War II and was educated at City College and at New York University. In addition to his work as an organizer, he was a professor of social science in the CUNY system and author of the book “From Ladies to Women: The Organized Struggle for Women’s Rights in the Reconstruction Era.”Kugler’s parents were involved in the Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring, which is the national Jewish labor organization, and Kugler’s own children were sent to Workmen’s Circle shules (part-time Yiddish schools). After he retired from teaching and organizing in 1980, Kugler was elected president of the Workmen’s Circle. He held the office for two terms, until 1984. Kugler was also active in other progressive Jewish organizations, serving as an officer of the Jewish Labor Committee and of the Forward Association, the not-for-profit holding company of this newspaper. Philip Kugler followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming a vice president of the American Federation of Teachers. He passed away in October of 2007 at the age of 90.


1917: In Chicago, the Sinai Center Players assisted by Sinai Center Orchestra is scheduled to “give the closing performance” today at the Sinai Social Center two one act plays – “Extreme Action” and “In Honor Bound.”


1917: Fourteen German bombers attacked London dropping more than one hundred bombs killing over 162 civilians.  Some of the bombs landed on school where fifteen students were killed and another 27 maimed for life prompting some parents to send their children out the British capital.  Among those sent out were Lev Winogradsky, the future media mogul who became Lord Grade and his brother Boruch Winogradsky, the famed theatrical impresario who became Lord Delfont


1918: Fire in a synagogue results in the total destruction of the famous Hebrew library in Belgrade. The collection contained many rare manuscripts.


1918: During WW I, Lester Bergman a Private serving with the 5th Regiment of the U.S. Marine Corps which was part of the AEF, attacked a German machine gun nest in fighting in the Bois de Belleau. This conspicuous bravery would lead to him being award the Silver Star.


1920: The Ahdut Ha'Avoda Party convenes in Kinneret. It decides to establish the Haganah organization for a countrywide Jewish self-defense.


1920: Birthdate of Joseph Gurwich, who as Joseph Gurwin, became a wealthy businessman and philanthropist. Unfortunately, he was also a victim of the great swindler, Bernard Maddoff


1921(7thof Sivan, 5682): Second Day of Shavuot


1924: Bnei Brak founded on the coastal plain east of Tel Aviv. The Bnei Brak of today was established by charedi Jews from Poland, and is famed for its many yeshivas and Chassidic communities. Judah Moses Tiehberg, the grandson of the Aleksandrow Rebbe who was murdered at Treblinka re-established the dynasty at Bnei Brak in 1953. In Biblical times Bnei Brak was located in the land of the tribe of Dan. Its most lasting fame comes from the story in the Haggadah about Rabbi Akiva and his colleagues.


1925: In Manhattan Louis and Ralphina Steinhardt Lowenstein gave birth to Louis Lowenstein, founding partner of Kramer Levin and “an influential business law professor and former corporate executive who for nearly three decades dissected the excesses of Wall Street and warned of the dangers of short-term investing”  (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)


1926(1stof Tammuz, 5686): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1926: It was reported today that Rabbi Max Drob, President of the Rabbinical Assembly of JTS will be one of the speakers to address the upcoming annual convention of the Rabbinical Assembly of the Jewish Theological Seminary


1925: Birthdate of Louis Lowenstein, an influential business law professor and former corporate executive who for nearly three decades dissected the excesses of Wall Street and warned of the dangers of short-term investing


1928: Florenz Ziegfield signs a contract with MGM to produce movie musicals.


1929: Western hero Wyatt Earp passed away. Earp was not Jewish, but his last wife was. She arranged for him to be buried in a Jewish cemetery.


1931: Shortstop Louis Brower made his major league debut with the Detroit Tigers.


1931: Birthdate of Dr. Irvin David Yalom Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford University and recipient of the American Psychiatric Association’s Oscar Pfister Prize (for important contributions to religion and psychiatry) in 2000.


1933: In Berne, anti-Semitic pamphlets were distributed at meeting of the "Bund Nationalsozialistischer Eidgenossen" (BNSE) which was addressed by Emil Sonderegger, a former leading general in the Swiss Army.


1934(30th of Sivan, 5694): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1934: In Chicago, high school chemistry teacher Boris Duskin and his wife, poet and homemaker Rita Schayer gave birth to Ruth Sondra Duskin who began appearing on “The Quiz Kids” in 1941 and appeared in 146 episodes on radio and 11 on television after the show moved there in 1949. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

1934: Hitler and Mussolini met for the first time.


1935: James J. Braddock defeated Max Baer to become heavyweight champion of the world.  Baer had only been Heavy Weight Champion for a year.  There was always a question as to whether or not Baer was really Jewish.  He had been born in Nebraska and there were those who claimed his father had been Dutch or German and not Jewish.  Regardless, Baer adopted a Jewish persona in the ring and won the hearts of the Jewish world when he defeated the German boxer Max Schmeling. 


1936(23rdof Sivan, 5696):In the UK, Phoebe Levy, the widow of  the James Levy of Brixton passed away at Jersey and is survived by her daughter Bessie Marks.


1936: According to an article published in the New York Times, “a factor in the current Palestine disorders that is little known to the general public is a long-standing political feud between the two leading Arab families, for which the Jews happen to be convenient scapegoats.” Much of the violence stems from a conflict between the Husseini family, which has filled the posts of Grand Mufti and President of the Supreme Council, and the more moderate Nashashibis who are led by the former Mayor of Jerusalem.


1938: Birthdate of Morton H. Halperin “an American expert on foreign policy and civil liberties. He served in the Johnson, Nixon and Clinton administrations and in a number of roles with think tanks, universities and other organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations and Harvard University.” “The NATO doctrine is that we will fight with conventional forces until we are losing, then we will fight with tactical weapons until we are losing, and then we will blow up the world.” (Morton Halperin)


1939: Five Arab villagers were slain early today in Baled Es-Sheikh, near Haifa. An armed gang, dressed in European clothes, dragged the five men from their homes and shot them. A sixth villager was reported to have been abducted. The Arabs claimed that the attackers were Jews. 


1939: In what appears to be an outbreak of inter-Jewish strife between Revisionists and Laborites, “seventy persons carrying clubs studded with nails” attacked the Revisionists headquarters in Tel Aviv injuring one severely and five slightly.”


1939: “Eddie Cantor and his wife are guest of the 18,000 members of the Greater New York Chapter of Hadassah at a luncheon in the Café Tl Aviv in the Jewish Palestine Pavillion at the World’s Fair”  at the same time that they are celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary.


1940: Walter Benjamin and his sister fled Paris and sought refuge in Lourdes before the Gestapo could arrest him.


1941: Birthdate of Esther Ofarim, a sabra who became a popular Israeli entertainer and singer.


1941: The Petain Government, also known as the Vichy Government, ingratiates itself with the Nazis by announcing that 12,000 Jews have been sent to concentration camps for hindering Franco-German cooperation.


1941: Premiere of “Tom, Dick and Harry” directed by Garson Kanin.


1941: Birthdate of Esther Zaied, the native of Safed who gained fame as singer/songwriter. Esther Ofarim (she married Abi Ofarim in 1959). She actually played a role in the 1961 film “Exodus” the film adaption of Leon Uris’ novel making her one of the few Jews to appear in this pro-Zionist film.


1942: Nine Jews were hanged in Warta, 2 in Lask, and 2 in Lodz Ghetto as a tool to scare Jews from resisting deportation.


1942: Three thousand Jews are deported from the Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, camp/ghetto to their deaths.


1942: British Ambassador to the Vatican Francis d'Arcy Osborne observes about Pope Pius XII that his "moral leadership is not assured by the unapplied recital of the Commandments." British comments must be taken with a grain of salt.  After all, they were the ones who had written the White Paper locking the Jews out of the only place that would accept them.


1943: Mark Rothko, together with Adolph Gottlieb and Barnet Newman published the following brief manifesto in the New York Times:


"1. To us art is an adventure into an unknown world, which can be explored only by those willing to take the risks.


"2. This world of imagination is fancy-free and violently opposed to common sense.


"3. It is our function as artists to make the spectator see the world our way not his way.


"4. We favor the simple expression of the complex thought. We are for the large shape because it has the impact of the unequivocal. We wish to reassert the picture plane. We are for flat forms because they destroy illusion and reveal truth.


"5. It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well painted."


[Rothko said "this is the essence of academicism".]


"There is no such thing as a good painting about nothing.


"We assert that the subject is crucial and only that subject matter is valid which is tragic and timeless. That is why we profess spiritual kinship with primitive and archaic art."


1944: On D-Day plus 7, Roy Rogers, who had escaped from Austria before WW II, returned to Continent as he and his tank crew came ashore at Normandy as part of the British Army.

1945: Weizmann decried Churchill’s letter rejecting the request for an end to restrictions on Jewish immigration into Palestine as an insult to our intelligence. A bitter Weizmann declared, “If Churchill had wanted to settle things, he would have done so.”  “For Ben-Gurion, Churchill’s letter was ‘the greatest blow they (the Zionists) had received.’


1947: Birthdate of New York Congressman Jerrod Lewis “Jerry” Nadler.


1947: Birthdate of Elyakim Rubinstein the native of Jerusalem who served Attorney General of Israel before coming a Judge on the Supreme Court of Israel.


1948(6th of Sivan, 5708): Shavuot


1948(6th of Sivan): Rabbi Abraham Mordecai Alter, the Gur rebbe, passed away


1948: Shear Yashuv Cohen, the future chief rabbi of Haifa arrived at a Jordanian prison camp after having fought in the failed defense of the Old City of Jerusalem.


1948: Rumania and Finland recognize Israel


1949: Birthdate of Brandon Tartikoff television executive with ABC and NBC. He was involved in the creation of such groundbreaking hits as “The Cosby Show” and “Hill Street Blues.” He passed away in 1997.


1950: “An air transport agreement granting equal rights in Israel and the United States for airlines designated y the two governments was signed in Teel Aviv today by Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett and United States Ambassador James G. McDonald.  This is the first air agreement between Israel and a foreign country and the first agreement with the United States on any subject.”


1950: An airplane bearing Jordanian markings which belonged to Arab Airways was forced to land after it attempted to fly over the southern Negev. The pilot, who was an American, cooperated with the intercepting Israeli aircraft and the landing took place without incident.  The Israelis have made repeated requests to the international community to avoid such over-flights due to the state of war that still exists in the region.


1950: Eddie Cantor completed his day of touring immigrant camps by having lunch at the immigrant transit camp at Natahnya. While the Jewish entertainer who has raised millions for Jewish causes since the 1930 ate, he was eyed with great interest and curiosity by the six hundred orphans living at the camp.


1951: The Jerusalem Postreported that Israel vigorously protested against the decision made by Lieut.-Gen. William Riley, UN Chief of Staff, who supported the Egyptian arguments against the opening of the Suez Canal to Israeli shipping. Migdal Gad, a new immigrant town of 10,000, held its first municipal elections. There were 1,950 eligible voters. No ice for home supply was distributed in Haifa after the authorities discovered that many distributors used false weights to cheat their customers.


1951: Nine Jewish Kremlin physicians were "exposed" as British/US agents. This became known as the Doctors' Plot. It was part of Stalin’s last push to get rid of the Jews of the Soviet Union. Only his death averted what could have been a worse mass murder than the Holocaust.


1953(30thof Sivan, 5713): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1954: Cornerstone laid for Albert Einstein College of Medicine (AECOM).


1954: The New York Times features a review of “The Spark and the Exodus,” in which Benedict and Nancy Freedman “have tried to recreate one of the tragic periods of Jewish history: the Czarist oppression, the pogroms that fired the Zionist dream of establishing a home land in Palestine.”


1954(12thof Sivan, 5714): Sixty-three year old Yiddish author Esther Kreitman passed away today in London.

1959(7thof Sivan, 5719): Second Day of Shavuot


1965(13th of Sivan, 5725):  Philosopher, author and intellectual Martin Buber passes away. There is no way to do write just a few words about Buber.  His impact was too great in too many spheres.  The best way to honor his memory is to take try and read a little bit of Buber.  Whether it is something as complicated as I and Thou or as relatively simple as a collection of Chasidic tales, there is something for all of us.


1966: Birthdate of mathematician Grigori Perelman.  True confession – I do not have a clue as to what his work is all about but the experts say the Russian born genius is best known for his work in comparison geometry.  He has also published papers purporting to prove Thurston's Geometrization Conjecture and Poincare’s Conjecture.  So far, nobody has found the flaw in his work


1966: Birthdate of Ben Horowitz, the native of London who was raised in the United States where he became a “high tech entrepreneur and investor.”

 1970: Sixteen people led by Sylva Zalmanson and Eduard Kuznetzov “attempted to hijack a plane from the USSR…in an desperate attempt” to make the world aware of the plight of Russian Jews who wanted to move to Israel


1971: The New York Times “published the first of a series of articles on The Pentagon Papers today. “Gerald Gold, an editor for The New York Times had supervised the herculean task of combing through a secret 2.5-million-word Defense Department history of the Vietnam War” prior to publication.


1972(1stof Tammuz, 5732): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1973: General Benjamin “Benny” Peled, the head of the Israeli Air Force, told Defense Minister Moshe Dayan that in the event of another war with the Arabs, a pre-emptive air strike would be critical to Israeli success.  Dayan assured him that if the government thought that the Arabs were about to attack, the air force would be given the same operational latitude that it had in 1967. [Editor’s note: One wonders if Dayan remembered this conversation in October of 1973 at the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War.]


1974: A Gallup poll on religious worship showed that fewer Protestants and Roman Catholics were attending weekly services than ten years earlier, but that attendance at Jewish worship services had increased over the same period.


1974: Seventy-nine year old Sholom Secunda the Ukrainian born American composer who wrote the melody for "Bay mir bistu sheyn" which the Andrews Sisters turned to a surprising hit song passed away today.


1976:The Jerusalem Postreported that the former Air Force chief Mordechai Hod was granted a draft agreement allowing him to set up a separate air-freight company in Israel. In New York an estimated 75,000 marchers paraded up Fifth Avenue in the 12th annual Salute to Israel. Over 400 cars a month were reported stolen in Tel Aviv every month. In 1975 20,566 cars were stolen in Israel, an increase of 23 per cent over 1974. Gary Davis, who declared himself to be the "First Citizen of the World," was turned away by the Ben-Gurion Airport police.


1978: The IDF withdraws from Lebanon after entering the country to root out PLO terrorists operating from this safe haven.


1986 (6th of Sivan, 5746): First Day of Shavuot


1986 (6th of Sivan, 5746): Musical great Benny Goodman passed away.  The clarinet was his instrument of choice.  In the Big Band Era, he was known as "The King of Swing."  He gave jazz, or at least his style of it, a certain touch of panache when he played Carnegie Hall, which in those days was the High Temple of High Culture.


1987(16thof Sivan, 5747): Eighty-seven year old author and screenwriter Vera Louise Caspary, who created “Laura” which thanks to TCM is still thrilling movie viewers in the 21st Century, passed away today in New York.

1988: While serving as Lord Mayor of Dublin, Ben Briscoe declared today “Molly Malone Day” following the unveiling of the Molly Malone statute on Grafton Street.


1988: Birthdate of Gabe Carimi, the offensive tackle for the Chicago Bears who played his college football at Wisconsin where he won the Outland Trophy in 2010.  Carimi’s nickname is “the Bear Jew.”


1990: David Levy began serving as Israel’s Foreign Minister replacing Moshe Arens


1991: The New York Review of Books featured a review of Wartime Lies, the first novel by Louis Begley.


1999: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Nanny and the Iceberg” by Ariel Dorfman and “Between Memory and Desire: The Middle East in a Troubled Age” by R. Stephen Humphreys.


1999: Bruce Fleisher won the BellSouth Senior Classic at Opryland.


2002: Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, saw landmarks of the revived Jewish quarter in the Kazimierz district


2002: Publication of “Camp David and After” – Benny Morris’ interview with Ehud Barak.

2003(13th of Sivan, 5763) St.-Sgt. Mordechai Sayada, 22, of Tirat Carmel, was shot to death in Jenin by a Palestinian sniper as his jeep patrol passed by. The Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.


2004: “The Fading World of Leopold Bloom” published today described preparations to celebrate “the 100th anniversary of the day in 1904 on which Dublin's best-known fictional Jew (and cuckold), 38-year-old Leopold Bloom, wandered the city as a modern-day Odysseus and, after numerous adventures located more in his mind than on the street, circumnavigated his way home.

2004: 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 Heart,You Bully, You Punk by Leah Hager Cohen


2004: The world takes note of what would have been Anne Frank’s 75thbirthday.


2005(6th of Sivan, 5765): Composer David Leo Diamond passed away.

2005(6th of Sivan, 5765): First Day of Shavuot.  Showing an uncanny knack for revitalization, this previously neglected festival has gained new life in the opening decade of the 21stcentury in America.  Ice cream bars and pizza (kosher of course) are now mainstays of the dairy menu and all night study sessions have increasingly become normative in many cities. 


2006: On his first ever visit to China, the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel called on the government to recognize Judaism as it has several other religions.  Official recognition would be beneficial to the Jews living in China.  For example, official recognition could lead to the Jews of Shanghai being able to use its former synagogue which is currently used as a government building


2006: The New York Times reported that an international team of archaeologists has recorded radiocarbon dates that they say show the tribes of Edom may have indeed come together in a cohesive society as early as the 12th century B.C., certainly by the 10th. The evidence was found in the ruins of a large copper-processing center and fortress at Khirbat en-Nahas, in the lowlands of what was Edom and is now part of Jordan. Dr. Levy, an archaeologist at the University of California, San Diego, said the research had yielded not only the first high-precision dates in the region, but also such telling artifacts as scarabs, ceramics, metal arrowheads, hammers, grinding stones and slag heaps. Radiocarbon analysis of charred wood, grain and fruit in several sediment layers revealed two major phases of copper processing, first in the 12th and 11th centuries, later in the 10th and 9th. The findings, Dr. Levy and Dr. Najjar added, lend credence to biblical accounts of the rivalry between Edom and the Israelites in what was then known as Judah. By extension, they said, this supported the tradition that Judah itself had by the time of David and Solomon, in the early 10th century, emerged as a kingdom with ambition and the means of fighting off the Edomites. In the context, Dr. Levy and Dr. Najjar wrote, "the biblical references to the Edomites, especially their conflicts with David and subsequent Judahite kings, garner a new plausibility."


2006: The Etty Hillesum Research Centre (EHOC)] which studies and promotes the research of Hillesum's World War II letters and diaries was officially opened as part of Ghent University with a celebration at Sint-Pietersplein 5. 2006: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Mohr by Frederick Reuss and The Good Fight:Why Liberals — and Only Liberals — Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Againby Peter Beinart


2006: The Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority in Israel, an organization dedicated to preserving the memory of Holocaust victims, honored the Reverend Waitstill Sharp, and his wife, Martha Sharp, posthumously as ``Righteous Among the Nations'' for risking their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust;


2007: The History Channel International presents two showings of “Great Spy Stories: Mossad.”


2007: Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak defeated Labor MK Ami Ayalon in the Labor Party primary.


2007: Vice Premier Shimon Peres is elected President of Israel by the Knesset.


2007: “The 350th anniversary of the readmission of Jews to the British Isles was commemorated by a service at Bevis Marks Synagogue in the presence of Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, the Lord Mayor, and Prime Minister Tony Blair. The synagogue is the only one in Europe which has had continuous services for over 300 years.”


2008(10th of Sivan, 5768): Eighty-four year old Albert Ullman passed away in Savannah, GA

2008: The New York Timesfeatured a review of Travel Pictures by Heinrich Heine and translated by Peter Wortsman.


2008:In a landmark ruling today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that Agudas Chasidei Chabad of United States (Chabad) may pursue its claims in a U.S. federal court against the Russian Federation, the Russian Ministry of Culture and Mass Communication, the Russian State Library, and the Russian State Military Archive to recover a collection of sacred religious books and archives. The D.C. Circuit held that a U.S. federal court has jurisdiction over Chabad's claims to recover an archive of sacred books and manuscripts which were stolen by the Nazis during World War II and then taken by the Soviet Red Army to Moscow in 1945 in violation of international law. In addition, the D.C. Circuit cleared the way for Chabad to pursue its claims against the Russian Federation to recover a library of sacred, irreplaceable religious books which were seized by the Soviets during the Bolshevik Revolution and then retaken by the newly formed Russian Federation in 1992 after the collapse of the Soviet Union.


2008: The Third International Festival of New Jewish Liturgical Music began today in Milwaukee in partnership with The Wisconsin Society For Jewish Learning, Inc.


2009: At Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids Iowa, Tessa Cohen, daughter of Brian and Terri Cohen, is called to the Torah as Bat Mitzvah


2009: Unknown assailants fired a Kassam rocket from Gaza tonight.


2010:“Sondheim on Sondheim” is scheduled to have its final performance at Studio 54 in Manhattan.


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


2010(1st if Tammuz, 5770: Eighty-five year old Ernest Martin Fleishman, a refugee from Hitler’s German who served as executive director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for 30 years passed away today.


2010: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Witz by Joshua Cohen and The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris by Peter Beinart.


2010: The 30th Greater Chicago Jewish Festival is scheduled to take place at St. Paul Woods in Morton Grove, Il.


2011: The funeral of Al Schwimmer, who smuggled planes to Israel during the War for Independence and was the founder of Israel’s Aircraft Industry, is scheduled to be held today.


2011: The Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning in New York City is scheduled to host its annual Exhibition and Reception where it will present the works of The Artists Beit Hamidrash and The Writer’s Beit Hamidrash.


2011:Sheri Blumberg is scheduled to facilitate a discussion of “Hillel: If Not Now, When?” by Joseph Telushkin at the Jewish Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.


2011: Israel Police arrested three Yitzhar settlers today, charging them with incitement to racism and violating the Shin Bet Security Service laws for a website that calls for "price tag" attacks on Palestinians.

2011: Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi offered to take personal steps to try to restart stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, telling Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Rome today that he would be willing to host negotiations in Sicily.


2011:Lisa Pulver, the co-founder and director of the Muru Marri Indigenous Health Unit at the University of New South Wales, was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the annual Queen’s birthday honors list announced today.  Pulver is president of the Newtown Synagogue, in Sydney’s inner west. (As reported by JTA)


2011: Israel Police arrested three Yitzhar settlers today, charging them with incitement to racism and violating the Shin Bet Security Service laws for a website that calls for "price tag" attacks on Palestinians.


2012: Cellist Elad Kabilio and pianist Reanana Gutman are scheduled to perform as part of MusicTalks which aims to break down the barriers between musicians and the chamber music audiences.


2012: TheJewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington’s 2012 Annual Gala is scheduled to take place this evening at Beth Sholom Congregation and Talmud Torah in Potomac, MD.


2012: President Shimon Peres received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his singular achievements leading Israel and working for peace tonight.


2013: In San Diego, the annual used book sale to benefit the Samuel & Rebecca Astor Judaica Library is scheduled to continue today.


2013: The week-long Lights Festival in the Old City is scheduled to come to an end in Jerusalem.


2013: The exhibition connected with the first Formula One Race to be run in Jerusalem is scheduled to begin today at 4 pm.


2013: In the 18th inning, Oakland A’s rookie Nate Freiman hit the game winning single against the start relief pitcher of the New York Yankees.


2013: Third baseman Kevin Youkilis played his last major league baseball game as a member of the New York Yankees.


2013: Alan Gross, who is currently imprisoned by the government of Cuba is one of the honorees at gala scheduled to be hosted this evening by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington.


2013:Russian President Vladimir Putin said today that a years-long spat with the United States over thousands of Jewish religious writings should end now that some are on display in Moscow's new Jewish museum. Russia has resisted calls to return the so-called Schneerson collection to the New York-based Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch group, descendants of the last private owner of the writings, and Putin said they were part of Russia's cultural heritage.


2014: In Springfield, VA, Adat Reyim is scheduled to host a special Kabbalat Shabbat service “geared toward families with young children.
2014: “Policeman” the first feature film from writer-director Nadav Lapid is scheduled to be shown at Lincoln Center.


2014: “About 20 masked Palestinians hurled stones at police forces at the Mughrabi Bridge at the end of Friday prayers on the Temple Mount.”


2014: “A senior Islamic Jihad official called today on Palestinians to kidnap Israeli citizens, arguing that Israel had proven in the past that it was willing to negotiate the release of Palestinian security prisoners in exchange for the lives of its civilians.” (As reported by Adiv Sterman and Mitch Ginsburg)
2014: “Three yeshiva students in their teens are believed to have been kidnapped in the West Bank, Israeli officials announced this afternoon.” U.S. Ambassador Daniel Shapiro was informed today that one of the three victims is an American whose name has not been disclosed
2014: “Wonders” and “Lia” are scheduled to be shown at the Israel Film Center Festival hosted by the JCC of Manhattan.
2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host a concert featuring soloists from the Israeli Philharmonic.

2015: Agudas Achim Congregation which has moved from Iowa City to suburban Coralville is scheduled to host a gala honoring Rabbi Jeff Portman who is retiring after 44 years of service.



 


 

This Day, June 14, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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JUNE 14


1287:  Kublai Khan defeated the force of Nayan and other traditionalist Borjigin princes in East Mongolia and Manchuria.  It is quite possible that there were Jewish soldiers serving under the great Mongol warrior who became Emperor of China.  According to Marco Polo, Kubla Kahn celebrated the festivals of the Jews as well as those of the Muslims and Christians, indicating that a Jewish community existed that could make itself felt at the highest level of the Empire.


1514: Azemmour, a city in Morocco, offered privileges to Jews fleeing from Portugal.


1656: Directors of the Dutch West India Company sent a strong letter to Peter Stuyvesant in New Amsterdam ordering him to give "more respect" to the "Jews or Portuguese people" in his city. A principle shareholder in the company, a Jew named Joseph d'Acosta had assisted in obtaining this statement.


1751 Pope Benedict XIV issued an encyclical “”On Jews and Christians Living in the Same Place” in which he bemoans the growing presence of Jews in Poland. (The Pope would seem to be a little late in dealing with this.  Jews had been living in Poland for centuries, having been encouraged to settle their by the monarchs who saw them as financial and commercial asset.  By the middle of the 18th centuries, the position of the Jews had deteriorated and in less than fifty years, Poland would disappear as an independent Kingdom.

1796:  French forces attacked Frankfurt.  An artillery barrage aimed at the Austrian arsenal next to the ghetto struck the Judengasse instead.  The subsequent fired burned so much of the ghetto that 2,000 of its inhabitants were left homeless.  This forced the city’s senate to suspend the decree forbidding Jews from living elsewhere in the city.  The fire effectively marked the end of the Jewish Ghetto in Frankfurt.


1798(30thof Sivan, 5558): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1799(11thof Sivan, 5569): The avoidance of massacre when the French forces withdrew gave rise to the annual observance of Purim Ubrino


1804(5thof Tammuz, 5564): Forty-nine year old Isaac Abraham Euchel, the Copenhagen born Hebrew author and founder of the “Haskalah Movement” passed away in Berlin.


1821(14thof Sivan, 5581): Seventy-two year old Chaim Volozhin (Chaim ben Yitzchok of Volozhin), author of Nefesh Ha-Chaim passed away.  Born in 1749, he studied with the Vilna Gaon before establishing the Volozhin Yeshiva in 1803 in which he applied the methods of his famous master.  The Yesshiva outlived its creator, remaining open for 90 years. 


1841: Colonel Charles Henry Churchill wrote to Sir Moses Montefiore expressing his support for the creation of Jewish state in Palestine and identifying the first steps that must be taken.  First, the Jews must “take up the matter universally and unanimously. Secondly, the European Powers” must aid them in their endeavor by taking Syria and Palestine “under their protection” and governing them “according to the spirit of European administration.” Churchill was a British soldier and diplomat who was among the first people, if not the first person, to propose a practical political plan for the creation of a Jewish state in what is now the state of Israel.


1842(6thof Tammuz. 5602): Dr. Joel Hart passed away today.  Born in Philadelphia in 1874 he was trained in London where he married his wife Louisa Levien. He served as U.S. Counsel of Leith, Scotland from 1817 until 1832.  He was a charter member of the Medical Society of the County of New York.


1848: In Charleston, SC, Jacob J. Moses of Columbus, GA and Sara Ottolengui were wed today.


1856: Rosa and Jacob Seligman gave birth to Washington Seligman


1858: Birthdate of the Marquis de Morès, an anti-Semitic French nobleman who attacked Jews in France and Algeria


1861: In Eufaula, Alabama, Frank Rothschild and Amanda Blun gave birth to Simon F. Rothschild, the husband of Lillian Abraham who served as member of the Board of Directors for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum and the Brooklyn society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.


1868: Birthdate of Karl Landsteiner, the Austrian born American physician who received the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his work on differentiating the blood groups in 1930.


1874: In Berdychiv, Pauline and Fiebish “Feivel” Jolles gave birth to Estella (Estera) Jolles.


1874: “The Mystery of Metz: An Old Cause Célèbre” an article published today described the blood libel which took place at that ancient German city in 1669.  According to the author, who described the even in great detail, this was an example of another groundless attack that Jews had to suffer during the Middle Ages.


1880: Mortiz Hartman, an official of the Simon Benevolent Association went to the morgue in New York and asked for the body of a young Jewess named Kate Ungerleider who had died of whooping cough. Hartman and Louis Davis took the body of the child that had been given to them and brought it to the Bay Ridge Cemetery where they turned it over to the wife of the cemetery caretaker so that she could wash it and prepare it for burial according to Jewish law.  The woman took the body into her house and immediately came back out telling the men that the body was that of a Christian boy.  They interred the remains in a temporary grave and returned to the morgue in search of Kate’s body.  When no action was taken, Hartman went to the Commissioner of Charities and Corrections who instituted a successful search for the body.  This was the third known instances of such errors in the last six weeks.  The officials returned to the Bay Ridge Cemetery and interred it there in accordance with Jewish law.


1880(5th of Tammuz, 5640) A 32 year old tailor named Maurice Moses Heineltrop took his own life today after Seligman & May refused to pay him for a batch of waistcoats he had made for them.  Heineltrop’s sense of desperation stemmed from the fact that he employed 16 men and he would not be able to pay them for their work. 


1880: It was reported today that Professor Grazidadio Ascoli, the chairman of comparative philology at the Accademia Scientifico-Litteraria of Milan is scheduled “to publish his essay on the Hebrew inscriptions at Venosa, in Calabria.  These seem to be the earliest Hebrew inscriptions found in Europe…” [This may be reference to the inscriptions in Hebrew, Greek and Latin found in Jewish catacombs that date from the 4th and 5th centuries of the Common Era.


1881: “A grand festival” is scheduled to be held at the Trocadero today “to assist the unhappy Jews are just now have so rough a time of it in Southern Russia.”


1881: Based on a Reuter’s dispatch from St. Petersburg, it was reported today that peasants living in a village in the district of Kiev have paid 800 rubles to the Jews as compensation “for the sufferings they have undergone.


1882: In New Orleans, marriage of Miss Jessie Green and Isaac Feitel.  Born an Episcopalian, she converted before her marriage.  The couple had previously been married in a civil ceremony.  Today’s wedding was performed by a local rabbi.


1884: It was reported today that a half shekel coin from the time of Simon Maccabeus was sold for $10.25 at an auction conducted this week to dispose of rare coins held by Thomas Warner, a member of the American Numismatic Society.  The price compares favorably when you consider that the rarest coin in the collection sold for 25 dollars.  The half shekel had a chalice of manna with a Hebrew inscription on one side and a render of a triple lily or Aaron’s Rod on the other side.


1885(1st of Tammuz, 5645): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1885: In a demonstration of the impact of Jewish culture on Western civilization Dr. A.P. Peabody chose the words from Nehemiah “Then I consulted with myself” as the text for the Baccalaureate sermon at Harvard.  “He could not, he said think of any more appropriate basis for his remarks than these words of the foremost figure in Hebrew history from the time of Moses to the time of Christ.”  [Yes, at Harvard, Jesus was apparently considered to be Jewish]


1888: James H. Hoffman and H.M. Leipziger addressed the more than four hundred attendees at the fourth annual exhibition sponsored by the Hebrew Technical Institute located on Stuyvesant Street.  The exhibition gave the supporters of the school a chance to examine the projects and accomplishments of the 78 youngsters attending the school.


1888(5thof Tammuz, 5648): Russian teacher and poet Wolf Ha-Kohen Kaplan, whose most famous work was "Ereẓ ha-Pela'ot" passed away today in Riga.


1891: “Russia’s War On Jews” published today begins with an eyewitness account of the Czar’s plans for his Jewish subjects.  “Jews in bands of from 1,000 to 2,000 are being escorted to different points on the German frontier and put across the line into the latter country.  There can be no question as to the intention of the Russian Government to expel all the Jews from its domain.”


1891: “Helping Sick Children” published today includes a summary of the annual report issued by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children.  Among other accomplishments, the society sponsored ten free excursions last year for 18,124 sick children and their mothers and is about to begin using the new facility at Rockaway that cost $20,225.


1891: “Browning’s Story Told” published today provides a detail review of Life and Letters of Robert Browning by Mrs. Sutherland Orr. “Mrs. Orr begins this memoir of Robert Browning with a refutation of a story current in his lifetime and revived after his death, that Jewish blood coursed in his veins, active support of which was obtained from his known interest in the Hebrew language and literature and his friendship for many members of the London Jewish Community.”


1893: “Caught In A Death Trap” published today provided details of the fatal fire at building on Montgomery Street that was the home to numerous tailoring operations.


1893: While talking to reporters at the Victoria Hotel in New York City, Pierre Botkine, Secretary of the Russian Legation said that “The Russian laws enacted against the Jews which resulted in driving many of them out of the country are necessary to protect the Russians.  He went on to say that these laws were not a matter of religion but were a matter of economics.  “Jews are so much more clever than Russians…that they would capture everything if granted liberty.”


1894: The annual commencement exercises of the Hebrew Technical Institute at Arlington Hall. Abraham Steinberg who worked in the second floor shop of Isidor Shlivek was one of the few who was able to escape down the stairway although he almost suffocated before reaching the street. Benjamin Signel, a Janitor at the Hebrew Free School said he saw two men standing at the third floor window who were afraid to jump. They tried the fire escape instead but one of the men still fell to his death.  (The Triangle Shirt Fire made headlines, but fires like this were all too common in the garment district for several decades.  It took the labor unions to create safe working conditions.  The description of this fire reminds one of those that take place in the 21st century in “third world garment factories” )


1894: The Jewish Theological Seminary hosted its commencement exercises the Music Hall in New York City.


1894: Leopold Minzesheimer continued to serve as the Superintendent of the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.


1894: Herman Baar continues to serve as the Superintendent of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.  The officers are Emanuel Lehman, President and Henry Rice, Vice President.  The trustees are Morris Tuska, Nathan Necarsulmer, Julian Nathan, Myer Stern, H.S. Allen, Theodore Seligman and S. J. Bach.


1894: It was reported that the daughter-in-law of Moses Levy, had obtained a judgment of $12,000 after suing him “for alienating the affections of her husband.


1896: Based on information that first appeared in the London Chronicle it was reported today that fortune of the late Baron Hirsch will eventually be inherited by an unnamed “little Roman Catholic girl” who has been recognized of the heir of Lucien de Hirsch, the Baron’s son who predeceased his father.


1896: Louis Michael filed a response in the Chancery Court at Paterson, NJ in which the Jewish husband is being sued for divorce by his Christian wife.


1896: In St. Louis, during a dispute at the Republican National Convention, Edward Lauterbach the Chairman of the Republican New York County Committee was taunted because of his “Hebrew descent.”


1897(14thof Sivan, 5657):When the British steamship Scot arrived at the Island of Madeira off the west coast of Morocco, it was announced that Barney Barnato, the South African “diamond king” had committed suicide by jumping overboard. His body would be recovered and buried at Willesden Jewish Cemetery, London amidst protestation that he had not taken his own life.


1897: A fire broke out at the immigrant processing center on Ellis Island which had been in use since January 1, 1892.


1897: “Hebrew Free Schools Confirmation” published today described the annual confirmation exercises at which Albert F. Hochstadter, President of the Hebrew Free School Association awarded the Freida Schiff Prize, The Linette Friedlander Prize, The Myer S. Isaacs Prize and the Clarence Korn Memorial each of which carried a fifty dollar prize.


1898: The government has dispatched troops to Lemberg in response to anti-Semitic riots.


1899: “Mr. Dunlop Before the Mayor” published today described a meeting between New York Mayor Van Wyck and Wilson W. Dunlop who is a missionary aggressively trying to convert Jews on the Lower East Side to Christianity. When Dunlop complained that he had been attacked while preaching in the street the Mayor said “You have been using the streets for a crusade against the Jewish religion and you musn’t do it anymore.  This is a free country and you can make a fight against any religion you choose but you can’t do it in the streets.  If you want to conduct a crusade against the Jews go and hire a hall.”


1900: Hawaii was organized as a territory of the United States. There were approximately four hundred Jews living in Honolulu at this time.   A German Jew named Paul Neumann had served as an advisor to the last King of Hawaii.  In 1899, the first Jew born in Hawaii was married in Honolulu.  The first synagogue would be established in 1901.


1901(27th of Sivan, 5661): Frederick Knefler passed away. A native of Hungary, Knefler settled in Indiana where he worked as a carpenter before becoming a lawyer.  When the Civil War broke out, Knefler enlisted in the 11th Indiana Infantry under the command of his friend Lew Wallace. He served with the Union Army in the west fighting in a series of battles including Stones River, Chickamauga, and Missionary Ridge.  He then played a leading role in Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign where he commanded a brigade.  His finest moment may have come at the Battle of Franklin where is bravery earned him the rank of Brevet Brigadier General making him one of the highest ranking Jewish officers to serve during the war. After the war, he returned to Indianapolis where he practiced law, worked for the government and devoted his spare time to veterans’ affairs.


1903: Macedonians attacked the Jewish quarter of Sophia, Bulgaria.


1904(1stof Tammuz, 5664): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1904: Birthdate of Margaret Bourke-White, whose father was from an Orthodox Jewish family and whose mother was Irish.  For those who grew up in a world of hand-held video cams, satellite communications and cable network news, it is hard to appreciate the important role played photographers and photo-journalists like Bourke-White.  Her photos filled the pages of such publications as Life Magazine, which brought the world of natural disasters, war and high fashion to Middle America


1905: Sailors aboard the Russian Warship Potemkin mutiny.  These events will provide the material for Battleship Potyomkin, a 1925 silent film classic directed by Sergei Eisenstein


1906: Start of three days of anti-Jewish violence known as the Bialystok Pogrom. The violence began when “two Christian processions took place; a Catholic one through the market square celebrating Corpus Christi and an Orthodox one through Białystok’s New Town celebrating the founding of a cathedral. The Orthodox procession was followed by a unit of soldiers. A bomb was thrown at the Catholic procession and shots were fired at the Orthodox procession. A watchman of a local school, Stanislaw Milyusski, and three women Anna Demidyuk, Aleksandra Minkovskaya and Maria Kommisaryuk, were wounded. These incidents constituted signals for the beginning of the pogrom. Witnesses reported that simultaneously with the shots someone shouted “Beat the Jews!” Once the shots were fired, the violence began immediately. Mobs of thugs, including members of the Black Hundreds, began looting Jewish owned stores and apartments on Nova-Linsk Street. Policemen and soldiers who had earlier followed the Orthodox procession either allowed the violence to happen or participated in it themselves. The first day of the pogrom was chaotic. While units of the Czarist army, brought to Białystok by Russian authorities, exchanged fire with Jewish paramilitary groups, thugs armed with knives and crowbars dispersed throughout the main areas of the city to continue the pogrom.[10] Some Jewish sections of the city were protected by self-defense units, usually organized by the labor parties, which moved against the thugs and looters. They were in turn fired upon by Czarist dragoons. Thanks to the Jewish self-defense units several working class sections of the city were spared the violence and thousands of lives were saved.” 


1907: Jacob Weinberger married Blanche Solomon.  Blanche was the daughter of I.E. and Anna Solomon one of the earliest and most successful Jewish families to settle in the Arizona Territory


1909: The Order of Brith Abraham held its Golden Jubilee dinner at the New Star Casino in New York.  The dinner was attended by 2,000 guests including several notables the most important of which was the District Attorney Jerome who was the featured speaker for the evening.


1909: Rabbi Judah Magnes addressed the Zionist convention being held at the Terrace Garden. Pointing to the changes that had come about in the Ottoman Empire due to the recent Turkish revolution Magnes urged the Jews to “work for an autonomous state under Turkish suzerainty rather than an independent government.”


1911: In Glasgow, Emanuel “Manny” Shinwell “played a prominent role in the six-week strike” by the National Sailors’ and Firemen’s Union which was part of nationwide strike.


1912: Educator and advocate for social change, Julia Richman arrives in France following an ocean crossing on the Victoria Louise and is taken to the American hospital where she was immediately operated on for appendicitis.


1915: Attorney Frank representing Leo Frank and Solicitor Dorsey representing the state of Georgia are expected to make their final arguments when Governor Slaton resumes “the Frank hearing at 9 o’clock this morning.”


1915: Due to the fact that he had to leave Atlanta at eight o’clock tonight so he could deliver the commencement address at the University of Georgia in Athens so at six o’clock this evening Governor Slaton adjourned the Leo Frank clemency hearing promising to resume the day after tomorrow. 


1915: “When a series of letters exchanged by Senor Juan Riano, the Spanish Ambassador to the United States” on the one hand and “Louis Friedman of New York and Oscar S. Straus” on the other “were made available for publication” today it became known that “after being closed for hundreds of years the doors of Spain have been thrown open to the Jews’ and that it is expected that “in a short time, thousands of Jews now living in the Balkans and the war-stricken area will respond to the official welcome and return to Madrid.”


1916: Birthdate of Yale football player Albert “Al” Hessberg II the first Jewish member of the Skull and Bones and a long-time practicing attorney in Albany.

1916: Samuel Utermeyer attended the Democratic National Convention which opened today as a delegate from New York.


1918: A list of the bequests made by the late Anna Shane published today includes $100 to the Jewish Sheltering Home in Philadelphia and Congregation Rodeph Shalom of Atlantic City;  $50 each to the Central Talmud Torah of Philadelphia, the Hebrew Orphans’ Home of Philadelphia and the Jewish Ladies’ Relief Society of Camden, NJ; and $25 each the Jewish Consumptives’ Institute of Philadelphia and the Talmud Torah of Atlantic City, NJ.


1918: The list of those representing the Camden (NJ) Hebrew Republican Club at the State League of Republican Clubs’ Convention published today included Israel Weitzman, Human Bloom, and Joseph Varbalaw who will follow the lead of the President, Benjamin Natal.


1919: Birthdate of Gene Barry.  Born Eugene Klass in Brooklyn, New York, Barry went on to a long, commercially successful career in film and television.  He often played suave, sophisticated types whose voices never betrayed even a bit of Brooklyn.  Barry played a starring role in the 1950’s version of War of the Worlds.


1920: Birthdate of Dr. Arnall Patzin an ophthalmologist whose research upset medical convention but ended up saving countless babies from blindness. He was born in rural Elberton, Ga., the youngest of seven children. His father, an immigrant from Lithuania, was a peddler who insisted on maintaining Jewish customs in Elberton, where his was the only Jewish family. He passed away in 2010 at the age of 89.


1921:  During a speech in the House of Commons, Winston Churchill, who had just returned from a visit to the Middle East, praises the accomplishments of the Zionist settlers and describes how the Arabs have benefited from their efforts.  He denounced as “disgraceful” any action of the British government that would such progress to “fanatical attacks” by outsiders.


1921:  During a debate on Palestine, Lord Winterton “warned Churchill that once you begin to buy land for the purpose of settling Jewish cultivators you will find yourself up against the hereditary antipathy which exists all over world to the Jewish race.” It would seem that from the earliest days, there was a direct connection between being anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic.


1923: Louis I. Newman, who was born in 1893 and who wrote “The Voice of God” married Lucile Helene Uhry today with he had three children Jeremy Uhry Newman, Jonathan Uhry Newman, and Daniel Uhry Newman.

1923: In Berlin, German theatre critic Alfred Kerr and his wife Julia gave birth to Anne Judith Kerr who arrived in London with her family in 1935 where she became an author and illustrator.


1925: Birthdate of Serge Moscovici a Romanian born Jew who survived the Holocaust escaped from his native country following the Communist takeover and settled in France where, among other things he founded the “European Laboratory of Social Psychology.”


1927: Flag Day celebrated today commemorates the 150th anniversary of the adoption of the design for the American flag by Congress.  On the previous Shabbat, in response to a resolution adopted by the Synagogue Council of America, rabbis devoted their sermons to this topic.


1929: Birthdate of Seymour Kaufman who gained fame as Cy Coleman the Tony Award winning composer and pianist.


1929(6th of Sivan, 5689): Shavuot


1931: Twenty-six year old Louis J. Lefkowitz, the future Attorney General for the State of New York married Helen Schwimmer with whom he had two children – Stephen Lefkowitz and a daughter, Joan Lefkowitz Feinbloom.


1931: Deadline for submitting results of delegate election to the Executive of the Jewish Agency which is making plans for the Seventeenth Zionist Congress.


1934(1st of Tammuz, 5694): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz1934: A Nuremberg court sentenced a non-Jewish wife of a Jew to four months in prison as a ‘race-defiling female.'1934: Hitler met with Mussolini for the first time.  Hitler was the junior partner at this first meeting.  As the thirties progressed the roles would be reversed and Mussolini would shift his policies to satisfy the Nazi dictator.


1934: With a Star of David on his boxing shorts, Max Baer KO'd Primo Carnera in 11rounds to win the World Heavyweight Championship. However, Baer’s Jewish persona was considered to be more of a box office thing than a religious reality. Born in 1909 in Nebraska, his mother was Scotch-Irish and his father was described as "only nominally Jewish." Baer himself married a Catholic and did not take part in Jewish activities.


1935: In Paris, Jacques Schiffrin “a Russian Jew who had emigrated to France where he worked as publisher and his wife gave birth author/editor Andre Schiffrin the Yale University graduate whose life story can be found in his 2007 autobiography A Political Education: Coming of Age in Paris and New York.


1936: Birthdate of Avraham Shochat, the Tel Aviv native, who helped found the city Arad and has served as an MK and held several cabinet posts.


1936: The Palestine Post reported that once more the Jezreel Valley settlements of Kfar Yehezkel and Tel Yosef were singled out for concentrated Arab attacks. The settlement of Sejera in Lower Galilee suffered its stormiest night ‚ grain and cornfields were set on fire and over 250 old olive trees were cut down. After all Arab train passengers left a train at Kalkilya, a bomb thrown inside one of the coaches injured 18 Jews near Tulkarm.


1936: In attacks in and around Jerusalem today Arabs wounded five Jewish truck and bus drivers as well as an additional number of and workers, two of whom are in a serious condition. Only recently, in the same vicinity, Jewish travelers were killed in similar attacks.


1937: Chaim Weizmann wrote to Winston Churchill thanking him for the support he had given to Zionist cause by trying to convince Colonial Secretary William Ormsby-Gore that the Southern part of Palestine should not be incorporated into any future Arab state that would be set up in Palestine.


1938: All Jewish businesses that have not already been registered and marked must now comply with the Reich requirement


1940: Auschwitz was opened. Approximately 2.5 million people were killed and another 500,000 died of starvation and disease there. The first inmates, included teachers, priests, and other non-Jewish Poles,


1940: Artist Jan Komskiwas in the first group of about 750 prisoners assigned to Auschwitz, in southern Poland, on the day it opened. His number, 564, was tattooed on his forearm.


1940: German Forces entered Paris. At the time France housed 300,000 Jews. Ernst Weiss, noted novelist and German-Jewish refugee who was living in Paris commits suicide.


1940: In Paris, Gestapo officers went to the flat of Walter Benjamin with the intent of arresting the expatriate German intellectual.  They failed because Benjamin and his sister had already left Paris for Lurdes.


1941: Etty Hillesum, a student at Amsterdam University described the treatment of Dutch Jews by the Nazis.  “More arrests, more terror, concentration camps, the arbitrary dragging of fathers, sisters, brothers.  Everything seems so menacing and ominous, and always that feel of total impotence.”


1941: As the Final Solution came into full fury, 400 Jews were deported from Estonia.


1941: In the Netherlands, based on a decree by the German occupiers, today was the last day on which doctorate degrees could be issued to Jews.  Physicist Albert Pais, who had completed his doctoral work on June 9, was the last Jew to earn a doctorate in the Netherlands until World War II came to an end.


1942:  Anne Frank begins to keep a diary


1942: Two thousand Jews break out of Dzisna, Byelorussia


1942: Fifty eight year old Austrian author Else Feldman “was captured by the Gestapo” today “and sent to  Sobibór where she was murdered.


1944: Two thousand Jews are deported from Corfu, Greece, to Auschwitz.


1944(23rd of Sivan, 5704):  Leon Sakkis was killed by German machine-gun fire while aiding a wounded comrade in Thessaly, Greece. Sakkis was part of a group of Jewish resistance fighters, who along with other partisans were working to keep the Germans from enjoying the “fruits” of the harvest taking place in Greece.


1945: In London, Randolph Churchill, Winston Churchill’s son, tells Chaim Weizman that he ‘had tried to save 115 Jews in Yugoslavia; he has save 112, but 3 had perished.’ In 1944 Randolph Churchill had parachuted behind German lines to worth Marshall Tito and his Yugoslav partisans in the fight against the Nazis.  As part of that mission, young Randolph worked to have Palestinian Jews parachuted into Europe to help the partisans and to try and rescue the Jews who had not gone to the Death Camps. 


1946: Bernard Baruch - widely seen by many scientists and some members of Truman's administration as unqualified for the task - presented his Baruch Plan, a modified version of the Acheson-Lilienthal plan, to the UNAEC, which proposed international control of then-new atomic energy. The Soviet Union rejected Baruch's proposal as unfair given the fact that the U.S. already had nuclear weapons, instead proposing that the U.S. eliminate its nuclear weapons before a system of controls and inspections was implemented. A stalemate ensued.


1948(7th of Sivan, 5708): Second Day of Shavuot


1950: An Israeli army spokesman denied Jordanian charges that Arabs who had infiltrated Israel “had been mistreated while being returned across the frontier” to Jordan.  What the Jordanians have not explained is why the Hashemites allow their Kingdom to be used as base for those who want to enter Israel with the intention to attack the Jewish population.


1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that Mapai won eight of 11 seats in Migdal Gad's first municipal council elections. Hapoel Hamizrahi won two and Mapam one. While there were 1,973 eligible voters, only 1,543 actually voted. Nine additional clothing points and 11 shoe points were released for the month of July. The Kaiser-Frazer plant in Haifa which was hailed as a model of American production efficiency assembled the first cars for sale in Israel.


1951: In Albuquerque, NM, premiere of “Ace in the Hole” directed, produced and written by Billy Wilder.


1952: Birthdate of Leon Wieseltier, editor of The New Republic and the author of “Kaddish” one of the finest books of its kind which Theodore Bikel did a marvelous job of recording.


1952: The keel is laid for the nuclear submarine USS Nautilus.  This was a major milestone in the creation of America’s ace-in-the-hole in the Cold War – the fleet of nuclear attack submarines against which the Soviets never did develop an effective defense. Admiral Hyman Rickover, who suffered his share of anti-Semitism in the Navy, was the father of the nuclear Navy and the submarine fleet.


1953(1st of Tammuz, 5713): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1953: Herbert Aptheker was listed as a Sponsor of The National Committee to Secure Justice for the Rosenbergs and Morton Sobell


1953: One hundred and eight bachelor’s degrees were awarded during the commencement ceremony at Brandeis University.  It was the newly created school’s second commencement ceremony.  Rabbi Louis Ginzberg, Professor of Talmud and Rabbinics at JTS and George Alpert, Chairman of the Brandeis Board of Trustees received honorary degrees during the ceremony.


1954:  U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a bill into law that places the words “under God" to the United States’ Pledge of Allegiance.  Despite its apparent invocation of the divinity, this insertion did not evoke a storm of protest in the name of separation of church and state.  Everybody knew that this was a political statement, not a religious one.  At the height of the Cold War, it was a line in the stand between the West and the forces of “mindless, godless Communism.


1954(13th of Sivan, 5714): In Shenandoah, VA, “education advocate, philanthropist, art collector, and college trustee Margaret Seligman Lewisohn passed away today.


1956: U.S. released date for the “Catered Affair” directed by Richard Brooks, produced by Sam Zimbalist’ based on Paddy Chayefsky television play with music by Andre Previn.


1958: Birthdate of Wafa Sultan a Syrian born American author and critic of Muslim society and Islam who trained as a psychiatrist in Syria. Following one of her critiques of Moslem culture in which she said "no Jew has blown himself up in a German restaurant" the American Jewish Congress invited her to visit Jerusalem.


1959: David Joel Horowitz, the founder of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, married Elissa Krauthamer in a Yonkers, NY synagogue.


1962: U.S. premiere of “That Touch of Mink” a comedy with a script co-authored by Stanley Shapiro who also produced the film along with Martin Melcher.


1967(6th of Sivan, 5727): First Day of Shavuot


1967(6th of Sivan, 5727): On the First Day of Shavuot an estimated 200,000 gathered in and around the Wall to celebrate the first major festival following the reunification of Jerusalem.  When Teddy Kollek appeared at the Wall he was hailed “as the first Mayor of Greater Jerusalem.”


1967: A contingent of Mossad agents that had fanned out across the West Bank to meet with members of the Palestinian elite immediately following the Six Day War submitted their classified report to the head of Military Intelligence. It argued that an independent Palestinian state should be established as quickly as possible in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, "under the auspices" of the Israel Defense Forces and "in agreement with the Palestinian leadership." They suggested that the borders of the Palestinian state be based on the 1949 armistice lines that had served as the border until earlier that month, with some minor adjustments. "In order to enable an honorable agreement," the document continued, Israel should "take upon itself the initiative to solve the [refugee] problem once and for all" by organizing an international effort to resettle them in the new Palestinian state.


1972: Martin Dies, former member of the House of Representatives from Texas passed away and Chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee.  A man of considerable influence in his day, Dies was a red- baiting reactionary who, among other things, was an anti-Semite.


1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that Ephraim Katzir became the first president of Israel to be entertained at the Windsor Castle by Queen Elizabeth of England. A British naval vessel arrived in Haifa to purchase provisions for the Royal Navy in the eastern Mediterranean. The British military attaché told the Post that "Haifa is a friendly port" and was therefore chosen. Such purchases have not been made in Haifa in the past.


1982: Israeli tanks cut off Muslim West Beirut, trapping leaders of the PLO,


1985: TWA Flight 847 is hijacked by Hezbollah.  Long before 9/11, Moslem fanatics were making war against the West.  Supported by Iran, Hezbollah splits its time between terrorist activities aimed at Israel, trying to control Lebanon and making war against Western civilization.


1986(7th of Sivan, 5746): Sixty-seven year old composer Alan Jay Lerner passed away. In one of the many cultural ironies that are so much a part of the American scene, Lerner composed with fellow Jew to write “Camelot,” a musical about English king that became a Broadway and cinematic classic that was loved by JFK, the first American Catholic President. (As reported by Samuel G. Freedman)

1986(7th of Sivan, 5746): Second Day of Shavuot


1987: The annual International Israel Festival which began on May 18 is scheduled to come to an end today.


1997(9th of Sivan, 5757):  Seventy-seven year old Jay Ziskin, the California psychologist and lawyer who was the father of movie producer Laura Ziskin passed away


1998: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Ghost Country” by Sara Paretsk


1999(30th of Sivan, 5769): Ninety-seven year old pediatrician and Harvard Professor Dr. Louis Diamond and father of author Jared Diamond passed away today.(As reported by Nick Ravo)

2003: At the Piccadilly Theatre, the curtain comes down on the West End production Ragtime, a musical based on the E.L.Doctorow of novel of the same name produced by Sonia Freeman, starring Maria Friedman “in the role of Mother for which she won the 2004 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical (The Freemans are sisters, the daughters of Russian born, English violinist Leonard Friedman)


2004(25th of Sivan, 5764): Max J. Rosenberg, “an American film producer, whose film career stretched across six decades” passed away in Los Angeles at the age of 89.  “He was particularly noted for his horror or supernatural films, and found much of his success while working in England. Rosenberg was born in the Bronx, New York. In 1945 he entered the film business by becoming a foreign film distributor. Although he primarily produced horror or supernatural films, his first film Rock, Rock, Rock (1956) was a musical. His partner in this film was Milton Subotsky, and the two would start the British company Amicus Productions in 1964. During his career he produced more than 50 films, on some of which he was not credited. Among the horror and supernatural films he produced were such titles as Tales from the Crypt (1972), The Land That Time Forgot (1975), and its sequel, The People That Time Forgot (1977). In 1957 he produced the first horror film in color, The Curse of Frankenstein. Rosenberg also produced a children's film, Lad, a Dog (1962), a pair of films based on the Doctor Who series, and director Richard Lester's first film, It's Trad, Dad! (1962). He was particularly proud to have produced the 1968 film of Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party, starring Robert Shaw and directed by William Friedkin. He worked well into his 80s; his final film credit was 1997's Perdita Durango aka Dance With the Devil.


2005(7th of Sivan, 5765):  Second Day of Shavuot


2006: Leaders of the largest Orthodox rabbinical organization in the U.S. have reached a compromise regarding overseas conversions with Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar.


2007(28th of Sivan, 5767): Shirlee Mages, whose father owned a thriving Roosevelt Road restaurant in the 1930s and '40s and whose husband put his name on a sporting goods chain, died today at the  age 88 “in her Gold Coast home of natural causes, said her daughter, Lili Ann Zisook. Mrs. Mages was the widow of Morrie Mages, a 1950s Chicago television staple who was often in the company of the late broadcaster Jack Brickhouse touting his sporting-goods stores through the sponsorship of a late-night movie called "Mages Playhouse." Morrie Mages and his family had a chain of 14 stores in the 1960s, but the business ran into hard times and was sold. That led Mrs. Mages to take a job managing the Pompian Shop, a ladies boutique on Michigan Avenue, her daughter said. "My mother was just a woman who did what she had to do," Zisook said. Morrie Mages subsequently rebounded with a smaller chain, anchored by a store at LaSalle and Ontario Streets. He died in 1988 at 72. Mrs. Mages, born Shirlee Gold, grew up in the Lawndale neighborhood. Her father, Meyer, owned Gold's Restaurant at 810 W. Roosevelt Rd. Gold's had a ballroom where many weddings were celebrated and future musical star Benny Goodman would sometimes play clarinet there, Zisook said. After her graduation from Marshall High School, Mrs. Mages attended Northwestern University before getting married in 1939. Always strong with numbers, she worked as a stock broker in the 1950s, her daughter said. In retirement, during which she wintered in Palm Springs, Calif., she was devoted to the mastery of canasta and mah jongg. Mrs. Mages survived bouts with breast and colon cancer and quadruple bypass surgery, her daughter said. "She was such a strong woman, not so much physically, but her mind," Zisook said. When her husband was alive, the couple organized the Morrie and Shirlee Mages Foundation, which provided sports equipment to needy youths. After his death, she led the charge to name a playground in Lincoln Park after her late husband.


2007: An exhibition entitled The Other Promised Land: Vacationing, Identity, and the Jewish-American Dream opens at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York.


2007: In a press release, Hebrew University announces that “the valuable and unique Nuremberg Mahzor of 1331 has been scanned and uploaded to the Internet site of the Jewish National and University Library of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The Nuremberg Mahzor can be viewed at:

2008: “State Renews Efforts to Bring Disputed Jewish Manuscripts From Russia published today described the efforts by the state of Israel to bring the Ginzburg Collection from Russia to a permanent home in the Jewish state.

2009: Esther M. Sternberg, a doctor and the author of The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions, discusses and signs her new book Healing Spaces: The Science of Place and Well-Beingat Politics and Prose, in Washington, D.C.


2009: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Rosenfeld’s Lives: Fame, Oblivion, and the Furies of Writing” by Steven J. Zipperstein and “The American Future: A History” by Simon Schama.


2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War by Benny Morris, Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy by Eric D. Weitz and Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen.


2009:A Kassam rocket fired by Gaza terrorists hit the Ashkelon Beach region this afternoon. No one was wounded and no damage was reported.


2010: Shabtai Rosenne was appointed to the Israeli special independent public Turkel Commission of Inquiry into the Gaza flotilla raid


2010: The long history and deep roots of Jews in the Tar Heel state are coming to life in an ambitious new multimedia project that is scheduled to begin today with an exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh. “Down Home,” which encompasses a slickly produced documentary film and handsomely illustrated coffee-table book, celebrates Jewish contributions to North Carolina social, civic and commercial life. But the project also aims to capture a nearly vanished way of life for Jews in the state’s mill and market towns, according to Leonard Rogoff, an organizer of the project and historian at the Jewish Heritage Foundation of North Carolina, which is producing “Down Home.”  “Elderly Jews who lived the rural small-town experience are an endangered species,” said Rogoff, who also authored the companion book, “Down Home: Jewish Life in North Carolina” (University of North Carolina Press, 2010). “Synagogues have shuttered in cities like Tarboro and Lumberton. Smaller communities are expiring. We need to document them.” The project “tells an important part of our state’s story,” wrote Linda A. Carlisle, Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, in an e-mail to the Forward. “Jewish culture has helped shape North Carolina in its rural areas as well as its urban centers for centuries.” North Carolina’s state legislature kicked in $350,000 toward the project’s $1.25 million budget, according to Rogoff; the rest came from foundation grants and individual donations. The investment has paid off with research that “contributes new insights into Jews in the South,” Rogoff said. “Histories typically focus on the pre-Civil War era and German-Reform Jews as normative southerners. We’ve emphasized the East European experience in the New South as well, and it’s updated to include the Sunbelt.” Rogoff’s team at JHFNC is also creating classroom material for 4th- and 8th-grade “People of North Carolina” courses in the state’s public schools with talks about expanding the lessons “across all grades and disciplines,” he said. According to Rogoff, the “Down Home” project tells stories of Jews from Joachim Gans, who arrived on Roanoke Island on Sir Walter Raleigh’s expedition in 1585, to Jacob Henry, who in 1809 delivered a speech in defense of religious freedom after his right to serve in the state legislature was challenged. And it spotlights civil-rights era heroes like Harry Golden, publisher of the esteemed The Carolina Israelite newspaper, “known nationally for his civil-rights advocacy, delivered in a Lower East Side accent,” Rogoff said. In a folksier vein, the book, film, and exhibit highlight experiences of prominent, prosperous families like the clan of Eli Evans, whose own history provides one narrative thread of the “Down Home” project. Evans’s paternal grandfather was an immigrant peddler, his mother’s father a shopowner; his businessman father, Emanuel, became a wildly popular six-term mayor of Durham in the 1950s, and his mother Sara served on Hadassah’s national board for 40 years. Now a New Yorker, Evans himself went on to write what many consider the definitive history of southern Jews, “The Provincials” (University of North Carolina Press, 1973), which has continuously been in print for nearly three decades. “The story of the Jews is the untold story of the South,” said Evans, a onetime speechwriter for President Lyndon Baines Johnson who went on to run several charitable endowments, including the Carnegie Foundation. “The region has whatever image it has from whatever violence there was. But that’s not the story of the Jews. Ours is the story of successful integration and good relationships.” The Jewish experience in North Carolina was unique in the South, Evans said, because North Carolina was unique in the South. “We didn’t have a strong Klan in our state. We had a commitment to public education, a more moderate political atmosphere, and enlightened political leaders,” he said. “I’m not saying no anti-Semitism existed. But there was a philo-Semitism that manifested itself in many ways.” The exhibit itself, which will travel across North Carolina over the next year, uses artifacts and photos to recreate a series of “environments”: A synagogue sanctuary, dry-goods store, family Sabbath table, and a study based on Harry Golden’s Charlotte home. The 81-minute “Down Home” DVD documentary, (available through the JHFNC’s website), complements the museum show with a somewhat academic mix of archival footage, insightful interviews and unfortunately costumed re-enactments. While the exhibit’s partly intended to educate North Carolinians about their own history, Rogoff said he hopes “Down Home” might reach other Jews — especially from the Northeast. “All native southern Jews have humorous stories about meeting New Yorkers who cannot believe that Jews actually live in the South,” he said. “They associate a New York accent, not a southern drawl, with being Jewish. That’s a very old cliché. New Yorkers especially can be terribly parochial, and the famous Saul Steinberg cartoon of a terra incognita beyond the Hudson aptly illustrates their provincialism.” While it spends a lot of time looking back, the “Down Home” project also suggests a Jewish southern future that looks increasingly suburban and metropolitan. “Jews are finding opportunities in the hospitals, universities, research laboratories, and financial centers that have typified the development of the state’s post-industrial economy,” said Rogoff. “North Carolina is especially inviting for two-career couples where both are professionals. Newcomers who explore the local Jewish communities generally report finding warm welcomes, contrasting the neighborliness with what they found up north. You get a heckuva lot more house for the money, and the climate is a whole lot better.” But one area where Rogoff admitted the North may have an edge is bagels. “There isn’t much aside from the ubiquitous Bruegger’s,” he said. “Cary [near Raleigh] and Chapel Hill have independent bagel makers, but a really good deli and Jewish-style bakery are opportunities waiting to happen. “


2010: Israeli superstar David Broza is scheduled to perform at (Le) Poisson Rouge in New York.


2010(2nd of Tammuz, 5770): One of the Israeli police officers, Yehushua "Shuki" Sofer, who was shot in a terror attack on a patrol car this morning in the Hebron Hills area has succumbed to his wounds


2011:Rabbi Bernice K. Weiss, author of “Converting to Judaism - Choosing to be Chosen: Personal Stories” is scheduled to lead Basic Judaism for Jews and Non-Jews Alike” a “7-part series that provides an overview of the Bible, Shabbat ritual and observances, how to observe kashrut and the Jewish laws of death and mourning” at the Historic 6thand I Synagogue in Washington, DC.


2011: The 8th Grade Graduation is scheduled to take place at the Hillel Day School of Metro Detroit.


2011: Flag Day is celebrated in the United States to mark the anniversary of the Continental Congress’ adoption an official flag.  According to Dr. Gary Zola, the Stars and Stripes probably made their first appearance in American synagogues during the period surrounding the assassination of President Lincoln.  This coincided with the Union victory that marked the end of the Civil War and a feeling of patriotism was running at full flood.  Zola thinks, although he can offer no proof, that American flags appeared on the bima at Jewish houses of worship during the First World War, another period of patriotic fervor.  Dr. Jonathan Sarna believes that the custom of displaying the flag in houses of worship – Jewish as well as Christian – dates back to the Spanish American War of 1898.  This also was a period of great patriotic fervor, marking a popular war that enabled those of the North & South to join together in common cause.  Regardless of when the flags first appeared, by the 1930’s they were a permanent ornamentation on the bimah, possibly as antidote to the simmering anti-Semitism that was part and parcel of the Great Depression.


2011: National Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau instructed Noble Energy to develop the Noa North gas reserve in the Noa license after concerns that the field spilled over into Palestinian territory.


2011: Actress Natalie Portman has given birth to a baby boy fathered by a choreographer she met while she filmed her Oscar-winning role in Black Swan, People magazine reported today.


2011:Today brought strange weather to both the northern and southern regions of Israel. Meteorologists confirmed that the ash cloud from an Eritrean volcano had indeed reached Eilat, but authorities insisted there was no health danger to civilians and also that flights at both Eilat Airport and Ben-Gurion International Airport were running on schedule.In the north of the country, residents of the Golan and Galilee regions were surprised this morning to awake to rain, an extremely rare occurrence during the summer months. The precipitation was accompanied by increased winds. The winter weather is not expected to last for long, however. Tomorrow’s forecast is dry with an increase in temperatures -- which is back to normal for June.


2011:President Shimon Peres visited the Negev Beduin village of Hura today, praising the community as a prime example of Negev development.


2011:Deputy Mayor of Economic and Housing Development and Brick City Development Corporation Chair Stefan Pryor, Manischewitz Company Co-CEOs Alain Bankier and Paul Bensabat, Chief Rabbi of Israel Yona Metzger, and BCDC CEO Lyneir Richardson, will cut the ribbon to open the new Corporate Headquarters and Plant for The Manischewitz Company, today, at 11 a.m. The facility is located at 80 Avenue K in the East Ward.


2012: “Gershwin Shows’ Tonys  Fuel Plans for a Musical” published today described plans by the trustees of George and Ira Gershwin’s estates to produce more musicals in light of the Tony won by “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess’ which won in the musical-revival category.


2012: Anouk Markovits, author of I Am Forbidden is scheduled to have a reading at McNally-Jackson on Prince Street in NYC.


2012: A Palestinian sniper in the southern Gaza Strip fired at an Israeli farmer working in a field near Kibbutz Nir Oz in the Eshkol Regional Council area today.


2012: Mahler on the Couch is scheduled to complete it New York City theatrical run


2012: The Jewish Museum of Australia is scheduled to host the media preview of its newest permanent exhibition, “Calling Australia Home.”


2012: “SERET 2012” – the first London Israeli Film & Television Festival opened in London.  Seret is the Hebrew word for “movie.”


2013: “Man of Steel,” a blockbuster film that brings Superman back to the screen is scheduled to be released to the general public today in conventional, 3D and IMAZ theatres.   Superman is creation of Jerry Siegel and Jose Shuster.  David S. Goyer wrote the screenplay and Israeli actress Auyelter Zurer plays the role of Superman’s mother.


2013: “Fill the Void,” a film that “tells the story an Orthodox Chassidic family from Tel Aviv” is scheduled to open in several new venues including the Music Box Theatre in Chicago and the Ritz at The Bourse 5 in Philadelphia.


2013: After straining his back again, New York Yankee Kevin Youkills put back on the disabled list.


2013: U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel is scheduled to meet with Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon in Washington, DC.


2013: In the United States, observance of Flag Day, a holiday pioneered by Ben Altheimer, Sr. a Jewish businessman from Arkansas who convinced President Woodrow Wilson to adopt it as a national holiday in 1916.


2013: According to a Lebanese report today, embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad plans to open a “resistance” front on the Golan Heights and thinks such a move could unify the various factions in Syria.


2013:Representatives passed a defense authorization bill that would make it U.S. policy to take “all necessary steps” to ensure Israel is able to “remove existential threats,” among them nuclear facilities in Iran.  (As reported by JTA)


2013: Donald Carr, the president of The Canadian Jewish News announced today that the board of director has confirmed that the print newspaper which has been publishing for the last 53 years will continue to publish canceling earlier plans to cancel the paper on June 20th.(JTA and JPOst)


2013: “Judge Judy” starring Judith Sheindlin won its first Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Legal/Courtroom Program on its 15th nomination


2013: A top commander of a Nazi SS-led unit accused of burning villages filled with women and children lied to American immigration officials to get into the United States and has been living in Minnesota since shortly after World War II, according to evidence uncovered by The Associated Press.


2014: “Operation Sunflower” and “Hanna’s Journey” are scheduled to be shown at the Israel Film Center Festival be held at the JCC of Manhattan.


2014:The search for three missing Israeli youths who disappeared in the West Bank two days ago and who are presumed kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists will not be over within a matter of hours, and could last many days, a senior military official told Channel 10 news today adding that it was not clear the three were still alive. (As reported by Itamar Sharon)


2014: “Israeli officials today released for publication the identities of three Israeli youths who went missing near Hebron on the night of June 12th. The three are Gil-ad Shaar (16) from the settlement of Talmon, Naftali Frenkel (16), a dual Israeli-American citizen from Nof Ayalon near Modi’in, and Eyal Yifrach (19) from Elad, near Petah Tikva. (As reported by Itamar Sharon)


2014: The ZviDance which has already given a special performance sponsored by Israel’s Office of Cultural Affairs is scheduled to perform for the last time in New York City.


2015: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers includingLéon Blum: Prime Minister, Socialist, Zionistby Pierre Birnbaum, Move: Putting America’s Infrastructure Back in the Lead by Rosabeth Moss Kanter, The Dorito Effect by Mark Schatzker and Saint Mazieby Jami Attenberg


2015: The Jewish Genealogical Society and the Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute are scheduled to present a lecture entitled “Jews, Liquor and Life in Eastern Europe” in which “Glenn Dynner, PhD., Professor of Judaic Studies and Chair of Humanities at Sarah Lawrence College, will speak about how in pre-modern Poland the Jewish-run tavern was often the center of leisure, hospitality, business and even religious festivities.”


2015: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to host the world premiere of the Sephardi adaptation of the “Merchant of Venice created by David Serero, the French-Moroccan baritone opera sing who plays the role of “Shylock.”


2015: KulturfestNYC, the first-ever international festival of Jewish performing arts, celebrating the global impact of Jewish culture presented by National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene at MJH, now celebrating its centennial season, in collaboration with UJA-Federation of New York and Capital One Bank is scheduled to begin today.


2015: Kesher Israel, “the Georgetown Synagogue is scheduled to hold its Annual Dinner at which the honorees will include “ashish chayal’ Debbie Rosenbloom and “hamish mensch” David Levin.


2015: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Mike Heeren is scheduled to perform his last Presidential duty as the chief chef at the BBQ preceding the annual congregational meeting where he will pass the baton to the incoming President, Nancy Margulis which will guarantee this small, vibrant congregation the same kind of seamless leadership that the Israelites experience when Moses passed the mantle to Joshua.  Chazak, chazak!


 


 

This Day, June 15, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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JUNE 15


1215:  King John of England puts his seal to the Magna Carta.  The Great Charter which is supposed to be one of the cornerstones of English and American rights contains the following reference to the Jews: “If anyone who borrowed from the Jews any amount, large or small, dies before the debt is repaid, it shall not carry interest as long s the heir is under age, of whomsoever he holds; and if that debt falls in our hands [i.e., the king’s hands, following the Jewish creditor’s own demise], we will take nothing except the principal sum specified in the bond.” King John and the Barons both saw the Jews as a source of revenue to be used and abused.


1226: Twelve Jews of Cologne martyred


1389: Murad I, the Ottoman Sultan whose reign began in 1362, allowed Jews fleeing from persecution in Hungary to settle in Thrace and Anatolia which were part of his empire. On the same day, the forces of Murad fought the Serbs in the Battle of Kosovo, a battle that would be a rallying point for Serbs in the Balkan battles of the 1990’s


1520: Leo X issued the papal encyclical 'Exsurge Domine,' which condemned German Reformer Martin Luther as a heretic on 41 counts and branded him an enemy of the Roman Catholic Church.  This moved heightened the tensions between Rome and those whom they saw as rebels.  This event was one of the steps in the division of Europe into Protestant and Roman Catholic states.  This conflict would lead to the Hundred Years War.  Too often, the Jews would be innocent bystanders in this Christian conflict that would turn them into victims.  Much of the treatment of the Jews in Christian Europe can only be understood if it is seen against the backdrop of this theocratic conflict.


1567: Jews of Genoa were expelled. Jews had been living in Genoa since the 6thcentury.  They had been expelled from the city in 1515, readmitted in 1516 and expelled again in 1550.  This expulsion would be short-lived since “permission to engage in moneylending and to open shops” was again granted to the Jews in 1570. (As reported by the Jewish Virtual Library)


1580: Phillip II of Spain declares William I, Prince of Orange, to be an outlaw. William led the Dutch revolt against the Spanish that started the Eighty Years War, which ended in 1648 with recognition of the independence of the United Provinces (aka The Netherlands). The Netherlands were Protestant and they provided a refuge for the Jews of Europe including those fleeing the Spanish Inquisition begun by Phillip’s predecessors and continued by his successors.


1623: Cornelis de Witt was killed by an angry mob from the monarchist, Orangist-Calvinist faction. De Witt and his brother had admired the works of Spinoza.  News of his death was quite disturbing for Spinoza since it could presage the rise of a conservative faction that would not be tolerant of unconventional thinkers like himself.


1722(30thof Sivan, 5482): Zebi ben Saul Landau, a member of the Polish Landau Family, who was the rabbi at Zmigrod passed away today in Lemberg.


1798(1stof Tammuz, 5558): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1826: Sultan Mahmud II destroyed the Janissary soldiers as part of his reforms for his empire. This was said to be a "great boon" for the Jews, who were often harassed by these soldiers.


1815: Birthdate of Rudolph Carl Hertzog, the father of Louis Rudolph Hertzog and the grandfather Rudolph Hertzog who in 1839 founded the famous Berlin department store that bore his name - Rudolph Hertzog


1833: Birthdate of Theodor Hermann Meynert, the non-Jewish psychiatrist whose students included Josef Breuer and Sigmund Frued.


1834: In what will be the first of three days of violence, “members of the local Arab population gathered to attack Tzfat’s Jewish community. Jewish property was plundered, as Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues were burnt to the ground. Jewish women were tortured and raped. Many Jews were murdered or maimed.”  Tzfat is the town in Israel famous for its connection with Jewish mystics.  It is "the home of Lecha Dodi" the hymn used to welcome the Sabbath Queen. [This was not an isolated episode. Ever since the 16th century the town which is also called Safed, became a major Jewish center it was subject to


1835: Birthdate of Adah Isaacs Menken, American actress and poet. Adah Menken’s true religious origins are controversial. Born in Louisiana in 1835 to Auguste and Marie Theodore, some historians believe that she was raised a Catholic, an assertion that Menken herself denied. In response to a journalist who called her a convert, Menken replied, "I was born in [Judaism], and have adhered to it through all of my erratic career. Through that pure and simple religion I have found greatest comfort and blessing.” In 1857, Adah and Alexander, (the first of her four husbands) moved from New Orleans to Cincinnati, then the center of Reform Judaism in America. Adah learned to read Hebrew fluently and studied classical Jewish texts. It was at this time that Adah’s other artistic and intellectual talents emerged. An aspiring writer, she contributed poems and essays on Judaism to Isaac Mayer Wise’s weekly newspaper, The Israelite. Menken saw herself as a latter-day Deborah, advocating for Jewish communities around the world.  In the 1860’s, Menken earned world fame in an equestrian melodrama, "Mazeppa." She daringly appeared on stage playing the role of a man, wearing nothing but a flesh-colored body stocking, riding a horse on a ramp that extended into the audience. Menken’s costume scandalized "respectable" critics—even as it attracted huge and enthusiastic audiences that included such notables as Walt Whitman and the great Shakespearean actor, Edwin Booth. She died of t.b. at the age of 33 while living in Paris.  To give you an idea of how famous she was, Napoleon III sent his personal physician to care for her.  Yet today, she is a less than a footnote in history. She passed away at the age of 33 in 1868.


1836: “Two days after her 17th birthday, Charlotte von Rothschild who was a member of the Naples branch of the banking family married Lionel de Rothschild her first cousin from the English branch of the family.”


1836: Arkansas is admitted as the 25th state to join the Union. There were only a handful of Jews living in the land of the Razorbacks.  Probably the first Jew to live in the state was Captain Abraham Block who moved there in the 1820’s with his family of seven and became a prominent merchant who proudly maintained his Jewish identity.  For more about the small, but vibrant Arkansas Jewish community see A Corner of the Tapestry: A History of the Jewish Experience in Arkansas, 1820s-1990s by Carolyn Gray LeMaster.


1847:In a discussing the matter of Jewish emancipation Otto Von Bismarck said today that Prussia was indeed a Christian state and that Jews could not expect equality within it. They could only hold a subordinate position. That might not be perfectly Christian, but admitting the Jews into Prussia would not make Prussia itself more Christian. What the Jews most wanted, he said was to become military and civilian officers of the state and that was quite out of the question.


1850: Today, during the reign of Napoleon III, changes were made in the laws that had been adopted by Napoleon I concerning the method of choosing delegates the Jewish consistories in France.


1864: A portion of the lands surrounding the Custis-Lee Mansion across the Potomac River from Washington become Arlington National Cemetery.  Over 2,000 Jewish veterans are buried at Arlington National Cemetery.  Over six thousand Jews fought for the Union and about half that number fought on the side of the Confederacy.  Five Union Civil War Veterans are buried in Section Thirteen.  Two Rabbis who served as chaplains buried at Arlington are Captain Joshua Goldberg and Admiral Betram W. Korn.  Other famous Jews buried at Arlington are Arthur Goldberg, an Air Force Colonel better known for his service as Secretary of Labor, Associate Supreme Court Justice and U.N. Ambassador, The “Atomic Admiral”, Hyman Rickover, Astronaut Judith Resnick, Ambassadors Robert Guggenheim and Samuel D. Berger and Colonel Rae Landy, a veteran of both World Wars, who helped open Hadassah Hospital in 1913.  Orde Wingate, a British Major General who died in Burma during World War II is also buried at Arlington.  Wingate was not Jewish, but he played a significant role in Jewish history.  During the 1930’s, he was stationed in Palestine.  He was one of the few British officers who were sympathetic to the Zionist cause.  Among other things, he helped train the Jewish self-defense forces teaching them the arts of small unit combat and night fighting.  Two of his most famous students were Moshe Dayan and Yigal Allon.


1870: It was reported today that the review of Disraeli’s latest novel Lothairthat appeared in Blackwood goes beyond the bounds of a literary critique and takes on the tone of polemic that attacks the British statesman personally taking special pains to mockingly refer to his Jewish origins.


1870: Today's "European Mail News" column reported that a petition is being circulated in Paris asking that the Grand Rabbi Isidore should be nominated to serve as a Senator.  No Jew has ever held such a position.


1871: While visiting “the Holy Land” former Secretary of State William Seward spent part of today at the Huvra Synagogue.


1874: Seventy-two year old German Orientalist Emil Roediger who revised Wilhelm Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar passed away today.


1875: In Patterson New Jersey, James A. Morrissee married Rachel Blumenthal, the daughter of a Jewish merchant from Montreal.  Blumenthal left his bride and told her he was going to Chicago on business for his wife. (These facts would be revealed in a subsequent, messy divorce proceding).


1876:According to a report published today the United Hebrew Charities raised $72,115.60 and the Hebrew Orphan Society raised $70,115.35 during the 1875-76 fiscal year.


1877: “To Jew” published today provides a summary of Richard Grant White’s wide-ranging linguistic history on the use of that term and concludes with the wish that the Jews “who have outlived  the Pharaohs may outlive philology.”


1877: “Where Boccaccio Gave Offense” published today provide a critical summary of the third novel of the first day entitled “Melchisedech a Jew, by recounting a Tale of three Rings”


1878: According to reports published today "The English, French, German and Eastern branches of the Israelite Alliance have sent a delegate to" the meeting of European leaders at Berlin (Congress of Berlin) to describe "the deplorable conditions" of the Jews living in Romania and Bulgaria with the hope of gaining some relief for their co-religionists.


1878: As "The Season" opened today at Saratoga, The Grand Union Hotel announced that will continue its policy of refusing to accept Jews as guest at the hotel.


1879: “Why clergyman should study Hebrew” published today stresses the necessity for Christian clergymen to learn this ancient Semitic tongue. “Without such knowledge they can neither understand the Old Testament, nor the new, nor explain the relationship of the two.”


1879: "Murder That Do Not Out" published today explores the history of unsolved New York City murders including that of Benjamin Nathan, a wealthy New York Jew who was killed in 1870. Nathan had had his skull crushed during what appeared to be a robbery at his home.  Despite a sizeable reward and the best efforts of the police department the crime remains unsolved.


1880: It was reported that conditions in Palestine have greatly improved over the last few years.  In Jerusalem several houses have been restored or rebuilt.  The streets are now lit and, for an Oriental city, kept clean.  Water now flows to the city through the aqueduct connected to the Pools of Solomon.  The tanneries and slaughterhouses have been outside the city walls.  Bethlehem and Nazareth are emulating many of these improvements and windows are now being placed in many buildings in these cities. These and other improvements may lead to Europeans “wintering” here. [As we know, modern Israel has become a popular tourist destination for many Europeans seeking to escape the winter.]


1880: It was reported that “there is a fixed resolution on the part of thousands in Prussia to make that country as hot as possible for Jews” and this might force a large number of German Jews to move to Palestine. [The rise of Jews in German society coincided with a rise in anti-Semitism. In one sense this report is a prophecy of what happened in the 1930’s when German Jews left for Palestine.]


1880: It was reported today that while a conference in Madrid concerning conditions in Morocco was at an impasse, the British government was considering joint action by all the powers in favor of religious liberty in Morocco.  At the conference, the Austrian and American governments were ready to “energetically” plead the cause of the Jews but the French and the Moroccans halted deliberations before they could do so.


1880:It was reported today the Maurice Heineltrop, left a note for his wife before taking his own life which was written in Hebrew and begged to take care of their four children and to pay off his workers.


1882(28thof Sivan, 5642): Julius Porges, the Principal of Hebrew Free School Number 8 passed away today by his own hand.


1883:In Dukora, a small village in Minsk Governorate, Zev Volf and Brokhe Tsharni (née Hurwitz) gave birth to Shmuel Ṭsharni who gained fame as Shmuel Niger as a leading Yiddish literary figure in Russia and then the United States.  


1886: In a sign of an ecumenical spirit that was rare for this time in history it was reported that Dr. B.M. Palmer, a Presbyterian minister delivered the eulogy at the funeral of Rabbi James K. Gutheim of Temple Sinai.  Other signs of the esteem in which he was held by the non-Jewish community was a floral offering from Christ Episcopal Church and attendance at the funeral by several minister including the Father Hubert who was a Jesuit.


1887: “Wanted by Two Wives” published today described a strange case of bigamy involving Abraham Bernstein who deserted his wife and family in Port Chester, NY and then married a woman in nearby Glenville, Conn.  The two women have become aware of the situation and have sworn out a warrant for his arrest.  The “husband” has disappeared. [It can’t all be about Nobel Prize winners and great scholars]


1887: A fire swept through Botosani, Romania destroying over a thousand buildings most of which were occupied by Jews and leaving 8,000 people homeless and on the verge of starvation. Jews made up a large part of the population of this city in Northeast Romania.  By the first decade of the 20th century 72% of the city’s population would be Jewish, “the highest percentage of any large city in the world at that time.”


1888:  Crown Prince Wilhelm becomes Kaiser Wilhelm II. Ten years after coming to the throne, the Kaiser would visit Jerusalem in 1898 where Herzl tried, and failed, to interest him creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The Kaiser’s reign was a mixed bag for Jews. As they became more successful a new virulent form of anti-Semitism grew apace.  During the War the Jews rushed to the colors, but the accusations of malingering were so strong that a special commission was established to look into these pernicious falsehood.  The true measure of the Kaiser can be seen when he was forced to abdicate he blamed it on the Jews.  The myth of the “stab in the back” so popular with the Nazis was first the lament of “Wailing Willie.”


1888: It was reported today that Newton Harrison was the top performing student in the First Class at the Hebrew Technical Institute while Samuel Schneider was the top student in the Second Class and Max Lowenthal was the top student in the third school.  The institute was created to provide free vocational training for young Jewish boys.


1889: In Sudlekov (Zhidachov), Ukraine, Rose Schwartz and grain dealer Isaac Schwartz gave birth to Avram Moishe Schwartz who gained fame as Maurice Schwartz the theatre and film actor who founded the Yiddish Art Theatre at New York in 1918.


1890: “Talmudic Quibbles” published today provides a commentary on the verse from Genesis “The Lord said, ‘Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great.’” (What makes this worth noting is that it was published in a leading American secular daily paper and not some obscure Yiddish or Hebrew language journal.)


1890: A review of The Montefiores: Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore an illustrated two volume work edited by Dr. L. Lowe and his sons, based on the actual diaries of these two notables in which they recorded the events from 1812 through 1883 was published today.


1890: “The closing exercises of the Sabbath school of Temple Ahawath Chesed took place this afternoon at the 55th Street and Lexington Avenue


1891: Rabbi Gustav Gottheil presided over the opening session of the Jewish Ministers’ of America thirteenth convention which was being held at the Gates of Heaven Temple on 15th Street.


1891: This evening, the twenty-five rabbis attending the convention of the Jewish Ministers’ Association of America hearing addresses on “The Evil of Skepticism and Its Remedy” and Does Knowledge Lessen Crime?”


1891: “Judge Andrews, in Supreme Court Chambers reserved his decision on a motion to have transferred to Montgomery County for trial a suit brought by Gustave A. Epstein against David Straus of Amsterdam, NY to recover $10,000 malicious prosecution.”  Epstein and Straus were Jewish businessman.  Andrews was not Jewish.


1891 In Philadelphia, PA, hundreds of Jewish and Russian tailors went on strike this morning.


1893: The Senatorial Committee chaired by Senator David B. Hill which has been looking into immigration practices at Ellis Island, including the treatment of Jewish immigrants will leave New York to continue its work in Oklahoma, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and California.


1893: In “Russians Fear the Jews” published today Colonel Weber, the former U.S. Immigration Commissioner takes issue with the claim by the Secretary of the Russian Legation that the laws limiting the rights of Jews are a matter of religion and are a matter of economic survival citing his observation that Jews who convert to the Orthodox religion are still discriminated against.


1894: It was reported today that Joseph Herman Hertz who has a PhD from Columbia has been ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary.  Henry M. Speaker and David Wittenberg have earned diplomas as teachers of Hebrew from JTS.


1895: “The announcement that Mrs. Maud Craig Burke Davis is being held by police in San Francisco on charges of forgery has caused “a great sensation” among her friends and family in Rochester, NY.  Mrs. Davis comes from a prominent and wealthy family in Rochester.  Her recent marriage to J.C. Davis came as a surprise because her family was Catholic and Davis was Jewish.


1896: Based on information that first appeared in The Fishing Gazette, it was reported today that “no one in New York except the Jews eat the buffalo carp, a fish found in the Illinois River “which does not feed on anything except vegetable matter” which is “exceedingly sweet to the taste.”  The carp was probably used by the Jews in the making of Gefilte Fish.


1896: Herzl and Newlinski travel to Constantinople. Herzl succeeds in visiting a number of highly placed individuals, including the vizier


1896: “Lauterbach Taunted As A Jew” published today described an episode at the Republican National Convention where Edward Lauterbach of New York was taunted by an opponent who “made a coarse remark when he coupled with an illusion to Mr. Lauterbach’s race.”


1897: A fire of unknown origin which began last night, possibly caused by faulty wiring, turned the wooden structures on Ellis Island into ashes. No loss of life was reported, but most of the immigration records dating back to 1855 were destroyed. About 1.5 million immigrants had been processed at the first building during its five years of use. Plans were immediately made to build a new, fireproof immigration station on Ellis Island.


1897: The Barge Office which had been the immigrant processing center from April 19, 1890 to December 31, 1891 began to fill that function again today due to the fire that had destroyed Ellis Island.


1897: “Topics of the Times” published today included a summary of The Chicago Israelite’s opposition to plans to settle Jews in Palestine.  A Jewish return to the Palestine “without a Messiah or even the remote exception of one is an extremely odd conception.”  (The opposition to Zionism by the weekly paper should come as no surprise the editor was Leo Wise the son Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise.  But it is odd to have a pillar of Reform Judaism invoke the Messiah since Rabbi Wise and Reform Judaism had rejected the concept.)


1897:  Starting today, the Barge Office was used as New York’s immigrant processing center as a result of the fire at Ellis Island.  This was the second time that the Barge Office was used in this capacity.


1898: “Anti-Jew Riots in Austria” published today relies on information that first appeared in the Neue Freie Presse to described the outbreaks of anti-Semitic violence that has taken place throughout Galicia.


1899: As of today the United Hebrew Charities has collected $80.50 following a special appeal to meeting the needs of destitute family consisting of husband and wife who have ruined their health working and their four children.  Donations have included one for $20 and one for fifty cents.


1899: Captain Dreyfus is expected to disembark from the French cruiser Sfax at Brest which he had boarded at French Guiana on June 10.


1900(18th of Sivan, 5660): Eighty year old. Samuel Kristeller the Polish born German physician who also was a leader of the Jewish community serving as an active member of the Deutsch-Israelitische Gemeindebund and the Society for Propagation of Handicrafts, passed away today in Berlin. (As reported by Isidor Singer and Frederick T. Haneman)


1901: Birthdate of Sir Dove-Myer Robinson, who became Mayor of Auckland City, New Zealand.


1902: Birthdate of Max Rudolf. Born in Frankfurt Germany he was conductor Gutenberg Symphony Orchestra.


1906: Day 2 of the Bialystok Pogrom.


1907: In his capacity as Minister of War, Major General Georges Picquarttold Dreyfus that it would be impossible to reconstitute his career, which led to Dreyfus's retirement.”  This must have been difficult for Picquart since he “became a Dreyfusard after having identified Esterhazy as the author of the bordereau.”


1910:  Birthdate of David Rose.  The British-born American composer and conductor won four Emmys.  His compositions include The Stripper, Calypso Melody, and the themes for two television hits – Little House on the Prairie and Bonanza.


1911: Tabulating Computing Recording Corporation (IBM) is incorporated. For the role of IBM during the Shoah see IBM and the Holocaust by Edwin Black. “IBM Germany, known in those days as Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft, or Dehomag, did not simply sell the Reich machines and then walk away. IBM's subsidiary, with the knowledge of its New York headquarters, enthusiastically custom-designed the complex devices and specialized applications as an official corporate undertaking. Dehomag's top management was comprised of openly rabid Nazis who were arrested after the war for their Party affiliation. IBM NY always understood-from the outset in 1933 that it was courting and doing business with the upper echelon of the Nazi Party. The company leveraged its Nazi Party connections to continuously enhance its business relationship with Hitler's Reich, in Germany and throughout Nazi-dominated Europe.”


1913: In Baltimore, MD, the Jewish Educational Alliance dedicated the Michael S. Levy Memorial Building.


1914: Hammerstein’s Roof Garden will host an amateur dance contest tonight in connection with “Dancing by Moonlight.”


1914: Birthdate of cartoonist and illustrator Saul Steinberg. Born in Romania he moved to Italy to study and work. In 1940, the anti-Jewish racial laws in Fascist Italy forced him to flee to America. While in Santo Domingo in 1941 awaiting an entry visa, he started publishing regularly in The New Yorker. He was a major figure in the art world until his death in 1999.


1915: Birthdate of Oscar Westreich, the native of Vienna who made Aliyah in 1933 and as Yehoshua Bar-Hillel became a noted mathematician and linguist.


1915: A summary of the remarks of Dr. C.B. Wilmer, the rector of St. Luke’s Protestant Episcopal Church made during the clemency hearing for Leo Frank, published today included the statement that “the appeal was not based on mercy.” “We appeal on moral grounds for justice.  We appeal against the provincial prejudice which has been evident against outside interference and against the prejudice of Gentiles against Jews.”


1915: The Clemency hearing for Leo Frank was postponed for the day so that the governor, who had taken the time to visit the pencil factory where the murder had taken place, could deliver the commencement address at the University of Georgia in Athens. “Governor Slaton is putting every spare moment on the Athens trip studying the Frank trial record and the briefs submitted by Solicitor Dorsey and the attorneys for the defense.


1915: “The speech of ex-Governor Joseph M. Brown in opposition to commutation has caused much criticism including today’s communication to the press from “C. Ross Wall, a prominent Georgia which says, “I have read the outrageous and wicked diatribe of ex-Governor Brown against the long-maligned, persecuted and innocent Leo M. Frank. There is no man on earth that has more respect for the Bible than I have, but when Mr. Brown quoted from it in an effort to have an innocent man hanged in order to satiate the blood thirst of a mob which menaced the court during the trial of the Frank case and which continues its efforts to bulldoze officials of Georgia in an effort to present them from do their plain sworn duty, his conduct should and will be condemned by all Christian men and women…”


1915: As of this date “approximately 600,000 Jews had been uprooted from the Pale of Settlement, by far the largest proportionate transplantation among the various populations of the Russian empire’s western provinces.


1916: Elma Ehrlich, the daughter of Samuel and Sarah Ehrlich married future rabbi Lee J. Levinger making her Elma Ehrlich Levinger the name under which she pursued an active career that included writing over thirty children’s books. (Jewish Women’s Arcives)


1916: Birthdate of developer and businessman Lois Lesser.

1917: Vilmos Vázsonyi began serving as Minister of Justice of Hungary.


1917: President Woodrow Wilson signed the Espionage Act of 1917 into law. Among those who have been charged under the act are Victor Berger, Daniel Ellsberg, Jonathan Pollard and the Rosenbergs.


