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This Day, July 29, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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July 29

1099:  Pope Urban II, the man behind the First Crusade, passed away.  Considering the impact of the Crusades on the Jews of Europe, his impact on Jewish history is self-obvious.

1108: Louis VI, during whose reign “jurisdiction over the Jews and their revenues gradually passed from royal control to the hands of the Catholic Church” began his reign as King of the Franks.

1336: Led by John Zimberlin, a self-proclaimed prophet, a group of peasants in Germany known as the Armleder (for their leather straps warn on their arms) attacked Jewish communities in Franconia and the Alsace region. They also destroyed Jewish communities in Bohemia, Moravia and elsewhere along the Rhine. Roughly 1500 Jews were murdered. Eventually when the Armleder began to attack non-Jews, they were opposed by local Lords.

1567: James VI is crowned King of Scotland. Scotland’s King James VI will enter history as King James I of Great Britain, the monarch who gave his name to the King James Bible, the English translation of the holy book whose text most Americans (including many Jews) will think of as the real words of God.

1588: English naval forces under command of Lord Charles Howard and Sir Francis Drake defeats the Spanish Armada off the coast of Gravelines, France. The defeat of the Spanish Armada meant that the Catholics and their Inquisition would not take control of the British Islesor re-take the Netherlands, the Protestant nation that was haven for European Jews.  Morrano spies reportedly provided information to the English which helped them to know when and where to expect the arrival of the Armada.

1612(29thof Tammuz, 5372): Abraham Portaleone, the Italian physician who studied under Jacob Fano and who was granted special dispensation so he could treat such prominent Christians as the Dukes Guglielmo and Vincenzo of Mantua and Pope Gregory IV passed away today.

1644: Urban VIII, the Pope who issued an edict in 1625 forbidding Jews in Rome from erecting gravestones, passed away.

1654(Av, 5414):Miriam Lucerna, “the daughter of a well-known rabbi and physician, Leo Lucerna” and the wife of Meshullam Solomon Fischhof-Auerbach passed away today in Vienna.

1792(10thof Av, 5551): Fast of Tish’a B’Av observed

1808: As he prepared for surgery, Rothschild drew up his last will and testament.

1816: “Abraham Wolf was ordered” by a justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court “to pay a fine of $4 for doing business on a Sunday” in violation of what were known as “Blue Laws.”  (As reported by Abraham P. Bloch)

1827: In Strasbourg, “banker Adolphe Ratisbonne and his wife Charlotte Oppenheim” gave birth to French author Louis Raisbornne whose uncles had converted to Catholicism and become priests.

1819: David Moses Dyte and Hannah Lazarus gave birth to Charles Dyte, who married Evelina Nathan and with whom he had five children.

1830: Abdication of Charles X of France. Charles abdicated in favor of his grandson.  But the Chamber of Deputies rejected this move and chose Louis-Philippe, duc d'Orleans, to fill the vacant throne.  This proved to be a good thing for the French Jews since Louis would ratify a motion putting Judaism on a par with Christianity, granting State support to Synagogues and their Minister of Religion. This meant that France extended financial support to Jewish religious institutions on par with Christian institutions.

1832(2nd of Av, 5592): Seventy-three year old Isaac Levy “of Bevis Marks, the faithful servant for 44 years to the family of Aaron Solomon”, passed away today and was buried this evening and was buried this evening at the Lauriston Road Jewish Cemetery.

1832: Moses Levy, who had died on Shabbat, was buried today at the Canterbury Jewish Cemetery.

1836(15th of Av, 5596): Tu B’Av celebrated for the last time during the Presidency of Andrew Jackson.

1840: Birthdate of Simon Baruch, a physician, who was born in Schwersen, Germany (now part of Poland). He attended German schools and received a degree from the Medical College of Virginia (1862); was surgeon for the Confederate Army (1862-1865); and practiced in Camden, South Carolina, until 1881, then in New York. He was the Chairman of the South Carolina Board of Health (1880) and was the author of books on the use of hydrotherapy. He married Isabel Wolfe in 1867. His greatest claim to fame was that he was the father of Bernard Baruch, the famed financier and advisor to Presidents.

1844: A day after he had passed away, Meyer Tobias Levy Keeling, the son of Sophia and Henry Levy Keeling was buried at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Cemetery” today.

1847: Grace Aguilar made her last entry in her Frankfort Journal, a 34,000 word long effort that recorded her family’s journey through Belgian and Germany.  It was also her last literary effort since she would pass away in September.

1849: In Pest, Gabriel Südfeld, a Hebrew poet and his wife gave birth to Simon Maximilian Südfeld who gained fame as Max Nordau, the Zionist leader, physician, author, and social critic. He was a co-founder of the World Zionist Organization together with Theodor Herzl, and president or vice president of several Zionist congresses. Nordau died in Paris, France in 1923. In 1926 his remains were moved to Tel Aviv.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/max-nordau

1850(20th of Av, 5610): Sarah Moses, the daughter of Abraham Moses and the wife of Lazarus Moses, passed away and was buried in Chatham, Kent, England.

1864: In article describing President Jefferson Davis' cabinet, the Richmond Sentinel reported that "The whole burden of the objections to the Secretary of State seems to have dwindled down to the fact that he is a Jew, for all admit his distinguished abilities. The time is at hand when his abilities will be needed, and we feel confident that when the occasion occurs he will not be found wanting, but will ably sustain the dignity of his office and his already acquired high reputation. "

1866: Birthdate of New York native Solomon J. Wallach, the CCNY graduate and President of the Mendelssohn Benevolent Society who attended the organizations 100thanniversary celebration in 1941 where he read congratulatory letters from Governor Lehman and President Roosevelt.

1868: Today, “Joseph Kirsh, Henry Walterstein and Isaac Hollander were named as trusteed to hold, manage and disposed of the of the property of Congregation Beth Israel” in Richmond, VA.

1870: Benjamin Nathan’s body was discovered at 5:50 a.m. in his New York mansion. “Mr. Nathan was found lying dead with his skull smashed in…A heavy iron instrument used by ship carpenters called a ‘dog’ was found near the body.”  This was the murder instrument. Apparently, Mr. Nathan was killed when he interrupted a robbery that was taking place at his home. (Despite the offering of a large reward and numerous arrests, the murder remains unsolved.)

1870: An “excitable weekly” called the Sunday Mercury published an unsigned article accusing Washington Nathan of murdering his father, Benjamin Nathan

1870: The New York Stock Exchange offered a $10,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of the murder or murderers of Benjamin Nathan.  Nathan had been a member of the Exchange for thirty years.

1873: In Odessa, Russia, Isaac Stone and Rose Leviash gave birth to Nahum I. Stone, the husband of Bertha Esther Levinson who earned an M.A. from Columbia University and was he the author of several works including “Capitalism on Trial in Russia,” “Economic Resources of Siberia” and “A Study of Agricultural Statistics in the United States.”

1873:At Castle Garden (NY), the President of the Romania Society presented a letter at today’s meeting of the Commissioners of Emigration requesting “that the board take charge of five Rumanian emigrants and send them back home.”  The five are Orthodox Jews who could not exist on the food prepared at the commission’s Ward’s Island facility. The letter also stated that if the Commissioners would send the Jews home, the Society’s President would see to it “that the emigration” would be stopped in Roumania. The commission agreed to send them back and expressed “regret that the American Consul in Roumania had not stopped the emigration” in the first place.

1875: Suffering from the effects of his trip to Palestine, a fatigued Sir Moses Montefiore spends the day rest in bed.

1875: While visiting Palestine, Sir Moses Montefiore wrote a letter to Hayyim Guedalla in which he described the marked increase in the number of dwellings in Jerusalem, and, given the increasing density of the population, the need to start building “suitable dwellings” beyond the current city limits.

1876(8th of Av, 5636): Shabbat Chazon, Erev Tish'a B'Av

1877: It was reported today that the Jews have established Young Men’s Hebrew Associations in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago and Cincinnati.  They are modeled after the YMCA’s. The Jewish Messenger “thinks the system should be extended to other cities” because they have the “power to mold American Judaism.”

1877: Seventy-eight year old Morris Abrahams who was born in 1799 and passed away on July 27 was interred today at the Bath Jewish Burial Ground.

1877: “Any Change in Turkey For the Better” published today relying on information from the Duke of Argyll that first appeared in the Contemporary Review, described conditions in the Ottoman Empire in which “Moslem tyranny” exercises control “over the whole non-Moslem population while the government “has been friendly to the Jews”  “this toleration is nothing” in reality “but equal and indiscriminate contempt.”

1878: “Palestine” published today described “the model of the entire country” now on exhibit at on the grounds near the Round Lake Hotel built on a scale of “two and a half feet to the mile” that allow “visitors” to walk from Jaffa to Jerusalem to the Dead Sea and after having taken a dip in the Jordan River to visit Bethlehem and Mt. Hermon

1878: Five days after he has passed away, “Joseph Cohen, the eldest son of Minna and Leopold Cohen” was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

1878: Hans Magnus who had been born in 1867 to Samuel and Zerline Magnus was buried today at “the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1879(9th of Av, 5639):Tish'a B'Av                                                                                    

1879: The Standard’s Constantinople dispatch reported today that the Jewish quarter at Orta Keui, a village on the Bosporus, has been destroyed by “a terrific fire.”

1881: Birthdate of San Francisco native, German trained thoracic surgeon Leo Eloesser a member of the Stanford Medical School Faculty whose fascinating life including serving with the Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil War and being the 8th Route Army in China during WW II.

http://www.albavolunteer.org/2016/12/leo-eloesser-the-remarkable-story-of-a-medical-volunteer-in-spain/

1881: The first ships containing large numbers of Russian Jews arrived in New York following pogroms in Russia. This was the beginning of mass immigration to the U.S. during that would change the face of the American Jewish Community.  The great waves of immigration would slow with World War I and come to a halt during the 1920's when an isolationism, nativism and racism closed the doors of America to most immigrants. 

1882: In Hungary, Solomon Schwarz, Abraham Buxbaum, Leopold Braun, and Hermann Wollner, were charged with murdering a Christian girl named Esther Solymosi . Josef Scharf, Adolf Jünger, Abraham Braun, Samuel Lustig, Lazar Weissstein, and Emanuel Taub, were charged with voluntarily assisting in the crime. Anselm Vogel, Jankel Smilovics, David Hersko, Martin Gross, and Ignaz Klein, were charged with abetting the crime and smuggling the body. This case which turned into a blood libel began in April and would rile the kingdom for at least another two years.

1883: “Scenes on the East Side” published a visitors account of what he saw when he visited this section of Manhattan including “a colony of foreign-born Jews of the lower classing inhabiting the southern end of Allen-Street” and polyglot neighborhoods on Essex, Ludlow and Hester Streets that included a poor immigrants of many nationalities including Jews from Russia.

1884: It was reported today two of the rioters who participated in the anti-Jewish riots at Zaleszozuky, Hungary were sentenced to five years in prison and another was sentenced to four years in prison. This was the Hungarian town that was the home of Esther Solomossy, a Christian girl who was allegedly killed by Jews as part of their religious rituals.

1885: In Cincinnati, Ohio, Bernard Goodman and Pauline Louise de Coppetti gave birth toTheodosia Burr Goodman who gained fame as Theda Bara, the silent screen star known as “The Vamp.

1885: The Chaplain of the British Embassy in Vienna has completed a census of the religious affiliations of Englishmen and Americans living in the Austrian capital.  The Anglo-American population of 1,316 included 111 Jews.