1917: Birthdate of Lillian Violet Bassman, the Brooklyn born daughter of Russian Jews who became famous as “Lillian Bassman, a magazine art director and fashion photographer who achieved renown in the 1940s and ’50s with high-contrast, dreamy portraits of sylphlike models, then re-emerged in the ’90s as a fine-art photographer after a cache of lost negatives resurfaced…” (As reported by William Grimes)


1917: “The Royal Navy yacht Managamreturned two Palestinian Jewish agents to Athlit after they had been trained in the use of explosives in Cyprus. Their task was to blow up a section of the Haifa to Damascus railway, between Afula and Dera’a.” 


1919: “The Confirmants Club of the Bronx Free Synagogue” performed “The Jew” a comedy by Richard Cumberland that had first been performed in 1794 and was unique because it was the first play to show the Jewish moneylender as a hero and which was so well received that Louis I. Newman wrote a book about the playwright -- Richard Cumberland: Critic and Friend of the Jews.


1920: The Haganah, the pre-Israel Self Defense Force was formed during a meeting of the Ahdut Avodah party. It was designed to take the place of the Ha-Shomer movement, and was dedicated to "havlagah" or pure self-defense. The Haganah was formed in response to a wave of Arab violence from which the British were unable or willing to protect the Jewish community.  The Haganah was forced to operate underground during the 1930's and 1940's as the British took an increasingly pro-Arab stance and the Arabs engaged in periodic waves of violence.  The Haganah also was active in bringing immigrants into the country despite the White Paper.


1920: The operation to widen the Jaffa to Jerusalem Railway to “standard gauge” was completed today.


1921: Birthdate of Gavril Abramovich Ilizarov, the “Soviet physician, known for inventing the Ilizarov apparatus for lengthening limb bones and for his eponymous surgery.”


1923: The first financing by means of a bond issue for a city in Palestine was completed today when a loan 75,000 pounds was obtained for the city of Tel Aviv through the sale in New York of six and half percent municipal bonds.  Tel Aviv is described as atypical American city in point of construction and improvements planted in the heart of Asia Minor. 


1924: In Tel Aviv, agronomist Yecheil Weizmann and his wife Ida gave birth to Ezer Weizmann the colorful RAF veteran who was one of the first to fly combat mission for the newly minted IAF in 1948 and capped off a career of public service by following in his Uncle Chaim Weismann’s footsteps by serving as President of Israel.


1925: Sir Herbert Samuel the first Jewish British High Commissioner in Palestine attended a farewell reception in his honor at Hebrew University on Mount Scopus. Colonel Fredrick H. Kish of the Zionist Executive in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv Mayor Meir Dizengoff expressed their regret over his departure.  They also expressed gratitude for the efforts of Lady Samuel’s efforts.


1928: The Zionist Executive in Jerusalem intervened to prevent the deportation of four Jewish immigrants. Unfortunately, they were not able to keep the British from deporting their family members. The National Council of Palestine Jews sent a letter to Lord Plumer, the High Commissioner, protesting the deportations. The council reminded the High Commissioner that only 54 Jewish immigrants had been admitted into the country during all of April, 1928.


1928: During an investigation of cemeteries and cemetery boards being conducted by the Attorney General for the State of New York, representatives of the Baron Hirsch Cemetery on Staten Island rebutted allegations of misconduct and abuse that had been previously presented by representatives of the Hebrew Religious Protective Association of Greater New York.


1929(7thof Sivan, 5689): For the last time before The Great Depression, Jews observe Shavuot.


1930(20thof Sivan, 5690): Sixty-two year old Louis-Lucien Koltz, the founder of Vie Franco-Russe, an illustrated paper and the French Minister of Finance at the end of World War I who negotiated the reparation payments from Germany following the war.


1930: “Flag Day…” published today described the Jewish origin of this American holiday.



1931(30th of Sivan, 5691): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1931: Italian Rabbi Riccardo Reuven Pacifici and his wife Wanda Abenaim, both of whom would be murdered at Auschwitz in 1943 gave birth to their oldest child Emanuele in Rome.


1933:Governor Herbert H. Lehman and Dr. John H. Finley received the first honorary degrees to be conferred by Yeshiva College. Each was made a Doctor of Humane Letters at the institution’s second commencement exercise.


1935: In Budapest, Dr. Georg M. Hübsch and Magda Hübsch (née Klug) gave birth to “Canadian writer, poet and journalist” George Jonas.


1936: As Arab violence escalated, The Palestine Post reported that heavy firing marked an Arab attack on Ekron. Since there were only four Jewish defenders they sent up rockets to ask for assistance, but ultimately repulsed the marauders. There were also Arab attacks on Migdal, Geshur, Kfar Saba, Gan Yavne, Kfar Azor, Tel Mond, Tzofit and Givat Ada, Over 500 three-year-old vines were uprooted at Rehovot and Givat Brenner. The Jewish National Fund planned to replace some 40,000 trees that have been burned so far. Marine insurance premiums went up and some insurance companies refused to cover riot risks. Five Jews were injured in separate attacks on Egged buses.


1938: Throughout Germany, any Jew "previously convicted" of a crime (even a traffic offense) was arrested.


1939:Malcolm MacDonald, British Colonial Secretary, today outlined before the League of Nations Mandates Commission the proposals for the future government of Palestine contained in the recent British White Paper.


1939:At a meeting of the women's division of the American Jewish Congress in the Temple of Religion at the World's Fair Rabbi Louis I. Newman of Temple Rodeph Sholom called upon the Jews to stand forth courageously against counsels of defeat in a time of persecution. Rabbi Newman made his appeal for courage in the face of the tragedy of the liner St. Louis whose passengers had been turned away from Cuba and who would not find refuge in any western nation including the United States. 


1939: A secret directive issued to the German High Command stated that deployment for "Operation White" (invasion of Poland) would be put into operation on August 20. Hitler invaded Poland in September, 1939.  The conventional wisdom is that the invasion was made possible by the signing of the non-aggression pact between the Nazis and the Soviets in the last week of August.  Apparently Hitler planned to invade Poland at a time when such an agreement was thought to be impossible.


1939: “World premiere” of “Land of Liberty” – a documentary written by Jesse Laseky, Jr. with music by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II – “premiered at the New York World's Fair & Golden Gate International Exposition, San Francisco


1940: “An official of the German Foreign Ministry, and SS Sturmbannführer Karl Bömelburg arrived in Paris today with orders to find Hershel Feibel Grynszpan.”


1940: Mordechai Rumkowski, Chairman of the Judenrat in Lodz, Poland, spoke to a large crowd today in the Lodz Ghetto.

1942(30thof Sivan, 5702): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1942:Deportations of Jews from the Netherlands to Poland and Germany began today. Over the next 15 months, more than 100,000 Jews would be transported from Westerbork to the various death camps in the East.


1942: Authorities in Riga, Latvia, request a second gassing van.


1943: At the Janówska death pits at Lvov, Ukraine, hundreds of Jewish slave laborers are forced to exhume corpses of Jews, plunder them for jewelry and gold dental work, and then burn the corpses to destroy evidence of the killings.


1943: Jaworzno concentration camp opens in the Auschwitz region. It contained two crematoriums.


1944:  A photo was taken today of a group of Jews from Dunaszerdahely, Hungary, boarding the cattle car that will take them to Auschwitz

1944: U.S. premiere of “Man from Frisco,” a wartime spy film written by Arnold Manoff who later be on the infamous Hollywood Blacklist


1944: The 1,684 “exempted Jews” selected by Reszoe (Rudolf) Kasztner, head of the Aid and Rescue Committee known as Va’adah leave Hungry by a special train that takes them safely to Switzerland.


1945: Weizmann writes to Churchill expressing his sense of shock and betrayal over the Prime Minister’s decision to continue to restrict Jewish entrance to Palestine based on the White Paper of 1939.  Weizmann expresses his sense of betrayal since he Churchill had always conveyed the impression that as soon as the war was over, he would abrogate the terms of the White Paper. 


1948: Marcel Hillaire “German born actor” who survived the Holocaust despite his Jewish ancestry unlike his older brother who was shipped to Theresienstdat “emigrated to the United States today where he eventually resumed his acting career.


1950: In Jerusalem, Israel turned over the British pilot of a Jordanian airliner that had been forced down when it flew across the Negev to members of the Arab Legion.  Four Arab passengers from the plane that was flying from Amman to Cairo were also released.  Charles Clinton Cloud, Jr., an American passenger flew to Cyprus.


1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that Food Control Commission took care of the sale and distribution of ice for domestic use in Jerusalem.


1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel had demanded that the UN Security Council should consider Egypt's refusal to allow ships engaged in trade with Israel to pass through the Suez Canal


1951: The Israeli government announced today that an Israeli soldier had been killed when he encountered Jordanian forces that had crossed the border.


1952: Today, the Israeli Foreign Ministry published the text of a note it addressed to the Czechoslovak Foreign Minister on June 11 concerning the arrest of Mordechai Oren, an Israeli citizen who is a leading member of the Mapam Party.  The Israelis demanded that a member of the Israeli Legations be allowed to visit Oren and be with him as he worked his way through the Czech justice system.  The Israelis believe that Oren was arrested as part of a plot to portray Rudolf Slansky, the former Deputy Premier, who is being held in prison as being a Zionist, something which was an anathema in Communist Czechoslovakia.


1952: “The first housing project specifically for immigrants from the United States and Canada was launched today when ground was broken for ten houses a Kfar Haroeh, a village midway between Tel Aviv and Haifa…The village which is being built on land donated by the JNF is only twenty minutes, by car from Natanya and Hadera two towns where the immigrants can go for jobs and western style entertainment.


1952(22nd of Sivan, 5712): Forty-four year old Christine Granville, the Polish born daughter of a Catholic Count and an assimilated Jewish mother who worked for the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) in occupied Poland and France passed away today.


1953: It was reported today that Senator Paul Douglas, Democrat from Illinois who had taught at the University of Chicago before WW II, was the keynote speaker at the commencement exercises of Brandeis University in Waltham, MA.


1954: Ruth Ann and Daniel Edelman gave birth to Richard Edelman who would become President and CEO of the public relations firm Edelman that was founded by his father.


1960: “The Apartment” a Billy Wilder production that was co-written by I.A.L. Diamond was released for showing to the movie going public today.


1961: Rabbi David J. Bleich married Professor Judith Ochs today.

1961: In performances that were hailed as "good quality directed with great intelligence,""admirable for subtle expressiveness and intelligent composure," and "exceptional," the off-Broadway Living Theatre troupe made its European debut in Rome. By the time of the Living Theatre's European tour, co-directors Judith Malina and Julian Beck had been directing off-Broadway plays for over a decade.


1964: U.S. premiere of Rod Serling’s “The Yellow Canary” featuring Jack Klugman as “Lt. Bonner,” Harold Gould as “Ponelli” and Milton Selzer as “Vecchio.”


1967: Argentine born Israeli pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim married British cellist Jacqueline du Pré who had converted to Judaism at a Western Wall ceremony. 


1967: After “608 performances and 10 previews” the curtain came down on the original Broadway production of “Sweet Chairty,” with music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Dorothy Fields and the book by Neil Simon.


1968: After “220 performances and 19 previews” the curtain came down on the original Broadway production of “How Now Dow Jones” with music by Elmer Bernstein, lyrics by Carolyn Leigh and the book by Max Shulman.


1970: Eleven Soviet citizens, nine of them Jews, tried to hijack a Soviet airplane so they could be flown out of the country.  The plot was foiled before the plane took off and two of the Jews were sentenced to death for their part in the attempt.  Due in no small part to protests from Jewish communities around the world, the sentences were commuted to 15 years at hard labor.  The hijacking focused attention on the plight of Soviet Jews seeking to escape from the U.S.S.R.  This was a major step forward in what became the campaign to “Free Soviet Jews.”


1971: U.S. premiere of “Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?” a comedy directed by Ulu Grosband who also co-produced and co-authored the scripts, starring Dustin Hoffman with music by Shel Silverstein


1975(6th of Tammuz, 5735): At Kfar Yuval, “terrorists seize farmhouse, killing 1 person, injuring 6, and taking family hostage; Israeli soldiers storm farmhouse and kill all four terrorists plus 1 hostage.”


1975(6th of Tammuz, 5735): Three were killed and another five were injured when terrorists fired three rockets into Nahariya.


1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that in Washington the US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Israeli Ambassador Simcha Dinitz concurred that Syria's growing military involvement in Lebanon posed no immediate threat to Israel. The Syrian forces in Lebanon were seen as holding back instead of trying to crush the PLO and its leftist allies.


1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that ore Lebanese had been given Israeli first aid at Metulla.


1977: Fifty-two year old former Dutch journalist Willem Poalk whose parents were murdered by the Nazis during the “German occupation of the Netherlands” became mayor of Amsterdam today.


1977: U.S. premiere of “A Bridge Too Far” produced by Joseph E Levine and Richard P. Levine with a screenplay by William Goldman and cameo appearance by Elliot Gould.


1978: A Broadway revival of “Once in a Lifetime” the first play on which Moss Hartman and George S. Kaufman collaborated opened at the Circle Theatre.


1983: During season five, NBC broadcast the final episode of “Taxi” a sit com created by James Brooks, Stan Daniels and Ed. Weinberger starring Judd Hirsch.


1987: An exhibition entitled ''Daughters of the Pale,'' documenting in words and photographs the experiences of daughters of Jewish immigrant opened in London.


1987: An exhibition entitled ''East End Synagogues: From the Shtiebel to Duke's Place’’ opened at the Heritage Center in London.


1992: The Fifth International Convention of Studies of “Italia Judaica” opened in Palermo.


1992: Best-selling instrumental musicianKenny G (Kenneth Bruce Gorelick) married Lyndie – a union that would produce two sons before ending in divorce in 2012/


1994: Israel and the Vatican established full diplomatic relations.


1996: Judge Burkhardt Stein from Tübingen County Court ordered the confiscation and incineration of all books Grundlagen zur Zeitgeschichte and the destruction of all means for manufacturing them. The book was written by holocaust denier and anti-Semite Ernst Gauss.


1997: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Puttermesser Papers by Cynthia Ozick, Steven Spielberg: A Biographyby Joseph McBride and Steven Spielberg: The Unauthorized Biography by John Baxter


2006: Yakov Kreizberg made his “last appearance with the” London Symphony Orchestra “at the Barbican … when he performed Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Concerto no. 5 with Stephen Hough, and Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony no. 11


2007: The Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam opens an exhibition on the life and work of famous French actress Sarah Bernhardt who was the first international superstar.


2007: The 46th Hebrew Book Week comes to a close. 


2007(29th of Sivan, 5767):Fifty-six year oldClaudia Cohen, a high-profile gossip reporter for television and newspapers who was a frequent subject of the gossip columns herself, partly because of her marriage to, and remunerative divorce from, the billionaire businessman Ronald O. Perelman, died today in Manhattan.. (As reported by Margalit Fox.)


2008: The Sunday New York Times book sections features reviews of Cecil B. DeMille: A Life in Artby Simon Louvish and Audition: A Memoir, the autobiography of Barbara Walters. How “Jewish” is the movie maker whose father is lay leader in the Episcopal Church and whose mother is a Sephardic Jew who converted?  How Jewish is a television personality whose parents were both Jewish but who observed no Jewish ritual growing up and loves having a Christmas tree in her home?


2008: The Washington Post features books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including America Aged: How Pension Debts Ruined General Motors, Stopped the NYC Subways, Bankrupted San Diego, and Loom as the Next Financial Crisisby Roger Lowenstein


2008:Stephan Grayek, one of the last survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising who passed away at the age of 92 was buried at the Herzliya Cemetery today. He is survived by his daughter, Ora, his son, Yitzhak, grandchildren and a great granddaughter. During the Nazi era Grayek took advantage of his Aryan features to move with relative ease in and out of the ghetto, fighting against the Nazis with both Jews and Poles. Grayek's wartime exploits were recorded in his book, “Shelosha Yemin Krav” (“Three Days of Battle”).  Eli Zborowski, chairman of the American and International Societies for Yad Vashem and vice president of the World Federation of Polish Jews, wrote in a condolence notice in the Hebrew press that he had lost his mentor and close friend. He referred to Grayek as the "commander and hero of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and worldwide leader of Holocaust survivors." Grayek, who was the founder of the World Organization of Partisans, Underground Fighters, Ghetto Rebels and Camp Inmates - the first body to focus public attention on the needs of Holocaust survivors - swore in 1943 to fight anti-Semitism for as long as he lived. He frequently led groups of Holocaust survivors accompanied by the children and grandchildren of survivors on journeys of memory in Poland. For many years he lobbied tirelessly for a Jewish museum pavilion in Auschwitz and against the establishment of a Catholic convent there. He declared in 1989 that no convent would go up in the largest Jewish graveyard in the world. In a Jerusalem Post interview 20 years ago, Grayek was asked why he had not experienced the trauma so common among many Holocaust survivors. He answered: "Perhaps, because like other people in the resistance, I fought back."


2008: The Jewish Film Festival in Croatia comes to an end having screened more than 20 films for 2,500 attendees.


2009: Defense Minister Ehud Barak reportedly told French officials in Paris today that the Israel has “a secret accord” with the United States to maintain “natural growth” of settlements in the West Bank.


2009: Israeli artist Irit Zohar, whose work has been exhibited at the Tel-Aviv Museum (Meirovich section) and countless other galleries, debuts in America at the Historic Sixth and “I” Street Synagogue with Painting in Action, a series of large, powerful, energetic works deeply influenced by her spirituality.


2010:Mark Russ Federman (Herring Maven Emeritus) is scheduled to his share herring tales at the Russ & Daughters Herring Pairing at New York’s Astor, an event designed to celebrate the New Catch Holland Herring and the wonders of many different herrings


2010 “The Biennial Scholars' Conference on American Jewish History,” a meeting organized by the Academic Council of the American Jewish Historical Society, which will examine the notion of American Jewish "exceptionalism," or uniqueness, the  has shaped conceptions of American Jewish history from its beginning is scheduled to open in New York City.


2010(3rd of Tammuz, 5770): Ninety-two year old Ida Weiner the widow of Manfred Swarsensky who served as Rabbi Temple Beth El in Madison, Wisconsin for thirty-six years, passed away two.


2011: The Leo Baeck Institute is scheduled to present a program entitled “Mahler & Radical Departures”, featuring the works of Mahler, Korngold and Schoenberg, three composers who are a representative of “German and Austrian musicians of Jewish descent who arrived in this country and transformed the American musical landscape.” The works of German-Jewish composer Mauricio Kagel are also scheduled to be performed.


2011: THE BIG JEWCY, sponsored by Jewcy.com, is scheduled to take place in Brooklyn, New York.


2011: At the Jewish Museum of Milwaukee, archivist Jay Hyland is scheduled to present a program entitled ‘Archival Exploration: WWII Edition' that will provide a first hand look at artifacts and documents from the JMM's collection connected with WWII. This program is a 'teaser' for the 'WWII Historical Encampment Reenactment' scheduled to be later this month.


2011: A Used Book Sale is scheduled to begin today in San Diego, CA,to benefit the Samuel & Rebecca Astor Judaica Library.


2011:The new Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, started work today, taking over for Meron Reuben, who had held the post on an interim basis since last year’s departure of Gabriella Shalev.


2011: A rare total lunar eclipse will occur tonight in Israel's skies from a little after 8:00 p.m. local time until 2:00 a.m. early tomorrow morning.


2012: In Washington, DC, The Hadassah Attorney’s Council is scheduled to host a luncheon event where Judith Barnet “will speak with us about her decades of experience assisting companies to grow their business in the Middle Eastern and North African marketplace.”


2012: Funeral services are scheduled to take place this morning for Rabbi Stanley Rabinowitz who was the spiritual leader of Adas Israel for over a quarter of a century.  While much has been written about his stature as a “Washington Rabbi” for us he was simply the Rabbi.  Rabbi Rabinowitz arrived in the summer of 1960.  My father had been on the search committee that brought him from Minneapolis.  My brother was his first Bar Mitzvah.  That Shabbat Nachamu service may have been Rabbi Rabinoiwtiz’s first Saturday morning service.  I was in the first newly instituted post-Confirmation class which he taught.  I remember him trying to explain to a group of adolescents what a Reconstructionist Jew was.  It wasn’t about ritual; he wanted us to see that it was about the poetry of the soul.  [Excuse the personal comments, but history is a story and even for the great and near-great it is still a story about individual persons.] 


2012: Rabbi Ariel Stone the spiritual leader of Portland, Oregon’s Shir Tikvah, author of Because All Is One and the daughter-in-law of Cedar Rapids community leader Joan Thaler, is scheduled to deliver the sermon at Temple Judah this evening.

2012: Uzi Arad, who served as the head of the National Security Council during the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, slammed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his government for carrying out "sloppy work" in preparation for the flotilla to Gaza. Arad, speaking during a panel discussion in Tel Aviv today, made the comments two days after State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss criticized the government's decision-making process in dealing with the flotilla in his report on the incident.


2012: In Los Angeles, Langer’s Deli began a celebration of its 65thanniversary by giving away its signature pastrami sandwich which normally sells for $15.20 for free.


2012: In an interview given today Irving Stern gave “his perspective as mayor of Saint Louis Park and Minnesota state senator on local politics, commercial and residential development, and Jewish issues during his years in public service.”


2013: The Jerusalem Piano Duo – Shir Semel and Dror Semel – is scheduled to perform at the Eden-Tamir Music Center.


2013: In Coralville, Iowa, Agudas Achim is scheduled to honor outgoing religious school principal Kineret Zabnert with a special Kiddush Luncheon following Shabbat Moring Services led by Rabbi Jeff Portman.


2013: “Ameer Got His Gun” and “Dr. Pomerantz” are among the films scheduled to be shown today at “Seret 2013” – The London Israeli Film & Television Festival.


2013:Worshipers who came to a Bat Yam synagogue for Shabbat services this morning were stunned to see crosses spray-painted on the doors of the prayer house. Police were investigating the incident.


2013:Unidentified assailants broke into an IDF base in northern Israel this morning, injuring a soldier and stealing his rifle. The assailants managed to enter the Naftali base, near Golani Junction, after tying up the soldier on guard duty. They then ran away with his rifle.”


2013(7thof Tammuz, 5773): Eighty-seven year old Paul Soros, the brother of George Soros passed away today. (As reported by Robert D. Hershey, Jr)

2014: A release today from Gaylen Ross announced that “for the first time the critically acclaimed documentary Killing Kasztner will be available as a special 2 DVD Edition as of June 30th which will coincide with the 70th anniversary of the departure of Kasztner’s dramatic rescue train from wartime Budapest.


2014:Jean-François Copé is scheduled to complete his term of office as President of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP)


2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “Centuries of Surnames: What Names Can Tell Us,” a presentation by Jeffrey S. Malka who is an authority on Sephardic last names.


2014: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including A Replacement Life by Boris Fishman, The Impossible Exile:Stefan Zweig at the End of the World by George Prochnik and The Myth of the Spoiled Child: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom About Children and Parenting by Alfie Kohn


2014: IDF and security forces continue to search for the 3 kidnapped Israeli boys; a search which has included the arrest of several Hamas leaders.


2014: Arabs pelted Jews who returning from a prayer service at the Kotal with rocks which only stopped when authorities arrived.


2014: “Four rockets were fired by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip at the southern city of Ashkelon.”


2014: “Palestinian gunmen opened fire at Israeli security personnel at a military checkpoint near the West Bank city of Bethlehem, south of Jerusalem, tonight.


2015: The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Education at the University of Northern Iowa in cooperation with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is scheduled to present “Teaching the Holocaust Today Why and How” at Grandview University in Des Moines, IA.


2015: “The Kishka Monologues” and “When Blood Ran Red” are scheduled to be seen at the Kulturfest, the first-ever international festival of Jewish performing arts, celebrating the global impact of Jewish culture. Presented by National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene


2015: “Righteous Rebel: Rabbi Avi Weiss” and “A Tale of a Woman and a Robe” are scheduled to be shown at the JCC Manhattan.


 


 


 

This Day, June 16, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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JUNE 16


1221: Massacre of the Jews of Erfurt, Germany. At one time this was commemorated as a Fast Day on the 25th of Sivan.


1295: Mahmud Ghazan the seventh ruler of the Mongol Empire's Ilkhanate division in modern-day Iran converted to Islam which marked a downturn in the fortunes of Jews in Tabriz because they were “relegated to the status of dhimmis” as required by the covenant of Omar.


 1385: Emperor Wenceslaus arrested Jews living in what was known as the Swabian League, (the league of free cities in South Germany) and confiscated their books. A hefty fine had to be paid for their return and the release of the prisoners.


1591: Birthdate of Joseph Solomon Delmedigo, a native of Crete who moved to Italy where he gained fame as a rabbi, physician and author. “A member of this family, Mordechai Gorodinsky (later hebraized to Nachmani) was one of the founders of the Israeli city of Rehovot.”



1612: Birthdate of Murad IV.  During his reign as Sultan, Murad executed Rabbi Yehuda Kovo over a dispute revolving around the quality of cloth being supplied by the Jews of Salonika for army uniforms and the amount of taxes to be paid.


1660:The debate between Jacob Abendana, the “hakham of London from 1680 until his death in 1695” and Anton Hulsius, which was actually a series of letters written covering a ninth month period, over the meaning of a verse in the Book of Haggai, came to an end.


1775: Birthdate of Judah Touro, the native of Newport, Rhode Island who was the son of Isaac Touro who moved to New Orleans where he became a successful businessman.  Touro fought in the Battle of New Orleans under Andrew Jackson and became one of the nation’s leading philanthropists contributing to a wide variety of secular and Jewish causes.


1800: Birthdate of Jacobus (Jacques) Marx Lewy, the native of Trier who was the brother of Samuel Marx, the uncle of Karl Marx, and who gained fame as successful businessman Jacob Marx, the father of Rachel and Henriette Marx.


1812: Birthdate of Isaac Phillips, a New York lawyer who served as an appraiser for the Port of Newy Ork and who was a member of Shearith Israel up until his death in 1889.


1823:In London,The Piano Concerto No. 4 (Op.64) written by Ignaz Moscheles was performed for the first time


1825(30th of Sivan, 5585): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1832: Anna Netti von Goldschmidt married 29 year old Mortiz Moses von Goldschmidt.
1846: The Papal conclave of 1846 concluded. Pope Pius IX was chosen to lead the Catholic Church, beginning the longest reign in the history of the post-apostolic papacy. The papal reign of Pius IX was marked by a variety of reactionary policies as he sought to deal with the loss of the papal temporal power to the emerging united nation of Italy. The Pope returned those Jews under his control to the Ghetto. “Pius IX was the Pope who decided in 1867 to raise to sainthood one of sixteenth-century Spain's notorious grand inquisitors, Don Pedro Arbues de Epilae. He was considered a martyr (witness to the Catholic faith) after some of the family of his Jewish victims managed to assassinate him -- and then suffered grievously themselves.-- It was the conviction of the great liberal theologian of that time, Father Dollinger, that canonizing the inquisitor "served the pope's campaign of riding roughshod over liberal Catholics as well as Jews. The pope was celebrating a man who had sanctioned compulsory baptism of Jews, then inflicted judicial torture to make sure these conversions were sincere.” The most stinging example of the Pope’s anti-Jewish views and behavior is abduction of a Jewish child named Edgardo Mortara. When Pious IX was beatified in 2000, the ADL issued the following statement which summarizes the event. “The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today expressed concern at the Vatican’s beatification of Pope Pius IX, who was responsible for the 1858 abduction of a six-year old Jewish child. Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement: "The beatification of Pius IX is troubling for the Jewish community. Pius was responsible for the case of Edgardo Mortara, who at the age of six was abducted from his family in Bologna and taken to the Vatican by Papal police after it was reported that the Jewish child has been secretly baptized. Many European heads of state protested the 1858 kidnapping, as did Jewish leadership. As a result, Pius blamed Rome’s Jews for what he believed was a widespread Protestant conspiracy to defeat the papacy and levied medieval restrictions on the community. While ADL respects the beatification process as a matter for the Catholic Church alone, we find the selection of Pius IX as inappropriate based on policies he pursued as the head of the Church. It is in the context of the many years of positive progress in Catholic-Jewish relations, including the historic visit of Pope John Paul II to Israel and his asking for the forgiveness of the Jewish people, that the beatification of Pius IX, whose role in denying Edgardo Mortara his family and his right to be who he was, is most unfortunate."


1849: Sixty nine year old German theologian and biblical scholar Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette whom Julius Wellhausen described as "the epoch-making opener of the historical criticism of the Pentateuch” passed away today.



1851: Adolf Jellinek, the spiritual leader of Vienna’s Jewish Community and his wife gave birth to legal theorist George Jellinek author of the 1895 essay “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen.  He and his wife had six children, two of whom Walter and Dora were deported to Theresienstadt and a third, Otto who was murdered by the Gestapo in 1943.


1854: An article entitled "The Position and Power of Prussia" published today includes the information that 200,000 of its inhabitants are Jewish.


1862: Frederick C. Salomon who had served with units from Missouri and Wisconsin was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General in the Union Army.


1865: Having completed its work – a survey of Jerusalem – the team led by Captain Charles W. Wilson left Jaffa for a return trip to England.


1868: Austrian businessman Eugen Rappaport and his wife gave birth to Austrian diplomat and author Alfred Rapport who converted to Roman Catholicism in 1883 – a move designed to enhance his career and social status.


1871: Former U.S. Secretary of State Seward ate dinner with the American Counsel General in Jerusalem.


1871: “An editorial in the Jewish Messenger criticized the New York Herald for lecturing Jews on the nedd for English-speaking rabbis and suggested that the problem be left to ‘rabbis and Jews.’ The editorial in the New York Herald was prompted by a resolution of Reform rabbis meeting at Cincinnati, to establish a rabbinical seminary.  The Herald applauded the resolution and blamed American Jewry for its failure to halt the decline of attendance at religious services.” (As reported by Abraham P. Bloch)


 


1878: A review of “Philochristus: A Memoirs of a Disciple of the Lord” which is a work of historical fiction designed to reconstruct the life and times of Jesus was published today.  Among the book’s many shortcomings is the author’s description of events immediately following the Crucifixion. On the one hand he explains the empty cave of the third day by insisting that the Jews stole the body of Jesus and then “disposed of it in some unknown manner” yet also insisting that the Resurrection was a reality. [Editor’s Note – The book serves a reminder that even in a world where authors were re-examining the stories of the New Testament, the Jew still is depicted as the villain.]


1878: "Three Golden Spheres" published today describes the history and current status of pawn-broking in the United States.  "It has long been generally supposed that the money-lending, and especially the pawn-brokering, business is monoplized by the Jews. This is far from being the truth, for in this city the pawnbrokers who belong to the Jewish faith hardly represent one third of the total number."  All religious groups are represented in the business.  Among national groups, the Irish make up the greatest number.”


1879: According to reports published today, Sarah Bernhardt’s current performance at the Gaiety has been well received by audiences in London.  Unfortunately, Mme Bernhardt has not made good on her promise she was learning English and would be able to speak in that language when she appeared in the UK.  Nobody in the cast can speak English.  At the same time, her reputation for eccentric behavior continues to grow.  Photographs already exist proving that she dresses as a man when working on her sculpture and there is proof that she travels with her own coffin.  But now there are new rumors claiming that her next portrait will be in a Napoleonic Pose complete with a hat model after that worn by the Emperor.


1879: The Commencement Ceremony of the Emanu-El Preparatory School of the Hebrew College took place at Temple Emanu-El this evening.  Rabbi Gottheil officiated at the ceremony which included addresses in German, Hebrews and English.


1880: Louis Davis and Moritz Hartman of the Simon Benevolent Association went to the Coroner’s office in New York to tell him the story of how they were mistakenly given the body of a Christian boy over the weekend when they had come to claim the body of a young Jewess named Kate Ungerleider.  The mix-up was an example of official incompetence not anti-Semitism.


1882: It was reported today that “serious obstacles have risen” to thwart Laurence Oliphant’s plan to “re-establish the Jews in Palestine.”  The Turkish government said that Russian Jews are welcome to settle in any part of the empire except in the land of their fathers.  While the Sultan did not give a reason for the ruling it is assumed that the Porte does not consider prudent to give the Jews a national center which might attract others of their faith.


1882: It was reported today that Julius Porgas left two notes behind explaining that he had taken his own life because of financial difficulties that left him to embezzle funds left in his care.  In an example of being worth more dead than alive, he told his wife that he had life insurance policies with three entities including one for a thousand dollars with the Kesher Shel Barzel Society.


1883: As he was about to board the elevated at the Bowery and Canal Street Station, a conductor pushed Louis Batist back saying “You are a Jew!  We don’t permit Jews on this train.”


1885: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi Levy officiated at the wedding of Bertha V. Williams and Camden, SC resident Samuel Rosenberger


1887: Four young girls and five young boys attending the public schools in New York’s 19th Ward competed tonight for the Hornthal Prizes for Elocution which were created by Louis M. Hornthal.


1887:Maurice Arnold de Forest and his younger brother Raymond were adopted today “by the millionaire Baroness Clara de Hirsch, née Bischoffsheim, wife of Jewish banker and philanthropist Baron Maurice de Hirsch de Gereuth, and given the surname de Forest-Bischoffsheim


1888: Birthdate of Alexander Alexandrovich Friedman, Russian born physicist and mathematician. “He discovered the expanding-universe solution to general relativity field equations in 1922, which was proven by Edwin Hubble’s observations in 1929.” He died of typhoid fever at the age of 37.


1888: The staff of the Hebrew Journalis hosting a fundraiser tonight at the Lyric Hall proceeds of which will go to the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society. The society was established in 1879 to care for destitute children, including, but not limited to, orphans.  At its founding the society had an all-female board and its first president was a woman. In 1940, the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society merged with Hebrew Orphan Asylum, Fellowship House and the Jewish Children’s Clearing Bureau to form the New York Association for Jewish Children which became the Jewish Child Care Association.


1888: At Temple Beth El in New York Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler “paid an eloquent tribute” to the late Kaiser Wilhelm I who passed away earlier this year. He praised the emperor for having “all the noble ideal qualities of the German without the rather coarse ways of the Prussian soldier.”  The rabbi also praised him for conferring the highest honors upon several Jews and for denouncing anti-Semitism; something his wife continued to do after his death.  Kohler believed that he had “transmitted his liberal ideas to Bismarck and his son and that so long as they are a power there is little fear of anti-Semitism.”


1889: It was reported today that the Hebrew Benevolent Orphan Asylum was among the organizations awarded a banner as part of the centennial celebration in New York.


1890: “Medals for Jewish Students” published today identified the outstanding scholars at New York’s Ahavath Chesed’s Sabbath School. Roderick Goetz was the Dr. Adolph Huebsch Medal for being the outstanding student. Louis Obermeyer actually was the best student, but since he had won the award last year it was decided to let another have the medal and Louis was given “a set of books to show that his scholarship was appreciated.  Margaret Kohut received the Rasker Medal and Lillie Ahrens received the Eisner Medal.


1890: “A short, stout, red-whiskered Polish Jew” later identified as Marcus Goldstein, entered the office of Gill Engraving Company and asked a junior member of the firm, George M. Gill, “to make him a plate for reproducing tickets of the Hamburg Lottery Company of Germany. After Goldstein explained to Gill what he wanted and made arrangements to pick up the finished product he left the store.  Gill contacted the police because he thought Goldstein was part of a plan to print and sell counterfeit lottery tickets.  (More to come, so keep reading during the next few days)


1891: It was reported that 600 to 700 tailors, most of whom are Jewish have gone on strike in Philadelphia in an attempt to get a more equitable distribution of work from the “ ‘sweaters’ who employ them.”


1891: “Told By An Eyewitness” published today of the persecution of the Jews in Russia provided by Miss Adele M. Fielde a Baptist missionary who had been in Moscow this spring as she traveled across the country on her way to Russia.  “The sights that met her eye on every side in Moscow and other places along her journey were so frightful that she could not help sending a description of the Russian outrages to New York in the hope that it might attract notice and sympathy for the suffers.


1892: The eighth annual exhibition and commencement exercises for the students of the Hebrew Technical Institute took place today.


1892: In London, Sarah Bernhardt performed her new drama “Pauline Blanchard” which “was first seen in Australia” for the first time in the imperial capital.
1892: In Baligrod, a small village in Galicia, Austria, Malka and Ashe Selig gave birth to Jennie Grossinger, the wife of Harry Grossinger who created Grossinger, the iconic Borscht Belt hostelry.



1893: The ninth annual exhibition and commencement exercises of the Hebrew Technical Institute took place this afternoon at Arlington Hall on St. Mark’s Place.


1895: It was reported today that Rothschild’s in Paris and London “refuse to touch the Russo-Chinese loan.” This was a loan that the Russians were guaranteeing so that the Chinese could pay money owed to the Japanese under the Shimonoseki Treaty.  (The complexity of international finance began long before the 21st century)


1895: Louis Down-Town Sabbath and Daily School” published today described it as “a magnificent example of what can be accomplished by noble-minded women among the young and old of their sex in the hearts of the slums. From that up-town section where the wealthiest of the community live a few of the philanthropic Jewish women have combined for the highly laudable purpose of elevating the children of the lowliest of the Jewish population in the thickly settled down-town districts.”


1896: In St. Louis, MO, the opening prayer at the Republican National Convention was offered by a local rabbi “who is a Democrat” and who has brother who “are very active as Democrats in local political affairs.”


1896: Birthdate of Meta Neumann, nee Greenbaum, one of the last Jewish inhabitants of Kleinsteinach who was deported to Isbica orTheresienstadt.


1897: Birthdate of Elaine Hammerstein, “an American silent film and stage actress” who was the daughter of opera producer Arthur Hammerstein


1897(16th of Sivan, 5657): Orange, NJ. Banker, Jacob Seholle passed away today.


1899: Twelve year old Julia Lichtner arrived in New York aboard the White Star liner Cymric from Liverpool today.  Her father, Herman Lichtner, a Hungarian-Jewish tailor died during the crossing. 


1899: Oscar I. Lembergle, who has been working with Wilson Dunlap to convert Jews to Christianity wrote a letter to Mayor Van Wyck protesting the Mayor’s ruling that conversion attempts would not take place on public street corners and should be confined to private halls.


1899: It was reported today in Brest, France, “posters announcing the Court of Cassation…have been torn down and defaced with inscriptions hostile to the Jews and Dreyfus. (The Dreyfus Affair would continue to embroil France for years to come, in part because it was a stalking horse used by the Right to inflame passions against liberals, modernity and the Jews)
1900: Herzl meets Arminius Vámbéry a Hungarian Jewish Orientalist with connections to the Ottoman Empire who will write to the Sultan on Herzl's behalf.
1904: Irish author James Joyce begins a relationship with Nora Barnacle, and subsequently uses the date to set the actions for his novel Ulysses. This date is referred to as “Bloomsay”; a reference to Leopold Bloom. Bloomsday has been celebrated since 1994 in the Hungarian town of Szombathely, the birthplace of Leopold Bloom's father, Virág Rudolf an emigrant Hungarian Jew.


1906: After three days of violence, the Bialystok Pogrom came to an end. The death count varies; from a low of 80 to a high of 100.  Hundreds of Jewish owned shops were destroyed. A major textile manufacturing center and a hot bed or revolutionary activity, approximately three-fourths of the city’s population was Jewish.  This did not protect the Jews from violence instigated by the Russian authorities.


“Russian authorities tried to blame the pogrom on the local Polish population in order to stir up the hatred between two ethnic groups (both of which generally opposed the Tsar). However Jewish survivors of the violence reported that the local Polish population had in fact sheltered many Jews during the pogrom and did not participate in it. Apolinary Hartglas, a Polish Jewish leader and later a member of the Polish Sejm, together with Ze'ev Jabotinsky, managed to obtain secret documents issued by Szeremietiev which showed that the pogrom had been organized well in advance by Russian authorities who had actually transported Russian railroad workers from deep within Russia to participate.”


1907: Birthdate of actor Jack Albertson. Albertson appeared in numerous films but he may be best remembered for his starring role in the television sit-com “Chico and the Man.”
1911: Jews in Sfru (south of Fez) were attacked by rebellious Berbers.


1912: Seventy-two year old Henri Jean Baptiste Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, author of Les Juifs et l'Antisémitisme; Israël chez les Nations in 1893 and L’Antisémitisme in 1897 passed away today.


1912: Birthdate of Olga Ivinskaya, the Russian poet and writer who was the friend and lover of Boris Pasternak “and the inspiration for the character Lara in Doctor Zhivago.” (He was Jewish; she wasn’t)
1912: Sir Charles Waldstein and his wife Florence (nee Einstein) gave birth to agricultural researcher and MP Henry David Leonard George Walston, the future Baron Walston.


1913: Birthdate of Phillip M. Kaiser who would serve as a diplomat or political appointee under every Democratic President from Harry Truman to Jimmy Carter. He was the ninth of 10 children of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants from imperial Russia. He wrote in his 1992 memoir that "whatever political skills I may have, I attribute to the fact that I had to develop them early to cope with sibling rivalries." In his childhood home, his mother rarely spoke English, communicating with her children in Yiddish. But they spoke English to her. At a parochial school, the young Mr. Kaiser learned Hebrew, which, he later wrote, "established my credentials as a Jewish boy and enabled me to feel superior to Yiddish, which I considered a 'greenhorn's' jargon." He graduated from the University of Wisconsin, where he won a Rhodes scholarship. In September 1936 he arrived in England, which was his home base for three subsequent years of study and travel in the European continent as it was lurching toward World War II.
1915: At Albany, NY, the Bill of Rights Committee of the Constitutional Convention held a hearing on a proposal for “an amendment to the Constitution providing for the abolition of capital punishment” at which Rabbi Jacob Goldstein, the Jewish Chaplain of Sing Sing” testified in favor of the amendment telling “the committee that one of the gunmen sent to their death in connection with the murder of Herman Rosenthal was a victim of injustice.” Committee Chairman Marshal received a letter from Jacob H. Schiff “in which the case of Leo M. Frank was advanced as a convincing argument in support of the contention that the death penalty should be abolished.”


1915: “Ex-Congressman W. M. Howard closed his plea for a commutation of the sentence” of Leo Frank “shortly after 4 o’clock this afternoon” meaning that “the fate of Leo M. Frank has been finally committed to the hands of Governor John M. Slaton” who will decide if “Frank shall die on the gallows or spend the remainder of his life in the penitentiary.”


1916: In St. Louis, MO, the National Democratic Convention which nominated Woodrow Wilson, the President who appointed the first Jewish justice to the Supreme Court, came to a close.


1917: In New York, Eugene Isaac Meyer, Jr. and Agnes Elizabeth Ernst gave birth to Katharine Myer who became Katherine Graham after marrying Phil Graham and was the publisher of the Washington Post. Although Katherine Graham came from a distinguished Jewish background she was baptized at the age of ten. The only people who thought she was Jewish were the myriad of anti-Semites who loved to write about the "Jewish Controlled Media in America." Mrs. Graham died in 2001.


1917: Birthdate of Irving Penn “an American photographer known for his portraiture and fashion photography.”


1920: Birthdate of basketball player Henry “Hank” Rosenstein who played forward for the City College of New York.


1922: Birthdate of William Korey the University of Chicago graduate who became Director of the Anti-Defamation League.


1931(1st of Tammuz, 5691): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1931: Birthdate of American sociologist Donald Nathan Levine, one of the leading figures in the field of Ethiopian Studies.


1933: According to a census on this date, the Jewish population of Berlin, Germany's capital city was about 160,000. Berlin's Jewish community was the largest in Germany, comprising more than 32 percent of all Jews in the country.
1933(22nd of Sivan, 5693): Unknown assailants murder Zionist Labor leader Chaim Arlosoroff
1933: President Roosevelt signed into law a series of bills that began the creation of what came to be called The New Deal. For Jews, like so many others, the legislation provided immediate economic assistance. More importantly, the New Deal opened up career opportunities for a whole generation of Jews especially those with degrees in law and accounting. The myriad of government agencies that resulted from the New Deal were a critical ingredient in the growth of the Jewish Middle Class especially for the children and grandchildren of those who had come to the United States from Eastern Europe starting in the 1880's.


1934: “Mussolini and Hitler Agree That Austria Must Remain an Independent Government” published today in the Springfield (Mass) Union described the first meeting of the two European dictators.


1937: Marx Brothers'"A Day At The Races" opens in LA
1937: Birthdate of author Erich Segal.
1938: Birthdate of Joyce Carol Oates. “Joyce Carol Oates’ paternal grandmother was Jewish, but fearing persecution, kept that fact hidden. Her grandmother died in 1970, and it wasn’t until afterwards, that Oates found out the truth about her family’s Jewish heritage. Her book, ‘The Gravedigger’s Daughter’ is dedicated to her paternal grandmother.”
1939: In Oxford, England future famed diplomat Philip Kaiser married Hannah Greeley,
1940: Birthdate of Neil Goldschmidt former Mayor of Portland and Governor of Oregon as well as member of the Cabinet under President Carter
1940: French Premier Reynaud, whose government was in exile, resigned. Henri Petain replaced him. Petain earned a place of dishonor in Jewish and French history as head of the Nazi-collaborating government at Vichy.


1942(1st of Tammuz, 5702): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1942: Most of the Jews of Łazy, Poland, were deported to Auschwitz. Jews from other nearby villages were also deported with them.



1942: The American chargé d'affaires in the Vatican, Harold Tittmann, reports to the State Department that Pope Pius XII is adopting "an ostrich-like policy towards atrocities that were obvious to everyone."
1943: SS chief Heinrich Himmler allows a transfer of Jewish prisoners from the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp located in Germany for medical experiments involving jaundice.
1943(13th of Sivan, 5703): Dr. Niuta Jurezkaya, a physician who escaped from the Minsk (Belorussia) Ghetto to nearby forests, is recaptured, tortured, and shot.
1943: Two hundred patients from Berlin are sent to Theresienstadt along with the remaining Jews of the Berlin community. The German capital was declared "judenrein" - Free of Jews. Ten years earlier the Berlin Jewish population was estimated around 186,000.


1944 In Ness, Ziona, Moshe and Sarah Kahalani, immigrants from Yemen, gave birth to Brigadier General (and future political leader) Avigdor Kahalani.
1944: Residents of the Jewish ghetto at Lódz, Poland, are notified of "voluntary registration for labor outside the ghetto." In truth, there is no work but only death at the Chelmno, Poland, extermination camp, where the Germans plan to murder 3000 Jews a week for three weeks.
1944(25th of Sivan, 5704): In France, Jewish historian Marc Bloch, a leader of the resistance group Francs-Tireurs et Partisans, is executed by German troops.



1946: Tonight, Operation Markolet or Night of the Bridges, a Haganah operation designed “to destroy eleven bridges linking Palestine with the neighboring countries of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt began.


1947(28th of Sivan, 5707): Bronislaw Huberman, famed violinist and founder of the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra, passed away.



1948: Lt. Col. Abdullah el-Tell commander of the Jordanian forces and Colonel David Shaltiel the commander of Israeli forces in West Jerusalem continued their discussions in the presence of UN observers which included the disposition of Abu Tor, “civilian access to retrieve personal belongings, "examination by Arabs of municipal records in the Jewish area", recovery of Torah scrolls from the Old City and the closing of the New Gate.


1949: U.S premiere of “Roughshod” a cowboy film directed by Mark Robson.


1952: Alexander Marx, librarian of the Jewish Theological Seminary arrived in New York after having spent ten weeks in Israel.


1952: Brigadier General Mordechai Makleff, vice chief of staff of the IAF arrived in New York aboard the Cunard Line’s Queen Elizabeth to begin an unofficial tour of U.S. military installations.
1952: "Anne Frank: Diary of Young Girl" is published in the United States
1952: The New York Times reviews “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl” translated from the Dutch by B.M. Mooyaart-Doubleday with an introduction by Eleanor Roosevelt


1955: Publication of the first issue of Roll Call the highly influential publication created by Sid Yudain, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants.


1956:Dr. Henry Cohen was raised to the peerage as Baron Cohen of Birkenhead, of Birkenhead in the County Palatine of Chester. This meant that the famous physician was now Henry Cohen, 1st Baron Cohen of Birkenhead. The Lord Cohen Medal, the highest award for services to gerontology in the United Kingdom and is named, is named for him.


1957(17th of Sivan, 5717): David “Davie the Jew” Berman a mobster who began his criminal career in Sioux City, Iowa died today during surgery in Las Vegas where he had teamed up with Bugs Siegel to turn the city into a gambler’s paradise.


1958: Filming of “The Geisha Boy” produced by Jerry Lewis who was also one of the co-stars began today.


1959: Release date for “John Paul Jones” a film about the American Revolutionary War naval hero produced by Samuel Bronston with a script co-authored by Jesse Lasky, Jr and music by Max Steiner.


1961: Birthdate of Anne Elaine Heyman, the native of Pretoria who used her knowledge of Israel’s solution to its “orphan problem to create a system that helped to save the 1.2 million orphans created by the genocide in Rwanda.


1961: Birthdate of Adisu Massala, the native of Ethiopia who made Aliyah in 1980 following a clandestine route and eventually became a member of the Knesset. 
1963: David Ben-Gurion resigned for the second and last time as Prime Minister and Defense Minister. Levi Eshkol will be chosen as a compromise candidate to fill both positions. Eshkol, the Israeli politician most Westerners had never heard of will thus be the leader of the Jewish state when it faces it's greatest test in 1967 and enjoys its greatest triumph with the reunification of Jerusalem.
1968:` Governor Nelson Rockefeller designated Jennie Grossinger Day in New York State, the first time this honor was bestowed on a living woman. Jennie Grossinger, who helped make the Catskills resort Grossinger's into the most famous retreat of its kind, was born in Austria on June 16, 1892. At age eight, she immigrated with her family to New York, where she struggled to learn English and succeed in school. At thirteen, she left school to work in a garment factory, providing her family with much-needed income. In 1914, her father bought a piece of land in the Catskills, intending to leave factory work and return to farming. It soon became clear that the rocky soil would never support a prosperous farm, and Jennie suggested that the family take in boarders. The first year, the family charged $9 a week and cleared a net profit of $81. From that modest beginning, Grossinger's was born. Although the initial farmhouse lacked heat, electricity, and indoor plumbing, its other amenities helped to make it a success. Jennie Grossinger's mother, Malka, was a good kosher cook, and Jennie's warm personality was credited with making guests feel at home. In addition, Jennie's husband Harry (a cousin with the same last name), who had stayed in New York, was able to send guests their way. By 1919, the family had made enough money to sell the original farmhouse and buy a nearby hotel. Grossinger's thrived in the 1920s, becoming an opulent resort with tennis courts, a children's camp, crystal chandeliers, and an auditorium that featured world-class entertainers. It was in this decade that Grossinger's became a destination of choice for upwardly mobile East Coast Jews. Although the decade of the Great Depression brought hard times, Grossinger's managed to stay open. One innovative development was the establishment of a training camp for boxers. The boxers provided much-needed income, while Grossinger's provided a Jewish atmosphere and facilities. In the years after the Second World War, Grossinger's fame spread from Jews to non-Jews. While maintaining its kosher kitchen, the resort began to attract a non-Jewish clientele. Part of this was due to the successful national distribution and marketing of "Grossinger's Rye," accompanied by Jennie Grossinger's image and signature. By 1970, non-Jews were estimated to make up one third of the 150,000 annual guests. In the post-war years, such prominent figures as Eleanor Roosevelt, Robert Kennedy, and Nelson Rockefeller visited the resort.


1970(12th of Sivan, 5730):Elsa Yur'evna Triolet, a Russian born Jewish French author passed away.


1974: In Rhode Island, Rabbis William Bradue and Herschel Shacter officiated at the wedding of Elizabeth Fain and Samuel Gerson, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Gerson of Natanya, Israel


1975(7th of Tammuz 5735): One of the Israelis wounded in yesterday’s rocket attack yesterday at Nahariya passed away today.


1976: U.S. premiere of “Silent Movie,” “a satirical comedy film co-written, directed by, and starring Mel Brooks” with a cast that included Marty Feldman, Sid Caesar, James Caan, Marcel Marceau and Paul Newman.


1976: “I’ve Got a Secret” created by Allan Sherman and produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman began appearing in weekly syndication.


1977: Gerald Davis, “one of Ireland’s leading semi-abstract artists” and “a prominent member of the Jewish community in Ireland” launched an exhibition based on Ulysses called “Paintings for Bloomsday” in a gallery located on Howth Head, the setting of the soliloquy that ends the novel.




1978: U.S. Premiere of the musical spoof “Grease” featuring Didi Conn as “Frenchy”, Dinah Manoff as “Marty Maraschino” and Sid Caesar as “Coach Calhoun.”


1984(16th of Sivan, 5744):Rabbi Bernard Bergman, the nursing home mogul, passed away.


1995: U.S. premiere of the Italian film “Il Postino: The Postman” directed by Michael Radford.


1996(29th of Sivan, 5756): Sportscaster Mel Allen passed away. Yes, the man who was the Voice of the New York Yankees for so many years, the man with the smooth southern drawl, was Jewish. He grew up in rural Alabama as an observant Jew. He reluctantly changed his surname from Israel to further his career. His last name was considered "too Jewish." The Allen in Mel Allen was taken from his father's middle name i.e. Julius Allen Israel. In 1950, Allen served as chairman of Operations Sports for Israel which shipped over three tons of athletic and recreational gear to Israeli children.


1998: Robert D. Sack, the son of Rabbi Eugene Sack of Beth Elohim, began serving as Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
2000: Israel complies with UN Security Council Resolution 425 and completely withdraws from Lebanon.
2001:
Moris Farhi, a “Turkish author” who was “vice president of International Pen” “was appointed as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in June 16, 2001, in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List, for services to literature.


2002: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Fly Swatter by Nicholas Dawidoff and Six Days of War by Michael B. Oren.


2002: Today Dominique Strauss-Kahn was reelected Member of Parliament in the 8th district of the Val-d'Oise.


2002: Olivier Dassault, the grandson of Marcel Dassalt, was elected today “as deputy for the first district of Oise, running on the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) ticket.”


2002: A former Miss Israel is among those whom plastic surgeon Pamela Lipkin has invited to a Botox Party.


2004: Final day of a Birthright trip to Israel - Towards a Sustainable Future for Israel: An Environmental Leadership Seminar for Students and Young Professionals – focused on the environment sponsored as a joint project of COEJL, the Heschel Center for Environmental Leadership and Learning, the Jewish Agency for Israel, and Hillel.


2004: “100th anniversary of the day in 1904 on which Dublin's best-known fictional Jew (and cuckold), 38-year-old Leopold Bloom, wandered the city as a modern-day Odysseus and, after numerous adventures located more in his mind than on the street, circumnavigated his way home” (As reported by Jonathan Wilson)
2005: What Sotheby's is calling the only known surviving autographed draft of the Balfour Declaration, the 1917 document that called for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in what was then Palestine, along with other documents from the archive of the Zionist Leader Leon Simon is to be auctioned in New York today. Besides two original drafts of the Declaration, the auction includes a signed letter from Chaim Weizmann, a Zionist and chemist who relocated from Germany to Britain after the start of World War I, asking his colleagues to review the draft. Sotheby's expects the archive to sell for $500,000 to $800,000.
2006: The Presbyterian Church, USA (PCUSA) began debating the issue of divesting from companies doing business with Israel because of Israel's policy in the Palestinian territories.


2006(20th of Sivan, 5766): Seventy-seven year old editor and “queen of letters” Barbara Epstein passed away today. (As reported by Charles McGrath)




2006: Hebrew Book Week comes to an end.
2007(30th of Sivan, 5767: Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


2007(30th of Sivan, 5767: Eighty-eight year old “Shirlee Mages, whose father owned a thriving Roosevelt Road restaurant in the 1930s and '40s and whose husband put his name on a sporting goods chain” passed away today in Chicago. Mrs. Mages was the widow of Morrie Mages, a 1950s Chicago television staple who was often in the company of the late broadcaster Jack Brickhouse touting his sporting-goods stores through the sponsorship of a late-night movie called "Mages Playhouse."


 2008: Time magazine features a profile on Foreign Minister Tzipi Livini who is favored to succeed Ehud Olmert entitled “Mrs. Clean.”
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1812071,00.html
2008: In “Grapes on the Golan,” Kevin Peraino profiles the growth Israel’s wine industry which is located on the Golan Heights and the effect peace talks between Damascus and Jerusalem might have on it.
http://www.kosherwinereport.com/2008/06/grapes-on-the-golan---newsweek-june-16th-2008.html
2008: In New York, the Center for Jewish History co-sponsors “’Bloom’ Comes Home.” This is a preview of "Bloom,” which is a documentary film homage to James Joyce's masterpiece, “Ulysses,” with filmmakers Alan Adelson and Kate Taverna
2008: Despite intense lobbying by Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, the European Union - in a sign of vastly improved European-Israeli relations over the last few years - agreed to a significant upgrade of relations..
2008: After a report in The Sun which exposed Nazi war criminal Milivoj Asner mingling with Euro 2008 football fans in Austria, the British daily interviewed the 95-year-old man at his Austrian home.

The history books describe how Pozega's entire Jewish community was wiped out in World War II, sent to the Jasenovac concentration camp where 700,000 were exterminated.
Asner is suspected to have overseen the deportation from Croatia of hundreds of Jews, Serbs and gypsies to concentration camps. According to The Sun, Asner denied any Jews were deported to death camps from his home town. Laughing again, he said: "I don't know of anyone deported from Pozega. Nobody was murdered. I never heard of one single family murdered in Pozega." Despite Austrian officials ruling out extradition on health grounds, Asner said he was well enough to face trial. He said: "I have a clear conscience, I can appear in front of any court."
"I would welcome the chance to answer these accusations in a Croatian court. I don't have anything to do with it. I did not have enough responsibility to order deportation." According to The Sun, Austrian officials revealed they may order a new medical examination. On Monday, the Simon Wiesenthal Center said that Austrian authorities were "exposed as liars" after a "top Nazi war criminal" deemed unfit by the Austrians to stand trial due to his "failing health" was spotted sipping drinks in an Austrian cafe during one of the Euro 2008 soccer championship gatherings.
Asner is number four on the Wiesenthal Center's list of "most wanted Nazis." Three years ago, Austria refused a Croatian extradition request on the grounds that Asner was "unfit" to stand trial or even be questioned for health reasons. "Austria has long had a reputation as a paradise for war criminals and now they've been caught in the act," said Dr. Ephraim Zuroff, the director of the Israel office of the Wiesenthal Center, and the organization's chief Nazi hunter. Zuroff said that the article "exposed the lie" that the Austrian authorities have been peddling for years, noting that the suspected Nazi war criminal is clearly enjoying a life that many hundreds of victims were denied when they were sent off to be murdered. "If this man is well enough to walk around town unaided and drink wine in bars, he's well enough to answer for his past," Zuroff said. Following the publication of the expose, which included video and photos, The Wiesenthal Center demanded that the Austrian Government immediately extradite the top wanted Nazi without further delay. "The photos, and video clips also made available to this office, make it abundantly clear that Asner is in good health, lucid and able to get around on his own, in contradiction to the finding of an Austrian court which ruled that he cannot be extradited to stand trial in Croatia due to ill health," Zuroff wrote in a Monday letter to Austrian Justice Minister Dr. Maria Berger.
"Under these circumstances, there is absolutely no justification for the continued refusal to extradite this wanted Nazi war criminal to the country where he committed his nefarious crimes, so that he can finally be held accountable for the hundreds of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies whom he deported to concentration camps, where the majority were brutally murdered."

2008: In Milwaukee, The Third International Festival of New Jewish Liturgical Music came to a close.


2009: A reception is held at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. honoring Ann F. Lewis the recipient of the NJDC Belle Moskowitz Award.
2009: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Laurie Silber, Search Committee Chairperson, announces that Temple Judah has officially hired Rabbi Todd Thalblum. Rabbi Tahlblum will begin on August 1, 2009.


2009(24th of Sivan, 5769): Eighty-eighty year old Seymour “Sy” Broday author of Jewish Heroes of America  and its sequel, Jewish Heroes and Heroines of America  passed away today.




2010: In “Revolutionary Love” published today, Jonathan Sarna described the role of Jacob I. Cohen in the American Revolution and his marriage to Esther Mordecai.



2010: A screening of “Leon Blum: For All Mankind” and lecture by filmmaker, Jean Bodon, are scheduled to be held at noon today at the Library of Congress


2011: “Fiddler on the Roof” is scheduled to be performed at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.


2011: Congregation Agudas Achim in Iowa City is scheduled to hold its annual meeting.


2011: At the Historic 6th& I Synagogue in Washington, DC, Leah Koenig, author of “The Hadassah Everyday Cookbook: Daily Meals for the Contemporary Jewish Kitchen” and former editor-in-chief of the award winning food blog The Jew and the Carrot, is scheduled  to make eco-kosher Portobello mushroom burgers and basil two-bean salad as part of  “Jewish Cooking 101: Farmers' Market Meals”


2011:Today, thousands will retrace the steps of Leopold Bloom, the Jewish protagonist of James Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses on “Bloomsday,” an annual event celebrating the Irish author’s novel and his Jewish hero. “In Dublin there are lots of events and a few elsewhere in Ireland,” said Terrence Killeen, a research scholar at the James Joyce Center last week. “There’s a breakfast which starts Bloomsday, as it does in the novel. People then follow the events of the book around town as it continues, and recite passages. One happening is at Davy Byre’s Pub and there are lots of musical events. It’s not an academic event but a public one.” Over the years, Ireland’s small but remarkably vibrant Jewish community, population 2,000, has produced many prominent members including the late president of Israel, Chaim Herzog, and two-time Dublin mayor Robert Briscoe, to name a few. Still, the fictitious Bloom might be the country’s most famous Jew – never mind that in the novel he is a convert to Catholicism. “By 1904 he is nominally a Catholic having converted to marry his wife, so he’s a rationalist,” said Killeen, who gave a lecture on the Jewish world of Joyce at the Irish Jewish Museum last Monday. “He seems very much a part of the Jewish race but not of the Jewish faith. At the same time he is very conscious of distinct Jewish thinkers like Baruch Spinoza, Mendelsohn – the composer and philosopher – and Karl Marx.” Throughout the novel, Bloom’s Jewish identity is discussed repeatedly, sometimes despite his best efforts to avoid the subject. “The most prominent passage is in a pub where Bloom encounters the Citizen, who is strongly nationalist and strongly racist, and that is where he takes on the anti- Semitism of this man,” Killeen said. “In the first chapter he takes on a headmaster who is rather anti-Semitic. He tries to avoid initially an argument about Judaism and he talks about a race that is very much at this time persecuted. He strongly identifies with Jews Christ was a Jew like me, he says. That’s the most emphatically Jewish statement and near the end of the novel he remembers some verses of Jewish songs.” Even Zionism, in its infancy when Joyce wrote the novel between 1914 and 1921, makes a brief appearance. “Zionism does get into the book and there’s an identification between Ireland and the Jews because Ireland was colonized at the time,” Killeen said. “There’s a parallel there.” The origin of Bloom is still a debated topic. Joyce is said to have known several members of Ireland’s small Jewish community growing up in Dublin. Most scholars agree, however, that Joyce’s decision to make Bloom Jewish was intended as a literary device inspired by his encounter with Jews when he lived in Trieste. “Bloom’s Jewishness makes him different than his fellow citizens,” Killeen said. “He’s seen as different and strange. A much more rational person than they are. He is a scientific type. That’s the symbolism, his otherness.” So how does the Jewish community in Ireland feel about having the protagonist of the best known work of one the country’s most famed authors as an honorary member? One rabbi born and bred in Ireland politely declined to comment because he said he only learned about Bloomsday two years ago. Debbie Briscoe of the Irish Jewish Museum said that no discontent with Bloom has been registered by local Jews. “Nobody has ever complained about the fictitious character Leopold Bloom,” she wrote in an e-mail. “In fact everyone enjoys it. Jews everywhere have accepted it as a story. The whole thing is fiction so what is there to complain about?” One Irish Jew, the late painter Gerald Davis, had a special affection for Bloom, Briscoe said. Each year he would don a black bowler hat, dark suit and a mustache and play the role of his co-religionist on Bloomsday. On one occasion he was even invited to Australia to repeat his role there. It may be worth noting that Bloomsday has had at least one unexpected effect on the Jewish community. Each year it brings an unknown number of Jewish celebrants, temporarily boosting the number of Jews in the country significantly. “Many Jews come to Dublin from other countries especially for James Joyce week of festivities,” Briscoe said.2011:After two months of quiet in the South, a Kassam rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip into the Eshkol Regional Council on tonight.


2011: Jewish Congressman Anthony Weiner announced his resignation today, following the revelation that he had sent a lewd photograph to young women online. Instead of sending a written letter of resignation, Weiner made a televised public statement, which was met by hecklers shouting out angry remarks


2011:The Korean Embassy in Israel today held a special ceremony to mark the 61st anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War. In honor of soldiers who fought to help South Korea stop the communist invasion, a seemingly unlikely group was also recognized: Jewish Korean War veterans living in Israel.


According to an official statement released by the Embassy, some 4,000 Jewish soldiers fought alongside South Koreans and Allied Forces in the Korean War between 1950 and 1953.


2012: The Queen Has No Crown is scheduled to be shown at The London Israeli & Film Festival.


2012: Rabbi Jonah Layman and Cantor Wendi Fried are scheduled to lead “A Taste of Shabbat” at Shaare Tefila in Olney, MD.


2012: National Hebrew Book Week is scheduled to come to an end.


2012: Second and final day of the great Pastrami Sandwich giveaway at Langer’s Deli in Los Angeles which is celebrating its 65th anniversary.


2012:The IDF received a report this morning that a rocket shell had been found in southern Israel, following reports overnight that an explosion had been heard in the area.


2012(26th of Sivan, 5772): Eighty-two year old “Dan Dorfman, a highly visible financial journalist whose televised market reports could send a stock soaring — or plummeting — but whose career was tarnished by accusations of insider trading” passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)



2013(8th of Tammuz, 5773): Ninety year old Bernard Sahlins, a founder and former owner of the Second City, the Chicago nightclub which launched the career of many funny people including John Beulushi and Stephen Colbert  passed away today. (As reported by Bruce Weber)



2013: In San Diego, CA, the Used Book Sale to benefit the Samuel & Rebecca Astor Judaica Library is scheduled to come to an end.


2013: A show consisting of “more than 130 works by R.B. Kitaj which have been on display concurrently at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester and at London’s Jewish Museum is scheduled to come to an end.


2013: Seret 2013, the London Israeli Film & Television Festival is scheduled to come to an end.


2013: TheNew York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code by Margalit Fox, whose linguistic talents turn the obituary columns into a unique art form.


2013: This evening  the Cabinet approved measures that will make it easier for authorities to prosecute against “price tag” attacks, while at the same time rejecting calls to have them labeled as acts of terror.


2013: Today President Shimon Peres welcomed the election of Hasan Rowhani as Iranian president, saying the relatively moderate cleric could bring about a change in Iran’s nuclear policy while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned against being taken in by Iran’s election of the relatively moderate cleric Hasan Rowhani to the Iranian presidency.


2014: Today is  the 110th anniversary of the day in 1904 on which Dublin's best-known fictional Jew (and cuckold), 38-year-old Leopold Bloom, wandered the city as a modern-day Odysseus and, after numerous adventures located more in his mind than on the street, circumnavigated his way home. (As reported by Jonathan Wilson)


2014: The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington is scheduled to host its annual gala at Beth Shalom in Potomac, MD.


2014: Following in the footsteps of fellow Jewish economist Janet Yellen, Stanley Fischer began serving as Vice Chairperson of the Federal Reserve System.


2014: The International Consortium for Research on Anti-Semitism and Racism hosted by the Jewish Studies Program at Central European University is scheduled to begin in Budapest, Hungary.


2014: Chet Orloff is scheduled to address the annual meeting of the Oregon Jewish Museum this evening.


2014: Israel voiced concern today at the prospect of its closest ally, Washington, cooperating with what it considers its deadliest foe, Iran, to stave off a sectarian break-up of Iraq.


2014: “IDF soldiers shot at three Palestinians suspected of attempting to infiltrate the West Bank settlement of Kochav Yaakov, near Ramallah, late tonight.


2014: “Vandals slashed the tires of an IDF vehicle at the Yitzhar settlement this evening as supplies were being brought to soldiers at the West Bank community.” (As reported by Stuart Winer)


2014: As the IDF continues to search for three kidnapped Jewish teenagers, the uncle of one of the victims pleaded with the captors to return them unharmed while Prime Minister Netanyahu warned the cabinet about a long and difficult military mission and others called for a dismantling of Hamas on the West Bank.


2014: 33rd Annual Bloomsday on Broadway, the creation of Isaiah Sheffer is scheduled to take place this evening.



2015: In New Orleans, in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, JWA, Hadassah, and the National Council of Jewish Women are scheduled to sponsor “A Celebration of Community and Jewish Women’s Leadership” during which Jewish Women’s Archive Executive Director Judith Rosenbaum oral historian Rosalind Hinton and a panel of local women will explore the impact of women’s leadership during the hurricane and beyond, and assess the state of Jewish women’s leadership in New Orleans today.


2015: Aaron Lansky, founder and president of the Yiddish Book Center, is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at the Kulturfest in New York City.


2015: In Essex, UK, Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Romain is scheduled to lecture on “Royal Jews – Jewish Life in Berkshire from the Readmission Till Today.”


2015: Puppet Theater Company Great Small Works and Eddy Portnoy are scheduled to return to YIVO for the world premiere of their reinterpretation of the work of Modicut, the first Yiddish puppet theater in America.


2015:Pears Institute for the study of Anti-Semitism in collaboration with the Jewish Council for Racial Equality is scheduled to present Dr. Omar Khan, Dr. Camilla Schofield and Dr. Anastasia Vakulenko speaking about “Race, Equality and the Law.”


 

This Day, June 17, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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JUNE 17

397: Roman Emperors Arcadius and Honorius issue the following order "The governors must be informed that, upon receipt of this notice, all insults attacking the Jews shall be averted and that their synagogues shall remain unmolested." This protection for Synagogues was not a sign of Philo-Semitism.  Even with the rise of Christianity, the Emperors were concerned about maintain order in the Empire and allowing mobs to attack Jewish buildings would undermine their authority.


397: Roman Emperors Arcadius and Honorius issued a decree saying, "If Jews are harassed by a criminal charge or by debts then pretend that want to be subject to Christian law in order to avoid the criminal charges or debts by taking refuge in the church, they must be driven away. They cannot be received as Christians until they pay off all their debts or have been cleared of criminal charges.”  As Christianity took on the trappings of a state-religion, some Jews sought to avoid paying debts by pretending to be Christians.  Again, in the name of public order, the imperial system could not tolerate such behavior.



827: An invasion force of 10,000 Muslims invaded Sicily with the intention of taking control of the island; a goal when accomplished did not negatively impact the Jewish community which dates back to the first century of the Common Era when they probably arrived as slaves during the Rebellion against Rome.



1025: Boleslaw I the Brave, first king of Poland, passed away. There were reports of Jews living in Poland during the time Mieszko I, Boleslaw’s father. Jews were reported to have been living in Gniezno, Poland’s first capital during the 10th and 11th century which included the reign of Boleslaw.



1239:  Birthdate of King Edward I.  Known as “Longshanks” Edward is famed for the “Model Parliament.”  He is known to American filmgoers as the King who tortured and killed William Wallace.  In Jewish history, he is the monarch who expelled the Jews from his realm in 1290, having extracted every economic advantage from them that was possible.  Jews would not return as a community until the final days of the Tudors.



1242: At the decree of Pope Gregory IX and King Louis, all copies of the Talmud were confiscated in Paris. Declaring that the reason for the stubbornness of the Jews was their study of the Talmud, the Pope called for an investigation of the Talmud that resulted in its condemnation and burning. Twenty-four cartloads of Hebrew manuscripts were publicly burned. Rabbi Meir was an eyewitness to the public burning of the twenty-four cartloads of Talmudic manuscripts (and he bewailed this tragedy in his celebrated "Kina"Shaali serufah (שאלי שרופה) which is still recited on Tisha B'Av.



1244: According to one source the above captioned happened Erev Shabbat Chukath, 5004



1462: Vlad III the Impaler attempted to assassinate Mehmed II forcing him to retreat from Wallachia. Fortunately for the Jewish people, the attempt on his life failed. When Mehmed conquered Constantinople he was warmly greeted by the city’s Jews.  Over the years, he welcomed Jews fleeing from Europe and urged them to settle in his domain.  The Jews were so grateful that they even formed a regiment called “The Sons of Moses” to fight under Mehmed’s banner.



1501:John I Albert (or Olbracht in Polsih) passed away. In 1495 King Jan I Olbracht transferred Krakow Jews to the nearby royal city of Kazimierz, which gave rise to its once bustling Jewish quarter and a major European center of the Diaspora for the next three centuries. With time it turned into virtually separate and self-governed 34-acre Jewish Town, a model of every East European shtetl, within the limits of the gentile city of Kazimierz. As refugees from all over Europe kept coming to find the safe haven here, its population reached 4,500 by 1630.


1590: In Lisbon, Estevainha Gomes of Faro was burned at the stake by the Inquistion. The first records of Jews living in Faro dates from the reign of Alfonso III in the 13th century. Descendants of the Faro Jewish community were among the first members of Bevis Marks Synagogue in London.



1696: John III Sobieski, King of Poland, passed away.  John III Sobieski is best remembered as commander who defeated the Turks at Vienna.  According to tradition, the first bagels were baked by Jewish bakers in Vienna to commemorate the victorious charge by the Polish cavalry.  The bagel was shaped to look like a stirrup (key equipment for cavalrymen) and one of the first one baked was given to John III.  Modern day scholarship has challenged the legend, but the legend lives on.


1731: At an auto-de-fe in Lisbon four men and eight women were condemned. A majority of the 12 were burnt at the stake. On this particular Sunday four men and eight women were present at the auto-de-fe of Lisbon. A majority of them were burned alive. A total of 71 other persons were sentenced at this event. Duarte Navarro, an 83 year old New Christian, was among those condemned for Judaizing.


1761: In Nancy, France, 22 year old Jacob Alexandre was sentenced to be hanged for receiving communion.  Alexandre was Jewish and had violated the canon law that “bars non-Christians from receiving communion.” On appeal, Alexandre’s sentence was commuted to a lifetime in the galleys.  Apparently Alexandre was a near-do well who thought that as an apostate Jew he would be will taken care of by the Catholics.  While he took on their manners and customs, he tried to have the best of both worlds by not actually converting, a fact that caught up with him and proved to be his undoing.


1768(2nd of Tammuz, 5528): During the Cossack Uprising, Jews and Poles fought alongside each other as the siege of Uman began; a siege that would end with the Jews being massacred following their betrayal by the Poles.


1775:  The Battle of Bunker Hill (which actually took place at Breed’s Hill) fought on this date shows that American troops can stand against British professionals.Aaron Solomon was among the volunteers braving the British assaults.  In 1823, prominent Bostonians established a committee to build a monument to honor the American “moral” victory.  It would take twenty years to raise the funds and actually build the Bunker Hill Monument.  Famed Jewish businessman, veteran of the Battle of New Orleans, and philanthropist, Judah Turo donated the amazing large sum (for the early 19thcentury) of ten thousand dollars to this effort.



1802: Birthdate of Hermann Mayer Salomon Goldschmidt, the German born French astrononmer and painter who discovered “shadow bands in total solar eclipses” and received the “Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society” for having discovered a record number of asteroids.



1807: M.J. Bing writes to Nathan Rothschild asking that Nathan deal directly with him and not through his father.



1808: In Kristiansand, Norway, Nicolai Wergeland, who was opponent of letting Jews living in Norway and his wife gave birth to Henrik Wergeland who started out agreeing with his father but had a change of heart and led the fight for repealing the clause in the constitution that kept Jews from settling as citizens in Norway.



1811: Mordechai Manuel Noah (a Sephardi) accepted the appointment as American Consul General at Tunis, "supported as I should with the wealth and influence of forty-thousand residents." Noah was the first Jew to be appointed to a diplomatic post by an U.S. President.  The President was James Madison.



1811: Birthdate of Adolphe Philippe, the native of Paris who gained fame as dramatist and author Adolphe Philippe d’Ennery


1816: In Kovno, Rabbi Tzemach Sachs and his wife gave birth to Russo-French Hebrew scholar Senior Sachs.
 

1825(1st of Tammuz, 5585): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz



1829: Birthdate of German rabbi and historian. Meyer Kayserling. Born in Hanover, He was educated at Halberstadt, Nikolsburg (Moravia), Prague, Würzburg, and Berlin. He devoted himself to history and philosophy. Encouraged in historical researches by Leopold von Ranke, Kayserling turned his attention to the history and literature of the Jews of Iberia. n 1861 the Aargau government appointed him rabbi of the Swiss Jews, which office he held until 1870. During his residence in Switzerland he argued in favor of civil equality for his coreligionists, both then and later facing the charges brought against them. In 1870 he accepted a call as preacher and rabbi to the Jewish community of Budapest. Kayserling was a member of the Royal Academy in Madrid, of the Trinity Historical Society, and others. He died at Budapest in 1905.



1832: Birthdate of Abraham Cohn, the native of Prussia who was an American Civil War Union Army Sergeant Major and recipient of the Congressional  Medal of Honor “for having distinguished himself at the Battle of the Wilderness, Virginia …and the Battle of the Crater, Petersburg, Virginia…”


1834: After three days, a pogrom in Safed came to an end leaving much of the Jewish “homeless, distraught” and impoverished.

 

1838: In Prague Elisabet Faunders becomes Elisabet Popper when she married Isaias Popper.

 

1844: In Paris, Joseph Derenbourg and his wife gave birth to Orientalist Hartwig Derenbourg.

 

1845: Twenty-six year old Hermann “Hirschell” Bodenheimer, the son of Emanuel and Johanna Bodenheimer married Elise “Elka” Hisrchfelder, with whom he had eight children – Jakob, Fanny, Pauline, Emanuel, Wilhelmine, Moritz, Bertha and Salomon

 

1847:Grace Aguilar, her brother Emanuel and their mother Sara left to catch a steamer that would take them to Ostend where her brother had arranged for her to seek medical treatment for her depression and headaches.

 

1852(30th of Sivan, 5612): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz



1856: An article entitled “Who are Jews?” explained that whenever the term Jew is used “in our police reports or elsewhere in the Times” it is not a reference to the religion of those described but “solely the designation of their nationality.”



1856:  The Republican Party opens its 1st national convention in Philadelphia.  The Republican Party included a strong abolitionist strain; the party adopted a stance of opposing the expansion of slavery into the Western territories.  The party nominee was John C. Fremont and the party slogan was free soil, free men, Fremont.  Many Jews were drawn to the party because of its anti-slavery stance including Moritz Prinner who edited a German-language abolitionist paper in strife torn Kansas.  Prinner was joined at the 1860 Republican convention by other Jews including Lewis Naphtali Dembitz, uncle of future Supreme Court Justice Louis Dembitz Brandies who nominated Lincoln and Sigismund Kaufman of New York. Abraham Jonas of Illinois was another early member of the Republican Party and served as one of Lincoln’s campaign managers in 1860.


1858: Isaac and Julie Judith Josephine Mautner gave birth toEugenie Jenny Sarah Schur



1859: New York Rabbi Morris Jacob Rapall officiated at the consecration of the United Hebrew Congregation’s new building which was located on 6th Street between Locust and St. Charles streets.  Founded in 1837, historian Jonathan Sarna describes it as the oldest synagogue west of the Mississippi River.



1873: In New York City, Lyman Bloomingdale and Hattie Collenberger gave birth to Samuel Joseph Bloomingdale.



1877:The Jews in Turkey” published today, traces the history of the Jewish population in the Ottoman Empire from the days when they first came to Macedonia during the reign of Alexander the great. Today the Jewish element in the population of Turkey is strongly represented in Macedonia….because” in part “it is the richest quarter of the empire;”  



1878(16th of Sivan, 5638): Seventy-eight year old “physician, poet and writer Aaron Ludwig Joseph Jeitteles passed away today at Graz.



1879: It was reported today that young Richard J.H. Gotthell read an essay at the commencement ceremony of the Temple Emanu-El Preparatory School of the Hebrew College that were being over-seen by his father, the rabbi, Dr. Gottheil.


1881: “Fashionable” Parisians attended a concert to raise funds to aid Jews living in Russia.



1882(30th of Sivan, 5642): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz



1882: Lewis and Rose Barnet were seriously injured when the fell down the equivalent of 3 stories when the fire escape in their tenement gave way.  The two Austrian born Jews lived on the 5th floor of a building that housed Kenneseth Israel, a congregation of Polish and Russian Jews.  Supposedly the building had been fully inspected and passed without any problems.  [Unfortunately, accidents like this were all too typical on the lower East Side and were the result of a combination of shoddy construction and graft.]



1882: Josiah Cohen, a Jewish lawyer living in Pittsburgh, will probably be selected to be the Republican nominee for an at-large Congressional seat.



1883: It was reported today that that the Czars coronation is being celebrated with balls and galas in St. Petersburg and Moscow. In Kiev and Rostov on the Don the celebrations have taken another form – serious disturbances including attacks on the Jews of the area.



1884: In Leadville, CO, the Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Schloss, prominent Jewish leaders of the community hosted a soiree that including chess competition in which J.H. Zucketort played six opponents simultaneously. The visiting champion won three and lost three.



1885: “The Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France, arrives in New York harbor aboard the she Isere.” “The Jewish American poet Emma Lazarus saw the statue as a beacon to the world. A poem she wrote to help raise money for the pedestal, and which is carved on that pedestal, captured what the statue came to mean to the millions who migrated to the United States seeking freedom, and who have continued to come unto this day.”



1886: It was reported today that Levi P. Morton has been chosen as Chairman of the Republican County Committee despite his previous statement refusing to accept the position even if he were chosen to fill it. Friends of the Jewish community leader hope to be able to convince him to change his name.


1887: It was reported today that Justice Rhinehart has reserved his decision in the suit brought by Samuel Colman against Charles Frank, a matrimonial agent who had promised to help him woo and win a young Jewess named Wolf and a counter-suit brought by Frank against Colman for money owed for providing him help in this matter. [Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match]


1888: It was reported today that Mrs. Katie Levy, the wife of Albert Levy, has filed an alienation of affection suit against her mother-in-law, Mrs. Pauline Levy in which she is seeking $50,000 in damages.  The younger Mrs. Levy is a Roman Catholic who claims that her mother-in-law has interfered with her marriage because she wanted her son to marry a rich Jewish girl.


1888: “A Hebrew Charity Ball” published today described the second annual fund raiser hosted by the staff of the Hebrew Journal for the benefit of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society.


1888: A partial list published today of those who attended the charity reception and ball sponsored by the staff of the Hebrew Journal for the benefit of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society including Coroner Levy, Civil Justice Goldfogle, Judge Steckler, Judge Ehrlich, Judge Pitshke and “School Trustee Fleischauer” as well as members of the Henrietta Verein, the Deborah Verein and the Edward Lasker Literary, Dramatic and Social Circle.”



1888: it was reported today It was reported today that Rabbi Gottheil of Temple Emanu-El described the later Emperor Wilhelm of Germany as a “noble soul” who was “an ideal ruler…loved by all men.”  He saw him as a friend of the Jewish people since he said that “Germany has lost an Emperor…the oppressed a champion and Israel a true friend. [For those who grew equating Germany with Nazis and the Holocaust, this positive view of Germany and German leaders might come as a bit of a surprise.]



1889: Among the items found inside a chest with a false-bottom that was being inspected by government agents as it was being unloaded from Hamburg American steamship Gellert were “23 fine seamless woolen shirts” like those worn by Orthodox Jews.”  (Who would have guessed there was such a market?)



1889: In Albany, the Talmud Torah Benevolent Association of New York was incorporated today.



1892: It was reported today that the highlight of annual exhibition of the Hebrew Technical Institute was  “the twenty-light Edison continuous dynamo that illuminates the laboratory” which was made by last year’s and this year’s graduates without any outside assistance.



1893: It was reported today that Jacob A. Schiff and Joseph Bloomingdale are sending the top five students from the senior class of the Hebrew Technical Students – Martin Loewing, Max Goldstein, Louis Wohlgemuth, Albert Finkelstein, and Henry L. Rubovitz – and the two top students in the Junior Class – Samuel Druskin and Solomon Lurie – to the 1893 World’s Fair.



1894: It was reported today the August Bebel gave a speech to the Social Democratic Party in which he called for Jewish members to play a less public role in public affairs.  This way the party would avoid suffering from the current wave of anti-Semitism. Jewish members including Emanuel Wurm and Paul Singer objected to his proposal saying that there must be a better way of dealing with “the Jew-baiters.”  The matter will be voted on at the next meeting of the next Social Democratic Congress.



1895: In south Sweden, August and Mathilda Andersson gave birth to Ruben Andersson who would gain fame as Ruben Ruasing the founder of Tetra Pak.



1896: The upcoming Commencement Exercises of the Hebrew Technical Institute and an outing for members of the Young Folks’ League of the Hebrew Infant Asylum were two of the items listed in today’s Coming Events Column.



1896: “Incidents of the Day” included an explanation of why a Rabbi was chosen to give the opening prayer at the Republican National Convention.  The party is split between factions representing the American Protective Association, an anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic organization and delegates who are Catholics.  The managers for William McKinley who is the probable nominee chose a rabbi because the choide of Protestant minister or Catholic priest would have split the Convention.  To make matters worse the Rabbi is a Democrat and members of his family are active in the local Democratic Party. (Echoes of the APA can be heard in the 21st century as the United States debates the immigration issue.)



1896: In the court at Essex Market, an unidentified lawyer used the Hebrew word for “drop dead” when the magistrate said he would not hear any more cases until 9:30 next morning.  Fortunately for the lawyer, the job did not understand Hebrew.



1897: Herzl moves the Zionist Congress to Basel.



1897(17th of Sivan, 5657): Fifty four year old Henry Gersoni, Ph.D., the Russian born, German educated teacher and author who went to Atlanta GA in 1874 to serve as rabbi before accepted a similar position at B’nai Sholem in Chicago passed away today.  He left the rabbinate to found the Jewish Advance which he published successfully before returning to New York where he worked as a teacher and journalist.


1897: As of today, the Young Men’s Hebrew Association is reported to have 1,000 members.



1897: Having already donated a brownstone at 861 Lexington Avenue valued at $20,000 to the Young Men’s Hebrew Association, Jacob Schiff has authorized YMHA President Percival S. Menken to spend an additional $30,000 to purchase property and equipment so it will have a facility that will include a meeting hall, gymnasium and reference library.



1897: Tonight, the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church completed its investigation of charges of immorality and untruthfulness leveled against Herman Warszawiak and found him guilty.  Warszawiak was a convert who had been conducting a mission on Grand Street to convert other Jews.



1898: Birthdate of German professor of crystallography Carl Hermann.  Hermann was a Quaker and a man of rare courage. “When the Nazi Party rose to power, he refused their political restrictions on academic positions, leaving to take a position as a physicist with industrial dye firm I.G. Farbenwerke at Ludwigshafen, where he continued his crystallographic research and studied symmetry in higher-dimensional spaces. During the war that followed, he and his wife Eva helped many Jews hide and escape persecution and death, for which he himself spent much time in prison and was sentenced to death. As he was an eminent scientist with influential friends, the sentence was never carried out, and he survived.



1898(27th of Sivan, 5658): Seventy-seven year old Italian author and bible scholar Moses Isaac Tedeschi passed away today.  His autobiography was appended to Simhat ha-Regel a collection of homilies and glosses on the Targum to Proverbs



1898: In Cincinnati, Ohio at the Mound Street Temple, Rabbi Isaac M. Wise will confer the degrees at the graduation exercises of the Hebrew Union College



1898: In Austria, “gangs of peasants…attacked and plundered the Jewish shops at Frysztak near Rzeszow” wounding several Jews.



1899(9th of Tammuz, 5659): Sixty three year old Josef Goldstein who had been chief cantor at the Leopoldstädter Tempel in Vienna, Austria since 1857 passed away today. Cantorial music runs in the family since his brother Moritz (Morris) Goldstein who was the cantor at K.K. Bene Israel Synagogue in Cincinnati, Ohio.



1899: The United Hebrew Charities has told immigration authorities that no expense is to be spared in caring for Julia Lichtner, the 12 year old youngster, who became an orphan when her father jumped overboard while they were returning to New York aboard a White Star liner out of LIverpool.  If it can be proven that she really was born in the United States, she will be classified as a U.S. citizens “and place in a home where she can be taken care of with money given by passengers” of the ship.


1900: Anti-Semitic riots broke out at Komarczyn.



1901(30th of Sivan, 5661): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz



1902: Birthdate of Samuel E. Feinberg, the native of New York who gained fame as songwriter Sammy Fain who collaborated with Irving Kahal until the latter’s death in 1942.



1903: Herzl writes to Lord Rothschild that there is a chance to get a good piece of land from the Sultan



1905: Fire destroys 130 houses in Constantinople inhabited by Jews. 400 families rendered homeless.



1908:  Birthdate of Trude Weiss-Rosmarin who became a major commentator on the nature of American Jewish life.



1914: Birthdate of author John Hersey. Hersey was not Jewish. In fact he was born in China, the son of missionaries. Jews should remember as the author of The Wall, which was a gripping account of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and the events that led up to it. What makes this book even more of a standout was that Hersey wrote it in 1950 long before the Holocaust genre became an acceptable literary topic and motif for Jewish authors, let alone non-Jewish authors. Hersey passed away in 1993 after a long and distinguished career.



1914: Jane Marian Joseph, the daughter of George Solomon Joseph, a Jewish solicitor and his wife Henriette Franklin Joseph “participated in a performance of Berlioz's La damnation de Faust that was praised in today’s edition of the Cambridge Review.



1915: Birthdate of Dr. Bernard Lander, the Orthodox rabbi who was one of the founders of, and first president of Touro College



1915: Governor Slaton is “giving deliberate study to every detail of the appeal of Leo M. Frank for commutation” of his death sentence “at his country home on Peachtree Road where he has the trial evidence and other data presented by the State and the defense.”



1915: During World War I, Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch, Rabbi J. Leonard Levy, Jacob Schiff, Isaac Seligman and Oscar Straus are among those who have been invited to attend a conference today at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall whih will “consider the adoption of proposals for a League of Peace and to decide upon steps to be taken for obtaining the support of public opinion and of Governments.”



1915: The disclaimer by Thomas Hardwick, the United States from Georgia, that he had written a letter to Governor Slaton urging clemency for Leo Frank, was published today along with his explanation “that his reason for making this denial was that he wanted it known that he had not expressed himself” one way or the other “regarding the Frank case.”



1917:  In Great Britain, as the conflict between Zionists and anti-Zionist heated-up the Board of Deputes condemned the letter that David Lindo Alexander had sent to The Times of London specifying “grave objections” to the Zionist agenda. The vote of censure forced Alexander resign his Presidency of the Board of Deputies.



1917: In Nevada, Jewish community leaders met and formed a committee to raise funds for the construction of Reno's first Synagogue.



1917: This afternoon in New York, Borough President Marcus M. Marks is scheduled to deliver the principal address “when the cornerstone of the new synagogue of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun” of which he has been a member since he was a “youth” will be formally dedicated.



1918: In White Plains, NY, publisher Alfred A. Knopf, Sr and Blanche Wolf gave birth to Alfred A. Knopf, Jr. “one of the founders of Atheneum Publishers.



1920: Birthdate of Jacob H. Gilbert the graduate of St. John’s College whose career of public service was capped by serving the U.S. House of Representatives from 1960 to 1971.



1920: Birthdate of Dr. Dr. François Jacob the native of Nancy whose combat wounds sustained while fighting in WW II “forced him to change his career paths from surgeon to scientist, a pursuit that led to a  Nobel Prize in 1965 for his role in discovering how genes are regulated.” (As reported by William Yardley)



1922:Anna Rachel (Berman) Asimov and Judah Asimov gave birth to Marcia Asimov, the younger sister of author Isaac Asimov.



1922: In Pittsburgh, PA, Esther and Hiram Harris Feldman gave birth to Joshua Itzhak Feldman who gained fame as composer and musical director Jerry Fielding who was forced to change his in 1947 so he could get a job working for Jack Parr of which he later wrote, "They told me I was not going on with any name as Jewish as Feldman. I don't think there's any lessening of prejudice today. There's just more politeness about where and when it happens now. I think it's going to be the downfall of Homo sapiens."



1922(21st of Sivan, 5682): Sixty-three year old Flora Goldschmidt, the wife of Emil Schwarzschild who was  the son of Emanuel Schwarzschild and Rahel Fraenkel, passed away today in Frankfurt.



1923: Birthdate of Arnold Seymour “Bud” Relman the native of Queens, NY who pursued a medical career and served as the “longtime editor of the New England Journal of Medicine.” (As reported by Douglas Martin)



1925:Alexander Theodore Shulgin, who was known as Sasha to friends, was born in Berkeley, California today.



1930: Police Captain F.M. Scott was stabbed in Jaffa during a clash with an Arab crowd following the execution of three Arabs at Acre.



1930: During a recording session” today, “just after completing Chopin's E major Scherzo, pianist” Leopold Godowsky “suffered a severe stroke which left him partially paralyzed. Godowsky's remaining years were overshadowed by the event, leaving him deeply depressed.”



1933: German Jews were shocked by news of the murder of Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff in Tel Aviv. During a recent trip to Berlin, Arlosoroff had outlined a plan for settling German Jews in Palestine; a plan that they feared would die with the Zionist leader.



1934: Birthdate of Yitzchok Meyer Abramson, the native of Chicago who served as a rabbi in St. Louis, MO.



1935: Birthdate of Frederick Delano Newman who became an eccentric gadfly in the world of New York politics.



1936: Himmler was put in charge of the S.S. as Chief of the German Police. This vicious little man was the architect of evil, the person who actually ran the killing machine that was known as the Holocaust. Several of the SS officers on the Eastern Front held Himmler in contempt. It seems that on the one visit he made to watch the Killing Squads at work, he could not stand the sight and vomited. He was also stupid enough to believe at the end of the war that he could negotiate a separate peace with the Western Allies and get them to join the Nazis sans-Hitler in a war against the Soviets.
 

1936: As Arab violence intensified, The Palestine Post reported that Jacob Gerson, the lorry driver ambushed on the Kastel bends of the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv road, became the 32nd Jew to be killed by Arabs since April 19. Scores of Arab leaders and agitators were interned at Sarafand. The Yishuv launched a Relief and Consolidation Fund to assist all those who suffered through the disturbances. The government announced a new scheme for the opening and improving the Old City of Jaffa.


1936(27th of Sivan, 5696): “Dr Julius Brodnitz, attorney and President of the Central Union of Jews in German passed away” today in Berlin at the age of 68.  Born in Posen, Dr. Brodnitz came to Berlin in 1894 where he pursued a successful legal career and become a leader in Jewish communal affairs.  Although he had not originally been a Zionist, his views changed after the Nazis came to power.  He visited Palestine in April and was no longer opposed to Jewish immigration to Eretz Israel.



1936: Senator Royal Copeland, who spoke out against the Nazi regime as early as June, 1933, passed away today.



1937: Marx Brothers'"A Day At The Races" opens in New York



1938: Royal S. Copeland who served as Republican Senator from Michigan and then as a Democratic Senator from New York passed away.  In the spring of 1933, Copeland spoke out against the abuse of the Jews by the Nazis on the floor of the U.S. Senate. In 1936, during the Arab Uprising, he was part of delegation of U.S. Senators who went to Palestine to get a first-hand view of what was going on and how the British were administering the mandate. Upon his return, he introduced a resolution on the floor of the Senate condemning the British attempts to unilaterally modify the mandate especially as it pertained to attempts to limit Jewish immigration and purchase of land.



1938(18th of Sivan, 5698): Eighty-three year old Friederike “Rika” Einstein, the youngest sibling of Hermann Einstein, the father of Albert Einstein passed away today.