1885: The “majority of the shops” in Ramsgate are closed today because the town is in mourning over the death of Sir Moses Montefiore.  The Town Hall is draped as sign of mourning and the municipal authorities including the Mayor plan to at tend the funeral for the Jewish philanthropist

1886: At their meeting this afternoon, The Commissioners of Emigration listened to an appeal by several Jewish leaders including a representative of the Hebrew Immigration Society on behalf of eastern European immigrants being detained on Ward’s Island. The commissioners accepted the argument by the Jewish leaders that the immigrants had friends who would take care of them and were not therefore not indigent.  With the exception of a couple of the families in question, the rest were allowed to pass through Castle Garden on their way to a new life in the New World.

1887: in Gross-Kanizsa, which at that time as part of the Austro Hungarian Empire, Adam and Clara Rosenberg gave birth to Siegmund Rosenberg who gained fame as composer and conductor Sigmund Romberg.

1887: Isaac Ullmann, Jr. the secretary of the Utopia club obtained an injunction today restraining  the club from keep him from exercising his rights a member.  The members of the Utopia Club are wealthy New Haven (Ct) Jews.  Ullmann had been banned for a year when it was discovered that he had not paid a fine levied against him.

1887: Adolph Reich, who had been convicted of murdering his wife is scheduled to be hung today.  When the Judge had pronounced the death penalty he expressed his surprise at a Jew being brought before him on such a charge, “since they were, as a rule orderly, law-abiding citizens.” He could not remember ever sentencing a Jew to be hanged.

1888: Birthdate of Mir, Russia native Leon Cooper, the 1910 graduate of CCNY, “president of the Cooper Safety Razor Corporation in Brooklyn and husband of Lucy Price Cooper with whom he had two children – George W. Cooper and Mrs. Arthur Kimelfield.

1889: A three story house owned on Main Street, Sing Sing, owned by David Ross which was home to numerous Jewish peddlers burned in a fire that started at three in the morning.  A machine shop owned by Abram Kipp then caught fire and, by the time it was over, only the walls remained.

1889(1st of Av, 5649): Rosh Chodesh Av

1890: “City and Suburban News” published today described plans for the upcoming benefit sponsored by B’nai B’rith as a fundraiser for the Home for old and Infirm Hebrews.

1890: “The Shatchen” by Charles S. Dickson, featuring M.B. Curtis who starred in “Sam’l of Posen” is scheduled to open today at the Grand Opera House in Los Angeles.

1890: Four Russian Jewish immigrants were stopped from going to work for Marcus Ullman, a peddler on New York’s east side when it was discovered that he was going to pay them $12 a month while the Labor Bureau had found work for them at salaries of $14 to $17 per month.

1891(23rdof Tammuz, 5651): Sixteen year old Louis Rabinowitz, a Russian Jew, passed away today at New Haven, CT.

1891(23rdof Tammuz, 5651): Jacob Levy, one of the suspects in the “Ripper Murders” passed away this evening at in the asylum for the mentally ill where had been confined.

1891: Birthdate of Bernhard Zondek, the German born Israeli gynecologist who developed the first reliable pregnancy test.

1891: Thirty Russian immigrants who sailed from Liverpool on the SS Norseman arrived in Boston today where they have been refused permission to land..

1891: “The Russian Jew Persecutions” published today described the burning of “a little farming settlement four Russian miles from Veile” where fourteen Jews were burned today and twenty more were seriously injured. “All the time the Russians were rushing wildly about shouting, ‘Kill the Jews!  Kill the Jews!’”

1892: Henry Heller, who had served as a Sergeant in Company A of the 66th Ohio Infantry during the Civil War was issued his Medal of Honor today for voluntary crossing into enemy lines under heavy fire to bring a Confederate officer who provided his superiors with “invaluable information” concerning the position of the enemy during the Battle of Chancellorsville, which was one of the worst defeats suffered by the Army of the Potomac.

1892: “Dr. Michael Singer, who was reported a few weeks ago to have absconded with $25,000 of the Baron Hirsch Fund at Budapest” today “denied the charge and said he had written to Dr. Alexander Klein…to bring a suit for libel against” the paper that had published the charge.

1893(16th of Av, 5653): Shabbat Nacahamu

1893(16thof Av, 5653): Sixty-two year old historian Julius Aronius who was working on Regesten zur Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland at the time of his death passed away today.

1894: Two days after she had passed away, 56 year old “Augusta Stock Levy…the wife of Samuel Levy” was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery” on Buckingham Road.

1894: As of today, the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children has provided excursions for 2,647 children and 1,213 mothers free of charge.  In addition 233 sick infants and children have been cared for at the Rockaway facility.

1894: Contributions needed for the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children to continue its work may be sent to its managers – Nathan Lewis, Hezekiah Kohn and Joseph Davis.

1894: “Germany In Earliest Times” published today provides a review of A History of Germany In The Middle Ages in which the author begins with a critical overview of the efforts of past historians including Josephus who he said “wrote of the same events in his Antiquities as in the War of the Jews and reported them differently.

1895(8th of Av, 5655):Less than a month before his 84th birthday Joseph Derenbourg, or Joseph Naftali Derenburg, a Franco-German orientalist, who wrote an Essai sur l'histoire ella geographie de la Palestine passed away today.

1895(8th of Av, 5655) Erev Tish'a B'Av

1895: Two days after she had passed away, forty year old Leah Brenner, the daughter of Rebecca and Jacob Roxas was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”

1897: The Protective Musical Union Band will provide the entertainment at the second annual outing of the Brooklyn Hospital Society which is being held at Wissel’s Ridgewood Park.

1898: “The Russian Jew in America” by Abraham Cahan, the man who ran the Forverts for 40 years appeared in the Atlantic Monthly bringing together one of those unlikely combinations – the immigrant Jew and the classical WASP intellectual journal.

1898: Birthdate of physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi whose exploration of the atom earned him a Nobel Prize in 1944. https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1944/rabi-facts.html

1898: Birthdate of Pittsburg, PA native Irving Ralph “Red” Perlman” the WW I veteran who played guard for the undefeated 1917 U. of Pittsburgh “Panthers” and pursued a pro career in the 1920’s.

1898: Isaac F. Goldenhorn, the attorney for Michael Aaronberg, Abraham Hoffman, Mendal Bloomkey, Jacob Joseph and Adolph Horowitz, the Trustees of the Moses Montefiore Congregation in Hoboken, NJ, went into court today to seek an injunction to keep David Engler from removing the building from its location at 76 Grand Street.

1899: In describing his trip to Europe, John Ireland, the Archbishop of St. Paul, MN is reported to have told friends “that there is not so much turmoil over the Dreyfus Affiar as would appear from the press reports and that the decision of the court-martial whatever it may be will be accepted as final.” (Editor’s note – boy was he wrong)  He also said that the issue was no longer the guilt or innocence of Dreyfus but the honor of the army. (He was right about that)

1899: “The treaties, declarations and final acts of the Hague Peace Conference which Jan Bloch attended were signed today.”

1899: “Book News In London” published today described a English language translation of a monograph by Jules Huret on Sarah Bernhardt which has a preface by Edmond Rostand, the author of Cyrano de Bergerac.

1904: Mathew Nathan succeeded Sir Henry Arthur Blake as the Governor of Hong Kong.

1905: In Worcester, MA, Yetta Helen (née Jasspon) and Solomon Z. Kunitz gave birth to their third child, future Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress Stanley Jasspon Kunitz.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/16/books/16kunitz.html?_r=0

1906: Birthdate of New York native and youthful resident of Oakland, CA,Norman Frank Feldheym who majored in history at the University of Cincinnati while earning ordination from HUC in 1932 after which he served congregations in Panama City and San Bernardino and earning a Bronze Star and 6 battle stars while serving as a U.S. Army chaplain in WW II and Korea.

1906: Birthdate of New York City and attorney Gertrude Caesar who was the “Caeser” in the law firm of Feuer and Caesar founded “in the early 1930’s with her husband attorney Moses A. Feuer with whom she had two children Robert and Nancy, the future wife of attorney Milton Fischel.

1907: Lt. Col. Mathew Nathan completes his service as the 13th Governor of Hong Kong.

1911: In London, the First Universal Races Congress, an anti-racist organization which discussed the “Jewish Question” came to a close today.

1912(15thof Av, 5672): Tu B’Av was celebrated for the last time during the Presidency of William Howard Taft.

1912(15thof Av, 5672): Mayer Hahn, who on May 17, 1898 was nominated by William McKinley to serve as Collector of Customs for the District of Pamlico, in North Carolina and later approved by Congress, passed away today in Long Branch, NJ.

1913: Two days after she passed away, funeral services were held for Mrs. Lena Jonas of Waterloo, IA at Furth’s Chapel.

1913: Birthdate of Mankato, MN native Helen Barbara Kruger who gained fame as “Bobbie Nudie” Cohn the wife Nudie Cohn, the creator of outrageous clothing for such stars as Cher and Elvis Prseley.

1913: Funeral services were held today for Mrs. Helena P. Monash, the mother of four sons and two married daughters at her home in Chicago.

1914: A day after the Austro-Hungarians declared war on the Serbians, Czar Nicholas sent a telegram to Kaiser Wilhelm II suggesting “submitting the Austrian-Serbian problem to the Hague Convention” for resolution.

1914: Birthdate of Brooklyn native Irwin Eli Cohen who gained fame as comedian Irwin Corey.(As reported by Ron Wertheimer)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/arts/irwin-corey-comedian-and-foremost-authority-dies-at-102.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

1917(10thof Av, 5677): Tish’a B’Av observed on Sunday

1917: “In connection with the observance” of Tish’a B’Av, “special appeals have been sent to all rabbis throughout the city to ask their congregations to make contributions to the Joint Distribution Committee of Funds for Jewish War Sufferers.

1917: “In the…the east side Jewish schools…the rabbis with the children prayed and mourned over the fate of Palestine” and “chanted the songs of Judah Halevi, the ancient poet and especially the ode to Zion that brings to every heart…a real yearning for Palestine.”

1917:  It was reported today that in a statement celebrating Finland’s independence from Russia, the Diet issued a statement which provided assurances that “the rights of Russian citizens in Finland as well as those of the Jews will not undergo any modification.”

1917: In an unusual move, today the New York Timespublished a list provide by the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society of American Jews whom thousands of Jews in Russia and Poland are seeking to reach along with instructions for anybody seeing their name on the list trying to contact these relatives.

1917: The Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the War of which Harry Fischel is the treasurer, as of today reported that it “had received new gifs totally more than $14,300.”

1917: “Wife Number Two” a silent movie filmed by cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg was released in the United States today by Fox Film Corporation.

1917: It was reported today that the Finnish Diet has adopted a resolution reassuring the Jews that their rights “will not undergo any modification” under the new government.

1918: It was reported today that Minister of Foreign Affairs Constantin C. Arion “declared in an interview that the Rumanian Government…would grant rights to the Jews in accordance with the peace treaty, and even more fully, and would completely abolish Article 7 of the Rumanian Constitution which lays it down that Jews in Rumania are aliens and that naturalization is only possible for them individually.” (The Rumanian government might hold a record for promising to grant full citizenship to Jews and then reneging on the promise – a pattern that began in the middle of the 19th century and continued through the Shoah when the issue became moot.)

1919: The 21stAnnual Convention of the Progressive Order of the West ended today in Chicago.

1919(2ndof Av, 5679): Twenty-eight year Jewish American racketeer Johnny Spanish, born John Weyler, was murdered by three unknown gunmen while entering a restaurant at 19Second Avenue in Manhattan ending what was the “Second Labor Sluggers War.”