1939: After being denied access to Cuba and the United States, the German refugee ship St. Louis docks in Antwerp, Belgium. Belgium offers to take 214 passengers, the Netherlands 181, Britain 287, and France 224. Ultimately, the Nazis will murder most of the passengers except for those accepted by Great Britain.



1940: Portuguese diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes decided to follow his conscience and disobeyed Dicator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar’s strict orders not to issue any visas to “Jews.” His actions gave meaning to his explanation "I would rather stand with God against man, than with man against God."



1940: As the Nazis sweep through the Low Countries and France, Edmond Michelet distributed leaflets calling for a continuation of the war.  This was considered to be the first act of French Resistance during WW II coming one day before De Gaulle’s appeal to the French nation.



1940: In New Haven, CT, Rosalie (née Hirschfelder) and Gösta Åkerlöf gave birth to George Arthur Akerlof who won the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and who is married to Janet Yellen, head of the Fed.



1941: Reinhard Heydrich briefs Einsatzgruppen commanders on the implementation of the "Final Solution."



1941: French priests in the Lyon diocese publicly protest the Vichy government's anti-Jewish policies.



1941:The Japanese ocean liner Hikawa Maru whose passenger list included Zerach Warhaftig, a future signatory of Israel’s Declaration of Independence and his parents – Yerucham Warhaftig and Rivka Fainstein – docked at Vancouver, Canada and safety from the Holocaust thanks to the courage of the Japanese Vice-Consul in Kaunas, Lithuania, Chiune Sugihara who defied his government by issuing visas to Jewish refugees.


1943: Sixty four of the remaining Jews in the German city of Wuerzburg were deported. 7 were sent to Theresienstadt and 57 were deported to Auschwitz



1943: In Brooklyn, Edna Manilow and Harold Pincus gave birth to Barry Alan Pincus known as singer/songwriter Barry Manilow. Apparently somebody thought his mother’s less ethnic name would lead to greater fame. No less an arbiter of pop culture than Rolling Stones named him "Showman of the Generation."



1944: In Budapest, SS General Veesenmayer notified Berlin that from April 29, 1944 until this date 340,000 Hungarian Jews had now been deported to the death camps. Among them was the family of Nobel Prize Winner Elie Wiesel.



1944: For the next seven days, the Jews of Budapest, Hungary, are confined to specially marked "Jewish buildings."




1943: In Brooklyn, Edna Manilow and Harold Pincus gave birth to Barry Alan Pincus known as singer/songwriter Barry Manilow. Apparently somebody thought his mother’s less ethnic name would lead to greater fame. No less an arbiter of pop culture than Rolling Stones named him "Showman of the Generation."


1946: Operaton Markolet, or Night of the Bridges, a Haganah operation meant to immobilize the transportation system by blowing up the bridges linking Palestine to the surrounding Arab states came to a successful close.

1946: Lehi attack the railway operations at Haifa.


1946: In an unusual turn of events Haganah completed attacks on railways and bridges in Eretz Israel. “Haganah united launched the most daring attack of their underground campaign by blowing up ten of the eleven bridges connecting Palestine with surrounding nations.”

 

1947: Al Langer opened Langer’s Deli in Los Angeles.  The MacArthur Park eatery would stand the test of time.  Tragically, Mr. Langer passed away at the age of 94, a week after his signature deli celebrated its 60thanniversary. 

 

1950: According to reports published today, peace talks resumed this week between Israel and King Abdullah of Jordan.  The talks centered on creating a corridor that will give Jordan access to the Mediterranean possibly at Gaza which is held by Egypt.  The Egyptians might agree to the deal, according to these same reports, if the Jordanians and Israelis would take responsibility for the quarter of million refugees in Gaza whom the Egyptians are controlling with a military garrison.


1951: Central system of Israel's underground water supply was dedicated in Northern Negev. This was the start of a project dear to the heart of David Ben Gurion. He saw the Negev as vital to the growth of the new Jewish State. He was determined to bring water to this arid region and make the "Desert Bloom."


1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that only 40 per cent of the electorate voted in the Zionist Congress elections. In Tel Aviv Mapai scored 45, Herut 20, and Mapam 16 percent of the vote; the rest was divided among small parties. In Jerusalem Mapai scored 54, Herut 17, Hapoel Hamizrahi 16, Mapam 8 and Progressives 4 percent of the vote, the rest being divided among small parties.


1951:Left-wing labor leaders called a one-hour strike in Tel Aviv harbor today to block loading of a cargo of citrus juice concentrates which was a gift from the Republic of Korea, also known as South Korea which was engaged in a bitter war with communist North Korea.


1952: “A home for 75 girls donated by the Goodwin Welfare League of Brooklyn was dedicated this afternoon as part of the Children’s City build around the Ponievez Talmudic College at B’nai Brak, a suburb of Tel Aviv.


1953: Supreme Court Justice William O Douglas issued an order staying the executions for convicted spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg which are scheduled for the next day.  TheRosenbergs were part of a plethora of Jews who were involved in both sides of this famous spy case.  However, the anti-Semites who sought to use the Rosenberg case as proof of Jewish perfidy never talked about he Jews who prosecuted the case of the Jewish judge who imposed the death sentence.


1956: Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion names Golda Meir to replace Moshe Sharett as Foreign Minister.

1958: Birthdate of Jonathan David Leibowitz who served as Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission during the Obama administration.


1961(3rd of Tammuz, 5721): Actor Jeff Chandler passes away at the age of 40 due to complications from surgery.  Born Ira Grossel in Brooklyn, New York, handsome matinee idol gained his greatest fame and Oscar nomination playing the role of the Apache Chief Cochise in “Broken Arrow,” a western depicting attempts to establish a truce between the Indians and the white settlers on the Arizona Frontier. 


1963: The United States Supreme Court rule 7 to 2 in Sherbert v Werner that a an employee who refused to work on Saturday because it was the Sabbath and was terminated for that did not lose the right to collect unemployment benefits.  As is often the case, the sabbatarian was not Jewish. In this case she was a Seven Day Adventist.


1963: The United States Supreme Court ruled 8 to 1 in Abington School District v. Schemppagainst allowing the reciting of Bible verses and the Lord's Prayer in public schools.  As is so often the case in litigation involving separation of church and state,, the plaintiffs were not Jewish.  In this case they were Unitarians.  The opinions of the Justices clearly state the importance of religion inAmerica, but they also are quite clear that it does not belong in public venues such as schools.


1967: Moshe Dayan ordered the responsibility for the Haram, which had been under Israeli military control for a week, to be restored to the Muslims.  He also insisted that all Muslims, whether living in Israel or the West Bank be allowed to pray at the Haram.


1967: Barbra Streisand performed “A Happening in Central Park.”


1968(21st of Sivan, 5728):Sir Andrew Benjamin Cohen KCMG KCVO OBE, who served as Governor of Uganda from 1952 to 1957 passed away. Born in 1909, Sir Andrew was “a descendant of Levi Barent Cohen, the founder of the oldest Ashkenazi family in Britain.”


1969: “Arthur Rubinstein – The Love of Life” (FL'Amour de la vie – Artur Rubinstein)  a 1969 documentary about pianist, Arthur Rubinstein which won the 1969 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature was released to movie theatres today.


1970: Birthdate of actor Michael Showalter


1972: In Washington, DC, five men were arrested at the Watergate complex marking the start of the Watergate Scandal which would end the Presidency of Richard M. Nixon.  None of the principles in the burglary or the cover-up were Jewish.  According to some Henry Kissinger played a role in the creation of the Plumbers when he complained about the leaks to the press that were hampering his diplomatic negotiations.  In 1973, during the Yom Kippur, there were those who wondered if the politically wounded Nixon would come to the aide of the Israelis.  He did and the decision had no impact on what was going on in Washington.


1973: On Sunday at the Hillel House in Iowa City Dr. Ron Reider married Sue Reider.


1973: U.S. premiere of “Blume in Love,” directed, produced and written by Paul Mazursky starring George Segal and Shelly Winters.


1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that the US Ambassador to Lebanon Francis Meloy, his Economic Counselor Robert Waving and their Lebanese driver were kidnapped and later found murdered in a Muslim area of Beirut.


1976: U.S. premiere of “Silent Movie,” “a satirical comedy film co-written, directed by, and starring Mel Brooks” with a cast that included Marty Feldman, Sid Caesar, James Caan, Marcel Marceau and Paul Newman.


1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that King Hussein of Jordan, on the eve of his visit to the Soviet Union, said that he was ready to purchase Russian missiles even if it angered the U.S


1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that the citizens of Tel Aviv were promised a complete restoration of their beach-front promenade to its former glory.


1977: U.S. premier of “The Deep” the film version of the book with same name produced by Peter Gruber, the son of a Somerville, MA “junkman.”


1982: “Nazeyh Mayer, a leading figure in the PLO's Rome office, was shot dead outside his home”


1982: “Kamal Husain, deputy director of the PLO office in Rome, was killed by a shrapnel bomb placed under the back seat of his car as he drove home, less than seven hours after he had visited the home of Nazeyh Mayer.”


1984: In “God the Implausible Kinsman,” Arthur A. Cohen reviewed Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture by David G. Roskies


1987: In Tel Aviv, a program created by Sara Levi-Tanay is scheduled to open at the Inbal Yemenite Dance Theatre where she is the choreographer.


1988: U.S. premiere of “The Great Outdoors” a comedy directed by Howard Deutch with music by Thomas Newman the son of composer Alfred Newman.


1994: U.S. premiere of “Getting even with Dad” a comedy directed by Howard Deutch


1996(30th of Sivan, 5756): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1996(30th of Sivan, 5756): Thomas Samuel Kuhn, who wrote and taught about the history and philosophy science, passed away.  A Guggenheim Fellow, Kuhn won the George Stanton Medal for his work in the history of science


2001: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Does American Need A Foreign Policy? by Henry Kissinger and Borrowed Tides by Paul Levinson.


2003(17th of Sivan, 5763): Noam Leibowitz, 7, of Yemin Orde was killed and three members of her family wounded in a shooting attack near the Kibbutz Eyal junction on the Trans-Israel Highway. The terrorist fired from the outskirts of the West Bank city of Kalkilya. The Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command claimed responsibility for the attack.


2005: Professor Esther “E.M.”Broner’s musical Higginson: An American Life,” was performed for the first time by the Michigan Opera Theatre


2005:  Jean Perron, coach of the Israeli Men’s Hockey Team, and other Israeli hockey officials ran a one day tryout camp in Mississauga, Ontario for the senior and junior players.  Almost forty North American players, mostly from Canada, who had some kind of tie to Israel, took part in the tryouts.


2005: Ken Feinberg, the man who served asSpecial Master of the U.S. government's September 11th Victim Compensation Fund and …the Special Master for TARP Executive Compensation,”  “was honored by his hometown of Brockton by having a road named after him: Attorney Ken Feinberg Way.”


2006:  The Israeli national soccer team may not have made it to the World Cup Finals, but the Israeli flag did. John Pantsil, a Ghana defender who plays professionally for Hapoel Tel Aviv, pulled a blue-and-white flag out from his sock following both of his team's goals against the Czech Republic as the "Black Stars" pulled off the tournament's most significant upset.


2006 Daniel Barenboim left his position of music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra today.


2007: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is scheduled to meet United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York today


2007(1st of Tammuz, 5767): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


2007: The Sunday New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers The Gravedigger’s Daughter by Joyce Carol Oates whose main character is Rebecca Schwartz the daughter of Jacob and Anna Schwartz, German-Jewish refugees from Hitler’s Germany and Volume One of A Young People’s History of the United Sates: Columbus to the Spanish-American Warby Howard Zinn.


2007: The Washington Post features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including 15 Stars: Eisenhower, MacArthur, Marshall by Stanley Weintraub, a book that examines three of the generals who played key roles in the winning of World War II.


2007: The Jerusalem Post reported that “aid embargo on the Palestinian Authority is set to be lifted.”


2008: Ryan Braun drove in his 152nd career RBI, in his 182nd game


2008: Ifar “Eef” Barzelay”s “second solo album, Lose Big, was released today.”


2008: The Jerusalem Post reported that “more US Jews today are "uncoupled" in two senses of the term -unmarried and unconnected to organized Jewry - according to the latest study by researchers Steven Cohen and Ari Kelman, who call this data "disturbing," though not for the reasons one might expect.


2008: The New York Times reported that Michael R. Bloomberg, NYC’s Jewish mayor, remains as popular as ever despite “an overall sense the city headed down the wrong path according to the newspaper’s latest polling data.


2009: At the DCJCC, Nextbook DC presents an evening with Lucette Lagnado author of “The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: A Jewish Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World.”


2009:The Montreal International Yiddish Theater Festival opens at the Segal Centre for the Performing Arts.


2009: The Museum of History of Polish Jews launched a bilingual Polish-English website called the Museum of the History of Polish Jews "Virtual Shtetl", listing 1,240 towns with maps, statistics and picture galleries.


2010:The Biennial Scholars' Conference on American Jewish History is scheduled to come to an end.


2010: In Cedar Rapids, IA, Temple Judah is scheduled to hold its Annual Congregational Meeting.


2010: The Museum of History of Polish Jews launched a bilingual Polish-English website called the Museum of the History of Polish Jews "Virtual Shtetl", listing 1,240 towns with maps, statistics and picture galleries.


2010:After a day which brought weeks of tensions between Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community and the state to a climax, 35 fathers of students at the Emmanuel Beit Ya’acov girls school began two-week jail terms for contempt of court over discriminatory practices at the school, and their hassidic community hailed them as heroes for “choosing Torah” over the secular court system.


2011: In New York, Sotheby’s is scheduled to auction Marc Chagall’s sketchbook.


2011:An exhibition entitled “In the Footsteps of My Grandparents, A Photographic View of Israel” by Talya Arbisser is scheduled to come to a close at the Deutser Art Gallery


2011:Defense Minister Ehud Barak thinks there is a 50-50 chance that Israel and the Palestinians will return to the negotiating table before September but that Israel cannot stop settlement construction, he told France 24 in an interview today.


2011:A Holocaust exhibit has disappeared from a subway station in Romania for the second time in a week, its creators said today. Austrian journalist Emil Rennert and Israeli photographer Shani Bar-On said 12 out of 24 panels depicting Romania’s Jewish heritage and the Holocaust were missing from the Piata Unirii Station in Bucharest.


2012: “I Shot My Love” is scheduled to shown at the London Israeli Film and Television Festival.


2012: The Los Angeles Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Guy Delisle's Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City


2012: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including End This Depression Now! by Paul Krugman


2012(27thof Sivan, 5772): Eighty-two year old “Anthony Schulte, a publishing executive who was an early proponent of audiobooks” passed away today. (As reported by Paul Vitello)


2012: “Ours to Fight For: American Jews in the Second World” an exhibition that explores and celebrates the achievements of Jewish men and women who were part of the American war effort on and off of the battlefield is scheduled to have its final showing at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and  Education Center


2012:The IDF is concerned that rocket fire will increase from the Sinai Peninsula and into Israel over the coming days as Egyptian presidential elections come to a close.


2012:The government approved the establishment of a ministerial committee headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this morning to deal with issues relating to settlement construction.


2013: Dr. Nathan Shields is scheduled to begin teaching “Schoenberg: Music, God, and Catastrophe in Fin-de-siècle Vienna” which will examine the remarkable cultural ferment of fin-de-siècle Vienna through the lens of one of its principal protagonists, the composer Arnold Schoenberg.  


2013:The Ir Yamim Mall in Netanya is scheduled to host a large employment fair dedicated to summer jobs for teenagers looking to work during their upcoming 10 weeks long summer vacation from school.


2013: Former President Bill Clinton is being paid $500,000 to address a dinner at the Peres Academic Center in Rehovot which will be attended by the President of Israel and several top governmental officials.


2013: “The Quebec government's anti-corruption unit, known as the Unité permanente anticorruption or simply UPAC, announced that” Saulie Zajdel who served as the director of the Jewish Rehabilitation Hospital had been arrested along with the city's interim mayor, Michael Applebaum


2013: Barbra Streisand is scheduled to receive an honorary doctorate from The Hebrew University in Jerusalem


2013:A 16-year-old girl, Coral Vedder, who is suffering from a rare form of cancer, sang Barbara Streisand’s song “People” to the Jewish legend when the award winning singer met with a group of children today at the official Jerusalem residence of President Shimon Peres. (As reported by Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu)


2013:U.S. entertainer Barbra Streisand today took a swipe at Orthodox Jews in Israel who compel women to sit in the back of buses and assault them for following religious rituals traditionally reserved for men while speaking at Hebrew University.




2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “Dear Mendl, Dear Reyzl: Yiddish Letter Manuals from Russia and America”




2014: “Wonders” and “The Lab” are scheduled to be shown at the JCC in Manhattan as part of the Israel Film Center Festival.




2014: The Pixies, a rock band that had canceled plans to play in Israel 4 years ago in protest over the country’s policies is scheduled to perform at the Bloomfield Stadium in Jaffa.


2014: In Cedar Rapids, a memorial service is held for Kevin Skinner of blessed memory at Temple Judah


2014: Balad MK Hannin Zoabi said today that the Palestinian kidnappers of three Israelis were “not terrorists” but “they are people who do not see any way of changing their situation and they have to resort to these measures until Israel sobers up a bit, until the citizens of Israel and the public sober up and relate to the suffering of others.” (As reported by Spence Ho)


2014: “New York’s Metropolitan Opera canceled its live transmissions of a controversial opera featuring the murder of a Jewish character by a Palestinian hijacker today, amid fears the screening would stir up global anti-Semitic sentiment.”


2014(19th of Sivan, 5774): Ninety-year old sociologist, pshychotherapist and author Lillian B. Rubin passed away today in San Francisco. (As reported by Paul Vitello)


2014: “Police arrested three men today for threatening their relative, an Arab Israeli teen who, in a strikingly pro-Israel video posted online, wraps himself in an Israeli flag and expresses solidarity with three kidnapped Israeli youths. (As reported by Gavriel Fiske)


2015: The Center for Jewish History and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee is scheduled to present a lecture by Dr. Andrew J. Falk entitled “Shadow Diplomats: American Jewish Foreign Policy in the Era of World Wars” in which he will talk about “the work of global Jewish organizations in the mid-20th century.”


2015: “Kulturfest” is scheduled to host a walking tour that will a view of the world of Russian Jews in New York over the past century.


2015: In Philadelphia, the National Museum of American Jewish History is scheduled to host a screening the 1996 documentary “Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light.”


2015: The Chelsea Music Festival is scheduled to return to Leo Baeck Institute with a program of chamber music focused on Finland (to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Jean Sibelius) and Hungary.

 

This Day, June 18, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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JUNE 18


1155: In Rome, the coronation of Frederick Barbarossa makes him the Holy Roman Emperor. Compared to other medieval monarchs, Frederick’s treatment of his Jewish subjects was comparatively benign. Frederick viewed the Jews as “his subjects” which meant he offered them special protection but at that same time they were a financial resource for his imperial use.  The former did not sit well with Catholic leaders and the latter did not sit well with some nobles who wanted to tax the Jews for their own benefit.  As can be seen by edict he issued concerning the Jews of Ratushon Frederick was willing to provide protection for his Jews as long as they filled his treasury.


1291: King Alfonso III of Aragon passed away.  Alfonso was supposed to marry Princess Eleanor of England but he died before the marriage could take place. Eleanor was the daughter of Edward I, the King of England who had expelled the Jews from his realm.  One can only wonder if the marriage had been consummated, would the son-in-law have followed the example of the father-in-law and expelled the Jews from his domain which would have meant Jews would have been expelled two centuries earlier than it actually happened.


1321 21 Sivan): In response to threats of expulsion from Rome instigated by Sangisa a sister of Pope John XXII, the Jews instituted a day of fasting a prayer. At a more practical level the Jews of Rome sent a messenger to Avignon to the papal court of King Robert of Naples, “the patron of the Jews” who interceded on their behalf.  The twenty thousand ducats given to the King may have helped to sway his sympathy as well.


1492: A Sicilian version the Edict of Expulsion issued by the Spanish monarchs was published today in Palermo.

1541(13thof Sivan, 5301): Jacob Pollak, the Rabbi who popularized the used of “pilpul” in Polish Talmudic academies passed away today in Lublin.  Pollak had begun his career in Prague but was forced to leave there when over a dispute about the laws of marriage.  After a thirty year career in Cracow, he moved to Palestine where he lived for ten years before returning to Poland.


1643(1stof Tammuz, 5403?): Aaron Abba ben Johanan ha-Levi, the “president of the rabbinical college in Lemberg” who was a contemporary of  Abraham Rapoport, Joel Särkes, and Meir Lublin passed away today.


1658: Seventy-two year old French clergyman and Hebrew Scholar Louis Cappel passed away today. Among other things, Cappel engaged in a dispute with fellow Christians over the antiquity vowel points and accents with Cappel contending that they were not introduced until sometime in the fifth century.  The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls we substantiate his contentions.


1750: Birthdate of Johann Jahn a German orientalist who was interested in Biblical archeology and who got into trouble with the Catholic Church “by asserting Job and Jonah” were really “didactic poems.”


1768: The Haidamak Massacres (Ukraine) reached Uman. The peasant serfs and Cossacks rioted much in the same vein as Chemielnicki one hundred and twenty years earlier. At Uman the Poles and Jews defended the city together under the Polish commander Ivan Gonta. The next day, convinced by Zheleznyak the Polish revolutionary, that only the Jews would be attacked, Gonta allowed the fortified city to be entered without a fight. (This would not be the last time that the Poles sold out the Jews in an attempt to save their own skins. And it was not the last time that those who murdered the Jews would in turn slaughter them.) Approximately 8000 Jews were killed, many of them trying to defend themselves near the synagogue. As soon as the Jews were all massacred the Haidamaks (the paramilitary bands) began to kill the Poles. Although the Haidamaks began in the 1730's the main rioting was during the years 1734, 1750 and 1768 .It is estimated that during these years 20,000 Jews were killed. The Haidamaks became part of the Ukrainian national movement and are celebrated in folklore and literature.


1778: During the American Revolutionary War, today’s departure of British troops from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania must have been met with mixed emotions by the Jewish community.  A minority, as represented by David Franks and his daughter Rebecca were Tories would miss their British patrons. The majority of the city’s Jews, including Colonel David Salisbury Franks, the nephew of David Franks, supported the Revolutionary cause and took heart at the departure of their British occupiers.


1800: In Berlin, Amalie Beer and Jacob Herz Beer gave birth to Michael Beer.


1812: In Dusseldorf, textile merchant Samson Heine and Peira “Betty” nee van Geldern, the daughter of a physician gave birth to Gustav Heine von Geldern, the brother of Heinrich Heine and the father of “Maximillian Heine author of the libretto to the operetta ‘Mirolan.’”


1812: Beginning of the War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain. This conflict is referred the Second War For American Independence, since the victory in the War of 1812 meant that the United States would survive. If England had prevailed, the country that has provided so much opportunity for its Jewish population would have ceased to exist.  Despite their small number, Jews were active participants in the defense of the young Republic.  The most colorful was a privateer named John Ordronaux.  The French born Ordronaux captured several British prize ships during the war.  His most famous action came when his ship, the Prince de Neufchatel captured the British frigate Endymion.  In a scene that would do credit to a Russell Crowe naval epic, Ordronaux ordered his men to board the British fighting ship.  When his men appeared to be losing heart and prepared to retreat, Ordronaux grab a lighted match and threatened to blow up the magazine if his men did not return to the fight.  They took him at his word and turned the tide against the better armed and trained British seaman.  Uriah P. Levy, who as Commodore Levy would end the use of the lash for punishing sailors and would save Monticello for posterity, saw his first fighting as a member of the U.S. Navy during this war.  Last, but not least, Judah Turo fought in the Battle of New Orleans where he was wounded.  Turo would live for the next forty years with Rezon Davis Shephered.  He was the one who took the wounded Turo from the battlefield and saw to it that his wounds were treated.  Turo became a successful businessman whose philanthropy included everything from the Bunker Hill Monument to several New Orleans Jewish organizations and institutions.


1814: In Aarhus, Thamar (Terese) Ree and Hartvig Philip Ree gave birth to Frederikke Levinsen.


1815: Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo. According to one account, fifty-two French Jews alost their lives in the battle. This defeat marked a return of the reactionaries to power in Europe. The laws of emancipation that had benefited the Jews of Europe were rolled back. It would take many decades for the Jews of Europe to win them back. On the other hand, Nathan Rothschild, head of the London branch if the famous family bank was, like all Englishman, pleased with the victory of his country.  According to some sources, he had actually provided the funds for the army of the Iron Duke.  There is an anti-Semitic legend that Nathan manipulated the Stock Exchange and by deception, made a fortune as a result of the victory.  At the Vienna Congress which was the peace conference intended to create a new order in Europe in the wake of two decades of almost non-stop war, the Jews sent a Christian attorney, Carl Buchortz, to act on their behalf. An agreement was reached whereby "Jews were given rights in proportion to accepting the duties of citizenship." This was the first time that Jewish rights became a European political issue.


1815: Among those serving with the Prussian troops who played a critical role in the Battle of Waterloo was George Hartog Gerson who was the Assistant Surgeon for the 5th Line Battalion of the King’s German Legion.



1823: In Berolzheim, Germany, gave Malka and Lob Moses Gutmann gave birth to Sussman Low Gutmann


1831: Birthdate of Geheimer Baurat Edwin Oppler the German architect who designed the synagogues in Hannover and Mamel and whose legacy would be carried on by great-grandson Arnold Oppler, AIA>


1834: In Darmstadt, thirty-three year old Lob Oppenheimer Bina Kahn who became Bina Oppenheimer.


1836: Birthdate of Bavarian born French jurist and author Frederick Reitlinger, who studied Talmud with Abraham Geiger and was named an Officer of the Legion of Honor.


1843: With Isaac Lesser serving as the Rabbi, Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia accepts the weekly sermon in English as part of its practices.


1852(1stof Tammuz, 5612): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1863: During the American Civil War, ten companies of the 11th regient of the New York State Militia under the command of Colonel Joachim Maidhof left the state and began marching to Harrisburg, PA which was a possible target for the invading Rebel Army.


1875: Following the death of Michael Henry, Dr. A. Benish, the author of Travels of Rabbi Petachia of Ratison, resumed serving as editor The Jewish Chronicle and Hebrew Observer.


1877: The friends of Joseph Seligman held an informal meeting to discuss recent events at Saratoga Springs, NY. The meeting was chaired by Edward Lauterbach, Mr. Seligman’s lawyer. Lauterbach provided a summary of the episode in which Mr. Seligman was informed that the Grand Union Hotel would no longer rent rooms to Jewish guest.  The decision had been made by the hotel owner, Judge Henry Hilton.  Lauterbach then read a letter that Seligman had written, but not sent, to Judge Hilton.  In the letter, Seligman described the insult that had been done to the Jewish people and wondered if Hilton would be sending a circular to Jews telling them not to shop at his Broadway stores. Those in attendance applauded when Lauterbach finished reading the letter.  Lauterbach said that the Jews of New York and the United States “could not afford to let the matter rest.”  At a time when laws prohibiting Jewish involvement in society were being removed in many other countries it would be wrong to let this happen here.  While there had been some anti-Jewish feeling expressed in the United States, it had been limited “to ignorant people –to the small vipers…but now the big snakes have attacked and it is time that” Jews “awaken and defend” themselves.  The attendees debated on how best to respond.  It was agreed that the letter should be released to the newspapers, if Seligman agreed.  It was also agreed that a “mass meeting of the Jewish citizens” of New York should be held to protest Hilton’s ban.  Furthermore, “leading citizens and clergyman should be invited to attend and express their support for the Jewish population.


1877: Judge Henry Hilton offered a reporter a series of seemingly contradictory explanations for the refusal of the management of the Grand Union to rent rooms to Joseph Seligman.  At various points in the interview Judge Hilton said that Seligman was using the episode because he and other Jews were upset with the widow of the late Alexander Stewart because she had failed to make contributions to Jewish charities.  At another point, he said that Seligman was not a Hebrew because he had joined the Reform Movement and was instead a Jew.  Therefore Seligman had no right to complain about discrimination based on religion.  Judge Hilton also said that it was staying at the Grand Union was very expensive and that only a limited number of people could afford to do so.  Therefore he had to cater to their desires and it was these wealthy patrons who had complained about Jews staying at the hotel.  Hilton predicted that other fancy hotels would follow his lead in banning Jews; a ban which he earlier denied existed. 


1881: It was reported today that 60,000 Jews are expected to immigrate to Spain following a decision by the Madrid government to allow entrance by Jews expelled from Russia.


1881: It was reported that in light of decision by authorities to take a census of the Jews of Kiev, a large number of them have left the area.   


1881: In Leadville, Colorado, Eva Schloss “recited at the closing exercise at the Spruce Street Schoolhouse.”


1881(21stof Sivan, 5641): “Bohemian Talmudist, Samuel Ben Issachar Bar Freund, the chief dayan of Prague passed away today.


1882(1st of Tammuz, 5642): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1882: In Tisza- Eszlar, Hungary, during a “blood-libel” frenzy, a gamekeeper recovers the body of a girl from the Nyiregyhaza River.  Although the body was probably not the body of the girl for whom the authorities were looking, they would decide that this corpse was really part of a Jewish conspiracy and would use it as an excuse to arrest three more Jews from whom confessions would be obtained by force.  


1886: The Times of London reported today that Flinders Petrie, the noted English Egyptologist, has discovered the ancient ruins the Biblical “Tahpanhes” described in Chapter 43 in the Book of Jeremiah as the site where Jews fleeing the Babylonians found refuge in 586 BCE.  The Pharaoh welcomed them and distributed tracts of land for them to settle and develop. [This is another example of archeology supporting the stories in the Bible.  The Pharaoh’s generosity stands in sharp contrast to the Egyptians to fight with the Judeans against the Babylonians as they had promised.]


1887: “The Hornthal Prize Contests” published today described the elocution competition funded by L.M. Hornthal.  Miss Una Westing won the girl’s prize for a recitation entitled “How the Station Clock Saw and Heard It. She is a student at Grammar School No. 77 where Julia Richman, who is a leading secular and Jewish educator, serves as principal.


1889: A list of the trustees of the Talmud Torah Benevolent Association of New York published today included Chaim, Herschdorfer, Moses Moses, Jacob Saltpeler, Bernard Wienberger, Joseph Siegel, Leib Rubenstein and Chaim Fertig.


1891(12thof Sivan, 5651): Seventy-four year old Calmann Levy (Kalmus Calmann Levy) the husband of Pauline Levy passed away today in Paris


1891: The Hebrew Technical Institute held its seventh annual commencement exercises this afternoon at Arlington Hall in St. Mark’s Place. The 18 boys in the graduating classed presented the director Dr. Henry M. Leipziger with a framed portrait created by one of their classmate Rudolph Shack.


1891: Martin Engel, the Tammany leader in the Eighth Assembly District had his nose broken today when an assailant hit him with a beer keg. (Engel would later refuse to pay the surgeon who worked on his nose because “he was no longer recognized as a Jew” forcing the surgeon to sue to collect for services rendered.)


1891: Birthdate of Edward “Eddie” Jacobson, American businessman and friend of Harry Truman who interceded with him to help gain his support for the creation of the modern state of Israel.


1893(4thof Tammuz, 5653): After being treated by Dr. M.S. Kakeles this evening for the effects of nervous prostration, Samuel Adler, the proprietor of the Nineteenth Marble and Granite Works slipped away from the watchful eye of his son and took his own life this evening.


1893: As competition heats up between different unions representing Jewish printers, today the Hebrew Typographical Union No.317 joined the Central Labor Union and the Hebrew-American Typographical Union joined the Central Labor Federation


1893: “Passover Ceremonies” published today described the home observance of Pesach including the use of the Hagadah, “of which the first edition printed in London is dated 1709; the first edition with an English translation” is dated 1770.


1896: The Hebrew Technical Institute is scheduled to hold its commencement exercises at Cooper Union beginning at 8 pm.


1896: French newspapers announced the Marquise de Mores, a prominent anti-Semite, “had been murdered by some tribesman on the Tripolitan frontier” – a claim that would later be disputed by his widow.


1896(7th of Tammuz, 5656): Twenty-five year old Simon Mischel an unmarried Jew living on Delancey Street was strangled at Clyde, near Buffalo, by “road agents” who threw his body into the river after robbing him of “a large amount of money.”


1896: Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler delivered the opening prayer at the tenth annual commencement exercise of the Hebrew Technical Institute which took place this evening at Cooper Institute.


1898: It was reported today the nine people have been killed in Austrian Galicia during an outbreak of anti-Semitic violence which has required the dispatch of troops to the area to quell the peasant mobs.


1898: In Cincinnati, Ohio, actors Joseph and Bessie Jacobson gave birth to Irving Jacobson star of Yiddish and American theatre who played Sancho Panza  in the original Broadway run of “Man of La Mancha.”


1899: “Firecrackers, eggs, watermelon rinds and stones were thrown” at Wilson W. Dunlap and his aids when “they attempted to hold services” on the lower east side designed to convert Jews to Christianity.


1899: “Recent German Events” published today described the speeches given by Count Walter Puckler “a prominent Jew baiter” in a Silesian village “in which he incited his audience to violence against the Jews.”  Following attacks on the Jews, Puckler was prosecuted “for stirring up ‘hatred between the classes.’” The local tribunal dismissed the charges but the Public Prosecutor appealed the case to the Supreme Court which has yet to rule.


1899: It was reported today that fines have been levied on two Berlin anti-Semitic papers, the Stasstsburger Zeitung and the Deutsche General-Anzeiger for publishing the speeches of Count Puckler.


1899: During a six day meeting inParis. Herzl, Max Nordau and Alexander Marmorek meet Narcisse Leven who assures them that the Jewish Colonization Association will cooperate when it comes to practical colonization.


1899: In Baltimore, MD, Dr. Richard Gottheil chaired the opening session of the second annual conference of the Federation of American Zionists.


1899: A summary of the United Hebrew Charities report for May described the 2,021 applications for assistance that covered the needs of 6,737 individuals. The monthly cash receipts of $10, 816.08 went to cover the expenses that totaled $10,808.21.  These included everything from $2,514.12 for local relief to $282.00 to cover the burials for the indigent


1901(1stof Tammuz, 5661): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1901, Gertrude Weil became the first North Carolina resident to graduate from Smith College,


1904: Birthdate of French composer Manuel Rosenthal


1911:  Sarah Berhnhardt finishes a thirty-five week theatrical tour of the U.S. and Canada


1913: Birthdate of Sammy Cahn. Born Samuel Cohen, Cahn played both the violin and the piano. But his fame came as a musical composer. He passed away in 1993, one of a long of Jews who provided the tunes for Broadway and Hollywood.


1914: Day school for adult Oriental Jews opened on the New York’s East Side.


1915: “It is considered probable that Governor Slaton might reach decision today” regarding the fate of Leo Frank.


1915: “So strong is the feeling” that the governor will commute Frank’s sentence “that offer to wage 3 to1 in favor commutation found few takers this afternoon.”


1915(6thof Tammuz, 5675): Eighty-one year old Bernhard Bettmann passed away today.  A native of Bavaria, he came to the United States in 1850 and settled in Cincinnati.  He became a successful businessman, bank president and leading member of the local Republican Party as well as a pillar of the Jewish community.

1916: The Turkish military governor, Djemal Pasha, bans Jews from praying at the Kotel.  (In 1917, he reportedly offered to rescind the ban if he was paid 100,000 Francs)


1917: Following the February Revolution Julius Martov, a leader of the Mensheviks attended a conference where “he failed to gain the support of the delegates for a policy of immediate peace negotiations with the Central Powers.”


1917: During World War I, reports from London state that Zionist activity in Turkey has been prohibited by the government.


1917: According to Captain Isaac Frank of the Brownsville Police Station 1,500 tickets have been sold for tonight’s benefit performance at the Liberty Theatre which is a fundraiser of the Junior Police which is “composed almost exclusively of Jewish boys.”


1918: Birthdate of Jerome Karle, the Brooklyn native who shared the 1985 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (As reported by Kenneth Chang)


1918: The Ziegfeld Follies of 1918 featuring songs by Eddie Cantor opened today.


1918: Birthdate Franco Modigliani, Italian born American winner of the Nobel Prize for economics in 1985.


1919:The publication of Haaretz, a Hebrew daily newspaper, begins in Jerusalem. It will move to Tel Aviv in 1923. It is independent and liberal in orientation. Its literary supplement features the best Hebrew writers and scholars both from Palestine and the Diaspora.


1920: Birthdate of Joseph Bau, the native of Krakow who survived the Shoah thanks to “Schindler’s List.”

1921:  Winston Churchill “informed his officials at the Colonial Office that he believed it was impossible for Britain to grant any form of representation to the Arabs that would give them the power to halt Jewish immigration.”


1923:In Baltimore, a report read at tonight's session of the Zionist convention by Emanuel Newmann, General Secretary of the Palestine Foundation states that six million dollars has been raised In the past two years by Jewish organizations in the United States devoted to the rebuilding of Palestine, and of this sum $4,250,000, amounting to 70 per cent, of the total, has been raised by the Palestine Foundation Fund (Keren Hayesod).


1923: Checker Cab puts its first taxi on the streets.  Originally a Checker Cab was a taxicab built by the Checker Cab Company.  The Checker Cab Company had been formed by Morris Markin a Russian Jewish immigrant.  Markin was so poor when he arrived in the United States that he had to borrow the $25 for the bond necessary for those entering the country from a porter working at Ellis Island.  Beginning as a tailor, Markin amassed enough of a fortune to own his own garment business and to bring the rest of his family from Russia to Chicago.  After starting the Checker Cab Company, he bought the Yellow Cab Company.  He passed away in 1970.


1923: In Newark, NJ, Meyer Ellenstein, the dentist who became that city’s Mayor, and his wife gave birth to “character actor” Robert “Bob” Ellenstein.

1925: In Camden, NJ, the “Camden Talmud Torah, Inc. purchase land at 621 Kaighn Avenue from David Jentis & Co., Inc. for $10,000,


1929: Jacob Goldman a former student at New York University living in Tel Aviv writes a letter on this date “telling of demonstrations by young Aras and the circulation of songs calling Moslems to ‘take up the sword’ against the foreign ruler and the Jews.’”


1929: Birthdate of Tibor "Ted" Rubin “a Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor who immigrated to the United States in 1948 and received the Medal of Honor for his actions in the Korean War by President George W. Bush in 2005.”


1929: Birthdate of Albert Morris Bendich, the native of New York “who successfully defended the right to free speech in two landmark midcentury obscenity cases — involving Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” and Lenny Bruce’s nightclub act.” (As reported by Margalit Fox)

1930: A discharged Arab policeman has been arrested in Jaffa as a suspect in the attempted murder of Police Captain F.M. Scott of Tel Aviv.  “It is believed that the former policeman swore vengeance against Scott because he had dissmissed him from the force.


1933:Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff, the 34 year old Zionist leader gunned down by two unknown assassinswas buried this afternoon. About 70,000 persons marched in the funeral procession, with delegations attending from all parts of the country. Beryl Katzenellenson, editor of Davar, Meir Dizengoff, Mayor of Tel Aviv and Menachem Ussishkin, head of the Jewish National Fund all delivered eulogies.


1933:  Birthdate of Jerzy Kosiński, Polish-born American author.  During the Holocaust, Kosinski was hidden by a Polish family using a false Baptismal certificate.  After the war, he was reunited with his parents.  He came to the United States in 1957.  The Painted Bird and Being There are two of his most famous efforts.  He passed away in 1991.


1936: The Palestine Post reported that a commission had been appointed by the government to replace the Haifa's Municipal Council which since the beginning of the Arab boycott was no longer able to discharge its duties. The government began to demolish the condemned buildings in the Old City of Jaffa. The quarter looked like a nightmare with furniture, bedding and odds and ends being dragged out of condemned houses.


1936: In New York City Sidney and Frances Wimmer gave birth to Richard Samuel Wimmer who would finally achieve his goal of being a published author with the appearance of Irish Wine in 1989. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)


1936 (28th of Sivan, 5696): “Two more Jews died today as a result of Arab terrorism…Abraham Benyehuda died from wounds received in a recent ambush of a bus belonging to the Jewish colony of Ataroth, north of Jerusalem…Joseph Shefter, proprietor of the Leviathan tannery located on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, died as a result of an attack this afternoon on a bus which he and nine of his employees were returning to Tel Aviv. 


1937(9th of Tammuz, 5697): Forty-four year old Al Boasberg, who helped to create the comedic persona of Jack Benny, George Burns and Gracie Allen, among others passed away tody.

1938: Winston Churchill wrote to Sir Alexander Maxwell, the Permanent Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office asking him for assistance in making Vic Oliver’s wish to become a naturalized British subject a reality.  Vic Oliver was an Austrian born Jewish actor, radio comedian and pianist who had married Churchill’s daughter Sarah.  Churchill had opposed the marriage at first because Oliver was sixteen years old than his daughter and twice-divorced.  Later, he came to “like and esteem him greatly.”


1940:Members of the Etzel command who were imprisoned in the summer 1of 939 are released.


1940: Charles De Gaulle issued L'Appel du 18 Juin (the Appeal of 18 June) over the BBC radio service in which he called upon the French to resist the Vichy regime and to fight on against the Nazis despite the signing of the armistice.  This is considered to the start of the French Resistance.  While many Frenchmen heeded his call, a large number actually supported Vichy and collaborated with the Nazis.  The Myth of the Resistance grew in proportion to Allied successes following Normandy.


1944: Rabbi Philip Lipis, who was serving as a Chaplain in the United States Navy, spoke at the installation service at Congregation Beth El in Camden, NJ where Morris LIebman began his fourth term as President of the Congregation and Mrs. Max PIncus became Sisterhood President.  Lipis had taken leave from his position as the congregation’s rabbi to serve during World War II.


1945: U.S. premiere of “G.I. Joe” a gritty film about the infantry in WW II with a scored by Louis Applebaum and Ann Ronnell


1947: Ben-Gurion published a long memorandum addressed to the Haganah command.  He outlined a three-fold structure for the organization: an excellent attack force for special purposes; a driving force in the form of a regular army; and a territorial defense force.  The most urgent goal: training commanders up through the battalion level; establishing a high school for commanders to prepare battalion commanders and staff officers.  This was necessary because up until this time, the Haganah’s platoon commander’s course was the highest level of training.


1947: John Henry Patterson, who attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Essex Yeomanry before retiring passed away today.  Many know Patterson as the British officer portrayed by Val Kilmer in “The Ghost and the Darkness,” a film based on Patterson’s building of a bridge in Kenya before WW I.  Jews remember him as the commander of the Zion Mule Corps and the 38th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers which was popularly known as the Jewish Legion of the British Army.  Patterson sacrificed his own career to fight the anti-Semitism that was so rife among many British officers of that time.  He wrote two books about his experiences – With the Zionists at Gallipoli and With the Judeans in Palestine. Patterson’s close relationship with Zionist leaders can be seen in the fact that he was the Godfather of Benzion Netanyahu’s oldest son, Yonatan “Yoni” Netanyahu, the hero of Entebbe and the brother of the current Prime Minister of Israel.


1947:  Ben-Gurion appointed Yaakov Dori as the chief of staff and Yisrael Galili as the new national command head as part of his plan to revamp the Yishuv’s military forces.


1950:Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett asked Israeli newspaper editors today to go slow in attacking Eastern bloc Governments and particularly their representatives. His plea followed protests by diplomatic representatives to the Government against press attacks.


1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Negev rejoiced when water spurted several meters high in the yellow wilderness when Avraham Hartzfeld, the gray-haired patron of the settlers, turned the tap of the new pipeline and pumping station.


1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel's first steel-pipe factory was opened south of Acre by the Middle East Tube Co. Ltd.


1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that the new freighter Eilat called at Haifa with a cargo of 9,000 tons of wheat and 2,000 tons of machinery.


1952: Eight days after the Israeli government imposed a forced loan of 10 percent on currency holdings and bank accounts, the deflationary effect has been so sharp “that Government officials are uncertain whether to be jubilant or worried.  Newspapers have experience an unexpected decline in revenue due to a loss of circulation at time when they had just negotiated a new labor contract increasing wages of workers.  A round trip ticket from Tel Aviv to Paris has jumped in the past year from 175 Israeli pounds to 500 Israeli pounds. Shops of all kind are doing less business and nightclubs report that their earnings on Saturday night (their busiest time) are less now than they were for an average week night a year ago.


1954: Pierre Mendes-France became Premier of France. Born in 1907 in Paris, Mendes-France’s came from a family of Sephardic Jews. He was trained as a lawyer and fought with the Free French during World War II. After the war, Mendes-France served in numerous governments in the revolving door of the Fourth Republic. Mendes-France was an anti-colonialist. He served as Premier after the fall of Dien Bien Phu, and negotiated the end to the French Indo-China War. Several Catholic political leaders attacked him for this and the attack quickly became anti-Semitic. Mendes-France also began the negotiations that would lead to independence for the French colonies in North Africa. Mendes-France political signature was a glass of milk. After the war, some French leaders were concerned that French people were drinking too much wine and starting to drink at too early an age. When Mendes-France would appear in public, there invariably was a glass of milk on the lectern, which he made a point of sipping some time during the presentation. Mendes-France passed away in 1982.


1956: Golda Meir replaced Moshe Sharett as Foreign Minister.  Sharett had held the position since the creation of the state, even when he was serving as Prime Minister.  Meir’s colorful career had already included clandestine negotiations with the King of Jordan and a stint as the first Ambassador to the Soviet Union.  Eventually she would rise to the position of Prime Minister.


1959: A federal court overturned Arkansas state laws that allowed schools faced with integration to be closed.  Harry Ehrenberg, Sr., of blessed memory, was one of those unsung heroes who literally risked his as he carried a petition seeking support to keep the Little Rock schools open despite the race baiting efforts of Governor Faubus to defy school integration.


1966(30th of Sivan, 5726): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1969: U.S. premiere of “The Wild Bunch” for which Jerry Fielding provided the music which was so good that it “was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Schore.


1975(9thof Tammuz, 5735): Ninety-one year old award winning philosopher Samuel Hugo Bermann, the native of Prague who made Aliyah in 1920 where he founded the Brit Shalom movement with Martin Buber passed away today.


1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Treasury and the Histadrut had jointly decided that Value Added Tax would be levied at 8 percent, as of July 1.


1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that two Israeli missile boats sailed for the US to take part in the July 4 Bicentennial salute on the Hudson River.


1984(18th of Sivan, 5744): Murder of Alan Berg, Denver-based radio talk show host. Berg was shot by Christian White Supremacists.


1987:Daniel Barenboim began 9 days of conducting the IPO in a series of partially staged operas - ''Don Giovanni,''''The Marriage of Figaro'' and ''Cosi Fan Tutte''– that included performers from the Paris Opera.


1992(17th of Sivan, 5752): Famed Israeli painter, Mordecai Ardon, passed away His works included an effort from 1944 entitled “Ein Karem.”  In English Ein Karem means “Spring of the Vineyard.”  It is located on the southwest edge of Jerusalem.

1993: In Colorado, the District Court award title to Leadville’s Hebrew Cemetery to The Temple Israel Foundation.


1996(1stof Tammuz, 5756): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1996(1stof Tammuz, 5756): Kesari Yisrael passed away.  Born in Yemen in 1933, he came to Palestine at the age of two.  After studying at Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University he became a leader of Histadrut before being elected to the Knesset and serving as a cabinet minister.


1996: Limor Livnat succeeds Shulamit Aloni as Minister of Communications


1996: Benny Begin begins serving as The Science and Technology Minister of Israel


1996: Eli Suissa succeeds Haim Ramon as Internal Affairs Minister


1996: Israel Kessar completes his term as Minister of Transport, National Infrastructure and Road Safety.


1996: David Levy succeeds Ehud Barak as foreign minister.


1996: Binyamin Ben-Eliezer completes his term as Minister of Housing and Construction


1996:Binyamin Netanyahu succeeds Shimon Sheetrit as Minister of Religious Services


1996: Gonen Segev completed his service as Minister of Energy and Water Resources.


1996: Avigdor Kahalani replaced Moshe Shahal as Minister of Public Security


1997(13th of Sivan, 5757):  Lev Kopelev passed away.  The Russian born Kopelev was an idealist and a committed Bolshevik.  Over time, he would become a dissident and ended up having to live out his days in Cologne, Germany.


1999: The Times of London reviewed “Israel and the Bomb” by Avner Cohen.


2000:The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Groucho:The Life and Times of Julius Henry Marx by Stefan Kanfer, Monkey Business:The Lives and Legends of the Marx Brothers: Groucho, Chico, Harpo, Zeppo With Added Gummo by Simon Louvish, The Essential Groucho:Writings by, for, and About Groucho Marx Edited by Stefan Kanfer, How to Read and Why by Harold Bloom, King David:A Biography by Steven L. McKenzie and The Jewish State: The Struggle for Israel's Soul by Yoram Hazony


2001(27th of Sivan, 5761): Palestinian terrorists murdered 35 year old Dan Yehuda in “a drive-by shooting.”


2001: Fatah gunman shot 38 year old Doron Zisserman.


2002: In “Edelman Savors Nearly 50 Years of Independence,” Jim Kirk provides a snapshot of the career of Daniel Edelman the PR man who came to Chicago from New York and founded the agency that bears his name.

2002(8th of Tammuz, 5762): Nineteen people, including two children, were killed and 74 were injured – six seriously – in a suicide bombing at the Patt junction in Egged bus #32A traveling from Gilo to the center of Jerusalem. The bus, which was completely destroyed, was carrying a number of students on their way to school. The victims: Boaz Aluf, 54, of Jerusalem; Shani Avi-Zedek, 15, of Jerusalem; Leah Baruch, 59, of Jerusalem; Mendel Bereson, 72, of Jerusalem; Rafael Berger, 28, of Jerusalem; Michal Biazi, 24, of Jerusalem; Tatiana Braslavsky, 41, of Jerusalem; Galila Bugala, 11, of Jerusalem; Raisa Dikstein, 67, of Jerusalem; Dr. Moshe Gottlieb, 70, of Jerusalem; Baruch Gruani, 60, of Jerusalem; Orit Hayla, 21, of Jerusalem; Helena Ivan, 63, of Jerusalem; Iman Kabha, 26, of Barta; Shiri Negari, 21, of Jerusalem; Gila Nakav, 55, of Jerusalem; Yelena Plagov, 42, of Jerusalem; Liat Yagen, 24 of Jerusalem; Rahamim Zidkiyahu, 51, of Jerusalem. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.


2003(18th of Sivan, 5763):  A Palestinian terrorist killed 19 passengers when he detonated a bomb on a bus in Jerusalem.


2004: U.S. premiere of The Terminal directed and produced by Steven Spielberg which provides a comedic twist to issues of immigration and survival in an airport.


2004: Bernard J. Wohl, Executive Director of the Goddard Riverside Community Center addresses the 20th annual conference of the “International Federation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers” in Toronto. "You can’t just focus on your own agency. You need to work with other agencies to affect change because all the agencies are experiencing the same problems to different extents. When agencies get together, the city listens much more to them. Community is about doing things together."


2005(11th of Sivan, 5765): Sixty-six year old Gerald Davis a prominent artist and leader of the Irish Jewish community passed away.

2006: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Betraying Spinozaby Rebecca Goldstein and recently released paperback editions of 109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos by Jennet Coant, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimerby Kai Bird and Martin Sherman and The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank by Ellen Feldman


2006: Student groups at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee rallied today calling for the prosecution of a local man who claims to be a former Waffen-SS officer and announced last week that he planned to set up a public shrine in his backyard to commemorate the life of Adolf Hitler.


2006:Ronald S. Lauder purchased the painting Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I by Gustav Klimt for $135 million from Maria Altman

2006(22ndof Sivan, 5766): Ninety-nine year old director Vincent Sherman, the small town Georgia boy who grew into a Hollywood giant who created classics like The Young Philadelphians and Mr. Skeffington.

2007: Funeral services were held at Am Shalom, in Glencoe, Illinois for Shirlee Mages, of blessed memory.


2007: Newsweek magazine features an article by Robert W. Morgenthau and Frank Tuerkheimer entitled “From Midway to the Mideast: How a victory in the Pacific 65 years ago helped defeat Hitler and found Israel.” The article includes the information that “just after the fall of Tobruk, an SS killing squad…was created to operate behind Rommel’s front line…for the express purpose of killing Jews in occupied territory.”  Had Rommel been successful that occupied territory would have included Palestine and the Jews of the Yishuv.


2007: In the “Verbatim” section Time magazinefeatured the following quote by Rutka Laskier, “'If only I could say, It's over, you only die once ... but I can't, because despite all these atrocities, I want to live, and wait for the following day.'” Rutka Laskier has been described as the Polish Anne Frank. Like Frank, she wrote a Holocaust-era diary, at the age of 14. Like Frank, Laskier perished during the Holocaust. Apparently, the Nazis killed her at Auschwitz.


2007: Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz squares off in a friendly dispute with Michael Steinhardt at the annual dinner of the Aleph Society in New York City.


2007: On the secular calendar, the fifteenth anniversary of the death of Mordecai Ardon.  It happens to fall on the 2ndof Tammuz which is appropriate since one of his works was called “Tammuz.”

2008: As the waters recede from the 500 Year Flood of 2008, The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported that Smulekoff's, one of the oldest businesses in downtown Cedar Rapids, said it will be opening in temporary quarters and plans to rebuild its landmark store at 97 Third Ave. SE. Ann Lipsky, president of Smulekoff's Home Store, told managers that the 119-year-old business will be reopening in the near term at its warehouse, 411 Sixth Ave. SE. The warehouse received a small amount of water in the basement where no merchandise was stored. Smulekoff's has been in downtown Cedar Rapids since 1889 when it was established by Henry Smulekoff on May's Island. The store moved to the current location of Wells Fargo Bank on Third Avenue SW during the flood of 1929 and was located at 97 Third Ave. SE during the flood of 1993."In all that time, the devastation has never been as bad as the current situation," Lipsky said. "We will come back and continue to provide the area with fine home furnishings, floor coverings and more."


2008: UNICEF met with officials of Adalah, a coalition of pro-Palestinian groups to inform them that the agency would no longer have any relationship with Lev Leviev, an Orthodox Jewish diamond mogul who has financed construction projects in the West Bank.


2008: The Jewish Film Festival of Croatia host a first time one day event in Belgrade.


2009: In Deal New Jersey, Avi Hoffman opens a three night run of "Too Jewish?", "Too Jewish, Too" and “Still Jewish After All These Years: A Life in the Theater” at the Axelrod Performing Arts Center.


2009:David Adjmi makes his professional New York theater debut when his play “Stunning” opens at the Duke on 42nd Street today. “


2009:Espousing a dream of harmony that may stretch credibility among even the most fervent believers in dialogue among the great religions, clerics in Jerusalem launched a project today aimed at finding a way to share the city's holiest, and most fought over, site. Even the Jewish religious scholar promoting it acknowledges it might need divine intervention before a peaceful remapping of the area where Muslims built the 7th century Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque on the site of the biblical Jewish


2010: Simon Wolfson was created Baron Wolfson of Aspley Guise, of Aspley Guise in the County of Bedfordshire,


2010: The Elvis and 50's Rock'n'Roll Concert is scheduled to take place at midrechov Ben Yehuda in Jerusalem.


2010: Abbie Silber the lovely and multi-talented daughter of Dr. Bob and Laurie Silber provided a special musical interlude for Shabbat Services at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, IA

2010(5th of Tammuz, 5770): Eighty-one year old Holocaust survivor passed away today. (As reported by Keith Thursby)

2011:Naama Shafir, an Israeli point guard and a player on the University of Toledo's women's basketball team who normally wears a T-shirt under her jersey for modesty reasons, will not be playing in a European basketball tournament scheduled to start today because FIBA Europe-- the Munich-based organization that governs basketball in Europe -- decided to stick with its usual policy: All players must wear the same uniform..


2011:Erika Brooks Adickman is scheduled to host “Troop Beverly Hills: The Experience” at the Historic Sixth & I Synagogue in Washington, DC.


2011: A wildfire raging in the Golan today was under control by late afternoon. The fire erupted this morning near Moshav Had Nes in the southern Golan Heights


 2011(16th of Sivan, 5771): Morris Pollard, the 95 year old father of Jonathan Pollard, passed away today. Pollard was an internationally recognized prostate cancer researcher who was professor emeritus of biological sciences at Notre Dame University


2011(16th of Sivan, 5771): Eighty-eight year old Elena Boner, the Soviet dissident and human-rights campaigner who endured banishment and exile along with her husband, the dissident nuclear physicist Andrei D. Sakharov, passed away today. Her father was an Armenia.  Her mother, Ruth Bonner was a Jewess born in Siberia who disappeared into the Gulag in 1938.(As reported by Alessandra Stanley and Michael Schwirtz)


2012: The Partnership for Jewish Life and Learning is scheduled to have its annual meeting at Ohr Kodesh in Chevy Chase, MD. 


2012: Israeli cellist Yoed Nir is scheduled to appear with Judy Collins at the Metropolitan Museum of Art-PBS Show.


2012: On the Civil Calendar, 20thanniversary of the death of Michael Ardon.

2012:An Israeli citizen and two terrorists were killed this morning during clashes between Israel Defense Forces soldiers and gunmen who infiltrated the southern border with Egypt


2012: “A group of 20 veterans, mostly-high ranking Jordanian and Israeli retired officers, met in Jerusalem today, and toured the sites of battles that pitted them against each other nearly half a century ago. (As reported by Elhanan Miller)


2012: In a letter published today by www.magyarnarncs.hu“Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel  renounced a Hungarian state award he received in 2004 in protest against what he said was a "whitewashing" of the role of former Hungarian governments in the deportation of Jews during World War Two.


2012: “Friday Night Lights” published today provides a snapshot of “Jewish boys in the NFL.”
 
2012(28th of Sivan, 5772): Ninety-year old “Judith S. Wallerstein, a psychologist who touched off a national debate about the consequences of divorce by reporting that it hurt children more than previously thought, with the pain continuing well into adulthood” passed away today. (As reported by Denise Grady)

2013:Barbra Streisand is scheduled to perform in Israel today at the opening ceremony of Shimon Peres’s annual Presidential Conference, which will also honor his 90th birthday. (As reported by Gabe Fisher)


2013: Russ & Daughter’s is scheduled to host its Herring Celebration where “the wonders of herring” will be explored. (An event to make a true Litvak drool)


2013: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to host “a conversation with creators Peter Gethers and Dan Okrent and cast members from off-Broadway’s “Old Jews Telling Jokes” in which they will explore the hit revue that pays tribute to classic jokes of the past and present


2013: Today, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu condemned last night's "price tag" attack in Abu Ghosh, saying that it is contradictory to the values and people of Israel and Judaism.


2013: Hungarian prosecutors today charged Laszlo Csatary, 98, with war crimes committed during World War Two, saying he helped deport Jews to Auschwitz. "He is charged with the unlawful execution and torturing of people thus committing war crimes partly as a culprit, partly as an accomplice," Bettina Bagoly, a spokeswoman for the Budapest Chief Prosecutor's Office said. She said Csatary's case would go to trial within three months. (As reported by Reuters)


2013: After have been arrested yesterday on charges of fraud, conspiracy, breach of trust and corruption, Michael Applebaum resigned as Mayor of Montreal while maintaining that he was innocent of all charges.


2014: International Consortium for Research on Antisemitism and Racism, hosted by the Jewish Studies Program at Central European University is scheduled to come to an end in Budapest.


2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host a panel discussion on “Ancestors from AllOver the World.”


2014: “A Place in Heaven” is scheduled to be shown at the JCC in Manhattan as part of the Israel Film Center Festival.


2014: “The parents of the three teens kidnapped last week “got their first listen to a tape of one of the students reporting the abduction in an emotional meeting with defense officials today.” (As reported by Yifa Yaakov)


2014: In response to rocket attacks from Gaza, the IAF launched several attacks on Hamas installations in Gaza.


2014: In Philadelphia, 89 year old retired toolmaker Johann “Hans” Beyer was ordered held without bail today “on a German arrest warrant charging him with aiding and abetting the killing of 216,000 Jewish men, women and children while he was a guard at the Auschwitz death camp.”


2014: In London, The Weiner Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide is scheduled to host a special film festival and reception marking Refugee Week


2015: ISRAMERICA is scheduled to host the first night of “I Heart Music Festival.”


2015: Agudas Achim, in Coralville, Iowa is scheduled to hold its annual meeting where it will learn to cope with the reality that after over four decades, the congregation will have to move forward without the leadership of Rabbi Jeff Portman.


2015: “Bonjour Monsieur Chagall” “a colorful musical performance based on poetic works and painting by Marc Chagall” is scheduled to be performed at Kulturfest in NYC,


2015: The Center for Jewish History, YIVO Institute and Center for Traditional Music and Dance are scheduled to present “Night Songs from a Neighboring Village: Ballads of the Ukrainian & Yiddish Heartland” during which “musicians Michael Alpert and Julian Kytasty draw on Ukrainian folk and liturgical music, klezmer, Yiddish folk song, and Hasidic music to create a performance that illustrates the centuries-long mutual influence Ukrainian and East European Jewish musical traditions have had on one another.”


2015(1st of Tammuz, 5775): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


 

This Day, June 19, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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JUNE 19


325: Promulgation of the Nicene Creed. The creed dealt with various splits among the various Christian groups and only dealt in a tangential manner with matters pertaining to Jews. The creed altered the method for selecting the date of Easter.  The change did not ban Easter from ever falling on the first day of Passover.  This change would be centuries away from being adopted. But by adopting even this change, the early Christian leaders showed the need to work very hard at separating their religion from Judaism.


1269: Louis IX (Saint Louis) of France, needing no urging from the Church, ordered all Jews found in public without a badge (yellow or red) to be fined ten livres of silver. The badge in France was usually a circle of red or yellow material and was known as a rouelle. The original badge was actually Moslem in origin (Caliph Omar II (717-20)) who decreed that both Jews and Christians wear a distinguishing mark. The "badge" took on different shapes colors and even dress (i.e. a hat or color of a dress) depending on the country.


1286: Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg was imprisoned in a castle in Alsace, Lombardy.  At the time of his imprisonment, Reb Meir and his followers were trying to leave Germany following a new wave of persecution brought by Rudolph I.  “Tradition has it that a large ransom of 23,000 marks (approximately 15,144,900 U.S dollars today) was raised for him (by the ROSH), but Rabbi Meir refused it, for fear of encouraging the imprisonment of other rabbis. He died in prison after seven years. 14 years after his death a ransom was paid for his body by Alexander ben Shlomo (Susskind) Wimpen, who was subsequently laid to rest beside the Maharam.”  Reb Meir was also known by the term Maharam.  His erudition and piety earned him the appellation, ‘Light of the Exile.’ Meir was a leading commentator on Rashi’s explanations of the Talmud.  Such was his reputation that Ashkenazi communities in Italy, France and Germany looked to him for guidance when questions of law and/or custom arose.


1269: “King Louis IX of France …decrees that Jews found in public without a special badge will be fined ten livres of silver. Normally worn on the breast, the Jewish badge is either yellow or red and is designed to warn Christians when they are dealing with or simply near a Jew. Local officials around France repeat the requirement to better enforce the public segregation of Jews in this manner. The badges themselves are sold by the crown, so the government benefits financially two ways: first by selling them, and second by the fines when they aren't worn. (As reported by Austin Cline)


1320: John XXII issued “Cum sit absurdum” a Papal Bull that stated that “Converted Jews need not be despoiled.”


1338: “In recognition of the good-will shown by the citizens of Vienna in time of distress, and in anticipation of its continuance, the Jews declared, in a document written in Hebrew and dated today in Vienna that they would lend to the citizens of Vienna, rich as well as poor, a pound of Vienna heller at a weekly interest of three heller.”


1623: Birthdate of French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal.  Of the Jewish people Pascal wrote, “It is certain that in certain parts of the world we can see a peculiar people, separated from the other peoples of the world and this is called the Jewish people…. This people is not only of remarkable antiquity but has also lasted for a singularly long time… For where as the people of Greece and Italy, of Sparta, Athens and Rome and others who came so much later have perished so long ago, these still exist, despite the efforts of so many powerful kings who have tried a hundred times to wipe them out, as their historians testify, and as can easily be judged by the natural order of things over such a long spell of years. They have always been preserved, however, and their preservation was foretold… My encounter with this people amazes me…."


1747: Nāder Shāh Afshār, the founder of the Afsharid dynasty, passed away. During his reign he reversed the anti-Jewish policies and practices that had been put in place by the Safawid’s dynasty which had ruled during the previous century.


1768: At Uman, the Haidamak Army under the command of Maksym Zalizniak slaughtered thousands of Jews in the Gonta Massacres.  The slaughter came at the end of the siege of Uman in which Ivan Gonta had betrayed the Polish garrison which led to its defeat.  The Polish commandment had tried to “buy the lives” of the Poles by giving up the Jews; a ploy that failed.  Led by Leib Shargorodoski and Moses Menaker, the Jews put up a valiant but futile defense.  The number of dead Jews which totaled more than 2,000 was inflated by the number of refugees who had sought refuge in the town.


1772: Birthdate of Salomon Oppehneim Jr. the German Jewish banker from Bonn who at the age of 17 founded a “commissions and exchange house” that became Sal. Oppenheim company


1790: The Gazette of the United States, a newspaper published in New York City provides an account of correspondence between the Hebrew Congregation of Savannah, Georgia and the newly elected President of the United States, George Washington.  Washington’s letter to the Georgia Jews ends with the following sentiments. “May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivered Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors, planted them in a promised land, whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation, still continue to water them with the dews of heaven and make the inhabitants of every denomination participated in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah.”


1790(7th of Tammuz, 5550): Saul Lowenstam “a renowned Dutch rabbi and Talmudist” passed away.  Born at Rzeszów in 1717 he was the son of Rabbi Areyh Leib ben Saul, the son-in-law of Rabbi Abraham Kahana and the father of Rabbi Jacob Moses Lowenstam. His writings included Binyan Ariel and a Torah Commentary, HeChatzer HaChadasha.


1826: Birthdate of Charles Loring Brace, author of The Unknown God; Or Inspiration Among Pre-Christian Races in which the author is impressed by the fact that there that are “so few evidences of Egyptian influence are found in the Hebrew faith.”  The thinkers and teachers of the Jews were visited by those higher and purer inspirations which have made them the greatest benefactors of mankind in ancient history.


1832: Birthdate of Frédéric Emile Baron d’Erlanger, the French banker whose family converted to Christianity.  Despite the family’s conversion, the Baron is often erroneously identified as being Jewish. Erlanger created one of the earliest “junk bonds” based on the cotton trade during the Civil War.  This has led to other incorrect reports that Jews were responsible for financing the Confederacy’s war effort.


1843(21st of Sivan, 5603): Sixty-year old Austrian author and philosopher Ignaz Jeiteles who was working on a history of literature when he passed away today in Vienna.


1844: “The Rabbinical Conference of Brunswick “convoked by Levi Herzfeld and Ludwig Philippson” whose attendees included Solomon Formstecher, Samuel Hirsch, Mendel Hess, Samuel Holdheim came to an end today.


1854: Birthdate of Jonas Kuppenheimer.  A native of Terre Haute, Indiana, Kuppenheimer, his father Bernard and his brothers Louise and Albert moved to Chicago in 1870 where they established a clothing store that became one of the major men’s clothing brands in the United States.  He passed away in 1921.


1857: The correspondent for the New York Times writes from London that the second reading of the Jew Bill has passed by an immense majority. Furthermore, the opposition seems to be waning and Rothschild is on his way to becoming “a Parliamentary saint” as opposed to an “unparliamentary martyr.”


1867: Ruthless beat out DeCourcey by a head over the old Jerome Park Racetrack to win the inaugural running of the Belmont Stakes and financed by August Belmont, Sr. for whom the race was named financed the building of the track.  The Belmont Stakes would move to its current home, Belmont Park, in 1905.


1871: In Nebraska, Edward Rosewater, a Jewish immigrant who supported abolition and served as a telegrapher in the Union Army published the first edition of the Omaha Bee


1877: As word of Judge Hilton’s decision to bar Joseph Seligman from the Grand Union Hotel because he was Jewish spread across the United States, hotel proprietors in Philadelphia said that banning patrons because they were Jewish was wrong.  Looking at it from strictly a financial point of view, they all agree that the money of “an Israelite” is as good as that “of a full-fledged American.”  Both Mr. Kingsley of the Continental and Mr. Ward of St. George, leading Philadelphia hotels, have had Seligman as a guest and would gladly do so again. While Judge Hilton’s action might have been permissible in New York, in Pennsylvania it would have been illegal.  Under that state’s law, hotel owners have to obtain a license that allows them “keep a hotel, inn or tavern and under the provisions of that license he cannot turn away any person from his hotel, unless he knows that such persons will cause great loss to his house and then he holds himself liable to a fine of $300 and three months imprisonment” as well as a suit for damages from the people who were denied rooms.


1877: At the popular resort of Long Branch, NJ, several hotel owners expressed their surprise that Joseph Seligman had been turned away from the Grand Union.  Even though he is Jewish, the hotel owners, some of whom had had him as a guest, said that he was a desirable guest.  However, many of them expressed the opinion that they did not want Jews staying at their hotels and were sympathetic with the stance taken by Judge Hilton.


1877: According to Edward Lauterbach, the attorney for Joseph Seligman, as of today hundreds of Jews have closed their accounts at the two stores owned by A.T. Stewart & Co which are controlled by Judge Hilton. This is but one example of Jewish support for Seligman whom Lauterbach declared is the leading Jew in the United States and is proudly acknowledged as such by his co-religionists.  Lauterbach said that Seligman might also pursue a case under the Civil Rights Law which would leave Hilton open to fines and imprisonment.


1877: The arrival of today’s New York Times at Saratoga Spring this afternoon has caused quite a stir with its report of the dispute between Judge Hilton and Joseph Seligman over the latter’s claim that he was not allowed to rent rooms at the Grand Union because he was Jewish.


1878: Birthdate of Yakov Mikhaylovich Yurovsky, the Bolshevik leader that some credit with overseeing the execution of the Czar after the Russian Revolution.


1879: The London News published an article describing the terms of the will of the late Baron Lionel de Rothschild.  The estate is valued to at 2,700,000 pounds. Sir Nathaniel de Rothschild and Mr. Alfred de Rothschild, the late Baron’s two sons, have been named as executors. 


1880: It was reported today that Sarah Bernhardt has signed a contract to give 60 performances at Booth’s Theatre in New York next winter. The contract calls for her to be paid 3,000 francs a night, one-third of the gross receipts, traveling expenses for herself and three companions and 3,000 francs a month for her hotel bill.  According to the great actress, she has had more lucrative offers but she accepted this because the 200,000 francs has been deposited at the Banque de France as a security bond.


1882: It was reported today that the United States manager for Sarah Bernhardt has signed a contract with Henry Irving the actor/owner of London’s Lyceum Company to perform their full repertoire during an American tour.  Among other things, American audiences will be treated to The Merchant of Venice featuring Ellen Terry in her famed portrayal of Portia and Irving’s unique portrayal of Shylock.  His dignified portrayal of Shakespeare’s most famous Jewish character is a departure from the norm of his time.


1882: “The Polish Jewish Colony” published today provided a detailed sketch of life among the Jews living on New York’s lower east side.]


1883: The Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society was among the private institutions devoted to the care of children that received a grant of funds from the Board of Estimate and Apportionment in New York City. The society received $1,810 out of a total of $30,255 in grants.


1884:Dr. Henry W. Schneeberger a Baltimore Rabbi was one of four people who signed a letter today addressed “to Sir Moses Montefiore, thanking him for his aid to the Russian Jews who had found a refuge in Baltimore. The letter continued to advise Montefiore that the Russian Jewish immigrants had established a school in honor of their benefactor. Dr. Schneeberger was one of the teachers in this school - teaching the immigrants in the daytime and also at night. Dr. Schneeberger also became their mentor in advising the Russian Jewish immigrants to become good American citizens and he cautioned against the radicalism of some in their midst.”


1884: After a rumor circulated through certain parts of the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod that a Jew had kidnapped a Christian child and taken it to a synagogue, a mob attacked the synagogue. During the riot 9 Jews were killed, six houses were wrecked and an untold number were plundered.


1886: Birthdate of Michael (Mihály) Fekete the Hungarian mathematician who made Aliyah in 1928 where he “was among the first instructors in the Institute of Mathematics at Hebrew University of Jersualem.


1886: The Manchester Guardian reported that the Visiting Committee of the Hebrew Congregations of Manchester and Liverpool has affected a "closer union between the Sephardic and Ashkenazic sections of the Jewish community."


1889: William E. Annin, the associate editor of the Omaha Bee wrote the following description today of Edward Rosewater, the Czech born Jew who was “the editor and publisher of the Omaha Bee.”


"Mr. Rosewater was par excellence the all-around man of the [Bee] establishment. He seemed to have obtained the secret of two of the attributes of Deity, he was omnipresent and apparently omniscient. He wrote heavy editorials and pungent editorial paragraphs; contributed local political news to the city page, clipped selections for the news columns, selected items for those startling chestnuts dubbed 'Connubial Bliss,''Peppermint Drops' and 'Honey for the Ladies,' regulated the business office a dozen times a day, and took subscriptions on the streets and advertising contracts from the merchants. I used to think his only sorrow was that he had not in addition been born a steam engine so that he could run the presses. . . "In addition to his ordinary duties above named, he constantly developed strong interest in local politics, and always had a dozen fights and twice that number of ward politicians on his hands. On city or county election days, The Bee office was usually depopulated and every man, from editor down, after rushing in copy, early took a whirl at the polls. After a hard day's work on election day, followed by an all night session in collecting returns, the editor would bob up serenely at 9 o'clock the next morning with his arm full of exchanges and his mouth full of suggestions about the paper, . . ."His indomitable energy, his uncompromising persistency and his invincible pluck were at once the wonder and admiration of the office. . . . Overworked himself, he took his own high tension as the norm of work, and found it difficult to understand why all of his employees could not endure cheerfully the same racking. This made him often very unpleasant as an employer


1890: Police officers Oram and English waited in vain for “a short, stout, red whiskered Polish Jew” named Marcus Goldstein to come to the Gill Engraving printing where he was supposed to retrieve plates for making lottery tickets that were thought to be part of counterfeiting scheme. (more tomorrow)


1891: It was reported today that applications for the summer session The Hebrew Technical Institute under the direction of Henry Leipziger may be made now at its building on Stuyvesant Street.


1891: The list of the graduates from Hebrew Technical Institute published today included Coleman Borwn, Jacob Brown, Joseph Elias, Morris Farkas, Joseph L. Gensler, Louis Gevertz, Arthur Gross, Philip Levenhal, Michale L. Levy, Marks Lisk, Joseph Mayer, Max Mayer, Mortimer L Newman, Hyman Rosensohn, Abraham Saruya, Rduolph Shack, August Schweitzer and Jacob Szabo.


1892: “Austrian Jew Baiters Thrashed” published today described an episode at Vienna’s Prater Restaurant, witnessed by a correspondent from the London Daily News during which three “Jew baiters” were thrashed by “a beardless youth” after enduring their taunts in silence. It turned out the young man was not Jewish but was in fact an English jockey who had several races at Vienna.


1892: It was reported today that Sarah “Bernhardt continues to play to big audiences in which is proving the most success of all her London seasons.


1892: “Rejected at the Theatre Francais” published today includes a negative review of Le Prince d'Aurec, a satire on the nobility by Henri Lavedan that features a Jewish banker named de Horn as the villain.


1893: Henry Gottgetreu, the attorney for the late Samuel Adler, spoke of behalf of himself and the family when he denied any knowledge of financial problems that Adler had been facing since they assumed that his “fortune” was “at least a quarter of a million dollars.” Mr. Adler had been active in a number of Jewish organizations including the Sons of Israel, the Sons of Benjamin and B’nai B’rith.


1893: “Hebrew Printers at Odds” published today described conflict between Jews workers including a declaration by the Central Labor Federation that “the Hebrew Typographical Union was the only true Hebrew printing union in New York” and a denunciation of the “Hebrew Typographical Union No. 317 as shoemakers, tailors and cloakmakers organized to fight Socialism.” (This small item gives a window into the internecine conflict of the Jewish working class; a conflict that was even more intense than the one with the businesses many of which were owned by Jews)


1893(5th of Tammuz, 5653): Fifty year old Adolph S. Jaeger, a prosperous cigar manufacturer who was, with his brother Morris S., co-owner of Jaeger Brothers, died today, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.


1893: It was reported today that the brass band from the Hebrew Orphan Asylum played at the reception marking the opening of the Lebanon Hospital


1895: “Literary Notes” published today described the upcoming publication by G.P. Putnam of Israel Among the Nations, “as study of the Jews and anti-Semitism by Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu which has been translated into English by Frances Hellman


1896: “The Jews of Russia” published today describes the restrictive laws under which the Israelites have lived in the land of the Czars including the Ukase of 1727 that expelled the Jews from Russia, the Ukase of 1742 which did the same and the creation by Catherine II and Alexander I of special zone to which the Jews were to confine themselves.


1897: “The Talmud Again” published today provides an in-depth review of the two-volume New Edition of the Babylonian Talmud formulated and punctuated by Michael L Rodkinson which includes the original text and an English translation reviewed by Dr. Isaac W. Wise. Born in 1845, Rodkinson was the grandson of Aaron ha-Levi ben Moses, the son of Alexander Sender Frumkin and the half-brother of Israel Dov Bar Frumkin


1897: Among the gifts and contributions listed at the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Hebrew Technical Institute were $250 from Julius Goldschmidt for tools and physical instruments; a band saw from James Loeb; $500 from the late Bernard Cohen for lathes; $1,000 from the late Leopold Boscowitz for general supplies. (The nature of the contributions is consistent with vocational mission of the institute)


1897: Mrs. Jennie Cohen who had been recently widowed and her four young children ranging in age from six years to four months arrived in New York from New Haven, CT and since they were destitute spent the night at the Hebrew Sheltering House Association at 210 Madison.


1897:  Birthdate of comedian Moe Howard who gained fame as one of the Three Stooges


1899: In Baltimore, MD, Dr. Richard Gottheil chaired the opening session of the second annual conference of the Federation of American Zionists.


1899: As of today the Federation of American Zionists has 10,000 members divided into “125 societies” with a total of $415.92 in its treasurer.


1899: This evening Rabbi Gustave Gottheil of New York’s Temple Emanu-El addressed a mass meeting in Baltimore in which “he delivered a bitter” indictment “against the injustice done Dreyfus.


1899: In his recent announcement of his resignation as pastor of the Calvary Presbyterian Church on West 116th Street in Manhattan, Reverend James Chambers predicted that the congregation would soon disband because of the changing nature of the neighborhood where “well-to-do residents of the Jewish faith…have crowded out their Christian neighbors.”


1900: Herzl and Wolffsohn settle their differences about the Trust's affairs. And Herzl asks his good dear "Daade" to address him by the familiar "Du" instead of the formal "Sie".


1903: The British Foreign Office sends the first of two letters to Herzl rejecting his proposal to establish a Jewish colony in the Sinai.


1903: In Halle Irmgard (nee Wust) and Fritz Litten, “a Jews who converted to Lutheranism in order to further his career as a law professor” gave birth to Hans Litten, a lawyer who represented opponents of the Nazis – a role that ended him in Dachau where he died.


1906: In Berlin,Margarete (née Eisner) and Michael Chain gave birth to German born and educated British chemist, Sir Ernst Boris Chain.  Chain left Germany when the Nazis came to power.  As an English citizen this leading biochemist won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1945 for his work on the effects of penicillin. 


1910: Birthdate of Abe Fortas, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Fortas was a close friend and advisor to Lyndon Johnson. There are several stories about Fortas providing Johnson with what we would call a "reality check." Fortas was reluctant to give up his lucrative law practice and accept the position on the high court. He did tell Johnson that the Jewish community would not consider him as the "Jewish Justice" in the sense of a Brandies or Goldberg since he was not a part of that community. In the end Fortas gave into Lyndon’s famed arm-twisting and the rest is history. Fortas ended up resigning from the court in 1969 after questions were raised about some of his business dealings. Fortas passed away in 1982 at the age of 71.


1913: Abram I. Elkus addressed the graduates at the City College commencement ceremony.


1914: Louis D. Brandeis, special counsel to the Interstate Commerce Commission in the 5 per cent. advance rate case, to-day appeared before the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce in opposition to the Rayburn Stock and Bond bill, which proposes to confer authority upon the commission to control and approve issues of securities by common carriers.


1915: Birthdate of cartoonist Julius Schwartz


1915: The Jews of Morocco suffer indignities under the French regime that were unknown while under the rule of the old sultans.


1917: In Alexandria, Egypt, Nelly Grün and Leopold Percy Hobsbaum gave birth to “Eric J. Hobsbawm, whose three-volume economic history of the rise of industrial capitalism established him as Britain’s pre-eminent Marxist historian.” (As reported by William Grimes)


1917: In Chicago, The Baron Hirsch Workers are scheduled “to hold a directors’ meeting this after at the Lincoln Park.


1915: Based on information from the American minister to Sweden, Abram I. Ilkus, the American Ambassador to Turkey has left Constantinople and is scheduled to arrive in Berne today.


1919:  Birthdate of movie critic Pauline Kael.  As movie critic for the New York Times, Kael was one of the most influential influences in the world of cinema criticism.  With her high quality of writing and edgy style, she was a trend setter in an era when women were too often consigned to the style section and gossip columns.


1920: The first anti-Semitic article appeared in the Dearborn Independent, owned by Henry Ford who was a Jew hater part excellence.


1925: In a cave at Tabgha, near Jerusalem, archaeologists discover a primitive human skull that bears a close resemblance to the Neanderthal man previously discovered in Europe.


1928(1stof Tammuz, 5688): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1928(1stof Tammuz, 5688): Just weeks short of his 61st birthday labor leader Joseph Baroness known as “the King of the Cloakmakers” passed away today.

1933: On a day when he received an honorary degree from Brown University Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo of the United States Supreme Court delivered an address to the alumni of that Rhode Island institution of higher education in which he declared, “The day is past when problems of public law can be solved by pulling down the law books and marking without other aids the "signposts on the road,"


1933: Cardinal Pacelli issued a concordant known as the Hitler Concordant. Hitler described it as "unrestricted acceptance of National Socialism by the Vatican." Cardinal Pacelli later became Pope Pious XII.


1935: In Palestine, the German consulate advises Jews not to travel to Germany, not even if they are citizens and not even for short trips. According to the consul, Jews entering Germany are likely to be apprehended by the Gestapo and placed in a concentration camp.


1934: American author Nathaniel West, the son of Litvak immigrants to the United States, published A Cool Million, the second of the three novels he created during his career which was cut short by an untimely death in an automobile accident.


1936: As Arab violence continues to sweep across Palestine, The Palestine Post reported that one Jew was killed and several deafened and injured by a primitive bomb which was thrown into a bus in Tel Aviv. Avraham Ben-Yehuda, one of the original founders of Atarot, died of injuries sustained when Arab snipers opened fire on a bus in Jerusalem. Trees were cut down and the aerodrome damaged at Lydda. The Jerusalem water pipe was damaged by a dynamite charge. Two Arabs injured themselves seriously while trying to blow up a road culvert near Nablus.


1939: The Mizrachi Women's Organization opened its first independent meeting in Atlantic City. Although it was the group's fourteenth annual meeting, it was the first conducted separately from a men's organization. Now the largest religious Zionist organization in the United States (under the name AMIT), the organization owes its creation to Freda Resnikoff.


1939:In Palestine, eighteen Arabs--nine men, six women and three children-- were killed and twenty-four wounded by the explosion of a time bomb. In replying to accusations by the British that Jews were responsible for the violence, “Jewish communal leaders condemned the ‘dastardly murder of innocent Arabs, women and children.’”


1940(13th of Sivan, 5700):Zalman David Levontin passed away. Born in 1856, he was one of the first of the Hovevei Zion group and one of the founders of Rishon LeZion and Yesod Hamaaleh. In 1903, Levontin founded the Anglo Palestine Bank in Jaffa and acted as its manager until 1924.


1942(4th of Tammuz, 5702): Jews revolt at Glebokie, Belorussia; 2500 are murdered in the Borek Forest.


1942: The family of famed historian Moses Schorr including his wife, his daughter Felicia and his grandchildren were “interned at Warsaw’s Pawiak Prison as citizens of a neutral state.”


1942: Birthdate of Jack Edward Oliver author of the “Swan Esther,” a 1982 musical based on the Megalith Esther.


1943: Joseph Goebbels announces that Berlin is free of Jews.


1944(28th of Sivan, 5704


1944: Five hundred Jews were transferred from the death camp of Birkenau to the work camp at Dachau.


1945: Judge Irving Lehman, the brother of former Governor Herman Lehman, delivered the address of welcome at New York City's reception honoring General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who has returned from leading the Allies to victory over the Nazis.


1948: Panama and Costa Rica (recognized Israel.


1950: In Toronto, Ruth (née Burstyn), an interior designer, and comedian Frank Shuster gave birth to comedy writer, who during the 1970’s was the wife of Saturday Night Live’s creator Lorne Michaels


1950: Israel apologized to the Swedish Government today for the assassination of Count Bernadotte, United Nations Mediator for Palestine, by terrorists on Sept. 17, 1948.


1951: For the first time, a Soviet citizen (Jewish) was issued an immigrant visa to Israel. The hoped-for easing of the Russian policy of not letting its citizens out would not materialize for decades to come.


1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Knesset passed the first reading of a bill empowering the government to sign an agreement with Bank Leumi Le'Israel, nominating the bank as the currency issue bank of Israel.


1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that the secretary of the Iraqi Jewish Community Council, Dr. Habasi, was detained by police in Baghdad together with seven other Jews, on charges of hiding "huge quantities of arms." All of the detained previously renounced their Iraqi citizenship and were waiting for emigration to Israel.


1952: The original version of “I've Got a Secret” created by Allan Sherman and produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman premiered tonight.


1952:Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion expressed satisfaction today that the Zionist Organization of America at its convention in New York this week had cleared up the misunderstanding about the right of foreign Zionists to participate in the shaping of Israel's policies.


1952: Birthdate of actress Carol Kane who played Simka on the television show Taxi.


1953: Execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg who had been convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage, relating to passing information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.


1953: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed after having been convicted as spies.


1954: François Mitterrand, the future President of France, was named to serve as Minister of the Interior in the first government head by prime Minister Pierre Mendes France who served as his own Minister of Foreign Affairs.


1954: U.S. premiere of “Them!” a sci-flic whose only enduring claim to fame is that it feature Leonard Nimoy as an “Army Staff” – a role for which he make the credits.


1957: Saul Rogovin pitched his last major league baseball game.


1959: The U.S. Senate rejects Ike's appointment of Lewis Strauss for Secretary of Commerce.  At a time when most Jews were Democrats, Strauss was a Republican. He was part of the liberal, internationalist wing of the party.  He had worked with Herbert Hoover on war relief during World War I.  Strauss made special efforts to see to that aid from the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee got to the Jews of Europe who were in dire straits.  He served in the Navy during World War II and became involved in atomic energy.  He was rejected because of his role in dealing with Robert J. Oppenheimer. 


1962:  In San Fernando, CA, Harry Abdul, a Syrian Jew raised in Brazil and the concert pianist Lorraine M. (née Rykiss), who grew up in one of the two Jewish families in Minnedosa, Manitoba in Canada gave birth to pop star Paula Abdul.


1964: The United States Senate passed The Civil Rights Bill that would eventually become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This landmark legislation outlawed a variety of forms of discrimination including that based on religion. The bill, which was primarily aimed at ending racial segregation, had support from Jewish groups and Jewish legislators. In the House, the bill was managed by Congressman Cellar who helped bring it to victory in that body.


1965: A novella entitled "Hapworth 16, 1924", the last published work of J.D. Salinger appeared today in The New Yorker magazine


1966(1st of Tammuz, 5726): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1966(1st of Tammuz, 5726): Comedian Ed Wynn passed away. Born Isaiah Edwin Leopold in 1886 in Philadelphia, Wynn’s father was a successful milliner. He did not want his son to go into show business. When the son would not yield, his father asked him to at least change his name so as not to disgrace the family. He decided to split his first name "Edwin" into Ed Wynn. Wynn was a successful comic in vaudeville and the early days of show business. He had his own show, which won an Emmy. He would appear in baggy pants suits pedaling a tricycle fitted with a piano. When his brand of clown-like comedy lost its popular appeal, Wynn followed the advice of his son and turned to acting. He appeared in a wide variety of hits including Marjorie Morningstar, The Diary of Anne Frank and Mary Poppins attesting to his real skill as an actor.

1967: Prime Minister Levi Eshkol announced that "as an interim stage, a military situation will remain in the West Bank."


1967: “In a secret decision, the government of Levi Eshkol offered Syria ‘full peace on the basis of the international border,’ with adjustments for Israeli security needs.”


1974: Seventy-three year old American molecular biologist Alfred Mirsky passed away.

1979: Birthdate of Daniel Jonathan Sieradski “a Jewish American writer and activist” who was “the founding publisher and editor-in-chief of Jewschool, a popular left-wing Jewish weblog, as well as the weblogs Radical Torah and Orthodox Anarchist. He is also the creator of the synagogue listings and reviews website ShulShopper.”


1980: In Charleston, SC, the Greek Revival building housing Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Synagogue was designated as a National Historic Landmark. For those who think of American Jewry as being a New York or eastern creation, it comes as a surprise that this is the second oldest synagogue building in continuous operation in the United States.  Also, when this congregation adopted the Reform minhag in 1824 it became one of the founding forces of the Reform Movement in the United States – something most people connect with Cincinnati, Ohio


1983(8th of Tammuz, 5743): Simcha Erlich, the native of Poland who made Aliyah in 1938 where he became a political ally of Menachem Begin under whom he served as Deputy Prime Minister passed away today.


1984(19th of Sivan, 5744): Abstract expressionist Lee Krasner passed away.


1987: Ben & Jerry Ice Cream founded by Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield announce a new ice cream flavor, “Cherry Garcia.”


1989(16th of Sivan, 5749): Writer and social critic I(sidor) F(einstein) Stone passes away at the age of 81.

1992: In Palermo, the Fifth International Convention of Studies of "Italia Judaica" came to a close.


1993: Philosopher and movie star Bernard-Henri Levy married actress Arielle Bombasle.


1993(30th of Tammuz, 5753): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1993(30th of Tammuz, 5753): Seventy-five year old philosopher Abraham Kaplan passed away in Haifa where he had been living since 1972.



1994(10th of Tammuz, 5754): Sheina Chaya, the wife Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv and the daughter of Rabbi Aryeh Levin passed away.


1994: The New York Times published a review of History of Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising by Israel Gutman. "They refused to surrender, preferring instead to fight to the death and thus preserve their honor," Israel Gutman writes in Resistance, his account of the band of starving Jews who fought the Nazis in Poland in April 1943. Mr. Gutman, a Holocaust survivor who teaches modern Jewish history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and is the director of the research center at Israel's national Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, intelligently outlines the elements that weakened the Jewish resistance movement in Warsaw. These included not only Nazi air attacks and arson, food and water shortages and the neglect of the Polish underground resistance movement, but also the abandonment of the ghetto by its most prominent political leaders and arguments among the many rival Jewish organizations over a course of action. One wishes that Mr. Gutman had recorded events chronologically rather than switching back and forth in time. One longs for more information about heroes like Mordecai Anielewicz, the brave underground leader who escaped Warsaw but returned to command the uprising, and Yitzhak Zuckerman, the uprising's deputy commander, who survived to write about it. Still, Resistance, which is published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, lucidly illustrates how a few hundred Jewish fighters with Molotov cocktails, homemade grenades and no military training twice forced the Germans to retreat from the ghetto and refused to go like lambs to the slaughter.


1995:The cartoon strip Rhymes With Orange appeared in syndication for the first time. With its debut, twenty-five-year-old cartoonist Hilary Price became the youngest woman ever to have a nationally-syndicated cartoon strip.


1995:David Libai begins his term as Minister of Internal Affairs.


1995: Jean-François Copé began his first term as Mayor Meaux.


1996(2nd of Tammuz, 5756): G. David Shine passed away. Roy Cohn, the Chief Counsel, named Shine as investigator for the McCarthy Committee, which was supposedly exposing the Communist Conspiracy during the 1950’s. Shine was drafted and McCarthy claimed the drafting of his investigator was part of the Communist Conspiracy to thwart his efforts. He attacked the U.S. Army for being involved in the Communist Conspiracy. These charges led to the famous Army-McCarthy Hearings, which led to his downfall.


1996(2nd of Tammuz, 5756): Bessie Margolin the Russian born labor attorney who grew up at the Jewish Children’s Home in New Orleans before graduating from Sophie Newcomb College and Tulane Law School passed away today.

1996: The Eldridge Street Synagogue was designated as a National Historic Landmark. Located at 12 Eldridge Street on New York’s lower east side, it was built in 1887 to meet the needs of the growing population of eastern European Jews. As demographics changed, the synagogue fell on hard times in the 1950’s.  In the 1980’s restoration projects began which reinvigorate and physically restore the synagogue.


2001(28th of Sivan, 5761): Fifteen year old Yevgeniya Dorfman from Bat Yam died today from the injuries she suffered during the Dolphinarium discotheque suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.


2001(28th of Sivan, 5761): Seventy-nine year old Rabbi Bernard Mandelbaum, president from 1966 to 1971 of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the academic and spiritual center of Conservative Judaism, passed away today (As reported by Ari L. Goldman)

2002(9th of Tammuz, 5762): Seven people were killed and 50 injured, three of them critically, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a crowded bus stop and hitchhiking post at the French Hill intersection in northern Jerusalem shortly after 7:00 P.M., as people were returning home from work. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. The victims: Noa Alon, 60, of Ofra; Gal Eisenman, 5, of Ma’ale Adumim; Michal Franklin, 22, of Jerusalem; Tatiana Igelski, 43, of Moldova; Hadassah Jungreis, 20, of Migdal Haemek; Gila Sara Kessler, 19, of Eli; and Shmuel Yerushalmi, 17, of Shilo


2003: In New York, The Israel Fest Foundation proudly presented Academy Award winning director Milos Forman with the 19th Israel Film Festival 2003 Lifetime Achievement Award and Israeli director Dina Zvi Riklis with the 2003 IFF Cinematic Award. The Award Ceremony is followed by the premiere of the hit romantic comedy Wisdom of the Pretzel directed by Ilan Heitner, starring Guy Loel, Osnat Hakim& Yoram Sachs.


2003: Rudy Giuliani led the U.S. delegation to the first Organization for Security and Cooperation conference on anti-Semitism being held in Vienna.  The conference came about, in part, because of the strong support from the Bush Administration.


2003(19th of Sivan, 5763): Avner Mordechai, 58, of Moshav Sde Trumot, was killed when a suicide bomber blew up in his grocery on Sde Trumot, south of Beit Shean. The suicide bomber was killed. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.


2005: Eric Edelman completes his service as United States Ambassador to Turkey.


2005: It was reported today that meetings had been held over the weekend at Yifat, Israel in which Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres announced that he would seek the top spot in Israel’s government.  Despite the fact that he is now 81 and that he has failed to accomplish the goal in four previous attempts. Peres thinks that now is the time for him to finally reach his goal


2005: The Washington Post reported that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared from Jerusalem, “that her meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders convinced her that both sides share a commitment to ensuring Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza takes place smoothly and peacefully.”  At the end of the same article the Post reported that “Coinciding with Rice’s visit Sunday, Palestinians…attacked Israelis…in the southern Gaza Strip killing one Israeli and wounding two others…The attack was the second major assault on Israeli targets in recent days.”  Islamic Jihad and a group affiliated with Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement took credit for the attack.  As head of the PLA, Abbas is one of those Palestinian leaders whom Secretary Rice said was committed to a smooth and peaceful Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.


2005:The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently release paperback editions of Letters to a Young Lawyer by Alan Dershowitz and Sweet Land Stories by E.L. Doctorow.


2006: Haaretzreported on the Sderot's municipal council decision to seal off the city's entrance for a 24-hour period in protest of continuing Qassam rocket attacks by Palestinians against the western Negev city. “Sderot is going on strike and no one will enter or leave it," Sderot mayor Eli Moyal said. Kassam attacks have left five dead and dozens wounded over the past months.