1920: Today after 270 of the Templers who had been living at the Tel Aviv neighborhood of Sarona and interred in Egypt by the British during WW I “had been repatriated in April to Bad Mergentheim, Germany, the House of Lorder permitted the remaining” 580 “internees to return to Palestine” where they found colony at Sarona to have been “plundered and vandalize.”

1921: In Germany Hedwig Ehrenberg and Max Born gave birth to Gustav Victor Rudolf Born who served as the Sheild Professor of Professor of Pharmacology at Cambridge. He is the father of Professor Georgina Born and the uncle of singer Olivia Newton-John

1921: Adolf Hitler becomes leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party.

1922: In Los Angeles, “Benjamin Lewis, a lawyer and pianist Pauline Kallin” gave birth to Flora Lewis “a correspondent and columnist who explained international politics to readers of The New York Times and other publications for nearly 60 years.” [Editor’s note- Wiki shows the date as July 25 but quotes from the NYT obit that shows July 29] (As reported by Craig R. Whitney)

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/03/world/flora-lewis-79-dies-keen-observer-of-world-affairs.html?pagewanted=all

1923: A review of The Soul of Woman: A Reflection on a Life by Gina Lombroso, the Italian-Jewish sociologist was published today.

1923: In Bennington, VT, Congregation Beth El, which was founded in 1909 dedicated its new synagogue “at the corner of North and Adams Streets.” 

1925: In Lviv, Izzak Natali Botwin a Polish communist and “labor activist assassinated Josef Cechnowski an agent of the Polish secret police Defensywa who had infiltrated the Communist Party and worked as an informer.

1928: The Day, a Jewish newspaper printed in New York City, published a report from its correspondent in Palestine that Frieda and Goldina Rubinson, two sisters born in Hamburg now living in Tel Aviv claimed that the late composer Giacomo Pucini had plagiarized the score of his opera “Turnadot” from them. They claim to have proof that they composed the work in 1896 at which time they obtained a copyright in Germany and the United States.  The two sisters plan on making a trip to the United States to pursue their claim against, among others, the Metropolitan Opera Company which produced the work in 1927.

1929: Dr. Arthur Ruppin addressed the second session of the 16th Biennial Zionist Congress in Zurich, Switzerland today.  He said that “conversion to other faiths, intermarriage, a decreasing birth rate and unchanged mortality rate” were “disintegrating forces menacing the continued existence of the Jews as a people.” 

1930: Birthdate of Sol Steinmetz, the Hungarian born American “lexicographer, author and tenured member of Olbom (As reported by Margalit Fox)

1931(15thof Av, 5691): Tu B’Av

1931: Birthdate of Art Ginsburg the native of Troy, NY, who gained fame as the television chef and author known as “Mr. Food.
1932: “The Vanishing Frontier” directed by Phil Rosen and produced by Sam Jaffe was released in the United States by Paramount Pictures.


1933: In Vienna, Sara and Herman Kirchenbaum gave birth to Peretz Kidron who became a noted Israeli writer, journalist, and translator.

1934: Birthdate of Stanton Friedman a nuclear physicist who was “the original civilian investigator of the Rockwell Incident.”

http://www.stantonfriedman.com/

1934: Two days after he had passed away, funeral service were held to for 68 year old Louis Ziv, the Russian born American attorney and the husband of Mary Ziv with whom he had five children – Sylvia, Lawrence, Royal, Seymour and John – at Beth El Temple in Chicago where he had been president of the congregation followed “burial in Waldheim Cemetery.”

1934: The New York Times publishes an article by Sir Herbert Samuel in which the first British High Commissioner for Palestine describes the progress and problems facing the country.  His lengthy commentary is based on his first visit to Palestine in nine years.

1935: Publication of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence’s somewhat overwrought account of the “Arab Revolt” during World War I.  Lawrence supported the interests of Feisal against the Europeans including his own British Foreign Office.  Lawrence believed that there was room in the Middle East for both a Jewish homeland and an Arab Caliphate.

1936: The Palestine Post reported that a British constable and 10 Arabs fell in a day-long battle near Nablus. Among the many arrested, one Arab claimed that he was forced to join the marauders. The Royal Air Force joined the land forces in their organized pursuit of the rebels, many of whom escaped into the more inaccessible areas, carrying their wounded. Arab terrorists warned local Arab villagers living near Motza and other neighborhoods close to Jerusalem that they would be killed and their property destroyed unless they submitted to all their demands. Six Jewish communists were deported to Russia and one to Poland.

1936:The plan of the Austrian Government to broadcast to Germany the Salzburg festival performances has run afoul of Arturo Toscanini. It has just leaked out from circles in close contact with the Italian conductor that Mr. Toscanini has threatened to leave Salzburg immediately, never to return, if any performance conducted by him is broadcast to Germany.

1936: “Abraham Kraditor, commander-in-chief of the Jewish War Veterans returned” today aboard the “French liner Champlain from Vienna where he had attended the second World Congress of Jewish War Veterans.

1936: “Julius Streicher’s newspaper, the Stuermer, far from suffering suppression during the Olympics as has been reported appeared today with a special Olympic number” on the front page of which is a half-page cartoon showing a degenerate and brutal person labeled ‘Jew’ starring with envy and hatred at a Germanic-looking Olympic victor crowned with laurel” while the bottom of page is emblazoned with the slogan “Jews Are Our Misfortune.”

1936: In Vienna this evening in pre-Olympic ceremony, the Nazi mob “formed in a procession” “howling down the Jewish Olympic athletes with shouts of ‘Perish the Jews!  Go back to Palestine.’”

1936: “While the Jews in Palestine are not displeased by Colonial Minister Ormsby-Gore’s statement in the House of Commons today concerning the terms of reference of the royal commission, the Arabs are keenly disappointed.”

1936: Levi “Lee” Shubert “the eldest of seven siblings of the theatrical Shubert family” “secretly married” Marcella Swanson today in Germany following which they would divorce in 1948 and re-marry in 1949.

1937: Oscar A. Lewis, the leader of the La Guardia Republicans in Brooklyn was among those disappointed tonight when “the Kings County Republican Committee” voted to withhold “their endorsement of Mayor La Guardia as Republican candidate for re-nomination as Mayor.”

1938(1st of Av, 5698): Rosh Chodesh Av

1938: Dr. Kallman M. Davidson “reportedly” passed away today in Boston, MA.

1938(1st of Av, 5698): Confronted with the realities of life in Nazi Germany, Dr. Friedreich Gernsheim and his wife Rosa committed suicide

1838: It was reported today “that 2,980 Austrian Jews have emigrated with the aid of of other Jews since the March 13 annexation of Austria” and “that emigration would be faster if conditions for leaving Germany were simpler.

1938: “Another appeal for German cooperation in” dealing with “the refugee problem was made in the House of Commons today by Earl Winterton, who head the British delegation to the conference on refugees at Evian.”

1939: Ben Zion Meir Hai Uziel is installed as Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Haifa.

1940: In a case of misplaced hosannas, Lifemagazine “praised António de Oliveira Salazar as ‘the greatest Portuguese since Henry the Navigator’” because Portugal was “seen…as a haven of hospitality for” Jewish refugees.  In point of fact, Salazar destroyed the career of Aristides de Sousa Mendes the diplomat who rescued thousands of Jews in defiance of the dictator’s wishes.

1940: Orson Welles films the first scene of his classic “Citizen Kane.”  Herman J. Mankiewicz shared the Oscar for best screenplay for his work on this epic.  Who actually wrote the screenplay would become a source of controversy with many critics siding with Mankiewicz.

1941(5th of Av, 5701): Twenty-nine Jewish mental patients from Lotz were taken away by truck and shot in the woods

1941: In Manchester, Lancashire, Ada Doreen (née Hattersley) and Herbert Simon Warner, a Russian-Jewish nursing home proprietor David Warner, the stage actor who made his film debut in “Tom Jones”.

1941: The Second Lvov Pogrom came to an end. “According to Yad Vashem 6 thousands Jews were killed by Einsatzgruppen, some Ukrainian nationalists and some Ukrainian militia.

1942: A religious youth center, Tiferet Bachurim, was secretly opened in the Kovno ghetto

1942: Signs were put up in the Warsaw Ghetto offering free bread for any family volunteering to be deported. This was a scheme designed to make the German job of rounding up 6,000 Jews a day a little easier.

1943:Admiral Sir Barry Edward Domvile a distinguished Royal Navy officer who turned into a leading British Pro-German anti-Semite in the years before the Second World War was released today after having been interred for three years under Defense Regulation 18 B which allowed the government to inter people for their pro-Nazi sympathies. (The British had no trouble with his anti-Semitism, just his views on Hitler, et al.

1943: During WW II, in Italy, the 16th Infantry including Samuel Fuller “had taken the high ground west of the Cerami River.”

1944: 3520 Jews are forced on a death march westward from Warsaw. More than 200 die.

1945: Rabbi Martin Riesenburge celebrated the first wedding at Berlin’s Rykestrasse Synagogue since the Nazis closed it in 1940.

1946: The Paris Peace Conference during which the “victorious wartime Allied Powers” began negotiations with Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Finland which would lead to peace treaties officially marking the end of the war.

1946: The New York State Supreme Court revoked the charter of the Ku Klux Klan thanks in no small part to the efforts of Nathaniel Goldstein, the New York State Attorney General.

1947(12th of Av, 5707):Leo Stein passed away in Florence, Italy. Born in 1872 in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, he was an American art collector and critic. In addition to being elder brother to Gertrude Stein, he is also remembered as an influential promoter of 20th-century paintings.

https://books.google.com/books?id=0_-C4PfJYWUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Appreciation:+Painting,+Poetry,+and+Prose&source=bl&ots=-NoPi2eYFt&sig=hsBcdPLTIHsQXmL-Uhnu9eyVmUg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=6WA1UKc4i5aZBd6vgKgO&sqi=2&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Appreciation%3A%20Painting%2C%20Poetry%2C%20and%20Prose&f=false

1948: For the first time since the infamous 1936 Berlin Olympics, London hosts the Fourteenth Olympiad where two American Jews each won Gold Medals. Frank Spellman won his for weightlifting and Henry Wittenberg won his in freestyle wrestling.

1948: As the United Nations investigates claims by Azzam Pasha, the Secretary General of the Arab League, that Israeli forces had committed atrocities during Operation Shorter, a team of UN observers came to survey the damage” at al-Tira “and did not find any bodies…”

1949: “In the Good Old Summertime” a musical directed by Robert Z. Leonard, produced by Joe Pasternak based on a play by Milos Laszlo, with a screenplay co-authored by Samson Raphaelson and co-starring S.Z. Sakall was released in the United States today.

1951(25thof Tammuz, 5711): On the day before his 71st birthday, Bernhard Weiss, the most prominent Jewish member of the Berlin police department who challenged the Nazi Party and successfully sued Joseph Goebbels, passed away. 

http://forward.com/articles/151805/jewish-creator-of-modern-german-police/

1951: Following its premiere in Albuquerque, NM in June, today Billy Wilder’s “Ace In The Hole” a film that provides a dark look at the values of a newspaper man starring Kirk Douglas was released to the rest of the United States by Paramount Pictures.

1951:The Jerusalem Post reported that the stage was set for the elections to the Second Knesset. The number of eligible voters reached 900,000. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs signed an agreement with the UN providing for the training of nine experts in various economic, social and administrative fields.

1954:The 1953 Stephen S. Wise award for an outstanding contribution to Jewish welfare was presented today to Youth Aliyah. The citation described the organization's work as "rescuing more than 65,000 children from over seventy-two lands during the past twenty years and educating them for creative citizenship in the land of Israel."