2006: In Romania and France, premiere of “Them” a Franco-Romanian horror film starring Michaël Cohen as “Lucas.”


2006:  Jerusalem Finding 'Oxygen' In Revival of Creative Arts, published today describes the renaissance of the arts taking place in Jerusalem.  The artistic renaissance covers a full spectrum of endeavors and is having a positive influence on the spiritual rejuvenation of the City of David.  [Editor’s Note - What is even more amazing, this is article is devoid of the usual “stuff” that permeates almost all reporting on Israel and Jewish culture in the Middle East.]


2006:Israel's ambassador to Germany presented medals of honor on to relatives of five members of the first "European Union" - an anti-Nazi resistance group whose members hid and fed Jews during World War Two. This European Union, which had the same name but nothing to do with the modern 25-nation bloc of European countries, was an underground, Marxist-oriented group with around 50 to 60 German members, according to a protocol prepared by Yad Vashem Holocaust museum.


2006: Carol Vogel described the history of Gustav Klimt’s Adele Bloch-Bauer I in “Lauder Pays $135 Million, a Record, for a Klimt Portrait.”
 
2007(3rd of Tammuz, 5767): Seventy four year old Zeev Schiff, the dean of Israeli military correspondents, defense editor of the newspaper Haaretz and author of numerous books, died today in Tel Aviv.

2007: The second annual Jerusalem Jazz Festival opens in Israel’s capital city.


2007(3rdof Tammuz, 5767): Yahrzeit for the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory.


2007: Rachel Elizabeth Levin, daughter of Michelle Levin, sister of Jacob Levin, “arrives in Lubbock,” Texas. 
 
2008: Hazak Week of Study comes to an end.


2008: At Temple Chai in Long Grove, Illinois, Israeli author Eva Etzioni-Halevy speaks about her latest biblical novel, “The Triumph of Deborah.”


2008:More than 100 Israeli political and cultural leaders from across the political spectrum have signed a petition to Yad Vashem that they presented to Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev urging the Holocaust museum to add material about the Holocaust rescue activists known as the Bergson Group to its exhibits. “The Bergson Group was a maverick activist group in the US in the 1940s, led by Peter Bergson, also known as Hillel Kook that raised public awareness of the Holocaust and campaigned for US rescue action to save European Jewry during World War II. At the time, mainstream American Jewish leaders viewed the organization as being too forthright in its criticism of the Roosevelt administration's failure to rescue Jewish refugees. However, in recent years most Jewish leaders have come to recognize the group's contribution to the belated rescue effort. The Bergson Group is credited with helping to persuade the US president in 1944 to establish the War Refugee Board, which ultimately saved 200,000 Jewish lives - including future Congressman Tom Lantos, who passed away earlier this year. Despite opposition from mainstream US Jewish leaders, the group actively campaigned to save the doomed Jews of Europe through theatrical pageants, lobbying on Capitol Hill, the placement of more than 200 newspaper advertisements, and a march in Washington by 400 rabbis, which the Wyman Institute said was the only rally for rescue held in the nation's capital during the Holocaust.”


2008:The agreement for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip is to go into effect at 6 A.M.


2008: The United Nations’ Children Fund (UNICEF) swore off any relationship with Israeli diamond mogul, Lev Leviev because of his construction of settlements on the West Bank.


2009:Police officers, Holocaust survivors and employees of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum gathered at the Ebenezer AME Church on Allentown Road in Fort Washington today for the funeral services for security officer Stephen T. Johns who was slain last week in an attack at the popular Washington museum.


2009: The funeral for Seymour “Sy” Brody author of Jewish Heroes of America and Jewish Heroes and Heroines in America is scheduled to take place today at Morris Plains, NJ.


2009: As her Bat Mitzvah weekend begins, Rachel Maikon helps to lead Friday evening services at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.


2010: The Jewish National Fund is scheduled to host Shabbat in the Park at New York’s Central Park Zoo.


2010:In a unique way to say farewell to Shabbat, a pre-camp Havdallah and swim party for campers and their families is scheduled to be held at the 14th Street Y in New York City.


2011: “The People in the Picture” by Iris Rainer Dart has its final showing at the Round About Theatre.


2011: In San Diego, CA, The Used Book Sale to benefit the Samuel & Rebecca Astor Judaica Library is scheduled to come to a close.


2011: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish author and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture” by David Mamet and “House of Exile: The Lives and Times of Heinrich Mann and Nelly Kroeger-Mann” by Evelyn Juers


2011: Elbit, with headquarters in Haifa, announced that its subsidiary Elisra Electronic Systems Ltd. was awarded a contract valued at approximately €5 million to supply hundreds of units of its AN/PRC-684 Personal Locator Beacon to the French Ministry of Defense, equipping the French Air Force, Army, Navy and DGA (Direction Générale de l'Armement).


2011(17th of Sivan, 5771): Centenarian plus 2, Charlotte Bloomberg, the mother of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg passed away.


2011(17th of Sivan, 5771): Ninety year old Don Diamond passed away.  For those who watched television in the 1950’s and 1960’s, they saw him in many episodes of F-Troop and Zorro as well as later series as 


“Newhart,” “L.A. Law,” “MacGyver,” “Dallas” and “Dynasty,” “Lou Grant,” “Chico and the Man” and “The Streets of San Francisco”


2011(17th of Sivan, 5771): Ninety-year old Holocaust survivor Samuil Manski passed away. Manski credited his survival to a transit visa issued to him by a Japanese diplomat name Chiune Sughira who risked his career by acting against the orders of his country.  At the time of his death, Manski was working to Sughira recognized as a Righteous Gentile.


2012: “When Israel Went Out,” a film that retraces the danger-filled route traveled by the Falasha during the 1980’s is scheduled to be shown at the JCC in Manhattan.


2012: Dr Anthony Grenville, author of ‘Jewish Refugees from Germany and Austria in Britain’ and film director Dr. Bea Lewkowicz are scheduled to take part in a Q&A following a screening of “Double Exposure” at the Wiener Library in London. 


2012: The National Endowment for the Arts announced that Andy Statman would be awarded a National Heritage Fellowship, the nation's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts


2012:Hamas has launched a barrage of rockets toward southern Israel this afternoon.


2012:Ta'al MK Ahmed Tibi condemned plans to name a new space center in his north-central Arab village Taybeh after Israel's first and only astronaut, the late Ilan Ramon


2012(29th of Sivan, 5772): Eight-one year old futurist Anthony Weiner passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)



2013: In London, the Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism scheduled to host the International Consortium for Research on Antisemitism and Racism.


2013: Leo Baeck Institute and Chelsea Music Festival are scheduled to present “From Pompeii to Fingal's Cave - A Mendelssohn Perspective”


2013: “The New Catch Herring Season” is scheduled to begin Russ & Daughters.


2013: Ian Paul Livingston, Baron Livingston of Parkhead, “the fourth generation son of Polish-Lithuanian Jews who arrived in Scotland 120 years ago” “announced that he is leaving BT Group to become the Minister for Trade and Investment in the UK Government.


2013: Friends and family of Rachel Levin celebrate the birthday of the world’s greatest granddaughter.


2013: Four Jewish Israelis were arrested at the Temple Mount today after praying in the Jerusalem compound, considered Judaism’s holiest site.


2013: This morning Palestinians fired a rocket from the Gaza strip toward southern Israel, setting off alarms in the coastal city of Ashkelon and its environs.


2014: The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide is scheduled to host “a special creative writing workshop exploring the lives and contributions of refugees in their new country of residence led by facilitator Lynette Craig


2014: “Luis Moses Gomez: Pioneer Merchant in Colonial America” is scheduled to open at the Center for Jewish History


2014: “Magic Men” is scheduled to be shown at the JCC in Manhattan on the last night of the Israel Film Center Festival.


2014: “Charlotte Salomon: Life? Or Theatre?” an exhibition of the works of the 23 year old Jewish from Berlin who ended up in Auschwitz is scheduled to open today at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.


2014: All eyes are on Columbus Ohio for the celebration of the birthday of the amazing Rachel Levin.


2014: “The IDF arrested 30 Hamas men across the West Bank early today, as part of its ongoing large-scale operation to find the three Israeli teenagers – Naftali Frankel, Gil-ad Shaar, and Eyal Yifrach — who were kidnapped last week.


2014: U.S. Ambassador to Israel today visited the family of Naftali Frankel, one of three Yeshiva students kidnapped last week to offer the support of the U.S government as well as his own strong personal support.


2014: John Rubinstein, the original Pippin in 1972, replaced Terrence Mann in the role of Charles in Stephen Schwartz’s Tony Award-winning musical “Pippin.”


2014: “Former Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment today and fined half a million shekels ($145,000) for accepting bribes in the Holyland affair.”


2014(21st of Sivan, 5774): Eighty-six year old Avraham Shalom, the former director of Shin Bet, passed away today (As reported by Stuart Winer)

2015: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host “Leavers’ Friday Night Dinner.”


2015: In Columbia, MD, Beth Shalom Congregation is scheduled to host “From Dust to Dust? Shiva and Cremations” in which Rabbi Susan Grossman and Ira Levinson, of Sol Levinson and Brothers Funeral Home tackle such questions as “Why does Judaism prohibit cremation and what do we do when a loved one requests cremation? Can their ashes be buried in a Jewish cemetery? Can we sit shiva?”


2015: In Coralville, Iowa, Agudas Achim is scheduled to host its annual Father’s Day Shabbat “that will include participation of fathers and their sons/daughters in the service, readings about fathers, and an Oneg Shabbat that will have a slide show of fathers…”


2015: “The Jewish Theological Seminary plans to sell a 1455 edition of the Book of Esther from a rare Gutenberg Bible at auction today, the latest sign that the school is grappling with a long-running financial crisis.” (As reported by Josh Nathan-Kazis)
 
2015: Rachel is great on the day she turns eight!

 


 


 

This Day, June 20, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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JUNE 20


840: Louis the Pious, King of the Franks and the Holy Roman Emperor by virtue of being the son of Charlemagne. When it came to dealing with his Jewish subjects, Louis followed in the footsteps of his father. During his reign charters were issued giving “Jews permission ‘live according to their Law.’ They promised protection of body and property and permitted freedom of movement and trade including…the right to hire Christians to work in their homes.  Some Jews were also exempted from the laws of trial by ‘ordeal of fire and water.’”


1214:  University of Oxford received its charter. Jews were not always welcome at Oxford.  The Oxford University Reform Act passed in 1854 allowed Jews to take degrees at Oxford. Today, Oxford offers degrees in both Hebrew and Jewish Studies.


1239: Pope Gregory IX ordered all copies of the Talmud to Dominican and Franciscan friars who would review the text looking for disparaging references to Jesus and Mary.  Any copies that were found to contain such references were to be burned.  This is the same Pope who in 1234 had “invested the doctrine of perpetua servitus iudaeorum – perpetual servitude of the Jews – with the force of canonical law. According to this, the followers of the Talmud would have to remain in a condition of political servitude until Judgment Day.”


1338:Duke Otto and Duke Albert issued their “Jews’ Decree.”


1391 (17thof Tammuz): “The Christian population of Toledo rose against the largest Jewish community in Spain.” Four thousand Jews were killed.


1567: Jews were expelled from Brazil by order of Regent Don Henrique


1652: During the reign of Mehemed IV, Tarhoncu Ahmet Paşa was appointed grand vezir of the Ottoman Empire.  During Pasa’s time of service, Mehmemed Jews fleeing the Chmielnitzki Uprising were encouraged to settle on the banks of the Danube in Morea, Kavala, Istanbul and Salonica.


1667: Clement IX began his papacy during which Giovanni Battista Jona, the rabbi who converted to Christianity at Warsaw in 1625, dedicated a translation into Hebrew of The New Testatment.


1794: Birthdate of Austrian physician and author Alois Isidor Jeitteles, who founded the Jewish Weekly “Siona” and was the father of suffragette Ottilie Bondy.


1768: The third of the Haidamack uprisings called Koliyivschyna began. During the uprising an estimated 50,000 Ukrainian Jews were murdered by the Cossacks.  “The Haidmamaks were gangs of Cossacks, who along with their peasant allies robbed traveling merchants and plundered the towns and villages in the Ukraine. They saw themselves as heirs to Khmelnitski. The Khmelnitski were the Cossacks who slaughtered Jews and Poles in wholesale lots in the middle of the 17th century.  Both of these murderous slaughters were part of the drift into degradation that became the lot of increasing numbers of Eastern European Jews.  This drift into degradation brought about numerous responses on the part of the Jews ranging from mysticism and messianicism to the Haskalah and immigration to Western Europe and eventually to the New World. 


1757: In Kameiek (Podolia), the Frankists, calling themselves Zoharists, decided to wage war against the Talmud. They contacted the local bishop, Dembovsky, and convinced him to arrange a disputation. Naturally, the Talmud was condemned and thousands of copies were burned. The Frankists then became practicing Christians. The Frankists were Jews who were followers of Jacob Frank who had proclaimed himself the Messiah.


1792: Birthdate of Samuel Israel Mulder, the Amsterdam native who was the first person to translate TaNaCh into Dutch.


1794: In Brno, Gottlieb Bezalel Jeiteles and Johanna Jeitteles gave birth to Alois Jeitteles the founder of the Jewish weekly Siona and the author of poetic works set to music by Ludwig van Beethoven.


1808:  Birthdate of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, leading founder of what some call Modern Orthodox Judaism.


1811: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi Emanuel Nunes Carvalho who had been serving as the rabbi for the Jewish community in Bridgetown, Barbados, officiated at the wedding of Mrs. Catherine Jacobs and Solomon Hyams.


1819: In Herxheim am Berg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, Therese Aron and Simon Kuhn gave brith to Abraham Kuhn.


1819: In Cologne, Isaac Judah (Eberst) Offenbach and Marianne Offenbach to composer Jacques Jacob Offenbach, who created almost 100 operettas in a twenty year period.


1823: In Germany, the government issued a decree “ordaining that Jewish services should be conducted exclusively in the German language and that the reading in Hebrew of sections of the Bible should be followed by their translation into the vernacular.”


1828: Mordecai M. Noah accused Elijah J. Roberts, “a former business associate” of having “violently assaulted” him on the steps of the Park Theatre. (Noah was one of the pre-eminent American Jews in the years between the Revolutionary and Civil Wars)


1837:  With the death of her uncle, King William IV, Queen Victoria assumes the throne.  Since the British monarch reigns but does not rule, her influence on the progress of Jews of Britain and Europe were primarily tangential. Her treatment of Jews was a mixed bag.  During the Damascus Blood Libel, the Queen put a British ship at the disposal of her friend and neighbor Moses Montefiore.  But in 1869, the Queen blocked Lionel Rothschild elevation to the House of Lords.  However, later she would agree to the elevation of Lionel’s son and would socialize with the French branch of the Rothschild family when she made trips across the channel.  The change was brought about by Jewish financial support for the Suez project and her relationship with Benjamin Disraeli. 


1839: Birthdate of Jacob Freudenthal, the native of Hanover and graduate of the rabbinical seminary of Breslau whose visit to the Netherlands to research the life of Spinoza produced Die Lebensgeschichte Spinoza's


1841: Mr. G.M. Loewentritt married Miss Betty Goldberg to at Sheyareeth Israel in Charleston, SC.


1854: Lieutenant Colonel Albert Goldsmid, a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars and the son of Benjamin Goldsmid was promoted to the rank of Colonel.


1856: In Bombay, Hannah Moise and Sir Albert Sassoon gave birth to Sir Edward Albert Sassoon.


1858: Rabbi Bernhard Felsenthal, the German born rabbi who had moved to Chicago “and accepted employment in the banking-house of Greenebaum Brothers” helped to found the Jüdische Reformverein today.


1875: Congregation B'Nai Israel of Galveston voted to become one of the charter members of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.


1877: Meyer Freeman who owns a butcher shop at 38 Ludlow Street was awakened by two men –later identified as David Milstein and Isaac Goldstein – who had broken into his bedroom and were trying to steal the contents of a bureau that contained jewelry and box with $35 in cash.  Freeman, clad only in his bed clothes, chased the robbers through the streets and captured Milstein whom he turned over to the policy.  Milstein is a well-known criminal having spent 21 of the last 28 years in jail


1877:  It was reported today that several other Jews who have been guests for several seasons at the Grand Union Hotel besides Joseph Seligman have been refused service at the Saratoga Springs Hotel.  These include Mr. Marcus Goldman, the broker, Mrs. Louis Josephthal, the wholesale manufacturer and Mr. Max Landman, “the well-known tobacconist.”  Each of them lives in Manhattan.  Each of them wrote asking for rooms as they have done in the past.  And each was refused without any explanation.  The strangest case of rejection centered around Judge Joseph Koch, the distinguished jurist who had sat on the bench of the Fifth District Court.  Judge Koch met with Mr. Calire, one of the managers of the hotel, at A.T. Stewart’s store in Manhattan.  At that time Mr. Claire assured the Koch that he could have the same accommodations as he had in previous years.  When Koch asked if he could have “a more desirable suite of apartments” Claire said that he would see to it as soon as he arrived at the hotel.  However, Judge Koch has heard nothing more from Mr. Claire and assumes that he is as unwelcome as his coreligionists.


1877: It was reported today that the Jews of New York have had a mixed reaction to Mr. Seligman’s being banned from the Grand Union because he was Jewish.  Some view this as part of a conflict between Judge Hilton and Mr. Seligman which has more to do with business than with religion.  Others say that there is nothing new about such a ban.  Other hotel owners have tried it, suffered financially and rescinded the ban.  Yet others are bothered by the fact that Jews as a group were banned.  They could understand not renting to people who do not pay their bills or who present other problems, but singling out Jews as a group does not make any sense. There seems to be a general consensus that it is best to avoid making this a matter for public demonstrations.


1877: It was reported today that many hotel owners in Boston were surprised to hear about the Judge Hilton’s decision to ban Jews from the Grand Union.  Some of them know Mr. Seligman and hold him in the highest esteem.  From a business point of view, times are so hard that turning away any guests who can afford to stay at their hotels does not make any sense to these owners.  And if there is some grand plan afoot to ban Jews from hotels, they do not want to be a part of it.


1877: “The Position of New York Hotels” published today described the attitude of various hostelries in the Big Apple regarding Jewish guests.  The St. James and the Albemarle follow the same exclusionary policies as those practiced by the Grand Union in Saratoga. The Windsor does not have the slightest possible objection to having Jews as guest finding them “as a class the promptest paying customers.” The Grand Central management thought that the Grand Union had made a “great mistake.” The Grand Union in Manhattan, the Hotel Brunswick, the Rossmore Hotel, the Fifth Avenue Hotel and the Sturtevant House all said they had no policy against Jewish guests and several of the hotels reported having some staying there at this very time.


1879: In New York City, The Jewish Messengerreports that "A new congregation has been started on East 57th Street, called Orach Chaim.” Some of the members of the new congregation were disaffected members of Adas Israel, another congregation located on the same street.


1880: “Puritan Christian Names” published today described how the printing of the Geneva Bible, an affordable English translation of the sacred text led to the adoption of many Old Testament (Jewish) names by English Puritans.  Apparently, having finally been able to read the text, the “Puritan spirit led those whom it animated to a strong and very marked preference for the Jewish part of the Bible over the Christian.”


1881: The Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society took two hundred children on an outing aboard the steam boat Bellevue. The boat stopped at Hart’s Island so the children could enjoy themselves. [These outings were part of a program to get slum children out of the city and into the fresh air of the country.]


1882: An assignment for the benefit of creditors by Abraham Samuels to Lester Cohn was filed in the county clerk’s office today.


1883: Anglican Bishop and Biblical scholar John William Colenso the author of The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Critically Examined which he wrote in response to being questioned about the historical accuracy of these books and whether or not they should be taken literally passed away today. (Colenso was one of a series of Jewish and Christian theologians and authors who re-examined the traditional view of these texts as being literal truth or the modernist view that they were just a series of manufactured myths)


1884: It was reported today that a serious outbreak of anti-Semitic violence has broken out in Krivoroge, Russia.


1886: “Clubs Without Number” published today described the variety of New York social clubs that cater to various segments of the city’s population including the Jews some of whom frequent the Harmonie Club on 42nd Street while a greater number are found at the Hebrew Association at 317 Third Avenue.  Actually Jews can be found at most of the popular clubs except for the Union and Knickerbocker clubs.


1887: Two Jewish peddlers, Simon Kleber and Judah Waser, were abused and driven out of a liquor store by the bartender when they tried to sell him their wares.  The two men sought protection from Policeman Frederick Timme who responded by clubbing them and driving them away.


1887: “Jews and Gentiles In London” published today provided a snapshot of Jewish economic conditions in the capital of the UK picturing them as being wealthier than the non-Jewish population. For example, the average annual Jewish income is 82 pounds as compared with 35 ponds for the non-Jews.  Jews with an income over 10,000 pounds are 20 times as numerous as the number found in the non-Jewish population. [Editor’s note – This report is totally misleading since it fails to capture the wealth of the gentry which would have reported in the counties and boroughs where there estates were located.]


1888: It was reported today that the executors of the Bernhard Stern’s will have paid out over $25,000 in bequests to variety of Jewish and secular institutions in New York City.  The largest bequest was $5,000 given to the United Hebrew Charities.


1890: The Executive Committee of the United Hebrew Charities reported today that during the month it had found employment for 364 applicants during the month of May.  The committee had spent $8,756.08 during the month to aid needy Jews including the 1,987 immigrants who had arrived at Castle Garden.


1890: As of today, the managers of the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children have received $4,091.50 which will be used to provide free summer excursions for Jewish children and their mothers.


1890: Police officers arrested Marcus Goldstein, a Polish Jew, when came to the Gill Engraving Company this morning to collect what he thought were the blank plates that would enable him to print (and sell) counterfeit tickets for the Hamburg Lottery.


1891: Birthdate of Zionist leader and native of Prague, Robert Weltsch, who died in Jerusalem a century later.


1892: In Kaunas Count (modern day Lithuania) Joseph and Gertrude Janner gave birth to Ango-Jewish political and civic leader Barnett Janner who would serve as an MP first from the Liberal Party and then from the Labour Party


1893: Philadelphia lawyer Charles Isaiah Hoffman married Fanny Binswanger in the City of Brotherly love. Seven years later he would enter the JTS, graduated and was ordained in 1904 and spent most of the rest of his life as the spiritual leader of Oheb Shalom in Newark, NJ. [Sort of a modern day version of “Rachel, the wife of Akiva”]


1893: After having viewed the body of Jewish cigar manufacturer Adolph S. Jaeger, Deputy Coroner O’Hare said that the deceased had taken his own life and turned his remains over to the undertaker.


1894: Today’s meeting of the Constitutional Convention looking at charitable contributions made by the State of New York, first heard from Myer Sterne, the “former Commissioner of Charities and Correction who appeared in behalf of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of which the late Jesse Seligman was President.”


1895: “Governor William McKinley delivered an address at Ottawa, Kansas in which he referred to an American flag with a biblical inscription on it” which Chicago Republic Abraham Kohn had presented to Abraham Lincoln “one month prior to his assumption of the Presidency.” Kohn was President of Chicago’s KAM Congregation.  Actually two biblical verses had been painted on to the flag both of which were from from the first chapter of the book of Joshua verses 5 and 9.including the famous charge “Be strong and of great courage.  Be not afraid, neither be dismayed.”  After several attempts, McKinley would finally be elected President in 1896 and re-elected in 1900.  He would die at the hands of an assassin bringing Teddy Roosevelt to the White House.


1896: A character of sketch of the recently deceased Marquis de Mores published today described him as “eccentric” whose “hatred of England…was almost a mania” and who “was a rabid enemy of the Jews.” (Editor’s note – For those who do not recognize the name his anti-Semitism including fight a duel French Deputy Ferdinand-Camille Dreyfus)


1897: Mrs. Jennie Cohen, formerly of New Haven, CN, and her four children ranging in ages from six years to four months were being cared for at Police Headquarters after having spent the night in rooms provided for by the Hebrew Sheltering House Association on Madison Street.


1897: The Baron Hirsch Free Hebrew School of Chicago was formally incorporated at Springfield, Illinois, the state capital.


1897: “Biblical Titles” published today described the refusal of the Lord Chamberlain’s office to grant a license to a biblical drama entitled “Joseph of Canaan” by George Walters, an Australian clergyman and Rubinstein’s opera “Judas Maccabaeus” Apparently it is Biblical titles that upset the English official and not religion per se since a license, which is necessary for public performance, was granted to “The Sign of the


1897: “The Reverend Herman Warszawiak” the Jewish convert to Christianity “whose application to the Presbytery was rejected last week after a trail for unministerial conduct gave vent to his feelings today” comparing himself to St. Paul” and declaring “that he had been hounded because he was of Jewish orgin and the Presbyterians did not want any Jews.


1898(30thof Sivan, 5658): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1898(30thof Sivan, 5658): Fifty year old Moses Stein “a well-known resident of Bath Beach” passed away at Mount Sinai Hospital.  A retired Manhattan wholesale butcher; he was one of the founders of the Hebrew Congregational Society in Bath Beach.


1898: During the Spanish American War, ships of the U.S Navy (in which 20 Jews served as officers) entered the harbor at Guam. (Whether any those officers were at Guam is not a matter of record.)


1899: Chicago Jews are among those contributing funds to the purchase of memorial items to be presented to Captain Dreyfus, Colonel Picquart and author Emile Zola.  The latter two played key roles in exonerating the former when he was falsely convicted of treason and subject to a barrage of anti-Semitism.


1899: In Chicago, 50 boys half of whom were Christians and half of whom were Jewish fought it on Stewart Avenue until the police arrived from the Maxwell Street Station and put an end to the violence.


1899: Jews living on the Lower East Side learned that “Winslow W. Dunlap, the self-appointed missionary” seeking to convert the Jews also makes loans to anybody with a salary ranging from $20 to $200. “It is the custom of Dunlap to advance a man, say $80 and deduct $5 for the expenses of the loan. Besides this $5 he charges $40.80 interest making the borrower pay $70.80 for $25 in “easy” payments of from $2.50 to $5 per week.


1899: “Law and Order” published today decried the attack on a Christian missionary earlier this week who was preaching on the streets of the Lower East Side by a mob and the failure of the police to intervene because in civil society people have a right to express their opinions no matter how distasteful they may be to the public that is forced to hear them.


1899: “Conference of Zionists” published today included a description of a proposal submitted by the English Zionist Federation “proposing the re-establishment of Judea as an independent state, suggesting the purchase of the Maccabean sites in Palestine and the beginning of the work by the establishment of a Jewish colony and a Jewish Agricultural College there.”


1899: “The Jew-Hater in France” published today provided the views of Gustav Gottheil, a leading American Reform Rabbi on the condition of the Jews in France as that nation is convulsed by the Dreyfus affair.  As to Dreyfus, he said, “the fact that he was a Jew was the strongest accusation against him.” “Even though “no race has been more patriotic than the French Jews” “the real spirit of malice and persecution will never change and they will never be friendly to the Jewish people.” And in a view that may have been the result of his attendance at the Zionist Congress at Basel “The effect of the triumph in the Zionistic movement stands out in clear and unmistakable character.”


1902: Herzl learns that Turkey accepted the Rouvier Project. Maruice Rouvier was one of those permanent political animals created by the revolving door governments in the days of France’s Third Republic. He was not Jewish.  Depending upon who formed the government Rouvier held different cabinet posts including finance and foreign affairs.  He was Prime Minister twice himself.  At this time, Rouvier was serving as the Minister of Finance.  At the same time, like most French politicians, he was always looking for ways to counter German influence.  The Turks were in need of financial assistance and Rouvier was willing to do what he could if it would keep the Kaiser out of the Mediterranean. 


1903: Maurice Arnold de Forest, one of the two adopted sons of Baroness Clara de Hirsch and Baron Maurice de Hirsch de Gereuth resigned his commission in the Prince of Wales's Own Norfolk Artillery


1905: In New Orleans, Max Bernard Hellman and Julia gave birth to playwright Lillian Hellman.


 Birthdate of playwright Lillian Hellman.


1910: Fanny Brice debuted at the Ziegfield Follies (As reported by the Jewish Women’s Archive)


1915: In Canonsburg, PA, dedication of Tree of Life Synagogue.


1915: At the Astor Hotel, Louis Marshall presided over the meeting of the American Jewish Committee today where it was “decided to convoke a general congress of American Jews to consider methods of assisting their” co-religionists “in the war zones” following “the receipt of the first news of atrocities committed against Jews in the warring countries.”


1915: “Interest in the case of the condemned man” Leo Frank “reached fever heat in Atlanta today” where “it was the one subject of discussion everywhere” as Governor Slaton’s decision was expected by tomorrow.


1916: Birthdate of Zelda Berkowitz who as Zelda Kaplan became as an inimitable fixture on fashion’s front lines and an inveterate clubgoer in Manhattan. (As reported by Ruth La Ferla)


1915: The Turkish government permitted “expelled Jews” to return to parts of Palestine including Tel Aviv and its “suburbs.”


1917: Birthdate of Franklin Littell, a pioneer in the field of Holocaust scholarship, who was also president of Iowa Wesleyan College and a founding board member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, in Washington. His best-known book, The Crucifixion of the Jews, pressed his view that Christianity is essentially Jewish and that Jesus, Paul and Peter would have been executed at Auschwitz. (As reported by Douglas Martin)


1918: Birthdate of Lillian Sylvia Lukashefsky, the Brooklyn native who gained famed as Yiddish actress, author and singer Lillian Lux who was the wife of Pesach Burnstein and the mother of actor Mike Burstyn. http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/lillian-lux-86-international-star-of-yiddish-stage/15411/


1918: United States President Wilson sent Henry Morgenthau and Felix Frankfurter to Egypt to investigate how to best aid Jews in Palestine.


1921: Shortstop Reuben Ewing made his major league debut with the St. Louis Cardinals.


1922: Dr. Lee K. Frankel, Vice President of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, is scheduled to sail for Europe today aboard the SS Beregaria.  He is head of a committee appointed by the American Jewish Relief Commission that is visiting Jewish population centers in Austria, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Russia in an effort to determine how best to spend th $18,000,000 that has been collected by American Jews for their coreligionists living in Eastern Europe.


1923: At meeting of the Board of Directors of the National Farm School held today, a memorial was adopted praising the work of the late Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf, the founder and President of the National Farm School.


1925(28thof Sivan, 5685):Dr. Josef Bruer, the Austrian physician who worked with Freud to develop the modern field of psychoanalysis passed away in Vienna.


1928: In the Bronx, Florence and Louis Slobodkin gave birth to “Lawrence B. Slobodkin, a central figure in the development of ecology as a modern science and a co-author of one of its most inspiring inquiries, a paper known informally as “The World Is Green” (As reported by Carol Kaesuk Yoon)


1928: A court in Tel Aviv “imposed short jail terms and sentences of deportation” on three Jews who resisted the police efforts to break up a demonstration protesting the flogging of prisoners in Palestine jails.”  The three were additionally accused of being “Communists.”  The demonstration was part of a larger protest by Jews against the propensity of the British immigration authorities for deporting Jews on the slightest pretext with little or no evidence of serious wrongdoing.


1929: In Montreal, Samuel and Saidye Rosner Bronfman gave birth to Edgar Miles Bronfman.


1931: A newspaper in Salonica called the Macedonia ran an article about a resident named Isaac D. Cohen. Cohen was sent as a representative to the meeting of the Maccabiah which was held in Sophia, Bulgaria. However the newspaper stated while away, he also attended a conference held by a revolutionary organization, which had come up with the decision to sue for the independence of Greek and Yugoslav Macedonia. This lie led to attacks on Jews who were said not to be patriotic.


1931: Birthdate of actor Martin Landau.


1936:The Palestine Post reported that according to the new Palestine Emergency Regulations a life sentence could be imposed on any person carrying arms, bombs or incendiary material. Arab attacks on Jewish settlements continued unabated. Police patrols were stoned in Arab villages and three British soldiers were injured in various shooting incidents throughout the country.


1939: In commenting on wave of violence gripping Palestine including yesterday’s bombing in Haifa, Davar wrote, “”Who throws bombs?  Is it the same hand that is sowing blood and ruin in the Arab market in the Jewish suburb?  These are not the ways of the Jewish population in Palestine in their struggle…Ruin and paralysis of economic life will only hurt the Jews in Palestine.  Sacrifices may be necessary for our political struggle but every act paralyzing our life unnecessarily weakens the Jews here more than its sabotages the Palestine Government’s new policy and it only causes failure of Palestine Jewry’s struggle against the policy.” In a separate column, David Ben Gurion condemned the violence saying “The Jews must sacrifice everything for immigration, colonization, self-defense and independence but we must not sully our struggle with despicable acts of madness such as have been recently committed at Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa.   The murder of innocent Arabs and Jews and stupid sabotage are act that are only helping our most bitter enemies.  Such criminal acts soil our just struggle, undermine the efficiency of our work and play the game of our foes.”


1939: Final broadcast of Song School, a radio show featuring Jewish Jazzman Benny Goodman


1940: Jewish prisoners began arriving at Ferramonti, one of the 15 concentration camps established by Mussolini during the summer of 1940. In the next three years, 3,800 Jews would be imprisoned in all of the camps.


1940: On the day when France surrendered to Germany Propper de Callejón was First Secretary of the Spanish Embassy in Paris. In order to prevent the German army from plundering the art collection that his wife's family kept at the Chateau de Royaumont, he declared this castle to be his main residence, so it would be treated in the same privileged way as the accommodation of any other diplomat. Among the art works thus saved are a triptych of Van Eyck (one of Adolf Hitler´s favorite painters). In July 1940, , in co-operation with the Portuguese Consul Arístedes de Sousa Menendes, he would issue from the Spanish Consulate in Bordeaux more than thirty thousand transit visas to Jews, so that they could cross Spain to reach Portugal. When Spain's Foreign Minister Ramón Serrano Suñer learned that Propper de Callejón was issuing visas without the previous authorization of his Ministry, he had him transferred to the Consulate of Larache in the Spanish protectorate in Morocco. Afterwards, he would be posted to Rabat, Zurich Washington, Ottawa and Oslo.Propper de Callejón's father, Max Propper, was a Bohemian Jew, and his mother, Juana Callejón, was a Spanish Catholic; they raised Eduardo and his brothers in the Catholic faith His wife, Hélène Fould-Springer was a socialite and painter. She was from a notable Jewish Austrian-French banking family, though she converted to Catholicism upon their marriage and is a sister of prominent Paris art patron and philanthropist Liliane de Rothschild (Baroness Élie de Rothschild,) 1916—2003). He never gained public recognition for his heroic acts before his death in 1972 in London.


1940:  As they continued their dangerous trek to avoid capture by the Nazis, Hans and Margaret Reys arrived in Bayonne, France where they received visas that had been signed by Portuguese Vice-Consul Manuel Vierira Braga which enabled them to cross the border into Spain, the next step on an odyssey that took them to Lisbon, Rio and finally New York.  Hans Reys is the creator of Curious George.  Like so many others, he owes his life to the Portuguese diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes.


1941: In Leicester, UK, Russell E. Frears, a general practitioner and accountant, and Ruth M. (née Danziger) who did not tell her son that she Jewish “until he was in his late twenties” gave birth to Stephen Arthur Frears


1942: Grace Goodside married cinematographer Jess Paley meaning that she would gain fame as Grace Paley.


1942: Mass killings of Jews by the Nazis began at Auschwitz.


1942: After breaking into a warehouse at Auschwitz, Ukrainian Eugeniusz Bendera and three Poles, Kazimierz Piechowski, Stanisław Gustaw Jaster, and Józef Lempart dressed as members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände (the SS units responsible for concentration camps), armed themselves, and stole an SS staff car, which they then drove unchallenged through the main gate


1942: From now until October 9th, 13,776 Jews would be deported from Vienna to Theresienstadt


1943: Five thousand Jews from Amsterdam are deported to Auschwitz.


1943: The Ternopol (Ukraine) Ghetto is liquidated.


1943: Himmler sent 100 Jews to a concentration camp in Alsace called Natzweiler. They were killed there and their skeletons were sent to the Anatomical Museum in Strasbourg.


1943: Five thousand, five hundred Jews were rounded up in Amsterdam and deported.


1944: Max and Frieda Löwy Sipser applied to be sent to the refugee shelter that had just been established at Fort Ontario, NY on the same day that the Displaced Persons Sub-Commission of the Allied Control Commission posted the notice for applicants.

1945(9th of Tamuz, 5705): German born author and playwright Bruno Frank passed away.  Frank left Germany after the Reichstag Fire and eventually made his way to the United States.


1945: Aware that “British hostility to the Zionist enterprise was often a mask for anti-Semitism,” Churchill cautioned his colleague Lord Croft to “not be drawn into any campaign that might be represented as anti-Semitism.”


1946: In Moscow, Alexander Kazhdan and his wife gave birth to Dmitry Aleksandrovich Kazhdan who emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1975 at which time he changed his name David Kazhdan, became an Orthodox Jew who made Aliyah in 2002 where he became a professor of Mathematics at Hebrew University.


1947: Following his announcement that he was leaving Beth El in Camden for a new position At Beth Abraham in Oakland, CA, Camden Mayor Brunner wrote a letter published in today’s “Voice” expression his admiration for Rabbi Philip Lipis saying “that Camden was privileged to enjoy his presence and leadership for twelve years.”


1947(2nd of Tammuz, 5707): Ben "Bugsy" Siegel was gunned down by fellow mobsters over financial irregularities surrounding the building of the Flamingo in Las Vegas.


1948: During the Israeli War for Independence, the Etzel (Irgun) ship Altelena reached the coast of Tel Aviv carrying 800 new immigrants and weapons. The Etzel claimed they had an agreement that 20% of the arms on board would be used by its members in defending Jerusalem. David Ben Gurion, head of the new state of Israel, saw this as threat to the power of the new government. He believed that there could only be one army and that it had to be under the control of the national government. If the Irgun wanted to fight, then its members had to become part of the army just as the members of the Palmach and the Haganah had done. Ben Gurion refused to accept any compromise on this point. He ordered the ship to be fired upon. The incident almost caused a civil war and was only averted by an impassioned and at times incoherent speech made by Menachem Begin to his followers over the radio that night not to take up arms against fellow Jews. One only has to look at multiplicity of armed groups operating today on the West Bank and Gaza to see what would have happened if Ben Gurion had not reluctantly taken such bold action which was necessary if the new state of Israel was going to be a coherent nation.


Because of the controversy that still revolves around this event I have published a second version


1948: Just over a month after the State of Israel was established and shortly after the first cease fire in the War of Independence, Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, gave one of the country's most controversial orders ever - to take the Altalena by force.Prior to the establishment of the state, several armed Jewish militias protected early Jewish settlers and fought against the British and hostile Arab forces. The largest of these groups were the Hagana and the Irgun Zva’I Leumi (Irgun or IZL). The Hagana, led by Ben-Gurion, became the Israeli Defense Forces once the state was declared in May 1948 and the Irgun was under the command of Menahem Begin.In mid-May 1948, during the War of Independence, Ben-Gurion ordered the various militias disbanded and integrated into the IDF in order to create one army under a unified command. While some of the militias willingly sent their fighters and weaponry to the IDF, others were unwilling to relinquish the established paramilitary organizations they had built. Notably, the Irgun, for both ideological and political reasons, was unwilling to put itself under Ben-Gurion’s command.Begin and other Irgun commanders were still attempting to ship significant amounts of weaponry and fresh immigrant fighters into Israel in the last days of the British Mandate. The Irgun organized a large ship carrying weaponry and fighters from France, scheduled to arrive on Israel’s shores in mid-May. Due to logistical and operational factors, however, the departure of the Altalena was delayed.By the time the ship was ready to sail, loaded with nearly 1,000 immigrant fighters and thousands of tons of materiel, the first ceasefire in the War of Independence had already been reached and importing weaponry would have constituted a violation of it. The Jewish state, however, was in need of weaponry and ammunition, so when Begin approached Ben-Gurion to inform him of the shipment, the two attempted to negotiate a deal that would see the ship’s cargo safely unloaded.In order to evade detection by United Nations observers overseeing the ceasefire, the Irgun and the newly anointed leaders of the state and its army decided that the Altalena should be offloaded at Kfar Vitkin, near Netanya.Negotiations between the Irgun and Ben-Gurion were complicated by Begin’s insistence on transferring most of the ship’s cargo to Irgun units operating within the newly established IDF, a condition to which Ben-Gurion could not agree. The new leader of Israel was already wary of having non-state controlled armed forces operating independently of the army and believed that directing the weaponry to IDF units from the Irgun would lead to an “army within an army.”As the ship began its final approach to Kfar Vitkin, IDF forces were ordered to surround the area in order to seize the payload. Following failed negotiations, the government decided to issue an ultimatum. The military commander on scene sent Begin a clear message: “I shall use all the means at my disposal in order to implement the order and to requisition the weapons which have reached shore and transfer them from private possession into the possession of the Israel government… You have ten minutes to give me your answer.” Small-scale fighting between the two sides broke out at Kfar Vitkin, but Begin and the Irgun, aware of their numerical and tactical disadvantage, decided to send the Altalena south to Tel Aviv where more fighters could be assembled and the army was not yet situated to intercept the ship. Irgun fighters who had already joined the IDF began defecting from their commands and headed to Tel Aviv to fight for their weaponry. As the two forces descended on Tel Aviv, fighting erupted along the shore and throughout the city, “mainly in the center and the south,” The Palestine Post reported in the aftermath of the clashes. The Israeli navy and artillery pieces on shore fired warning shots at the ship in a last-ditched attempt to force a surrender, but eventually hit the ship, setting it ablaze. Ultimately, over 20 Irgun fighters and more than a handful of IDF soldiers were killed in the fighting between the two Jewish forces. The Altalena was eventually brought out to sea and sunk.Ben-Gurion has been both praised and disdained for his decision to take the Altalena by force. Fearing a civil war and a lack of government legitimacy based on the concept of a monopoly of force, Ben-Gurion ultimately decided that he could not tolerate Begin’s brazen refusal to put himself, his fighters and weaponry under the state’s command. Following the Altalena incident, however, Irgun and other militia forces were integrated into the IDF and the non-democratic challenges to the state’s legitimacy came to an end. Nonetheless, the decision to order Jewish soldiers to act against fellow Jews – who too were fighting for the infant state’s survival – has never been forgiven by some who view it as a betrayal of the very purpose of a Jewish army. Until this day, the Altalena is invoked at times when state security forces are pitted against Jews, albeit not with the deadly consequences of June 1948.


1948(13th of Sivan, 5708): Twenty Jews were killed in a bombing in the Jewish Quarter of Cairo.


1948: In Cincinnati, Ohio, Carl and Edith Henry gave birth to photojournalist Diana Mara Henry whose subjects have included Elizabeth Holtzman and Bella Abzug, “her most enduring friend and client who since 1985 “has been writing, translating from the French, publishing and speaking] about the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp and its Nacht und Nebel political prisoners, including the Jewish spy Andre Scheinmann.”


1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that legislation empowered the minister of finance to underwrite up to 50 percent of mortgage loans for the construction of low-cost housing.


1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that Britain had promised to press Egypt to open the Suez Canal for oil tankers bound for the Haifa refineries. Contrary to earlier news, General William Riley, chief UN representative in the Middle East, reported to the UN Security Council on June 13 that Egyptian interference with Israel-bound shipping in the Suez Canal was an "aggressive, hostile action, undertaken in the spirit of blockade and having partial effects of a blockade."


1952: In address to the Commercial and Industrial Club, Schmuel Elyashiv, Israel’s Ambassador in Moscow “said there were prospects of expanding Israel’s trade relations with Russia.  This year Israel shipped oranges and bananas to Russia.”  The Soviets would have bought more if the Israelis had produced a larger crop.


1954:  In Ramat Gan, Louis (Lutz) Eliezer Wolfermann and Tonya Krepel gave birth to Ilan Ramon, Israel’s first astronaut.


1960: Birthdate of Shachiv Shnaan the Druze Israeli who served in the Herev Battalion before starting a career in politics that included two stints as an MK.


1963: In London, world premiere of “The Great Escape” a must see movie with a memorable score by Elmer Bernstein.


1964: “Nobody Loves an Albatross” a comedy produced by Philip Rose and directed by Gene Saks with Marian Winters in the role of “Marge Weber” came to a close today.


1965(20th of Sivan, 5725): Ninety-four year old financier and presidential advisor Bernard Baruch passed away.http://archive.org/details/1965-06-21_Bernard_Baruch




1965:The New York Times reports on the challenge facing Jack Benny as he faces the first summer in 33 years when he “does not find himself in the midst of hectic preparations for a new season on radio or television.”


1972: Birthdate of Yuval Semo, the Haifa native who a popular Israeli actor and comedian.


1973: U.S. premiere of “A Touch of Class” starring George Segal with a script by Jack Rose.


1973: At Yale University in New Haven, CT, Bessie Margolin was awarded her Doctor of Science of Law degree today.


1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that the US administration informed Israel that it would receive $200m. in transitional aid, much less than it was expected. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin told the Labor Party symposium "Israeli Arab citizens are entitled to full and equal rights, but with the knowledge that not all the duties of equal citizens are demanded of them, nor can all rights be granted to them as long as the enmity of the surrounding Arab world to Israel persists."


1977: Time magazine “revealed” the marriage of 58 year old Alan Jay Lerner to 27 year old Nina Bushkin, the daughter of jazz pianist Joey Bushkin. It is her first marriage and his sixth.


1977:Yitzhak Moda'I began serving as Minster of Energy and Water.


1977: Ezer Weizman succeeds Shimon Peres as Defense Minister.


1977:Gideon Patt succeeds Shlomo Rosen as Minister of Housing and Construction


1977:Aharon Abuhatzira succeeds Haim Yosef Zadok as Minister of Religious Services


1977: Meir Amit succeeds Aharon Uzan as Communications Minister.


1977:Yosef Burg succeeds Shlomo Hillel as Interior Minister


1977: Shlomo Hillel completed his service as Minister of Public Security after which the ministry was abolished Prime Minister Menachem Begin a situation that would change in 1984 when the position was resurrected.


1979(25th of Sivan, 5739):Yisrael Yeshayahu Sharabi passed away.  Born in Yemen in 1908, he made Aliyah in 1929.  He served as an MK, cabinet minister and fifth Speaker of the Knesset


1980(6th of Tammuz, 5740): David Feuerwerker, French born Canadian Rabbi and Historian, passed away.


1980: U.S. premiere of “The Blues Brothers” directed by John Landis featuring Steve Lawrence, Frank Oz, Paul Reubens and Steven Spielberg.


1982: Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin arrived in Washington.


1985: In Dublin, the Irish Jewish Museum is opened bythe Irish born former President of Israel Dr. Chaim Herzog during his State visit to Ireland.


1989: Birthdate of Christopher Charles Mintz-Plasse “an American actor known for starring in films such as Superbad, Role Models, Year One, and Kick-Ass.”


1990: Actress Ina Balin died at the age of 52 from pulmonary hypertension.


1990: “Rabbi With Tefillin” by Jan Styka goes on sale at Christie’s Auction House. The painting completed in 1892 was the product of a Polish artist.  Can such a painting be described as Jewish Art?  Look at the canvas and you decide.

1991(8th of Tammuz, 5751): Ninety-three year old British philanthropist and businessman Sir Isaac Wolfson passed away today. (As reported by Eric Pace)

1993: The first of four scheduled tours sponsored by the American Jewish Congress which include an opportunity to be a bar or bat Mitzvah at the Kotel or the in Masada begins today.


1996(3rd of Tammuz, 5756): Ninety-one year old Louis J. Lefkowitz, the longest serving state attorney general passed away today. (As reported by Nick Ravo)


1999: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Noah's Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries About the Event That Changed Historyby William Ryan and Walter Pitman.


2001(29th of Sivan, 5761): Ilya Krivitz, 62, of Homesh in Samaria was shot and killed at close range in an ambush late Wednesday afternoon in the nearby Palestinian town of Silat a-Dahar.


2002: Jean-François Copé completed his first term as Mayor Meaux.


2002: Following its showing at the Skirball, “Myer Myers: Jewish Silversmith in Colonial New York is scheduled to open today at the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum in Delaware


2002(10th of Tammuz, 5762): Rachel Shabo, 40, and three of her sons - Neria, 16, Zvika, 12, and Avishai, 5 - as well as a neighbor, Yosef Twito, 31, who came to their aid, were murdered when a terrorist entered their home in Itamar, south of Nablus, and opened fire. Two other children were injured, as well as two soldiers. The terrorist was killed by IDF forces. The PFLP and the Fatah Al Aqsa Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.


2003(20th of Sivan, 5763):Zvi Goldstein, 47, of Eli, was killed when his car was fired upon in an ambush by Palestinian terrorists near Ofra, north of Ramallah. His parents, Eugene and Lorraine Goldstein, from New York, were seriously wounded and his wife lightly injured. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. (Jewish Virtual Library)


2004(1st of Tammuz, 5764): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


2004: In an article styled “Remembering Anne Frank, now 75,” The Cedar Rapids Gazette notes events around the world intended to celebrate the life and writings of one of the most famous victims of the Shoah.


2004:The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including War, Evil, and the End of History by Bernard-Henri Lévy; translated by Charlotte Mandell.


2006: Haaretz reported thatIsrael's ambassador to Germany presented medals of honor on Monday to relatives of five members of the first "European Union" - an anti-Nazi resistance group whose members hid and fed Jews during World War Two. This European Union, which had the same name but nothing to do with the modern 25-nation bloc of European countries, was an underground, Marxist-oriented group with around 50 to 60 German members, according to a protocol prepared by Yad Vashem Holocaust museum.


2007: In Jerusalem “legendary Israeli composer/singer Shlomo Gronich presents his newest compositions of biblical sources on a wide spectrum of themes: justice, righteousness, integrity, man and his identity, love songs & prayers. The performance includes Gronich on piano & shofar, the Jerusalem String Quartet and percussion.”


2007: The Jerusalem Post carried a page one report stating that Shin Bet had foiled a bombing of the synagogue in Modin known as the “pizza shul” or Zichron L’Avraham.


2008: Australian businessman Richard J. Pratt was charged with lying about his knowledge of a price-fixing scandal. 


2008: In Washington, D.C. Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, the former president of George Washington University, discusses and signs Big Man on Campus: A University President Speaks Out on Higher Education at Politics and Prose Bookstore.


2008: The Spertus Museum announced that it was shutting down an exhibition entitled “Imaginary Coordinates” in the wake of an outcry from Chicago –area Jews that it expressed an anti-Israel basis.


2008: In Sarajevo, at The Jewish Film Festival of Croatia, a member of the Jewish community speaks about filming the documentary “Sarayevo Mi Seudad de Oro,” (“Sarajevo My God City”) which tells the story of the Jewish community’s role in helping people escape the last war in Bosnia.


2009: At Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Sarah Maikon, daughter of Renee Maikon and Marc Maikon, and granddaughter of Sandy and Sol Maikon, is called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah.


2009:G'day Shalom Salaam Israel, presented by the Australia Israel Cultural Exchange opens in Israel


2010:The Los Angeles Times features a “Sunday Conversation With Daniel Handler” who is perhaps better known for his pen name, Lemony Snicket, and his bestselling volumes of children's books, A Series of Unfortunate Eventsand The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming: A Christmas Story.


2010:Memorabilia and Memory: Hitler's Hat and other shorts by local filmmaker Jeff Krulik is scheduled to be shown as part of the Jewish Study Center Film Festival in Washington, D.C.


2010:Bowing to worldwide pressure and condemnation, Israel formally announced an eased blockade of Gaza that could significantly expand the flow of goods overland into the impoverished coastal Palestinian enclave, isolated by the Israelis for three years. The White House said it “welcomes the new policy towards Gaza announced by the government of Israel, which responds to the calls of many in the international community.”


2010: In “General Franco Gave List of Spanish Jews to Nazis” Giles Tremlett described this little known tale of how the Spanish dictator provided “fodder” for the German Murder Machine.



2011: Bob Dylan performed at Ramat Gan Stadium tonight.


2011: The Hillel Annual Milwaukee Meeting is scheduled to take place this evening in Wisconsin’s largest city.


2011: The funeral for Morris Pollard, 95, a prominent U.S. researcher on viral diseases who died June 18 of complications from a bladder infection was held today.


2011: Israel has returned nuclear waste from its Sorek nuclear reactor to the U.S., the head of Israel's Nuclear Energy Commission Dr Shaul Horev revealed today.


2012: Jewish Social Service Agency (JSSA) Employment and Career Services is scheduled to present “Smart is Not Enough! Hidden Key to Career Success” featuring JSSA Life and Career Coach Phyllis Levinson.


2012: Mandolin virtuoso Avi Avital is scheduled to perform Le Poisson Rouge in NYC


2012: In a novel attempt to bring Judaism to the people, Rabbi Dan Ain is scheduled to be available to answering about God or whatever at Tribeca Café in NYC. 


2012:A Gaza rocket has directly hit a home in the Sdot Negev Regional council on today, as more than 30 rockets were fired into southern Israel since the morning. (As reported by Yanir Yagna, Gili Cohen and Avi Issacharoff)


2012:The military wing of Hamas published a report today morning on its website, in which it states that “the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades continues to attack the enemy with rockets for the second straight day, and has launched 9 rockets at the Sofa military base.”


2012(30thof Sivan, 5772): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


2012: Albert Sachs an opponent apartheid and Judge on the Constitution Court of South Africa received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Dundee


2012:Ultra-Orthodox residents of Beit Shemesh attacked a woman driving through the city on today. Police said the attackers threw stones at the car because they believed the driver was dressed in an inappropriate and immodest manner. (As reported by Aaron Kalman)


2012: The body of Aaron Joseph Zindani, who was stabbed to death outside the US Embassy in Sana’a, Yemen, in May, was transported to Israel today. The arrival of the body marked the end of a long and complex operation by the Jewish Agency and the Foreign Ministry that also saw Zindani’s family, including his widow and the couple’s five children, brought to Israel. Zindani was a Jewish community leader in Yemen. He was 48 years old at the time of his murder.


2012: Israeli Air Force jets bombed terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip for a second time Wednesday evening, following an unremitting rocket and mortar barrage on southern Israeli towns throughout the day. (As reported by Gabe Fisher)


2012: Pierre Lellouche began serving as the Deputy for Paris’ 1st Constituency.


2013: The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide is scheduled to co-host a Refugee Week writing workshop entitled “I’m Not Going Back.”


2013: Barbra Streisand is scheduled to sing at Bloomfield Stadium in Jaffa.


2013: After having strained his back again, New York Yankees third baseman Kevin Youkilis “underwent season ending surgery to repair a herniated disk in his back” today.


2013: A rebel group that operates on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights stated today that it would not fight Israel if Israel sends forces into Syria. A spokesman for the rebel group, which is based in Quneitra, made the comments to Al-Jazeera. (As reported by Yoel Goldman)


2013: "Italian Praised for Saving Jews Is Now Seen as Nazi Collaborator" published today tells the story of Giovanni Palatuccie, “the Italian Schindler” credited with saving 5,000 Jews during the Holocaust which may have been a giant fraud.(As reported by Patricia Cohen)


2014: Masses will be said in Luxemburg and Portugal today in remembrance of the June 17th“Day of Conscience” which honors the member of Aristides de Sousa, the Portuguese diplomat who defied Dictator Salazar and issued life-saving visas to thousands of refugees enough of whom were Jewish to earn him recognition by Yad Vashem. 

2014: At the 92nd Street Y, A.J. Baime is scheduled to sign copies of The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War after his presentation on how the American automobile industry re-tooled itself in response to President Roosevelt’s call to make America “the Arsenal of Democracy."


2014: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met today with the families of kidnapped Israeli teens Naftali Frankel, Gil-ad Shaar, and Eyal Yifrach, who were abducted June 12 in Gush Etzion.”


2014: Today “marked the last day of the 5774 school year for 673,000 Israeli high school students.”


2014: Curator Zachary Paul Levine was interviewed on WAMU's Metro Connection about the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington’s efforts to save D.C.'s only known synagogue mural. 


2014: In Coralville, Iowa, Agudas Achim hosts Musical Shabbat with Rebecca Kushner.


2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host a “Brahms Fest.”


2015:A tour that includes visits to Krakow and Auschwitz/Birkenau sponsored by CANDLES (Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors) is scheduled to depart from Chicago today.


2015: An Unknown Country the new film by Ecuadorian-born Jewish filmmaker Eva Zelig that describes the history of this little known Jewish community is scheduled to be shown today as part of New York’s Ecuadorian Film Festival

 


 


 


 

This Day, June 21, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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JUNE 21

356 B.C.E.: Birthdate of Alexander the Great. Alexander traveled back forth across Judea; first when he went down to conquer Egypt and then when he came back from his Egyptian conquest and moved east to conquer more of the Persian Empire. There is a tale about him coming to Jerusalem, but it is a myth that illustrates the positive attitude the Jews of that time had towards Alexander. He is treatment of the Jews was tolerant since he left them to practice their religion in peace and Jews found it easy to settle throughout his newly conquered domains.


120 (18 Sivan 3881): This date marked the passing of Rabbi Gamliel II. Rabbi Gamliel was the successor to Rabbi Johanan Ben-Zakkai who had set up the Talmudic Academy in Yavneh after the war against Rome. Gamliel helped establish a new spiritual leadership and designed the foundation for survival in the Diaspora. He played a key role in keeping the peace between the Jewish community and Rome.


1305: King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia died. During the Rindfleisch massacres in 1298, King Wenceslaus II had extorted large sums from Bohemian Jewry for protection.


1498: Citizens of Nuremberg, Bavaria received permission to expel its Jews from Emperor Maximillian

1527: NIccolo dei Machiavelli, the author of The Prince, passed away today.



1630: Birthdate of Samuel Oppenheimer “Jewish banker, imperial court diplomat, factor, and military supplier for the Holy Roman Emperor” who was the father of Simon Wolf Oppenheimer who established his own banking house in Hanover and Jakob Wolf Oppenheimer under who Mayer Amschel Rothschild served his apprenticeship.


1639: Birthdate of Increase Mather, a member of the famous family of New England ministers who wrote “Dissertation Concerning the Future Conversion of the Jewish Nation” and who “thought the future conversion of the Jews to be both possible and not far distant in time.  He opposed John Lightfoot’s argument that a general conversion of the Jews was impossible, and he also attacked Baxter’s thesis that the Jews were converted once and for all after Christ, and that those who did not convert at the time were condemned to remain in the Jewish faith for all time. According to Mather, the “national conversion” of the Jews was a “glorious truth.”



1689: The Maisel Synagogue burned today when fire swept through the ghetto in Prague.  Built in the early 1590’s it takes its name from Mordechai and Frumel  Maisel,  who financed its construction.  Today a rebuilt version of the synagogue services a Jewish Museum in Prague.


1727(2nd of Tammuz, 5487): Joseph Jacob van Geldern the banker who was the “Court Jew” for Elector Johann Whilhelm passed away.


1749: Twenty-eight year old Simon von Geldern returned to Vienna from a journey which he claimed took him to North Africa, Jerusalem and other lands inhabited by Bedouins.  The son of Joseph von Geldern, a wealthy German physician with whom he had a falling out, Simon was the great-uncle of Heinrich Heine who kindly referred to him as “an adventurer and Utopian dreamer.”  
 

1749: Founding Halifax, Nova Scotia.  Within a year, Jews were living in Halifax and by 1752 there were approximately 30 Jews living in the newly founded city.  The Jewish population would grow slowly and sporadically.  A congregation would not be formed until the end of the 19th century.


1787;  New Hampshire becomes the 9th state to ratify the United States Constitution which means the Constitution has been ratified by enough states to make it the law of the land. New Hampshire was one of the last states to change its laws so that Jews could hold office.  The final change took place in 1877. As can be seen from the attached article about the Jewish community in Bethlehem, NH, life has changed for the better for Jews living in the Granite State.

1794: Simon von Geldern “a German traveler and author, the great-uncle of Heinrich Heine, who describes him in his "Memoirs" as an adventurer and Utopian dreamer, “arrived in Vienna” after completing his first voya.


1798: The proclamation issued by the French governor of Cologne which stated in part "Whatever smacks of slavery is abolished. Only before God will you have to give an accounting of your religious beliefs. Your civic rights will no longer depend upon your creeds. Whatever these are, they will be tolerated without distinctions and enjoy equal protection” was an example of the newly found rights of citizenship that the Jews were to enjoy in a city from which they had been barred until 1794.


1812:  Birthdate of Moses Hess, an early advocate of a league of nations and a Jewish state in Palestine.  His most famous work was entitled Rome and Jerusalem published in 1862.  He died in 1875


1819(28th of Sivan, 5579): Forty-six year old Hirschel Eliazer Kann, the founder of Lisa & Kann passed away at Den Haag, Zuid-Holland, Nederland


1802: Birthdate of Michelangelo Asson, the native of Verona, who overcame the fact that his father died while he was an infant to become a “physician and medical author.”


1821: Isaac da Costa earned his Doctor of Philosophy today.


1821: At Frankort-on-Main, Zerline and Meyer (Mayer) Levin Beyfus gave birth to Gustav Beyfus


1841: In Philadelphia, Fannie and Abraham Dessau gave birth to future communal leader Minnie Dessau Louis. (As reported by Seth Korelitz)


1845: Ralph Bernal Osborne, the eldest son of London Sephardic Spanish Jewish Parliamentarian Ralph Bernal, was the first person listed in the Railway Times as a member of “the provisional committee for the Leicester, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Burton-upon-Trent and Stafford Junction Railway” a railway that was never built.


1854: "Gleanings from the Mail" published today cites a report appearing in the Boston Advertiser that "the Jews of the Holy Land are suffering great distress from destitution."


1857: In Charleston, SC, Julius Fiegel married Theresa Klauber.


1861: In Chicago, the Sinai Congregation dedicated its first temple on Monroe Street between Clark and La Salle in which the “Einhorn ritual” was used for the first time in “a Western congregation.”


1863(4th of Tammuz, 5623): Sixty-nine year old Benjamin Golding, the British doctor who founded Charing Cross Hospital passed away today.


1866: Rosa Kahn married Josua Hirschel to become Rosa Hirschel


1868: In Motueka, NZ, John Clervaux Chaytor and his wife Emma gave birth to Major General Sir Edward Walter Clervaux Chaytor who, as a member of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force took part in the campaign to liberate the Sinai and Palestine, distinguishing himself at the Battle of Romani, the assault on Rafa and the capture of Rafa.


1873: The committee in charge of the excursions to be taken by the children who are the responsibility of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum and Free Schools, most of whom are from poor homes, announced their plans for the first outing which is scheduled to take place in two days.

 

1877: Following publication of Judge Hilton’s explanation of his decision to ban Mr. Seligman from the Grand Union Hotel, the New York Times published a series of letters grouped under the headings of  “The Jewish Side of the Question” and the “The Other Side”.  The letters under “The Other Side” described the undesirability of Jews as a class and as hotel guests which made Hilton’s decision not only understandable but correct.  The letters under “The Jewish Side of the Question” included derisive comments on Hilton’s attempt to differentiate between a “Hebrew” and a “Jew” as well as refutation of his claim that he was willing to admit certain acceptable Hebrews since the daughter of one of those mentioned had, in fact, been turned away from the Grand Union.


1878: Today six speakers took part in an oratorical contest at Yale University in which the contestants were competing for De Forest Medal. The third speaker was H.C. Coe, a Jew who spoke on “The Ancient and Modern Jew.”  The sixth and final speaker was Louis Hood of Newark who also spoke on “The Ancient and Modern Jew.” While all of the speakers were impressive, Hood walked off with the prize


1880: “Politics of Europe and Asia” published today brought news about the conference being held in Madrid called to deal with the situation in Morocco. Senor Ludolf is schedule to introduce a resolution supported by the United State, Portugal and Germany that calls for religious liberty and better treatment of the Jews.


1880: It was reported today that of the five and half million people living in Belgium only 15,000 are Protestants and 3,000 are Jews while all the rest are Catholics.


1881: Birthdate of Dov Ber Borochov,a Marxist Zionist and one of the founders of the Labor Zionist movement as well as a pioneer in the study of Yiddish as a language.  He passed away in 1917.


1882: A summary of Dr. Goodman’s report on the feasibility of settling large number of Jewish refugees from Russia on agricultural communities which has been presented to the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society of the United States was published today. According to Goodman it would cost $500, not counting the cost of the land, to provide each colonist with the necessities for survival.  “To start 2,000 heads of families on farms would require a cash advance of $1,000,000 for materials, implements, stock, seed, food etc. before they could become self-maintaining.”  Add in the cost of the land, and, according to Dr. Goodman, “the Jewish people in the United States looking to colonization of their destitute co-religionists must collect and invest…from two to four million dollars” over an extended period of time with no hope of a return on investment. 


1884: In the case of Dumas v. Jacquet, the First Chamber of the Civil Tribunal of Paris delivered a judgment today that “enjoined the public exhibition of a picture in which the artist had represented Alexandre Duma, the novelist as “Marchand Juif.”


1887: The Jews of London celebrated the first day of the 51st year of the reign of Queen Victoria over Great Britain at the Synagogue on St. James Place in Aldgate.  The crowded sanctuary was decorated for the occasion and the attendees were treated to a choral service.


1888: “Barge Office Prizes” published today described the commercial activities that surrounded the sale and purchase of the “unclaimed, abandoned, and seized goods.” Before Ellis Island, the Barge Office was the point of entry for immigrants arriving in New York.  The majority of the those involved in the examination and purchase of the goods were reportedly Jews.


1888: It was reported today that a rescript has been published ordering that a eulogy be read in all churches at upcoming Sunday services.  The offering of a eulogy by the Jews appears to have been optional. [Given the response of Rabbis in New York, it is safe to assume that many Jews mourned the passing of the first modern Kaiser.]


1890: Mr. Comstock of the Society for the Suppression of Vice recognized a man named Marcus Goldstein who had been arrested for trying to obtain plates with which to make counterfeit lottery tickets as Mordecai S. Blaustein “whom he had arrested just four years ago in Orchard Street for swindling poor people” by selling them “bogus lottery tickets.” After having been convicted in 1886, this Polish Jew had been sentenced to 6 months at Blackwell/s Island. According to Comstock, Blaustein or Goldstein was first found to be swindling people on the lower east side in 1881 but he jumped bail and hid out in Chicago. 


1891: “Jew Baiting” published today included a detailed review of Les Juifs De Russie Recueil D’Articles Et D’Etudes Sur Leur Situation Legale Sociale Et Economique (The Russian Jews: Collection of Articles and Studies on Their Legal, Social and Economic Situation) by Leopold Cerf.


1892: Birthdate of American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr His views on Jews evolved over time from his early days as a minister in Detroit.  He warned against the rise of anti-Semitism in Hitler’s Germany and came to the conclusion that it was wrong to try and convert Jews. He expressed his strong pro-Zionist sentiments in “Our Stake in the State of Israel”




1894: Edward Lauterbach, the Republican Jewish political leader was among those participating in the hearings being held at the Constitutional Convention in Albany.


1896: The St. Louis Republic described the decision to choose Rabbi Samuel Sale to deliver the opening prayer at the Republican Convention. According to the Republic, Sale had not been chosen as a compromise to avoid offending the APA and the Catholics but had been chosen because Baron Rothschild of London had sent a telegram requesting that this be done.  However, the reporter for the Republic had not seen the telegram and could not find anybody else who had. 1896(10th of Tammuz, 5656): Fifty year old Isaac B. Poznanski, the native of Charleston passed away in the UK where he was burred at the Hammersmith Old Cemetery in London.


1896: Members of the Young Folk’s League of the Hebrew Infant Asylum are scheduled to enjoy an outing today aboard the SS Bay Queen


1897: “Family Left Destitute” published today described the plight of the Cohen family of New Haven.  Mrs. Cohen’s husband disappeared without explanation and she thought he had deserted her.  Actually, he had been killed in railway accident in New York City.  Authorities shipped the widow and her four children to New York where they are now in the care of the Hebrew Sheltering House Association.


1897: “Hebrew School In Chicago” published today described a soon to be opened educational institution in the Windy City where all instruction and conversation will be in Hebrew.  While classes will be offered in “the primary scholastic branches,” “the Hebrew Bible will be the principle subject of study.


1897: Herman Warszawiak, the converted Jewish missionary, who had been expelled by the Presbyterians after having been found guilty of performing immoral acts including gambling was not available for public comment even though he had earlier said the conviction had come because some did not want a converted Jew to be a minister in the Presbyterian Church.


1898: At Orange, NJ, 58 year old Getta Scholle, the vice president of the Home For Aged and Infirm Hebrews who was the widow of Jacob Scholle, passed away today.


1899: “The Hebrew Hoodlums of the Lower East Side” published today


1899: “Boys in Religious War” published today described events leading up to a public brawl between over one Jewish and Christian boys in Chicago.  The Christians, who attend several local parochial schools, have been taunting and attacking the Jewish boys who finally fought back.  At first the Christians had the better of the battle, but the Jews found reinforcements and surrounded their attackers.  At this point, the police intervened and arrested some of the battlers.


1899: The Jews of Chicago are planning on presenting Captain Dreyfus “with a gold-mounted, diamond-set and richly engraved sword.” They are planning on presenting Emile Zola with an engraved gold pen as token of appreciation for his defense of Dreyfus.  They are planning on present Colonel Picquart, the War Minister who befriended Dreyfus and helped to prove his innocence with a gold loving cup.


1900(24th of Sivan, 5660): Sir Charles Oppenheimer, the native of Nastätten, Nassau the successful businessman and Jewish philanthropist who served as the British consul-general at Frankfort-on-the-Main passed away today.


1903: Birthdate of Al Hirschfeld, Tony Award winning cartoonist


1903(26th of Sivan, 5663): New York Banker Isidor Wormser passed away tonight in his home on Fifth Avenue.  Born in Germany he came to the U.S. in at the age of 18 with his brother Simon with whom he sailed around Cape Horn to California where they prospered selling merchandize in the Gold Fields and later at their store in Sacramento. Isidor and Simon came to New York in 1870 where they established the banking firm of I & S Wormser which prospered for over 30 years thanks in part, to the conservative fiscal practices of brothers and to the probity of their business dealings. A member of the New York Stock Exchange and a Democratic Presidential elector in 1892, Wormser’s interest in civic affairs could be seen by his membership in the Metropolitan Museum and his service as a trustee of the Brooklyn Bridge.


1905: Judge Jacob William Mack and Bertha Mack gave birth Theresa Mack, the future wife of Joseph Geffen which would make her Therese Geffen, the mother of Alice Geffen.

1905: Birthdate of philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.  Towards the end of his life Sartre suffered what a critic called a “loss of historical hope.” Ironically, he turned to Judaism and Jewish history to find a source of hope and final philosophic underpinning.  “Sartre dealt with his loss of historical hope by painfully acquiring another kind of hope. He replaced both existential dread and Marxist utopianism with a Jewish messianic patience. In the final interview with his friend and associate, the unlikely baal t'shuva, (returnee to Judaism), Benny Levy (formerly Pierre Victor), he reports his discovery that "the messianic idea is the base of the revolutionary idea." For many months before he died, Sartre studied Salo Baron's voluminous, magisterial work on Jewish history and, with Levy, came to a new-old view of the human prospect. As if he had invented Buber and the Bible, Sartre now proclaims, "We belong to a single family." Of course, "the unity of the human enterprise is yet to be created…what I have is yours and what you have is mine. If I need, you give to me. If you need, I give to you. That is the future of morality.” In the end, Sartre became a kind of "Jew." Already in the resistance of 1940-45, he had risked his life against Fascism. In Les Temps Modernes, at the very time of the Six Day War, he published what remains the most balanced and useful collection of essays on Arab Jewish peace and declared his solidarity with Israel. He did not accept the Nobel Prize of literature. But he did accept an honorary degree from the Hebrew University in 1976, reminding the Israelis how deeply he shared their dreams, and telling them that the more he cared about them, the more he cared also about the Palestinian people. "In order to understand the Jew from the interior, I would have to be a Jew," Sartre told Benny Levy and he tried hard enough to achieve that very goal. Studying Jewish history, like many thinkers before him, he caught a vision of the messianic hope: survival, obedience and loyalty to humanity itself. "The Jew lives. He has a destiny. The finality toward which every Jew moves is to reunite humanity....It is the end that only the Jewish people (knows)….It is the beginning of the existence of men for each other." In the last days and in the last words of Jean-Paul Sartre, we find a brother and a teacher in Israel.”


1907(10th of Av, 5667): Tish’a B’Av observed because the 9th of Av fell on Shabbat


1907(10th of Av, 5667): Isidior Wormser, the successful New York Banker who is the father-in-law of Jefferson Seligman, passed away today.


1915: Five day before his term in office was scheduled to end, John M. Slaton, Governor of Georgia commuted the sentence of Leo Frank from death to life in prison.  The commutation came a day before Frank was scheduled to be hung.  Slaton, who had been a popular governor, left Georgia with the mob and threat of violence baying at his heels.  Tom Watson wrote an article calling for the lynching of Frank.


1915: In an interview with Pope Benedict published in La Liberte today the Pontiff talked about the horrors of war including a report “hat the Russians on one occasion pushed before them 1,500 Jews so that they could advance behind this living barrier thus exposed to the bullets of the enemy.”


1915: At a little before 5 o’clock this morning Sheriff Mangum and his party of deputies arrived with their prisoner, Leo M. Frank, at the Georgia State Penitentiary in Milledgeville, GA “just a few minutes after Warden J.N. Smith had been notified by authorities in Atlanta that the prisoner was in the custody of the officers and on the way to the State Prison.”


2015: Governor John M. Slaton “is guarded in his country home tonight by the a battalion of the Georgia National Guard because of the strenuous efforts of a crowd variously estimated at from 1,000 to 2,000 persons to get at the Governor to show their disapproval” of the commutation of Leo M. Frank’s death sentence to life imprisonment. 2015: Governor John M. Slaton “is guarded in his country home tonight by the a battalion of the Georgia National Guard because of the strenuous efforts of a crowd variously estimated at from 1,000 to 2,000 persons to get at the Governor to show their disapproval” of the commutation of Leo M. Frank’s death sentence to life imprisonment.


1915: In editorializing about the commutation of Leo Frank’s sentence by Governor Slaton The Athens Daily Banner concluded with the statement that “Whatever may be the result to him he at least has the consolation of knowing that in the face of strenuous circumstances surround this case he did what his judgment told me was his duty to himself and to the State.”


1915: “There was great relief and much joy at the home of Leo M. Frank’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Rudolph Frank at 152 Underhill Avenue, Brooklyn this morning when word came that the Governor Slaton had commuted the death sentence.” Since the parents were in Atlanta, the telephone call from County Judge Harry E. Lewis with the good news was taken by the daughter and son-in-law Mr. and Mrs. Otto Stern.


1915: “Local relatives of Leo M. Frank said today that there was absolutely no foundation for the report which had been circulated early in the case that Mrs. Frank was estranged from her husband.”


1915: “In discussing the commutation of Leo Frank’s sentence, The Rome Tribune-Herald says that in its opinion 80 per cent of the people of Georgia opposed commutation, but it believes that this sentiment arose from fear that Frank would be released in a few years.”


1915: The Atlanta Journal editorial on the commutation of the sentence of Leo M. Frank concluded by saying that “The Governor has shown wisdom and courage in his performance of an act of simple justice, and time will vindicate his moderation.”


1915: In an interview given today following the announcement of the commutation of Leo Frank’s sentence “Louis Marshall, one of the counsel for Leo M. Frank” said “Governor Slaton has saved the honor of Georgia.  He the sentence of death pronounced against Frank been executed, it would have been a crime against justice for I am as firmly convinced of his absolute innocence as I am of my own.”


1921: In New York City Abe and Helen (Gollomb) Tuvim gave birth to Judith Tuvim who gained fame as award winning actress Judy Holiday.1921: Birthdate of Leon Silverman, the Manhattan born attorney. (As reported by Sam Roberts)


 

1922:  During a debate in Parliament, Lord Sydenham contends that the Arabs would not object to immigration if it were done by “well selected Jews” instead of by what  describes as Zionist settlers who are” Bolsheviks,” “sinister and “promiscuous people.” 


1922: Following a debate in the House of Lords on the questions of continued British commitment to honor the Balfour Declaration, 60 Lords voted against the declaration and only 29 voted for it


1922:  Major Herbert Young, “a senior official” in the Colonial Office writes Churchill that the vote against the Balfour Declaration in the House of Lords will lead to greater Arab obstinacy and imperil Britain’s previous promises to the Jews.


1922: Samuel Bronfman “married Saidye Rosner with whom he had four children -- Aileen Mindel "Minda" Bronfman de Gunzburg, Phyllis Lambert, Edgar Miles Bronfman and Charles Rosner Bronfman.

1922: While meeting in London, the Prime Ministers of Canada, Newfoundland, Australia and New Zealand stated that they shared “Arab suspicions” of plans to ultimately create a Jewish majority in Palestine.


1922:  In an address to the Dominion Prime Ministers Churchill described “The Zionist ideal as a very great idea” with which he had great personal sympathy.  He further reminded them that the Balfour Declaration was more than an ideal.  “It was an obligation made in wartime to enlist the aid of Jews all over the world and Britain must be very careful and punctilious to discharge its obligations.”


1922(25th of Sivan, 5682): Seventy-five year old Louis Stern, the President of Stern Brothers, the New York department store, passed away unexpectedly in Paris. A native of Germany, Stern “learned the rudiments of merchandizing” in a small store owned by his uncle in Petersburg, West Virginia. In 1867 he and his brother Isaac opened a small dry goods and novelty store which was so successful that they opened a larger emporium on West 23rd Street in 1878.  After his brother’s retirement, Stern opened an even larger store on 42ndStreet. Stern was active in numerous civic and communal organizations including serving as Chairman of the New York Commission to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition and President of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.


1926: Abbot Lawrence Lowell, the President of Harvard University was featured on the cover of Time magazine. Although the cover story did not mention it, 1926 was a year of triumph for Lowell because he convinced the Harvard Board of Overseers to adopt new admission requirements that accomplished his goal of reducing the number of Jews at Harvard.  The year before these “non-academic” standards were added, 27% of the freshman class was Jewish.  By the time Lowell in 7 years after the standards had been put in place Jews made up 10% of the underclassmen


1927: In New York, three Jewish interns at Kings County Hospital were attacked and tied up. 1928: Birthdate of Judith Raskin, one of America's greatest lyric sopranos of the twentieth century. She was not only famous for her voice but also for her acting. Judith Raskin died on December 21, 1984, after a long struggle with cancer. Services were held at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York City where she was eulogized as being one of the finest artists of our time who could be emulated by other future Jewish aspirants of the concert and opera stage.


1931: Birthdate of Lawrence K. Grossman, President of NBC-TV News.


1932: In Paris, FranceDolores Porges (née Neubauer) and Pierre Louis-Dreyfus who headed the Louis Dreyfus Group and French Resistance leader gave birth to Gérard Louis-Dreyfus who as William Louis-Dreyfus became Chairman of the Louis Dreyfus Energy Service the multi-billionaire who is the great grandson of Léopold Louis-Dreyfus, founder of Louis Dreyfus Group and the father of award winning actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus.


1932: In Buenos Aires Luis Schifrin, who “led the second violin section of the orchestra at the Teatro Colón for three decades” and his wife gave birth to Boris Claudio Schifrin who gained as Argentine pianist, composer, arranger and conductor” Lalo Schifrin.


1933: Birthdate of actor Bernie Kopell who played Doc on the ABC hit television show, The Love Boat


1933: A memorial meeting was held this evening at Beethoven Hall in New York City honoring Dr.Chaim Arlosoroff who had been murdered last Friday. It was attended by approximately 1,000 Jews and the leaders of various branches of the Zionist movement.  In his speech, Morris Rothenberg, President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) made reference to reports that Revisionists had been connected with the murder and warned against any “rush to judgment” in determining who was responsible for the crime.


1934:Dr. Frederick B. Robinson, president of City College, and Dr. Bernard Revel, president of Yeshiva College, spoke at the third annual commencement exercises of Yeshiva College, to be held at 4 o'clock this afternoon in the college auditorium, 186th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.


1936(1st of Tammuz, 5696): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1936: The Palestine Post reported from London that the House of Commons held a full-dress debate on the Palestine crisis. There had been unanimity of views that stern measures should be taken to restore law and order in the country. Mr. Ormsby-Gore, the colonial secretary, expressed confidence in the High Commissioner, Sir Arthur Wauchope, but was conciliatory towards the Arabs.


1936: The New York Timespublished a review of Judaism in Transition by Mordecai M. Kaplan.


1936: An armed band of approximately 60 Arabs attacked a convoy of Jewish owned buses on route to Tel Aviv from Haifa.A British sergeant, Henry Sills, of the Seaforth Highlanders, was killed and three privates of the Royal Scottish Fusiliers were wounded in subsequent fights between the Arab terrorists and the British troops assigned to provide protection.


1938:In the first act of terrorism to take place in Tel Aviv, a bomb was thrown near a movie theatre seriously injuring a child.


1938: In London, “Russian Jewish immigrants Morris and Betsy (née Kersh) Blackstone” gave birth to their youngest child Donald Blackstone who gained fame as Oscar winning lyricist Don Black.

 

1939: At the World’s Fair in New York,  New Jersey Hadassah Day is celebrated with luncheons at the Café Tel Aviv and Toffenettti’s Restaurant while Dr. Albert Einstein and Rabbi Stephen Wise are the scheduled speakers at a luncheon for Rho Pi Phi Fraternity at the Café Tel Aviv.


1940: France surrendered to Germany, a move that would doom the Jews of France as well as Jews from across Europe who had sought refuge in France before the start of World War II.


1940: Prime Minister Winston Churchill “received a telegram from Lord Lothian, the British Ambassador in Washington, stating that the Jews in the United States ‘want Jews in Palestine to be organized under British command to defend Palestine from outside attack and to help the Allies.’  If Palestine were overrun (by the Nazis) and Jews had not been put in a position to defend their country, there would certainly be a most deplorable effect on American Jews’ opinion.’”


1941: Vichy adopted a statue excluding Jewish students.


1942: At Tirzt Zevi, Israel, the temperature reached 129 degrees F (54 degrees C)


1942: U.S. premiere of “The Affairs of Martha” directed by Jules Dassin with a script co-authored by Isobel Lennart.


1943: Himmler ordered the destruction of all ghettos in Russia.
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1943(18th of Sivan, 5703): In Lvov, The Germans murdered most of the remaining ghetto population.


1943(18th of Sivan, 5703): All Jewish workers at municipal factories in Drogobych, Ukraine, are killed.


1943: Raymond Aubrac was one of eight senior Resistance leaders secretly meeting in a doctor's surgery in the Lyon suburb of Caluire when Gestapo officers, under the orders of Klaus Barbie, stormed the place and arrested all the eight leaders after having been tipped off by a turncoat member of the Resistance whose identity remains a mystery to this date.


1943: German Professor August Hirt chooses 103 Jewish men and women at Auschwitz to be transported to the Natzweiler-Struthof camp near Strasbourg, France. There they are gassed. The soft tissues of their bodies are removed, and their skeletons are strung up as exhibits in the Reich Anatomical Institute of Strasbourg for the study of the Jewish race


1944: The British Foreign Office informs Prime Minister Churchill that ‘Marshall Tito (the Yugoslav Communist leading the partisans) has consented to facilitate the escape of Jewish refugees through his lines from Hungary with the idea that they should reach southern Italy, via Dalmatia.


1945: Guy Liddell, head of counter-espionage at MI5, kept during the 1940s and 50s dictated a diary entry to his secretary about a visit to his office by a British War Crimes Executive official, and representatives of MI6 and the Special Operations Executive, looking for evidence to support a war crimes prosecution in which he expressed his opinion that instead of formal war crime trials, any people found to have committed crimes should be arrested by the military and punished accordingly.


1946: Birthdate of Conservative Party MP Sir Malcolm Leslie Rifkind


1947: Birthdate of Dr. Rachel Adato, the native of Haifa who held several public health positions including vice president of Sha’arei Tzedek Medical Center before serving two terms as an MK.


1948: The Rhodes Conference on the Israeli-Arab war opened. Rhodes is an island in the Mediterranean off the coast of Greece where the meetings were held. The negotiations were master-minded by Ralph Bunche. Bunche was an African-American diplomat who was a leader of the newly formed United Nations. The negotiations led to armistice agreements between the different Arab states and the state of Israel. Bunche earned the Nobel Prize for Peace as a reward for his efforts.


1950: “Rabbi Judah L. Maimon, Minister for Religious Affairs” stormed out of a cabinet meeting today, claiming that he was resigning from Ben Gurion’s government.  Maimon was protesting the cuts to his department’s budget, the purchase of surplus meat from the United States that “does not conform to religious dietary laws” and what he claims are the failure of the government to enforce the strict observance of the laws of Kashrut in Israeli army kitchens.


1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that Iraq charged that Jews had stored arms and ammunition in Baghdad and put a stop to Jewish emigration, pending an investigation. But planes carrying enforce the strict observance of the laws of Kashrut in Israeli army kitchens.


1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Post Office planned to establish its own bank, under the new Postal Bank Law.


1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that at least 35 political parties put up candidates for the forthcoming Second Knesset elections. (This number was later reduced to 20.)


1955: Perry Como, the crooner who would don a kippa every fall on his television show before singing Kol Nidre, recorded “Teena Marie” written by Bob Merrill (Henry Robert Merrill Levan)


1956:  Playwright Arthur Miller appeared before H.U.A.C. and refused to implicate anybody as having taken part in Communists activities


1960: Birthdate of David Makovskey, the “director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy Project on the Middle East Peace Process.”


1964(11th of Tammuz, 5724): Three Civil Rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Cheney and Mickey Schwermer were brutally murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Goodman and Schwermer were both Jewish. Cheney was an Afro-American. Goodman and Schwermer had come South as part of group who were determined to help Blacks register to vote. An all-white jury acquitted their killers, who included local law enforcement officials, of murder charges. They were later prosecuted in federal court and found guilty of having deprived the young trio of their civil rights. Goodman and Schwermer were part of a whole cadre of Jews who participated in the fight for equality for Blacks. This reality makes a sad counter-point to the anti-Semitic speeches of people like Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan.


1967: U.S. premiere of “Divorce American Style” produced by Norman Lear who co-authored the script and featuring Tom Bosley.


1969:  In response to Egyptian artillery attacks and other hostile acts, Israeli naval commandos attack and destroy the Egyptian radar facility at Ras El-Adabiya. The destruction of the radar complex left the Egyptians “blind” when Israeli jets attacked the artillery bases that had been firing on the Israelis.


1969:In Monmouth County, Beth Miriam, “in conjunction with Rabbi Lefkowitz’s retirement after 25 years of devoted service and the Temple’s 80th Anniversary, held a gala dinner


1972: ABC broadcast the first episode of “The Super” a sitcom created by Rob Reiner, Phil Mishkin, and Gerry Isenberg


1975(12th of Tammuz, 5735): Seventy-four year old Ukrainian born American composer David Tamkin passed away today.



1976:The Jerusalem Post reported that the American navy evacuated 300 foreigners from Beirut.


1976:The Jerusalem Post reported that a $15m. annual propaganda program, designed to swing the American public opinion away from Israel and toward the Arabs was reported in the US.


1977:  Menachem Begin became the sixth Prime Minister of Israel.  This marked a major shift in Israeli politics.  The Labor-Zionists who had dominated the government since the start of the state were out and the Revisionists had gained power.  This reversal in fortune had many causes including corruption in the Labor Party and shifting demographics in Israel.


1979: Three Palestinian terrorist were killed while “attempting build a bomb” near Jenin/


1980: On the 41st anniversary of the creation of Camp Gurs, a reunion of hundred former detainees, members of the French resistance and “survivors of the Nazi death camps came to an end.  This was the second of what has become annual event thanks, in part, to the efforts of L'Amicale de Gurs, which was formed at this second reunion.


1981(19th of Sivan, 5741):Isadore Blumenfeld a Jewish-American organized crime figure based in Minneapolis, Minnesota known as Kid Cann, passed away.


1985: U.S. premiere of “Cocoon” a comedic look at aging and resurrection produced by Richard Zanuck co-starring Jack Gilford and Steven Guttenberg


1985:  Scientists reported that skeletal remains exhumed in Brazil were Dr. Josef Mengele, the Angel of Death at Auschwitz.  Mengele escaped punishment after the war, thanks in no small part to support from his family in Germany.


1987(24th of Sivan, 5747):Abram Chasins “an American composer, pianist, piano teacher, lecturer,
musicologist, music broadcaster, radio executive and author” passed away.


1990: NBC broadcast the final episode of season one for Seinfeld.


1996: Good Morning America film critic Joel Siegel married artist Ena Swansea.


1996: U.S. premiere of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” an animated version of the classic novel with a score by Alan Meken who joined with Stephen Schwartz to create the songs for the film which included the voice of Jason Alexander.


1997: At Allessandria, Italy, opening of International Congress of the International Napoleonic Conference at which Dr. Ben Weider, is scheduled to deliver a paper –“Napoleon and the Jews.”



1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Cardozo by Andrew L. Kaufman


2003: The Martin Beck Theatre in New York was renamed the Al Hirschfeld Theatre.


2003(21st of Sivan, 5763):  Novelist Leon Uris passed away.  Uris first reached popular and critical acclaim with Battle Cry a novel about Marines fighting World War II.  Coincidentally, Uris had served with the Marines.  He hit the literary and financial jackpot withExodus, a novel that depicted the birth of the state of Israel.  He followed with other books with Jewish themes including Mila 18, QB VII,  The Haj  and Mitla Pass.



2003(21st of Sivan, 5763):  Eighty-one year old screenwriter, playwright, producer and director George Axelrod, the  son of non-Jewish screen star and a Russian Jew, passed away today. (As reported by Rick Lyman)



2004: Wrestler Matt Bloom tore a rotator cuff.


2004: Human rights activist Felice Gaer addressed the United Nations Conference on Anti-Semitism


2004:  A foreign worker, Weerachai Wongput, 37, from the Nong Han District of the northeastern province of Udon Thani in Thailand, died after being hit by shrapnel from a mortar fired into greenhouses in Kfar Darom in the Gaza Strip. The mortar was fired by Palestinians trying to divert attention from an attempt to infiltrate the settlement. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack


2007(5th of Tammuz, 5767): Twenty-five year old Private First Class Daniel J. Agami, was killed by an improvised explosive device in Adhamiya, Iraq today. A native of Cleveland who grew up in Coral Springs, Florida, Agami came from a proud military and Jewish tradition.  His grandfather served in the Korean War and his father had served with the Israeli Army.  He enlisted four years after 9/11. “Agami flew an Israeli flag over his bunk in Schweinfurt, Germany, his home base, and then in Iraq. His rifle had “Hebrew Hammer” written across it, and his friends called him the GI Jew.



2007:In Los Angeles, Mäni’s Bakery of Los Angeles teams up with Camp Max Straus on in a chocolate cake tasting, with 100% of the proceeds benefiting Camp Max Straus. Camp Max Straus provides year-round residential and weekend mentoring programs for under-served children between the ages of 7-12 who primarily come from single (or substitute) parent homes, regardless of their ability to pay. The camp is non-denominational and is owned and operated by Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters of Los Angeles. It serves approximately 2,000 children each year. Founded in 1915, Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters of Los Angeles specializes in mentoring children through its core matching program, school-based mentoring program and Camp Max Straus residential, Sports Buddies and Arts Buddies programs. 


2008: In Washington, D.C. former New York Times reporter Jane Fletcher Geniesse discusses and signs her new book, American Priestess: The Extraordinary Story of Anna Spafford and the American Colony in Jerusalem at Politics and Prose Bookstore.


2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Digital Barbarism: A Writer’s Manifesto by Mark Helprin


2009: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including In Her Own Sweet Time by Rachel Lehmann-Haupt


2009:The Sixth Australian Israel Film Festival, sponsored by AICE, the Australia Israel Cultural Exchange, opens at the Jerusalem Cinematheque with a screening of “Tackling Peace,” a documentary  about a joint Israeli/Palestinian team that was established to enter the 2008 AFL (Australian Rules) International Cup soccer competition, which was held in Victoria, Australia, last August.


2009:The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Consulate General of Israel in New York, the Israel Ministry of Tourism, the Israel Government Tourist Office in New York, and the Tel Aviv-Yafo Centennial Administration
join together to sponsor The Tel Aviv Beach Party, part of the celebration of Tel Aviv’s 100th Anniversary.


2010:The Sixth Republic Bank Golf Challenge benefiting Jewish Family & Career Services and the Jewish Community of Louisville's Jewish Community Center of Louisville is scheduled to be held today at Chariot Run, a Harrah's Golf Course.


2010: The Jewish Agency’s new strategic plan will place the state and land of Israel squarely at the center of Diaspora consciousness, according to a statement Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky made tp the Jerusalem Post today

2011: Family in Captivity, a film that “is an intimate story that follows the day to day efforts of the Shalit family to cope and bring Gilad home” is scheduled to be shown at The JCC in Manhattan.

2011: The Kaye Innovation Awards are scheduled to be presented today during the Board Of Governors Meeting of the Hebrew University. The prizes were established in 1994 by Isaac Kaye – a prominent industrialist in the British pharmaceutical industry – to encourage HU faculty, staff and students to develop innovative methods and inventions with good commercial potential that will benefit the university and society. The winners are Prof. Haim Rabinowitch, Prof. Dan Gazit, Dr. Raanan Fattal, Katy Margulis- Goshen and Yftah Tal-Gan, Prof. Haim Rabinowitch of the university’s Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment has been named winner of the first prize. Rabinowitch, a former rector, is being recognized for his long-term innovations in genetic and breeding technologies. Over the last 25 years, his team’s novel breeding results have created a lucrative local seed industry. Indeed, the export of tomato, onion and shallot seeds Rabinowitch developed brings in about $50 million annually, with additional royalties going to the university. Today, he is leading the development of a unique garlic-breeding project and plant improvement technology that allows seed producers to easily adapt any plant variety to changing situations. Both projects were recently licensed by Yissum, the HU’s technology transfer company, to start-up companies that were established on the basis of these technologies. The second-prize winner among the faculty is Prof. Dan Gazit, head of the Skeletal Biotechnology Laboratory in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem, for his team’s nearly 20-year research that has led to a breakthrough in the field of stem cell-based tissue engineering. TheraCell Inc., a California-based biotech start-up company, has licensed the bone tissue regeneration technology from Yissum. Dr. Raanan Fattal of the Benin School of Computer Science and Engineering, will be receiving the third prize for the development of second-generation wavelet-based image enhancement, which enhances sharpness of images. Fattal’s invention was licensed by Adobe and is already incorporated in the company’s leading software, Photoshop. Meanwhile, a method for increasing solubility developed by a graduate student at HU’s Casali Institute of Applied Chemistry has yielded promising commercial benefits for industry – particularly in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and agriculture. The method, created by Katy Margulis- Goshen, a doctoral student of Prof. Shlomo Magdassi, produces a rapid conversion of oilin- water microemulsions containing an insoluble substance into a dry powder composed of nanoparticles, which can easily be dissolved in water or other biological fluids. For her work, Marguis-Goshen, who immigrated to Israel from the Ukraine 21 years ago, has been chosen as another Kaye Award winner. The process she developed is of unique industrial importance, the university said, as it leads to a significant increase in solubility and dissolution properties of almost any active ingredient, without a high energy investment. Enhancing solubility is especially important in pharmaceutics, where nearly half of the newly discovered drugs can’t be administered, or are very poorly absorbed, due to their low solubility. Increasing solubility is also important in agriculture, since most insecticides are highly hydrophobic (resistant to mixing with water), and their regular application therefore requires the use of organic solvents, which are harmful to the farmer and the environment. The new process can also be applied to many other fields, such as nutrition and paint and printing-ink manufacture. Finally, Yftah Tal-Gan, a student of Prof. Chaim Gilon and Prof. Alexander Levitzki at the Institute of Chemistry, will receive a Kaye Award for the inhibition of protein kinase B (PKB, also called Akt). Since the activation of PKB is associated with tumors, selective inhibition of this protein becomes a promising strategy for targeted cancer therapy.