1956: It was reported today the Rabbi Samuel Plutzik who came to the United States from Minsk in 1905, “served as spiritual head of the Jewish Community in Bristol, CT in the 1930’s and has been head of the teaching staff of the Talmud Torah of East New York” passed away yesterday leaving behind his widow Sadie, three sons, Hyam, David and Emanuel and two daughters Mrs. Alice Kurland and Mrs. Naomi Reiss to mourn his passing.

1957(1st of Av, 5717): Rosh Chodesh Av

1963(8thof Av, 5723): Erev Tish’a B’Av

1963(8thof Av, 5723): Sixty-seven year old Rivka Pinchasovich, the daughter of Avraham and Liba Rochel Shapira, wife of Moshe Pinchasovich and mother of Mina Pinchasovich; Amnon Pinchasovich and Tamara Pinchasovich passed away in Petah Tikva, Israel.

1964: “One Potato, Two Potato,” directed by Larry Peerce, the son of Jan Peerce and produced by Sam Weston was released today in the United States.

1965: “Ship of Fools” the cinematic treatment of the novel by the same name set at the start of the Nazi era directed and produced by Stanley Kramer with a script by Abby Mann and music by Ernest Gold was released today in the United States.

1966(12th of Av, 5726): One day after his 98th birthday French poet and Zionist Andre Spire passed away today.

1969: Under the leadership of General Sharon, the Head of the IDF’s Southern Command, Israeli frogmen attacked Green Island during the War of Attrition.

1970(25thof Tammuz, 5730: Seventy-eight year Hungarian native Dr. Melichior Palyi, the economist and adviser to the pre-Nazi era Reichsbank who fled to the United States where he taught at the University of Chicago, “wrote a weekly business column for The Chicago Tribune and authored several tomes including Man Aged Money at the Crossroads and An Inflation Primer passed away today

https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/scrc/findingaids/view.php?eadid=ICU.SPCL.PALYI

1970(25th of Tammuz, 5730): Seventy-three year old George Szell who had had leading the Cleveland Orchestra since 1946 and the husband of the “former Helene Schulz whom he married in 1938 at Glasgow” passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1970/07/31/archives/george-szell-conductor-is-dead-george-szell-of-cleveland-orchestra.html

1970(25thof Tammuz, 5730): Sixty-nine year old Romanian conductor Jonel Perlea passed away today.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9D04EEDB1E3AE03BBC4950DFB166838B669EDE

http://www.soundfountain.org/rem/remperlea.html

1974(10th of Av, 5734:  Cass Elliott passed away.  Born Ellen Naomi Cohen in Baltimore in 1941, Elliott dropped out of school, changed her name and headed for New York. She found fame in fortune performing with the singing group, Mamas and Poppas.

http://www.biography.com/people/mama-cass-9542256

1974: Seventy-four year old real estate developer who had passed away four days ago was buried today in Palo Alto, CA.

http://www.sfgate.com/homeandgarden/article/JOSEPH-EICHLER-Developer-who-made-a-difference-2513403.php

1975: Edward Graham Lee began serving as the Canadian ambassador to Israel.

1975: President Gerald R. Ford became the first U.S. president to visit the site of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz in Poland as he paid tribute to the camp's victims.

1976(2ndof Av, 5736): Sixty-two year old mobster Mickey Cohen passed away today.

1976: “Rescuing the Entebbe Hostages” published today provides a detailed review of 90 Minutes At Entebbe, William Stevenson’s “hurriedly published paperback account of the” hostage rescuing raid. Stevenson, who is best known for A Man Called Intrepid, appears to won the race to publish the first account, if not the most thorough one.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F00712F7355E1A738DDDA90B94DF405B868BF1D3

1976: The Jerusalem Post reported from Washington that contrary to earlier reports, the US had had direct contacts with the PLO "for some time" and that they would continue. Three hundred Americans were evacuated from Lebanon as Syrians and the PLO reached an agreement on this issue. The price of meat rose by two to three shekels per kilo as agreed between the Ministry of Commerce and Agriculture and the Histadrut's Consumer Authority.

1979(5th of Av, 5739): Herbert Marcuse leftist German born, American philosopher passed away.  Marcuse influenced a whole generation of leftists, radicals and anarchists including Angela Davis and Abbe Hoffman.

http://www.marcuse.org/herbert/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marcuse/

1979: A fifteen-day conference organized by Gerda Lerner and co-sponsored by Sarah Lawrence, the Women's Action Alliance and the Smithsonian Institution, which was intended for female leaders came to an end today.

1981(27th of Tammuz, 5741):  Ninety-two year old Robert Moses scion of a well-to-do German Jewish family, who gained fame as New York’s master builder and whose critics and  supporters agreed that he was one of the 20th century’s influential urban planners passed away today

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1218.html

 

1981: A bus was attacked in the entrance to Kibbutz Ma'ale Hahamisha near Jerusalem. A boy of 12 and a girl of 17 were wounded.

1982(9th of Av, 5742): Tish'a B'Av

1982: Sir Zelman Cowen, who was the 19th Governor-General of Australia, completed his term of office.

1983: “Private School,” a teenage comedy with a script co-authored by Dan Greenburg and starring Phoebe Cates was released in the United States today.

1985(11th of Av, 5745): Sixty-six year old Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree, former assistant surgeon general in the United United States Public Health Service and “a professor of community and preventive medicine and associate dean of the State University of New York School of Medicine at Stony Brook, L.I. Dr. Tamarath K. Yolles, the wife of Stanley Faust Yolles, with whom she had two children – Melanie and Jennifer – passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1985/08/04/nyregion/dr-tamarath-k-yolles-dies-associate-dean-at-state-u.html

1986(22nd of Tammuz, 5746): Seventy-seven year old Richard David Barnett a product of Cambridge, a veteran of WW II, and a Fellow of the British Academy who also served as President of the Jewish Historical Society of England and Chairman of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society.