2011:Israel runs the risk of losing the battle for public opinion in Latin America if it doesn’t devote more resources to its advocacy efforts there, Jewish officials from that part of the world warned at the World Jewish Congress, which drew to a close today.

2011:Richard Stone, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and conference executive vice president Malcolm Hoenlein expressed dismay and regret today that Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard was not allowed to attend the funeral of his father Morris in Indiana the day before.

2011:Lithuania's parliament passed a long-awaited bill to compensate the Jewish community for communal property taken during the Nazi and Soviet occupations of the country. More than 90 percent of Lithuania's 220,000-strong Jewish community were wiped out during the Holocaust

2011(19th of Sivan, 5771): Eighty-three year old Jewish feminist author E.M. Broner passed away today in New York. (As reported by Margalit Fox)


2012: JSSA (Jewish Social Service Agency) is scheduled to host an open house at the Ina Kay Building in Rockville, MD


2012: The Weiner Library is scheduled to host a special tour as part of Gypsy Roma Traveler History Month, which will include a viewing exhibitions, archives and special collections relating to the 1936 Berlin Olympics and the Gypsy Roma Traveler experience during the Holocaust.

2012: “Going Up: Jerusalem,” part of the Jerusalem Season of Culture is scheduled to open today.

2012: Marianne Lubar is scheduled to receive the Spirit Community Award at a community luncheon at the Jewish Museum of Milwaukee.

2012: Sabra Alon Yavnai and his Big Band are scheduled to perform at Bryant Park.

2012:At least five rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip at the southern city of Ashkelon this evening as cross-border violence restarted after a day-long lull.

 2012: Professor Peter Beinart and Abe Foxman were among those who spoke at the “What does World Jewry Expect from Israel?” conference.

2012(1st of Tammuz, 5772): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

2012: Police detained a female activist at the Western Wall for over three hours today because she was wearing a “male-style” tallit. The incident took place after 65 women from the Women of the Wall organization concluded their Rosh Chodesh prayer service. (As reported by Jeremy Sharon and Melanie Lidman)

2012(1st of Tammuz, 5772): Ninety year old, the composer and lyricist who created “The Pajama Game” and “Damn Yankees” two Broadway musicals that were cinema successes passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)


2012: Indian security forces arrested Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Hamza, alleged member of Lashker-e-Taiba (Army of the Righteous) and the Hindi instructor of 10 terrorists who executed the murderous attack in Mumbai in 2008.

2012(1st of Tammuz, 5772): Ninety-Six year old Anna Schwartz, the research economists who collaborated with Milton Friedman, passed away today, (As reported by Robert D. Hershey)


 

2013: The International Consortium for Research on Antisemitism and Racism, hosted by the Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism is scheduled to come to an end at the University of London

 

2013: Steve Schutzman’s “A Question of Water” under the direction of Tzipora Kaplan is scheduled to be performed as part of the Jewish Plays Project

2013(13thof Tammuz, 5773): A Jewish man was killed this morning at the Western Wall plaza in Jerusalem after being shot multiple times by a security guard.  The guard told police that 46-year-old Doron Ben Shlush was in a public bathroom onsite, and that he shouted “Allahu Akbar,” an Arabic phrase meaning “God is greater.” The phrase, though common in Muslim parlance, has historically been shouted by terrorists ahead of perpetrating attacks in Israel

2013: The US will cut five percent, or $175 million, from its annual military aid package to Israel as part of across-the-board budgetary spending cuts, a Hebrew daily reported today.  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had instructed Israeli officials in Washington, DC, to not ask the US government for an exception from the fiscal measures, according to Maariv. US military aid to Israel is currently set at $3.1 billion per year.

2014: Israeli accordion virtuoso Uri Sharlin and his quartet are scheduled to “play original compositions that blend jazz and classical influences with Balkan rhythms, Arabic modes, and Brazilian harmonies” at Harold Square.

2014: National Hebrew Book Week is scheduled to come to an end.

2014: South African jurist Ablie Sachs who was an opponent of apartheid “was awarded Taiwan's inaugural Tang Prize in the Rule of Law for his contributions to human rights and justice globally.”

2014: “Dozens of Jewish demonstrators gathered for a minute of silence today before the Argentina-Iran World Cup game, demanding justice for a still unsolved bombing attack against a Buenos Aires Jewish center 20 years ago that left 85 dead and for which Iran has been blamed.”

2014: After “a rocket hit a road in the Hof Ashkelon Regional this morning” three more rockets were fired into southern Israel from Gaza this evening.” (As reported by Matan Tzuri, Ilana Curiel)

2015: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Odd Woman and The City: A Memoir by Vivian Gornick

2015: The exhibition “Ordinary Matters" Animations and Paintings by Shelley Jordon is scheduled to come to a close at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education.

 

2015: “Examining Lives with Jewish Eyes” featuring the work of “FotoMacher Frank Barnett” is scheduled to come to a close at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center Holocaust Education.

 

2015: Florida International University is scheduled to host the opening session of International Research Conference of the Latin American Jewish Studies Association at the Wolfe University Center.

 

2015: The YIVO Institute for Jew History “in collaboration with the Russian American Foundation and the Russian Museum of Ethnography is scheduled to host “the opening reception for the exhibit “Shtetl: Graphic Works and Sketches of Solomon Yudovin (1920-1940).”


 

 

2015: Myron (Mickey) Glazer and his wife, Penina Glazer, are scheduled to read from the newly published collection of twenty-four stories, essays, and vignettes written by Mickey and his late brother, Irving (Itzik) Glasser, Itzik  and Mickey, at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA.

 

This Day, June 22, In Jewish History, by Mitchell A. Levin

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JUNE 22



217 BCE: Ptolemy IV of Egypt defeated Antiochus III at the Battle of Raphia. The Battle of Raphia, also known as the Battle of Gaza, was part of the ongoing power struggle between the Seleucids and the Ptolomies for the land mass that included Jerusalem and the land mass of Eretz Israel. Ptolemy's victory proved to be of short-term value.  Antiochus would defeat the Egyptians at the Battle of Paneas in 198 BCE.  This would ensure Seleucid rule over the Jewish population and set the stage for the Revolt of the Maccabees.


168 BCE: The Romans under Lucius Aemilius Paullus defeated and captured Macedonian King Perseus at the Battle of Pydna ending the Third Macedonian War and further diminishing the role of the Greeks. A year later, Judah Maccabee would start his revolt against the Selucids, another Greek Empire.  In the end, it would be the Romans who supplant these fractured remnants of Alexander’s Empire much to the detriment of the Jewish people.  Yes, you can draw a line connecting Pydna, the Maccabees and the destruction of the Temple in 70.


816: Papacy of Stephen IV began today. Stephen is the author of the Letter Against Jews Owning Land” which read in part, For this reason We are touched by sorrow, anxious even unto death, since We have known through you that the Jewish people, ever rebellious against God and derogatory of our rites, within the frontiers and territories of the Franks, own hereditary estates in the villages and suburbs, as if they were Christian residents; for they are the Lord's enemies... Christian men cultivate their vines and fields, and Christian men and women, living with those same deceivers both in town and out of town, are day and night strained by expressions of blasphemy... What was sworn to and handed over to those unbelievers by the Lord himself... has been taken away deservedly, in vengeance for the crucified Savior.” (As reported by Alexis Rubin in Scattered Among the Nations)


1425: Francesco di Simone Tornabuoni and Nanna di Niccolo di Luigi Guicciardini gave birth to Lucrezia Tornabuoni, the Italian Renaissance poet who chose the Biblical figure of Queen Esther as a topic for her writings.


1559: Jewish quarter of Prague was burned and looted.


1623: William Leake II or the younger became a full member of the Stationer’s Company today. In 1652 he issued the 4th Quarto of The Merchant of Venice, featuring the evil Jew Shylock.  There are those who contend that he printed this as part of an attempt to keep Jews from being readmitted to England as full citizens.


1689: The Jewish quarter of Prague was destroyed by French troops who shelled the area. In one synagogue, the roof caved in killing the 100 people who had sought refuge there. Their Christian neighbors took in most of the population until new shelters were built.


1691: Suleiman II’s brief reign, during which the Jews continued to live in comparative peace and tranquility in the Ottoman Empire came to an end with his death.


1770: Birthdate of German philosopher and writer Wilhelm Traugott Krug who was an advocated for the emancipation of the Jews of Saxony


1809: In Hamburg, Germany, Johanna and William Leo Wolf gave birth to Dr. George Wolf.


1836: Birthdate of Gaston Cremieux who along with fellow Jew Adolphe Carcassone headed the Revolutionary Commission of the Département Bouches-du-Rhône for which he was condemned to death and executed  because of his role in the revolt that had followed the Franco-Prussian War


1840: As Moses Montifiore prepared to go to Egypt to pleade for the release of eight Jews falsely imprisonsed  in  a blood libel connected to the disappeaerance of Father Tomaso, Lord Palmerston declared in Parliament, “I have already directed the English consul-general Hodges to represent to Mehmet Ali what effect news of such atrocities must produce in Europe…I have also sent instructions to her Majesty’s consul in Damascus to make a thorough investigation…and to send home a report as to the part which European consuls had taken in this matter.


1841: The Jewish community in Mobile, Alabama purchased land to be used as a cemetery.


1843: Birthdate of Mayer Sulzberger, an American judge and communal leader.” A native of Germany, he “went to Philadelphia with his parents in1848, and was educated at the Central High School of Philadelphia, and after graduating he studied law in the office of Moses A. Dropsie. In 1864 he was admitted to the bar, and attained eminence in the practice of his profession. He was elected judge of the Court of Common Pleas on the Republican ticket in 1895, and was reelected as a nominee of both parties in 1904, becoming the presiding judge of the Court of Common Pleas No. 2.Sulzberger has throughout his career shown great interest in Jewish affairs. While studying for the bar he taught at the Hebrew Education Society's school.” For a time he served as the Secretary of Board of Maimonides College. “He was closely associated with Isaac Leeser, and assisted that scholar in editing "The Occident," contributing to it a partial translation of Maimonides'"Morch Nebukim." After Leeser's death Sulzberger edited vol. xxvi. of "The Occident." He was one of the founders of the Young Men's Hebrew Association, which he served as president;” He was chosen to serve as vice president of  and the Jewish Hospital of Philadelphia in 1880 and  has been…chairman of the publication committee of the Jewish Publication Society of America.” He was one of the original trustees of the Baron de Hirsch fund and has taken a great deal of interest in the establishment of agricultural colonies at Woodbine, N. J., and in Connecticut” Sulzberger had “one of the best private libraries in America; it contained a very large number of Hebraica and Judaica, together with many other early Hebrew printed books (including no less than forty-five Incunabula), and many manuscripts.”  He presented these to the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, an institution which helped to reorganize. His younger brother, Jacob, is well known in Philadelphia literary circles both “for his verse and for is unusual knowledge of English literature.”


1850: Birthdate of Ignác (Yitzhaq Yehuda) Goldziher, the Hungarian born Jew who was the one of the first Europeans who developed an expertise in Islam and the culture of the Muslim world


1853: “Medical News” published today described a lecture delivered by Professor Owen to the Royal College of Surgeons in which he said, “For 1800 years the Jewish race has been dispersed into different latitudes and climates and they have preserved themselves most distinct from any intermixture with other races of mankind.”  He went on to say that they though they may have taken on the racial characteristics of those among whom they lived (dark skinned Jews living in Syrian and Lebanon; light skinned blue-eyed Jews in northern Europe) they have still been able to maintain themselves as unique people.


1863: During the Polish uprising, in an attempt to gain the support Rabbis and Jewish religious leaders, The Insurgent National Government issued a proclamation, in which it promised to guarantee the equality of Jews, after gaining independence


1864: During the Civil War, large number of those serving with the 59th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment which had been formed by Philip J. Joachimsen  near Petersburg during the Wilderness Campaign.


1864: In Aleksota (Russian Empire), “Lewin Boruch Minkowski, a merchant who subsidized the building of The Choral synagogue in Kovno, and Rachel Taubmann gave birth to mathematician Hermann Minkowski who in 1907 “realized that the special theory of relativity, introduced by his former student Albert Einstein in 1905 and based on the previous work of Lorentz and Poincaré, could best be understood in a four-dimensional space, since known as the "Minkowski spacetime", in which time and space are not separated entities but intermingled in a four dimensional space–time, and in which the Lorentz geometry of special relativity can be effectively represented.”


1865:The Archbishop of York chaired today’s first meeting of The Palestine Exploration Fund, a society that “has been formed under the patronage of Her Majesty the Queen.” The society chose Captain Charles Wilson to go out as the chief director of the explorations in Palestine that are to be made by the new society.  [Wilson gained fame as the author of Ordinance Survey of Jerusalem published in 1886.]



1871(3rd of Tammuz, 5631): Bernard (Yissochar Dov) Illowy, the great-grandson of Rabbi Jacob Illowy passed away.  Born at Kolin, Bohemia in 1814, he moved to the United States after the failed revolutions in the Habsburg Empire where he filled pulpits for several Orthodox synagogues in St. Louis, New Orleans and Cincinnati.






1873: In Chicago, a cyclone destroyed Congregation Beth-El


1873: Members of Beth-El Congregation met this evening and began raising funds to replace their building which had been locate on the corner of May and Huron Streets on Chicago’s northwest side.


1873: In St. Louis, Rabbis Wolfenstein and Sonnenschein officiated at the ceremony where the cornerstone was laid for a chapel at the Mount Sinai Cemetery which was under the control of the Mount Sinai Cemetery Association.


1877: According to many of New York’s prominent Jewish merchants A.T. Stewart, the company controlled by Judge Hilton, could lose the business of the Jewish clothing merchants throughout the United States as a result of the Seligman Affair.  These merchants are offended by Hilton’s attempt to defend his actions by differentiating between Hebrews and Jews.  They contend that in the United States there are many variations among Jews just as there are among Christians.  They feel that Hilton has used Seligman as a way of attacking all Jews and they find this unacceptable.  They feel that Hilton is trying to create a clash between Americans and Jews while the real clash is between Hilton’s view of the Jews and the Jewish people.


1877: According to reports published today, Mr. Seligman, nor any other Jewish leader, has plans to call for a public meeting protesting the recent action of Judge Hilton regarding the banning of Jews from the Grand Union Hotel.  Mr. Seligman said that if Christian leaders wish to hold such a meeting they may feel free to so.  Several of them have expressed their negative view of Hilton’s behavior but the consensus appears to have developed to let the matter die down.  Apparently only the Jews are still upset by this as can be seen from the decision by such firms as Fescheimer, Goodkind & Co., the largest clothing store in New York, Fescheimer, Frankel & Co. of Cincinnati and Bierman, Heidelberg & Co of Pittsburg to end all business dealing with Hilton’s A.T. Stewart and Co.


1878: It was reported today that a young Jew named Louis Hood from Newark, NJ had won the De Forest Medal at an oratorical contest conducted at Yale University.  His topic was “The Ancient and Modern Jew.”


1878: “Jewish journalist, Egyptian nationalist and playwright” Yaqub Sanu (James Sanua) went into exile today “sailing on the ship Freycinet from Alexandria to Marseilles” after having been banished for publishing the satirical magazine Aboud Naddara.


1879(1st of Tammuz, 5639): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1879: In a review of The Lost Ten Tribes and 1882 published today, the author, Brooklyn minister Reverend Joseph Wild claims that “Queen Victoria is of ‘David’s Seed’ and the United States fulfills the role of the tribe of Manasseh.” In lampooning these and other such claims the reviewer concludes, “No wonder the Jews are accused of arrogance; they such folly rampant in Christian pulpits that they must feel themselves wise men in comparison.”


1880: Detective Field arrested Ernest Fink, the former Treasurer of the Hebrew Benevolent Society Chebra B’nai Prasko on charges that he had embezzled $600 from the society.  He was arrested at his shoe shop on Catherine Street and confined to the Tombs.


1880: The Conference on Morocco resumed today in Madrid.  The conference is expected to adopt a proposal on religious freedom which will benefit both Christians and Jews living in the North African kingdom. [Editor’s note – the real issues revolved around colonial control and revenue.]


1881: Rabbi Reuben officiated at the marriage of Louis Lyons of Manning, SC and  Rose Levy, the second daughter of Marx Levy at her home in Charleston, SC.

1882: During the Samuel Obright’s sanitary hearing, relatives told the Judge that “he had procured” ten dollars from his mother “by threatening to kill” her.  His attorney denied that charge as well as one that he had threatened to kill her if she did not give him $500 today.


1882: Seventy Russian refugees arrived in New York from London by way of Boston and applied for assistance at the office of the Hebrew Emigrant Society. The group has been given permission to stay at Castle Garden until their permanent quarters are ready.


1882: The six orations given during today’s graduation ceremonies of the University of the City of New York included Charles Harris Gelston Jones speaking on the “Persecution of the Jews in Russia” as one of the anomalies of the 19th century and Alden A. Freeman on “Benjamin Disraeli.”


1883: It was reported today that several political leaders and office holders will attend the upcoming cornerstone laying ceremony for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of Brooklyn.


1883: A number of Jewish homes were pillaged during anti-Jewish riots at St. Gall, Switzerland.  After police the police were stoned when they tried to stop the violence, authorizes summoned soldiers to bring things under control


1884: “From Across the Water” published today described how the “barbarity of Hungarian Jew-baiting has been brought to the attention of Londoners” with the arrival of Joseph Scharf, the emaciated sexton of the synagogue at Tisza-Ezler who was forced to flee for his life following accusations that the Jews kidnapped a Christian peasant girl to use in their religious rites.  While the charges were eventually disproved, Scharf’s health was “shattered, his business ruined and his property looted.” “Literally in danger of starvation he fled to London where his co-religionists are raising funds on his behalf.


1886: The Hebrew Technical Institute, under the leadership of its President, James H. Hoffman hosted a reception and exhibition highlighting the accomplishment of its 68 pupils. The visitors, including noted journalist and political leader Carl Schurz, were told that the only limit on the size of the student body is the size of the facility since there are plenty of Jewish students who want to take vocational training courses.


1887(30th of Sivan, 5647): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1888:Isaac and Dina Cohen, née Wolf gave birth Jeanette Wolff “one of the best-known German Jewish women in post-war Germany.” (As reported by Jael Geis)



1890: “First Introduction to A Russian Border Town” described a visitors first experience when he crossed into the Czars kingdom where “We were just in time to see the sentinel half playfully clubbing and kicking an old Polish Jew in his long gown and fur cap and to hear his piteous cries for mercy.”


1890: “New Publications” included a review of The Burnt Million, a novel by James Payn that revolves around. The “burnt million” refers to money burned by a Jewish money lender who then ships his brother off to America. From that point on the novel takes a rather convoluted turn where a Jewish millionaire has plans to marry off his three daughters but they can only inherit if they marry a Jew.  (And the plot thickens)


1890: Dr. Alexander Kohut is scheduled to deliver a lecture at the Jewish Theological Seminary Association meeting this morning at Cooper Union entitled “Entertainment Books in the Time of the Talmud.”


1890(4th of Tammuz, 5650): Thirty-five year old Hyman Harrowitz, a Russian-Jewish immigrant died today a Gouverneur Hospital from ammonia poisoning.


1893(8th of Tammuz, 5653): Forty-two year old Benaimino Luzzatto, passed away a Padua.  Born in 1850 at Padua, this son of Samuel David Luzzatto received his medical degree in 1872 and served as an assistant professor at Padua University while pursuing his medical career.


1894: In Budapest, Prime Minister Sándor Wekerle announced that Government would introduce a bill next week “providing for equal religious rights for Jews and Christians.


1894: Harry Houdini married Wilhelmina Beatrice Rahner who became known as Bess Houdini who was his stage assistant as well as his wife.


1895: Georges Picquart who “became a Dreyfusard after having identified Estherhazy  as the author of the incriminating  bordeau, was appointed head of the French military’s Intelligence Office today.


1896(11th of Tammuz, 5656): Forty-four year old actor and dramatist Sir Augustus Harries passed away at Folkstone. He also found time pursue a political career which included serving as one of the Sheriffs of London starting in 1891.  “He was of a Hebrew family, and properly proud of his race.”


1897: The Board of Trustees of Williams College met today and announced faculty appointments including S.T. Livingston to serve as the instructor for Hebrew.


1898: (19 Sivan 5658): Rabbi Samuel Mohilever passed away. Born in 1824 in Russia, Mohilever was a Talmudic scholar and one of the leading orthodox rabbis of Eastern Europe. A graduate from the famous Voloshin Yeshiva, he was conversant in math, engineering and a number of languages. Mohilever encouraged Baron Edmond de Rothschild to support the resettling of Russian families in Eretz-Israel and was a mediator between the settlers and Rothschild in various disagreements that arose. He was the founder of Mizrachi, a religious Zionist organization. In 1881, he was one of the founders of the Hovevei Zion, Lovers of Zion.


1898: Those attending today’s exhibition of work done by the students at the Hebrew Technical Institute saw electrical appliances made by the boys including a birchromate battery, a galvanometer and models of an Edison dynamo.


1898: Birthdate of oil executive Rudolf Sonneborn, the fourth husband of New York Post owner Dorothy Schiff, President of the Israel Bond Drive and a key player in the secret shipments of arms to pre-State Jewish forces. (As reported by Wolfgang Saxon)



1898: The Board of Trustees of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews held a special meeting day to adopt a memorial marking the passing Getta Scholle who was serving as Vice President at the time of her death.


1899: The Hebrew Technical Institute hosted its commencement exercises tonight at Cooper Union.


1899: The City College of New York held its 47th annual commencement exercises at Carnegie Hall. Among those honor students giving “senior orations” were Menahem Eichler, Henry Moskowitz and A.W. Levy.  This, along with a list of graduating seniors with names like Pinchas Israel, Henry Mendelsohn, Leon Schwartz, and Louis Jacob Cohen, attest to the extent to which Jewish youngsters availed themselves of this country’s educational opportunities which were their passport into mainstream America.


1903: Justice Scott is scheduled to deliver an oral opinion in the case of Isidor Wormser, Jr. versus Metropolitan Street Railway Company and Interurban Street Railway Company


1906: The Jewish Chronicle reported that Mrs. Herman Cramer, a native of Jersey whose maiden name was Rebecca Amelia Lawton, gave a concert at Steinway Hall.


1906: In Sucha Beskidzka, Austria-Hungary Max and Eugenia (née Dittler) Wilder gave birth to Samuel Wilder who became famous a movie director Billy Wilder whose hits included Some Like It Hot, Apartment, and Stalag 17.


1909:  Birthdate of producer Michael Todd. In addition to his other accomplishment, Todd was the husband of Elizabeth Taylor. He died in accident at the age of 48.


1911: Birthdate of Ludwig Teller who served who represented New York’s 20th Congressional District from 1957 until 1961.


1911: Birthdate of classical cellist Harvey Shapiro.


1913: Dedication of the Rachel Jackson Memorial Addition to Rest Haven in Chicago, Illinois.


1911: George V is crowned King of the United Kingdom, succeeding his father, Edward VII.Lord Balfour and his king, George V, are proudly commemorated all over Israel.


1913: Dedication of the Rachel Jackson Memorial Addition to Rest Haven


1915: Today is the date set for the execution of Leo Frank in Georgia. (The sentence was commuted and the execution did not take place)


1915: “Martial law is still in force at Governor Slaton’s country estate five miles from Atlanta where two battalions of infantry with machine guns” are protecting Slaton from a mob “that threw bricks at the troops” injuring several of the soldiers.


1915: After having spent his first night at the state prison in Milledgeville, Leo Frank is scheduled  to be examined by the prison physician to determine if he “is in the proper physical condition” to be put to “work as a farm hand – hoeing or plowing.”


1915: The remarks of Louis Marshall who had represented Leo Frank before the Supreme Court made when received news of the commutation were published today and concluded with “Whatever those who sought to consign Frank to the gallows may now think, the time will certainly come when they will show their gratitude to Governor Slaton for having saved the State from the perpetration of a stupendous crime, for it is as sure as truth itself that ere long Frank’s innocence will be triumphant established.”


1915: According to reports published today, The Rome Tribune Herald, in commenting on the commutation of Leo Frank’s sentence that “Governor Slaton must be credited with having done what he thought was right in the circumstances” and that Georgia will stand that much higher in the estimation of the country because of the Governor’s action.”


1915: In its editorial on the Frankcommutation The Atlanta Journal concluded that “The Governor has shown wisdom and courage in his performance of an act of simple justice and time will vindicate his moderation.”


1915: In its editorial on the Frank commutation, The Enquirer-Sun concluded that the paper “has no inclination to criticize the Governor.  On the contrary it believes that he deserves the highest commendation for having performed his duty as he saw it.”


1915: In its editorial on the commuting of the sentence of Leo Frank, The Brunswik(GA) News wrote that the governor “has spared the life a man where the evidence upon which was convicted was clouded with doubt and the atmosphere at which the trial occurred was charged with prejudice and with passion.” “Time will vindicate the Governor, and in the meantime, we commend him for his conduct.”


1915: The New York Times editorially expressed the view that “The commutation of the death sentence of Leo M. Frank was the act of a righteous and fearless man”


1917: Special Reception Committees are scheduled to meet all delegates arriving in Baltimore, MD for the Twentieth Annual Convention of the Federation of American Zionists “at all railroad stations and steamer landings.”


1917: In Chicago, the funeral for 76 year old Rosa Berman, the widow of the late Lewis Berman is scheduled to be held at 1 p.m. at Waldheim.


1917: The funeral of Rose Stein Wolbach, the wife of Samuel N. Wolbach and the mother of Dr. S. Burt, Edwin J. and Emil Wolbach, is scheduled to take place in Grand Island, Nebraska.


1917:In Wilmington, Delaware, Rabbi Samuel Rabinowitz delivered a sermon about thoughts that should be in people's minds during the coming summer months.


1920: General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud was published for the first time in the United States.


1920: Opening of the Ziegfeld Follies of 1920 featuring Eddie Cantor and songs written by the Banjo Eyed performer.


1921(16th of Sivan, 5681): “Dr. Morris Jastrow, Jr.,” one of the world’s foremost authorities on Semitic languages and a “Professor of Semitic Languages at the University of Pennsylvania since 1893 died suddenly today of heart disease at the home of his brother-in-law, F.H. Bachman, in Jenkintown, a suburb” of Philadelphia.  The sixty year old academic had not shown any signs of illness. A native of Warsaw, Jastow graduated from Penn in 1881 and earned a Ph.D. from Leipzig University in 1884.  Besides his work with Semitic languages, Jastrow had written extensively about “religion, education and Near Eastern politics.  He edited the Semitic department of the International Encyclopedia…and was a delegate to the last three European Congresses of Orientalists. Among “his more important works were ‘Religion of the Babylonians and Assyrians,’ ‘The Study of Religion,’ ‘Hebrew and Babylonian Traditions,’ and ‘Zionism and the Future of Palestine.’”


1921: Birthdate of producer/director Joseph Papp.  Born JosephPapirofskyin Brooklyn, Papp is best known for his Shakespeare in the Park.“Aside from his incredible creative talents which forever revolutionized the Broadway theatre, he immersed himself in doing acts of good deeds especially when the care and welfare of children were concerned. During his trips to Russia he saw firsthand the desperate conditions facing the handicapped, orphaned and neglected children in the Ukraine, which numbers in the thousands. It was then that he dedicated himself to do whatever he could to enhance the lives of these children caught in the midst of economic and political turmoil. His untimely passing came before he was able to fulfill his dream. Tzivos Hashem, with Gail Papp's blessing, has vowed to continue Joe's dream. Thanks to the successful Tzivos Hashem sponsored "Joseph Papp Children's Humanitarian Fund" Dinners, thousands of Ukrainian homeless, deprived and starving children are being given a second chance at life.”


1922: In Paris, the body of Louis Stern, the President of Stern Brothers, was taken from Claridge’s Hotel to the mortuary where it will remain until a decision is made up where the burial will take place.  The seventy-five year old Stern had gone abroad with his daughter Beatrice and her husband to recuperate following surgery that had taken place in May. He was also planning on visiting his daughter Baroness Leo de Grafferies and his grandchildren during the trip.


1924: In, Makó, Hungary,Terezia (Riesz) and liberal journalist Emo Vermes, gave birth to Geza Vermes “a religious scholar who argued that Jesus as a historical figure could be understood only through the Jewish tradition from which he emerged, and who helped expand that understanding through his widely read English translations of the Dead Sea Scrolls” (As reported by William Yardley). All three converted to Catholicism when Geza was seven years old which did not save his parents from dying in the Holocaust.


1925(30thof Sivan, 5685): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1928: In the Bronx, Louis Slobodkin and Florence (Gersh) Slobodkin to Professor Lawrence B. (Larry) Slobodkin one of the leaders in the field of ecology to whom, if the world had listened, it might have avoided the damage done by extreme weather in the first part of the 21st century



1933: The Jewish world continues to reel from the shock of the murder Hayim Arlosoff, a Zionist leader who was killed just outside of Tel Aviv. The Labor Zionist leaders contended that the killer was Abraham Stavsky, a member or the Revisionists. The victim’s widow who was walking with him on the beach at the time of his murder identified Stavsky. Stavsky was found guilty but his conviction was overturned on appeal because of a lack of corroborating testimony. The facts surrounding the case are murky to this day. But the episode help to further poison the relationship between the Labor Zionists and the Revisionists. Ironically, Stavsky was killed aboard the Altalena in 1948. The issue stills looms large in the memory of the early Zionists. Leah Rabin made reference to this episode when she talked about the causes of her husband’s death in 1995.


1933: The Social Democratic party was officially banned as Hitler consolidated his power.


1933: Birthdate of Dianne Feinstein. Feinstein was Mayor of San Francisco and is now a United States Senator from California.


1935(21st of Sivan, 5695): Sixty-nine year old the Polish historian who promoted the “idea of describing a nation's history through its social and economic development as well as its international and diplomatic backdrop” and whose works included Danzig and Poland passed away today


1936:The Palestine Postreported a seven-hour battle fought near Tulkarm between Arab terrorists who ambushed a convoy and British troops. British infantry and police rounded another Arab gang near Nablus where they lost a sergeant and a private. Arab losses were not known, but might have been considerable.


1937: Leon Blum resigned as Prime Minister of France after losing support due to remain neutral during the Spanish Civil War.


1938: Father John LaFarge, American Jesuit, met with Pope Pius XI about the drafting of an encyclical to condemn racism and anti-Semitism. LaFarge is told: "Simply say what you would say if you were Pope!" Impressed with Father LaFarge's antiracist writings and activism in America, Pope Pius XI goes outside the usual Vatican personnel to assign LaFarge the job of secretly writing Humani Generis Unitas ("The Unity of Humankind") to condemn racism and anti-Semitism. Father John LaFarge's draft of this encyclical is completed in September but it delayed by the Vatican bureaucracy. It won't reach the pope's desk until he suffers a heart attack in February 1939. His successor, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, takes the name Pope Pius XII and shelves the encyclical. No one hears about it again until well after the Holocaust. (As reported by Austin Cline)


1939: Birthdate of Ada E. Yonath “an Israeli crystallographer best known for her pioneering work on the structure of the ribosome. She is the current director of the Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Center for Biomolecular Structure and Assembly of the Weizmann Institute of Science. In 2009, she received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas A. Steitz for her studies on the structure and function of the ribosome, becoming the first Israeli woman to win the Nobel Prize out of nine Israeli Nobel laureates, the first woman from the Middle East to win a Nobel prize in the sciences,[citation needed] and the first woman in 45 years to win the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. However, she said herself that there was nothing special about a woman winning the Prize.”


1940: In Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England, Katherine Flora (née Leverson) and Henry Barnato Rantzen gave birth to Dame Esther Louise Rantzen, the English journalist and television personality best known for the 21 years she spent with the television series “That’s Life!”


1940: The French Government led by 84 year-old Marshal Henri-Philippe Petain and Pierre Laval signed a cease-fire agreement with Germany. This would mark the start of one of the most shameful periods in French history.  The fascists at Vichy would not only do the bidding of the Germans when it came to the Jews, they would actually move more quickly than expected in round up after round up of Jewish refugees and native born French Jews.


1940: When France surrendered today “one of the terms of the armistice gave the Germans the right to demand that France surrender all "Germans named by the German Government" to the German occupation authorities” including Herschel Feibel Grynszpan who had assassinated Ernst von Rath in 1938.


1940(16th of Sivan, 5700): Three days before his 75thbirthday, Rabbi Julius “Hesselson” Hess who served several congregations in the Middle West passed a way today after suffering perforated stomach ulcer.


1940: In Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England, Katherine Flora (née Leverson and Henry Barnato Rantzen gave birth to British journalist and television personality Esther Louise Rantzen


1940: General Charles de Gaulle, the self-appointed leader of the so-called “Free French” broadcast an appeal to the French people to continue the fight against the Nazis.  He assured them that the Americans and the British would support them in the effort.  Winston Churchill gave permission for the French brigadier to give the address over the BBC.  At a secular level, there is real irony in this since de Gaulle would become “the cross of Lorraine” that Churchill would have to carry throughout the war.  Several Jews would rally to de Gaulle, the Resistance and the Free French.  As to Frenchmen in general, to put it politely, Drancy and Vichy were exemplars of their true feelings for an extended period of time.


1941: Operation Barbarossa begins. Germany began its surprise attack on the Soviet Union, despite the fact that the two nations had signed a non-aggression pact in 1939. Stalin had ignored a myriad of warnings that the attack was coming. For days after the attack, Stalin still refused to believe that Hitler had struck since the Russians had been supplying the Nazis with vital material. This day would see the start of systematic destruction of Jewish towns and communities. German killing squads, the Einsatgruppenwould begin to organize local collaborators in Lithuania, Latvia and the Ukrainian states. Thousands of Jews would be killed within the next few days. Within a few weeks millions more of the Jews of the Soviet Union would fall under Nazi rule.


1941: While many refer to Operation Barbarossa that began today as a “surprise attack” such was not really the case since the Soviets received warnings from several sources including Krystyna Skarbek better known as British intelligence agent Christine Granville.


1941: Special mobile killing squads--Einsatzgruppen--each assigned to a particular area of the Occupied Soviet Union began killing Jews on the spot wherever they are found; often with the help of local anti-Semites recruited to help.


1941: Birthdate of David P. Landau, the winner of the the Aneesur Rahman Prize for Computational Physics

and Director of the Center for Simulational Physics at the University of Georgia


1941: Twenty-six year old American author and historian Milton Meltzer married Hilda "Hildy" Balinky


1941(27th of Sivan, 5701): In the Soviet village of Virbalis, Einsatzgruppen machine-gunned all adult Jews and cover the corpses with lime. Local children are seized by the ankles, and their heads are smashed against walls and roads. Many of these children are buried alive.


1941: In Brooklyn, George Lerner, “a fisherman and antiques dealer” and his wife Blanche gave birth to Academy Award nominated actor Michael Lerner.


1942: The Jewish Brigade was formed was formed as part of the British military. The Jewish Brigade fought in Italy and after the war helped many Jewish refugees escape to Palestine, despite the British Blockade. Veterans of the brigade would use their skills in the War For Independence.


1943: Release date for “So Proudly We Hail!” with directed by Mark Sandrich with music by Edward Heyman.


1943: In Poland, 5,000 Jews were deported from the Będzin Ghetto to a Nazi death camp.


1944: The SS closes the concentration camp at Riga-Kaiserwald, Latvia
.

1944: Birthdate of Edna Arbel, the native of Jerusalem whose legal career included serving as State Attorney for 8 years before starting her service as a member of Israel’s Supreme Court.


1944:  FDR signs the GI Bill of Rights.  Viewed as part of the war effort, this modestly named law was one of the most far-reaching pieces social legislation ever enacted.  It gave a whole group of Americans a chance at homeownership and college education that would not have otherwise occurred.  Among Jews, it sent people as disparate in temperament as Art Buchwald and Henry Kissinger on to the college campus.  Along with the automobile, the G.I. Bill of Rights created suburbia which destroyed many old Jewish neighborhoods and provided new challenges for Jews seeking to maintain their ethnic identity and religious customs in what would become a culture of rootlessness.   


1944: One thousand Jews were transferred from the death camp of Birkenau to work in the factories of Dachau. They were "lucky" if you can call being at Dachau lucky. Ninety-eight percent of the Jews sent to Birkenau were gassed there. One thousand, five hundred pairs of twins were tortured by Dr. Joseph Mengele in during his "medical experiments".


1944: Sir Nicholas George Winton the Englishman “who organized the rescue of 669 mostly Jewish children from German-occupied Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War in an operation later known as the Czech Kindertransport” “was commissioned as an acting pilot officer on probation” today.


1944: In Lyon Janine Sochaczewska and Alter Mojze Goldman, who were not married, gave birth to Pierre Goldman, “a French left-wing intellectual who was convicted of several robberies.”


1945: Birthdate of Alexander Pines, the native of Tel Aviv who became “Glenn T. Seaborg Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, Senior Scientist in the Materials Sciences Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and a member of the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3) and the Department of Bioengineering.”



1947: Albert Einstein withdraws his support for theAlbert Einstein Foundation for Higher Learning, Inc.


1948(15th of Sivan, 5708): Sixty-four year old Joseph Nunes Nabarro, the native of Islington, who was a partner in the firm of Narbarro Nathanson (Solictors) who “was an Elder of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue and a strong Zionist” passed away today.


1948:Szapsel (Shabtai ) Rotholc, the boxer who had been expelled from the Jewish community for two years because he worked as a member of the Jewish Police in the Warsaw Ghetto, “was reinstated as a member of the Jewish Sports Federation.


1950:A Government spokesman disclosed today that Israel had asked the United Nations to take all necessary steps to insure implementation of the armistice agreement between her and Jordan.


1950(7th of Tammuz, 5710): Seventy-year old legal scholar Max Radin, the son of Rabbi Adolph Moses Radin, passed away today.



1951:The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel spent IL50m. during 1950 on housing and work for more than 100,000 immigrants. The UN allocated a yearly sum of $100m. for a plan to resettle the Arab refugees. Mr. Blanford, the newly appointed head of UNRWA, hoped that he would thus be able to resettle some 30,000 Arab refugee families.


 1951: In a statement made to the Sephardic Community of Salisbury in Rhodesia Haham Solomon Gaon said, "The lack of spiritual leadership is unfortunately evident today even in the highest places. A Sephardic institution for the provision of teachers, ministers and rabbinic authorities is one of the most pressing needs of the present age…We, Sephardim, if properly organized, could give a lead to the Jewish world generally."


1952: A small home-made bomb exploded at 1:30 A.M. today on the doorstep of the apartment of Minister of Communications David Z. Pinkas. The bombing was seen as part of protest against restrictions on driving which are to go into effect next week.  Israelis will not be allowed to drive their car for two days of each week.  One of the days that on which one cannot drive is Shabbat.  Opponents of the ban claim that the action has more to with attempts by Orthodox Jews to ban driving on the Sabbath than it does with gasoline conservation.  Pinkas is a leader of the Mizrachi Party and thought to be a leader of those supporting the Shabbat driving ban.


1952: Journalist Ames Keinan and Shaltiel Ben Yair a reserve army officer who has no civilian occupation were arrested today for their alleged role in the bombing of the apartment building housing David Z. Pinkas.


1952: In Israel, Scott George, the United States Vice Consul, said that because of upcoming changes in Israeli laws regarding citizenship, immigrants from the United States arriving in Israel after July 14 would lose their American citizenship unless they “opt out” of receiving Israeli citizenship.


1957: In Los Angeles, Art Ginsburg opened Art’s Deli – “where every sandwich is a work of Art.”


1957: After 717 performances the curtain came down “The Diary Anne Frank” which had opened at the Cort Theatre in October of 1955 before moving to the Ambassador Theatre.


1960: Birthdate of Representative Adam Schiff, Congressman for California’s 29thDistrict.


1962(20th of Sivan, 5722): Eighty-one year old Hugo Gutmann Hitler’s Jewish commanding officer who recommended him for the Iron Cross First Class and was known as Henry G. Grant in the United States passed away today in San Diego, CA.


1962: Final broadcast of PM East/PM West, “a late night television talk show co-hosted by Mike Wallace.”


1965(22nd of Sivan, 5725): Movie producer David O Selznick passed away. His most famous film was “Gone With the Wind.”



1965: Dr. Milton D. Glick who would eventually serve as the 15th president of the University of Nevada Reno, married Peggy Porter today.


1966: U.S. premiere of “Born Free” produced by Sam Jaffe and Paul Radin with an Oscar-winning title song co-authored by lyricist Don Black.


1966: Release date for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” the cinematic version of Edward Albee’s play directed by Mike Nichols, produced by Ernest Lehman, with a script by Ernest Lehman costarring Elizabeth Taylor and George Segal.


1970: Birthdate of rock star Steven Page the lead singer for “Barenaked Ladies.”



1972(10th of Tammuz, 5732): Eighty-two year old Austrian born British “writer, director and producer” Paul Czinner whose career began with “Inferno” in 1919 and was still going strong in 1966 with “Romeo and Juliet’ starring Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn, passed away today.


1973: Release date for “A Touch of Class” starring George Segal


1973: Former U.S. New York Senator Kenneth B. Keating was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Israel.


1974(2nd of Tammuz, 5734): Eighty-one year old “French composer and teacher” whose students included Jazz Great Dave Brubeck and Burt Bacharach passed away today.



1976:The Jerusalem Post reported that the prices of foodstuffs (bread, milk, cooking oil, sugar etc.) would increase by about 30 percent due to another IL150m. subsidy cut.


1976:The Jerusalem Post reported that the US State Department had announced that a public expression of thanks by President Gerald Ford to the Palestine Liberation Organization for its assistance in evacuating Americans from Beirut did not represent any change of policy towards this terrorist organization.


1979: U.S. premiere of “The Main Event,” a comedy directed by Howard Zieff, produced by Howard Rosenman and starring Barbra Streisand.


1978: Neo-Nazis called off plans to march in the Jewish community of Skokie, Illinois. 


1980: The New York Times featured a review of Joshua Then and Now by Mordecai Richler.


1986: Sir Moses I Finley, the American expatriate professor suffered a stroke today upon hearing that his wife had passed away.


1989(19th of Sivan, 5749): In Jerusalem Professor Menachem Stern, a Hebrew University Scholar and member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities was stabbed to death by two teenage Arabs as he walked home.


1990: Release date for “Robocop 2” directed by Irvin Kershner


1992: Gil Stein was announced as the new president of the National Hockey League and formally took the position, succeeding John Ziegler


1996: Pitcher Al Levine made his major league debut with the Chicago White Sox.


1997: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Look, Listen, Read” by Claude Levi-Strauss, “Nazi Gold:The Full Story of the Fifty-Year Swiss-Nazi Conspiracy to Steal Billions From Europe's Jews and Holocaust Survivors” by Tom Bower


2001(21st of Tammuz, 5761): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


2001(21st of Tammuz, 5761):Sgt. Aviv Iszak, 19, of Kfar Saba, and Sgt. Ofir Kit, 19, of Jerusalem, were killed in a suicide bombing near Dugit in the Gaza Strip as a jeep with yellow Israeli license plates, supposedly stuck in the sand, blew up as they approached. Hamas took credit for the attack,


2001:Daniel Charles Kurtzer left his post as U.S. Ambassador to Egypt. [Yes, an American Jew represented the U.S. in Cairo.] Born in 1949, he earned a Ph.D. from Columbia and served as dean of his alma mater Yeshiva University.  President Clinton had appointed him to the position in Egypt.  President Bush would appoint him as Ambassador to Israel in 2001; a post he would hold until 2005.


2002(12th of Tammuz, 5762):Seventy-eight year oldFred Rochlin, architect, artist, photographer and collector of Western Jewish Americana passed away.


 

2002(12th of Tammuz, 5762): Ann Landers passed away. Esther Pauline Friedman was born in Iowa on July 4, 1918. She began writing an advice column in the 1950’s. Her sister wrote an equally famous column under the name of Dear Abbey.(As reported by Margalit Fox)



2002: Actress Embeth Davidtz married entertainment attorney Jason Sloane in a Jewish wedding in Los Angeles.


2003:Jonathan Andrew Kaye won the Buick Classic, a major PGA tournament.


2005: Opening session of Security Israel - The 19thannual International Homeland Security Exhibition .


2006: The Red Cross humanitarian movement overcame Muslim objections and cleared away the last
obstacle to full Israeli membership setting up formal admission after nearly six decades of exclusion, Israel's ambassador to international organizations in Geneva said. The International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent approved a resolution that enables Israel's Magen David Adom society to join while retaining its Red Star of David instead of having to adopt the Red Cross or Crescent used by other societies, Ambassador Itzhak Levanon said.


2006: In “Brooklyn’s Oldest Synagogue Celebrates Its 150thAnniversary, Evan Barton traces the history of the Kane Street Synagogue.



2007: In Jerusalem, the Center Stage Theater presents a matinee performance of Shakespeare’s "Much Ado About Nothing," followed by special party after the show.


2008: A new government strategy to redefine ties with the Diaspora designed to be less patronizing and more humble which was developed jointly by Cabinet Secretary Ovad Yehezkel and Alan Hoffman, director-general of the Jewish Agency’s Education Department is unveiled.


2008: In New York City, The Yeshiva University Museum presents the 2nd annual Family Puppet Festival.


2008: In New York City, Logan Joseph Kleinwaksv presents “Searching Online Historical Directories - and - A New Tool for Shoah Research” at the Center for Jewish Studies.


2008: In an election to select France’s next Chief Rabbi three hundred rabbis and communal leaders choose  between the incumbent, Joseph Sitruk, a 63-year-old Sephardic rabbi known for his common touch, and the challenger, Gilles Bernheim, a 56-year-old Ashkenazic philosopher who is the rabbi of Paris’s largest synagogue.


2008: The general assembly of the Central Consistory elected Giles Bernheim Chief Rabbi of France.2008: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Political Mind: Why You Can’t Understand 21st-Century Politics With an 18thCentury Brain” by Jewish linguist George Lakoff.


2008: The Washington Postfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Darin Smith’s “More Than It Hurts You” “a polarizing novel in which a black doctor accuses a Jewish mother of child abuse” and “My Five Years in Iraq”byRichard Engel, the Middle East correspondent who when he was interviewing the President was asked by Mr. Bush if he was Jewish; a question which he answered in the affirmative.


2008: The New York Timesreported on the downbeat emotional and political attitudes of Israelis as the “truce” with Hamas begins in an article entitled “Israel in the Season of Dread.”


2009: Rosh Chodesh Tammuz, 5769 (first day of a two day Rosh Chodesh)


2009: In “Dead Sea Peril” published today Joseph Marks described the growing impact and causes of sinkholes on this unique Middle Eastern body of water.


2009: In the United Kingdom, John Simon Bercow is elected Speaker of the House of Commons making him the first Jew to hold that position.


2010: The Jewish Community Research Council is scheduled to hold its final session of the season by hosting a luncheon meeting with Virginia House Speaker William Howell and Virginia State Senate Chairman of Education & Health Committee Ed Houck.


2010: Publication of Feeling “Phil Spector’s Pain.”



2011: The Art Show that began on June 13 is scheduled to come a close at the Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning.


2011: The Sixth Street Community Synagogue and John Zorn's Tzadik Records are scheduled to present “Masada Guitars Revisited + Edom,” one of six concerts by some of the best and brightest musicians on New York's Downtown Jewish Music scene.


2011:Today Israel’s Ambassador to the US Michael Oren defended the blockade of Gaza as a “matter of life and death” and said that it fully comports with international law, as a flotilla prepares to attempt to reach Gaza


2011: The number of millionaires in Israel rose in 2010 by more than 20.6 percent to 10,153, according to the latest annual Merrill Lynch-Capgemini World Wealth Report released today.


2011:Israel Defense Forces made history when a woman was officially promoted to the rank of Major General for the first time. Major General Orna Barbivay, 49, replaced Major General Avi Zamir as commander of the IDF's Manpower Branch in an official ceremony today, which was attended by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, IDF chief Benny Gantz, and other senior army officials


2011:Judy Shalom Nir-Mozes, an Israeli socialite, investor and talk show host twitted about a rumor regarding the departure of journalist Yair Lapid to the world of politics


2011(20thof Sivan, 5771): Eighty-seven year old screenwriter David Rayfiel whose work included “Three Days of the Condor,” “Out of Africa” and “The Way We Were” passed away.  (As reported by William Grimes)



2012:Congregation Adat Reyim is scheduled to celebrate “Shabbat Under the Stars” in Springfield, VA.


2012: As part of the attempts to undo some of the damage done through his relationship with Bernard Maddorff “J. Ezra Merkin agreed to pay back $405 million to investors in his hedge funds”


2012: Cantor Larry Paul and musician Robyn Helzner are scheduled to a lead a Carlebach-inspired service at the Historic 6th& I Synagogue.


2012: The Go North & Northern Communities of Nefesh B’Nefesh are scheduled to offer a guided tour at Tzippori Park so Olim can see “amazing mosaics, a crusader fortress, an ancient reconstructed synagogue and the first century underground water system.


2012:Two Kassam rockets fired from the Gaza Strip landed in open areas in the Eshkol Regional Council in southern Israel today. (As reported by Yoel Goodman)


2012:Israeli Air Force strikes carried out today against terrorists operating in the Gaza Strip killed two and injured at least four others.


2012: In “The Germans Are Prisoners of Their Past” published today Argentine-Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim “explains why the Israeli antipathy toward Wagner is grotesque and argues that Israel shouldn't depend too.”



2012: The findings of the 2011 census, released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, revealed the Jewish population to be 97,335. This means that Australia’s official Jewish population has risen by about 10 percent in the last five years (As reported by JTA)


2012: Daphni Leef, one of the leaders of last summer’s mass social protest movement, was arrested, along with seven other activists, in Tel Aviv today after attempting to pitch tents on Rothschild Boulevard.


2013: The Edin-Tamar Music is scheduled to host “Romantic Violin” program II featuring violinist Saida Bar Lev and pianist Yonatan Zak.

 

2013(14th of Tammuz, 5773): Sixty-eight year old writer producer Gary David Goldberg, creator of “Family Ties” passed away today. (As reported by Bruce Weber)


 

 

2013: Barbara Streisand is scheduled to perform at Bloomfield Stadium as part of the Israeli Presidential Conference.

 

2013:Traffic Police over the weekend caught about 140 drunk drivers, the majority of which were subject to suspended licenses, Israel Radio today. (As reported by Jerusalem Post staff)

 

2013: Today, Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich (Yisrael Beytenu) called this week’s “price tag” incident in Abu Ghosh a terror attack, and vowed the police would continue to combat racially motivated violence

 

2014: Masses are scheduled to take place at churches in Newark, NJ, Mineola, NY and Yonkers, NY honoring the memory of Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese diplomat who defied his government and issued thousands of life saving visas to Jews trying to escape Hitler’s Europe.

 

2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host a presentation by genealogist Miriam Weinter and Avrum who will ”reveal important—but relatively unknown—resources for family-history research.”

 

2014: The New York Times reviewed books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers inducing The Train to Warsaw by Gwen Edelman, Suddenly, Love by Aharon Appelfeld and Hotel Florida: Truth, Love, and Death in the Spanish Civil War by Amanda Vaill.

 

2014: The funeral for ‘the former director of the Shin Bet internal security organization Avraham Shalom” is scheduled to be held today.

 

2014(24th of Sivan, 5774): Fifteen year old Mohammed Karkara, from the town of Arraba in the lower Galilee, who had accompanied his father to work on what was the first day of the summer vacation was killed in the Golan Heights this morning when an anti-tank missle was fired from Syria at an a vehicle delivering water to Israeli contractors working on a fence.

 

2014: “A Palestinian man armed with a hand grenade broke through the Gaza fence and tried to infiltrate an Israeli community before he was stopped early this morning, the military said.”

 

2014: “May the force be with Jew” published today described the decision to have Israeli Ram Bergman produce “the next two Star War films, Star Wars Episodes VIII and IX.” (Debra Kamin)

 

2014: Today Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized the “disgraceful decision by the US Presbyterian Church to divest from three companies that provide supplies to Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank.”

 

2015: Professor Ellen Eisenberg, “the author of two forthcoming books on Jewish Oregonians,” is scheduled to be the guest speaker at the Annual Meeting of the Oregon Jewish Museum Center for Holocaust Education in Portland.

 

2015: Ruth Behar is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Reflecting On Adio Kerida,” the awarding winning film that chronicles “the lives of Jews in Cuba and Jewish Cubans in Miami and New York.”


2015: French-Moroccan baritone David Serero is scheduled to appear as Shylock in his “Sephardi adaptation of” Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” which will feature Sephardi music.

 

This Day, June 23, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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JUNE 23

79: Vespasian, the Roman general who was in the process of conquering Judea when he became Emperor, died.

79: Titus, the Roman general whom the Jews will always remember for the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple succeeded his father Vespasian as tenth Roman Emperor.

1295: The newly chosen head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Boniface VIII, entered Rome and spurned the Torah scrolls offered to him by the Jewish community.

1298: Massacre of the Jews of Wiener-Neustadt, Austria.

1608: Samuel Pallache “a Jewish-Moroccan merchant, diplomat and pirate met stadholder Maurice of Nassau and the States-General in The Hague to negotiate an alliance of mutual assistance against Spain.

1696: Jews of Posen, Poland were saved from a mob set to avenge the murder of a soldier when a peasant woman who was seized carrying the victim's clothing, confessed to her son's murder.

1700: Solomon de Medina was dubbed a knight by William III.  He was the first Jew to receive this honor. Medina was military contractor who would provide invaluable aid to the Duke of Marlborough during the War of Spanish Succession.

1762: Today Mary Wilkinson married Joseph Priestly who in 1786, “published his Letter to the Jews urging them to convert” which brought a strong response from David Levi that “led to his three-volume Dissertation on the Prophecies of the Old Testament.

1779: Birthdate of Markus Bär Friedenthal who was a leading banker in Breslau where he was also active in Jewish communal affairs.

1785(15th of Tammuz, 5545): Ninety year old Arieh Loeb who had served as a rabbi in Frankfort before becoming the Grand Rabbi of Metz passed away today.

1794: With the second partition of Poland additional territory was added to the Pale (the district in which the Jews were forced to live) that included parts of the Ukraine and the city of Kiev. Jews were granted permission by Empress Catherine II to settle in Kiev.

1807: Birthdate of Ferdinand Hitzig, one of a number of non-Jewish biblical critics who examined the Old Testament in light of the discoveries of archaeology and linguists who wrote commentaries on several books of the Bible starting with Isaiah in the 1830’s and ending with Proverbs in 1858.

1810 John Jacob Astor organized Pacific Fur Company at what is now Astoria, Oregon. There seems to be some dispute as to whether or not Astor was Jewish or "of Jewish origins."

1810: According to a report published today, “France had 250 Jewish manufacturers and 2, 360 Jews were in schools or were employed in ‘useful professions.’”

1823: Mordecai Manuel Noah, an early American Jewish leader who dabbled in politics and journalism, wrote a twenty page letter to President James Monroe seeking his support for William Crawford’s candidacy for President of the United States.  Crawford lost his bid which marked a decline in Noah’s self-appointed role a political king-maker.

1839: Birthdate of Philadelphian Simon Sterne who gained fame as an attorney and economist.

1839: Sixty-three year old Lady Hester Lucy Stanhope whose “archaeological expedition to Ashkelon in 1815 is considered the first modern excavation in the history of Holy Land archeology” passed away today. For more about her and her work see Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope as related by herself in Conversations with her Physician by Dr. Charles Meryon.

1840: “A large Jewish public assembly met at the Great Synagogue of London to map out plans for the journey of Moses Montefiore to Egypt to intercede with Governor Mehmet Ali to release eight Damascene Jews who had been tortured and charged with a blood ritual, following the disappearance of Father Tomaso, head of the Capuchin cloister.” (As reported by Abraham Bloch)

1841: In Charleston, SC, Mr. M. Nathan married Ann Cohen the third daughter of Aaron N. Cohen.

1842: Birthdate of Simon Wolfe Rosendale, the native of Albany NY who became the first Jew elected to a statewide office in New York when he was elected State Attorney General. While he was active in many American Jewish organizations including the Jewish Publication Society, the American Jewish Historical Society and B’nai B’rith he was among those who signed an anti-Zionist memorandum given to President Wilson before the Versailles Peace Conference.

1846: Birthdate of French Egyptologist and student of the ancient middle east, Gaston Maspero.  His works included a report of what may have been the first “discovery of an Egyptian record in which the Hebrews are mentioned.”

1848: In Paris, tens of thousands of French workers took to the streets in what came to be known as “June Days of Uprisings” which would lead to the end of the Second Republic during which Jews had gained full rights including the declaration that the “Oath More Judaico” was unconstitutional in 1846>

1858: An incident, known as the Mortara Affair, began in Bologna: Edgardo Mortara, a seven year old Jewish boy, was kidnapped by the Roman Catholic Church on the pretext that a servant girl claimed that she had baptized him. The pope, Pious IX, refused to surrender him despite many protests. The combination of the Damascus affair and this affair led to unification among many Jews and later to the establishment of the Alliance Israelite.

1866(210thof Tammuz, 5626): Fifty-three year old physician and economist Sarphati Samuel, passed away in Amsterdam, the city of his birth.

1868(3rd of Tammuz, 5628): Rabbi Morris Jacob Raphall passed away. Born at Stockholm, Sweden, in 1798, “at the age of nine he was taken by his father, who was banker to the King of Sweden, to Copenhagen, where he was educated at the Hebrew grammar-school. Later he went to England, where he devoted himself to the study of languages, for the better acquisition of which he subsequently traveled in France, Germany, and Belgium. After lecturing on Hebrew poetry he began to publish the "Hebrew Review, and Magazine of Rabbinical Literature," which he was forced to discontinue in 1836 owing to ill health. For some time he acted as honorary secretary to Solomon Herschell, chief rabbi of Great Britain. He made translations from Maimonides, Albo, and Herz Wessely; conjointly with the Rev. D. A. de Sola he published a translation of eighteen treatises of the Mishnah; and he also began a translation of the Pentateuch, of which only one volume appeared. In 1840, when the blood accusation was made at Damascus, he published a refutation of it in four languages (Hebrew, English, French, and German) and wrote a defense of Judaism against an anonymous writer in the London "Times." In 1841 he was appointed minister of the Birmingham Synagogue and master of the school. He continued in these capacities for eight years, and then sailed for New York (1849). In that city he was appointed rabbi and preacher of the B'nei Jeshurun congregation, where he continued as pastor till 1866, his duties then being relaxed owing to his infirm health. Raphall was the author of a text-book of the post-Biblical history of the Jews (to the year 70 C.E.). He received the Ph.D. degree from the University of Erlangen (Germany).”

1872(17thof Sivan, 5632): Seventy-year old Aaron Ben Asher of Karlin “also known as Rabbi Aaron II of Karlin” the famous Chasidic Rebbe whose daughter “Miriam, married Rabbi Avrohom Yaakov Friedeman the first Rebbe of the Sadigura Chasidic Dynasty” and the author of the his seminal work Bet Aharon (Aaron’s House) passed away today.

1873: The children under the care of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum and Free School are scheduled to enjoy their first excursion of the summer today. Lewis S. Levy is the chairman of the committee that has organized the event.

1876: It was reported today that an unnamed Moor stabbed eleven Jews with a dagger at Alcassar in the province of Fez, Morocco. Among the victims was Moses Abecasis. The Moor, who has been arrested, insists that “he was not aware of what he was doing when he committed the crimes.”  The British and Italian Vice Consuls have insisted that the provincial governor and the leading citizens of Alcasar “have a signed a document guaranteeing the lives and property of foreign Jews” living there.

1877: At Ahaveth Chesed on the corner of Lexington and 55th in New York City, Rabbi Adolph Huesbech delivered a sermon based on Deuteronomy X:12, “And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee but to fear thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him and serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul.”  In the course of the sermon he spoke about the recent events surrounding the banning of Jews by Judge Hilton which he referred to as the “grievous occurrences of the past few days.”  While he abhors boasting, he believes that “the Jewish name must always be held in honor.” He decried the fact that the Jews “had been placed in a false position”  by this member of the nouveau riche who had used his newly “attained social eminence” to arouse enmity aimed at the Jews.  In the end, the Rabbi said he would fail.  “The Hiltons will die away but the principle of liberty as embodied in the American Constitution will live forever.

1877: Rabbi Samuel Isaacs, the leader of New York’s Gates of Prayer, described the negative impact that Judge Hilton’s behavior would have on English Jewish leaders including the Rothschilds and Sir Moses Montefiore who is “personal and esteemed friend of Queen Victoria.”  They have always viewed the United States as a place where Jews were treated with the utmost “consideration and courtesy”; a situation similar to the treatment of Jews in the United Kingdom.  If the Queen can count Montifore among her friends, certainly Judge Hilton could treat a person like Mr. Seligman with “common civility.”  When asked Judge Hilton’s attempt to draw a distinction between “trade Jews and real “Hebrews, Rabbi Isaacs responded by recalling the “the words of the late Baron James Rothschild of Paris. ‘When we are poor and ignorant we Jews; when we are well to do we become Israelites; when we are rich and influential we are called Hebrews.’” Judge Hilton is trying to create a distinction that does not exist as a face-saving maneuver.

1877: “The Jewish Question” published today reported that both sides in the dispute touched off by Judge Hilton’s banning of Jews from the Grand Union Hotel seemed to hold firm to their previously stated positions.  Various Jewish leaders, including Mr. Seligman’s attorney have advised against any further public discussions or meetings on the matter.  They are reassured by the public response and the decision by some not to do business with the firm controlled by Hilton.  Hilton will not change his policy and still claims that he does not dislike Jews.  After all, the messenger to whom he entrusts thousands of dollars each day is Jewish.

1878: “The Jews and Titus,” an article published today, that originally appeared in the English publication, Fraser’s Magazine reviews events surrounding the decision of Titus to destroy Jerusalem and the Temple. The article points out that the Jews had a favorable impact on the western world in the era between Antiochus and Nero. Among other things the Jews are industrious and hardworking just like the people living “in the American Union are at Salt Lake.”  Even their leaders worked at “mechanical labor or rustic art.”  Even the Roman historian Tacitus acknowledged the virtues of the Jews.  When Titus conferred with his officers about sparing the Temple, they urged him to destroy it and the rest of the city as well.  Jerusalem had been the source of “two detestable religions, the Jewish and the Christian, which best be destroyed by uprooting their original home…”  Despite Roman cruelty and oppression which followed by “Christian animosity”  “the Jews and their religion” have survived without any deterioration over the centuries.  Unfortunately, the article concludes, the Jews “still have to plead for toleration and from justice Slavonic Europe.”

1879: The Literary Notes Column reported that “Mr. Nutt, the Librarian of the Bodleian Library at Oxford University has edited” a manuscript in the library’s possession that is “a commentary on Isaiah” written “by Rabbi Eleazar of Beaugency.”  Nutt has included a preface that provides “a valuable account of Bibilical exegesis among the Spanish and French Jews of the Middle Ages. [Eleazar was a 12th century French Biblical commentary who lived at Beaugency. He was a “pupil of Samuel ben Meïr, the eminent grandson of Rashi.”]

1880: The Young Men’s Hebrew Association of Harlem is sponsoring a strawberry festival this evening which is designed to raise funds for a gymnasium to be used by the members.

1881: Seventy-seven year old German botanist Matthias Jakob Schleiden, a co-founder of the “cell theory” whose writings on Judaism “contrast with the academic anti-Semitism of his time” but “also break with the anti-Judaism of Kant and Fries.” “Schleiden's apology for Judaism is shown to be deeply rooted in his ideas about scientific progress, especially his methodology of microscopic botany.” (As presented by Ulrich Charpa)

1882: Rabbi Levy arrived at the New York office of the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society from South Carolina. He told those in charge that the European Jewish refugees “were unfit” for the work “on Southern Plantations.”  He brought 11 of the 30 refugees who had been placed in his care with him to New York.  He thinks that they could be successful working on small vegetable farms. [This was part of the move to create agrarian opportunities for the horde of Jewish refugees fleeing Eastern Europe.]

1882: “Is He Sane Or Insane” published today described the travails of Samuel Obright who has been committed to Middletown Lunatic Asylum.  His wife, whom he married only a few days ago, contends that his family and friends had him committed because Obright who is Jewish chose to marry a Christian. The judge has ordered him held in the custody of the Sheriff until the matter can be decided.

1882: It was reported today that Dr. Julius Goldman had delivered a report to the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society entitled “Colonizing the Russian Refugees” and not Dr. Julius Goodman as stated in an earlier article.

1883:  As anti-Jewish riots resumed today in St. Gall, Switzerland, dismounted dragoons were called out to disperse the mob.

1883: It was reported today that those wishing to make contributions to support the upcoming summer excursions sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children can be sent to John Davis.

1883: “Blood in Passover” published today described a trial at Nyreghhaza, Hungary, where “a number of Jews are accused of having murdered a Christian girl at Tisza-Ezlar for the sake of using her blood to mix with their Passover bread.” The article conclude with “a Catholic priest admitted that he was the author of an anonymous attack on the Jews accusing them of the murder of the girl.”

1884(30thof Sivan, 5644): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

1884: In Southern Russia, fighting broke out between Jews and Armenians at Titlis.

1884: Birthdate of the pro-Nazi German actor who “simultaneously played the roles of several stereotypical Jewish characters – among them Rabbi Loew and Sekretar Levy – in Veit Harlan's antisemitic propaganda film Jud Süß (1940), implementing Harlan's concept of a common Jewish root and Shylock in Lothar Müthel's extreme production of The Merchant of Venice staged at the Burgtheater in 1943 which made him a person favorite of Hitler.

1885: Mr. Julius Bien of New York, President of the B’nai B’rith opened a meeting of the Jewish organization in Berlin. He was assisted in his efforts by Isaac Hamburger of New York and Henry Gruenbaum of Chicago.

1886: It was reported today that Harris Cohen had been awarded the Lewis May Award at a reception sponsored by the Hebrew Technical Institute. Samuel Sass won the Carl Schurz Prize for the best essay on technical education.

1887: Birthdate of Hugo Hermann the Moravian born author, publisher and Zionist leader who died in Jerusalem in 1940.

1887(1stof Tammuz, 5647): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

1887(1stof Tammuz, 5647): Joseph Freedman, a Russian-Jew who was a tin peddler died this evening at P.J. Kelly’s furniture store in New Haven, Conn.

1888: The Eldridge Street Synagogue was filled with congregants for today’s memorial service held in honor of the late German Emperor. Rabbi Zinsler of the Henry Street Synagogue delivered a eulogy in German followed by Coroner Ferdinand Levy who delivered a eulogy in English.  [This was just one of many such services held by the Jews to honor the late Kaiser.]

1888: Emile Hirsch, who serves as the Rabbi at Temple Sinai in Chicago returned to the Windy City after a brief visit to New Orleans.

1888: This evening Rabbi Emile Hirsch addressed his congregation in Chicago outlined his view on inter-marriage, declaring that “Judaism was more than a religion or a creed…Judaism is a mission and a message of loved and righteousness.”

1889: “In the Catskill Mountains” published today described the opening of the various hostelries in this New York vacation venue including the fact that “the anti-Hebrew crusade is practically a matter of the past.”  Generally speaking this movement was confined to the cottages at Pine Hill where Gentiles and Jews are equally welcome provided they can afford to pay the fee for entertainment which can be as much as one hundred dollars a week. [For those who connect the Catskills with the Borscht Belt, the idea of Jews being banned must seem a little strange.]

1890: The reviewer of The Origin of the Aryans by Isaac Taylor longs “for the old days when it was comfortably agreed that Hebrew was the ‘oldest language’ and all the rest made their appearance on a certain occasion when the descendants of Noah were rebuked for their impiety and pride by the destruction of the Tower of Babel.”

1890:  In New York, the Coroner is investigating the death of 35 year old Hyman Harrowitz, a Russian Jew who died from ammonia poisoning.  At first, it was thought he died at his own hand, but based on statements by his brother and friends, he may have been given the wrong medicine by the local druggist which led to his death.

1890: Famed English archeologist Flinders Pitre has complained that the authors of Art in Sardinia, Syria, Judaea and Asia, Georges Perrot and Charles Chipiez “have omitted several Jewish antiquities in their profusely-illustrated volumes. The omissions are important because of the great scarity of objects of art or architecture which can be assigned to the Jews.”

1892: During the Dreyfus Affair, the Marquis de Mores mortally wounded Captain Armand Mayer in a duel that the anti-Semitic noble had forced on the Jewish officer. Mayer would die a couple of days later from his wounds.

1892: The military band of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum played the opening march at the annual reception and commencement exercises of Grammar School Number 43 on Amsterdam Avenue in NYC.

1893: “Swears Back What He Swore” published today provides a snapshot of the controversy surrounding the efforts of those aggressively trying to convert Jews living on the Lower East Side which are being resisted  by the United Hebrew Charities which feels these people are the victims of coercion and deception.

1894:  The Jesse Seligman Literary Circle, a new Hebrew social and literary society has been organized in Orange, NJ

1895: “An East Side Charity” published today traced the history of the Hebrew Sheltering House where “the homeless and hungry are cared for without inquiring in their religious faith…”  The charity located on New York’s lower east side is a creation of the Russian Jews who provide all of the funds for its operation with the exception of $7000 given by Jacob Schiff.

1896: Herzl is received as a journalist of the Neue Freie Presse. Herzl offers that the Jews would undertake the regulation of the Turkish finances if they were given Palestine. Herzl cannot obtain an audience with the Sultan.

1897: The will of the late Moritz Cohn was filed for probate in the Surrogate’s office today.

1898: The funeral for Getta Schole, is scheduled to be held at the Crematory, Fresh Pond, Long Island.  Mrs. Scholle is the widow of Jacob Scholle and was the Vice President of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews and a Directress of The Ladies’ Auxiliary Society for the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids.

1898: President James H. Hoffman delivered the opening address at the commencement exercises of the Hebrew Technical Institute which were held at Cooper Union.

1899: Joseph I. Leiner was the salutatorian and valedictorian of this year’s graduating class of the Hebrew Technical Institute for which he earned the Fred M. Stein Prize, the Carl Schurz Prize and a special prize for his accomplishments.

1899: New De Hirsch Fund” published today reported that“a part of the income…of the Baron de Hirsch Fund allotted to America” will be used to improve conditions in Brownsville, a section of Brooklyn with a large Jewish population.  The project is being spearheaded by Abraham Abraham, a Brooklyn merchant and A.S. Solomon, the general agent of the Baron de Hirsch Fund in New York.]

1901(6thof Tammuz, 5661): Eighty-seven year old British composer and pianist Charles Salaman passed away.  In addition to his purely secular successes, Salaman created a musical version of Psalm 93 which is “sung on most Friday nights in the Sabbath eve service of the London Spanish & Portuguese Jewish community”

1906: Birthdate of Sadie Marks, the native of Seattle, Washington, who gained fame as Mary Livingston “the wife and radio partner of Jack Benny.”  (Nobody would have thought that this All-American looking couple were really the children of Jewish immigrants.)

1907: In Chicago members of Emanuel Congregation a reform temple founded in 1880, dedicated the cornerstone for their new facility on Buckingham Street near Halsted.

1909: Helen Rosenfield of Portland, Oregon married Rabbi Jonah Bondi Wise. At the time he was the spiritual leader of Temple Beth Israel She passed away in 1950.   He passed away in 1959

1909: Birthdate of political philosopher Valentin Feldman, the native of St. Petersburg who took refuge in France after the Civil War only to perish at the hands of the Nazis during the Occupation.

1914(23rdof Sivan, 5674): Forty-six year old Isidor Wormser, the son of the late Simon Wormser and the Uncle of the late Isidor Wormser passed away at his home in France today. He had retired from the banking business several years ago and moved abroad because of his ill health.

1914(23rdof Sivan, 5674): Isaac L. Mintz who moved from Russia to Charleston, SC before settling in New York in 1899 where he “engaged in the manufacture of clothing” passed away today.

1915: “Jewish Communal Workers Unite” published today described the organization of an upcoming “training school for Jewish communal workers” which “will enable those engaged in Jewish charitable labors to exchange in views.”

1915: “Rumors of a possible attack on the Georgia Prison Farm” at Milledgeville, GA, “where Leo M. Frank is confined, caused the management of the farm to increase the number of guards on both day and night duty.”

1915: “A committee of Atlanta Jews today made an appeal to Solicitor General Hugh Dorsey, who prosecuted Leo M. Frank, in behalf of their co-religionists at Marietta, where it was asserted that a movement had been initiated to drive the Jews from the city as a result of the feeling aroused by the action of Governor Slaton in commuting Frank’s death sentence.”

1917: As part of the Allied drive to dislodge the Turks from Palestine, a move supported by the Zionists, British aircraft bombed the railway station at Tulkarm, the airfield at Ramleh and the German military headquarters in Jerusalem, located in the August Victoria church and sanatorium on the summit of the Mount of Olives

1915: Thirty-four of those arrested by police during the protests against Governor Slaton had hearings in Police Court where eight cases were dismissed and nominal fines were imposed in eleven of the cases including a fine levied of $15.75 imposed on “J.A. Bozeman, a policeman who said he would lead a crowd to the Governor’s home.”

1917: Special Shabbat Morning Services will held in Baltimore, MD prior to the opening of the Twentieth Annual Convention of the Federation of Americans Zionists.

1918: “Jew Has High Rank In British Army” published today traces the career of Sir John Monash, the Australian Jew who has been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General and given command of a British Army Corps.

1919: “A pogrom took place today at Skvria in which 45 Jews were massacred, many were severely wounded, and 35 Jewish women were raped by army insurgents. As Whites, Reds and Cossacks battled for control of Russia during the Russian Civil War a series of pogroms took place in and around Kiev known as the Kiev Pogroms.

1919: Birthdate of Nathan Cohen, the Brooklyn born son of a New York publicist who would gain fame as Lee Solters, “a foxy, flamboyant press agent who cranked up his raspy Brooklyn-accented voice to hyperbolize about Broadway, Hollywood and a raft of clients including Frank Sintra, Dolly Parton, Paul McCartney and Wings, Led Zeppelin, Gregory Peck, Cary Grant, the Muppets, Mae West and Michael Jackson. When he passed away in 2009, the New York Times would describe him as, “One of the last surviving links to a Runyonesque era when publicists would slip items to columnists at 1am over drinks at the landmark Manhattan bar Toots Shor's, Solters was a prominent press agent – or "flack", as the Americans call them – during the years when it was routine to "plant" items about stars in showbusiness columns by such gossip writers as Hedda Hopper and Walter Winchell. Over more than 40 years the gravel-voiced Solters handled more than 300 shows, including the Broadway musicals Annie, Guys and Dolls, My Fair Lady andCamelot, “major motion pictures including The Graduate and the hit television series, “Dallas.”

1919: As the negotiations to conclude the Treaty of Versailles, Gustav Bauer, the head of the new German government gave in to the Allied ultimatum and sent a telegram confirming that “a Germnan delegation would arrive to sign the treaty.”

1922: Prominent New York attorney, Republican political leader and civic benefactor Edward Lauterbach paid tribute to the late Louis Stern, the longtime President of Stern Brothers who passed away while vacationing in Europe. He described his friend of 40 years as “Genial, kind hearted, good humored and never making an enemy in all his life…” While Stern was active in numerous civic and Jewish charities Lauterbach thinks “that the greatest achievement of Louis Stern was what he did for the benefit of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum” which he served as President for twenty years.

1923: In Dallas, TX, grocery store owners Harry and Chaya Ruchel Andres gave birth to “Dr. Reubin Andres, a gerontologist who advanced the study of diabetes but gained his widest attention for arguing controversially that weight gain in older people increases longevity.” (As reported by Leslie Kaufman)

1925(1stof Tammuz, 5685): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

1925: In Brooklyn George L. and Kitty Maizman Modell gave birth to Arthur Bertam Modell whom the world will remember as Art Modell, the owner of the Cleveland Browns and the Baltimore Ravens.

1926: The College Board administers the first SAT exam. “In 1926, Harvard and other Ivy League schools began using the SAT test to replace the admissions test on which urban Jews had performed well.” This was part of an overall attempt to limit Jewish attendance at these elite schools. “The SAT was grounded in the earlier Ellis Island and U.S. Army World War I tests in which Jews, among others, had performed poorly. That the poor performance was largely based on the lower literacy of the foreigners and their unfamiliarity with English and American terminology was not perceived to be the principal cause for the poor test performance. Here was a test that had provided evidence Jews did not perform well; its use might help bring about the desired results. Moreover, the fact that some of the SAT questions were developed and tested on Princeton freshman and Cooper Union students (all scholarship recipients), demonstrated that smart Gentiles did well on the tests. Ironically, as time passed and Jews became literate, absorbed American terminology, and learned how to take such tests, the outcomes completely reversed. But that was in the future and not anticipated when SAT testing began in 1926”.

1929: Birthdate of Simcha Dinitz “an Israeli statesman and politician” who “served as Director General of the Prime Minister's office and political advisor to Prime Minister Golda Meir from 1969–1973, before becoming the Israeli Ambassador to the United States from 1973 to 1979.

 

1929: In Ozone Park, Queens, Dr. Edward Edelman and his wife, the former Anna Freedman gave birth to Gerald Maurice Edelman who won the 1972 Nobel Prize “for a breakthough in immunology.” (As reported by Bruce Weber)

1930: Birthdate of Harvey Slom Ginsberg, the Bangor, Maine native “a New York book editor who served long tenures at G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Harper & Row and William Morrow & Company, and whose most loyal writers included John Irving and Saul Bellow… His relationship with Mr. Bellow began at Harper & Row with Mr. Bellow’s book “The Dean’s December,” published in 1981. Mr. Ginsberg subsequently left Harper for Morrow, and for his next novel, “More Die of Heartbreak,” Mr. Bellow followed him. Mr. Ginsberg began his long partnership with Mr. Irving on the novel “The Cider House Rules,” published by Morrow in 1985, and he edited five other novels by Mr. Irving as well; they continued to work together through 2005 on a freelance basis even after Mr. Irving moved to another publishing house. His taste was high-minded, but he enjoyed a well-executed popular novel as well. In 1975 he edited “Black Sunday,” a first novel about a terror attack at the Super Bowl whose author, Thomas Harris, went on to write novels featuring the man/monster Hannibal Lecter”

1930(27th of Sivan, 5690): Seventy year old Maurice Harris, who served as the Rabbi at Temple Israel for 48 years passed away today at Mt. Sinai Hospital (JTA)

1936: Samuel Untermeyer was among the delegates who attended the opening of the National Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, PA.

1937: George Gershwin was admitted to Cedars of Lebanon Hospital In Los Angeles for observation after a series of health problems including headaches and mood swings.

1937: Birthdate of real estate developer John E. Zucotti, the husband Susan Sessions Zucotti  the American historians whose studies and books about the Holocaust won her a National Jewish Book Award for Holocuast Studies whose works included Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy and Pere Marie-Benoit and Jewish Rescue.

1938: Four persons were killed and at least a dozen seriously wounded in a series of shootings in Jaffa today. With heavy police reinforcements, scores were beaten by police clubs. Many bystanders were roughly handled by crowds. Residents of Jaffa’s Jewish quarter fled out of fear most of them heading for near-by Tel Aviv.

1938: In explaining her motivation to become a rabbi, Regina Jonas, the first woman to be ordained said today. ““If I confess what motivated me, a woman, to become a rabbi, two things come to mind. My belief in God’s calling and my love of humans. God planted in our heart skills and a vocation without asking about gender. Therefore, it is the duty of men and women alike to work and create according to the skills given by God.”  (She would perform her duties in Theresienstadt before being murdered at Auschwitz Jewish Women’s Archive)

1938: “Three Jewish farmers from the Zichron Jacob mysteriously disappeared this afternoon.  It is believed they were kidnapped by armed Arabs and carried off to the hills.

1939(6thof Tammuz, 5699): Forty-seven year old British painter Mark Gertler







 

1939: Dutch Jewish diarist Esther "Etty" Hillesum took the first of her master’s exams in Dutch Law.

1939: Herman Goering, Hitler’s number 2, led a meeting of Reich Defense Council in which he told them to prepare for total war. Hitler planned to conscript seven million soldiers. This means production work is to be given to prisoners and inmates of prisons and concentration camps.

1939: U.S. premiere of “Daughters Courageous” directed by Michael Curtiz, produced by Hal B. Wallis, with music by Max Steiner, a script co-authored by Philip and Julius Epstein and co-starring John Garfield.

1940: Today, Sunday, at 1:30 pm Margret and Hans Rey arrived in Lisbon.

1941:  In the evening, German forces enter the village of Jedwabne, Poland

1941: The great yeshivot of Slobodka and Telz closed their doors the day after Germany invaded Lithuania.

1941: One day after the German invasion of Latvia, the Holocaust begins in the Baltic Republic when Sonderkommando 1a members murdered six Jews in the church cemetery in the town of Grobina, near Liepāja

1942: The first selections for the gas chamber at Auschwitz take place on a trainload of Jews from Paris.

1942:  A German convoy deported Jews from Morocco to the death camps of Europe.

1943: Ukrainian police surround a Jewish school at Czortków, Ukraine, where 534 Jewish slave laborers are housed. The camp commandant, Thomanek, shoots several prisoners and orders others carted off for execution. In The Holocaust, Martin Gilbert describes how a local gentile, Jan Nakonieczmy, risked his life to hide five Jews in his tiny henhouse. “The henhouse was only two feet high, four feet wide, and thirteen feet long.  The five Jews were Henryk Sperber, his mother, his sister, his fiancée and his cousin.  All five survived the war.  So did their savior.”

1943: In Czortkow; Ukrainian police began an "action" that would destroy the remaining Jewish population of about 600 people.

1943: By this date 50,000 Jews had been deported from France. The slow pace was not to the satisfaction of the Nazis.

1943: Birthdate of James Levine, conductor of the Metropolitan Opera. Levine was born into a musical family; his maternal grandfather was a cantor and his father was a violinist.


1944: Chaim Barlas, an agent of the Jewish Agency working in Istanbul received a copy of a 30 page report known as the ‘Auschwitz Protocols’ complied by two Jews who escaped from the camp that April.  The report made it clear that the camp was a killing ground for the Jews of Europe.

1944: Operations resume at the Chelmno death camp.

1944: The Allies learn that more than 430,000 Hungarian Jews have been deported to Auschwitz and murdered since May. There are about 300,000 Jews left alive in Hungary.

1944: A Red Cross delegation visits the camp/ghetto at Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, and is apparently fooled by the camp's superficially benign atmosphere. However, the Red Cross almost simultaneously sends an official protest to Hungary about deportations of Hungarian Jews.

1944: Under the direction of Raphael “Raifi” Schacter,Theresienstadt inmates performed Verdi’s Requiem Mass, its final performance today

1944: After intensive search through the Lodz Ghetto for Jews, deportation began and did not end until July 14. Jews were shipped out at the rate of 3,000 a week for three weeks. They were told that they on their way to work as laborers in Berlin or outside of Leipzig. Actually the Jews were shipped to Chelmo where they would all perish once inside the camp.

1944: The Red Cross visited the Theresienstadt ghetto during which a picture was taken of the children.

1952(30th of Sivan, 5712): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

1952: In New York Philip Alexander Kaplan and Phyllis Quasha gave birth to American journalist Robert David Kaplan.

1952: In a letter to the New York Times, Lessing J. Rosenwald, President of the American Council of Judaism, an anti-Zionist organization reiterated the group’s disagreement with the Israeli government’s new policy concerning citizenships, declaring that nationality and religion are two different issues.

1953: Birthdate of Betzalel "Tzali" Reshef a Sabra who served as Labor MK in the first decade of the 21st century.

1954: Tax lawyer Martin D. Ginsburg married Ruth Bader, who gained fame as Associate Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

1956: Gamal Abdel Nasser is elected President of the Republic of Egypt in a landslide in which 99.95 percent of the voters mark their ballots for him. A secular pan-Arabist who was the ringleader of the “Colonel’s Revolution” Nasser reportedly claimed that he did not hate the West because of Israel but hated Israel because it was of the West.

1960: Premiere of “Bells Are Ringing,” a musical comedy co-starring Judy Holiday, produced by Arthur Freed, written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green with a score by Jule Styne.

1961: Birthdate of author David Leavitt, a professor at the University of Florida whose works include the short-story collection Family Dancing which was the finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award.

1965: U.S. premiere of “Harlow” the cinematic treatment of Irving Shulman’s Harlow: An Intimate Biography produced by Joseph E. Levine, filmed by cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg and starring Carroll Baker and Red Buttons.

1967: Five thousand Muslims prayed on the Haram, including a thousand Israeli Muslims who had been denied access during the nineteen years of Jordanian rule.

1969: Premiere of “Stereo” a Canadian film written, shot, edited and directed by David Cronenberg

1972: In Southfield, Michigan, Judge Molly Ann (née Cooke) and Elliot I. Beitner gave birth to Selma Blair Beitner who gained fame as actress Selma Blair

1976: U.S. premiere of “The Big Bus” featuring Harold Gould as “Professor Baxter” and Stuart Margolin as “Alex” with music by David Shire.

1981: Robert Badinter began serving as French Minister of Justice.

1986(16th of Sivan, 5746): Seventy-four year old classical scholar Sir Moses I. Finley, author of The Ancient Economy, passed away. Born Moses Israel Finkelstein in New York City he graduated from Syracuse and Columbia before taking the name of Finley in 1936.  After teaching at Columbia and City College he was fired by Rutgers when he “took the 5th” when called by Senator McCarthy’s red hunting committee.  He and his wife Mary moved to Great Britain where he pursued his career, another casualty of the Right Wing Red Witch Hunt. (As reported by Edwin McDowell)

1989: “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,” starring Rick Moranis, a product of the Canadian Jewish community, premiered today.

1989: In the UK, premiere of “The Tall Guy,” a comedy starring Jeff Goldblum.

1991: Tony Randall and Jack Klugman starred in a Broadway Performance of "The Odd Couple." Two Jewish actors took their television roles of Felix Unger and Oscar Madison back to the New York stage from which these roles had sprung. The author of this All- American hit was another Jew named Neil Simon.

1992:Maxine Frank Singer, a leading biochemistry researcher and advocate of science education, was awarded the National Medal of Science

1992: Yitzhak Rabin wins the Israeli parliamentary elections and becomes Prime Minister for the second time.  A sabra, Rabin had begun his military career in the Palmach.  He rose to be Chief of Staff during the Israel’s smashing victory in 1967.  Rabin signed off on the Oslo Accords in a bold attempt to bring peace to the Middle East.  Rabin won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.  Unfortunately Rabin was murdered by a right wing zealot in 1995.  This heinous crime robbed the Israelis of the one leader who might have been able to move the process forward.  Would things have been different if Rabin had lived?  We will never know.  Obviously the assassin and his supporters felt that by killing Rabin they could kill the peace process. 

1992: Retired IDF General Avigdor Kahalani began serving as Labour Party MK.

1994(14th of Tammuz, 5754): Sixty year old Irish journalist Stanley Gebler Davis passed away today.

1995(27th of Sivan, 5755): Eighty-year old Dr. Jonas Salk, inventor of the first Polio Vaccine passed away.  Another Jew, Dr. Sabine, invented the second Polio Vaccine. This is but one of the many contributions that the American Jewish Community should be celebrating and sharing with our countrymen during the 350th Anniversary of the Jewish Community in the United States.(As reported by Harold M. Schmeck, Jr.) http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1028.html

1997: Anna Halprin received the Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award for lifetime achievement in modern dance.

2001: British statistician Claus Adolf Moser “was made a Life peer with the title Baron Moser, of Regent's Park in the London Borough of Camden” today.

2002: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Globalization and Its Discontents by Joseph E. Stiglitz

2002(13rd Tammuz, 5762); Eighty-two year old South-African architect and opponent of apartheid Lionel “Rusty” Bernstein passed away.

2005(16th of Sivan, 5765): Eighty-two year old violinist Isadore Cohen passed away today.

2005(16th of Sivan, 5765): Prof. Nahum M. Sarna, z"l passed away.

2005:A roundabout in the 20th arrondissement of Paris was given the name “Place Henri Krasucki” in honor of Henri Krasucki, the trade unionist who was gassed at Auschwitz.

2006: Shlomo Mola became the first Ethiopian to be chosen as a top executive of World Zionist Organization

2006: According to a report published in a scientific journal, ancient beads that may represent the oldest attempt by people at self-decoration have been identified from sites in Israel and Algeria,
The beads, made from shells with holes bored into them, date to around 100,000 years ago, some 25,000 years older than similar beads discovered two years ago in South Africa, researchers report in the journal Science.

2006: Avraham Hirchson was quoted by Haaretzin today’s edition saying, "There are people who are trying to harm me and my family, by means of pressure and threats ... Detectives are following me, with the aim of harming me. This will not work with me; even if the threats intensify, I will continue to promote the reforms that are so important for the people of Israel."

2006(27th of Sivan, 5766: Eighty-three year old Television producer Aaron Spelling passes away. (As reported by Bill Carter)

2006: Donald Lewis Kohn “began serving his four year term as Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

2007: In Cedar Rapids, Miriam Maikon becomes a Bat Mitzvah, at Temple Judah.

2007: The Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow opens. The city's historic Jewish quarter (called Kazimierz) fills with music, art, dance, lectures and exhibits - all celebrating the 900-year history of Jews in Poland.

2007:Pangs of The Messiah” has its English Language World Premiere at Theatre J in Washington, D.C.

2008: In Washington, D.C., Alan Furst reads from and signs his new espionage thriller, The Spies of Warsaw, at Politics and Prose Bookstore

2008: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, at Temple Judah, a memorial service for Penny Binger, a sweet soul who loved Chasidic stories and was a self-styled “Shlomo Charlebach Groupie.”

2008: Overnight, Palestinian gunmen in the Gaza Strip fired a mortar shell into Israel – the first breach of the cease fire since it went into effect five days ago.

2008: Time magazine reviews “Apples and Oranges” by Marie Brenner

2009: Rosh Chodesh Tammuz, 1st day of Tammuz, 5769

2009:Israel released the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council from prison today, ending his three-year incarceration. Aziz al-Dweik, considered a moderate Hamas leader in the West Bank, was one of several Palestinian leaders arrested after the June 2006 abduction of Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit.

2009:A bankruptcy trustee recommended today that SHF Industries be allowed to buy most of the assets of Agriprocessors for $8.5 million, in addition to funds already committed to buy up about $21 million in debt owed two of Agriprocessors’ largest creditors. SHF is led by Heshey Friedman, the president of Montreal-based Polystar Plastics, which manufactures packaging for poultry and other meats. Friedman has two other partners in the venture, Daniel Hirsch and Mitch Kirschner.

2010:The Yellow Submarine is scheduled to present Hatsai Tzvaim Hatsai Kolot: Israeli poet Rachel's poetry set to music, and The Naomi Ensemble: a tribute to Naomi Shemer - a tribute to two of Israel's finest poets.

2010: In France, premiere of “The Chameleon” starring Ellen Barkin as “Kimberly Miller.”

2010: Donald Kohn completed his four year term as Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Syste,

2010:Beit Avi Chai is scheduled to present "Tel Aviv-New York -- Authentic jazz with a touch of the Mediterranean"

2010: A conference organized by the Humphrey Institute for Social Research at Ben- Gurion University meeting today  dealt with “the political, social and cultural role of diasporas and their links with their countries of origin or, in the case of second and third generation diaspora children, the home countries of their parents and grandparents.”

2011:Sheriff David Clarke will speak on "Security and Spirituality: Reflections on My Mission to Israel" at meeting sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

2011: A lively presentation featuring Naama Shefi of the Consulate General of Israel entitled A Food Lover's Tour of Israel” scheduled to be held at the  92nd St Y will give attendees a chance to “ddiscover what cutting-edge Israeli chefs are creating in Israel and learn the history of dozens of the country's most famous dishes.”

2011:There are widening gaps between poor and middle class citizens in Israel in the rate of incidences of chronic disease, a report published today revealed. The report, which was based on information from four HMOs in Israel, was prepared by the Israel National Institute for Health Policy and Health Services.

2011: The failure of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to retaliate in the Gaza Strip for rocket fire after disengagement – as he promised – was one of the major mistakes made after the 2005 pullout, Dan Kurtzer, who was the US envoy to Israel at the time, suggested today. Kurtzer, in an interview with The Jerusalem Post, said that immediately after Israel left the Gaza Strip

2011: The Israeli Presidential Conference came to an end.

2011(21stof Sivan, 5772): Eighty-three year old Peter Falk, who became synonymous with Colombo, the rumpled raincoat wearing detective who always had one more question, passed away today. (As reported by Bruce Weber)

2011(21stof Sivan, 5772): Eighty-four year old Gene Colan one of the leading comic-book artists of the 20th century passed away. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

2012(3rdof Tammuz, 5772): 18th Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory simply known as The Rebbe.  This blog cannot do justice to his impact on Judaism or the lives of individual Jews. One does not have to be a Lubavitcher to have been impacted by the Rebbe or his corps of “Lamplighters” such as Rabbi PInchas Ciment, who brought the light of Chassidus and Judaism to some very dark places.

2012: “Hungry Kite,” the creation of Choreographer Deganit Shemy is scheduled to perform for the last time at the Chocolate Factory at Long Island City.

2012:Kulanu Toronto and Congregation Shir Libeynu are scheduled hold a pre-Pride Karaoke Night after Shabbat.


2012:Rabbi Meir Soloveichik is scheduled to discuss “Serving Man and God in the Twilight Zone: Reflections on Judaism and Western Thought,”www.torahinmotion.org

2012:Social activist Daphni Leef was treated today for injuries sustained during clashes with police that took place during a demonstration on Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard yesterday. Her arm was placed in a cast. Leef and 11 others were arrested in what was widely described as a violent sweep of crowd control.(As reported by Yoel Goldman)

2012: Gaza-based terrorists fired 25 rockets into southern Israel today, causing damage to a school and factory. The latest attacks bring the total number of rockets and other projectiles fired from the Strip to approximately 150 over the past six days.

2013: The Israeli Squad is schedule to compete in the Cosmos Copa for the first time ever when it plays a double header against Italy and the Netherlands at Randalls Island.

2013: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Bad Boy: My Life On and Off the Canvas by Eric Fischl and Michael Stone and Debtor’s Prison: The Politics of Austerity Versus Possibility by Robert Kuttner

 2013: The Spertus Institute is scheduled to host a lecture by Daniel Belasco entitled “Jewish Graphic Design from the Talmud to Today.”

2013: The Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Israel, Yona Metzger, currently under house arrest on suspicion of financial crimes, announced today that he was suspending himself from his official duties.

2013:A Jerusalem court today ordered the release of a Jewish youth who had been arrested on charges of praying on the Temple Mount. The youth was also cleared of charges that he attacked an Arab during his visit to the Mount. (As reported by David Lev)

2013: Terrorists from Hamas-controlled Gaza fired three rockets into southern Israel tonight. (As reported by Elad Benari)

2014: The UK Jewish Film is scheduled to host its Celebration of Film Dinner.

2014: “The Sturgeon Queens” is scheduled to be shown at Portland, Oregon, Jewish Film Festival.

2014: An Evening with Paul Robeson: A Recital in Homage to the Great Singer and Humanitarian” is scheduled to be presented this evening in the Rubenstein Pavilion of the Jewish Home and Care Center, in Milwaukee, WI.

2014: “The Israeli Air Force struck several targets belonging to Assad’s forces on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights overnight, Israeli media reported early this morning.”

2014: Ziad Awad “a Hamas operative released under the 2011 exchange for Gilad Shalit and his son Izz Eddin Hassan Ziad Awad were indicited today for gunning down Baruch Mizrahi near Hebron on Passover eve. The father was the shoot while the son facilitated th getaway. (As reported by Marissa Newman)

2014: Rabbi Haim Korsia was elected Chief Rabbi of France.

2014: “The tires of three cars were found punctured, and four others deflated, in a suspected racist tag attack in an Israeli-Arab East Jerusalem neighborhood today.”

2014: J Street released a statement today saying that the Presbyterian Church vote in favor of divestment “would not be helpful to the cause of peace.” (As reported by Lazar Berman)

2015: The 17th International Research Conference of the Latin American Jewish Studies Association is scheduled to come to an end.

2015: The Center for Jewish For Jewish History is scheduled to host a lecture by Joseph Berger, author of The Pious Ones: The World of Hasidim and Their Battles With America.

2015: The Center For Jewish History is scheduled to host “Changing Lives, Making History: CBST - The First Forty Years – CBST’s 40th Anniversary Book.”

 

 

This Day, June 24, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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JUNE 24


586 BCE (9th of Tammuz, 3174): King Nebuchadnezzar’s army broke through the walls of Jerusalem and entered the City of David.


1182: Phillip II, the seventeen year old French monarch “decreed the total expulsion of Jews from all royal possessions within two months. This was due in part to debts owed to Jewish moneylenders. The debtors were exempted from all payment to the Jews but had to pay a tax of 20% of their debt to the Treasury. This only served to force those Jews who were considered an asset into other French provinces not directly under the King's control. The Synagogue in Paris was converted into the Church of St. Madeleine, while the one in Orleans was changed into the Chapel of St. Sauveur. This expulsion - with the confiscation of land and property - was a strong factor in Jews leaving agriculture as a profession in favor of moveable property and trade.” (As reported by Eli Birnbaum)


1190: Philip II Augustus of France and Richard the Lionheart of England break camp at Vezelay and head off for the Holy Land, officially launching the Third Crusade. Phillip was openly anti-Semitic.  Richard was protective of his Jewish subjects.  His absence during the Crusade left them to “the tender mercies” of Prince John and the local Anglo anti-Semites.  And of course, as always, the Jews suffered wherever the Crusading Christians marched.


1298: Massacre of the Jews of Ifhauben, Austria.


1322: Charles IV of France expelled all the Jews from France without the promised one year's warning. This marked the second expulsion of the Jews from France.


1339: A party commissioned by Pope Benedict XII to go to China that included Giovanni de' Marignolli left Constantinople and sailed across the Black Sea to Caffa. In 1342, following his arrival in China, Marginollia told of having engaged "in glorious disputations" in Beijing with both Muslims and Jews. This was one several reports of Jews living in China during the 14thcentury. These included Andrew of Perugia’s  complaint in 1326 that “the Jews of Quanzhou obdurately refused to accede to his pleas that they undergo baptism” and  the Muslim traveler ibn Battuta description of entering Hangzhou in 1346 “through a gate called the Jews’ Gate and statement that among the inhabitants of the city there were “Jews, Christians and sun-worshipping Turks.”


1386: Birthdate John of Capistrano, a Franciscan friar who played a key role in having forty Jews burned at the stake in Breslau and sought to have King of Poland abolish the special privileges accorded to his Jewish subjects.


1441: King Henry VI founded Eton College.  While there were no Jews in the Eton’s first class (there were no Jews living in England, King Henry would be surprised to find out that by 2009 Mr. Jonathan Paull was Head of Jewish studies at Eton and that Jewish students were putting on tefillin under the guidance of local Chabad representatives.


1509:  Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon crowned King and Queen of England. There were no Jews living in England at this time.  Henry’s father (Henry VII) had promised Catherine’s parents (the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella) that Jews would never be allowed the realm of the English monarchs.  Thanks to the turmoil that Henry would create when he went to shed Catherine as his Queen and royal mate, small numbers of Marranos and crypto-Jews would be living in England by the end of the century.


1648: In Tulczyn, Poland, an agreement between the 2000 Jews and 600 Christians to defend the town at all costs succeeded in preventing the Cossacks from capturing the town. The Cossacks persuaded the Christians that they would let them go free if they would give them the Jews. The (furious) Jews were persuaded by the Rabbi that if they took revenge on the Poles other Jews would suffer. The gates were opened and most of the Jews killed. The Cossacks then turned on the Poles and killed most of them as well. For the most part, during the entire war the Poles and the Jews were uneasy allies against the Cossacks.


1692: Founding of Kingston, Jamaica. By now, Jamaica was an English colony and Jews can only practice their religion as opposed to their secret observance that had been the norm during the Spanish rule. There were enough Jews living in Kingston that synagogues were reportedly opened in 1744 and 1787.


1699: A committee that had been formed to find a larger place for the growing Congregation of Spanish and Portuguese Jews “leased from Lady Ann Pointz (alias Littleton) and Sir Thomas Pointz (alias Littleton) a tract of land at Plough Yard, in Bevis Marks, for 61 years, with the option of renewal for a further 38 years, at £120 a year.” This would be the location for the famed Bevis Marks Synagogue which was more than a house of worship.  It was the center the center of the Anglo Jewish world when that world encompassed the British Empire.


1702: In Great Britain an “Act to oblige Jews to maintain and provide for their Protestant children” took effect. This act of Parliament grew out of case involving Jacob de Mendez Berta and his daughter Mary who became a Protestant.  According to one source, the father refused to continue to support his daughter after she converted and her newly adopted Protestant community did not want to shoulder the burden of her support.  Hence, this legislation was adopted and would stay in effect until the middle of the 19thcentury.


1725: Over the next 12 months, starting from today, 26 of the entries for shipments from the port of New York involved Jewish merchants.  This was 6.7% of the total.  Of these entries, 6 were credited to Moses Levy, one of the colony’s leading merchants.


1761(14th of Sivan): Moses Brandeis Charif the chief rabbi of Mayence and cabalist who was the son of Jacob Brandeis passed away


1794: Bowdoin College is founded in Brunswick, Maine. Today about ten percent of Bowdoin’s 1,650 students are Jewish. The school has ten Jewish Studies courses and a Hillel Chapter.


1803: In London, Judith (Barrow) Montefiore and Eliezer Montefiore, a prominent English merchant gave birth to their youngest son, Joseph Barrow Montefiore who made his fortune in Australia before returning to his native England.

 

1806: Áron Chorin “a Hungarian rabbi and pioneer of religious reform” who had been censured and punished by an Orthodox tribunal appealed to the Imperial Government for relief. The government “annulled the judgment and condemned the leader of his adversaries at Arad to pay the expenses of the lawsuit…Chorin declared that he forgave his adversary, and declined his claims for compensation of the expenses. To avoid further trouble, he determined to give up writing.

 

1809: In Zülz, Prussian Silesia, Gittel and Marcus Jacob Loewe, Rabbi of Rosenburg gave birth to Louis Lowe who became a leading Orientalist and principal and director of Judith Lady Montefiore College at Ramsgate.

 

1824(28th of Sivan, 5584):Israel ben Solomon Wahrmann the first officially recognized rabbi of Pest, Hungary passed away today.

 

1839: Birthdate of Solomon H. Sonnenschein, the Hungarian born American Rabbi who served Congregation Temple Israel in St. Louis and Temple B’nai Yeshurun in Des Moines, Iowa before his death in 1908.

 

1840: Birthdate of Émile Duclaux, the French chemist and microbiologist who “was a vocal support of Alfred Dreyfus.”


1842: In Sidney, Australia, The Voice of Jacobreported that the Sultan of Turkey had called for an audience attended by all religious leaders which included the Hahambashi (Chief or Grand Rabbi) where he issued a firman protecting "all religious denominations" in Syria.


1843: “In in spite of the fact that the Jews of the city had contributed 12,900 scudi to do honor to the pope during his visit in 1841, an old decree was revived by Fra Vincenzo Soliva, Inquisitor of Ancona and other districts, forbidding Jews to reside or do business in any place where there was no ghetto, to employ Christian journeymen, to hire Christian servants, wet-nurses, or apprentices, to deal in books of any sort or in ecclesiastical robes, etc.”


1846: In Hungary, the residence tax was officially abolished. In order to have it cancelled the Jews had to pay a one-time fee of 1,200,000 florins.


1846(30th of Sivan, 5606): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1848: In France, beginning of the “June Days of Uprising” which began “in response to plans to close the National Workshops, created by the Second Republic in order to provide work and a source of income for the unemployed – measures which Michel Goudchaux had supported in a speech before the Assembly as a member of the Finance Committee.


1859: In County Kerry, Lt. Col. Henry Horatio Kitchener and Frances Anne Chevallier-Cole Horatio Herbert Kitchener, the great British military leader known simply as Lord Kitchener. His first step on the road to glory came in 1874 when the 24 year old Kitchener led a mapping and survey expedition to parts of “the Holy Land” under the direction of the Palestine Exploration Fund. The effects of the mapping expedition are still felt today since, among other thing, they provided the basis for delineating the border between the state of Israel and Lebanon.


1856: In Rome, a contingent of papal carabinieri “acting at the orders of the local Inquisitor, Father Pier Gaetan Feletti, took six year old Edgardo Mortara from his parent’s apartment because church officials discovered that Edgardo had been secretly baptized by a servant girls five years ago and that he could no longer “be raised in a Jewish household.”  Thus began the scandal known as the Mortara Affair.


1865: Jacob Ezekiel Hyneman, was mustered out as a soldier in the Union Army. He had enlisted in the Union Army in 1862 and had participated “in the battles of Chancellorsville, Brandy Station (where he was wounded), Gettysburg, Mine Run (where he was again wounded), Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, Cold Harbor, Five Forks, Petersburg, and Appomattox Court House. He was also present at the surrender of Lee


1873: In a sermon, Reverend Henry Ward Beecher gave the first public warning of rising anti-Semitism in the U.S. Beecher was a fighter for social justice, an abolitionist and the father of Harriet Beecher Stowe.


1877: According to reports published today, Judge Hilton is receiving more letters, calls and telegrams approving of his action (banning Jews from the Grand Union Hotel) than he has time to answer.  Jewish leaders appear willing to let the matter die since they feel they have been supported in the court of public opinion.


1878: It was reported today that it appears as if there are no Jews spending the summer at the resort hotels in and around Longbeach, NJ.  According to one source, the absence of Jewish guests can be explained by the downtown in the New York real estate market which has caused great economic hardship.  Other sources attribute the absence to a desire on the part of the Jews to avoid being humiliated in an incident similar to that which had occurred last year at the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga Springs, NY.


1882: It was reported today that in Russia, Count Tolstoy, the Minister of the Interior published a circular stating that officers who do not “prevent outrages against Jews” will be dismissed immediately.


1882: M.A. Kursheedt, the Managing Secretary of the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society sent a letter to Secretary Jackson of the Board of Emigration that “the society will not take charge of any Russian refugees or other Jewish immigrants who may hereafter arrive in this city.”


1882: “Aid Need For Hebrew Refugees” published today described the desperate conditions facing the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society which lacks the funds to meet the needs of the growing stream of Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe.  Presently, the society can only provide shelter for only 500 of the 3,000 immigrants that include men, woman and children.  To help meet the shortfall in funds, Jacob Schiff has contributed $10,000, Kuhn, Loeb & Co has given an additional $5,000 and Jess Seligman has also contributed $5,000.  But Secretary Kursheedt said that others much follow the example of these donors if the society is going to be able to provide assistance to these immigrants let alone the thousands who are on their way.


1882: At the sanity hearing of his brother-in-law Samuel Obreight, Bernard Tausick described Obreight’s attempts at suicide “and his peculiar behavior at a party given in honor of his engagement to another young lady” whom he chose not to wed.


1883: Birthdate of Friedrich Löwy, the native of Bohemia, who gained famed as the librettist and lyricist Fritz Löhner-Beda. His fame was not enough to save him from being beaten to death at a camp near Auschwitz.   While at Buchenwald he wrote Das Buchenwaldlied ("The Buchenwald Song"): O Buchenwald, I can’t forget about you, because you are my fate. Who leaves you, only he can appreciate how wonderful freedom is! O Buchenwald, we don’t cry and complain and whatever may be our destiny, even so we shall say "yes" to life for once the day shall come when we shall be free!


1883: Birthdate of Victor Francis Hess, Austrian-born American physicist and winner of the Nobel Prize.  Hess was not Jewish but his wife was.  When the Nazis came to Austria, Hess came to America to protect his wife from persecution. 


1884(1stof Tammuz, 5644): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1885: It was reported today that the Pall Mall Gazette has printed “a hitherto unpublished proclamation of the Emir of Afghanistan” which he issued to his subjects in 1882. “It reviews the history of the Afghans, claiming that they are descended from the 10 lost tribes of Israel.  It traces their descent from Adam though Jacob, their subjection in Egypt, their deliverance therefrom by Moses, their wanderings in the desert and their settlement in Syria under…Saul and Solomon, to their Babylonian captivity, their release, their wanderings on the hills of Ghour and their final settlement in Afghanistan.”  The proclamation includes with an exhortation for his subjects “trust in God, who will preserve them from their terrible enemy, Russia” [Editor’s Note – Read in light of what has happened in Afghanistan since 1980, this is a fascinating little item.]


1886: As a sign of how accepted Jews were in New York, Rabbi Weiss and J.H. Hoffman, President of the Hebrew Technical Institute were among the dignitaries seated on the platform at the graduation ceremonies for the Normal College of the City of New York, an institution of higher education for women.


1887: “Probable Case of Suicide” published today described the last days of Joseph Freedman a Russian Jewish peddler who died in New Haven, Conn. After marrying Rittie Polrovideh a month ago, he left his child from an earlier marriage with her and went to Montreal.  She refused to join him there, even when he came back to New Haven to plead his case.  The failure of his personal and financial lives may have led him to poison himself. [Editor’s note – This is consistent with reports in the 21st century where there has been a major increase in suicides among the financially desperate in several southern European countries.]


1888: Youngsters under the charge of the Orphan Asylum of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society participated in a two hour long ceremony today that demonstrated their knowledge of Jewish history and Judaism.  The children go to public school starting at the age of 6 and receive their training in Judaica at the asylum.  PIncus Spiro received a box of tools for placing first in the exams and Samuel Levi received drawing instruments for placing second.  Both boys have already passed the entrance exams for CCNY and will enter there in the fall.  Jennie Berdinger was the leading female student.


1891: At their state convention, Iowa Democrats adopt a platform with a plank that reads “We abhor the persecutions of Russia toward the Jewish people and we believe that all civilized nations should protest against such barbarism and inhumanity.”


1892: The Marquis de Mores, an anti-Semitic French officer, has been arrested for killing Captain Mayer, a Jewish officer whom he forced into facing him in a duel. 


1894: New York lawyer Edward Jacobs, the brother of the late Joseph A. Jacobs who was Deputy Clerk of the City Court for fourteen year, received a telegram from the Governor of New York “summoning him to Albany” so that he can be appoint a Quarantine Commissioner.


1894: It is reported that the Czarevitch is visiting England accompanied by the Czar’s Court Chaplain, Janicheff, “a very prominent and active Jew-baiter.”


1894: It is reported today that population of Hungary includes 9 million Catholics, 3 million Protestants and 5 million others that include Jews, Orthodox Serbs and Romanians


1894: It was reported today that there are 12 Jews serving the Hungarian Chamber of Deputies and one serving in the upper legislative chamber. The Hungarian Diet had first recognized Jewish equality before the law in 1848 but was forced to rescind it following anti-Semitic riots.  In 1867, the rights were restored which has resulted in the current electoral mix.


1894: The officers of the newly formed Jesse Seligman Literary Circle were listed today as George M. Hommell, President; Miss Nellie Gotthaimer, Vice President; Harry Hammell, Secretary and Miss Ella Stein, Treasurer.


1897: President James H. Hoffman delivered the opening address at the graduation exercises for the Hebrew Technical Institute which were held tonight at Cooper Union.


1897: The will of Jacob Seholle, the banker who passed away at Orange, NJ was filed for probate today.


1897: The following bequests were reported today to be included in the will of the late Mortiz Cohn – $1,000 for Temple B’Nai Jeshurun; $750 for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum and Mt. Sinai Hospital; from $100 to $200 to eight other Jewish schools and charities; $30,000 to his granddaughter Ethel Klopfer.  The residue of the estates is to be divided between his son Julius M. Cohn and his daughter Klopfer.


1897(24th of Sivan, 5657): Seventy-eight year old Sir John Law, the native of Jamaica who wanted to be a rabbi but became a successful lawyer instead which led to a seat in the House of Commons as a member of the Liberal Party, passed away today.


1898: The funeral for Moses Stein, a resident of Bath Beach who had been a successful wholesale butcher in Manhattan will take place this afternoon followed by interment in Washington Cemetery.

1898: It was reported today that Abraham Richter was the valedictorian of the 1898 Hebrew Technical Institute graduating class. 


1899: At Las Vegas, NM, Governor Theodore Roosevelt addressed a re-union of his “Rough Riders,” the regiment he created and led in the war against Spain.  In an appeal for national harmony, Roosevelt reminder the listeners that his was a typical American regiment that included Jews as well as Protestants, Catholics, Easterners, Westerners Northerners and Southerners.”  (This mention of Jews put the lie to claims being made at the time that Jews did not fight in American wars and were unpatriotic.  It also was a shrewd move on T.R’s part since Jews were an important of his constituency in New York)


1899 “Burns and Scott Heroines” published today featured a comparison of the works of Robert Burn and Sir Walter Scott whose “masterpiece Ivanhoe” includes “villains…who bleed a Jew” and a description of Rebecca watching the deeds of the Black Knights from the lattice window of Torquilstone.


1899: “Religious New and Views” published today described the plans of Temple Sinai Congregation to purchase the building belong to Calvary Presbyterian Church on 116th Street near Lenox Avenue.  After 18 years, the church is disbanding.  The congregation is reformed, “as are the majority of the New York Jewish congregations.”


1899: Attorney Max Cohen, the Vice President of the Orthodox Hebrew Society said today that “the society did not object to mission churches…but did object to the methods that have been employed.”


1899: Max Cohen said today that the Orthodox Hebrew Society is working to encourage “a more general observation of the Sabbath” and to that end is trying “to secure a modification of the legislation in regard to opening stores on Sunday.”


1899: “Religious News and Views” published today described the differences between the practices of the Reform congregations in New York.  In some, like the one on Hester, the men sit downstairs and the women sit upstairs and they pray with their hats on.  In other congregations, men and women sit together and men do not wear hats. Finally, there are those where the men and women sit together, but the men pray with their hats on.

 

1900: In the village of Bezwodne, Joseph and Bella (Pomerantz) Lemkin gave birth to Raphael Lemkin a lawyer who fought against genocide, a word he coined in 1943 by coming the Greek “genos” (Family) and the Latin “cide” (Killing).


1901: Start of the Jewish National Fund. The JNF or Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael was established at the Fifth Zionist Congress, which declared that "the fund shall be the property of the Jewish people as a whole". The purpose of the Fund was to collect money from Jews throughout the world to buy land in Palestine. Because of the nature of the purchases, the land belonged collectively to all of the Jewish people. The JNF became famous for its "little blue boxes" and for its Tree Purchase Program. For more about this amazing organization see www.jnf.org/site


1903: “Interior Minister Plehve ordered the police to suppress ‘the propaganda of the ideal of Zionism’” because the movement had abandoned “its aim of settling Jews in Palestine in favor of organizing Jews ‘in places of their present domicile.’”


1903: Russia prohibited Zionist meetings.


1908: Rabbi Martin Zielonka of El Paso, Texas, helps the Jews of Mexico organize their community.


1908: President Grover Cleveland died of heart failure.  As President, Cleveland appointed Oscar Solomon Strauss envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Turkey in 1887.  In 1897 Cleveland vetoed an immigration bill that included a literacy test.  The literacy test was a thinly veiled attempt to close the doors to immigrants including the wave of Jews coming from Eastern Europe.  In 1903, Cleveland, who was by now former President, was the featured speaker at the New York City rally protesting the Kishinev Pogroms.


1909: During the debate over the budget, “at a meeting at the Holborn Restaurant Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George derided Lord Rothschild when he said "I really think we are having too much Lord Rothschild. Are we to have all ways of reform, financial and social, blocked, simply by a notice-board; 'No Thoroughfare. By Order of Nathaniel Rothschild'?"


 1910:  Birthdate of Judge Irving Kaufman.  Kaufman was the presiding judge in the Rosenberg Spy Case.  He was the one who sentenced them to death after they were both found guilty.  Of course the anti-Semites who used the involvement of the Rosenbergs in a Soviet spy ring to further their claims of Communism being a Jewish conspiracy conveniently overlook the fact that Jews were involved in the prosecution and sentencing of the Rosenbergs.  Kaufman passed away in 1992 at the age of 81.


1912(9th of Tammuz, 5672): Julia Richman the first Jewish woman to serve as principal in the New York Public School system and the first woman district superintendent of schools in the City of New York died in Paris as result of an infection that developed after an emergency operation.


1914(30thof Sivan, 5674): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1914: Birthdate of Jan Karski, “a Polish World War II resistance movement fighter who in 1942 and 1943 reported to the Polish government in exile and the Western Allies on the situation in German-occupied Poland, especially the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, and the secretive Nazi extermination camps.”


1915: Benjamin “Benny” Snyder was attacked by three fellow inmates at the Tombs this morning just before he was to appear in court plead guilty to manslaughter in the death of “Joe the Greaser” Rosenzweig. The plea meant he got off with a ten year sentence but it earned him the reputation for being a rat and a squealer.(Yes, there are Jewish gangsters; but they are not the pride and joy of the community)


1915: “An intercollegiate association of Zionists was formed tonight at a meeting in Phillips Brooks House at Harvard.”


1915: “Louis D. Brandies, the Chairman of the Provisional Executive Committee delivered a speech tonight on “The Call of the Zionist to Educated Jews.


1915: While authorities “were not inclined to give credence to rumors of a possible attack on the prison farm now housing Leo Frank, as of today they are taking “every precaution” to deal with such a possibility.


1915: Leo M. Frank, who “passed a quiet day at the Georgia State prison farm,” said “I am feeling much better and intend to do my work cheerfully and willingly until I am in the position to start another fight for freedom. I am still confident that I will eventually be given my freedom.


1915: In Atlanta, Georgia State Senator Haralson of the Fortieth District introduced “a bill hitting at” Governor Slaton “and seeking to prevent action of the kind” that he had taken in the Frank case.”


1917: Delegates are scheduled to register today as part of the opening session of the Twentieth Annual Convention of the Federation of American Zionists.


1917: “A plaque was awarded to the Hebrew Educational Society as the winner of a series of debates with the South Brooklyn Y.M.H.A.”


1917: “Felix M. Warburg entertained one hundred of the most prominent and active workers in the news local federation of charities at a lawn party on the grounds of his summer home at White Plains, NY.


1918: Jacob Schiff of New York City protests against the Red Cross which has discriminated against Jews from Bulgaria and Turkey, as well as Germany and Austro-Hungary. Red Cross stated Jews from these lands, or children who have fathers who were born in these lands cannot serve in the Red Cross.


1919: In the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, Polish Prime Minister Ignacy Paderewski signed the Minorities Treaty that “awarded full civil, religious and political rights to all citizens of the new Poland, with the term ‘citizen’ applied broadly to all person either born or ‘habitually’ resident on Polish territory.”  This meant that the Jews of Poland were guaranteed full citizenship in the newly reconstituted Poland.  Louis Marshall, a prominent American Jew who had been part of Wilson’s delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, was responsible for this language; language would be incorporated in other treaties that grew out of the Versailles Conference which, on paper at least, opened the path to full citizenship for the Jews of Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary and Turkey.


1920: In London, Stephen Winsten and his wife gave birth to Ruth Winsten who gained fame as the “animal welfare campaigner” the Ruth Harrison.


1922(28th of Sivan, 5682:  An anti-Semitic nationalist assassinated Walter Rathenau, the Jewish German Foreign minister. Ironically, Rathenau was a German patriot who had been responsible for maintaining the German industrial might that enabled it to fight on for four years despite the Allied blockade.


1922: The Literary Digest published Harvard ‘Talk’ About Jews today which described Harvard President Abbott Lawrence Lowell’s views about Jewish attendance at his elite institution.



1923: Birthdate of comedian and actor, Jack Carter.


1924: In New York City, Fay (née Resenthal), a secretary and bookkeeper, and Oscar Perl, a stationery salesman who founded a printing and advertising company gave birth Martin Lewis Perl who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1995.


1927: Birthdate of American Physicist, Martin Lewis Perl.  The son of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, Perl won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1995.


1928: A report published today described mass meetings held in Tel Aviv protesting the unwarranted deportation of Jewish immigrants from Palestine.  A cable protesting the deportations sent by the citizens of Tel Aviv to the Colonial Office in London stated that “every Jew who enters Palestine is returning to his home.  He cannot, therefore, be expelled under any law…The expulsions are an insult to the entire Jewish population…and…cause despair in the minds of the masses in the Diaspora, undermining every hope for entering Palestine.”


1930: Ceremonies began today marking the opening of the Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva


1933: On the day of her return from a three-month trip through Palestine, Russia and other countries Jewish theatrical star Molly Picon, said that a new culture, made up of elements of the cultures of many peoples, is being built up in Palestine by Jews.


1933: Rabbi and Mrs. Morris Ginsberg gave birth to Sir Ian Derek Gainsford who served as Dean of King’s College of Medicine and Dentistry, Vice Principal of King’s College London and President of the Maccabaeans, a leading Anglo-Jewish charitable organization dating back to the 19th century.


1934: An advertisement for “Rosebrae Guest House, the only Jewish Boarding House on the Isle of Jersey which was Kosher” appeared in today’s Jewish Chronicle.


1935: Premiere of “Die schweigsame Frau” (The Silent Woman) for which Stefan Zweig provided the libretto


1936: As Arab violence continued to escalate unabated, The Palestine Post reported that Arab snipers killed one Jew and wounded four others on a bus close to Rosh Pina. The Arab Strike Committee threatened and punished Arabs who refused to join the general strike or refused to contribute to their strike funds. Five Arab villagers were killed by the railway military patrol after trains were ambushed twice. Jewish damages since April 19, the day on which the Arab disturbances began, were estimated at some quarter of a million pounds.


1937: After visiting with Benito Mussolini, Generoso Pope, a prominent New York City Italian American contractor, returned to the United States with a message from the Italian leader intended to reassure Jews in the United States that they had no reason to be concerned about the conditions of Italian Jews.


1938: The outbreak of violence in the Jaffa-Tel Aviv area that began yesterday continued today with episodes of bomb-throwing and stabbing.  In one incident an as yet unidentified Jew from Tel Aviv who was out walking with his wife and brother-in-law was stabbed by a group of Arabs who fled before the authorities arrived.


1938: The mutilated body of Father Mario Rozzine, head of an Italian convent near Jerusalem was discovered by the side of the road.  While the Italian Consulate claimed the priest was killed by unidentified personal enemies, others believe that he had fallen victim to Arab terrorists.


1939: Brazil admits three thousand Jewish refugees from Germany.


1939: At the World’s Fair in New York City, The Café Tel Aviv at the Palestine Pavilion offers Kosher Cuisine including Palestinian specialties ranging in price from $.50 to $.85, lunch for $.65 and a complete dinner for $1.25.


1940: Margret and Hans Rey made telephone calls and wrote letters from Lisbon letting friends and family know that they were safe. 


1941: As it invaded Lithuania, the Wehrmacht occupied Kovno where 10,000 Jews will be murdered by the end of July and Vilna and killed the Jews of Gorzhdy. (Please note; with some of the military activity in WW II there is a variance of dates by one or two days according to different sources.  This can be accounted for in several ways including discrepancies between when an event may have begun and when it reached its height or the difference between the date an event happened and the date it appeared in the newspaper or other journals.)



1941: Birthdate of Arthur Bruce “Art” Heyman, the 6’5” New Yorker who led Duke University to its first appearance in the Final Four before being drafted by the Knicks of the NBA. (As reported by William Yardely)


1942: Thousands Jews from of Lvov in the Ukraine, are killed at Janówska, Ukraine, and Piaski, Poland.


1944:  The United States Military Air Operations declares that bombing rail lines to Auschwitz is "impracticable" because it could be achieved only by diverting air support from "decisive operations" in progress; i.e., bombing German synthetic-oil plants. The fact is that many of these plants are located near Auschwitz.


1944:  Lovers Edward Galinski, a Polish gentile, and Mala Zimetbaum, a Jew, escape from Auschwitz-Birkenau in purloined SS uniforms and remain at liberty for two weeks.


1944: At Birkenau, a Pole and a Jewish girl escaped. The girl, Mala Zimetbaum, escaped through an airlock in the gas chamber waiting room. She became the camp interpreter and fell in love with a Polish man. They managed to escape only to be eventually caught and brought back to Auschwitz where they were tortured. They then were to be hung in public view by thousands of prisoners. Instead she produced a razor blade and slashed her wrists in front of the onlookers. Incensed, the SS shot her dead.


1944: Chaim Barlas sent a copy of the ‘Auschwitz Protocols’ to his friend Giuseppe Rocalli – the future Pope John XXIII- and Rocalli immediately sent a summary of the protocols by telegraph to the Vatican.  This undercuts the Vatican’s claim that it did not know about Auschwitz until October of 1944


1945: The U.S.S.R. captures the Free Republic of Schwarzenberg. The Free Republic of Schwarzenberg (German: Freie Republik Schwarzenberg) was a de facto independent entity that existed for several weeks after the German capitulation on May 8, 1945. The term Free Republic of Schwarzenbergactually derives from the 1984 novel Schwarzenbergby Stefan Heym. As the novel is based on actual events, the term has become used as a convenient short-hand for them. Stefan Heym was a German Jewish writer born in 1913 in Chemnitz. Heym’s works included TheKing David Report, The Wandering Jewsand Schwarzenberg.  Stefan Heym was actually the pen name for Hellmuth Fleig who won the Jerusalem Prize in 1933.  He died in Jerusalem during the Heinrich Heine Conference.


1947: Judge Simon Rifkind of New York, who had served on Ike’s staff, sent General Eisenhower a memo contending that establishing a Jewish state in Palestine would be in America’s best political and military interests.  Ike sent copies of the memo to Secretary of State George Marshall and General Tom Handy who would take it to the Secretary of War.


1950: In the UK, Annette Krarup and Walter Freud gave birth to David Anthony Freud, the great grandson of Sigmund Freud who went from a career as a journalist and businessman to as political leader.


1950: An Italian ship filled with 300 Torah scrolls, 2,000 prayer books and other religious items that had been left in Yemen by Jewish refugees docked at Elath after having sailed up the Gulf Aqaba, making it the first ship to use this route to reach the Jewish state. Up until now, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, who controlled the east and west sides of the Gulf had not allowed passage of any ships bound for Israel.  Nobody knows why the two Arab states did not stop the vessel or if the waterway would remain open.


1950: Birthdate of Moshe Smilansky who as Moshe "Bogie" Ya'alon served as Chief of Staff of the IDF before joining Likud and serving in the Knesset “as well as the country's Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Strategic Affairs.”


1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that despite all the recent Iraqi threats, six aircraft arrived from Baghdad with 574 immigrants, and the seventh was expected shortly. It was estimated that some 4,000 Jews waited in Baghdad for transportation to Israel.


1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Council of Kibbutz Meuhad met at Givat Brenner with only Mapam members participating, following the Mapai members' decision to leave the movement.


1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that Ffunerals took place of four Israeli soldiers killed in a clash with the Arab Legion near Kiryat Anavim.


1952(1st of Tammuz, 5711): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1952(1st of Tammuz, 5711): Sixty-four year old Wax Gordon died at Alcatraz where he was serving a twenty-five year sentence.


1952: Tel Aviv police were detaining two people suspected of stealing gold objects from the National Museum valued at $70,000 and then melting them down for sale as gold bullion.  The objects in question have been missing for over a month.


1957: In Roth v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment. Roth is Samuel Roth, the Polish born Jew who began a literary career after moving to the Lower East of New York


1959: Thanks to the efforts of producer Samuel Goldwyn, the cinema version of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess opened in New York City.


1968: Birthdate of Israeli chess grandmaster Boris Gelfand.


1973: In Sioux City, Iowa, Laurie Goldblatt becomes Mrs. Bob Silber in a ceremony that joins together two future pillars of the Cedar Rapids, Iowa Jewish Community


1976:  Premiere of “Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson” co-starring Paul Newman and Harvey Keitel.


1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli pound was devalued by another 2 percent to IL7.97 to the dollar. This was the 10th creeping devaluation, begun as a policy in June 1975.


1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that Gush Emunim announced that it would resist moving out from Kaddum, unless the resettlement was part of an overall plan for establishing Jewish settlement throughout Judea and Samaria.


1976: At a dinner hosted by Brandeis University, Elliot Richardson received the second annual Louis Dembitz Brandeis medal for distinguished legal service.  Richardson was the Attorney General dismissed by President Nixon for his courageous refusal to participate in the Watergate Cover-up.  The first recipient of the medal named for the distinguished Jewish lawyer and jurist, was Leon Jaworski who was a key player in the Watergate Investigations


1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had asked Israelis to consume less and work more, and to accustom themselves to the realization of the country's difficult economic situation.


1979(29th of Sivan, 5739): Eighty-eight year old Lessing J. Rosenwald, who succeeded his father as Julius as President and later Chairman of the Board of Sears, Roebuck and Company passed away today. (As reported by Eric Pace)



1979: “Two Palestinians were killed while driving a truck bomb near a bus station in Tel Aviv.


1980(10thof Tammuz, 5740): Seventy-three year old Bialystok born American cinematographer Boris Abelevich Kaufman passed away today.



1981: Moshe Dayan announced that Israel has the capacity to make an atomic bomb.


1983: Yasser Arafat was banned from Damascus. Arafat had more enemies among the Arabs than he did among the Israelis. He was thrown out of Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

 

1983: TheNew York Times reported on Mathilde Krim's newly established AIDS Medical Foundation


1987: U.S. premiere of “Spaceballs” a comedy directed by, produced by, written by and starring Mel Brooks who shared the screen with Rick Moranis and Joan Rivers.


1992: In “Lee v Weisman” the U.S. Supreme Court protected the concept of separation of church and state by holding that “Including a clergy-led prayer within the events of a public high school graduation violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.” In this case, a Jewish family objected to a prayer at a graduation even though, in this case, it was led by a Rabbi.



1993: Yale computer science professor Dr. David Hillel Gelernter loses the sight in one eye, the hearing in one ear, and part of his right hand after receiving a mail-bomb from the Unabomber.  Gelernter is classified variously as a conservative in the true sense of the word and/or an iconoclast.  There was no apparent connection between his political beliefs and this evil deed.


1995(26th of Sivan, 5755): Esther Rome, creator of the “Women and Their Bodies” and author of Our Bodies, Ourselves passed away.


1995(26th of Sivan, 5755): Meir "Zarro" Zorea passed away. Born in Bessarabia in 1923, he made Aliyah in 1925.  During his service with the Jewish Brigade during World War II he received the Military Cross for bravery.  His service with the IDF included leading a battalion during the War of Independence, aiding in the capture of Eichmann and commanding a tank corps in the Sinai during the Six Day War. After retiring with the rank of Major General he served as a member of the Knesset.



2001: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Edward the Caresser: The Playboy Prince Who Became Edward VIIby Stanley Weintraub and Frontiers of Legal Theory by Richard Posner.


2002:”President Bush demands that the Palestinian Authority’s first step to peace begins with democratic accountability, economic reforms, and immediate cooperation in ending terrorist acts.”


2002: President Bush unveils his “vision of two states living side by side in peace and security as the key to peace, and to the roadmap as the route to get there.”


2004: Elie Wiesel was awarded the Grand Cross of Merit of the Republic of Hungary by the nation’s president today. (Eight years later the Jewish Holocaust survivor and author would repudiate the award after accusing Hungary of “whitewashing tragic, criminal episodes.”


2005: Closing session of Security Israel - The 19thannual International Homeland Security Exhibition.


2005(17th of Sivan, 5765): Paul Winchell passed away at the age of 82.  Born Paul Wilchin had a successful career as a ventriloquist and “voice actor.”  Television audiences from the 1950’s will remember him and his two wooden-headed sidekicks – Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smif.  Winchell never moved his lips.  One of his best comic bits was drinking a glass of water while Jerry Mahoney kept “talking.” (As reported by Adam Bernstein)



2005: Release date for “Bewitched” directed and co-produced by Nora Ephron with a script by Salk Saks, Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron.


2005(17thof Sivan, 5765): Ninety-six year old Yedida Shofet the former Chief Rabbi of Iran passed away in Los Angeles.


2006:  In “Another Page from an Epic Chapter,”published today Danny Rubinstein reviewed   Mihutz laofek, mi'ever larehov (Beyond the Horizon, Across the Street) by Hanoch Bartov.



2007: The opening game of the Israel Baseball League’s season takes place with the Modi’in Miracle facing the Petach Tikva Pioneers at Yarkon Sports Complex in Petah Tikva.  This is not just the first game of the season, it is the first professional baseball game played in Israel.


2007: The Sunday New York Times book section featured a review of Travis Holland’s first novel, The Archivist’s Story which revolves around the fate of the Russian-Jewish short-story master Isaac Babel, author of the inimitable Red Cavalry tales. The New York Times also reviewed The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945by Saul Friedländer. This is the second volume of Friedlander’s two-volume history of “Nazi Germany and the Jews.” The first volume, published in 1997 was entitled The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939. In these volumes, Friedländer convincingly challenges the view that the Holocaust was simply the result of bureaucrats doing what they were told.


2007: The Los Angeles Times reviewed Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder by David Weinberger.


2008: In Washington, D.C. at the National Press Club Attorney Ted Sorensen, a trusted adviser to President John F. Kennedy, discusses and signs his new memoir, Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History. When asked about his religious, this native of Lincoln, Nebraska this son of a Unitarian lawyer of Danish lineage and a mother of Russian-Jewish descent responded that  under Jewish law I am Jewish, but I consider myself Unitarian.”


2008(21st of Sivan, 5768): Ninety year old Leonid Hurwicz, the Nobel Prize winning economist passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)



2008:Sotheby's in Israel conducts an auction that is a fund-raiser for IsrALS, the local organization benefiting sufferers of the degenerative disease ALS. A selection of the 51 Israeli paintings, prints, photographs and sculptures from the 1920s until now are on exhibition prior to the auction. Curated by Nurit Tal-Tenne, works ranging from a Reuven Rubin watercolor to a Micha Baram Yom Kippur War photograph and many contemporary works, with low bid estimates from $500-$20,000, will sell in two separate lots. Artists Aliza Olmert, Zvi Lachman, Igael Tumarkin, Menashe Kadishman, David Reeb and Jan Rauchwerger, and galleries, collectors and businesses, including Bank Discount, fully or partially donated the works. The first 28 lots will sell at a private home by invitation, while 23 lots will sell in a silent auction.  This auction attests to the great strides that Israeli art is making in international markets as well as to the vitality of Israeli art as a new generation of artists takes their place alongside such local favorites as Menashe Kadishman.


2008: The Jewish Agency for Israel wrapped up a meeting of its boards of governors facing a shortfall of $20 million to $30 million in the current fiscal year and a gap of $45 million for next year’s budget caused by the steady decline of the value of the American dollar. 


2008: Three Kassam rockets hit the western Negev this afternoon, in a second violation of a cease-fire between Hamas and the Israeli government.  One of the rockets damaged a house in Sderot.


2009: Canadian born actress Neve Campbell returned to television in a starring role on NBC's The Philanthropist. The descendant of Sephardic Jews who converted to Catholicism, Campbell has said, "I am a practicing Catholic, but my lineage is Jewish, so if someone asks me if I'm Jewish, I say yes"


2009: David Makovsky, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, signs copies of his new book, Myths, Illusions, and Peace: Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East which was written with Ambassador Dennis Ross, special adviser to the secretary of state for the Gulf and Southwest Asia) at Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C.


2009: Bernard-Henri Lévy posted “a video on Dailymotion in support of the Iranian protesters who were being repressed after the contested elections.”


2010:The Leo Baeck Institute is scheduled to present a book signing and discussion feature Eric Metaxes author of the newly released Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy.”Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy


2010(12th of Tammuz, 5770_: Seventy-three year old Ben Sonnenberg the founder of the literary quarterly Grand Street passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)



2011: Downtown Shabbat featuring Robyn Helzner and Cantor Larry Paul is scheduled to take place at the Historic 6th& I Synagogue in Washington, DC.


2011: “Ghost the Musical” for which Cassie “Levy originated the role of Molly Jensen” transferred “London’s West End at the Piccadilly Theatre.”


2011: The Hebrew Educational Alliance is scheduled to sponsor “Nashira! Let Us Sing”  followed by a community Shabbat Dinner.


2011:Congregation Shaarey Zedek and the Alliance for Jewish Education are scheduled to sponsor Shabbat in the Park in Birmingham, Michigan.


2011:The Obama administration is stepping up pressure on activists planning to challenge Israel's sea blockade of the Gaza Strip, warning that they will face action from Israeli authorities and that American participants may also be violating U.S. law.


2011: The first Citizenship Ceremony was held in Dublin Castle “where new citizens swear an oath to the state and obtain their certificate of citizenship” which was the creation of Irish political leader Alan Joseph Shatter.


2012: The Los Angeles Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including HHhH, Laurent Binet’s novel about the Nazi monster Reinhard Heydrich and the two Czechoslovakian war heroes who set out to assassinate him – “Jozef Gab¿ík, a Slovak, and Jan Kubiš, a Czech, both soldiers who made their way to England after their nation was overrun by Hitler.”


2012: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Mission to Paris by Alan Furst, The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery by Witold Pilecki, Hitler by A. N. Wilson and As Consciousness Is Harnessed To Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980 by Susan Sontag. 


2012:The American Conference of Cantors-Guild of Temple Musicians' Convention is scheduled to pen in Portland, OR.


2012:HAZAK is scheduled to sponsor a docent led tour of the Columbus Museum of Art which will include a visit to the Lod Mosaic Exhibit. 


2012:The League for Yiddish and YIVO Institute are scheduled to sponsor a program in memory of Dr. Mordkhe Schaechter Z"L. during which Dr. Kalman Weiser of York University, Toronto, will speak on "Max Weinreich's Attitude to American Jews and the Beginnings of Yiddish Studies at American Universities in the 1940s.".


2012: Israeli cellist Yoed Nir is scheduled to perform at solo recital in Teaneck, NJ as part of the Classical Sunday Concert series.


2012: Dr. Bob & Laurie Silber celebrate 39 years of wedded bliss


2012:Five mortar bombs landed in the Eshkol Regional Council, ending several hours of rare calm in the south.


2012: French police said they were investigating death threats made against the country’s chief rabbi. Polices said that they are looking for people connected to a photomontage disseminated through Facebook which shows Rabbi Gilles Bernheim with a revolver pointing at his head. The picture shows Bernheim wearing a Star of David on his forehead. (As reported by Times of Israel staff)


2012:Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said tonight that Israel would respect the democratic process and the results of the vote in Egypt. Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi was declared a winner of a run-off vote for president of the country today, the first civilian and democratically elected person to hold the title.


2012: “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess” which opened in January is scheduled to have its final performance today at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in Manhattan.



2013: The Center for Jewish History and the Jewish Women’s Archives are scheduled to present “Bread and Roses, Too” a panel discussion about the role of Jewish women in the early labor movement.


2013: In San Diego, CA, the Center for Jewish Culture is schedule to host “The Merchant of Venice: What is it About Shylock and the Jews?” featuring Barry Edelstein, Artistic Director of the Old Globe and Associate
Producer of NYC’s Public Theatre’s recent Broadway production of The Merchant of Venice starring Al Pacino


2013: The 29th Annual Conference of the Association for Israel Studies is scheduled to open today in Los Angeles, CA


2013: Friends and family celebrate the 40th Wedding Anniversary of Dr. Bob and Laurie Silber.


2013: The hotly debated “Prawer bill,” regulating Beduin settlements in the Negev narrowly passed in its first Knesset reading Monday, with 43 in favor and 40 opposed. (As reported by Lahav Harkov and Ariel Ben Solomon)


2013: At least 6 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip towards southern Israel very early this morning.  (As reported by Lori Lowenthal Marcus)


2014(26thof Sivan, 5774): Ninety-eight year old multi­-talented actor Eli Wallach passed away today.



2014: The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide is scheduled to host Marina Cantacuzino who will talk about The Forgiveness Project and “forgiveness, reconciliation and conflict resolution.”


2014: “Big Bad Wolves” which was nominated for 11 Israeli Academy Awards is scheduled to be shown at the Portland (OR) Jewish Film Festival.


2014:Today “the Senate's foreign relations committee voted to forward Noah Mamet's nomination as U.S Argentina to the full Senate.”


2014: “A draft of one of the most popular songs of all time, Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone,” sold today for $2 million, which the auction house called a world record for a popular music manuscript.”


2014: “Four rockets were fired from Gaza Strip at Israel this evening, prompting the IAF to return fire and attack Gaza terror targets.” (As reported by Matan Tzuri)


2014: “Rachel Fraenkel, the mother of kidnapped teen Naftali Fraenkel, pleaded for international assistance to secure the release of her son and fellow captives Eyal Yifrach and Gil-ad Shaar, at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva” today. (As reported by Marissa Newman)


2014: Dr. Michael Steinlauf is scheduled to leave JFK today as he leads a tour of “Jewish Poland” sponsored by Gratz College.


2014: A French court drops its lawsuit against Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, ruling the French comedian’s video mocking the Holocaust doesn’t constitute hate speech. (Europe’s notoriously strict hate speech laws regulate Holocaust denial as well as “racially or religiously discriminatory expression”.) (As reported by Stephanie Butnick)


2015: In Cedar Rapids, IA, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to meet at Temple Judah where attendees will discuss The Midwife of Veniceby Roberta Rich.


2015: Hadassah Associates of Hadassah Greater Washington is scheduled to host a charity Golf Outing in support of Hadassah’s Men's Health Initiative.


2015: Steve Gimble, author of Einstein: His Space and Times is scheduled to talk about the famous scientist at the National Museum of American Jewish History.

 

 

 

 

 

This Day, June 25, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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JUNE 25

615: On three dates that the revolt began in Jerusalem again Khosrau II, the Persian Shah who was “was the last great king of the Sasanian Empire.”


1218: Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester, who expelled the Jews from Leicester, died.


1221 Although the Archbishop of Canterbury forbade anti-Jewish riots in Erfurt, Germany, they continued unabated. A group of religious 'pilgrims' on their way to the Holy Land attacked the Jewish quarter burning two synagogues. Some 26 Jews were killed and others threw themselves into the fire rather than be forcibly converted.


1240: In Paris, a commission that was making an inquiry into the nature of the Talmud with a specific interest in alleged derogatory comments about Jesus began its deliberation.

 

1240: “A public disputation” opened at the Court of Louis IX in the presence of Queen-Mother Blanche between Parisian Talmudist Rabbi Yechiel and Nicholas Donin, an apostate who wanted all copies of the Talmud to be burned.  (He would get his way in 1244 when 24 cartloads of the sacred text were burned)

 

1477: At Ferrara, Italy, Abraham die Tintori completed printing Tur Yorch De’ah a work of halacha by Jacob ben Asher. Born in Cologne in 1269 he was known as the Ba’al ha-Turim, the Master of the Rows. His works were divided in four turim or rows.  The term probably comes from the tur or row of Jewels on the breastplate of the High Priest described in the Torah.  According to sketchy information he lived in Chios, Greece before arriving at Toledo where he reportedly passed away in 1343.

 

1539: Joachim II Hector, Elector of Brandenburg acceded to the request of Josel von Rosheim and allowed the Jews to “settle in Margraviate again.


1629:  Rabbi Yom Tov Lipman Heller set out for Vienna to face baseless accusations that he had abused his powers as Chief Rabbi of Prague when raising funds demanded by the government to help pay for fighting the Thirty Years War.


1644: Lope de Vera (Judah the Believer) was drawn to Judaism by the outrages of the Inquisition. He converted, and during his confinement in prison, he circumcised himself with a bone. He was then burned for refusing to yield to the Inquisition.


1656: Rabbi Menashe Ben Yisrael applied for official permission to practice Judaism in England. The Council of State granted permission. This took place during the period when Oliver Cromwell was in effect the ruler of England. Cromwell and his followers were devout Christians. The agreed to the readmission of the Jews to England because it was pointed out to them that the Second Coming could not take place until Jews populated all parts of the world.


1756: Provincial Governor Sir Charles Hardy confirms the last will and testament of Abraham Mendes Seixas. The will had been translated from Portuguese into English.


1784: The Jewish Benevolent Society of South Carolina, the oldest Jewish charitable organization in the United States, was founded today.


1788: Virginia ratified the U.S. Constitution making it the tenth state to enter the Union.  Virginia was of the states that had purged itself of religious qualifications prior to joining the new republic.  In 1784 James Madison led the forces that defeated a move to make Christianity the official religion of Virginia.  In 1786, Jefferson and Madison joined forces “to secure passage of a law which removed religious discrimination in Virginia.


1807: Mr. R.J. Ricardo and Miss Sarah Hyams, both of Charleston, SC, were married this evening.


1827: Protestant theologian Johann Gottfried Eichorn who “has been called ‘the founder of modern Old Testament criticism’” passed away today.


1836: Birthdate of German-Jewish poet Friederike Kempner,



1844: The Jews of Mobile, Alabama, who had been meeting in private homes for the last three years formed a congregation that adopted a constitution and by-laws and titled itself "Sha'arai Shomayim U-Maskil El Dol," which is Hebrew for "Congregation of the Gates of Heaven and Society of the Friends of the Needy." Within a year the congregation hired its first rabbi – Benjamin da Silva – and had its first home on St. Emanuel Street.


1846(1stof Tammuz, 5605): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1851: Adolphus Simeon Solomons who “was a moving force in helping to establish the American Red Cross” “married Rachel Seixas Phillips, a descendant of colonial patriot families. They had eight daughters and a son.”


1856: “The Way they treat the Jew in England” published today reports that “The statesman who undertakes in England to bring forward a measure for the admission of the Jews to the same rights and privileges enjoyed by other citizens of that country, simply dooms himself to the Sisyphean labor of rolling up each year to the House of Lords a measure which is quietly rolled hack again.”


1857: At Berirth Shalom Congregation, Rabbi Jacobs officiated at the wedding of Mr. Iszair and Miss Ann Mintz.


1858: “The Jew Bill in Parliament – Prospect of a Concession” published today spoke approvingly of a compromise proposed by Lord Lucan.  His compromise would allow the Lords and the Commons to each adopt their own wording for the Oath of Office to be used by those members who, for religious or other reasons, could not use the current form of the oath. In effect, Lord Lucan’s compromise would permit either the two Houses of Parliament to admit Jews by resolution.  Since the Commons favors the admission of Jews and the Lords opposes their right to sit in Parliament, Lucan’s compromise would get the supporters of the “Jew Bill” half way to their destination.  The compromise was withdrawn because the members of the Commons objected to it.  If they had not, it appears that sufficient numbers of the Lords would have voted for it even though they object to Jews serving in either house of the English legislature.


1861: Thirty-eight year old Abdülmecid I, the 31st Sultan of the Ottoman Empire passed away. The Sultan carried out reforms begun by his fathers which among other things allowed Jews to assume positions of importance as can be seen by the appoint of Dr. Spitzer to serve as the representative at Naples.  This progress was marred by “accusations of the blood libel in Syria and Rhodes which were part of the Ottoman Empire.


1864: Charles I began his reign as the king of Württemberg during which he bought on the wooden models of the Temple Mount created by Conrad Schick, the “German architect, archaeologist and Protestant missionary who settled in Jerusalem in October of 1846.  Schick “designed the Mea Shearim neighborhood” and his home, Tabor House “is today considered one of Jerusalem’s most beautiful buildings.” (Moshe Gilad)


1865: Birthdate of Julius Hess the native of Lithuania who served as a rabbi for several Midwestern congregations while living in St. Louis which was his family’s home.


1870: Birthdate of Helena Rubinstein, one of the creators of the American cosmetics industry.


1871: The Jewish Messenger complained that while there were a number of wealthy Jews in America who were “good men and true” they seemed to be more interested in making money than they were in taking part in projects to promote the civic good.  The Messenger compared the behavior of the Americans with that of their European counter-parts who were “prominent in all public matter – whether to relieve the poor or honor the rich; to rect a statue to the living or a monument to the dead.”


1875: In Gutenberg, Germany, Isidor Straus and Rosalie Ida Blun gave birth to Jesse Isidor Straus, scion of the famous Straus department store family who served as FDR’s first Ambassador to France in 1933.

 

1875: According to a report published today there are more Jews living in London today than living in Palestine.

 

1875: The Jewish Messenger lamented the lack of involvement by “Israelite” men in the affairs of the community, especially when it came to better of civic activity and attempts to improve the lot of the less fortunate.  The paper feels that Jewish men are “good men and true” who are willing to contribute their money to worthy causes.  But they are apparently are too busy amassing wealth to give of themselves and their time.  This is the opposite of the case in Europe where wealthy Jews give both their time and money to causes that benefit both the Jewish community and the general society as well.

 

1876: The Home and Foreign Events column published today reported that "nine Jewish ministers of this City have united to call the attention of their people to the 'growing evil or extravagance and displays at funerals."  They suggest a return 'the simplicity by which Jewish funerals were formerly characterized,' and that costly caskets and expensive floral displays be dispensed with.

 

1875: George Geiger, a Jewish Sergeant from Cincinnati fought with distinction at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.  According to the commendation he received for the Medal of Honor. "With 3 comrades during the entire engagement courageously held a position that secured water for the command"

 

1876: The Home and Foreign Events column published today reported that "The Jews of Khiva, it is said, observe very strictly the feasts and ceremonies of the Jewish religion." [Khiva is a city in Uzbekistan.]

 

1876: “Justice in Persia” published today contained examples of the lack of Justice available to the residents of this ancient country including a Jewish silversmith in Isfahan whose house “had been broken into and plundered by servants of the Governor” claiming that they were going to take him “before the Prince to answer a case in which a Persian” claimed he was really owed this money.”

1879: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi David Levy officiated at the wedding of Frances E. Goldsmith and Rabbi E.S. Levy of Augusta, GA. (David Levy and E.S. Levy would serve as visiting rabbis for the congregation in Sumter, SC which could not afford a full time clergyman).

 

1881: “Paris and Politics” published today described a benefit in the French capital sponsored by Baroness Rothschild to raise funds for the suffering “Israelites of Kiev and Elizabethgrad.” Russia.


1882: During today’s session of the hearing investigating the sanity of Samuel Obrieght, his brother Dr. Max, L. Obreight described half dozen attempts by Samuel to commit suicide including taking strychnine, attempting to jump over Niagara Falls and trying to cut his throat.  Obreight’s family did not move to commit him until he jilted his Jewish fiancée and married a young Christian girl whom he had just met.


1883: Mayor Nathan Barnet got into a scuffle with a Republican Alderman at tonight’s meeting of the Aldermanic License Committee in Paterson, NJ. Barnet, a Jew born in Pozen is a Democrat won election in April of 1883.


1884: Birthdate of British novelist of Gilbert Cannan who was a friend and patron of  Mark Gertler and the subject of his “Gilbert Cannan at his Mill.”



1884: “Jew-Baiting in Russia” published today described an attack by Christians on the Jews of Nizhnee-Novogrod after reports that a Jew had kidnapped a Christian child and taken it to the local synagogue. An untold number of Jews were injured in this latest version of the blood libel and nine were murdered.


1886: The Sanitarium for Hebrew Children is collecting funds to provide poor children and their mothers with summer day trips out of New York City.  Contributions can be sent to John J. Davis at the office of the Hebrew Journal on East 14th Street.


1888: “Jew and Catholic United” published today described the marriage of Joseph J. Herrmann (Catholic) and Bertha Cahn (Jewish) in New Orleans.  Rabbi Emile Hirsch of Chicago performed the ceremony since the rabbis in the Crescent City refused to do so.


1888: It was reported today that Orphan Asylum of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society is caring for 575 youngsters, 400 of whom are boys and 175 are girls.  The boys are housed at building on 11th Avenue while the girls are housed at a building on 87thStreet near the East River.


1891: “Too Many and Too Mighty” published today takes issue with the list of the reasons given by the Russian government for its treatment of the Jews contending that “cruel restrictive laws…have made the Hebrews in the Czar’s dominions what they are.”


1891: “Wants To Fight Tammany” published today described the decision of New York attorney William A. Gans who had served as the President of the B’nai B’rith to ally himself with Julius Harburger in the fight against the Democratic machine.


1891: Point 14 of the platform of the Iowa Democratic Party published today included an expression for the support of Russian Jews.  “We abhor the persecutions of Russia toward the Jewish people and we believe that all civilized nations should protest against such barbarism and inhumanity.


1892: The new sanitarium for Jewish children is scheduled to open today at Rockaway Park.


1892: The Jews of Paris send condolences to the family of Armand Meyer, the Jewish French military officer who was killed in a duel brought on by the Marquis de Mores, a noted anti-Semite. Authorities take extra precaution because they fear violence by the Jews.  The reality is that the Jews have been the victims of attacks, something which does not bother these same officials.


1892: “The French Duel” published today described the role of “an anti-Semitic journal in Paris” which deliberately goads Jews into fighting duels with the swashbuckling swordsman the Marquis de Mores who at least on one occasion has killed his Jewish opponent.


1892: The Berlin Board of Alderman passed a resolution “calling upon the police to suppress the sale of indecent pamphlets assailing the Jews.”


1893: All the students at the Jewish Theological Seminary including the members of the senior, junior and preparatory classes underwent final exams today.


1893: “French Views of Russia” published today provided a detailed review of The Empire of the Tsars and The Russians by Anatole Leroy-Beauliue which warns that “Western readers cannot apply to Russia rules and notions which prevail in the West” because Russia belongs “to the Europe of three or four centuries ago.


1894: Governor Flower appointed Edward Jacobs, a New York lawyer who was the brother of the Joseph Jacobs both of whom were active in the Jewish community, to serve as the new Quarantine Commissioner.


1894(21st of Sivan, 5654): Sixty-eight year old Wilhelm Diamant, the husband of Johanna Theres Diament and the son of Johanna and Hermann Diamant passed away today in Budapest.


1894: The Hog and the Ass” published today described the ancient Roman on why Jews do not eat pigs. Even though Pompey and the soldiers of Titus saw that there was no representation of the Divinity when they entered the Temple, Romans still believed that “Jews worshipped clouds, celestial bodies and animals” among them the Hog or Pig.  They deduced that since the Jews were forbidden from eating Hogs or even, in the Talmud, from owning them, the Jews must worship this animal and the prohibition about consuming it had do with not consuming their “god.”


1894: “Last of Great Jewish Generals” published today provided a detailed reviews of Judas Maccabaeus and the Jewish War of Independence by Calude Reignier Conder. This edition is an improvement over the first one published by Major Condor fifteen years ago because the author has been to Moab and Gilead in his role as the head of the Palestine Exploration Fund.


1894: Annie Cohen Kopchovsky’s, known as Annie Londonderry,adventure began with a bet. In 1894, a gentleman in Boston bet another gentleman, $20,000 against $10,000, that no woman could travel around the world by bicycle, a feat that had been completed for the first time by a man in 1885. Although it is not clear why she was chosen, Annie Cohen Kopchovsky set out from Boston, to attempt the journey. Married and a mother of three children under age six; she was an unlikely choice but a good example of the ways that the bicycle was transforming women's lives. Besides providing women with a respectable form of independent transportation, the popularity of the bicycle led to changes in women's dress, for example, as bloomers replaced unwieldy and inconvenient full skirts.


1896: In New York, a body of a young man who would later be identified as 25 year old Simon Mischel an unmarried Jew residing on Delancey Street was found floating in the Clyde River.


1896: A summary of the United Hebrew Charities activity report the month of May published today showed that 3,355 had applied for aid and that over $12,000 had been spent in meeting their needs and the needs of previous applicants.  The organization found work for 538 people and provided transportation for an additional 157 people to travel to other parts of the United States.


1897: Rabbi Isaac Ruff wrote Declaration versus Declaration which appeared in today’s issue of Die Welt. This was defense of Herzl who had been attacked by the anti-Zionist “Protest Rabbis.”


1897: In an example of Jew supporting Jew it was reported today that the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Band had provided the musical program at the recent graduating exercises for the students of the Hebrew Technical Institute.


1897: “Jacob Scholle’s Bequests” published today contained a list of the charities that were to receive $2, 500 according to the late bankers will including the Montefiore Home, Mount Sinai Hospital, Hebrew Orphan Asylum, Home for  Aged and Infirm Hebrews and the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of San Francisco.


1898(5th of Tammuz, 5658): Seventy year old Ferdinand Julius Cohn “one of the founders of modern bacteriology and microbiology” passed away today.



1899: It was reported today that officers of the newly formed Orthodox Hebrew Society are President - Dr. Bernard Drachman, the Rabbi of Congregation Zichron Ephraim and Vice President Max Cohen, a New York attorney.  The Society was formed to promote traditional Jewish observance in the face of the growing popularity of the Reform Movement.


1899: In London, Herzl takes part in the Conference of the English Zionist Federation. Herzl says that he wants to obtain a Charter from the Turkish government, in order to colonize Palestine under the sovereignty of the Sultan. The conference ends on July 1st.


1899: “The Jews of Germany” published today described the “continuing Jew-baiting crusade” being conducted by Count Puckler.  During his lectures in Berlin he “invited his audience to wage a merciless was on ‘godless, lying, thievish Jews.’”


1899:”Fears that Dreyfus May Be Assassinated” published today described precautions being taken at Rennes where the court-martial of the French officer is taking place including placing “Gendarmes…at every corner” and the testing of all food supplied to him by his jailers before it is eaten.


1899: “France’s New Cabinet and its Peculiar Composition” published today described the difficulty that Gallic politicians are having in forming a new government in the wake of the ongoing crisis surrounding the Dreyfus Affair.


1900: In New York City, David Eichler and Anna Strauss gave birth to real estate developer Joseph Eichler.



1900: Birthdate of Moses Hadas, an American teacher, one of the leading classical scholars of the twentieth century, and a translator of numerous works. Raised in Atlanta in a Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jewish household, his early studies included rabbinical training; he graduated from Jewish Theological Seminary of America (1926) and took his doctorate in classics in 1930. He was fluent in Yiddish, German, ancient Hebrew, ancient Greek, Latin, French, and Italian, and well-versed in other languages. His most productive years were spent at Columbia University, where he was a colleague of Jacques Barzun and Lionel Trilling. There, he took his talent for languages, combined it with a popularizing impulse, to buck the prevailing classical methods of the day—textual criticism and grammar—presenting classics, even in translation, as worthy of study as literary works in their own right. This approach may be compared to the New Criticism school: even as the New Critics emphasized close reading, eschewing outside sources and cumbersome apparatus, Hadas, in presenting classical works in translation to an influx of post-war G.I. Bill students, brought forth an appreciation of his domain for those without the specialized training of classicists. His popularizing impulse led him to embrace television as a tool for education, becoming a telelecturer and a pundit on broadcast television. He also recorded classical works on phonograph and tape. His daughter Rachel Hadas is a poet, teacher, essayist, and translator. He passed away in 1966.


1901: Eighty-seven year old Charles Kensington Salaman who passed away two days ago, was described today as “the oldest living English composer” who, in the last years of his life was best “known as the man who alone of living men, knew many of the great masters of composition of the early part of the nineteenth century.” This meant that that the late Jewish composer knew Mendelssohn, Listz, Schumann, Mayerbeer and Wagner (and a whole lot more)


1902(20th of Sivan, 5662) Samuel Edward Shrimski the native of Prussia who moved to London in 1847, then to Melbourne in 1859 before settling in New Zealand in 1861 where he became a Member of Parliament died suddenly today. In addition to supporting many secular institutions he was “vice president of the Otago branch of the Anglo-Jewish Association.


1903:  Birthdate of English author and social commentator George Orwell.  Orwell is best known for such works as “1984” and “Animal Farm.”  A lesser known work is his essay entitled “Anti-Semitism in Britain.”  First published in 1945, this short article examines the conditions of the Jewish population in Britain and calls for an examination of the causes of anti-Semitism now that World War II was coming to an end.


1903(30thof Sivan, 5663): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1904(12thof Tammuz, 5664): In Greenville, MS, sixty year old Edward Storm passed away.  Born in Berlin he moved to Mississippi and served in two Confederate cavalry units during the Civil War.


1909: Birthdate of Daniel Fuchs, a writer who was a product of the Lower East Side and Williamsburg which provided the backdrop of “three early novels – Summer in Willamsbrg, Homage to Blenholt and Low Company.


1909: Hebert Louis Samuel, the 1st Viscount Samuel began his term as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the government of Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith.


1911:  Birthdate of biochemist William Stein.  Stein won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1972. Jews have won 18% of the Nobel Prizes for Chemistry.  Stein died at the age of 68 in 1980.


1912: Birthdate of “Arnold Forster, an American Jewish leader, lawyer and writer who was a longtime executive of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.”


1913: In Cincinnati, Ohio, officers are elected at the American Zionists’ convention including Harry Friedenwald of Baltimore who is chosen to serve as Honorary President and Louis Lipsky who is chosen to serve as Chairman of the Executive Committee.


1914(1stof Tammuz, 5674): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1914: It was reported today that the late Isidor Wormser, a retired banker and automobile racing enthusiast was a member of the New York Stock Exchange up to the day of his death having kept is seat on the NYSE even after he had liquidated his business holdings.


1915(13th of Tammuz, 5675): Hungarian born American pianist and composer Rafael Joseffy passed away.


1915: “In a long statement seeking to justify the use of asphyxiating gases in war-fare, the semi-official Wolff Telegraph Bureau assert in German newspaper…that the Allies first used such gases against the German.”  According to Wolff, the French had authorized use gas in February of 1915. [Like so many other agencies of this type, its ownership had Jewish origins.]


1915: Authorities believe that yesterday’s attack on Benny Snyder at the Tombs just before he was to appear in court was brought on by those who thought that he was going to provide the D.A. with information about criminal activities he had acquired while in jail.


1917: The Italian government publishes a decree assuring that all 10,000 Lire ($2,000) of a bequest from Emilio Treves will be awarded as a prize upon publication of an Italian language manuscript to combat anti-Semitism.  


1919: The first national conference of the Religious Zionist Organization, Mizrachi, opens.


1920: The Jewish Chronicle reported on a meeting of the Board of Deputies where they discussed the disposition of the Cemetery at St. Heliers.
 

1920: In St Anne's-on-Sea, Lancashire, England, Maurice Copisarow “who in 1915 co-authored a paper on Chemistry with Chaim Weizmann” and his wife gave birth to Alcon Charles Copisarow who “held serveral Civil Service and other governmental posts” before being knighted in 1988.


1920: Birthdate of William H. Prusoff, a pharmacologist at the Yale School of Medicine who, with a colleague, developed an effective component in the first generation of drug cocktails used to treat AIDS,


1921: Authorities in Syria do not issue passes to Jews who wish to leave the country.


1921: In Newport News, VA, Mr. and Mrs. Elias Cohen gave birth to Sherman Cohen “a one-time auto dealer who, with his two brothers, built a real estate empire of more than 20 residential and commercial buildings across Manhattan…” (As reported by Charles V. Bagli)


1923: Opening of the Summer Edition of the Ziegfeld Follies featuring songs, sketches written and performed by Eddie Cantor.


1924: In Philadelphia, PA, Polish born actor Baruch Lumet and Mrs. Lumet gave birth to Director Sidney Lumet best known for the film Dog Day Afternoon


1928: Birthdate of Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov, Russian born physicist who now also holds American citizenship.  He was a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2003.


1929: Birthdate of Thomas Eisner, “a groundbreaking authority on insects whose research revealed the complex chemistry that they use to repel predators, attract mates and protect their young, Thomas Eisner, a groundbreaking authority on insects whose research revealed the complex chemistry that they use to repel predators, attract mates and protect their young,”


1930: Rabbi Stephen S. Wise is scheduled to officiate at the funeral of Rabbi Maurice H. Harris which is being held this morning at the Free Synagogue. (JTA)


1930: Birthdate of Hugo Gabriel Gryn, the Czech born survivor of Auschwitz who served as the Rabbi at West London Synagogue.


1930: The two-day celebration of opening of the Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva founded by Rabbi Meir Shapiro came to an end.


1932(21st of Sivan, 5692): Herbert Bentwich passed away in Jerusalem. Born in 1856, at Whitechapel, he was a British Zionist leader and lawyer. “He was an authority on copyright law, and owner/editor of the Law Journal for many years. He was a leading member of the English Hovevei Zion and one of the first followers of Theodor Herzl in England. In 1897 Bentwich he led a group of 21, including the writer Israel Zangwill, on a tour of holy sites and new settlements in Palestine on behalf of the Maccabaeans, and in 1911 he acquired land for settlement at Gezer, near Ramleh on behalf of the Maccabean Land Company. He later succeeded his brother-in-law Solomon J. Solomon as president of the Maccabaeans. Bentwich was a founder of the British Zionist Federation in 1899 and for some time served as its vice-chairman. He was a legal adviser for the Jewish Colonial Trust. From 1916 to 1918 he served on the Zionist political advisory committee under Chaim Weizmann. Bentwich was a regular visitor to Palestine after 1921 and settled in Jerusalem in late 1929. Susannah Bentwich died in London in 1915. He was survived by ten of his eleven children, eight of whom eventually settled permanently in Palestine. His eldest son, Norman Bentwich, a leading barrister, also spent much of his professional life there, and another son, Joseph Bentwich, was awarded the Israel Prize, for education, in 1962.”


1933: Outfielder Milt Galatzer made his major league debut with the Cleveland Indians.


1935: Joe Louis defeats Primo Carnera at Yankee Stadium.  Neither of the fighters was Jewish.  But Joe Louis’ manager Mike Jacobs was Jewish.  It was under his guidance that Louis broke the “color barrier” and got his shot at being Heavy Weight Champion of the World.


1936: The Palestine Post reported that Haim Golowitzky, one of the founders of Atarot who was on his way to milk cows, was shot dead by Arab snipers, just outside his cowshed. Passengers in a Jewish bus in Haifa had a remarkable escape from death when they succeeded in extinguishing burning fuses in a suitcase left by an Arab passenger who jumped off their bus. British troops continued their searches and confiscated arms in Arab villages throughout the country. It was estimated that no fewer than 100,000 trees had been destroyed and another 12,000 damaged by Arabs since April 19, 1936.


1936: Last broadcast of Camel Caravan a radio show that showcased several talented musicians including Benny Goodman.


1937: U.S. premiere of “North of the Rio Grande” a western film featuring Lee J. Cobb as “RR President Wooden.”


1938: As Arab violence flared, “a gain of terrorist entered a hospital in Haifa seeking a wounded Arab ‘traitor’ who was a patient there.”  When they could not find him, “they killed another Arab patient. “A manifesto issued today by the Tel Aviv municipality called on Jews to remain calm and not resort to violence.


1938: Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the U.S. adopts a minimum wage which is set at $.40 an hour. Sidney Hillman, head of the “Amalgamated” and advisor to FDR played a key role in drafting and gaining support for this landmark legislation. 


1938: German-Jewish doctors are allowed to treat only Jewish patients.


1940:  France formally surrenders to Nazi Germany.


1940: As Churchill works to transfer the eleven battalions of Regular British troops from Palestine back to England so that they help defend the British Isles against the pending Nazi invasion, he writes to the Secretary of State for Colonies, Lord Lloyd, asking “what weapons and organization the Jews have for self-defense.”  Churchill wants to arm the Jews so they can protect themselves against Arab attackers.  Lloyd opposes the arming of the Jews and would rather have the British troops remain. 

1941: Members of the Lithuanian militia marched Jews to the Seventh Fort in Kovno where they would be murdered after suffering abuse at the hands of the local sadists.



1941: “President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 8802 prohibiting government contractors from engaging in employment discrimination based on race, color or national origin. This order is the first presidential action ever taken to prevent employment discrimination by private employers holding government contracts. The Executive Order applies to all defense contractors, but contains no enforcement authority. President Roosevelt signs the Executive Order primarily to ensure that there are no strikes or demonstrations disrupting the manufacture of military supplies as the country prepares for War.”  By the standards of the 21stcentury, this action might seem “weak.”  But it gives us an idea of the level of bigotry which was sanctioned in the society.  At the time Roosevelt signed this order it was considered a major step in the fight against prejudice.


1941 (30th of Sivan, 5701): Many Jews were killed in a pogrom at Jassy, Romania.  The following appears in The Tragedy of Romanian Jewry by Randolph L. Braham."At the outbreak of the war, Jassy had a population of slightly over 100,000 inhabitants, approximately 50,000 of whom were Jews. The city was very close to the frontier with the Soviet Union, and even before launching the anti-Soviet war on June 22, 1941, a number of secret anti-Semitic measures had been initiated in Romania. Between June 20 and 26 the Jews of Jassy were forced to dig two large mass graves in the Pacurari Jewish cemetery. About the same time, the Soviet air force bombed Jassy twice, the second time inflicting serious damage. The rumor spread that Soviet paratroopers were active throughout the city and that these paratroopers were being given shelter by the Jews. On the morning of 29 June, 1941, Jews were formed into columns and marched from Tatarasi, Pacurari, Sararie, and Nicolina Streets to police headquarters. Most of the prisoners were men but among them were also some women with children. Some were dressed, others were in their night clothes many had been beaten and had bruises and open wounds.  Civilian onlookers as well as soldiers and gendarmes, Romanian and German spat at them and hit them with stones, broken bottles, clubs, crowbars and rifle butts. Civilians joined the police and the military in dragging Jews out of their homes. All told, thousands of Jews were herded into the courtyard of the Jassy police headquarters. In another report, addressed to the Minister of the Interior, Lieutenant-Colonel Chirlovici, reported 1,000 Jewish prisoners at 9:00 a.m. and 5,000 by nightfall. He stated that at noon there were 3,500 Jews in the courtyard. At about 1:30 PM German soldiers and Romanian gendarmes and soldiers surrounded police headquarters and an area close by. At about 2:00 p.m., the German and Romanian soldiers began to fire directly into the crowds; they were joined by some civilians. They used machine-guns, automatic weapons, or rifles. Crazed with terror some Jews tore down the fence of the courtyard and tried to take refuge near the Sidoli cinema ... They too were mowed down without mercy. The massacre continued intermittently until 6:00 p.m. It is difficult to establish the number of victims of the massacre at police headquarters. Four trucks and 24 carts transported the corpses; it took two whole days to move them. Approximately 2,500 Jews survived the massacre in the police headquarters courtyard. At about 8:00 p.m. the process of getting them to the railroad station began. Two thousand five hundred Jews were herded were herded into freight cars. The train left Jassy on June 30, 1941 between 3:30 and 4:15 a.m. At about 4:00 a.m. the same morning, a second group of approximately 1,900 Jews to be evacuated were rounded up at police headquarters. Two death trains left Jassy between 3:30 and 4:15 a.m. on Monday, June 30, 1941. The first one ... consisted of from 33 to 38 sealed freight cars and contained between 2,430 and 2,530 Jews. When the train was emptied there were 1,076 survivors.]The history of the second car is ... equally horrifying. On June 30, 1941 at about 6:00 A.M., 1,902 Jews were loaded onto a second train comprising 18 cars. Of the 1,902 Jews put on the train, 1,194 died and were buried in the Podul Iloaei cemetery. The total number of victims of the Jassy pogrom cannot be established with certainty. While the number of victims on the trains is known and relatively accurate, it is not known how many Jews in Jassy were buried in communal graves, how many such graves there were, and how many corpses were simply thrown onto garbage heaps or into the Bahlui River. German diplomats estimated at least 4,000 victims... The most reliable source seems to be documents from the archives of the Romanian Ministry of the Interior which ... place the number at over 8,000."


1941 (30th of Sivan, 5701): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1941: Soviets renew the attacks on Finland that had been part of the earlier “Winter War” with a large air attack on the Fins.


1941 (30th of Sivan, 5701): In the town of Luck, Poland, Dr. Benjamin From aged forty-seven refused to stop operating on a Christian woman, so he was dragged out of operating room, taken to his home and killed with his entire family.


1941(30thof Sivan, 5701): Ninety year old “German mathematician and patron of the arts” Alfred Pringsheim passed away in Zurich where he had been forced to flee by the Nazis.



1941 (30th of Sivan, 5701): In Jedwabne, Poland, local Polish citizenry begin a pogrom aimed at the Jews living in the town.


1942: An article in the London Daily Telegraph reports, "More than 700,000 Polish Jews have been slaughtered by the Germans in the greatest massacres in the world's history."


1943: Crematorium III at Auschwitz begins operation. Also, Otto Ben, from the Foreign Ministry reports that the “100,000th Jews has been removed from Dutch Society.”


1943: The Germans began the final destruction of the people living in the Czestochowa Ghetto. The Jews put up armed resistance in a series of bunkers. Czestochowa is located in Poland and is famous as the home of the "Black Madonna."


1944: In Brooklyn Anne Goldberg, a bookkeeper and postal worker George Goldberg gave birth to Gary David Goldberg who would gain fame as television producer and writer.



1945: Birthdate of singer and songwriter Carley Simon who recorded “You’re So Vain” among other hits


1947: The Diary of Anne Frankis published.


1948:  Birthdate of Brooklyn-born actor and television director Michael Lembeck


1948: Warner Bros. released “Romance on the High Seas” a musical comedy written by Julius and Philip G. Epstein with additional dialogue proved by I.A.L. Diamond today.


1950: Birthdate of Israeli actress Nitza Saul.


1950:  The beginning of the Korean War, with the invasion of the South by the North. Jews fought in the Korean War just as they had in every war since the call to arms went out in 1775. See http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/sugar10.html for a partial list of those who served. In an article entitled “Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in North Korea, 1951, Remembered,” Warren Zundell, MD (Captain, 11th Evacuation Hospital SMBL, 10th Corp. 8th Army, Korea) provides us with a glimpse of what it was like during what some derisively called a “police action.”

These evenings occurred years ago, but every Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, they return as vividly as if they happened last year.In May, 1951, my hospital unit was transported from Sasebo, Japan to Pusan, Korea. I was on the Orthopedic Surgery Team. Five months later, on the day before Rosh Hashanah, our hospital Chaplain (a Catholic priest), asked me if I was planning to attend services the next day, being conducted some 40 or 50 miles north of our location, just over the 36th parallel, in North Korea. We were in Wonju, South Korea. I knew the Rabbi who was to conduct the services, as he would visit our hospital from time to time. Knowing this would be a 40 or 50 mile trek through sniper-infested mountains, I answered negatively, even though I knew that the Rabbi might be disappointed. The following conversation then ensued:

Chaplain: You have to go.

Me: Why do I have to go?

Chaplain: There are about 30 Jewish boys around here who want to go.

Me: So let them go.

Chaplain: An Officer has to go to be in charge of the convoy.

Me: Why me? I am a Doctor.

Chaplain: You are the only Jewish Officer in this hospital, so you go. He was a Major, I was a Captain. I think he was giving me a direct order. He then informed me that he would lend me his jeep in which to head the convoy of trucks. It had a big white cross on the front hood, which he implied would protect us from sniper fire. He didn’t say anything about land mines. That afternoon we assembled the convoy and headed North. It may have been the first all-Jewish convoy in the history of Korea. As Jews, we were not fully convinced that the white cross would totally protect us from sniper fire. We were therefore well-armed. A few uneventful hours later we crossed the 38th parallel into North Korea. We were making Jewish history. Soon we checked into 10th Corp. HW. The Rabbi (Major Meir Engle) seemed happy to see us. The next day was Rosh Hashanah. We had a big tent in which to hold services. There were about 300 Jewish boys attending, including my 30. I was proud to be there. After services we reassembled our convoy and returned to our hospital, without incident. When Yom Kippur came, I was called upon by the Chaplain again. I didn’t want to push my luck, with a baby daughter back home whom I had never seen. Nevertheless, I soon found myself in the same Jewish convoy. But between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, there had been heavy fighting on the 10th Corp. Front. Instead of 300 Jewish boys attending Yom Kippur services, there were less than 150. Korea is now referred to as the "Forgotten War". What it really means is that this country has literally forgotten the more than 34,000 Americans who died there, including those Jewish boys who died between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in the year 1951."

 Korea also presented the newly independent state of Israel with one of its first great foreign policy challenges not directly related to the Middle East or its own immediate survival.  Israel’s shifting policy, as described below, demonstrated how quickly conflict in the Middle East and conflict in the Far East were joined together because of the Cold War.  The shift also resulted, in part, from the Soviet Union’s change of policy towards Israel.  Stalin’s smile quickly turned sour, while Harry Truman’s never did. “Israel's foreign policy underwent a change during the Korean War. In the first two years after its establishment, Israel maintained a stance of nonalignment. However, it became clear from the anti-Jewish attitude of the Communist bloc and especially Joseph Stalin that strengthening relations with the United States was the only way to safeguard Israel's continued existence and long-term interests. Both Israel's foreign and domestic policy during the Korean War reflected a growing U.S. influence, which has only deepened with time. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion went one step further during the Korean War when he suggested that an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) unit be sent to join the UN forces fighting North Korea and the Chinese volunteers. A debate broke out in Israel over whether it should provide support to U.S. and UN policies given that Washington had made no such request. The leading opponent of sending an IDF unit was the political party Mapam, which was part of the governing coalition and openly favored North Korea. With the Achdut Ha'Avoda party, another member of the coalition, also against the measure, the government decided to limit its assistance to medical aid and food shipments. In addition, Israel lent political support during the UN deliberations on whether its troops should cross the 38th parallel northward. In February 1951, the UN General Assembly condemned China as the aggressor and placed a boycott on certain strategic supplies to China. Here, too, Israel continued to side with the United States, the United Nations, and South Korea, though formal diplomatic ties with the latter were still more than a decade away. From the 1951 ideological debate between the Israeli parties until 1960, there were no initiatives on the question of relations with South Korea.”


1950: Israeli airline El Al began service. Anybody who has ever flown El Al to Israel knows there is flying and then there is flying El Al. As an early target of terrorist, El Al adopted policies that have made it the safest airline in the world. Its anti-terrorist practices have served as a model for other airlines as they have been confronted with similar challenges.


1950: The outbreak of the Korean War delayed the build of a new Jewish Community Center in Salt Lake City Utah delaying its completion until 1959.


1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that 20 lists of parties were registered for the Second Knesset elections.
Israel and Switzerland decided to establish diplomatic relations. The quality of sweets had improved, but the quality of beverages had deteriorated, according to the Quality Control Department of the Ministry of Agriculture.


1952: A government spokesman reported that an Israeli army patrol had shot three Arabs who were trying to enter Israel from Jordan.


1953:Robert and Gérald Finaly, two Jewish children, who were hidden during the Occupation by a Catholic network, were brought back to France from Spain where they had been by Catholics who did want to return to Jewish authorities.


1961: The Carpetbaggers by Harold Robbins was number 9 on the New York Times bestseller list on the same day that Murray Schumach began his review of the novel with "It was not quite proper to have printed The Carpetbaggers between covers of a book. It should have been inscribed on the walls of a public lavatory."


1962:  The U.S. Supreme Court decides that non-denominational prayer allowed in New York States is an unconstitutional violation of the separation of church and state.


1964: U.S. premiere of “Circus World” produced by Samuel Brontson, with a script co-authored by Ben Hecht and music by Dimitri Tiomkin who won a Golden Globe for his effort.


1965: When followed home from a meeting of Canadian Nazis,Henryk Van der Windt tells the Toronto Star that he working under cover for the Canadian Jewish Congress who had hired him to spy on Nazi leader John Beattie.  For more on this see “Delayed Impact” by Frank Bialystok.


1966(7th of Tammuz, 5726): Sixty-six year old Mose “Moe” Solomon whose major league career consisted of two games with the New York Giants passed away today.



1967: After 1,530 performances Neil Simon’s “Barefoot in the Park” finished its first Broadway run today.


1968: Herb Gray began serving as a Member of Parliament for Windsor West.


1972: Sir Joshua Abraham Hassan began serving his second term as Chief Minister of Gibraltar.


1974(5th of Tammuz, 5734): Eighty-one year old Hungarian physicist and mathematician Cornellius Lanczos who “served as assistant to Albert Einstein during the period of 1928–29” passed away today.


1976: “Notes on People” published today described the release of Morton Sobell “who served part of a 30-year sentence to commit espionage in the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg treason case” “from having to report periodically to a probation as condition of his parole


1976: It was reported today Dr. Saul Lieberman and Dr. Herman F. Marks “are this year’s recipients of the Israel Institute of Technology’s annual $35,000 Harvey Prize. Seventy-eight year old Lieberman, the rector of JTS, was recognized for his “research on Palestine in the Greek and Roman eras and his two books on Jewish life in the Hellenistic period.  Eighty-one year old Marks, the dean emeritus of the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn “was honored for his pioneering research in synthetic fibers.”


1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that Foreign Minister Yigal Allon and his West German counterpart, Hans Genscher, signed in Bonn an agreement which could secure and encourage large German investment in Israel.


1977(9th of Tammuz, 5737): Fifty year old Sue Kaufman the novelist best known for The Diary of a Mad Housewife passed away today.


1979(30thof Sivan, 5739): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1979(30thof Sivan, 5739): Seventy-three year old portrait photographer Philippe Halsman passed away.




1987:  Pope John Paul II received Austrian President Kurt Waldheim at the Vatican.  Apparently the Pope was able to overlook Waldheim's Nazi past.  But then he was not alone.  The United Nations also could overlook it when he was chosen Secretary-General.  "Never forget" - ah what short memories.


1988(10thof Tammuz, 5748):  Twenty-six year old Israeli-born, American musician Hillel Slovak, the original guitarist with Red Hot Chili Peppers, passed away.


1990: Geula Cohen began service as Deputy Science and Technology Minister.


1990: A disagreement appeared to break out today among the leaders of Israel's new Government over whether Soviet Jewish immigrants would be settled in the occupied territories. The dispute adds further confusion to Housing Minister Ariel Sharon's statement that the migrants would not be settled in occupied land..


1993: Premiere of “Sleepless in Seattle” directed by Nora Ephron who also co-authored the script, featuring Rob Reiner, with music by Marc Shaiman


1996: The Landmarks Preservation Commission adds the Aguilar Branch of the New York Library to its list.



1998: Pitcher Mike Saipe made his major league debut with the Colorado Rockies.

2000:The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including A Little Too Close to God:The Thrills and Panic of a Life in Israel by David Horovitz and Life So Far by Betty Friedan.


2003: Former head the Shin Bet and Commander-in-Chief Ami “Ayalon launched, together with Palestinian professor Sari Nusseibeh, a peace initiative called "The People's Voice" the goal of which is to collect as many signatures of Israelis and Palestinians as possible for the peace plan guidelines supporting a two-state solution without the right of return for Palestinian refugees


2006: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Bronfamns: The Rise and Fall of the House of Seagram by Nicholas Faith and Failed States by Noah Chomsky.


2006: In an article entitled “The Killing after the Killing” Elie Weisel reviews of Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz by Jan T. Gross.


2006: IDF Corporal Galid Shalit is kidnapped by Hamas terrorists. An armed squad of Palestinians terrorists from the Gaza Strip crossed the border into Israel via a 300-meter-long underground tunnel they dug near the Kerem Shalom border crossing. One group of militants blasted the rear door of a Merkava III tank open with a rocket-propelled grenade shell. The tank commander and the driver were killed when they evacuated the burning tank. The tank’s gunner, Gilad Shalit, was only lightly wounded and taken prisoner by the militants. A fourth member on the tank crew was injured in the incident and escaped.


2007: Inthe newly minted Israel Baseball League, four teams debut with Netanya Tigers vs. Bet Shemesh Blue Sox at Kibbutz Gezer Field and Ra'anana Express vs. Tel Aviv Lightning at Sportek in Tel Aviv.


2007: Kevin Youkilis played in his 120th consecutive game at first base without an error, breaking the prior Red Sox record set in 1921 by Stuffy McInnis


2007: The Israel Museum in Jerusalem presents the first of five lectures by painter Meir Appelfeld and painter and art critic Dror Burstein entitled “Five Comments on the Language of Painting.”


2008:  The Jerusalem Kabbala Museum opens in the city's Nahlaot neighborhood.


2008: In an article in The New Republic entitled “Genes and Identities,” Jerome Groopman reviews Jacobs’s Legacy: A Genetic View of Jewish History by David Goldstein.


2008: In Kensington, Maryland, Poet Gretchen Primack, who “lives in the delightfully Jewish feminist-rich Hudson Valley” reads from her new work  The Slow Creaking of Planets as part of the poetry series at the Kensington Row Bookshop.


2008: In Jerusalem, at 8 p.m., the Bridge of Strings, popularly known as the Calatrava Bridge, will be inaugurated at a dazzling celebration complete with performances by David De'or, Dudu Fisher, the Jerusalem Dance Troupe and hundreds of dancers - at a cost of NIS 2 million.

 

2009: In Des Moines, Iowa, AIPAC hosts The 2009 Iowa Annual Event featuring Aharon Barnea

 Anchorman and Senior Correspondent in the USA, Channel 2 TV News, Israel with a Special Address by Krista Allen AIPAC Campus Liaison at Louisiana State University who will describe her recent maiden visit to Israel and how a Catholic student from Louisiana became engaged as a pro-Israel political activist

 

 

2009:The Montreal International Yiddish Theater Festival comes to a close.

 

2009:The opening day of G'day Shalom Salaam Israel, presented by the Australia Israel Cultural Exchange, floods the Jewish state with the flavor of Australia.

 

2009:New York City police arrested two youth who vandalized two Lower East Side synagogues on Thursday with eggs, smoke bombs, and swastikas. The teenagers, a 15-year old Asian and a 16-year old black, drew a large swastika on the United Hebrew Center on East Broadway.  The two then set off a smoke bomb before heading to the Bialystoker synagogue on Willet Street, where they drew a second swastika and through eggs at the building. The attacks occurred only a few days after eight Jewish children were injured in Williamsburg, Brooklyn after a resident of a Latino block across the street threw a bottle with dangerous chemicals at them. That attack is not officially categorized as a bias crime, however. Police plan on charging the Lower East Side vandals with the hate crimes of aggravated harassment, criminal mischief and reckless endangerment. “This is a desecration of G-d, no matter what your religion,” said New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who attends the Bialystoker synagogue. “It is just a despicable act that really should tug at the heartstrings of all of us.” State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced that the Civil Rights Bureau would open an investigation into the crime calling it “outrageous and deeply disturbing.”

 

 2009 (3rd Tammuz): Third of Tammuz marks the Rebbe’s Yahrzeit. “The day of passing of a holy tzadik is an auspicious day to reflect and bond with the tzadik’s soul by studying from his teachings as well as to ask the soul to intercede on High on our behalf, especially as it ascends even higher on his Yahrzeit.” click here to read more about the anniversary of the Rebbe's passing . Rabbi Pinchas Ciment will join tens of thousands of other people from around the world to pray at the Rebbe’s resting place, The Ohel .

 

2009: Some 2,000 Israelis gathered in front of the Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv today to mark three years to the day in which Israel Defense Forces Gilad Shalit fell into captivity in a cross-border raid by Gaza-based Palestinian gunmen.

 

2010: Mark Ethan is scheduled to lead a discussion at the 92nd St Y following a screening of “A Man For All Seasons.”

 

2010: Ronit Elkabetz, an Israeli actress from Beersheba married architect Avner Yasharon


 2011: Fifth anniversary of the kidnapping of Galid Shalit
.

2011: Jewish comedian and actress Sarah Silverman is scheduled to perform a night of stand-up comedy in Tel Aviv


2011: The National Yiddish Theatre is scheduled to present a performance of “The Adventures of Hershele Ostropoyler.”

 

2011: For the second time in two day, oil spills tainted the waters off of Eilat.

 

2011: France's ambassador to Israel Christophe Bigot met  this afternoon with the parents of captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit and presented them with a letter in which French President Nicolas Sarkozy directly addressed Shalit. "Since your kidnapping, I have taken it on myself to do everything to return you to your family," Sarkozy wrote. "I repeated this commitment when I met with your father at the Elysee Palace on June 10 and I repeat it now: France will not abandon you to your fate and will continue to act, along with other bodies, including those in the Arab world, so that this unjustified suffering comes to an end." Shalit holds dual Israel and French citizenship.

 

2011: Steve Sobroff resigned his management position with the Los Angeles Dodger after Major League Baseball seized control of the club.

 

2011: Acclaimed British writer Howard Jacobson who won the prestigious Man Booker Prize last year for his novel, “The Finkler Question,” which tackled themes relating to anti-Semitism, Jewish identity and Israel, criticized fellow novelist Alice Walker for her planned participation in the upcoming flotilla to Gaza. [Editor’s note: A year later Walker would announce that she would not let The Color Purple be translated into Hebrew.]

 

2011(23rd of Tammuz, 5771): Eighty-year old Eugene H. Kummel, who had led McCann Erikson Worlwide during a period of creativity that saw the appearance of signature commercials for Coke and Miller Lite, passed away today. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)


 

 

2011(23rd of Tammuz, 5771): Ninety-four year old Gilbert Sedbon, a longtime correspondent for Reuters who scooped the world on the 1952 “Free Officers” Egyptian army coup against King Farouk with the help of Anwar Sadat passed away today. (As reported by the Eulogizer in JTA)


 

 

 2012: At the Wiener Library in London, Dr. Iris Groscheck is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “The Murder of the Children of the Bullenhuser Damm: How a challenging history of the Shoah can be told to young people” during which she will and discuss the challenges of engaging school-age audiences with violent and disturbing historical events. The Bullenhuser Damm Memorial is dedicated to the memory of 20 Jewish children and at least 28 adults who were hanged and who were subjected to medical experiments in the Neuengamme concentration camp before being murdered, to the 4 prisoners who cared for them, and to 24 unidentified Soviet prisoners.

 

2012:Center for Jewish History and Society for the History of the Czechoslovak Jews are scheduled to present “Bratislava/Pressburg Returns to the Map of Jewish Europe” alecture by Dr. Maroš Borský, Director of the Slovak Jewish Heritage Center in Bratislava

 

2012: The Boston Red Sox traded Kevin Youkilis to the Chicago White Sox.

 

2012:At a ceremony in Netanya alongside visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin, Israel’s President Shimon Peres today honored Russian soldiers who were killed while fighting the Nazis, saying the “Red Army prevented the world from being brought to its knees.” (As reported by Aaron Kalman)

 

2012: Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews participated in a mass rally this morning in Jerusalem’s Shabbat Square. In a display of mourning, protesters donned burial sacks and smeared ash on their heads to show their disapproval of anticipated changes to IDF deferment and exemption practices. The Knesset’s Plesner committee, which has been charged with proposing an alternative to the now-defunct Tal Law — struck down by the Supreme Court earlier this year — is nearing the end of its deliberations. (As reported by Yoel Goodman)

 

2013: The Israel Museum is scheduled to host a symposium beginning today entitled “In a Strange Land: The Photographic and Artistic Interpretation of Unfamiliar Environments.”

 

2013(17th of Tammuz, 5773): Shiva Asar Be-Tammuz (Seventeenth of Tammuz),  a minor fast day that commemorates the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E. by the Babylonians and again in 70 C.E. by the Romans. According to some sages, the Second Temple fell because of the lack of love and community spirit. In America, whether it is bullying or the coarsening of our public discourse, we are painfully aware of the harm that speech can do.  Since most American Jews do not refrain from food and drink on the 17th of Tammuz maybe it has been proposed that we refrain from Lashon Hara (i.e. Speaking Evil)  on this minor fast day.  To paraphrase the old Chasidic tale, we will show as much concern for what comes out of our mouths as we show for what we put in our mouths for one day, it might become a habit.

 

2013(17th of Tammuz, 5773): On the Jewish calendar, observance of American Independence Day. In 1776, the 4thof July fell on the 17th of Tammuz. So for those of you who want to get a head start on celebrating American Independence, here is your chance.

 

2013: Archaeological excavation prior to the installation of a drainage pipe has exposed for “the first time…such a finely preserved section of the road in Jerusalem,” the Israel Antiquities Authority announced today.

 

2014: In London The Wiener Library is scheduled to be hosting a special networking evening for the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors

 

2014: “Hanna’s Journey” is scheduled to be shown at the Portland Jewish Film Festival.

2014: The Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to meet in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

 

2014: “The United States will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, and will continue to remain steadfast on topics central to Israel’s security in the nuclear negotiations, US President Barack Obama assured Israeli President Shimon Peres during a meeting this afternoon at the White House.”

 

2014: Responding to a plea from the mothers of the three kidnap victims - Naftali Frenkel (16), Gilad Sha'ar (16), and Eyal Yifrah (19) – the Security Cabinet said tonight that “Operation Brother's Keeper will continue at full force.”

 

2015: In Coralville, Iowa, Congregation Agudas Achim is scheduled to host its annual congregational meeting.

 

2015: An exhibition of creations by the Judaica design brand Mi Polin (the Hebrew words for “From Poland” which created the “Mezuzah from This Home” project is scheduled to come to an at the PJCC Foster City, California.


 

2015: In London, Anthony Grafton is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “How Jesus celebrated Passover: Early Modern Views of the Last Supper” sponsored by the Jewish Historical Society of England.

 

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

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JUNE 26

363: Roman Emperor Julian is killed during the retreat from the Sassanid Empire. General Jovian is proclaimed Emperor by the troops on the battlefield. According to various sources, Julian was a true Roman pagan who sought to roll back the inroads that Christianity had made among the ruling classes.  He passed an edict of toleration. In the year of his death, he ordered the Temple to be rebuilt on its historic location in Jerusalem.  The plan died with him and the exile continued.

1187: Saladin crosses the Jordan River with an army of 20,000  in what will lead to the final battle for control of Jerusalem.  At this time, the Jews fare better under the Muslim leader than they do among the European Christians who have slaughtered them and driven them from their ancient homes in the “City of David.”

1409: The Roman Catholic church is led into a double schism as Petros Philargos is crowned Pope Alexander V after the Council of Pisa, joining Pope Gregory XII in Rome and Pope Benedict XIII in Avignon. While these various claimants to Papal power were fighting amongst themeslves, they had time to bedevil the Jews.  In 1409, Pope Alexander V ordered the Inquisitor of Avignon, Dauphiné, Provence and Comtat Venaissin to proceed against several categories of persons "including Jews who practiced magic, invokers of demons, and augurs" Benedict initiated the year-long Disputation of Tortosa in 1413, which became the most prominent Christian-Jewish disputation of the Middle Ages. Benedict was well known for his oppressive laws against the Jews

1523: The first printed edition of the Sefer ha-Chinuch (ספר החינוך) appeared. The printing of this comparatively obscure volume within seven decades of the invention of Gutenberg’s printing press demonstrates how quickly “the people of the book” took to the printing of books.  Sefer ha-Chinuch was not the first book to be printed in Hebrew.  That honor probably goes to Tractate Berakhot of the Babylonian Talmud which was printed by Joshua Solomon Soncino in 1483. .  According to the Hillel Website, "SeferHaChinuch is a unique work in many ways. It was published anonymously and scholars throughout the ages have not succeeded in unearthing the humble author. The book dates to 13th century Spain and is a comprehensive description of the 613 commandments, arranged according to their appearance in the Pentateuch. The description of each commandment includes (a) the concept of the Mitzvah and its Biblical source, (b) the philosophical underpinnings of the commandment, and (c) a brief summary of the laws governing its observance. An English translation of this important work is available."

1541 (23 Sivan 5301): Rabbi Jacob Pollack passed away. Born in Poland 1460, he was the first important Polish-Jewish Rabbinic scholar.  Prior to his time, the great Talmudic centers had been found in Germany.  He helped establish the Talmudic method of study called "Pilpul". This complicated and often hair-splitting method of explanation was originated in southern Germany. It is called mental acrobatics by some, yet is also responsible for the development of the sharp Talmudic mind. Pollack served as a Rabbi in Cracow, moved to Eretz-Israel for a period of time and returned to live in Lublin where he passed away.

1570(23 of Tammuz): Rabbi Moshe Codovero passed away.


1629: Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller was imprisoned. Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller was born in 1579.  He was the author of Tossafoth Yom Tov,a major commentary on the Mishna.  While he was serving as a Rabbi in Prague, he was involved with the distribution of tax money.  He was wrongfully accused by some of showing favoritism in his work.  He ended up being taken to Vienna in chains.  The Christian officials respected his integrity and released him.  Considering that this took place during the Thirty Years War, it is surprising that Heller did not come to some barbarous end.  He passed away in 1654, the same year in which the American Jewish Community began.

1665: Rabbi Simon Brandeis, the husband of Libele Perls and the son Rabbi Samuel Brandeis passed away today.

1688: English Philosopher Ralph Cudworth passed away.  Born in 1617 he became professor of Hebrew at Cambridge in 1645. Among those with whom he carried on an extensive correspondence was Isaac Abendana, the Sephardic Jew who moved to England and taught Hebrew at Cambridge.  By the time he passed away in 1710, Abendana had become a teacher at Oxford’s Magdalen College and had provided Hebrew books for Bodleian Library.

1775(28th of Sivan, 5535): Aryeh Löb ben Mordecai Ha-Levi Epstein (Ba'al ha-Pardes) passed away. He was a Polish rabbi born in Grodno in 1708. At first he refused to become a rabbi, preferring to devote himself entirely to study, but in 1739 he was forced by poverty to accept the rabbinate of Brestovech, Lithuania, and in 1745 he became rabbi of Königsberg, where he remained until his death. He corresponded with Elijah, Gaon of Vilna, and with Jonathan Eybeschütz, with whom he sided in the quarrel about amulets (see Emden-Eybeschütz Controversy). He is the author of Or ha-Shanim, on the 613 commandments (Frankfort-on-the-Oder, 1754), Halakah Aḥaronah and Ḳunṭres ha-Ra'yot (ib. 1754; Königsberg, 1759), Sefer ha-Pardes, in three parts: (1) on the Shema and the observance of Sabbath, (2) sermons, (3) funeral orations (ib. 1759). Several other cabalistic and halakic works from his pen are mentioned in his own works or by his biographer. A prayer which he composed on the occasion of the dedication of a new synagogue in Königsberg (ib. 1756) is found in the Bodleian Library. Annotations by him and by his son Abraham Meïr Epstein are published in some of the later editions of the Babylonian Talmud. He is called "Levin Marcus" in Solowicz's Gesch. der Juden in Königsberg, Posen, 1857.

1819: “Emma di Resburgo,” an opera composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer, was performed for the first time in Venice.

 

1813(28thof Sivan, 5573): Solomon Ben Joel Dubno, the Russian born Jewish poet, grammarian, teacher and author who lived in Amsterdam from 1767 to 1772 before settling in Berlin where he taught Moses Mendelssohn became his friend and patron, passed away today.  Among other his works was a commentary for Mendelssohn’s translation of the Bible.

1821: Birthdate of Adolf Jellinek an Austrian born scholar who served as the rabbi of The Leopoldstädter Tempel in Vienna.

1831: Birthdate of Julius Levy, who gained fame as poet and author Julius Rodenberg.

1835: Birthdate of Ernest Abraham Hart, the son of a London dentist, who became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons before pursuing his career in medical journalism that began with the Lancetin 1857.

1843: The Treaty of Naking which had the effect of opening up China to British traders included David Sasoon, went into effect.

1848: In France the “June Days Uprising” came to end; violence which eventually doomed the Second Republic and brought Louis Napoleon to power with all that that would mean for France, the French Jewish community and Europe.

1848: Captain Boris Moses, a graduate of Saint-Cyr was appointed “chief of battalion” for distinguishing himself during the suppression of the Paris riots which ended today.

1855: Ninety-year old Anton Von Schmid a Christian publisher who published books by Jewish authors including the works of Maimonides and of Judah Löb Ben-Zeeb, the Hebrew Bible with a German translation as well as the Hebrew periodical "Bikkure ha-'Ittim,"

1857: The first investiture of the Victoria Cross in Hyde Park, London. The Victoria Cross is the highest military award for valor granted within the British military.  It is the English version of the Congressional Medal of Honor.  Jewish recipients includeFrank Alexander de Pass who received the award posthumously for requesting comrades trapped in No Man’s Land on the Western Front in 1914 during World War I;  Captain Robert Gee who earned it for heroism on the Western Front in 1917; Corporal John Patrick Kenneally who it for heroism in Tunisia in 1943; Corporal Issy Smith, an Austrialian soldier who earned it during the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915; Private Jack White who earned it in 1917 while saving the lives on fellow soldiers during fighting in Mesopotamia.

1865:  Birthdate of Bernard Berenson, described by The New York Times as "an American art critic."  In fact, he had been born in Lithuania in a small village known as Butrimants in Yiddish. His father’s name was Alter Valvrojenski, his mother’s Eudice (Michliszanski). Berenson given name was Bernhard.  As he sought the safety of assimilation after coming to America, he had himself baptized as an Episcopalian.  Only after the Hitler period did he come to realize that the world would always regard him as "a Jew."  While he did not renounce his baptism, he did allow for Jewish cultural activity in his private life.  Some say that he was the prototype for one of the characters in Herman Wouk's Winds of War.  He died in 1959.

1866: Birthdate of Spanish American War veteran Milton Kraus, the native of Kokomo and graduate of the University of Michigan who served in the House of Representatives.

 1866: Following the death of Rosanna Dyer Osterman, the Houston Weekly Telegraph wrote:

It is an unjust and ungenerous thing to assert that "with insults you cannot make a Jew fight." How little has the Jew had to fight for in most countries? In our late war, we have stood side by side with the Jew in battle, and we have never seen men more gallantly than they, bare their breast to blue lead and cold steel. In charity and kindness their women have often rivalled our own. Every one resident in Galveston during the war, whether soldier or civilian, knows that among the very foremost in deeds of kindness to our suffering, sick and dying soldiers, one to whom the poor Confederate soldier never applied in vain, one whose heart overflowed with all the kindliest active charities, was a Jewess, equally distinguished for her piety and careful observance of all the ceremonial duties of her religion. (Courtesy of Bill Lowen)

1870: The wedding ceremony joining Miss Elizabeth Abraham of Washington, DC and Mr. Solomon Caro of New York in the bonds of holy matrimony began this afternoon at a synagogue on 18th street in the Nation’s Capital but it did not end there.  The ceremony began with the entrance of the bridal party followed by a preliminary service and discourse by Rabbi Jacob S. Jacobson on the subject of marriage.  But a commotion broke out when the Rabbi began to perform the ceremony.  At that point, the groom’s father, Rabbi Caro of New York, began a heated discussion in Hebrew with his son.  At first people thought he was objecting to the marriage.  Actually, he was objecting to the lack of a chupah.  The synagogue had recently become a Reform Congregation and had dispensed with many of the traditional customs and ceremonies.  The President of the congregation had assured the bride that a wedding canopy would be provided, but had failed to follow through.  Once the ceremony was stopped, the bridal party left the synagogue and went to the house of the bride’s father on D Street where refreshments were served.  Once the Chupah had been put up the wedding went on with the groom’s father and Rabbi Bernard Illowy of Cincinnati performing the ceremony.  The service, which was conducted in Hebrew and German, was followed by expressions of congratulations for the newlyweds and an ample repast for the guests. [Bernard Illowy was a distinguished 19th century Orthodox Rabbi who played a prominent role in the fight to maintain traditional Judaism.  Ironically, his last pulpit was in Cincinnati, the home of Reform Judaism.]

 

1872: In New York, a Coroner’s Jury rendered a verdict of accidental death in the case of three year old Sarah Levy. She was with her father, Moses Levy, when she was “run over and killed by a Fourth Avenue care in the Bowery.”  A civil suit has been filed against the transit company in which the plaintiff is seeking $30,000 in damages.

1872: Nathaniel Isaacs, the English adventurer who co-founded Port Natal (modern day Durban) and who descried his life in Africa in Travels and Adventures in Eastern Africa passed away today and was subsequently buried at Canterbury

1875: Birthdate of Carl Jung, one of the founders of psychoanalysis who learned from and clashed with Freud.  Jung was one of the few non-Jews to be involved with this new field of science. His relationship with Sabina Spielrein was the subject of popular film that highlighted the clash between the giants and Jung’s apparent “fascination” with Jewish women.

1875: In Morgan City, LA, on the banks of the Atchafalaya River Congregation Shaarey Zedek on First Street was completed and dedicated. The Jewish community had been working on this since February 1875 and its fundraising efforts included hosting a “Grand Calico Ball.”

1878: Twenty-nine year old Adolph Lewisohn, a successful American businessman who had been born in Hamburg married Emma Cahn in Manhattan.

1881: Birthdate of Ya’akov Cohen, the native of Slutsk who made Aliyah in 1934 and became a prize winning “man of letters” who received the Tchernichovsky Prize for exemplary translation, for translations from the German of the first part of Goethe's Faust and other Goethe's works, Torquato Tasso and Iphigenia in Tauris, as well as a selection of poems by Heinrich Heine.”


1881: It was reported today The British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Among the Jews condemned “the anti-Semitic agitation” that is currently taking place in Europe.

1881(29thof Sivan, 5641): Seventy-two year old German-Jewish philologist and expert on Sanskrit Theodor Benfey whose works also included one that proved that “the names of the Hebrew months…were derived from the Persians” passed away today.

1881(29thof Sivan, 5641): Eighty-two year old baron Philipp (Fülöp) Schey von Koromla who when he was granted “a patent of nobility by Emperor Franz Joseph” made him the first Hungarian Jew to be made a noble passed away today.

1882: The Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society stated today the funds promised to care for the 8,000 refugees who have arrived since January have not been forthcoming.  A member of the society claimed that the London Committee that had collected seventeen thousand pounds which were to be used to assist in the settlement of the refugees, has not forwarded the money to New York.

1883: It was reported today that Rabbi George Brandenstein of Beth Elohim Synagogue was the first to speak at an event honoring Henry Ward Beecher.  After saying a few words in praise of his services “to men of all races,” he presented Beecher with a silver pitcher on behalf of the members of his synagogue.

1883: “The Alleged Passover Murder” published today recounted events surrounding accusations that Moritz Scharf had murdered Esther Salomossy, a Christian girl in Nyreghhaza, Hungary. Jewish witnesses claimed they had been threatened before giving testimony and Moritz had been threatened with life imprisonment if he did not confess that the murder had been committed in the synagogue.  As the blood libel charges unraveled it was discovered that the young girl had quarreled with her mistress before her disappearance and some of her friends thought she had committed suicide. [Looking at the date, you can see how strongly entrenched the Blood Libel was in gentile minds.]

1883: Cornerstone laying ceremonies for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of Brooklyn will begin at 2 pm today.

1887: Nineteen year old Johanna Goldschmidt, a native of Frankfurt married Adolph Stern, a native of Ziegenhain, who was the son of Salomon A. Stern and Sarah Goldschmidt.

1887: “Minister Straus Safe in Turkey” published today described the first month of Oscar Straus’ service as U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.  Straus who arrived in May has already had his first audience with the Sultan. He has taken up temporary resident in a hotel at Therapia until he can find a house for more permanent quarters.  He has recieved a document of greeting written in Hebrew from the Grand Rabbi and the leaders of the various Jewish communities throughout the empire as well as letters of greetings from the America Baptist Society and the missionaries of western Turkey who are meeting in Constantinople.

1887: Chicago millionaire Levi Rosenfield signed a codicil will which disinherited his son Maurice by giving his share of the estate to his daughter-in-law Mattie Rosenfeld, and should she predecease him to his son-in-law David Stettauer. This decision would later disappoint Maurice’s creditors who refused to settle his debts for twenty five cents on the dollar because they thought he was going to inherit a large sum from his father.

1887: “Minister Straus Safe In Turkey” published today described the cordial reception enjoyed by Oscar Straus following his arrival at the Ottoman capital.  In an unusual move, the Sultan agreed to see the newly appointed ambassador even though it was Ramadan.

1887: Birthdate of Baruch Zuckerman, the son of Lithuanian peddler who “was a leading American-Israeli zionist, one of the leading proponents of Yad Vashem, editor of Yiddishe Kempfer, and a leading figure in the Farband and Histadrut campaigns, and president of the Labor Zionist Organization of America.”


1887(4th of Tammuz, 5647):Lionel Louis Cohen who served as head of Louis Cohen & Sons, a financial firm followed by his father Louis Cohen and who served as an MP passed away today.

1887: In London Leopold de Rothschild and Marie Perugia gave birth to their third and youngest son British philanthropist Anthony G de Rothschild.

1887: “Judaic Romance” published today reviews The Yoke of the Torah by Sidney Luska. But according to Josh Lambert Luska did not exist.  He was the creation of a young non-Jewish author named Henry Harland.


1890: In Philadelphia, PA, Jacob da Silva Solis-Cohen, M.D. and Miriam Binswanger Solis-Cohen gave birth to Jacob da Silva Solis-Cohen, Jr., the President of Mastbaum Brothers and Fleisher and of Albert M. Greenfield and Company who was also the President of the Jewish Publication Society of America.

1891: Benjamin Cardozo was admitted to the New York State Bar.

1892(1st of Tammuz, 5652): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

1892: The funeral of Captain Armand Mayer, the Jewish officer who was killed in a duel the anti-Semitic Marquis de Mores was held today in Paris.


1892” In Hillsboro, West Virginia Stulting and Absalom Sydenstricker gave birth to Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize winning author Pearl Buck whose works included Peony, a novel set in the Jewish community of K’aifeng in the 1850’s.

1892: “Aid Asked for Hebrew Settlers” published today described the efforts of the 250 Russian Jewish immigrants to make a new life for themselves in Rosenhayn, NJ.  By day they work for New York clothiers or as farmers.  At night they attend a night school sponsored by the Educational Society of Rosenhayn they formed to enhance their ability to speak, read and write English.

1893: “Passed Creditable Examinations” published today described the outcome of the exams administered to the 24 pupils at the Jewish Theological Seminary.  All of the students performed in “an exceedingly satisfactory manner,” but David Wittenberg and Joseph Hertz were the most impressive as can be seen by the fact that they were “the senior prize winners.”

1894: “A New Quarantine Commissioner” published today described the decision of Governor Roswell P. Flower to appoint Edward Jacobs, a prominent Jewish lawyer to serve as one of the three Quarantine Commissioners.  Considering the role that this position plays at Ellis Island, the selection of a Jew to the position seems to be extremely appropriate.

1897: It was reported today that as of 1895, of the 1,568,092 people living in Bosnia, 8,213 are Jews.

1897: Myer S. Isaacs, the President of the Baron de Hirsch Fund, was among the dignitaries who attended tonight’s graduation exercises at the Baron de Hirsch Trade Schools.

1897: “An Interesting Study of Conditions in Southeastern Europe” published today included a brief history of the Jews of the Balkans, most of whom are descendants of the Spanish Jews who were given permission to settle in Serbia and Bosnia by Murad III.  Unlike recent Jews who have moved here from Hungary, most of them still speak Spanish.  The community numbers about seven thousand, three thousand of whom live in Sarajevo

1898: The Governor has telegraphed his superiors that the situation in Galicia, where renewed anti-Semitic violence has claimed the lives of 16 Jews, “is extremely serious.”

1901: Bicentennial of the Bevis Marks Synagogue, the oldest in England. Sephardic Jews founded Bevis Marks in 1701.  The congregation is known as the Spanish and Portuguese Jews' Congregation.

1902: Birthdate of Gracie Allen, the wife and comedic partner of George Burns.

1903(26thof Tammuz, 5663): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

1904: Birthdate of actor Peter Lorre. A refugee from Hitler’s Europe, Lorre gained fame in American films as what was called "a character actor." Two of his more memorable appearances came in The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca, both of which starred Humphrey Bogart. One of Lorre’s few starring roles came when he played the lead in the Mr. Moto movies. Mr. Moto was a clever detective of undetermined European origins, sort of an urbane Columbo.

1905: The 20,000 Jewish residents of Lodz, a cultural center for Jews in Poland, flee in the face of Pogroms and what are in effect, the Czar’s attacks on his own citizens.

1906: Birthdate of Albert Silverman, the New York native who gained fame as lyricist Al Stillman whose works included the 1950’s Christmas standard recorded by Perry Como – “Home for the Holidays.”

1911(30thof Sivan, 5671): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

1911(30thof Sivan, 5671): Eighty-four year old Agnes Byk, the wife of Samuel Alexander Byk, passed away today.

1911: Joseph L. Seligman, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Newton Seligman of New York, hosted his bachelor party tonight.  The fifty guests celebrated his upcoming marriage to Josephine Knowles.

1911: Birthdate of Edward Levi, professor of law, President of the University of Chicago and Attorney General during the Ford Administration.  The son and grandson of Rabbis, Levi's grandfather was one of the original faculty members of the University of Chicago.  Levi was a total product of the institution graduating from its lab school, undergraduate college and school of law.  When Levi was named President of the University of Chicago in 1968, he was the first Jew to hold such a post at a major American university.  In terms of measuring progress, today such appointments are almost not worth mentioning.  When he died in 2000, at the age of 88, Levi was eulogized for a long and distinguished career in the law and academia.

1912: The Board of Education paid tribute to the late District Superintendent Miss Julia Richman, the energetic reform minded educator who passed away while vacationing in France.

1912: In New York Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Koner gave birth to dancer and choreographer Pauline Koner.

1912: “Bruno Walter led the Vienna Philharmonic in the world premiere of Mahler's Symphony No. 9

1913: The American Zionists’ convention continues its meetings in Cincinnati, Ohio.

1915: In Norfolk, VA, suffragette and Hadassah member Ella Shapiro and attorney Louis Shapiro gave birth to Charlotte Gertrude Shapiro who gained fame as Charlotte Zolotow, “a distinguished author and editor of children’s books.” (As reported by Margalit Fox)

1915: Those who favored the imposition of the death penalty for Leo Frank are scheduled “to show their disapproval” to Governor Slaton’s commutation today “when the Governorretires from office and Judge Nat E. Harris is inaugurated

1915: “The feelings aroused by Governor John M. Slaton’s in commuting the death sentence imposed on Leo M. Frank …culminated today at the Capitol in a demonstration against the Governor when he retired from the Executive office and Judge Nat E. Harris of Macon was inaugurated.  For the first time in the history of Georgia a Governor left office with a crowd hurling epithets at him  and crying ‘Lynch him!’ and escaped bodily harm only through the protection of a large force of police and State troops.”

1915: In New York, “the Woman’s Peace Society is scheduled to hold a reception in the Assembly room of the Cosmopolitan Garden this afternoon for those who signed the petition to Governor Slaton asking for the commutation of the death sentence of Leo Frank and to those who worked to obtain the signatures.”

1915: “Early this morning” Rabbi Eichler conducted services at Temple Ohaibe Shalom on Union Park Street for forty delegates who will be attending the convention of American Zionists in Boston

1915: “An informal dance and reception” was held in Boston this evening to mark the opening of “the great convention of American Zionist, the first such national gathering of Jews on American soil.”

1915: In Ohio, Beachwood was incorporated as Beachwood Village, the Cleveland suburb that is home to Cleveland College of Jewish Studies, Agnon School and Cleveland Hebrew School.

1918: During World War I, Allied Forces including units of the AEF under General John J. Pershing defeated units of the German Army under the command of Crown Prince Wilhelm.  Among the Americans who fought in this critical battle was a Jewish Marine from Buffalo New York named Lester Bergman. Born in 1889, “Bergman was the first person from Buffalo, NY, to enlist in the Marine Corps during World War I. He was wounded during extremely heavy fighting at the battle of Belleau Wood in France, where he participated in the capture of a Maxim gun, 23 machine guns and 170 German soldiers.  Bergman was subsequently awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and the French Croix de Guerre.” He passed away in 1958.

1919: The first national conference of the Religious Zionist Organization, Mizrachi, closes.

1919: In the Weimar Republic, premiere of “The Oyster Princess” a silent film directed and written by Ernst Lubitsch.

1921: In Paris, Englishman Charles George Bushell and French dressmaker Reine Blance Leroy gave birth to Violette Reine Elizabeth Bushell who Violette Szabo served with the SOE during WW II and was executed by the Nazis at Ravensbruck.

1922: Frank Taffel, the native of Galicia, who would found Atlanta, Georgia’s Fulton Auto Exchange and co-found Congregation Beth Jacob became a United States citizen today.

1925: “The Gold Rush,” starring Charlie Chaplin premiered in Los Angeles.

1925: Brenham, TX native Rosa Levin, who had attended Blinn College and Rice University, married Sam H. Toubin.  Rosa Levin Toubin would write two books about Jewish history in Texas included History of B’nai Abraham Synagogue.

1926: In Jerusalem, Rabbi Moshe Ber Rivkin and his wife gave birth to Shlomo Rivkin the last Chief Rabbi of St. Louis, MO.

1927: Birthdate of Jerry Schatzberg, the Bronx born photographer and movie director


1928: When the Democratic National Committee convened, Belle Moskowitz was the only woman at the table, but she was as influential as any man there. The networks she had created in New York helped to secure the Presidential nomination for Al Smith, the first major Catholic candidate for U.S. President. After his nomination, she directed national campaign publicity. When Smith lost to Herbert Hoover, Moskowitz stayed on as his press agent, and coordinated his campaign for the 1932 nomination, which Smith lost to Franklin Roosevelt.

1931: In Brooklyn, theatrical haberdasher Harry Minoff and his wife gave birth to Marvin Minoff the movie and television producer who married Bonnie Franklin.

1933: “The Akademie für Deutsches Recht (Academy for German Law) is founded to rewrite the entire body of German law to NSDAP specifications” The NSDAP is the Nazi Party.

1933: The Federation of Jewish Communities of Switzerland the Berne Jewish Community files suit against the right-wing Swiss National Front for distributing anti-Semitic literature including the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” At the end of the litigation, the court will hold that that the “Protocols are a forgery, are plagiarized, and qualify as ‘obscene’ literature”

1934: It was reported today that the Tel Aviv “has issued notices to holders of its external twenty-year sinking fund six and a half percent public improvement sterling bonds…have been drawn for redemption at par, on the current rate of exchange for sterling on the day of presentation” (As reported by Austin Cline)

1936: Germany adopts an ordinance banning Jews from serving the Army.

1936: U.S premiere of “San Francisco” a film set at the time of the city’s famous earthquake with music by Walter Jurman and featuring Al Shean, the uncle of the famous Marx Brothers.

1936: In the aftermath of the The Przytyk Pogrom, the worst anti-Semitic violence that occurred in pre-war Poland, the trial of those charged with taking part in the violence came to an end.  There were 43 Polish defendants and 14 Jewish defendants.  The Jews claimed that they had acted in self-defense.  But the court sentenced eleven of the Jews to prison terms ranging from 6 months to 8 years for demonstrating “aggressive behavior toward Polish peasants.”  Thirty-nine of the Poles received sentences ranging from 6 to 12 months.

1936:The Palestine Post reported that circulars urging Arab villagers to put an end to disorders were dropped by British Army planes. The leaflets promised that the king would send a Royal Commission to inquire into the Arab grievances, but only when a complete order was restored. Some 50 well-armed Arabs attacked a convoy made up of 10 buses and accompanied by two armored cars close to Nablus. One British soldier and six Arabs were killed before the convoy was able to continue. The Post published the full text of the House of Commons debate on Palestine (11 pages) and continued a series of articles by Maurice Samuel which explored the possibilities of an Arab-Jewish reconciliation. A Jew was badly wounded by an Arab who had asked for a drink in an orange grove near Petah Tikva. A similar incident happened a week earlier.

1936: Birthdate of Edith Pearlman, the native of Providence, RI and Radcliffe graduate who won the 2012 Harold U. Ribalow Prize presented by Hadassah magazine for outstanding Jewish fiction.

1937: Laurence A. Steinhardt completed his service as U.S. Ambassador to Swede
1937(17th of Tammuz. 5697): On Shabbat, Sam Frank, Nevada’s first Jewish mayor passed away.  A native of California, Frank moved to Reno, NV in 1903. Prior to Prohibition, Frank worked in the wholesale liquor business.  When America went dry, he and his brother opened a soft-drink bottling company. Frank became Mayor when Edwin E. Roberts passed away.  He was defeated for re-election in 1935.  Unlike his brother Ben, Sam Frank was not active in the Jewish community for many years; a situation some attributed to the fact that he had married a non-Jews. (For more see Jews in Nevada by John P. Marschall)

1937: George Gershwin was released from Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles with a diagnosis of “likely hysteria” since tests had shown no physical cause of “the headaches and olfactory hallucinations he had been experiencing..

1938:Five more bombs exploded today in the quarter between Jaffa and Tel Aviv wounding fifteen Arabs. Soon after the first bomb exploded in the morning a mob of Arabs raided a Jew's shop and stabbed the proprietor
1939: Final broadcast of the CBS version of Camel Caravan starring Eddie Cantor.

 

1939: “Five hundred people attended a session of the convention of the National Council of Young Israel which was held today in the Temple of Religion at the World’s Fair.  ‘The event was chaired by Henry G. Fromberg.  Cantor Aaron Caplow and the Oscar Julius Choir provided the music for the event.

 

1940: A split takes place among the leaders of Etzel, also known as the Irgun. They cannot decide whether or not to cease attacks against the British for the duration of the war. Abraham Stern, believing that the timing was ripe to pressure the British by any means to allow full immigration sets up the LEHI (Lohamei Herut Yisrael) Freedom Fighters of Israel. The group was also known as the Stern Gang. This splinter terrorist group will eventually kill a UN peace envoy during the War for Independence – an act that will be condemned by the Jewish leadership.

 

1940: United States Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long determines to obstruct the granting of visas to Jews seeking entry into the United States. He seeks indefinitely to "delay and effectively stop" such immigration by ordering American consuls "to put every obstacle in the way [to] postpone and postpone and postpone the granting of visas." His goal will be realized over the next four years.  Breckinridge Long represents what is called “genteel anti-Semitism,” a disease which lingered after the war among what Harry Truman called the striped pants boys at Sate.

 

1940: The Nazis confined Cardinal Emmanuel Celestin Suhard, the Archbishop of Paris “in his archiepiscopal residence” preparatory to a planned move to ship him off to a concentration camp.

1941(1st of Tammuz, 5701: Hundreds of Jews from Kovno, Lithuania, are executed at the fortified Ninth Fort on the city's outskirts.

 

1941: Lithuanian fascists massacred 2300 Jews in Kovno. The sad fact of the matter is that the Nazis had many willing helpers among the population of various European countries.

1941: The invading Nazis seized hundreds of Jews in Kovno, USSR and murdered them.

1941: The Germans reached Bialystok home of the bialy. Another large Jewish population center would now fall victim to the SS Killing Squads. 

1941: In Jedwabne, Poland, a local priest convinces the Poles who had begun attacking their fellow citizens who were Jewish, to halt their pogrom.  He assures them that the Germans would take care of the Jews.  However, the Poles refused to sell food to the Jews in the town amid rumors that the Germans “would be issuing orders that all Jews be destroyed.

1942: For the first time British radio carried reports about the fate of the Polish Jews. It said that 700,000 Jews had been killed in Poland to date. This would have meant that over two million of Poland’s reported three million Jews were still alive and could have been saved.


1943: Dr.Karl Landsteiner the Austrian born American physician who the 1930 Nobel Prize for Medicine for his work on differentiating the blood groups passed away in New York.  He had converted from Judaism to Roman Catholicism when he was twenty one years old.


1943: On Shabbat, special prayers were offered for the nation's leadership asking them to lead us toward "a peace of righteousness and permanence" at a service in Temple Emanu-El. The service was held today in conjunction with the annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, who represent the Reform Rabbinate in the United States

1945: The United Nations Charter is signed in San Francisco. At a time when there was multi-faceted opposition to the creation of a Jewish state, the United Nations would provide the legal framework for the creation of the modern state of Israel. 


1946: Today, “Tzadok”, the leader of the Beitar branch in Bruna, wrote on the back of a photograph of parade of Beitar members “As an eternal memory for our friends, from the opening of Kibbutz Beitar in Bruna, which took place on April 22-23 [...] in Linz.”


1949: Eighty-seven year old David Philipson, “the Dean of the American Reform Rabbinate” collapsed today at the convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.

1949: Jewish golfer Herman Barron, the 1948 Goodall and 1947 Tam O’Shanter champion teamed with William J. Cobb to win the annual pro-member tournaments at the Bonnie Briar Country Club in Larchmont, NY.

 

1950: “Admiral Sir John Edelsten, Commander in Chief of the British Mediterranean Fleet arrived in Israel today” when HMS Surprise, his flagship, docked at Haifa.  It was the first such visit since the British left the country two years ago.

 

1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that contracts had been signed for the widening of the Kishon River outlet near Haifa, building of a bridge over it and the construction of a port and dry dock there.

 

1952: An Israeli army spokesman said that fourteen Arabs had been killed during the last two weeks during operations designed to keep infiltrators from crossing into the Jewish state. Two more were arrested and two were wounded.

 

1956: Under President Nasser, Egypt seized control of the Suez Canal. 

 

1957: Eighty-seven year old German-American author Bruno Alfred Döblin who converted to Catholicism while spending World War II in Los Angeles passed away today.

 

1960(1stof Tammuz, 5720): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

 

1963: “Levi Eshkol took over Mapai and formed the eleventh government.

 

1963: Levi Eshkol replaced David Ben Gurion as Minister of Defense.

 

1963: Birthdate of Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky one of Russia’s wealthiest oligarchs who lost his business empire and his freedom when President Putin felt threatened by him. “Because Khodorkovsky's father is Jewish, some concerns have been raised that his persecution is motivated by anti-Semitism, and that it is only one of many steps to clearing Russian economy from Jews.”

 

1966: Birthdate of Daniel Hamidou, the Berber born Jew who gained fame as French comedian Dany Boon who played “Private Ponchel” in Joyeux Noël, a gem of a film.

 

1966: After twenty-three performances the curtain came down on a revival of “Guys and Dolls” starring Jan Murray as Nathan Detroit at the New York City Center.

 

1967: Spain granted Jews and Protestants the right of public worship for the first time since Ferdinand and Isabella proclaimed Catholicism as Spain's only religion.

 

1968(30th of Sivan, 5728): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

1968: Birthdate of Rich Eisen anchor on ESPN’s “SportsCenter.”

 

1969: Birthdate of Sociology Professor Philip “Phil” Zuckerman whose works include Society Without God.


 

1970: Today’s Bulletin described the reading of the Book of Ruth after services on the second day of Shavuot by Louise Brott, Erica Shacter and John Diamond, the first time that this has occurred at Congregation Shaar Hashomayim in Montreal.

 

1974(6th of Tammuz, 5734): Eighty-seven year old Ernest Gruening, the long-time liberal Democrat who served as Governor of Alaska before being elected Senator passed away.  Gruening had been trained as a doctor at Harvard and Harvard Medical School although he never practice medicine.  He is best remembered as only one of two Senators who voted against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, a move that cost him his Senate seat. (As reported by John T. McQuiston)


 

1974; Today, at 8:01 a.m., “a 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum slid down a conveyor belt and past an optical scanner. The scanner beeped, and the cash register understood, faithfully ringing up 67 cents. That purchase, at a Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, was the first anywhere to be rung up using a bar code.  A Jew did not invent the now ubiquitous bar code, but Alan Haberman, of blessed memory, “led the industry committee that chose the bar code over other contenders — circles, bull’s-eyes and seemingly random agglomerations of dots — in 1973.  By all accounts, he spent years afterward cajoling manufacturers, retailers and the public to accept the strange new symbol, which resembles a highly if irregularly compacted zebra. His efforts helped cement the marriage between the age-old practice of commerce and the new world of information technology (As reported by Margalit Fox)

 

1976: Maxwell Raab, a Wall Street lawyer who played a prominent role in the Eisenhower presidency was inducted as a fellow of Brandeis University.

 

1979(1st of Tammuz, 5739): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

 

1980: Birthdate of actor Jason Schwartzman

 

1982(5th of Tamuz, 5742): Forty-six year old André Tchaikowsky, a Polish born composer and pianist who as a small child survived the Warsaw Ghetto, passed away.

 

1982(5th of Tammuz, 5742): Seventy-two year old Chaim Grade, a Yiddish poet and novelist whose work gained wide attention because of its passion and intensity in dealing with Jewish life in Eastern Europe and with the trauma of the Holocaust, died of a heart attack today in Montefiore Hospital. (As reported by Richard F. Shepard)

 


1984: Barbra Streisand records "Here We Are at Last"

 

1984(26th of Sivan, 5744): Sixty-nine year old Carl Foreman who wrote the scripts of such classics as High Noon, The Guns of Navarone and The Bridge on the River Kwai passed away today.


 

1989(23rd of Sivan, 5749):Trude Weiss-Rosmarin passed away. Born in 1908, she was a German Jewish writer, editor, scholar, and feminist activist. With her husband, she co-founded the School of the Jewish Woman in New York in 1933, and in 1939 founded the Jewish Spectator, a quarterly magazine, which she edited for 50 years. She was the author of 12 books, including Judaism and Christianity: The differences (1943), Toward Jewish-Muslim Dialogue(1967), and Freedom and Jewish Women (1977).

 

1992: NBC broadcast the final episode of seasons 2 of Seinfeld.

 

 

1994(17th of Tammuz, 5754): Tzom Tammuz

 
1994: Alan Blinder completed his service as a member of the Council of Economic Advisers.


1994: After 73, the curtain came down on the original production of  “Broken Glass” “a play by Arthur Miller, focusing on a couple in New York City in 1938, the same time of Kristallnacht.”

 

1996(9th of Tammuz, 5756): Staff Sgt. (Res.) Asher Berdugo, 22, of Kiryat Bialik; Sgt. Ashraf Shibli, 20, of Shibli; and Cpl. (Res.) Ya'acov Turgeman of Rishon Lezion were killed in an ambush along the Jordan River north of Jericho by terrorists who infiltrated from Jordan.

 

1997: Mervyn Taylor completed his term as Minister for Equality and Law Reform which the Irish government then abolished and merged with the Department of Justice.

 

1997: Barry Manilow was diagnosed with bronchitis before a scheduled performance in Austin, TX.

 

1997: The International Congress of the International Napoleonic Society came to an end at Akkesandria, Italy.


 

1998: Launch of the INS Tkuma, a Dolphin class submarine.

 

2001: President Bush welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to the White House.

 

2002:Jean-François Copé began serving as a member of the National Assembly for Seine-et-Marne’s constituency.

 

2003: Amos (Amit) Mantin, 31, of Hadera, a Bezeq employee, was killed in a shooting attack in the Israeli Arab town of Baka al-Garbiyeh. The shots were fired by a Palestinian teenager, who was apprehended by police. The Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.

 

2004(7th of Tammuz, 5764): Israel's renowned composer and songwriter Naomi Shemer passed away at the age of 74. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/29/nyregion/29shemer.html

 

Shemer is known to many as the composer of the famous song “Y'rushalayim Shel Zahav" or in English, "Jerusalem of Gold."  For those of you who saw "Shindler's List" this was the song played at the end of the movie when the film turned from black and white to color as the survivors were shown visiting the Shindler's grave.  The song was written at the request of Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kolek in 1967 several weeks before the outbreak of the Six Day War.  The song expresses the longing of a person for Jerusalem who has to view the Old City from the opposite side of the Green Line.  In one of those ironic twists of history, "the song became the war's anthem. 

 

Jerusalem of Gold


Lu Yehi



2005: Igo Feldblum writes a letter to historian Martin Gilbert describing how young Jews in Palestine responded positively to the war time slogan ‘Win We Will.’  ‘Confident in this prophecy, many enlisted in the Jewish Brigade and fought alongside the Allies.’  “Thirty thousand Palestinian Jews fought in the British forces…and more than seven hundred were killed in action.”

 

2005: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including King of the Jews by Nick Tosches and The Woman From Hamburg by Hanna Krall.

 

2005 (19th of Sivan, 5765): Eighty-one year old Louis J. Sigel, a Teaneck, N.J., rabbi who was a prominent voice for integration of the township's public schools in the early 1960's, passed away today at his home in Hackensack, N.J. (As reported by George James)


 

2005: Wild Desert, a horse owned by several businesspeople including former New York Yankees manager Joe Torre, gave Robert J. Frankel his first victory in the $1 million Queen's Plate, the first leg of the Canadian Triple Crown at Woodbine Racetrack.

2005: The Rubashkin Education Center in Postville is scheduled to hold its grand opening this afternoon

2006: Twenty-four hours after attacking an IDF checkpoint Palestinians fire Kassam Rockets into Israel. 

2007: At the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, an exhibition inspired by the ancient flood story of Noah’

2007: The General Assembly of the European Jewish Congress elects a new president for the EJC for a two year term.


2007: The President of Poland and Jewish leaders break ground for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews on a site next to Warsaw’s monument to Jews who resisted the Nazis during the 1943 ghetto uprising. 

2007(10th of Tammuz, 5767): Belgian born American fashion designer, Liz Claiborne passed away at the age of 78. (As reported by Eric Wilson)


 

2008: In New York City the Gallery at the Astor Center presents, “A Taste of Appetizing” featuring Mark Russ Federman, representing the third of the four generations of famed Russ & Daughters who guides participants on a tasting of his extraordinary wares.

 

2008: A rocket fired from Gaza hit the Sderot industrial area this afternoon, exploding near a gas station and shattering the truce for a fourth time this week.

 

2009(4thof Tammuz, 5769): Seventy-nine year old Jo Amar, a Moroccan-born Jewish singer whose melding of Andalusian and Israeli musical influences made him a star in Israel and a popular performer in Jewish communities around the world, died today at the home of his son Ouri in Woodmere, N.Y. (As reported by Bruce Weber)


 

2009: Jews in the Washington Metropolitan Area have a wide panoply of choices when it comes to welcoming the Sabbath Queen ranging from the Carlebach Minyan at Kesher Israel to Congregation Adat Reyim's unique folk service lead by their folk group that group uses musical instruments and a variety of melodies from Debbie Friedman, Craig Taubman, and others to add a wonderful musical aspect to their Shabbat services

2009: Russia told a U.S. court today that American judges have no authority to tell the country how to handle sacred Jewish documents held in its state library, which had been seized by the Nazi and Soviet armies.


2010(14th of Tammuz, 5770): Eighty-four year old Shoista Mullojonova “a renowned Tajik-born Bukharian Jewish Shashmakom singer” passed away today.


2010: Ginsberg Jewelers, a main stay of the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, business community battles back from the Floods of 2008 and hosts an Open House in its new, location.  Ginsberg Jewelers owned by Herman Ginsberg, a pillar of the Jewish community and a mensch of the first order.

2010: The Jewish community of Cedar Rapids is scheduled to gather this evening for “Havdalah Under The Stars.”

2010: Prize winning ice skater Loren Galler-Rabinowitz won the Miss Massachusetts title.

 
2011: Israel continued repositioning part of its contested barrier in the West Bank today, four years after a court ruled it should be re-routed to give Palestinians greater access to farmland.

2011: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Druggist of Auschwitz: A Documentary Novela” by Dieter Schlesak. Translated by John Hargraves

 

2011: The Jewish Museum Milwaukee is scheduled to participate in a WWII Encampment Reenactment program being staged by the Milwaukee County Historical Society at Trimborn Farm. Local student and actor, Shane Skinner, is scheduled to present a dynamic portrayal of the lives of Jewish servicemen during the war, drawing on collections from the archives of the Jewish Museum Milwaukee.

2011: “The Washington Haggadah: Medieval Jewish Art in Context” is scheduled to come to an end today at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The Washington Haggadah, an illuminated medieval manuscript and, since 1916, a principal treasure in the Library of Congress, is spending Passover in New York City on a snug reading stand in a display case at the Metropolitan Mu­seum of Art. The Haggadah, the collection of prayers and songs that tells the story of exodus that is the Passover Seder, lies open to the Dayenu (“If He had given us Shabbat and not led us to Mount Sinai, it would have been enough . . .”), a thousand-year-old song that’s unusually sprightly for its age, perhaps because it can function as a cue to cooks and cel­ebrants that it’s nearly time to serve the meal. The scribe reinforces that cue with a drawing at the bottom of the page: A man, apparently a beggar invited to help with the feast, turns a rack of lamb while two women, well dressed in the Italian style, stir soup and offer him a cup.You could easily miss “The Washington Haggadah: Medieval Jewish Art in Context,” an exhibition that consists of just two vitrines and a wall display in a hallway in the Met’s department of medieval art. But the modest display fits the artifact — the mix of homey scenes and exquisite items was a trademark of the scribe and illustrator, Joel ben Simeon (approximately 1420-95), and suited the taste of his wealthy Ashkenazi clientele in Germany and Italy. Although this exhibition does not display the manuscript’s individual ­pages — as the Met did successfully last summer with the utterly bloodthirsty and not-safe-for-work exhibition of the Book of Hours of Jean de Berry — the museum’s medievalists have vividly conjured the world of medieval European Jewry, surrounding the small manuscript with luxurious objects similar to those in the drawings. A pale yellow glass with a decorative band is a close match for the one the woman offers the man turning the lamb. A brass ewer from Germany is practically identical to the one in the hands of the red-hatted man filling cups, who is beside instructions to pour the service’s second glass of wine. “The Washington Haggadah,” on view through June 26, is the first installment in a three-year series devoted to Hebrew manuscripts and their contemporary context, a clever strategy that pairs valuables from the Met’s stronger collections with loan items in one of its weakest areas (illuminated Hebrew manuscripts).“Our colleagues in the textile department are thrilled,” said curator Barbara Boehm, standing beside a silk-velvet swatch that looked like it could have been cut from the skirt of a fashionable woman who shows up later in the Haggadah. “I don’t think these have ever been shown. They’re not great big pieces, but they’re exquisite and such a nice match.” Scribes are typically anonymous artisans, but ben Simeon signed and dated this illuminated Haggadah. It was an unusual move, but some 20 years before, German publisher Johannes Gutenberg had printed his first Bible, and illuminators were scrambling to come up with marketing strategies to compete with the burgeoning book trade. Ben Simeon created this work not on commission but as a salable stock item that could appeal to the broadest possible tastes. He left the last few pages and many of the margins blank, in case the buyer, most likely a wealthy banker, doctor or merchant, had any special requests. Ben Simeon specialized in Haggadot, a sensible business plan for a Jewish scribe, but the exodus story at the heart of the service almost certainly had personal resonance, too. Soon after he was born in Cologne, Jews were expelled from that city. His family moved to Bonn, and 20 years later that city expelled the Jews. He seems to have adapted by spending most of his life in transit, moving back and forth across the Alps between Italy and Germany. As a result, he drew with a mixture of national styles: His figures are flat and stubby in the German woodcut style, but his faces are delicate and individual, and his representations modern and realistic, in the manner of the Italians — the wicked son is drawn like a knight (for an effect similar to drawing him in Nazi get-up today), and the beggar turning the lamb has goiter (a then-common affliction in landlocked areas such as the Alps). On the page with the Curse Upon the Gentiles — a prayer added to the Seder after the Crusades — ben Simeon seems to have captured a moment of changing traditions. A man stands at the door to his house, as was the habit, checking to see that there are no Gentiles within earshot during the recitation: “Pour out thy wrath upon the nations that do not know You,” as ben Simeon faithfully copied in a passage that begins in large gold-leaf letters and his most elaborate filigree. But he also depicted the tradition that has come down to Jews today: As the door is opened, Elijah appears, riding on an ass, accompanied by what appears to be his entire family. Near the tail end, a fashionable lass in a silk-velvet dress raises a wineglass. No one knows who first bought the Haggadah from ben Simeon — an Ashkenazi in Italy or Germany, judging by the handwriting on some of the blank pages. But the Haggadah, too, had its years of wandering: from Germany in the 1700s, over to Italy by the late 1800s and into the hands of the Provencali family of Mantua, where in 1879 one Ettore Finzi added a note in German (“Guten Appetit”) during a Passover celebration. Twenty-three years later, Ephraim Deinard — an American book dealer and a preeminent figure in the development of many great institutional collections of Judaica and Hebraica — bought the copy and persuaded New York financier Jacob Schiff to donate it, along with nearly 20,000 other books in Deinard’s collection, to the Library of Congress as part of a vast “gift to the Nation.”After 500 years, the Haggadah had found its permanent home 



2011: Mordechay Lewy, the Israeli ambassador to the Vatican, “who caused a storm in the Jewish world by praising Pope Pius XII for saving Jews during World War Two backtracked today, saying his judgment was "historically premature." The comments made by, the Israeli ambassador to the Vatican, were some of the warmest ever made by a Jewish official about Pius but were very upsetting to Holocaust survivors and others who know the history of the man some call “Hitler’s Pope.”

2011(24th of Sivan, 5771): Ninety-one year old Sidney Radner, owner of one of the largest collections of material related to Harry Houdini passed away today. This was a case of one Jew carrying for the legacy of another Jew.  (As reported by Paul Vitello)
 
2011(24th of Sivan, 5771): Seventy-seven year old Joseph Hochstein passed away today in Tel Aviv. In 1965, Hochstein and his father Phillip started the Jewish Week, a Washington, DC publication that was the successor the National Jewish Ledger.  It was renamed The Washington Jewish Week after Hochstein sold the paper in 1980’s and made Aliyah.
2011: “After 28 previews and 73 performances” the curtain came down on the second Broadway revival of “Born Yesterday” written by Garson Kanin.
 
2012: Eating and drinking must be on the minds of those at the 92nd Street Y which is scheduled to offer programs on “Wines of the Southern Hemisphere” and “Picnics Through the Ages.”
 
2012(6th of Tammuz, 5772): Ninety-two year old “Harry Levinson, a psychologist who helped change corporate America’s thinking about the workplace by demonstrating a link between job conditions and emotional health — a progressive notion when he began developing his ideas in the 1950s” passed away today. (As reported by Claudia H. Deutsch)
 
2012: As part of the Food for Thought program, Rabbi Yosef Edelstein is scheduled to lead “Digesting Ethics, Mysticism and Philosophy.”
 
2012: David Kilimnick, Razorback by birth and Israeli by choice, is scheduled to host another “Open Mic” night at Jerusalem’s Off The Wall Comedy Club on Ben Yehuda
 
2012: Four suspects from Jerusalem, Bnei Brak and Ashdod are under arrest on suspicion of spray-painting hate slogans on the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, Ammunition Hill and other landmark monuments over the last couple months, police announced this morning.
2012: Fires raged in the forest around Jerusalem today, with the largest fire near the suburb of Motza. The Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway was closed to traffic as fire and rescue services scrambled to control the blaze.
 
2012(6th of Tammuz, 5772): Seventy-one year old Nora Ephron whose work included “Sleepless in Seattle and “When Harry Sally” passed away today.  (As reported by Charles McGrath)
 
2012: New York City Councilman Charles Barron, a fierce critic of Israeli policy who was opposed by Jewish lawmakers and top party officials, was trounced his bid to secure the Democratic nomination in a Brooklyn congressional race.
2012: Today the Central Council of Jews in Germany slammed the “outrageous and insensitive” decision of a regional court to prohibit circumcisions, calling upon the German parliament to pass a law that safeguards freedom of religion. (As reported by Raphael Ahren)
 
2013: “In a Strange Land: The Photographic and Artistic Interpretation of Unfamiliar Environments,” a symposium sponsored by the Israel Museum is scheduled to come to an end today.
2013: Aharon Oren, a Professor of Microbial Ecology at the Hebrew University is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Shipping Lanes of the Dead Sea: 2500 years of navigation” at the University of Connecticut.
2013: The ICCJ International Abrahamic Forum International Conference is scheduled to open at La Baume, Aix en Provence France
 
2013: In San Diego, CA, the Center for Jewish Culture is scheduled to host a screening of “The Trotsky” – a film about Montreal high school students who thinks he is the reincarnation of the famous Russian revolutionary.
 
2013(18th of Tammuz, 5773): Seventy-eight year old Jewish-American billionaire Marc Rich, who was pardoned by then US president Bill Clinton over what had once been the biggest tax evasion case in US history and busting sanctions with Iran, died today from a stroke in Switzerland

2013: Fishel Litzman, a New York police officer in training and an Orthodox Jew, took the NYPD to court today for requiring him to trim his beard for service. (As reported by Michael Wilner)

2014: The Pears Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism is scheduled to present “Debating Anti-Semitism: Why do Jews Disagree so Much?”

2014: Professor Anthony McElligott is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled The Last Transport: Writing a history of the Holocaust in the Eastern Aegean at Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide

2014: “The Green Prince” is scheduled to be shown at the 22nd annual Portland Jewish Film Festival.

2014: Tel Aviv is scheduled to host its 11thWhite Night event
 
2014: “La Rafle” and “The Lady in Number 6” are scheduled to be shown at the Chicago Jewish Film Festival
 
2014: A court in Versailles ordered the extradition of 29 year old Mehid Nemmouche, “the man suspected of murdering four people at the Jewish Museum in Brussels” to Belgium.

2014: As firefighter worked “to put out remaining hotspots from a major forest fire that broke out yesterday afternoon in southwest Jerusalem (As reported by Lazar Berman)

2014(28thof Sivan, 5774): Ninety-three year old Viennese born American opera and orchestra conductor passed away.


2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host The Gertler Quarter as part of “The Future Generation Series.”
 
 
 



 


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

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JUNE 27

1096: Massacres of the Jews took place in Xanten and Eller (Germany). This was the second massacre at Xanten in a month. Fifty Jews died. At Eller, five Jewish community leaders were assigned the task (by the community) of killing all the members and then themselves rather than suffer at the hands of the Crusaders. Out of a community of three hundred, only four remained, badly wounded.


1240: In Paris, a commission that was making an inquiry into the nature of the Talmud with a specific interest into alleged derogatory comments about Jesus ended its deliberation after three days.  The commission condemned the Talmud to be burned.  The sentence of condemnation was not executed.  Apparently Archbishop Walter Cornutus of Sens, a prelate influential with the King, interceded on behalf of the Jews and succeeded in having many of the confiscated volumes of the Talmud returned to their rightful owners

 

1462: Birthdate of Louis XII who expelled the Jews from Provence in 1501.

 

1570(23rd of Tammuz): Cabbalist Moses ben Jacob Cordovero, known as Ramak, passed away in Safed.

 

1709: Peter the Great defeats Charles XII of Sweden at the Battle of Poltava. The Russian victory marked the beginning of the end for Sweden as a major European military and political power. Charles XI, the father of Charles XII had banned Jews from living in Sweden.  Charles XII did not adhere to his father’s wishes since he used Jewish merchants as court treasurers and royal paymaster for his armies when they were in the field.  The father’s religious concerns were overridden by the son’s financial needs.  Peter the Great did not want Jews living in his ever expanding kingdom.  During the war with Sweden, when the fighting reached Poland, Russian soldiers were given in a free hand in looting and pillaging the Jewish property and taking whatever liberties they wished with the Jewish populace.


1787: After 25 years of work, Edward Gibbon completes the manuscript of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.  Gibbon had a very low opinion of the Jewish people describing them as the “disturbers of the religious harmony of the ancient world” who had emerged from the deserved obscurity resulting from the enslavement by the Assyrians and Babylonians to observe their “peculiar rites and unsocial manners” with “sullen obstinacy.” [Ed. Note: It only gets worse after this.]


1804: In Berlin, jeweler David Jacob Riess and his wife gave birth to Peter Gottlieb Riess, who as physicist and mathematician Peter Theophil Riess became the first Jewish member of the Berlin Academy


1805: Birthdate of Francis William Newman, the brother of Cardinal Newman whose works included A History of the Hebrew Monarchypublished in 1847.


1827: Seventy-four year old Johann G. Eichhorn, the German Old Testament scholar who was a pioneer in "higher criticism," which evaluated Scripture through literary analysis and historical evidence, rather than by the unquestioned authority of systematized religious tradition as can be seen in his seminal work Introduction to the Old Testament passed away today.


1828(15th of Tammuz, 5588): Fifty-year old Abraham Montel, the husband of Naumy Vidal Naquet and one of the Rabbis who attended Napoleon’s Grand Sanhedrin, passed away today.


1846: In Magdeurg, Rabbi Ludwig Philippson and his wife gave birth to historian Martin Philippson


1854: “The British Ministry” published today reviewed the changing fortunes of various English political leaders. The author expressed the belief that Lord John Russell would not enjoy the continued support of London’s Jews if here running for election today. The authors stated that “it was solely due to his bad management” and lack of tact “that Jews were not declared eligible to sit in Parliament.” If Lord Russell had allowed Mr. Rothschild to follow the same oath pattern when he was elected in 1847 as the Quaker Mr. Pease had used in 1833, Jews would now be sitting in the House of Commons.  Lord Russell’s insistence on solving the problem with an Act of Parliament was counter-productive since such a solution was bound to fail.

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1854(1st of Tammuz, 5614): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1854(1st of Tammuz, 5614): Eighty-seven year old “German philanthropist and communal worker” Amalie Beer, “wife of the banker Jacob Herz Beer, daugher of Liebmann Meyer Wolf (known as "the Berlin Crœsus"), and great-granddaughter of Lipmann Wolf Taussig” passed away today. (Some sources show her death date as June 22 or June 24)


1855: Ninety year old Anton von Schmid, a Christian who published Hebrew books passed away today in Vienna.


1857:Asteroid 45 Eugenia was discovered by Hermann Mayer Salomon Goldschmidt


1860: The New York Times published the following:

To the Editor of the New-York Times:

Several New-York Archaeologists have, within the past week, received various communications concerning the discovery of a very curious stone relic, covered with Hebrew inscriptions, said to have been found by Mr. WYRICK, of Newark, Ohio, in one of those artificial earthworks so numerous in that vicinity. Some of these letters, which we had the pleasure to see, are accompanied by full-sized drawings of the stone and inscriptions, together with many-columns of newspaper notices, showing the deep interest the discovery has created amongst Western antiquaries. One of these letters, we are informed, was read at the last meeting of the American Ethnological Society; but, with their usual caution, the members did not venture an opinion, preferring, we presume, to defer an expression of it until after a more critical and scientific examination of the relic itself, and all the circumstances connected with its discovery shall have been entered into. For the purpose of giving your readers some account of the discovery, we have condensed the various notices into a reasonable length. First, as to Mr. WYRICK, the finder of the stone. He seems to be an old and respected citizen of Licking County, by profession a surveyor, and of late years has become enamored of archaeological pursuits. He has recently been engaged in surveying, platting and constructing a topographical map of the ancient earthworks so extensive in Cherry Valley. During this process he has been prospecting in a quiet way by excavating the mounds and embankments for the purpose of finding some implement or relic which might repay him for the trouble. So on Friday morning, the 29th of June, he started out with his digging implements, accompanied only by his son, a lad eight or nine years of age. He concluded to try his luck in a new place, influenced, he states, by a suggestion from Mr. SQUIER, that it might be well to examine the "dug holes," conceiving they might be caches or hiding places -- cemeteries or bone-pits, as they are called in New-York. "Having found one in the woods more articulated than the others," he commenced a trench in the greatest depression of the circle, and did not proceed down more than two feet (through black loam) before he found a stone bale, then this wonderful emblematic stone embedded in a bale of composition clay, adobe, or sunburnt brick. On cleaning off the stone he discovered the inscriptions, but was totally ignorant of their nature. Almost frantic with delight, he hastened to his friends, who informed him that they were Hebrew characters.

DESCRIPTION OF THE STONE.

The material is novaculite, or hone-stone, not found in places within the limits of Ohio, yet may be seen in any carpenter's shop. Now, mark the description. It is very hard, with perfectly smooth surfaces, and has apparently been polished; 5 3/4 inches long, with two flat sides, each 2 1/2 inches wide at the top, tapering down to 1 1/4 inches at the end. The edges are square, and nearly the same width. On each of the four sides is an inscription in Hebrew, each complete in itself. The letters are about one inch in length, and cut as clear as a die -- a fair specimen of letter-carving in stone.

THE INSCRIPTION is as follows, which may easily be rendered by any Hebrew scholar:

1. Kedosh Kedoskim -- The Holy of Holies.

2. Torath, J[???]hovah -- The Law of God.

3. Melec Erets -- The King of the Earth.

4. Devar Jehovah -- The Word of the Lord.

So much for the history of this stone and the character of the inscription. Of course suck a discovery must give rise to numerous and various speculations. Some have suggested that it might be a Masonic emblem -- the keystone which Master Masons anciently deposited in the corner-stone of their temples. (But, unfortunately for this hypothesis, the shape is not the same.) Others have supposed it furnished evidence of the presence of the lost tribes of Israel. Copies of the inscription have been submitted to some of our learned Rabbis, who generally agree that the above is a fair rendering of the text. But a difference of opinion has been expressed with regard to the antiquity of the characters, some carrying them back to the rime of Ezra, whilst others think them more modern. But this discussion is neither here nor there. The first and most important question to be solved by the cautious archaeologist is, whether or not this is a genuine relic of antiquity? Taking a general view of the subject, we might say, at the recent discovery of America by the Europeans, they found millions of inhabitants, but no well authenticated instance of an alphabet, or a single page of written history, other than symbolic pictures. We hold that no people, whether savage or civilized, ever occupied the earth's surface without leaving in the soil some trace of their existence and arts. If the Lost Tribes came to this Continent, it was after they possessed a written language and knowledge of certain arts, evidences of which might naturally be recorded upon imperishable materials, as stone, pottery and coins. And these evidences should be of frequent occurence to prove anything -- as no single isolated case, no matter how well authenticated, should-establish a theory. But no one will admit that enough has as yet been discovered to justify this hypothesis. We will next allude to the internal evidence of its antiquity, as derived from the published accounts. The stone is said to be novoculite, or hone stone, with a high polish, with the characters as sharply cut as if recently done by a lapidary. Now, everyone who claims any knowledge on the subject must be aware that few varieties of stone can remain long in the soil without losing a polished surface, and showing evidence of decomposition. And, even those substances, as quartz and obsidian, not liable to such change, are invariably (in the oldest mounds) found incrusted with lime. Indeed, from all that we can gather, both from private and published sources, we must classify it thus: Genus-bug-species-hum -- recalling the celebrated Pickwickian stone -- belonging to the same category as the gold plates of the Mormon Bible -- the graphic mica -- the brass plates with Chinese characters, found in Illinois, perhaps akin to the Louisiana Hebrew inscription, the last so skillfully conceived as to deceive our most astute archeologist, (Mr. SQUIER,) who favored one of our Societies with a very learned paper on this 1st of April hoax! The West, especially Ohio, seems fertile in false as well as genuine antiquities, so that we would fain hope the Newark stone may not prove "Lapis offensionis, et petia scandali, to the local antiquaries. D.


1862(29th of Sivan, 5622): E.J. Sampson who served with the 4th Texas of the Confederate Army was killed today and subsequently buried in Richmond, VA.


1865: In West Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Louis Monash and his wife Bertha, née Manasse, two German Jewish refugees gave birth to Sir John Monash, a civil engineer who would become his nation’s leading general during WW I, serving with distinction and intellectual brilliance on the Western Front.


1869: Birthdate of Emma Goldman. Goldman gained fame as an anarchist and feminist.  Goldman’s views on revolution and violence changed after she witnessed the aftermath of the Russian Revolution.  She became disillusioned with Bolshevism and became a pacifist as a result of the horrors she saw firsthand. 


1875: “Secret Societies” published today offered a novel explanation for the conversation of the Roman Emperor Constantine to Christianity. According to the article an unnamed “Jewish Rabbi” and Pope Sylvester were contending with another in the presence of the Emperor.  “The Rabbi whispered “Shemhamphorasch or the Tetragrammaton “into the ear of an ox, which instantly fell dead.” Sylvester   responded by saying, “’Arise, ox, in the name of the trinity!’”  “This showed the Emperor the superiority of the Christian religion, and he accepted it at once.” [Editor’s note - “The Shemhamphorasch is a corruption of the Hebrew term Shem ha-Mephorash (שם המפורש), which was used in tannaitic times to refer to the Tetragrammaton. In early Kabbalah the term was used to designate sometimes a seventy-two Letter name for God, and sometimes a forty two Letter name. Rashi said Shem ha-Mephorash was used for a forty two letter name, but Maimonides thought Shem ha-Mephorash was used only for the four letter Tetragrammaton.” This is four Hebrew letters (Yod, He, Waw and He) called The "Tetragrammaton" is the unpronounceable name of God made up of four Hebrew letters – Yud, Hay, Vav, Hay. There was a Pope Sylvester but his relationship with Constantine was apparently more invention than fact; the invention having been used to promote the concept of Papal authority over temporal rulers.]


1876: Moses Tannenholz obtained an affidavit from Rachel Blumenthal stating that she was 18 years old.  This affidavit, which was of questionable validity, would figure prominently in a divorce case in which, among other things, it was contended that the bride below the age of consent at the time of the marriage rendering the nuptials null and void.

 

1877: Following the refusal of Judge Hilton to allow Jews to be guests at the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga, NY, Harry Ward Beecher delivered “a long eulogy on the Hebrew race” today.

 

1878:  In Whitechapel, London, John and Rebecca Lipkind gave birth to Goodman Lipkind the London rabbi who came to the United States where led several congregations including Gates of Heaven in Schenectady, NY

 

1880: It was reported today that the throngs attending the fair in Hungary’s capital city included “Jews…by the hundreds, German Jews, Hungarian Jews” dressed as Magyars, “Polish Jews in black toga and long corkscrew curls, Transylvanian Jews in greasy brown cloth dressing gown and sandaled feet, looking like dissipated Capuchin friars.” [This serves as a reminder of the rich variety of Jewish cultures that flourished in pre-Holocaust Europe.]

 

1880: It was reported today that the parties attending the conference on Morocco in Madrid have reached an impasse.  The Moroccans are expected to tell the European powers that they cannot protect the Jews from “popular fanaticism” unless the Europeans agree to “strengthen the authority of the Sultan” – or in plain English give up some of their colonial power.  This is something that the French and Spanish will never agree to.  The issue of protecting the Jews is a smokescreen behind which the Europeans can hide their imperial designs and the Ottomans can hide their attempts to protect their crumbling empire.

 

1881: In Spain, Praxedes M Sagasta the President of the Council of Ministers wrote to a prominent European Jewish author H. Guedalla that “article 1 of the Constitution of Spain is the most decisive revocation of the edict of banishment against the Jews in the year 1492.  Thus all of your coreligionists who wish can come to Spain without any obstacle whatever…”

 

1882: “Bad for Russian Refugees” published today described the financial crisis facing the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society in trying to care for the tidal wave of Jewish immigrants fleeing eastern Europe. The American Jewish community, much of which had only been in the United States for only one or two generations, was small when compared to the millions in Russia, Romania, etc. and had only limited financial resources to deal with the crisis.

 

1882(10th of Tammuz, 5642): Sixty-eight year old “Dutch jurist and minister of justice Michael H. Godefroi who “delivered exhaustive speeches insisting that the commercial treaty with Rumania should not be ratified until guaranties should have been given that Netherland Jews in that country should enjoy perfect equality before the law” passed away today.

 

1882: Referee Jerome Buck is scheduled to hear more testimony in the hearing to determine the sanity of Samuel Obreight a young Jew who had been institutionalized by his family after his recent marriage to a young Christian woman.

 

1882: Mr. Cohn chaired tonight’s meeting of the Cap-finishers’ Union which was held on Eldridge Street. The major concern was the declining wages of the workers.  Wages have fallen precipitously since last November when members were earning fifteen to twenty dollars a week.  Now they can are earning between seven and eight dollars a week because the manufacturers have found sources of cheap labor including Russian Jewish immigrants who will work for $2.50 to 3.00 per week.

 

 

1883: The first cruise of the season for poor Jewish children and their mothers today sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children is scheduled to leave at nine o’clock this morning.

 

1883: “The Alleged Jewish Murder” published today reported that “all the Christian lawyers at Nyreghhaza, Hungary, where the trial of the Jews charged with a murdering a Christian girl” is taking place “have adopted a resolution attacking the conduct of the Public Prosecutor.  At the same time, the Hungarian government claims that it could not prevent the trial from taking place but that it does “not believe the accusation to be true.”  [The allegation is that the Jews murdered a Christian girl in their synagogue – a case based on the coerced confession of a Jew named Moritz Scharf.]

 

1884(4th of Tammuz, 5644): Ignatz Kunreuther passed away.  Born in Germany in 1811, he came to Chicago from New York in 1847 and became the first rabbi to serve KAM.  He also served as the Chazan and Shochet for six years before “retiring to private life.

 

1885: In Lithuania, Eva Gross Landy and Rabbi Jacob Landy gave birth to Rachel (Rae) Landy the Cleveland, Ohio trained nurse who “initiated the first public health and sanitation systems in Palestine and whose 37 career in the U.S. Army included serving as “chief of nurses of the Second Command at Governor’s Island, NY.  (“Landy's father established Hebrew Books, the first Jewish bookstore in Cleveland, and her mother was instrumental in the founding of Menorah Park Center for the Aging.”).

 

 

1885: As the conflict between Orthodox and Reform rabbis continued Rabbi Alexander Kohut took issue with remarks made by Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler of Temple Beth-El today by declaring that “We cannot all be authorities.  No one is privileged to say for himself ‘I am the authority, and I alone.’ Or ancient believers had some very great prominent men, and should we not in this nineteenth century follow the doctrines which are laid down for us in the Talmud?” [The answer to this question is still one that some Jews are asking in the 21stcentury.]

 

1888: “A Hebrew Fresh-Air Fund” published today provided a summary of the annual report for Sanitarium for Hebrew Children issued by its President, Nathan Strauss.  Last year the society provided 8 free excursions that served 4,732 infants, 3,631 children and 2,789 mothers. 

 

1888: It was reported today that that Jacob H. Schiff has offered to contribute $10,000 to help the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children build a new facility to meet the needs of underprivileged Jewish children and their mothers.

 

1888: Birthdate of Ludwik Niemirowski, who gained fame as the English historian, Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier.


1891: “Jews Barred From Palestine” published today reported that “there is little hope that the Sultan will consent to the Jews settling in Palestine.”


1893: During the Panic of 1893, the crash of the New York Stock Exchange.  The Panic of 1893-94 was the worst economic depression to hit the United States until the Great Depression that began in 1929.  During the panic, Nathan Strauss a prominent New York Jewish merchant and philanthropist “started a chain of grocery stores that distributed groceries and coal to the needy.” In Greeley, Colorado, Adolph Z. Salomon, one of  Colorado’s three famous Salomon brothers, found himself forced into the “farm and ranch business” due to the fact that so many defaulted on their loans.  These defaults resulted in major financial setback for Salomon.


1893: A convention of New York Republicans adopted a resolution condemning the decision of the New York Union League Club to blackball Mr. Seligman because he was Jewish.


1893:  Rector Hermann Ahlwardt, the Jew baiting member of the Reichstag has been sentenced to three months imprisonment for libeling Prussian officials again.


1894: Wilhelm Diamant, the son of Herman and Johanna Diamant, was buried today in Vienna.


1896: Twenty-year old George H. Webb persuaded Dora Henry, a 16 year old Jewess to leave her father’s house and then went the home of Reverend C.A. Daniel where the Lutheran minister married them. The two then separated and went back to their respective homes.


1896: “Lottery-Crazed Ghetto” published today described the congested district east of the Bowery as being the Ghetto because the preponderance of the population was Jewish.  “The Russian and Polish Jews who” live “in such large numbers in the district extending from Division to Houston Streets are the most eager purchasers of lottery tickets” which can make them the victims of the swarm of agents selling these pieces of pasteboard.


1897: The Hebrew Free School Association sponsored the entertainment for 1,000 needy New York children which was held at the auditorium of the Educational Alliance at East Broadway and Jefferson Street.


1897: “Dr. Benjamin F. De Costa preached on the ‘Diamond Julibee’ at the Church of St. John the Evangelist” tonight “taking as his text Exodus XII:26 ‘What mean ye by this service?’”


1897: In Chicago, Bernard Schwager, a successful cigar market, kissed his ten day old grandson for the first time today.  The child’s mother, who will convert tomorrow, was a Christian when she married Schwager’s son over a year ago.


1897(27thof Sivan, 5657): Seventy-eight year old Sir John Simon.  Born at Jamaica in 1818, his father Isaac Simon sent him study in England in 1833.  He wanted to become a rabbi but ended up becoming a lawyer.  He returned to Jamaica after his marriage but went back to London “for his wife’s health.” He began serving as Liberal MP in 1868.  His career lasted for twenty years and was marked by his efforts on behalf of the Jews of Russia.



1897: The Young Folks’ League of the Hebrew Infant Asylum will leave for an excursion today from the pier at the foot of West 129th aboard the SS Bay Queen.


1888: Birthdate of Ludwik Niemirowski, the Polish born Jew who gained famed “British Zionist historian Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier.”


1899: Rabbi Drachman delivered the opening prayer at the commencement exercises of the Jewish Theological Seminary which were held in Tuxedo Hall tonight.  Joseph Blumenthal, President of the Board of Trustees, delivered the introductory address.


1899(19th of Tammuz, 5659): David Kraukauer, the benefactor of many Jewish charities including the Montefiore Home and Mount Sinai Hospital, passed away today.


1900(30thof Sivan, 5660): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1900: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi Lesser officiated at the marriage of Harry Deitchman and Rosa Fechter.


1901: The funeral for the Honorable Samuel Edward Shrimski, the former Mayor of Omarau currently serving as member of the New Zealand Parliament who was survived by his wife Deborah, is scheduled to take place at 2 p.m.in the Waikumete Cemetery.


1903: In the wake of the exoneration of Colonel Dreyfus, the French government ordered the closure of 120 religious (Catholic) schools as a sign of a loss of clout of those on the political right.


1906: On the Lower East Side, 50,000 immigrant Jewish mothers stormed the local public schools in response to a rumor that doctors were slitting the throats of their children in public schools.



1907: Birthdate of British jurist Sir Alan Abraham Mocatta.


1908: In Cordisburgo, Brazil, Florduardo Pinto Rosa (nicknamed "seu Fulô") and Francisca Guimarães Rosa ("Chiquitinha") gave birth to João Guimarães Rosa who wrote a short story “La triosieme rive” which provided the title for the autobiography of Polish born French economist Ignacy Sachs and his wife Viola.


1911(1stof Tammuz, 5671): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1911: Louis-Lucien Klotz began serving as French Minister of Finance in Briand’s third government


1912: The Jewish Territorial Organization holds its annual meeting over four days in Vienna. It passes a resolution thanking the Portuguese Chamber of Deputies for the offer of land in Angola for Jewish colonists, but regrets the impossibility of recommending individual colonists to undertake a task, which could be successfully carried out only by an organization.


1912: The funeral for Julia Richmond the New Yorker who was an educator and defender of the underdog including those suffering from consumption and Russian Jewish immigrants is schedule to be held today.


1914: Dr Max Raisin of Brooklyn delivered the following address at Berith Dodesh Temple, a Reform Jewish Congregation in which he declared that while some Reform Jews do not proclaim their Zionism, at heart they hope for restoration as a people.

"Reform is what made Zionism what it is. Zionism has found amongst reformers some of its staunchest upholders. Reform is only a phase of religion, and religion makes for race consciousness. The integrity of the Jews as a race depends upon the existence and survival of Judaism as a religion. When a Gentile becomes a Jew by religion, he becomes ipso facto a Jew by race; but when a Jew joins a Gentile religion he remains a Jew by race. "When reform Jews in Washington some time ago told Congressmen some time ago that the Jews were only a religious body, and not a race, opposition to the statement arose from the very ranks of reform itself. Is the belief of the reformer dogmatically different to that of the orthodox? Does it deny the hope of the Jews for national restoration? There is a higher court than the rabbinical conference. Reform Judaism goes to the prophets, and there is nothing their opposed to national restoration. "You will say that all reference to Zion has been stricken from your Prayer Book. That is quite true, but that is a mere negative attitude for you to take. It is not true that reform as a whole is opposed to Zionism. The Prayer book is one thing, and Reform as a whole another thing. National restoration is a universal movement. Reform looks upon nationalism, even if potentially, as a means to realize all the hopes of Judaism. I content that Reform does stand upon national ground. Zionism has again and again made itself felt in the camp of reform. If nationalism is not included in your prayer book, it is not opposed or denied."


1914: In Rochester, NY, Dr Mordechai M. Kaplan of New York delivered a sermon at Beth Israel Synagogue in Leopold Street this morning.


1914: Fifty delegates to the convention of Zionists from Chicago and twenty-five more from Cleveland reached Rochester tonight. They were among delegates invited to attend an evening reception at the Jewish young Men's Association in Franklin Square.


1915: Birthdate of philanthropist, Bernard Roth, “an entrepreneur who built a major company from a single gas station in Los Angeles by promoting self-service gas pumps”


1915(15thof Tammuz, 5675): Eighty-three year old pioneer shoe manufacturer Isaac Blyn passed away in New York City.


1915: While delivering his sermon tonight from a platform of the Grace Methodist Episcopal Church Dr. Christian F. Reisner “referred to form Governor Slaton of Georgia who commuted the sentence of Leo Frank to life imprisonment” saying “Governor Slaton has proved himself one of the bravest men in America.


1915: “The convention of the Federation of Rumanian Jews held in the Manhattan Lyceum today adopted resolutions condemning as undemocratic the plan of the American Jewish Committee for a conference of 150 delegates in Washington in November to consider Jewish affairs in connection with the war and its outcome” – favoring instead “a Congress of many members..”


1915: Congressman Isaac Siegel of the 20th District spoke this afternoon at the dedication by the “Jewish charity workers of the Upper East Side and west side and in Harlem” of “a home to be known as the Hebrew Sheltering Society of Harlem.


1915: “Reports continue today of an oath-bound organization which formed at a meeting at Mary Phagan’s grave in Marietta have spread throughout Georgia whose purpose is to ‘get’ Slaton (the governor who pardoned Leo Frank) and “Frank, no matter how long it takes.”


1915: In Boston, Jacob de Haas will preside over the opening session of the convention of the Zionists attended by representatives of the Zionist Provisional Committee, the Federation of American Zionists, Hadassah, Order sons of Zion, the New England Zionists, the Intercollegiate Zionist Conference, Misrachi, Young Judaea and Hachoosa.

 

1917: It was reported from The Hague that in an interview Djemal Pasha “in the post-bellum period” “he would do his utmost” to opposed Jewish colonization which he saw “as an indispensable step toward rooting out Entente influence.”


1918: The volunteers of the Jewish Battalion in World War I were sent to the front. In August 1917, thanks in part to the efforts of Jabotinsky; the formation of a Jewish regiment was officially announced. Formation of such a unit had been opposed by members of the British military and other members of the British Establishment.  By 1917, the Empire was desperate for soldiers.  It was probably this sense of desperation more than anything else that led to the formation of the first Jewish combat unit since the Bar Kochba Revolt in 135. The unit was designated as the 38th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers. It included British volunteers, members of the former Zion Mule Corps and a large number of Russian Jews. In April 1918, it was joined by the 39th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, more than 50 percent of whom were American volunteers. In June 1918, The 38th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers was sent to Palestine, where the volunteers fought for the liberation of Eretz Yisrael from Turkish rule.


1920: Birthdate of Itek Dommnici, the native of Rumania who gained fame as I. A. L. Diamond, the Hollywood screenwriter and the longtime collaborator of the director Billy Wilder and won an Oscar for the “Apartment.”


1920(11thof Tammuz, 5680): Sixty-nine year old Julius Newman who had served as Rabbi of the Moses Montefiore Congregation and had lived in Chicago for forty years, passed away in California.


1921: Mrs. Edith R. Sulzberger, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Julius Rosenwald, went to Crown Point, Indiana today and obtained a marriage license.


1923: Birthdate of Evelyn “Eva” Ruth Gorelick (nee Brounstein) the Canadian born mother of “Kenny G.”


1923: Catcher Moe Berg made his major league debut with the Brooklyn Robins.


1926: The twenty-ninth annual convention of the Zionist Organization of America opened here today with more than 1,000 delegates from all parts of the country, including 200 from New York. Louis Lipsky, Chairman of the ZOA, delivered a lengthy keynote address in which, among other things, he criticized England for failing to cooperate with the Zionists under the terms of the mandate.  “Emanuel Neuman, national director of the United Palestine Appeal reported that over five million dollars had been raised since last October” for projects in Palestine.


1927: Time magazine reported that “Pilot Clarence Duncan Chamberlin and passenger Charles A. Levine were last week enjoying the hospitality of Germans, resting in the watering place known as Baden-Baden, inspecting huge multi-motored airships at the Dornier and Zeppelin plants. Some of their doings: Frau Thea Rasche, Germany's only licensed woman pilot, was taken for a ride over Berlin by Pilot Chamberlin. Skillful, she also took passenger Levine for a ride. Correspondents heralded the trips as strengthening to U.S. - German relations. Flyers Chamberlin and Levine hustled to Bremen to meet their respective wives, who arrived from the U.S. Said Mrs. Chamberlin on seeing her husband: "Why, your knickers are awful. Didn't you even have them cleaned?" Then the two couples flew to Berlin in three hops. The two wives were reported to be feeling ill after the first hop. "The Columbia is not on the market," said Mr. Levine when Grover Cleveland Bergdoll, a rich American then living in Germany, offered to buy the monoplane. Mr. Bergdoll let it be known that he desires to fly to the U.S. to show that he is no coward, that conscientious objection was his only reason for refusing to fight in the World War.” [Levine was Jewish and laid claim to being the “first passenger” to cross the Atlantic.]


1931: Labor economist Theresa Wolfson was the principal speaker at the opening of the Barnard College Summer School for Women Workers in Industry


1931: Birthdate of Canadian businessman Charles Bronfman


1933: Birthdate of Robert Katz, “an author and screenwriter who incurred the wrath of the Vatican by accusing Pope Pius XII of failing to act to stave off a Nazi massacre of Italians in 1944.”


1933:  At a rally in London, speakers protest anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany.


1934: Filming of “Imitation of Life” directed John Stahl (Jacob Morris Strelitsky) began today.


1936: The Democratic National Convention comes to a close after re-nominating Franklin D. Roosevelt for a second term. FDR enjoys overwhelming support among Jewish voters. Among the delegates is Samuel Untermyer who is attending his last national convention.


1938: “The Jews of Palestine observed a day of semi-mourning today in sympathy for the Revisionist youth, Ben Yosef, who is under a death sentence for having fired on an Arab-owned bus.  There were special prayers and sermons in synagogues throughout the country.  Shops were closed in the evening and places of amusement were shut all day.”


1938: Twenty-one year old publisher Roger Williams Straus, Jr. married “Dorothea Leibmann, granddaughter of the founder of Rheingold Brewing,


1939: NBC Radio takes over the Camel Caravan, a musical variety program that will feature regular appearances by comedian Lew Lehr.


1939: The Irgun placed a letter bomb in the mailbox attached to the outside wall of the Schneller Orphanage which was now a British military facility known as the Schneller Barracks, which, when it exploded “collapsed part of the wall and injured five Arabs in the vicinity.”


1940: During a meeting of the Cabinet, Churchill again called for the arming of the Jews of Palestine so that British troops could come back to defend the home islands.  Lord Lloyd spoke against the move; anti-Semitism trumped strategic thinking as Lord Lloyd prevailed.


1941: On a day known as Red Friday: German units in Bialystok began to randomly shoot Jews. Eight hundred were locked in the Synagogue, which the Nazis then it set on fire. More were forced in during the blaze. Resisters were shot. The Germans threw hand grenades into Jewish homes. By the end of the day, 2,000 Jews were murdered. Similar horrors took place in Minsk.


1941: German troops gathered in a synagogue courtyard in Niéswiez, Poland, beat and shoot exhausted Russian POWs.


1941: Romanian Iron Guard Legionnaires, encouraged by the anti-Semitic policies of dictator Ion Antonescu, undertake the extermination of the Jews in Falesti. Thousands are killed.


1942: In Manhattan, Jerry Schechter, “a garment center pattern maker who became a sculptor” and the former Ruth Lisa Lubin gave birth to Daniel Isaac Schechter “whose media criticism became a staple of Boston radio and who went on to champion human rights as an author, filmmaker and television producer.”


 

1944: Jewish Resistance leader David "Dodo" Donoff, 24, is executed near Lyons, France.


1944: Almost one half million Jews have been sent to Auschwitz since May 15, 1944.


1944: After 475,000 Hungarian Jews had been deported, the Pope and the King of Sweden intervened with Horthy as did President Roosevelt who issued the ultimatum-like appeal to stop the brutal anti-Jewish persecutions.


1944: Following his meeting with Joel Brand, Moshe Sharett wrote in his report, "I must have looked a little incredulous, for he said: 'Please believe me: they have killed six million Jews; there are only two million left alive'."


1944: A report was given to officials in London that Captain Isidor Newman who was serving with SOE had been taken to a private house at Rue des Etats Unis in Paris that had been turned into a Gestapo prison.


1945: Birthdate of Amihai "Ami" Ayalon the native of Tiberias who grew up at Ma’agan co-founded by his father Yitzhak who “emigrated illegally from Romania and who served as a commander in the Israeli Navy before moving to a career in politics.


1945: Having heard no further reply from Churchill over his request to suspend the White Paper of 1939, a bitter Chaim Weizmann told his colleagues that the “leaders of the Western world” had done what they had done to the Jews but did not have “to swallow it.” He continued saying that Churchill and Roosevelt had let the Jewish people down, “maybe not intentionally, but inadvertently.  They made promises which did not carry out or mean to carry out.”  He had no faith in the upcoming meeting of the Big Three – Stalin, Churchill and Truman because “nobody cared about what happened to the Jews.  Nobody had raised a finder to stop them from being slaughtered.”  And now they did not care about “the remnant which had survived.”  Weizmann, feeling broken and betrayed expressed his willingness to resign his leadership position regardless of the consequences.


1946: U.S. premiere of “A Letter for Evie” directed by Jules Dassin and filmed by cinematographer Karl Fruend.


1947: In Manhattan, Morris Helprin the President of London Films and Broadway actress Eleanor Lynn Helprin gave birth to American novelist, journalist, conservative commentator, Mark Helprin.


1949: “Dr. Philipson Collapses” published today described the physical condition of Dr. David Philipson, “the dean of the American Reform Rabbinate” who is resting at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston where he was taken after he lost consciousness at the sixtieth annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.  The 87 year old cleric is the “oldest living graduate of the Hebrew Union College” and boasts that he has never missed one of these conferences.


1949: “Laboring Voice” published today described the birth of WFDR, a new non-profit FM station “back by the 400,000 members of the ILGWU headed by David Dubinsky.


 

1950: Admiral Sir John Edelsten, Commander in Chief of the British Mediterranean Fleet completed a two-day courtesy visit to the Jewish state. The Admiral’s visit included stops at Haifa and Tel Aviv.


1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that 283,000 votes were cast for the Zionist Congress elections. According to the rough estimates Mapai was expected to send 103, Mapam 46, Hapoel Hamizrahi 26, Herut 21, Progressives 12 and Revisionists one delegate to the Congress. More than one million dollars worth of food parcels sent by relatives abroad arrived in Israel every month. About 70,000 such food packages were sent through commercial firms, and 40,000 were mailed directly by relatives.


1952(4th of Tammuz, 5712): Seventy-three year old German born American mathematician Max Dehn passed away in North Carolina.



1952: The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 also known as the McCarran-Walter Act was enacted today.


1954: Meir Har-Zion “in a seven man squad led by Major Aharon Davidi that launched a surprise attack on an Arab Legion camp at Azzun, 13 km east of Qalqilya” tonight.


1957: Release date for “Sweet Smell of Success” a film based on novelette by Ernest Lehman with a script co-authored by Clifford Odets and co-starring Tony Curtis.


1965: Birthdate of British author and historian Simon Sebag-Montefiore, a member of one of Britain’s oldest and most distinguished Anglo-Jewish families. While he has written on a variety of topics, his Jerusalem: The Biography is one that anybody with an interest in Jerusalem, the Middle East or the three so-called Abrahamic Faiths should read. His brother Hugh Sebag-Montifiore is also an author whose works include two World War II histories Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man and Enigma: The Battle for the Code.


1966: In New York City television producer Gerald W. Abrams and executive producer Carol Ann Abrams (née Kelvin) gave birth to Jeffrey Jacob "J. J." Abrams


1967: An episode of Neil Simon’s “The Odd Couple,” a television program starring Tony Randall and Jack Klugman that had a baseball theme was filmed tonight at Shea Stadium, the day before the Mets played the Pirates.


1968(1st of Tammuz, 5728): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1971: The New York Times featured a review of St. Urbain's Horseman by Mordecai Richler


1973: U.S. premiere of “Scream Blacula Scream” filmed by cinematographer Isidore Mankofsky.


1974: Birthdate of Mariano Idelman the Argentine native who became a popular Israeli television personality.


1976: “An archaeological dig uncovered the Golan site of the ancient Jewish fortress of Bamla, which was destroyed by Vespasian in the early statges of the rebellion against Rome in the year 67.” P 180 green


1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that US President Gerald Ford finally upped the transitional aid to Israel to $275,000,000 and presented this as his final offer to the Congress for approval. A new, $15,000,000 center for cancer and allied diseases was opened at the Sharett Institute of Oncology at the Ein Karem Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem.


1976:News broke that four hijackers from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the German Revolutionary Cells had captured an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris. The plane was diverted to Entebbe in Uganda, where it was held pending terrorist demands for the release of 53 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli and various European jails. The separation of Jewish passengers from among the hostages particularly alarmed the authorities in Jerusalem.


1976: A revival of Rodgers and Hart’s “Pal Joey” opened at the Circle in the Square Theatre.


1978: Refusnik Simon Shnirman went on trial at Zaporozhye


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


1982: In Rio de Janeiro, “Bernard Rajzman, a former professional volleyball player and Michelle Wollens, a former professional figure skater” gave birth to surfer Philp Wollens Rajzman


1987: Daniel Barenhboim is scheduled to conduct his final in a series of concerts with the IPO that include performances by members of the Paris Opera all of which are part of the celebrations marking the 50thanniversary of the founding the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra.


1994: Alan Blinder began serving as Vice Chairperson of the Federal Reserve System.


1999: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Holocaust in American Life by Peter Novick.


2000: U. S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright arrives in Israel. She met with Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.


2000: NBC airs the final episode of Veronica’s Closet, a sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kaufman.


2002: Rabbi Baruch Lanner “was convicted of sexually abusing two teenage girls.” An appeals court later dismissed one of the child endangerment changes in 2005.  The case against Rabbi Lanner had begun with investigative reporting done by Gary Rosenblatt of The Jewish Week.


2002:  In recognition of his successful efforts to save thousands of Jews from the Nazis in France, . Secretary of State Colin Powell presented a posthumous "Constructive Dissent" award to the children of Hiram Bingham IV at an American Foreign Service Officers Association awards ceremony in Washington, DC.


2003(27th of Sivan, 5763): “Sgt. Maj. Erez Ashkenazi, 21, of Kibbutz Reshafim, an Israeli navy commando, was killed in an operation in Gaza to capture a Hamas cell, believed responsible for several bombings and the firing of anti-tank missiles in the Netzarim area.” (Jewish Virtual Library)


2004(8th of Tammuz, 5764): St.-Sgt. Roi Nissim, 20, of Rishon Lezion, was killed and five other soldiers were wounded when their outpost in the Gaza Strip was blown up by Hamas terrorists who tunneled under the position and detonated a massive explosive charge


2004:  Israel's renowned composer and songwriter Naomi Shemer was laid to rest today at 6 p.m. in Kvutzat Kinneret cemetery in the Galilee, where many of Israel's pioneers are buried. Shemer is known to many as the composer of the famous song ”Y'rushalayim Shel Zahav" or in English, "Jerusalem of Gold."  For those of you who saw "Shindler's List" this was the song played at the end of the movie when the film turned from black and white to color as the survivors were shown visiting the Shindler's grave.  The song was written at the request of Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kolek in 1967 several weeks before the outbreak of the Six Day War.  The song expresses the longing of a person for Jerusalem who has to view the Old City from the opposite side of the Green Line.  In one of those ironic twists of history, "the song became the war's anthem.  She was 74 when she passed away on Saturday, June 26, in Tel Aviv's Ichilov Hospital.  The famous chorus of the song is follows:


 

"Y'rushalayim shel zahav, v'shel n'choshet v'shel or; Halo l'chold shi-rayich ani kinor

Jerusalem of gold, of copper and of light, Behold I am harp for all your songs."



JERUSALEM OF GOLD

The mountain air is clear as water

The scent of pines around

Is carried on the breeze of twilight,

And tinkling bells resound.

The trees and stones there softly slumber,

A dream enfolds them all.

So solitary lies the city,

And at its heart -- a wall.

Oh, Jerusalem of gold, and of light and of

bronze,
I am the lute for all your songs.

The wells ran dry of all their water,

Forlorn the market square,

The Temple Mount dark and deserted,

In the Old City there.

And in the caverns in the mountain,

The winds howl to and fro,

And no-one takes the Dead Sea highway,

That leads through Jericho.

Oh, Jerusalem of gold, and of light and of

bronze,
I am the lute for all your songs.

But as I sing to you, my city,

And you with crowns adorn,

I am the least of all your children,

Of all the poets born.

Your name will scorch my lips for ever,

Like a seraph's kiss, I'm told,

If I forget thee, golden city,

Jerusalem of gold.

Oh, Jerusalem of gold, and of light and of

bronze,
I am the lute for all your songs.

The wells are filled again with water,

The square with joyous crowd,

On the Temple Mount within the City,

The shofar rings out loud.

Within the caverns in the mountains

A thousand suns will glow,

We'll take the Dead Sea road together,

That runs through Jericho.

Oh, Jerusalem of gold, and of light and of

bronze,

I am the lute for all your songs.


2004(8th of Tammuz, 5764): Mordechai Yosefov, 49, and three-year-old, Afik Zahavi, were killed outside a kindergarten when Palestinian terrorists in Gaza launched Kassam rockets into the southern Israeli city of Sderot. Zahavi's mother, Miriam, was seriously injured in the attack, and is struggling to recover in a local hospital.


2004:The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including 'Letters, 1928-1946': The Book of Isaiah (Berlin)by Sir Isaiah Berlin and 'Sweet Land Stories': The Call of the Wild Onesby E.L. Doctorow


2005:  Author and Civil War Historian Shelby Foote passes away at the age of 88.  A native of Greenville, Mississippi, Foote’s father was not Jewish.  However, his mother’s family was.  As a youngster, Foote regularly attended services.  He “stopped being Jewish” because he found himself having to play the role of an outsider twice over.  He was a Southerner and he was Jewish.  He could only devote himself to one of these and he chose his Southern heritage.  It is ironic that the man who came to personify Civil War for a whole a generation of television viewers and whose drawl was the best that the Southern tongue could offer was a Jew. 


2005: The United States Air Force appointed Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff, who had served as a chaplain for 25 years in the United States Navy, to the newly-created position of Special Assistant (for Values and Vision) to the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force.


2005: Rabbi Arnold E. Resnicoff who had served 25 years as a Chaplain in the United States Navy began serving “as Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force and Chief of Staff of the Air Force


2006(1stof Tammuz, 5766): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


 2006: Rabbi, Arnold E. Resnicoff completed his one year assignment as Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force and Chief of Staff of the Air Force. He was awarded the Air Force Decoration of Exceptional Civilian Service for his years’ worth of work.


 2006:  Chaim Saban’s “Saban Capital Group led a group of investors bidding for Univision Communications, the largest Spanish-language media company in the United States.”


2007: David Milliband’s last day as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs


2007:In Jerusalem,legendary Israeli composer/singer Shlomo Gronich presents his newest compositions of biblical sources on a wide spectrum of themes: justice, righteousness, integrity, man and his identity, love songs & prayers. Performance includes Gronich on piano & shofar, the Jerusalem String Quartet and percussion.


2007:Dr. Ashraf Marwan, an Egyptian businessman identified as the Mossad agent who tipped Israel off on the eve of the Yom Kippur War about the coming surprise attack was found dead outside his home in London's Mayfair neighborhood. Dr. Ashraf Marwan was the son-in-law of the Egyptian President, Gamal Abdel Nasser.  There is a dispute as to whether Marwan was really a spy for Israel or whether he was in a double agent who was feeding disinformation to his Israeli handlers.


2007: Social justice was the theme of the first Jurisprudence Awards dinner sponsored by the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs at the Hilton Chicago.  The event raised $50,000 for the work of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs which began during the civil rights struggles of the 1960s and how promotes social justice through working with community organizations in Chicago.


2007(11thof Tammuz, 5767): Ninety-year old Albert Wattenberg “one of the scientists who worked with Enrico Fermi on the first controlled release of nuclear energy” passed away today.


 

2009: The final performance of “Dov and Ali” by Anna Ziegler, at the Cherry Lane Studio Theater, in the West Village. The drama revolves around the relationship between Dov, a high school teacher and Orthodox Jew, and Ali, a 17-year-old student and strict Muslim.


2009: David Anthony Freud “was created a life peer as Baron Freud, of Eastry in the county of Kent,and became a shadow minister for welfare in the House of Lords.”


2009: At the Durham Performing Arts Center, the Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet presents the final performance Israeli modern choreographer Ohad Naharin's “Decadance” which was acclaimed by The New York Times as "dancing that pulls viewers right out of their seats.”


2009: Today, the London-based A-sharq Al-awast reported that a deal trading Shalit for over 1,000 Hamas prisoners was imminent. Hamas leader Haniyeh, however, said that reports of a breakthrough on Shalit negotiations were exaggerated. Israeli sources also continued to deny any impending deal.

 

2010: The Jewish Feast-ival is scheduled to take place at The Jewish Center in Rock Island, Illinois.

 

2010:"The Adventures of Hershele Ostropolyer," a new musical adaptation of the classic Yiddish play by Moyshe Gershenson, is scheduled to have its final performance at The Baruch Performing Arts Center, 55 Lexington Avenue.

 

2010: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Faith and Power: Religion and Politics in the Middle East by Bernard Lewis and Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance by Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Mihm.

 

2010:Jews from more than 15 countries are scheduled to compete in a “Jewish World Cup" in New York today. “The soccer tournament, hosted by the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, will take place  on Randall's Island, between Manhattan and the Bronx.


2010(15thof Tammuz, 5770): Martin David Ginsburg “an internationally renowned taxation law expert” who “was Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C. and of counsel to the law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson” passed away today.  He was the husband of Associate Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. (As reported by Gardiner Harris)


 

2011:Israeli violinist Misha Vitenson and the Jupiter musicians are scheduled to perform Beethoven’s brilliant Sextet for 2 virtuoso horns and string quartet, the Flute Quartet in E Minor by his pupil Ferdinand Ries, Webern’s Romantic Langsamer Satz, and the Brahms String Quartet No. 3 in B-flat Major at the Church for All Nations in New York City.

 

2011:Kiryat Arba Chief Rabbi Dov Lior, one of the senior figures of religious Zionism, was arrested today after he refused to appear for questioning for his endorsement of the controversial book, “Torat Hamelech,” which justifies killing non-Jews.


2011: Today Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's inner cabinet instructed the Israel Defense Forces to be firm in preventing the flotilla from reaching the Gaza Strip while operating with maximal restraint to avoid causing injuries.


2011:Israeli director Guilhad Emilio Schenker won an award at the Detroit Windsor International Film Festival

2011 today for his short film Lavan.  He picked up the award for Best Short Film, a week after he received the Best Director Prize at a Washington film festival.


2011:Kiryat Arba Chief Rabbi Dov Lior, one of the senior figures of religious Zionism, was arrested today after he refused to appear for questioning for his endorsement of the controversial book, “Torat Hamelech,” which justifies killing non-Jews.


2011(25th of Sivan, 5771): Ninety-seven year old Rabbi Michel Yehuda Lefokowitz passed away today.


2012:The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, The American Jewish Committee, and The American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists are scheduled to present the next session in its brown bag lunch speakers’ series: “Haunting Legacy: Vietnam and the American Presidency from Ford to Obama” with Marvin and Deborah Kalb.


2012: Six months after its first screening at the Sundance film festival, the rest of the United States has its first opportunity to view “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” an “ American fantasy drama film directed by Benh Zeitlin.”

2012: "Going Up: Jerusalem" - a pilgrimage by artists, social activists and intellectuals that is inspired by social protests in Israel and abroad is scheduled to come to an end.


2012: Funeral services are scheduled to be held at B'nai Israel Synagogue, 2601 Chestnut St. in Wilmington, NC for of Wendy Block, z”l, of Wrightsville Beach, NC. She was the former chair of the Network of Independent Communities of The Jewish Federations of North America, former board member of National Women’s Philanthropy and campaign vice chair for National Women’s Philanthropy. Mrs. Block passed away on June 25 at the age of 72.


2012: The Library of Congress obtained the papers of astronomer Carl Sagan, the son of Ukrainaian-Jewish immigrants.


2012(7th of Tammuz, 5772):Two Israel Navy officers were killed in a car crash on Highway 4 near Rishon Lezion early this morning.  An initial investigation into the accident revealed that the officers, Captain Omri Shahar, 25, of Kfar Saba and First Lieutenant Rafael Bublil, 22, of Ramat Gan, were killed when their car collided with a truck and overturned at Holot Junction. Two other officers were injured in the crash. One is in moderate condition, while the other suffered serious injuries


2012: Deep divides were exposed between coalition factions today over the terms of legislation being formulated to raise the number of ultra-Orthodox men in national-service programs.


2012: In “How Iran Killed Its Future” published today Shahrzad Elghanayan described how the execution of Habib Elghanian, Iran’s most prominent Jewish industrialist and philanthropist, was a turning point for the country.



2012: “A small group of men gathered at the small cemetery of Rehovot to pay respects to 53 year old Aharon Zandani of blessed memory a pillar of Yemen’s Jewish community who was murdered in Sanaa. (As reported by Elhanan Miller)


2012: Barry Landau, a “collector of presidential memorabilia” who was convicted of stealing thousands of historic documents “was sentenced to seven years in prison” and ordered to pay $45,525 to dealers to whom he had sold stolen items.


2013: In the UK, The Wiener Library is scheduled to host a book launch of Ruta’s Closet, “the harrowing and astonishing true story of how a Lithuanian Jewish family fought to escape the deadly clutches of Hitler’s Final Solution.”


2013: Joan Silber, the novelist and short story writer who won PEN/Hemingway Award for Household Words took part in a book signing at Barnes and Noble.


 

2013:  JCCNV and the Jewish Community Relations Council are scheduled to present an evening with Elliot Abrams who will discussion the Israeli-Palestinian relationship under President George W. Bush.


2013:Adas Israel Congregation, EntryPoint DC, and The Foundation for Jewish Studies are scheduled to present a talk by Dr. Allan Lichtman author of FDR and the Jews at the Lillian & Albert Small Jewish Museum


2013: Israel is the center of the world “in so many ways,” the archbishop of Canterbury said today in Jerusalem. He stressed Israel’s legitimacy and right to security, and also spoke, in the context of persecution of Christians by Islamists in the Middle East, about the Christian imperative to “love our enemies.”
\

2013: Tel Avis White Night begins

 

2014: “G-D’s Honest Truth” featuring Marcia Jean Kurtz and David Deblinger is scheduled to be performed at the 14th Street Y.

 

2014: Eighty-two year old poet Allen Grossman passed away today.


 

 

 

 

2014: “Friday LIVE” is scheduled to start this morning at Tel Aviv.

 

2014: The first round the Temple Menorah annual rummage sale in Milwaukee, WI is scheduled to come to an end.

 

2014: The IAF scored a direct hit on a car carrying two Palestinian terrorists who “were involved in a cell responsible for the repeated rocket fire on Israel’s southern cities over the past several weeks and were planning several terror attacks on Israeli civilians. (As reported by Lazar Berman)

 

2014: Six rockets were fired from Gaza into southern Israel today, two of which were intercepted by Iron Dome and four of which landed in “open territory.” (Times of Israel Staff)


2014: “New York Mayor Bill De Blasio delivers the keynote address tonight at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, the world’s largest LGBT synagogue and a pioneering Jewish presence in the New York Pride Parade.” (As reported by Brian Schaefer)



2014: “Stations of the Elevated” a “1981 documentary film by Manfred Kirchheimer about graffiti in New York City’ was re-released today.


2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host “The Best Miniatures for Two and Three Clarinets Solo.”


2015: In Coralville, Iowa Congregation Agudas Achim is scheduled to a special luncheon following “Rabbi Jeff’s Last Shabbat.”


2015: In Herzliya Pituach, Trioche is scheduled to host an auction of Israeli and International Art.


 

 

 

 

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

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JUNE 28

1320: “Pope John XXII issues Bullarium Romanum, ordering that Jews who convert to Christianity must be allowed to keep their property. The implication is that Jews who don't convert won't necessarily have their property rights protected.” (As reported by Austin Cline)


1389:  Ottoman forces crush the armies of Christian Europe in Kosovo, opening the way for the Ottoman conquest of Southeastern Europe. This event is known as the Battle of Kosovo.  The memory of this battle lingers to this day and has provided fuel for hostility between the different religious and ethnic groups in the Balkans.  This victory of the forces of Islam over the Christians made their position in Europe just that much more precarious.  And Christian insecurity was never a good thing for the Jewish population.


1443: “The marquis of Mantua, Italy issued favorable regulations, granting Jews freedom of religion , the right to settle internal disputes in rabbinic courts and permission to engage in all occupations.” (As described Abraham Bloch)


1491: Birthdate of King Henry VIII of England.  Isabella of Aragon, the daughter of the Spanish King and Queen was Henry’s first wife.  Before allowing the marriage to go forward, Henry had to promise that he would never allow Jews to settle in England.  For the most part, Henry was true to his word although a small community of crypto-Jews may have settled in London.  Henry’s other contact with Jews also surrounded his marriage to Isabella, only this time it revolved around his attempts to shed his wife.  Henry sought to use the texts of what he called the Old Testament to prove that the marriage was invalid and that it was cursed by God.  He attempted to get Rabbis in Italy to support his claims made to the Pope in Rome.  The Rabbis decided that discretion was the better part of valor.  Regardless of what the Bible said, they felt no need to risk their safety in Italy for the sake of capricious monarch living so far away.


1519: Charles V was elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Charles was the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella.  Charles had already been on the Spanish throne for three years when he became Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.  As king of Spain, Charles was a worthy heir to his grandparents.  He continued the Inquisition and enforced their philosophy regarding Jews and Marranos.  But in the Germanic and central European lands that came under his role, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Emperor showed a more benign, tolerant (for his time) attitude towards his Jewish subjects.  “He made no attempt to institute the inquisition or even tamper with privileges extended by past emperors.  At the Diet of 1544 held at Speyer, “Charles reaffirmed Jewish privileges” to such an extent that “the Speyer document was considered the most liberal and generous letter of protection ever granted to the Jews.”  Charles defended the Jews against the anti-Semitic attacks of Martin Luther.  “When Spanish troops entered Germany in 1546 during the Emperor’s campaign against rebellious Protestant princes…Charles issued an order to his army not to molest the Jews.”  [Editor’s note:  If you can find an explanation for this seemingly schizophrenic behavior, please let me know.]


1635: On behalf of the Company of the American Islands, a French owned enterprise Charles Lienard and Jean Duplessis, Lord of Ossonville began the colonization of the Island of Guadeloupe.  This did not make the island part of the French Empire which made it possible for the Jews to settle there. Starting with their arrival in 1654, the Jews prospered in the fishing processing business and owned several sugar cane plantations.  This would all come to an end when the colony was annexed by the French Empire and the Jews were expelled under the “Black Code.


1712: Birthdate of Swiss philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau.  Unlike some other Enlightenment philosophers, Rousseau did not dabble in anti-Semitism.  He may not have been Philo-Semitic but in his limited references to the Jewish people he wrote with unusual understanding and compassion.  “We shall never know the inner motives of the Jews until the day they have their own free state, schools and universities where they can speak and argue without fear.  Then, and only then, shall we know what they really have to say.”


1725: King Charles III of Hungary announced that he “intended to decrease the number of Jews in his domains” so “the government directed the counties to furnish statistics on the number of” Jewish subjects. 


1762: Catherine II (whom the Boyars called “the Great”) ascends the throne of Russia.  The German born Czarina followed her husband Peter III who died under mysterious circumstances in which she might have had a hand. The Jewish historian Salo Baron described her as possessing a rational attitude.  Under the partition of Poland, Catherine became the ruler of Lithuanian with its large Jewish population. At first, Catherine tried to “thread the needle” of not offending the Russian Orthodox by granting her Jewish subjects too much freedom while taking advantage of their professional and business skills.  In the end, she succumbed to pressure from Russian merchants who hid behind religion and limited the activities of her Jewish subjects to an area that would become known as “The Pale of Settlement.”


1809: A.M. Rothschild writes from Frankfurt to his son Nathan in London telling him that writing in Hebrew was fine for discussing family matters but not for conveying business information.


1815:Benjamin Olinde Rodrigues “a French banker, mathematician and social reformer” who had been born at Bordeaux in 1795 “was awarded a doctorate in mathematics today by the University of Paris” which was earned by his dissertation which contained what came to be called the “Rodrigues’ Formula”


1820: As of today it is claimed that “32 unauthorized Jews are living in Pilsen.”


1821: Birthdate of Max Maretzek, the native of Austria who became an opera impresario in London and New York.


1825: Twenty-seven year old German poet Heinrich Heine became a Protestant today.


1828: Hyam Harris was the first person interred by "Shaare Chessed," a burial society in New Orleans.

1831: Birthdate of Hungarian/German violinist and composer, Joseph Joachim.


1831: Birthdate of German historian Otto Stobbe who “was appointed to the Historical Committee of the German-Israelite Community Association” and who was a “colleague of Heinrich Graetz.  In writing about his work in the field of Jewish history Stobbe said “Works on the history of the Jews are so little known in non-Jewish circles that even scholars, as I have often had occasion to see, are only imperfectly informed about the history of this people in Germany.” (As described by Michael Brenner)


1836: Former President James Madison passed away.  Madison worked with his mentor Thomas Jefferson to ensure freedom of religion in the state of Virginia in the years between the Revolution and the ratification of the U.S. Constitution.  Madison played in a key role in the ratification of the first ten amendments of the Constitution known as the Bill of Rights.  The first of those amendments guaranteed the separation of church and state.  Madison was the first President to appoint a Jew to a U.S. diplomatic post.


1838: The coronation of Victoria of the United Kingdom took place today. Victoria was on the throne until 1901.  Her long tenure gave an era its name.  But under the British system of government she reigned but did not rule which means she had only a limited impact on growing role of Jews in her realm.  Early in reign, she sided with Moses Montefiore as he sought to protect the Jews of Syria during the Damascus Blood Libel lending him her royal yacht for his trip to France.  On the other hand, in 1869 she exercised her royal prerogative when it came to creating new peerages by blocking the appointment of Lionel Rothschild to the House of Lords.  According to Frederick Morton, one of her biographers, “it was not until Suez became British though Jewish money” and she came under the spell of Benjamin Disraeli that she relented and allowed Lionel’s son to enter the Lords.  As she aged, Victoria would visit “the French estate of Baron Rothschild.”  Despite her lack of political clout, she did attempt to intervene on behalf of the Russian Jews as Tsar Alexander III worked to make their lives increasingly unbearable.  On the other hand, she was not pleased with the growing number of Jews who made up the social circle of her son, the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII.


1851: David Salomons stood as a Liberal candidate at a by-election in the Greenwich constituency, and was elected today as one of the constituency's two Members of Parliament (MPs). He was not permitted to serve in the House of Commons, because he had not taken the oath of abjuration in the form established by Parliament. However, he did not withdraw quietly: instead he took the oath, but omitted the Christian phrases, and took his seat on the government benches. He was asked to withdraw, and did so on the second request, but he returned three days later, on 21 July 1851. In the debate that followed, Salomons defended his presence on grounds of having been elected by a large majority, but was eventually removed by the Sergeant-at-Arms, and fined £500 for having voted illegally in three divisions of the House


1852: Ferdinand Hiller’s Im Freien in G major was performed in London


1855:Baron Maurice von Hirsch, the German-Jewish philanthropist who founded the Jewish Colonization Association, married Clara Bischoffsheim (born 1833), daughter of Jonathan-Raphaël Bischoffsheim of Brussels


1866:Benjamin Disraeli began serving as the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader in the House of Commons in the cabinet of the Earl of Derby, the Prime Minister


1874: It was reported today that in the second-hand clothing trade silk and velvet waistcoats that appear to be worn out can be re-worked and made into skull-caps for German and Polish Jews.


1877(17th of Tammuz, 5637):Tzom Tammuz


1878: B.L. Solomon & Sons one of the largest and oldest of importers and dealers in upholstery and furniture in the country failed today.  The business was established was established 45 years ago by B.L Solomon under the name of Solomon and Hart. 


1880: While “making its regular trip up the East River from Manhattan, the SS Seawanhaka caught fire forcing those on board, many of whom who could not swim, to choose between burning to death and jumping into the swamp water where the ship had come to rest. Among the many Jews on board who perished were Mordecai Manuel Noah Smith and for Assemblyman Joseph I. Stein.


1882: It was reported today that Henry Holt & Co is issuing a book about the effects of the American Revolution – America and France: The Influence of the United States on France in the Eighteenth Century by Lewis Rosenthal.


1882: The dedicatory services for the new Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews to place at the new building located a one half mile south of Yonkers on Riverdale Avenue in New York.


1882: During his address at the University of Mississippi commencement ceremony in Oxford, famous author George W. Cable called for the graduates to embrace the future, “Let us search provincialism out of the land as the Hebrew housewife purged her house of leaven on the eve of the Passover.”  (Editor’s note – It may seem strange to find out that a rural southern audience would understand a reference to the arcane customs of the Jewish people.)


1882: About 7:30 this evening a group of striking freight handlers attacked Russian Jews who had replaced them in Battery Park just outside of Castle Garden.  A half hour later the strikers turned their attention to a group of returning Italian workers who proved to be more of a problem since they were armed with armed bars, sticks and dirks.  After police intervened the Jews said they would not go back to work on the piers as replacement workers for the strikers.


1882: It was reported that Dr. Samuel Davidson is preparing a new book on Christian eschatology in which he will compare the doctrines of Christianity and Judaism. [This is evidence of the difference between the European and American view of Judaism.  In the latter case it was something to be studied not condemned.]

1883:  Birthdate of right wing French political leader Pierre Laval who eventually became Prime Minister of the Vichy Government where he aggressively followed pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic policies that would lead to his execution in 1945.


1883: A Russian Jew named Julius Simon, his wife and six children arrived in New York today aboard the steam-ship Egyptian Monarch.  Simon who said he was sent to the United States by the Jewish Ladies Board of London claims to be entirely destitute.


1885: “Orthodoxy and Reform” published today described the clash between these two wings of Judaism as personified by Rabbit Kohut on one sides and Rabbis Kohler and Gottheil on the other. Kohler contends that although he disagrees with Kohut on matters related to religion, he considers him a personal friend.


1885: It was reported today that the elevation of Lord Rothschild to a peerage is unique because of his ethnicity it follows the same pattern of other “plutocrats” who have been so honored.


1885: The Jewish neighborhood along Harrison Street suffered some of the worst damage when a rain storm struck Baltimore this morning followed by flooding which was the worst to hit the city since 1868.

1886: It was reported today that the new monthly magazine which will be the official publication of the B’nai B’rith, is to be named The Menorah.  The Jewish fraternal organization is thought to represent over 10 per cent of the country’s Jewish population.


1886(25thof Sivan, 5646): Sixty-four year old Chaim Sofer who had been serving as rabbi “of the Orthodox congregation in the newly merged city of Budapest since 1879, passed away today.


1887: Israel Lipski was arrested today after he was found hiding under the bed of Miriam Angel who “had been murdered after being forced to consume nitric acid.”


1890: In Galveston, TX, Samson Heidenheirmer, President of the Standard Oil Mill and Joseph Marx, a local lawyer were arrested today and charged with arson in connection with a fire that destroyed the company last April.


1891: Twenty-two year old Annie Lippkin, the fiancée of a young tailor named Harry Cohen, went missing from her home on Suffolk Street today.


1891: “Twenty-six brigands” are demanding a ransom of  £5,000 for the return of wealth Jew whom they kidnapped near Salonica.


1892: The Marquis de Mores who is scheduled to stand trial for killing Captain Armand Mayer has been provisionally released from custody.
 

1893: “Tenements Unfit To Live In” published today described the efforts of the Board of Health to closed down building deemed “unfit for human habitation by reason of their unsanitary condition” including the building at 141 Madison. The ground floor is home to a laundry owned by Max Rosenson and the upper floors are home to five Jewish families who have no place else to go.


1893: It was reported that Herman Ahlwardt the anti-Semitic member of the Reichstag is serving out the sentence imposed on him for libeling Herr von Loewe, the Jewish arms maker and several Prussian officials.  (Editor’s note – Libeling Jews was one thing; libeling Prussian military officials was another matter.)


1894: “A.P.A. Man Finally Talks” published today provides the plans the American Protective Society has after it has disposed of the Catholics.  According to Charles D.P. Gibson, “Then we’ll look after some other classes that are dangerous to the Republic…the Jews for instance who are constantly dodging their public financial obligations and who are in consequence, laying up great private treasures.  By means of their money they are eating into the very heart of the people.  They are gradually getting control of everything and if left alone they will in twenty-five years, own all our institutions.  We’ll stop them where they are.”


1894(24th of Sivan, 5654): Sixty-eight year old German chemist Moritz Traube passed away in Berlin.



 

1895: Mrs. Simon Goldberg, Jacob Rothschild and Simon Ottenberg were named as trustees in the will of Simon Goldberg which was signed today


1896(17thof Tammuz, 5656): Fast of Tammuz


1896(17thof Tammuz, 5656): Eighty-year old Adam Gimbel, the founder of Gimbel’s Department Stores passed away today in Philadelphia.



 

1897: It was reported today that the free entertainment enjoyed by over a thousand public school children at Educational Alliance’s auditorium grew out of an proposal originally championed by Julia Richman, a key figure in promoting quality public and Jewish education.


1897: Mrs. Elsie Schwager (nee Barstheit) and her new-born son converted to Judaism today.  Following the conversion ceremony, Elsie and her 24 year old husband Phillip were married in a Jewish ceremony.  The couple had been married in a civil ceremony more than a year ago.


1898: Jacques Marie Eugène Godefroy Cavaignac began serving as Minister of War who lied about the authenticity of evidence that would have cleared Alfred Dreyfus.


1899: It was reported today that Menahem M. Eichler, Michael Fried and Leon H. Elmaleh have graduated from JTS.  The first two have been ordained as Rabbis and the third has earned a teaching degree.

 

1900(1stof Tammuz, 5660): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1900: Birthdate of Arthur Levitt, New York lawyer and politician who served as New York State Comptroller and was the father of SEC Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.


1902: Birthdate of Richard Rodgers. Rodgers would team with Lorenz Hart and then Oscar Hammerstein in writing numerous Broadway musicals including Oklahoma and Carousel. In reading Mr. Rodgers' obituary in the New York Times one would have no idea that he was Jewish.  In fact the only hint comes in a comment that during the early 1920's when he could not get anything on Broadway he "put on amateur productions for schools and synagogues."


1904: “Tried to Burn Synagogue” published today described an investigation by the Camden police into a recent attempt to burn the Jewish house of worship at Eighth and Sycamore Streets which Rabbi Shane began when “someone deliberately threw a lighted roll of paper through the window among a pile shavings while he was conducting services.”


1906: Birthdate of Israeli archaeologistBinyamin Mazar. Besides having a distinguished career that included the excavation at Beth Shearim, Mazar produced a family of archaeologists including son Ory, grandchildren Eilat and Dan and nephew Amihai Mazar.


1906: Birthdate of Maria Goeppert Mayer, German born US atomic physicist who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1963.  Mayer was not Jewish.  She did come to the United States during the 1930’s where she remained for the rest of her life. Aside from her scientific work, she supported Jewish female colleagues who had immigrated to the USA.  This latter selfless act certainly should rate her at least honorable mention as a righteous gentile.


1909: The cornerstone of the first Hebrew gymnasium Herzliah, was laid in Tel Aviv today.


1911(2ndof Tammuz, 5671): Sixty-eight year old Abraham Abraham the founder of the Abraham & Straus department stores who learned the retail trade while working alongside other future department store developers Simon Bloomingdale and Benjamin Alton at Hart & Detttlebach passed away today.


1912: After four months of conflict, the entire Council of Jewish Community at Constantinople resigns.


1914: Austrian Archduke Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife were assassinated at Sarajevo by Serbian nationalists.  According to at least one source, he was going to view the Sarajevo Haggadah when he was killed. This assassination set in motion the events that started World War One. A reading of Guns of August by Jewish historian Barbara Tuchman World War makes it obvious that war was not inevitable.  It actually took more than a month for the war to actually break out.

(Editor’s note – a few random comments about the impact of the war on the Jewish people, not meant in any way to be all inclusive)

Three Austro-Hungarian Field Marshals and eight generals were Jewish. “One of them, Field Marshal Johann Georg Franz Hugo Friedlander, was deported by the Germans in 1943 from Vienna to the Theresienstadt Ghetto and from there in 1944, to Auschwitz, where he died.” While there are no exact figures the best estimates indicate that a million and half Jews served as soldiers in the armies on both sides of the conflict.  The horrors of war fell hardest on the Jews of Eastern Europe. American Jews made Herculean efforts to provide aid for their suffering brethren. American Jews also sought to aid their co-religionists trapped in Palestine under the rule of the Ottomans as can be seen by their having the USS North Carolina, an American Battleship, go to Jaffa in 1914 with money and supplies collected by the American Jewish Committee and the Provisional Executive Committee for General Zionist Affairs.  When America entered the war, the Jewish response was so strong that the 77th Division was referred to by some as “the Jewish division.” While Jews saw plenty of combat with the AEF with at least six of them winning the Medal of Honor, the most famous soldier may have been Irving Berlin whose musical contribution was patriotic and a real boost to moral. Bernard Baruch may be considered the most powerful Jew during the war.  Not only was one of Wilson’s closest advisors on matters of war and he peace, as chairman of the War Industries Board he successfully managed the country economic mobilization which was critical to defeating the Central Powers.  Strangely enough, his role, on the economic front mirrored that of Walter Rathenau, the German Jewish industrialist who understood the importance of industrial production to winning a modern war as could be seen by his role with the Raw Materials Department. The disproportionate service of German Jewish soldiers at “The Front” did nothing to quell the anti-Semitism that was apparently endemic to their Fatherland.  The Zion Mule Corps, an all Jewish supply unit in the British Army performed in a most distinguished manner at Gallipoli and provided the impetus for the creation of the Jewish Legion an all Jewish combat regiment in the British Army that fought with General Allenby as he liberated Palestine from the Turks thus making it possible for the Balfour Declaration to have a reality on the ground.  And this is only the tip of the iceberg.  Keep reading over the next four years for more specific daily items.



 

1914: Birthdate of Aribert Heima former Austrian doctor, also known as "Dr. Death". As an SS doctor in a Nazi concentration camp in Mauthausen, he is accused of killing and torturing many inmates through various methods, such as direct injections of toxic compounds into the hearts of his victims. Along with Alois Brunner, Heim — who would now be (as of 2008) in his early nineties — is one of the last major Nazi fugitives still at large. However, according to a 2007 publication by former Israeli Air Force Colonel Danny Baz Heim was kidnapped from Canada and taken to Santa Catalina off the Californian coast, where he was killed by a Nazi hunting team code named “The Owl” in 1982. Baz himself claims to have been part of this group. The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem, as well as the French Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld say this is not true.


1914:  Miss Henrietta Szold, Nathan Straus, Dr. J. L. Magnes, and Dr. Stephen Wise of New York arrived in Rochester, New York early this morning to attend a meeting of Zionists. The convention of Zionists will be formally opened by Louis Lipsky of New York, Chairman, who will introduce Dr. Schmarya Levin of Berlin. Levin will address the delegates in behalf of the International Executive Committee, whose headquarters are in Berlin. Dr Levin will speak in Hebrew and German. Max Lowenthal will welcome the delegates in behalf of the Jews of Rochester.


1914:Birthdate ofValerian Trifa, the Romanian Orthodox cleric who helped to foment the pogrom against the Jews of Bucharest who was finally brought to justice thanks to the efforts of Zev Golan. “Zev Golan is the English translator of the wartime memoirs of Stern Group commander Israel Eldad, The First Tithe; the author of the history Free Jerusalem; and the author of the Hebrew history Shofrot Shel Mered (The Shofars of the Revolt). Golan’s God, Man and Nietzsche: A Surprising Dialogue between Judaism and Modern Philosophers examines why Nietzsche both lauded and condemned Jews, and how Jewish and modern thinkers can, together, provide answers to the great problems of philosophy. Golan has also written extensively on economics and has edited several dozen studies of the Israeli economy, as well as the book Meshek BeMashber (An Economy in Crisis). His commentary has appeared in the Israeli dailies Haaretz and Globes. Golan lives in Jerusalem where he directs the Center for Public Policy at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies.


1915: During a meeting of the Zionist Federation in Boston, a dinner was held in Mechanics’ Hall where 1,400 attendees listened to speeches by Louis D. Brandeis, Nathan Straus and Rabbi Stephen Wise, among others.  Brandeis was hailed as the leader of the movement to create a Jewish home in Palestine.  Rabbi Wise’s call for additional funds brought the following response. During the evening it was announced that Mr. and Mrs. Julius Rosenwald of Chicago would donate $1,000 per month to the Zionist cause for the duration of the World War and would continue making their donations for a full year after a peace treaty was signed an anonymous donor from New York gave $6,000 while Samuel Untermyer and Eugene Meyer each gave $3,000.


1915:In the midst of demonstrations and strike demands on the question of "hiring and firing," Benjamin Schlesinger, the president of ILGWU asked the Protective Association to submit the dispute to a committee of unbiased persons. As a result a Council of Conciliation was appointed by Mayor John P. Mitchel and the strike was avoided


1915: The newly dedicated Hebrew Sheltering Society of Harlem home is scheduled to receive its first applicant at eight o’clock this morning.


1915: As of today, the officers of the Hebrew Sheltering Society of Harlem are President Socolow, Vice Presidents Lubelsky and Softin, Treasurer Drosin and Secretary Segel.


1915: As of today, Governor Slaton of Georgia has received about “5,000 telegrams and letters” only which “100 have condemned” his grant of clemency to Leo Frank.


1915: Ex-Governor John M. Slaton who has been under the protection of the Georgia National Guard since commuting Leo Frank’s death sentence and his wife left by train for New York this afternoon without any further incidents.


1915: The Federation of Rumanian Jews “announced the founding of a Home for Convalescents at Grand View on the Hudson and a plan for the establishment on the east side of a bureau to assist Rumanian Jews in obtaining citizenship.


1915: Courses which are part of a training program for Jewish communal workers that include lectures by Felix M. Warburg and Lillian D. Wald are scheduled to begin today at the Heinsheimer Memorial Building of the Y.M.H.A. at 92ndand Lexington


1915: Frank H. Hardison, the Massachusetts Insurance Commissioner addressed the Seventh Annual Convention of the Order of Sons of Zion


1915: The Boston Hadassah held a lunch this afternoon after which they conducted a business meeting.


1917: In Manhattan, Aaron and Anna Schiff gave birth to Solomon “Sol” Joseph Schiff “whose rocketing, flat forehand propelled him to national and world table tennis championships in the 1930s when he was still in his teens, and who later earned the unofficial title “Mr. Table Tennis” as an ardent advocate for his sport…” (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)


1917:Fareynikt Moishe Zilberfarb began serving as Deputy-Secretary of Jewish Affairs in the General Secretariat of Ukraine, the main executive institution of the Ukrainian People's Republic.


1919: The Treaty of Versailles was signed in France, ending World War I. The United States Senate would fail to ratify the treaty, which meant the U.S. would not join the League of Nations.  Many Germans resented the terms of the treaty.  This resentment helped to undermine the Weimar Republic and helped the Nazis in their rise to power.  In other words, from the Jewish point of view, the treaty contained the seeds of destruction.


1921; Birthdate of Dorothea Herz who as Dorothea Rabkin  joined forces with her husband Leon to build a collection of American folk art noted for the whirligigs and other sculptures made by anonymous carvers in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Starting not long after their marriage in 1958, the Rabkins spent decades scouring flea markets and secondhand shops. They acquired some traditional pieces like quilts and baskets, but they also bought objects few people wanted then — the works by unschooled artisans that are known today as outsider art. Their collection grew to more than 1,200 items, including paintings by self-taught black artists like Sam Doyle and Mose Tolliver. But the Rabkins were best known for figural folk sculpture, amassing one of the finest collections in private hands. Most often carved in wood, sometimes made of metal, the sculptures are typically human in form, depicting men and women at work and at play. Besides whirligigs, articulated pieces designed to move or spin in a breeze, they include tradesmen’s mannequins, ventriloquists’ dummies and dolls. Artwork from the Rabkins’ collection has been reproduced widely in books and exhibited around the country. More than 200 of the couple’s pieces are now in the collection of the American Folk Art Museum in New York. One of the most instantly recognizable is the whirligig “Uncle Sam Riding a Bicycle,” among the most emblematic works of American folk art of any kind. Nearly five feet long and carved of wood, it was made between 1880 and 1920. When a propeller at the front is turned, Uncle Sam, in top hat and tails, pedals his little bike. Behind him, a richly carved American flag (the reverse side is Canadian) seems to ripple in the breeze. Among other notable objects the Rabkins gave the museum is an elaborate sheet-metal farm scene from the early 20th century that, set in motion, is almost Rube Goldbergian in its symphony of contingencies: a man pumps water, and a horse drinks it; a fisherman pulls on his rod as a chicken steals a worm from his bait can. As associates said in interviews this week, Ms. Rabkin had a keen eye for unheralded talent. (She was an early advocate, for instance, of the Pennsylvania folk painter Justin McCarthy.) From the mid-1980s till her retirement in 2007, she served on the collections committee of the folk art museum, advising it on acquisitions. Rabkin was born in Berlin.  Her father was Jewish.  Her mother was not. After Hitler came to power in 1933, the mother left the family and repudiated her children. In the years that followed, Dorothea and her twin sister, Rose, were shuttled among sympathetic Christian neighbors, sometimes together, sometimes apart, often hidden in closets. They dared not go to school, and their formal education ended. After the war began, the twins, now young adults, found themselves adrift in Berlin. Living separately and furtively, they and an older sister, Elizabeth, passed as Gentiles. (Dorothea dyed her hair platinum blond, her husband said.) During this period, their father, pursued by the Gestapo, killed himself. Their mother survived the war. Rose made her way to New York in 1948. Dorothea arrived the next year, carrying, as she later said, “an empty suitcase.” She found work as a cook in a Schrafft’s restaurant and was later an assistant to a rare-book dealer. In January 1958, Dorothea met Leo Rabkin on a blind date; they married that May. A native of Cincinnati, Mr. Rabkin is an abstract artist whose work is in the collections of major museums; for many years he was also a teacher of troubled adolescents at the Livingston School for Girls on King Street in Manhattan. She passed away at the age of 87, a victim of Parkinson disease cared for by her husband Leo, her sole immediate survivor.


1922: Beginning of the Irish Civil War during which Robert Briscoe, the future Lord Mayor of Dublin, sided with the anti-treaty members of the IRA


1924: As the United States experienced an upswing in bigotry including anti-Semitism, the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross on Peavine Mountain in Nevada, following a similar event that had taken place at Reno in April of this year.


1926: Birthdate of comedian/actor/director Mel Brooks


1929: Release date of the first film adaptation of “Showboat” based on the novel by Edna Ferber with music by Jerome Kern

 

1932:Sibylle Aimée Marie-Antoinette Gabrielle de Riquetti de Mirabeau a French writer who used the pseudonym GYP passed away. She was “a fanatical anti-Semite & anti-Dreyfusard; in fact, while testifying at a court case in 1899 she gave her profession as "anti-Semite" rather than "writer".

 

1933:“In a speech to German newspaper publishers, Hitler describes the government’s new journalistic regulations.”  (Jewish Virtual Library)

 

1934: U.S. premiere of “Of Human Bondage” produced by Pandro S. Berman, starring Leslie Howard with music by Max Steiner.


1934: Birthdate of Carl Milton Levin a Democratic United States Senator from Michigan and the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services. He has been in the Senate since 1979 and Michigan's senior senator since 1995. He is the longest-serving US Senator ever to represent Michigan.


1935: U.S. premiere of “Love Me Forever” with a script by Jo Swerling and Sidney Buchman.


1936: The Palestine Post reported that after a train was derailed near Lydda, and one British soldier and an Arab railway man were killed, the town was ordered by the authorities to pay a 5,000 pound collective fine. The mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini again alleged in his statement, mailed to the high commissioner, that Jews planned to restore their ancient holy places on the site of al-Aksa mosque. He had also complained that British Army soldiers disregarded the sanctity of Muslim holy places and searched for arms hidden inside
mosques. Two British soldiers were wounded while protecting linesmen repairing sabotaged telephone lines.


1936: Sixty-five year old anarchist Alexander Berkman who unsuccessfully tried to assassinate Henry Clay Frick during a strike against U.S. Steel passed away today.


 

1938: The British authorities refused to commute the sentence Solomon ben Yosef, a Jewish youth, who is to be hanged tomorrow for having fired at an Arab-owned bus although he caused no casualties.


1939: “Delegates to the forty second annual convention of the Zionist Organization of America heald an outdoor meeting at the Jewish Pavilion at the World’s Fair” after having concluded its regular business sessions.  This occasion coincided with the 30thanniversary of the founding of Tel Aviv, the all-Jewish city that has grown from a sand dune to a modern metropolis with 150,000 inhabitants.


1939(11th of Tammuz, 5699): Seventy-year old Samuel Friend, the last Rabbi in Hanover whose wife Minna died at Theresienstadt in 1942, passed away today.


1940: In a letter to Lord Lloyd lamenting the Colonial Sectary’s opposition to arming the Jews of Palestine, Churchill that because of this policy “twenty thousand sorely needed British and Australian troops were tied up in Palestine.  This is the price we have to pay for the anti-Jewish policy which has been persisted in for some years…I is little less than a scandal at a time when we are fighting for our lives that these very large forces should be immobilized in support of a policy which only commends itself to a section of the Conservative Party.”


1940: “Dominican Republic Bars All but Sponsored Immigration” published today described changes in the Central American republic’s treatment of those seeking asylum including Jews from Europe.



1941: U.S. premiere of “Underground” a film about anti-Nazi resistance directed by Vincent Sherman
,

1941: German forces entered the Polish city of Drohobych which had been in the Soviet Zone.  This marked the start of the destruction of the Jewish community of Drohobych.


1941: Chief of Gestapo, Henirich Muller, sent Adolph Eichmann to review the destruction in Bialystok and Minsk.


1941: The Germans reoccupied Przemysl today which would prove to be a death sentence for all  but 300 of its 17,000 Jewish inhabitants.


1941: For two days, in the German-occupied town of Kovno, Lithuania, Lithuanian police and released convicts use iron bars to beat hundreds of Jews to death in the city's streets. Thousands more Jews are murdered at Kovno, Lithuania, and another 5000 are killed at Brest-Litovsk, Belorussia.


1942: Following the end of fighting at Minsk 40,000 Jews are now trapped in the Nazi killing machine.


1942:  All Jews living in France over the age of 6 are required to wear an armband with a yellow Star of David


1943: In Tunis Lola Bembaron and Siegried Wolinski gave birth to Georges David Wolinski “a French cartoonist and comics writer” who was killed during on a terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris.



1943: Samuel Levy, former Borough President of Manhattan and chairman of the Board of Directors of Yeshiva and Yeshiva College announced today that Dr. Samuel Belkin, Talmudic scholar and dean of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (Yeshiva) since 1941, has been elected president of Yeshiva and Yeshiva College


1944: As the Red Army approaches the concentration camp at Maly Trostinets, Belorussia, near Minsk, regular SS troops replace the non-German SS-auxiliary guards. All surviving prisoners--Jews and non-Jewish Russian civilians--are herded into a barracks that is set ablaze. Any prisoners who manage to exit the burning building are shot. About 20 Jews who had come to Maly Trostinets from the camp/ghetto at Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, escape to the woods;


1945(17thof Tammuz, 5705): As the ashes of the Holocaust settle over Europe, Tzom Tammuz took on an additional level of sorrow.


1945: Birthdate of Representative Jane Harman representing California’s 36thdistrict


1946: Birthdate of Gilda Radner, the Detroit born, comedienne who gained famed for weekly appearances on the television show, Saturday Night Live.


1946: In the United States, premiere of “Dead of Night” a horror film produced by Michael Balcon.


1947: In New York, Morris Helprin, the president of London Films and actress Eleanor Lynn Helprin gave birth to Mark Helprin “an American novelist, journalist, and conservative commentator.”


1948(21st of Sivan, 5708): Eighty-three year old Gaston Michel Calmann-Lévy, the husband of Helen Calmann Levy and the father of Nicole Germaine Oulman and Robert Paul Michel Calmann-Levy, passed away today.


1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that a modified scheme for national insurance was finally approved by the government and was to be brought before the Knesset. Registration continued for the Four-Year People's Housing Scheme. Twelve thousand housing units were expected to be allocated to needy citizens yearly.


1952: On Shabbat, in Tel Aviv, taxicab drivers pull their vehicles off the road in protest over the government’s new restriction on use of gasoline and restrictions on driving of personal vehicles.


1954: A raid on Arab Legion camp at Azzun, 13 km east of Qalqilya by a seven man squad that included Meir Har-Zion led by Major Aharon Davidi came to a less than satisfactory end when it was discovered that Sergeant Yitzhak Jibli who had been wouned was taken prisoner by the Jordanians.


1955: U.S. premiere of the film version the novel “Not As A Stranger” directed and produced by Stanley Karmer.


1956: A bill designed to abolish the death penalty that had been introduced by Sydney Silverman received overwhelming approval in the House of Commons.  It was later voted down in the House of Lords.


1959(22nd of Sivan, 5719): Seventy-one year old Herman Leopoldi, the Austrian composer and entertainer who survived Buchenwald passed away today in Vienna after suffering a heart attack.


1960: U.S. premiere of “Murder, Inc.” starring Peter Falk and directed by Stuart Rosenberg.


1967: Several thousand Jews returned to the Hebrew University amphitheater on Mount Scopus, the scene of the inauguration of the university in 1925, cut off from the rest of Jerusalem since 1948.


1967: U.S. premiere of “Gunn” a movie based on the television detective Peter Gunn featuring Alan Oppenheimer as “Whiteside.”


1967: Israel removed the barriers that separated occupied east Jerusalem from the rest of the city. This marked the first time that Jerusalem was one city since the illegal occupation by the Jordanians in 1948.


1969:Seymour Pine led the raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village. Inspector Pine, who was commander of the New York Police Department’s vice squad for Lower Manhattan when led eight officers into the Stonewall Inn, an illegal club frequented by cross-dressers.  Pine later apologized for his role in the raid.  The raid touched off the Stonewall Uprising, a major turning point for the GLBT to gain full civil rights.


1969: Birthdate of award winning Israeli actress of Ayelet Zurer


1973: “Mohammad Boudia, the Algerian-born director of operations for Black September in France,was killed in Paris by a pressure-activated bomb packed with heavy nuts and bolts placed under his car seat.”


1973 Among those whose names appeared in the Lists of White House 'Enemies' and Memorandums Relating to Those Named published today were Alfred P. Slaner, Daniel Schoor, Marvin Kalb and Barbara Streisand.


1975: Rod Serling passed away.  He gained fame as the creator and opening line presenter of Twilight Zone television series. Serling was born and raised as a Reform Jew.  He became a Unitarian while in college in an attempt to mollify his wife's family who were upset at the prospect of having a Jewish son-in-law.


1976: The Jerusalem Postreported that an Air France jumbo jet was hijacked over Greece with some 216 passengers, including about 70 Israelis, aboard. This was the first instance of the hijacking of an Air France plane. Distraught relatives of Israeli passengers waited all night at Ben-Gurion Airport and the Air France offices in Tel Aviv. (This would prove to be the first act in an adventure that became known as The Raid on Entebbe.)


1976: Air France Flight 139, which had been hijacked by terrorists, arrived at Entebbe Airport in Uganda. The four hijackers were joined by several comrades who were supported by Idi Amin, the pro-Palestinian Uganda dictator. 


1979(2nd of Tammuz, 5739): Stuart Schulberg the son of producer and studio executive B.P. Schulberg and younger brother of novelist/screenwriter passed away today.



1980:  Molly Picon received a Creative Achievement Award from the Performing Arts Unit of B'nai B'rith.


1984: “Shmuel Flatto-Sharon, a financier wanted in France, today lost a 12-year struggle to stay out of prison.”


1984(28th of Sivan, 5744):Yigael Yadin an Israeli archeologist, politician, and the second Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, passed away. There is no way to do justice to the life of this fascinating man who did it all from leading Israel in the fight for independence to taking part in some of the most important archaeological digs in history. If you did not know he had lived this life you would have thought it was a product of some famous fiction writer.



1986: After 524 performances and 23 previews Neil Simon’s “Biloxi Blues” directed by Gene Saks closed out its Broadway run at the Neil Simon Theatre.


1987: A children’s memorial designed by Moshe Safdie and financed by an American Jew named Abraham Spiegel who had lost his two year old son at Auschwitz, opened at Yad Vashem


1988: Dame Shirley Porter (born Shirley Cohen) began serving as Deputy Lieutenant of Greater London.


1988:Iris Margaret Origo, an Anglo-Irish writer who helped to save Jewish children through the kindertransport including the painter Frank Helmut Auerbach passed away today.


1995: Joseph Stiglitz was appointed Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers which made a member of the Clinton Cabinet.


1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth by Norman G. Finkelstein and Ruth Bettina Birn.


2001: Ekaterina (Katya) Weintraub, 27, of Ganim in northern Samaria was killed and another woman injured late Thursday afternoon by shots fired at the two-car convoy on the Jenin bypass road.


2001 in New York City, New York, Matt Bloom defeated Kane to win the WWF Intercontinental Championship.


2001: American philosopher Mortimer Adler passed away.  Adler was born into a non-observant Jewish home.  He began his philosophic quest in his teens.  Before his death, Adler converted to Roman Catholicism. 

2003: At the Library of Congress opening of an exhibition entitled Herblock’s Gift: Selections from the Herb Block Foundation Collection


2004:Raleb Majadele entered the Knesset on today as a replacement for Avraham Burg, who had resigned.


2004:Mordechai Yosepov, 49, and Afik Zahavi, four, were killed when a Kassam rocket fired by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip struck near a nursery school in the northern Negev town of Sderot.


2005(24th of Sivan, 5654): On the day before his 73rd birthday, Philip Hobson, the British critic and poet who was the son of Polish-Jewish immigrants passed away today in London.


 

2007: Screening of “FromPhiladelphia to the Front” at the Vilna Shul / Boston Center for Jewish Heritage in Boston, MA.  For more about this film see www.fromphiladelphiatothefront.com


2007: Israel’s President Moshe Katsav signed a plea agreement under which the rape charges against him will be dropped and he will serve no active jail time.


2007: Bravo began broadcasting “Hey Paula,” the reality television show “which followed Paula Abdul through her day-to-day life.


2007: David Miliband begins serving as Secretary of State of Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.


2007: Tel Aviv held its three White Night festival.  Following the tradition of the French, the cultural institutions of Israel’s largest metropolis keep their doors open until “the wee hours of the night.”


2007(12th of Tammuz, 5767):Rabbi Abraham J. Klausner, a Jewish chaplain in the United States Army who arrived at the Dachau concentration camp a few days after its liberation in 1945 and a strong voice for thousands of Holocaust survivors who remained in displaced persons camps for years after the war, passed away at his home in New Mexico at the age of 92. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)



2008: Birkat Hachodesh - On Shabbat, Jews around the world prepare for the saddest month of the year, by announcing that month of Av will arrive on the seventh day of the upcoming week.


2009: "The Java Jews, an energetic and talented group from Des Moines, IA, with guest artist John Manning, University of Iowa Professor of Tuba perform at the Hillel House at the University of Iowa in Iowa City.


2009: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “American Radical:The Life and Times of I.F. Stone” by D.D. Guttenplan


2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish reader including “Arthur Miller:1915-1962” by Christopher Bigsby and the recently released paperback edition of “For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz Age Chicago” by Simon Baatz


2009: Today, Gideon Shalit’s family said that they would no longer respond to ongoing rumors about their son's release.


2009:The Civil Aviation Authority suspended flights to three southern Russian cities today following a dispute with Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency.


2009: Tony Kushner’s latest play, “The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures,” is scheduled to have its final performance.


2010:Elena Kagan's confirmation hearings began today.

 

2010:The committee appointed to investigate the flotilla crisis of a month ago held its first meeting today

 

2011:Philip Roth, the much-lauded author of "Portnoy's Complaint", is scheduled to be officially awarded the biennial Man Booker International Prize in London today.

 

2011: An opening reception is scheduled to be held this evening marking the opening of an exhibition that will include “Under Destruction” a work created by Ariel Schlesinger, a sabara who studied at Bezalel, Academy for Art and Design, Jerusalem

 

2011:Justice Ministry officials came out today in defense of Deputy State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan, who been under public attack in the wake of Rabbi Dov Lior's arrest a day earlier for allegedly encouraging incitement.

 

2011: The lower house of the Dutch parliament voted to ban the ritual slaughter of animals, Reuters reported. Under the bill passed today, animals are required to be stunned before slaughter. Both Jewish and Muslim ritual slaughter must be performed while the animal is fully conscious.  

 

2011: Dr. Oliver Wolf Sacks discussed his work and his personal health issues during the BBC documentary “Imagine.”

 

2011: According to Haaretz, today in his “remarks to the International Council of Jewish Parliamentarians, Ronald Lauder scolded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a number of missteps, including lacking a diplomatic plan heading into the September UN vote on Palestinian statehood and setting preconditions for negotiations as part of the peace process in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict,

 

2011:An estimated hundred thousand people took part in the funeral procession of Rabbi Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz in Bnei Brack today.

 

2012: The remaining 18 families living at Givat Ulpana are scheduled to leave their homes today and move to temporary housing at a nearby military base. (As reported by Josh Davidovich)

 

2012: In Portland, Oregon, The American Conference of Cantors-Guild of Temple Musicians' Convention is scheduled to come to a close.

 

2012: Chris Murphy, Chief of Staff to D.C. Mayor Gray, is scheduled to speak at noontime meeting sponsored by The D.C. Commission of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC)

 

2012: Israeli cellist Yoed Nir is scheduled to perform at the Peace & Love Festival in Borlange, Sweden. 

 

2012:The IDF is bolstering defenses along the Syrian border and beefing up its forces due to concern that terrorist groups are planning a cross-border attack in the Golan Heights, commander of Division 36 Brig.-Gen. Tamir Hyman said today.

 

 

2012:Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned members of the Keshev Committee today that unless mandatory national service for the Arab sector is instituted, he may decide not to bring the committee's recommendations to the Knesset for a vote.

 

 

2012:Dozens of artists, musicians and performers have joined a Facebook campaign calling for a boycott of the Tel Aviv municipality's annual White Night event today, to protest police violence against social justice demonstrators last week.

 

2013: “Fill the Void,” a film that “tells the story of an Orthodox Hassidic Family from Tel Aviv is scheduled to open in several theatres including the Chez Artiste 3 in Denver, the Camelot in Palm Springs, the Criterion in New Haven and the River Oaks Theatre 3 in Houston.

 

2013: Marlene Trestman is scheduled to deliver the Donald S. Shire lecture at the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. “The speech is timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Department of Labor in addition to recognizing the 75th and 50th anniversaries of the Fair Labor and Equal Pay Acts, respectively, for which Bessie Margolin worked tirelessly. (As reported by Alan Samson, CCJN)

 

2013: “The Attack,” a film about an Israeli-Arab doctor whose wife is killed in a terrorist attacks is scheduled to be released at theatres throughout the United States.

 

2013: Marlene Trestman will deliver the Donald S. Shire lecture at the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. The speech is timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Department of Labor in addition to recognizing the 75th and 50th anniversaries of the Fair Labor and Equal Pay Acts, respectively, for which Bessie Margolin worked tirelessly. (As reported by Alan Smason)

 

2013: “The Sexuality Spectrum sponsored by HUC-JIR is scheduled to come to an end.

 

2013: In the United Kingdom, premiere of “The Act of Killing” a documentary directed by Joshua Oppenheimer.

 

2013:  At the Weiner Library, Filmmaker Alan Reich is scheduled to discuss his latest project, “The Last Boat,” which tells the story of the incredible rescue of seventy Jewish children and their two chaperones out of Poland on a British boat arriving in England three days before the start of World War Two.

 

2013: The IDF deployed an Iron Dome anti-rocket battery in the Haifa area early this morning, amid heightened tensions in the North stemming from the ongoing Syrian civil war.

 

 

2013:The German Federal Administrative Court vetoed a bid to release classified foreign intelligence documents that would reveal western spies knew where Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann escaped to after World War II, British media reported today.

 

 

2013: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s senior adviser Ron Dermer will be appointed Israeli ambassador to the United States, Army Radio reported today


 

2014: Jonathan Lethem is scheduled to read from his latest book, Dissident Gardens, this evening at Prairie Lights Bookstore in Iowa City.

 

2014: “The Wonders,” a film about “a bartender who doubles as a graffiti artist in Jerusalem is scheduled to be shown at the Portland Jewish Film Festival.

 

2014(30th of Sivan, 5774): Rosh Chodesh Sivan

 

2014: Trio of Anniversaries of events that still resonate with us today:

 

625thanniversary of Battle of Kosovo

 

100thanniversary of the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife


95th anniversary of the signing of the Versailles Treaty

 

2014: “Israelis broke all records of electricity consumption in June as tempertures climbed over 40 degrees Celsisu” means that from Kiryat Shmona to Eilat, the country was in the grip of near record heat wave. (As reported by Ilana Curiel)

 

2014: “The IAF attacked 3 hidden rocket launchers in the central Gaza stipr tonight in response to the barrage of rockes fired into southern Israel, one of which hit a factory that was burned to the ground.(As reported by Yoav Zitun)

 

2014: As rocket attacks from Gaza continue to intensify a missle fired from Beit Hanoun hit the "Denber" plastic factory in Sderot's industrial area, causing a large fire to break out which resulted in the destruction of the factory. While some workers were injured there was no loss of life.

 

2015: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Why Grow Up? by Susan Neiman and The Odd Woman and the City  by Vivian Gornick

 

2015: In Amherst, MA, the Yiddish Book Center is scheduled to present “In the Unlikeliest of Places:

How Nachman Libeskind Survived the Nazis, Gulags, and Soviet Communism.”

 

2015:The Naomi Prawer Kadar International Yiddish Summer Program is scheduled to begin at Tel Aviv University.

 

 

 

 

This Day, June 29, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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JUNE 29


1096: Crusaders massacred the Jews of Mehr.


1106: Moses Sephardi was baptized at Huseca, Spain and took the name of Petrus Alphonsi, the noted “physician, writer, astronomer and polemicist.”  Among those who took issue with Alphonsi’s multiple attacks on Judaism was Jacob be Reuben, a Spanish rabbi who wrote Sefer Milhamot Adonai ("Book of the Wars of the Lord"


1397: Birthdate of John II of Aragon who reigned from 1456 until his death in 1479. During John’s reign Conversos and Jews held positions of power and influence. John even employed a Jew as his personal physician.  Within 13 years of his death, the Jews would be expelled from the Iberian Peninsula.


1494: A fire broke out destroying part of Warsaw. The Jews were accused of setting the fire and attacked. King John I ordered them to leave the city and move to the "suburb" of Kazimierz, which became the first Polish ghetto. Jews were confined to the ghetto until 1868.


1613: Fifteen years after the copyright was obtained for the “Merchant of Venice,” Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre burned.


1652(23rd of Tammuz): Bible scholar Moses de Meccado passed away today.


1654: In Cuenca, Spain, 57 Marranos were taken to the auto-da-fe. Ten were burnt to death. One of them, Balthasar Lopez, announced as he was taken to the stake "I don't believe in Christ even if you bind me." He had returned recently from Bayonne in order to persuade his nephew to return to Judaism when he was captured by the Inquisition.


1654: A large auto-de-fe took place in Cuenca where many were burned to death. One man about to be burned threw the crucifix away from him. A priest scrambled to retrieve it and managed to talk the man into holding it again. As the executioner began to do his job, the priest asked if the man was truly repent, the dying man looked at him and said, "Father…do you think that this is a time to joke?"


1665: During the Inquisition, a “great auto-de-fe” took place in Cordova.


1720: Judah Monis, the son of Portguese conversos who had been educated at Jewish schools in Italy and Holland submitted handwritten copy of A Grammar of the Hebrew Tongue to the Harvard Corporation which led to his being award a Masters of Degree making him the first Jew to graduate from Harvard.  He would later convert so that he could join the school’s faculty.


1756(1st of Tammuz, 5516): Schoeneche Moses, A.M. Rothschild’s mother, dies from smallpox.


1790(17th of Tammuz, 5550): Tzom Tammuz


1807: Birthdate of mathematician Mortiz Abraham Stern, the native of Frankfurt who “was the first Jewish full professor at a German university” in this case Göttingen University


1818: Nathan Mayer Rothschild and his wife gave birth to their fourth son, Baron Mayer Nathan de Rothschild who married his first cousin Juliana, the eldest daughter of Isaac Cohen in 1850.  He was the father-in-law of Lord Rosebery.


1820: In Krakow, “Jekuthiel Solomon, a scholarly merchant who claimed he was a descendant of R. Moses Isserles” and his wife gave birth “to Polish Galician rabbi and historian Haim Nathan Dembitzer.”


1827(4th of Tammuz, 5587): Sixty-five year old Moses Belinfante who founded Sulamith, the first Dutch newspaper devoted to reporting the news of the Jewish community passed away today at The Hague.


1828: Birthdate of Solomon Loeb, the German-American merchant and banker who founded Kuhn, Loeb & Co.


1849: Birthdate of Count Sergei Yulyevich Witte, the 1st Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian Empire whose career had suffered because his second wife, Matilda Ivanovna (Isaakovna) Lisanevich, was a converted Jew.


1852: “Hospital for the Jews” published today reported that "a number of Jewish citizens have united together for the purpose" of providing medical and surgical care to their poor co-religionists.  The article provides a long list of names to which contributions can be sent including Samson Simson, John I. Hart and Benjamin Nathan.


1852: In Cincinnati, Oho, Fannie and Solomon Loeb were married today.


1852: Henry Clay, U.S. Senator from Kentucky and Secretary of State, passed away. In 1832, Senator Clay had used the term “Jew” in a manner that Samuel Etting of Baltimore considered a slur on his people.  He wrote to Clay complaining of his language.  Clay wrote back and apologized assuring Ettinger that he had not intended the use of the word Jew to be taken in that manner and that he had the utmost respect for the Jewish people.  In 1850, Senator Clay led the fight in the Senate to reject a treat with the Swiss Confederation which would have subjected American Jews traveling in Switzerland to the laws of that country that discriminated against any Jews living there regardless of their nationality.  [When you consider how few Jews there were living in the United States at this time, let alone in Kentucky, one cannot assume that Clay’s positive interaction on Jewish matters was one that he thought would bring him great political gain.]


1852(12th of Tammuz, 5612): Rabbi Aaron Moses Taubes passed away today.

1853: An article entitled "France," subtitled "Theatrical and Operatic Intelligence" published today reports from Paris that Halevy's opera, "The Nabob" will be produced in less than a month.  It is his first production since the close of "The Wandering Jew."


1855: Joseph Moses Levy agreed to print the Daily Telegraph & Courier which was founded today and which Levy acquired when the original owner failed to pay his printing bill.


1857: The New York Times reported that “both Houses of Parliament were engaged in consider the Jews’ Oath and Disabilities bill.”  A motion to insert the words “on the true faith of a Christain” as is found in the current oath was rejected by a vote of 341 to 201.  During the debate, Lord Palmerston said “that with the passage of the bill there was nothing to prevent Jews from hold the office of Lord Chancellor or Prime Minister.


1857: The New York Times reported that "In the House of Commons, Lord Palmerston gave notice that he would bring a bill to remodel the Parliamentary oaths - to omit the words 'on the true faith of a Christian’ and thereby to admit Jews into Parliament.  Leave was given to bring in the bill."


1862(1st of Tammuz, 5622): A month to the day after General Beauregard’s Confederate Army abandoned Corinth to the Union Army, Jews observed Rosh Chodesh Tammuz.


1863: During the Civil War, the 11thregiment of the New York State Militia under the command of Colonel Joachim Maidhof which had been folded into the Union Army, “took part in a skirmish near Oyster Point, PA.”


1864: Elias Leon Hyneman a trooper in the 5thPennsylvania Cavalry was taken prisoner during a raid near Petersburg, VA.  Hyneman was captured after he had given his horse to a wounded trooper whose horse had been shot out from under him and gave his boots to another wounded comrade who was barefoot.  Hyneman ended up the hell of Andersonville where he died in January of 1865. It was a miserable end for man who had volunteered at the start of the war and had fought with the Army of the Potomac from 1862 through the Wilderness Campaign of 1864.


1864(25th of Sivan, 5624): During the Civil War, Henry Cohen of South Carolina was killed while serving with the Confederacy.


1870(30th of Sivan, 5630): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1872: Jacob Levi, a Jew from Germany, living in New York, was arrested by Captain Leary on charges of having swindled Alois Grieshaber out of $545 and Joseph Ruath out of $1,000. He was “committed to the Tombs” where he will stay until his trial takes place.


1875:  Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria passed away. During Ferdinand’s reign the Jews became full-fledged citizens of the Empire under the terms of the “Ausgleich”.


1877: Today, Frederick W. Seward, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State wrote a letter today to Meyer S. Isaacs, the President of the Board of Delegates of American Israelites.  The letter was written in response to one that the Board of Delegates had sent asking that the U.S. government intervene on behalf of the Jews, many of them who are from Russia, living in and around Jerusalem. The secretary said that normally protection of the U.S. government is given only to U.S. citizens living abroad.  However, the U.S. has shown its “sympathy for all the oppressed peoples in foreign countries” so long as it actions can be taken in accordance with “international courtesy and diplomatic usage.” 


1878: “A Large Furniture House Fails” published today described the surprising demise of B.L. Solomon and Sons, a 45 year old concern whose partners included four Solomons – Barnet, Solomon, Judah and Simon.  The company reported that it had $300,000 in liabilities.  The failure was attributed to the inability to liquidate real estate own by B.L. Solomon which, if it had been sold, would have been able to provide more than adequate working capital for the company.[Drop in the real estate market causes business failure – sound familiar?)


1881: The Board of Estimate and Apportionment awarded $51,556.42 to a variety of charitable insituions including $2,020.00 for the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society.


1882: As the Freight Handlers’ Strike continues to slow down commercial activity in New York and New Jersey, foreign born strike-breakers including150 Russian Jews were kept busy at the piers of the Empire and Star Union Lines. Other foreign born workers including those from Germany and Italy were work elsewhere on the docks. 


1882: The Board of Estimate and Apportionment met in the Mayor’s office today and awarded $27,427.98 to a variety of charitable institutions including $1,433.81 to the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society.


1882: “A Noble Hebrew Charity” published today reported that the newly opened Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews in Yonkers is the first of its kind to be built and furnished by the B’nai B’rith. The plan is to build an orphanage on the same grounds once funds are available.  Both facilities are for the use members and their families.  The home has a capacity for approximately 250 men and women.


1882: According to reports from Odessa (Russia), the District Court of Tiraspol (Moldavia) has sentenced the “anti-Semites” who killed one Jew and injured several others during riots at Dubosari (Moldavia) in April.  The guilty parties have been deprived of their civil rights and transportation (to Siberia) for three years.


1882: It was reported today that the Sultan is about to issue a “firman” granting Jewish refugees the right to settle in parts of North Syria and Mesopotamia


1883: “Pauper Immigrants” published today described the quandary faced by the Emigration Commissioners in dealing with those arriving on ships from Great Britain who appeared to be indigent. According to the Attorney General of New York, those without funds would be admitted only if they could prove that they had friends who were willing and able to care for them. The deliberations never mentioned Russian or Romanian Jews, but they would obviously be affected by the ruling. [Editor’s Note – Immigration policy disputes are not a 21st century invention.]


1884: The Jewish quarter was pillaged today during anti-Semitic riots in Algiers.


1884: The Mound Street Temple in Cincinnati, Ohio was the scene of today’s graduation exercises for those who have successfully completed the course of study at the Hebrew Union College, which describes itself as the only Rabbinical College in the United States.  The class of five was the second to graduate.  All of last year’s graduates are employed.  So far, one member of this year’s class has been hired by a congregation in Leavenworth, Kansas and the others expect job offers within the near future.


1887: It was reported today that the Hebrew Technical Institute on Stuyvesant Street is beginning new classes that will include instruction in mechanical drawing, word working, clay modeling and metal working as well as math, physics and English.  The full course of instruction takes three years to complete. [The emphasis on vocational education reflects the need to provide skills for eastern European Jews who did not know how to compete in the industrial world of their new home country.]


1889(30th of Sivan, 5649): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1890: “Arrested For Arons published today described claims by authorities that they have affidavits from witnesses claiming they saw Samson Hiedenheimer, a prominent Galveston, TX Jewish businessman set fired to the Standard Oil Mill and then drive off in a buggy with his brother Isaac Heidenheimer.  The Heidenheimers own the company and it is alleged they burned it to collect insurance money.


1891: In Xanten, Prussia, the libelous charges of ritual murder were uttered publicly. The rise of anti-Semitism culminating in this libel resulted in an exodus of Jews from Germany to the United States and other countries.


1891: Serious “anti—Semitic riots are reported” to have broken out in Kherson in southern Russia.


1892: “Will Challenge De Mores” published today described the plans of Captain AndreCrémieu-Foa, a Jew serving in the French army to fight a duel with Marquis de Mores after he has stood trial for killing Captain Armand Mayer.  De Mores has already fought a duel with Eduard Drumont following his articles in Libre Parole claiming that Jews have too much control over the French Army


1892: “In a letter to his mentor Josef Breuer, Sigmund Freud makes his first references to the ‘unconscious’ and to unconscious motivation.”


1893(15th of Tammuz, 5653): Thirty-three year old historian Julius Aronius who was working on a history of the Jews of Germany during the Middle Ages which gave “in chronological order, under each date, an abstract of every entry in the medieval chronicles and documents relating to the Jews of Germany” at the time of his death today in Rastenburg.


1895: Annie Silverman, the wife of Wolf Silverman passed away today in New York.


1895: “Homeless and Destitute Jews” published today relies on information that first appeared in The London Daily News to described the plight of the “nearly two hundred Jews” who have been left “homeless and destitute” by the terrible fire at Brest-Litovsk.  The refugees are being take care of by the Hebrew Benevolent Association at Odessa.


1896: Birthdate of Boris Podollsky, the Russian born American physicist who worked with Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen, the father of Dr. Joe Rosen.


1896: Herzl leaves Turkey in possession of the "Commander's Cross of the Order of the Medjidje" as visible evidence of the seriousness of the negotiations. On the way back to Vienna, Herzl spends a few hours in Sofia. He his conducted to the Zionist Society and the synagogue. Hundreds of people cheer him.


1896: “Julius S. Abecasis, the well-known rubber broker” and prominent member of the Sephardic community in New York, was injured today “in a collision between his bicycle and an express wagon driven by Charles Reilly.


1897: “The Hebrew Technical School for Girls held its commencement exercises today at the school building on Henry Street.”


1897(29th of Sivan, 5657): Sixty-five year old Solomon Bloomfield, a member of the Free Sons of Israel, died this morning at Mt. Sinai Hospital.  A native of Germany, he came to this country 40 years settling first in New York before moving to California where he operated a successful tobacco business. Upon returning to New York “he opened a shoe store on Sixth Avenue” which he continued to operate “until two years ago when he retired.”


1897: “Jews Persecuted in Persia” published today described reports by the United States Minister of Persia of a recent Muslim invasion of the Jewish quarter in Teheran. His appeal to the Shah failed to improve matters since “the officers sent to protect” them “extorted all their money.”


1902:”A Museum of Peace and War” published today described the opening of the museum in Lucerned found by the late Russian financier, economist and author of The Future of War, Jan Gotlib Bloch who was born Jewish but converted to Calvinism.


1903: Birthdate of Alan Blumlein, English engineer, who played a key role in developing electronic equipment for the RAF that was critical in holding the Germans at bay in the years following the fall of France in 1940.


1908: Birthdate of Dr. Cyrus H. Gordon, American Jewish archaeological scholar who was a scholar of Near East culture and a leading expert on ancient languages. Dr. Gordon was professor of Near Eastern studies at Brandeis University from 1956 to 1973 and chairman of its department of Mediterranean studies from 1958 to 1973. He was a professor of Hebrew studies at New York University from 1973 to 1989, when he retired. In part, his claim to fame came from his writings on Ugaritic, an ancient language spoken in part of what is today is modern Syria.  Based on his linguistic and other studies, Dr. Gordon believed that the Greeks and the Israelites had a common cultural origin.  Dr. Gordon passed away in 2001.


1910: Birthdate of composer Frank Loesser. Loesser wrote such Broadway hits as “Guys and Dolls” and “How To Succeed in Business Without Trying.”  He won an Oscar for "Baby It's Cold Outside."  He passed away in 1969.


1911: Joseph Seligman, son of Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Newton Seligman is scheduled to marry Josephine Knowles of Pensacola, FL, in Massawittie Lodge in North Hatley, Canada.


1911: Birthdate of composer Bernard Herrmann, the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia who created the theme music of a whole host of films.  He created the music for the Orson Wells’ classics, Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Amberson.  He was a favorite of Alfred Hitchcock for whom provided the theme muic for Trouble with Harry, Vertigo, North by Northwest and Psycho.  He passed away in 1975.  Herrmann is another example of the Jewish role in creating modern American culture.


1912:According to today’s issue of Scientific American, the U.S. Secretary of War selected a special board of officers to investigate the accident that killed test pilot Arthur L. Welsh and his passenger, Lieut. Leighton Hazelhurst, officer-aviator of the U.S. Signal Corps. The investigation would place the blame on Welsh.  Investigators reported that Welsh and Hazelhurst were testing out a new weight-carrying military biplane just delivered for trial by the Wright Company. They began a climbing test of 200 feet a minute for 10 minutes with a weight of 450 pounds, and fuel for four hours. The investigation stated that Welsh rose to about 150 feet in order to dive at an angle of about 45 degrees to gain momentum for a sharp rise. The report concluded that the reversal occurred too suddenly. The Welsh family did not agree with the outcome of the investigation.  Welsh’s “widow always believed that the War Department pushed too hard for tests that were sure to fail. On the day of the crash, not only was Welsh carrying too much of a load, but he also carried his passenger and was expected to climb too quickly and too high when you consider the weight. Too much was expected." Regardless of which view one believes, the final word on Welsh’s career may be been written by General “Hap” Arnold, the five star general who served in both the U.S. Army Air Forces and the newly created U.S. Air Force. In a 1930 letter to Welsh's sister, Arnold wrote, "The pioneers in the aviation game were the ones who took all the risks and received little in exchange for their daring. Al was one of those pioneers." In his book Global Mission, Arnold wrote: "He had taught me all he knew, or rather, he had taught me all he could teach. He knew much more."


1912: Birthdate of Lucie Bernard who married Raymond Samuel, the French Jewish engineer who gained fame as Raymond Aubrac and she gained fame as Lucie Aubrac his fellow fighter against the Nazi occupation.


1913: In New York, Tifereth Israel dedicated its synagogue.


1913: Birthdate of Sir Gerald David Nunes Nabarro, the scion of “a prominent Sephardi family” who converted to Christianity and served as an MK for the Conservative Party.


1913: In New York dedication of Temple Moses Anshe Trob


1913: Start of the Second Balkan War.


1914: In McKeesport, PA, Sam and Lena Spiegel gave birth to Herbert Spiegel, the famous physician who “treated pain, anxiety and addictions by putting people into a trance.” (As reported by Benedict Carey)


1917: “British, French, Russian and Italian Ministers at the Hauge made joint representations to the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs asking that the Netherlands Minster at Constantinople be instructed to approach the Turkish Government and to request that in the name of humanity, a stop be put toe Jewish persecutions.”


1921: Dr. Emil G. Hirsh, the Rabbi of Chicago’s Temple Sinai, officiated at the marriage of Mrs. Edith R. Sulzberger the daughter Mr. and Mrs. Julius Rosenwald and Edgar B. Stern of New Orleans.  This Stern should not be confused with Alfred K. Stern who is the fiancée of Edith’s sister Marion.


1923: Meyer Dizengoff, Mayor of Tel Aviv, addresses a letter to the New York Times thanking everybody from the Mayor on down for the hospitality shown to him during his recent trip to New York.  He expressed his hope that the “first Jewish city” would benefit from the things shown him including the city’s public utility system.


1924: Birthdate of composer Ezra Laderman, a leading 20th century classical composer.  He has won the Rome Prize and several Guggenheim Fellowships.  He has taught at several leading institutions including Sarah Laurence and has been the visiting composer at Yale.

1925: In Brooklyn, Sam and Bessie Storch gave birth to actor and director Arthur Storch.


1926(17th of Tammuz, 5686):Tzom Tammuz


1926: Arthur Meighen returns to office as Prime Minister of Canada.  In 1925, while serving as leader of the “loyal opposition” he spoke during ceremonies dedicating the new Hebrew University. Echoing traditional English-Canadian views on the Holy Land and Jewish restoration, Meighen said, “Of all the results” of World War “none is more important and more fertile in human history than the re-conquest of Palestine and the rededication of that country to the Jewish people.” Meighen went on to express the hope that “Jews in Canada [would] take a proper pride in this great event and that the sons of generations to come may go back to the land of their destiny.”


1928(11th of Tammuz, 5688): Morris Rich, founder of Atlanta’s famed Rich’s Department Store, passed away.


1929: Birthdate of Edgar Bronfman, Sr. CEO of Seagram’s until 1994


1930: Birthdate of producer Robert Evans


1931: The Seventeenth World Zionist Congress is scheduled to open in Basle.


1932: Birthdate of British poet and critic Philip Dennis Hobsbaum.

1932: The Dow Jones industrial average dipped to 42 and Roy R. Neuberger married Marie Salant, a graduate in economics from Bryn Mawr who had gone to work in the research department of Halle & Stieglitz two years earlier.


1933(5th of Tammuz, 5693): Seventy year old Ellen Odette Cuffe, Countess of Desart, née Bischoffsheim who has been called '"the most important Jewish woman in Irish history" passed away today

1934: Birthdate of Alan Cohen who gained fame as Corey Allen “an American film and television director, writer, producer, and actor… be best known for playing the character Buzz Gunderson in Nicholas Ray's 1955 film classic, “Rebel Without a Cause.”


1933(5th of Tammuz, 5693): Seventy-five year old Ellen Odette Cuffe, Countess of Desart, the daughter of banker Henri Louis Bischoffsheim who was one of the first Jewish members of the Irish parliament passed away today.

1936:The Palestine Post reported that a government school was set on fire in Jaffa. Sniping continued on convoys of buses traveling on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv and Jerusalem-Hebron roads. The long-awaited reply of the Arab Higher Committee addressed to the High Commissioner and the Colonial Office stated that the British government continued to ignore all its undertakings given to the Arab people.


1937: Leon Blum began serving as Vice-Premier of France.


1938 (30th of Sivan, 5698): Chanting the song of the Revisionist party and dressed in its uniform, 19-year-old Solomon ben Yosef steadily walked to the gallows in the troop-surrounded prison at Acre at 8 A. M. He was sentenced to be hanged by the British for alleged terrorist activities, which in fact consisted of being part of a group that scared away Arabs by firing a shot in the air. His last words were "Yechi Jabotinsky (Long live Jabotinsky); Lamut o Lichbosh et Hahar (To die or take the mountain)" after which he sang “Hatikvah.” No Rabbi was present since today was Rosh ChodeshTammuz. In fact, some Jews had hoped that the British might use this as an excuse for commuting his death sentence. British airplanes, policemen and troops tonight patrolled a Palestine which had been made tense by the hanging of the Jewish youth.


1939:Thirteen Arabs were killed and four wounded in shooting outrages in the early hours of this morning in Southern Palestine. Two of the victims were shot dead on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. In general, Jewish opinion condemns the attacks on innocent Arab civilians.  “This evening’s edition of the daily Davar headlines all its news with this bold type query: ‘Who will put an end to the outrages that sully our struggle and ruin our population.’” The attacks are seen as a reaction to the new British land law that “is regarded even by moderates as flagrant breach of faith on the part of Great Britain to the Jews.”


1939: “Early this morning a boat carrying 742 Jewish immigrants trying to land clandestinely without visas was apprehended by the Coast Guard near Gaza”.  The passengers were taken by train to Haifa.  If they are released, their number will be deducted from small quota of “legal Jews” who will be allowed to enter Palestine.


1941 (4th of Tammuz, 5701): In Jassy, Rumania; soldiers and police, under the watch of the SS, kill over 260 Jews. 5,000 other Jews are stripped of all belongings and then placed into cattle cars, (over 100 in each), and sent to Mirteshet. On the way over 600 Jews would die. Once there another 327 would die. Within an eight-day period, over 2,500 people would die during the train ride.


1941: Nazis murdered the male Jews of Drobian, Lithuania.


1941: Nazi forces led by the 291stInfantry Division captured Liepāja, Latvia which lead to a series of massacres of the Jewish population.

1942: One-year anniversary of the founding of the Judenrat in Bialystok. A quote from Ephraim Barash's diary captured the feelings of the time, "It is lucky that we cannot foresee the future, for if we could, we would not have lived and reached the present stage. There is no place for optimism in the ghetto."


1942(14th of Tammuz, 5702): Armed Jewish resistance takes place at Slonim, Belorussia. The Germans burn Jews to death, killing nearly 15,000.


1942:A 13-year-old girl in Amsterdam who would gain fame as Anne Frank wrote in the diary which she had received as a birthday present only eight days before: "I want to write, but, more than that, I want to bring out all kinds of things that lie buried deep in my heart."


1942: A second gas chamber begins functioning at Auschwitz-Birkenau.


1943 (26th of Sivan, 5703): South of Warsaw, five Poles are shot for hiding four Jews. The latter also are shot.


1943 (26th of Sivan, 5703): At the Biala-Waka labor camp near Vilna, Lithuania, 67 inmates are shot as reprisal for the escape of six Jews to a nearby forest.


1945: Churchill writes to Weizmann justifying his decision to continue the White Paper of 1939 by reminding the Jewish leaders that many Conservative MP’s were opposed to the Zionist cause and that many members of the Labor Party were adopting the view as well.  He urged Weizmann to stop looking to the British and seek support from the United States to gain the opening of Palestine to Jewish immigration. 


1946: Birthdate of Zvi (Mickey) Har-Even (Harivan), the son of Sylvia and Aurel who emigrated from Romania in 1950.  He died at the age of 22 while serving on board the Submarine Dakar.


1946: This day was the Black Sabbath in Pre-state Israel. In the largest operation to date, thousands of British soldiers and policemen raid kibbutzim looking for hidden weapons. The British arrested 2,700 Jews living legally in Palestine in an attempt to destroy the Yishuv. The British dubbed this action “Operation Agatha” and Kibbutz Yagur, an important center for the Haganah, was a major focal point for their raids.  The British claimed their actions were part of a plan to stamp out terrorism. Apparently, there were no Arab terrorists since no Arabs we arrested.


1946:  A scheduled luncheon meeting between Abba Eban and Moshe Sharett is cancelled amid reports that the British are arresting large numbers of Zionist leaders.


1947: Birthdate of comedian Richard Lewis.


1947(11th of Tammuz, 5707): Judge Isaac Siegel, a Republican politician who had represented New York’s 20th District in the House of Representatives, passed away.


1948: Mike Flanagan Irishman who fought in the British army during World War II and participated in the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945 and his friend and tank commander Harry McDonald, broke into a military base near the Haifa airport, stole the two tanks and drove them to Tel Aviv where Hagana operatives were waiting.


1948:Meir Tobianski, native of Kovna who joined the Haganah and was working as an engineer for the Jerusalem electricity company swore allegiance to the newly created IDF.


1949(2nd of Tammuz, 5709): Eighty-seven year old Dr. David Philipson, a native of Wabash, IN, who became a leader of the Reform movement whose literary works included The Reform Movement in Judaism and Old European Jewries passed away today

1949: U.S. premiere of “The Great Sinner” directed by Robert Siodmak, produced by Gottfried Reinhardt and co-starring Melvyn Douglas (Melvyn Edouard Hesselberg).


1949: Birthdate of Micky Arison an Israeli-American businessman and the Chief Executive Officer of Carnival Corporation, the world's largest cruise operator, and owner of the NBA's Miami Heat. At one time, Forbes magazine places Arison's wealth at $6.1 billion, making him the 94th wealthiest person in the world as of 2006. He is the son of the late Ted Arison, Carnival Corporation's founder and the brother of Shari Arison reputed to be the wealthiest woman in Israel.  While Arison is a resident of Miami, he maintains a home in Israel.


1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that the zone limits scheme, imposed on the public by the Ministry of Transportation in order to save foreign currency, will continue. M.S. Tamar, Zim's newest fruit-carrier vessel, was launched in Holland.


1952: Travel writer Diana Rice describes the progress being made on constructing the Nordeau Plaza Hotel in Tel Aviv.  The hotel is scheduled to open in September. The four million dollar seaside structure boasts luxury suites, a variety of shops intended to attract tourists and a banquet hall that will seat 1,000.


1954: The Atomic Energy Commission refused to reinstate the security clearance of Robert J. Oppenheimer, the “father of the Atomic Bomb.”  This might be seen as a case of Jew v Jew since  Edward Teller testified against Oppenheimer and Lewis Strauss, chairman of the commission, had pushed for the revocation in the first place. 


1955:Haim-Moshe Shapira succeeds Israel Rokach as Minister of Internal Affairs.


1959(23rd of Sivan, 5719): Seventy-year old French art dealer Paul Rosenberg passed away today.


1961: NBC broadcast the final episode of “The Ford Show” written by Norman Lear and directed by Bud Yorkin.


1966: Release date for “Walk, Don’t Run” a comedy produced by Sol Siegel with a script co-authored by Sol Saks.


1967: The official reunification of Jerusalem begins as 8,570 acres of west Jerusalem are united with 18,750 acres of east Jerusalem.  It was not only Jews who hailed this event.  Nabil Khoury wrote in the Beirut weekly al-Hawadith, ‘On June 29, in Jaffa Road, the main street of Jerusalem, the Hebrew tongue disappeared.  On that day, along the entire length of the street, Palestinian Arabic, in all its different dialects, was heard.’


1967: In Tel Aviv, David Ben-Gurion told his supporters that “the re-building of Jerusalem must be at the center of the national effort.”  These words followed naturally for the man who had fought to keep the road to Jerusalem open during the dark days of 1947-1948 when so many told him that it could not be done.


1972(17th of Tammuz, 5732): Tzom Tammuz


1976: The Jerusalem Post reported from Entebbe, Uganda, that hijackers held there more than 250 Air France Airbus passengers and threatened to blow them all up if Uganda's security forces intervened. Uganda's President Idi Amin paid a visit to the hijackers. The Israeli Embassy in Paris was assured that France would do everything it could to secure the release of all hijacked passengers.


1978: United Artist released “Fedora,” directed by Billy Wilder with a screenplay by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond.


1978(24th of Sivan, 5738): Two people were killed and 47 were injured when terrorists set off a bomb in Jerusalem market.


1979: In Canada, premiere of “Meatballs” the first of series of off-beat comedies directed by Ivan Reitman, written by Len Blum, Dan Goldberg and Harold Ramis with music by Elmer Bernstein.


1980: After 557 performances and 19 previews, ”Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” a Stephen Sondheim musical completed its first Broadway run.


1983: Helen Reddy who had converted to Judaism before marrying Jeff Wald, married Milton Ruth today.


1987: ''Yiddish Theater in London, 1880-1987,'' an exhibition that is part of this summer's Jewish East End Celebration at Lyttleton Circle Foyer, National Theater


1990(6th of Tammuz, 5750): Seventy-four year old author Irving Wallace passed away.

1995: Betzalel Tabib who had been Head of the Local Council in Arad since 1986 completed his service today.


1996:“As Marie and Roy Neuberger celebrated their 64th wedding anniversary today, the Dow Jones industrial average climbed to 5,704.  Mr. Neuberger later described their time together as “64 wonderful years together.”


1997: After 89 performances and 27 previews “An American Daughter,” a play written by Wendy Wasserstein completed its first Broadway run.


1997: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Handsome Is Adventures With Saul Bellow: A Memoir”
by Harriet Wasserman, “The Twisted Muse:
Musicians and Their Music in the Third Reich”
by Michael H. Kater and “A Tale of Two Continents: A Physicist's Life in a Turbulent World, the autobiography of Dutch born Jewish
physicist Abraham Pais


2003: “During the Second Intifada a temporary armistice was unilaterally declared by Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which declared a ceasefire and halt to all attacks against Israel for a period of three months which really meant that violence decreased somewhat in the following month but suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.”


2003: The pre-Broadway run of the Stephen Schwartz musical “Wicked” came to a close in San Francisco where it was favorably received by critics and the public.


2003(29th of Sivan, 5763):Aluf (Maj. Gen.) Mordechai "Mottie" Hod who “was the Commander of the Israeli Air Force during the 1967 Six-Day War” passed away today. A sabra born at the famous Kibbutz Degania, Hod was one of the real heroes who helped to create and defend the state of Israel.

2004(10th of Tammuz, 5764): Thirty-six year old Sgt. Alan D. Sherman was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad. “Alan Sherman is most remembered for being a loving and devoted father. A Marine reservist who worked as a licensed practical nurse when he was not on duty, Sherman spent most of his time with his two sons, Joshua and Logan. Sherman lived with his parents in the Wanamassa section of Ocean Township, N.J. His ex-wife, Dolores Sherman, told The Associated Press that the two had maintained a close friendship and kept in regular contact even while he was away. Sherman adored his children, spending as much time with them as he could. Michael Sherman said his brother had “left [his children] his honorable name, as a hero and as a loving father.” “He wanted to come home to his boys. But he knew he was doing the right thing. He wanted to fight for his boys so they wouldn’t have to do it,” Dolores Sherman said. “He totally believed in what he was doing.” (As reported by The Forward)


2004(10th of Tammuz, 5764):Moshe Yohai, 63, of Ashdod, was found shot to death in Beit Rima, a Palestinian Authority-controlled village near Ramallah, where he had apparently gone on business. The Aksa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility. (Jewish Virtual Library)


2007: At the Israel Museum in Jerusalem an exhibit entitled “Yemima Ergas: Hidden Cities” opens. “A new series of drawings by artist Yemima Ergas depicts fantastical cityscapes reminiscent of the majestic Modernist architecture of the early twentieth century. In the delicate pencil and charcoal drawings we see bridges, public buildings, factories, and stadiums, but a longer look reveals that it is all a fiction – we are in fact looking at discarded computer motherboards.”


2007: In Jerusalem, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra performs Berg`s Concerto for Violin and Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony at the Sherover Theater at The Jerusalem Theater


2007: As part of his plea bargain President Moshe Katsav resigned as President of Israel. Katsav is schedule to be indicted on July 1.  At the time he is expected to plead guilty to to three charges, and will receive a suspended sentence and be ordered to pay compensation to the complainants.  While one of the charges will be for a serious sex related crime, under the terms of the plea bargain he will not be charged with rape.


2007: Acting President Dalia Itzik replaces Moshe Katsav and will serve as President of Israel until July 15 when President-elect Shimon Peres takes office. Ms. Itzik is a 54 year old native of Jerusalem who has enjoyed a long political career.


2007(13th of Tammuz, 5767): Joel Siegel, Emmy Award-winning film critic for ABC’s “Good Morning American” passed away at the age of 63.

2008: In Chicago, the Spertus features Private Lives of Public Figures: How Moral Do Our Leaders Need To Be?”From King David to contemporary politicians, leaders who engage in immoral or unethical behavior inevitably face questions regarding their suitability to govern. What do Jewish sources say about these issues? Should moral turpitude exclude someone from public office? Are all transgressions the same? Exactly how moral do our leaders need to be? In this text-based study session and discussion, facilitated by Jewish leadership scholar Dr. Hal M. Lewis, participants look at several classical Jewish sources that address these and related matters.Hal M. Lewis is Dean of Public Programming and Continuing Education at Spertus, where he also serves as Associate Professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies. A recognized authority on Jewish leadership, he is author of Models and Meanings in the History of Jewish Leadershipand From Sanctuary to Boardroom: A Jewish Approach to Leadership.


2008: Jewish Genealogical Society of Illinois holds its annual meeting and presents “Ask the Experts at Temple Beth Israel in Skokie, Illinois.


2008: The Sunday New York Times book section features reviews of The Spies of Warsaw, a novel by Jewish mystery writer Alan Furst, The Hebrew Republic:How Secular Democracy and Global Enterprise Will Bring Israel Peace at Lastby Bernard Avishai and Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands, Michael Chabon’s first collection of nonfiction as well as an essay entitled “Cultural Crossroads of the Levant” which describes Ibis Editions “a boutique Jerusalem Press owned by the husband and wife team of Peter Cole, a MacArthur award-winning poet and translator, and Adina Hoffman, a biographer and critic  that has published English translations of works in Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, French, German and Judeo-Spanish — all relating to the Levant.  


2008: The Washington Post book section features reviews of The Dream by Harry Bernstein and America Americaby Ethan Canin


2008: At Congregation Ansche Chesed on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, One World Symphony presents a performance of the opera “Adriadne Auf Naxos” by composer Richard Strauss who was appointed President of the German State Music Bureau by Joseph Gobbels.  In fairness to Strauss he later resigned the position and is credit with saving “several Jewish lives later in the war, specifically those of his daughter-in-law and her son.”  On the other hand, the true measure of the man may be found in his 1945 declaration “that the Allied bombing of the Hoftheater, his favorite opera house in Munich, was ‘the greatest catastrophe that has ever disturbed my life.


2008: Israel’s government voted to trade one of the most notorious convicts in its prisons, a Lebanese murderer, for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers whose cross-border capture led to and partly motivated its month long war with the Lebanese militia Hezbollah in summer 2006. After a wrenching national debate that drove hesitant officials, including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, to accept the deal, the cabinet voted 22 to 3 to trade the prisoner, Samir Kuntar, along with four other Lebanese, for Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, the two Israeli soldiers. Mr. Kuntar was part of a cell that in 1979 raided the northern Israeli town of Nahariya, fatally shooting a civilian, Danny Haran, while his daughter Einat, 4, watched, then smashing the girl’s head, killing her as well. Mr. Haran’s wife, Smadar, hid with their 2-year-old daughter, accidentally suffocating her in an effort to stop her from crying out.


2008:Veteran Civil Rights leader John Lewis was honored at a luncheon on Sunday by New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind and the black-Jewish Alliance, which was inaugurated in January to address the 25 percent surge in anti-Semitic and racist incidents in the black and Jewish communities.


2008: United Nations negotiator Gerhard Konrad informed the Israeli government that according to Hesbollah, Ron Arad is dead. This claim has yet to be confirmed by the government


2008: As part of his first concert tour in fifteen years, Leonard Cohen appeared on the Pyramid Stage at the Glastonbury Festival in Somerset, England


2009: Starting today, Cantor Jack Chomsky of Congregation Tifereth Israel in Columbus, helps to lead “Poland to Israel: A Journey Through Time,” in which 100 cantors connect 1,000 years of Jewish History in Poland with 4,000 years of history in the homeland of the Jewish people.


2009: Bernard Madoff is sentenced to 150 years.  This record sentence is fitting for the man who engineered the largest Ponzi swindle in history.


2009: JuliusGenachowski, a yeshiva student who had studied in Israel, assumed the position of Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).


2009: During Question Period Lord Steinberg asked “Her Majesty's Government what were (a) the total value of trade between Israel and the United Kingdom, and (b) the total value of exports from the United Kingdom to Israel, over the past three years.
The Minister for Trade and Investment (Lord Davies of Abersoch): The data requested are shown in the following table:


£ million

UK exports of goods to Israel

UK exports of services to Israel

UK imports of goods from Israel

UK imports of services from Israel

2006

1308

447

965

297

2007

1257

475

1045

305

2008

1337

1153


2010:Gilad Barkan Trio is scheduled to perform at 55 Bar in New York City


2010(17th of Tammuz, 5770): Tzom Tammuz


2010: Today forest fires raged across Israel, destroying over 300,000 trees and burning over 750 acres of forested and open areas. Arson is suspected in many cases, and conditions worsened due to Israel's severe heat wave.


2011:The Peltz Center for Jewish Life and Lubavitch of Wisconsin are scheduled to sponsor “Gimmel Tamuz,” “a community wide event to mark the anniversary of the passing of the Lubavitcher Rebbe of righteous memory.”


2011:Tnuva caved in to a nationwide cottage cheese boycott today and announced that they would be lowering the product’s price to the recommended retail price of NIS 5.9.


2011:Today the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) sent a letter to Delta Air Lines CEO Richard H. Anderson voicing concerns that the airliner's new alliance with Saudi Arabian Airlines would lead to discriminatory practices against Jewish travelers. 


 2011(27th of Sivan, 5771): Rabbi Chaim Stein one of the Roshei Yeshiva the Rabbinical College of Telshe passed away.


2011(27th of Sivan, 5771): Sixty-four year old Larry Bogdanow, the founder of Bogdanow Partners Architects and restaurant designer whose work included the Union Square Café, passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)

2012: Without any frosting, lace, or chuppahs in our midst, Rabbi Shira Stutman is scheduled to lead a salon-style Shabbat evening with prayers and conversation about the “rites” and wrongs of women in Judaism, as well as God’s feminine side at the historic 6th& I Synagogue in Washington, DC.


2012: Israeli cellist Yoed Nir is scheduled to perform at the Garden Party Festival in Helsinki, Finland.


2012:Austrian authorities are investigating the desecration of 43 graves in two Jewish sections of Vienna’s main cemetery.


2012:Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s supersize coalition was showing its first serious signs of stress today in its quest for a more universal draft system in Israel.


2012:The United States and Israel are expected to hold a joint military exercise sometime around October, after postponing it earlier this year, the US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said today, confirming previous reports that it was back on track. 


2013: “A seven-week immersion experience in Hebrew” offered by Brandeis University-Middlebury School of Hebrew is scheduled to begin today.


2013:Communications Minister Gilad Erdan and Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz attacked each other fiercely today ahead of tomorrow’s elections for the heads of the Likud's institutions. (As reported by Gil Hoffman)


2014: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers includingOn The Run: Fugitive Life in an American City by Alice Goffman and Clouds of Glory: The Life and Legend of Robert E. Lee by Michael Korda,


2014: “Shabbat – Inside and Out” an exhibition at the Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to come to an end.


2014: “Tel Aviv's secular residents suffered a double blow in their fight for freedom from religion today when Interior Minister Gideon Sa'ar and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni thwarted two pieces of legislation that would allow the opening of businesses during Shabbat and the operations of public transport during Judaism's weekly day of rest.” (As reported by Gilad Morag andMoran Azulay)


2014: Firefighters responding to a call to put out a small brush on the Golan Heights “were fired on by forces on the other side of the Syrian border” but completed their mission successfully without any casualties.  This is the latest in a series of incidents on the border one of which claimed the life of an innocent 15 year old boy.


2014: In two different responses today to the kidnapping of three Israeli teens, a mammoth rally featuring artists and celebrities was held at Rabin Square while “the Rosh Yeshiva of the Beit El Yeshiva, Rabbi Zalman Melamed, urged the public to set up a protest in front of the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv to call for a tougher crackdown against Hamas.”


2014: As rocket attacks from Gaza continue for another night one terrorist was killed and several more were wounded when the IAF “launched a targeted attack against a rocket launching cell in the Gaza Strip apparently belonging to Hamas' military branch.”


2014: “The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to host “Life? Or Theatre?” a documentary by Franz Weis that explores the life and work of German Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon.


2014: “The Sturgeon Queens” is scheduled to be shown at the Skirball Culture Center in Los Angeles and the Circle Cinema in Tulsa, OK.


2014: Nate “Freiman was called up to the A's today, after leading the Pacific Coast League to that point in RBIs, and tying for seventh in home runs.”


2014: “The Last of the Unjust” is scheduled to be shown on the final day of the Portland Jewish Film Festival


2015: “Tiger, Mog and Pink Rabbit: A Judith Kerr Retrospective” is scheduled to open at the Jewish Museum in London.


 


 


 

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