1986(22nd of Tammuz, 5746): Fifty-five year old Israeli poet and Holocaust survivor Dan Pagis passed away today.  A native of Romania, one of his most famous poems is “written in pencil in the sealed railway car.”

http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poem/item/18706

http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/education/lesson_plans/dan_pagis.asp

1986: Chaim “Drukman left Morasha and returned to the NRP

1986(22nd of Tammuz, 5746): Seventy-seven year old Richard David Barnett, a graduate of Cambridge, WW II RAF veteran and Fellow of the British Academy who was “the Keeper, Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities of the British Museum passed away.

1987: Ben & Jerry's agree on a new flavor - Cherry Garcia

1990(7th of Av, 5750): Bruno Kreisky passed away.  When Kreisky became Prime Minister of Austria during the 1970’s, he was the first Jew to hold that position.

1992: Aryeh Gamliel begins serving as Deputy Minister of Housing and Construction.

1993: “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” produced and directed by Mel Brooks who also co-authored  the script and co-starring Richard Lewis was released in the United States today by 20thCentury Fox.

1993: The Israeli Supreme Court acquits accused Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk of all charges and he is set free

1997:The documentary film Blacks and Jews, written and directed by Deborah Kaufman and Alan Snitow, was aired on PBS.

1998: “The Parent Trap” a family comedy co-written and directed by Nancy Meyers was released in the United States today.

1998(6th of Av, 5758): Seventy-nine year old Tony Award winning choreographer Jerome Robbins whose list of famous musical is almost endless and West Side Story, The King and I, Gypsy and The Pajama Game passed away today.

http://jeromerobbins.org/

http://www.biography.com/people/jerome-robbins-9459896

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/30/theater/jerome-robbins-79-is-dead-giant-of-ballet-and-broadway.html

2000:In “The Bible, as History, Flunks New Archaeological Tests; Hotly Debated Studies Cast Doubt on Many Familiar Stories,” Gustav Neibur described the supposed conflict between the tales of the Bible and findings of modern archaeology:

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/29/arts/bible-history-flunks-new-archaeological-tests-hotly-debated-studies-cast-doubt.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm

2001(9thof Av, 5761): Tish’a B’Av

2001: The New York Times book section includes a review of Blue Diary by Jewish author Alice Hoffman

2001: Two people were injured today in a Jerusalem car bombing.

2002: Today in the Edna Ferber’s “hometown of Appleton, Wisconsin, the U.S. Postal Service issued an 83¢ Distinguished Americans series postage stamp honoring.” which artist Mark Summers, well known for his scratchboard technique, created by referencing a black-and-white photograph of Ferber taken in 1927

2003: President Bush and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met at the White House.

2003: Singer Barry “Manilow had a complete upper and lower facelift, which includes the removal of drooping skin from the eyelids and the general tightening of facial skin.”

2004: A photo exhibit designed to memorialize Anne Frank in what would have been her 75thyear closes at the Kraushaar Galleries in New York City.

2004: Seventy-two year old Susan Buffett, the wife of Warren Buffett, whose friendship with Dorothy Kripke the wife of Omaha Rabbi Myer S. Krippe led to a $70,000 investment turning into almost 25 million dollars which went to aid a number of worthwhile causes passed away today.

2005(22ndof Tammuz, 5765): Eighty-two year old Sonny Hertzberg, an early NBA star, passed away today. (As reported by Richard Goldstein)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/29/sports/basketball/sonny-hertzberg-82-a-knick-from-the-very-beginning-dies.html

2006: On Shabbat Chazon, Jews respond to a request from the Governing Council of the Chief Rabbinate by continuing to recite Psalms 83, 130 and 142 on a daily basis.

2006(4thof Av, 5766): Seventy six year old French historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/14/world/europe/14vidal-naquet.html

http://www.humaniteinenglish.com/article258.html

2007: The National Gallery of Art presents a screening of “The Dybbuk,” the Yiddish film based on Ansky’s celebrated drama.

2007: In Jerusalem,Off the Wall Comedy Empire presents "Find Me a Wife: Find You a Husband," an annual Tu B`Av special event show starring David Kilimnick. Kilimnick approaches the issues of the single man/woman in Jerusalem.

2007:  The Washington Post book section features reviews of a biography of America’s first Jewish Secretary of State entitled Henry Kissinger and the American Century by Jeremi Suri and a novel entitled Kalooki Nights by Howard Jacobsen.The novel which purports to be an “examination of a Jewish sub-culture is a convoluted combination of family saga and semi-tepid murder mystery, focusing on its narrator, Max Glickman, a Jewish cartoonist with a hefty persecution complex and a series of anti-Semitic non-Jewish ex-wives.”

2007:Ariel Sharon Hovers Between Life and Death and Dreams of Theodor Herzl” has its final performance at Theatre J.

2007:The first edition of Yisrael Hayom (Israel Today) appeared.

2007(14th of Av, 5767): Raya Czerner Schapiro, psychiatrist, Holocaust educator and author passed away at the age of 73 in Chicago.  After a harrowing experience, Mrs. Schapiro arrived in the United States at the age of 5 after fleeing from Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia.  She was inspired to pursue a medical career in memory of her uncle, a doctor, who had sheltered her before her escape and who died during the Holocaust.

2007: Rep. Anthony Weiner and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) objected to a $20 billion arms deal that the Bush Administration had negotiated with Saudi Arabia because they do not want to provide "sophisticated weapons to a country that they believe has not done enough to stop terrorism," also noting that 15 of the 19 hijackers of September 11, 2001 were from Saudi Arabia. Weiner made the announcement outside of the Saudi Arabian consulate in Washington, stating that "We need to send a crystal clear message to the Saudi Arabian government that their tacit approval of terrorism can't go unpunished."

2008: Robert Wexler, a six-term Jewish U.S. congressman from Florida, discusses and signs Fire-Breathing Liberal: How I Learned to Survive (and Thrive) in the Contact Sport of Congress(written with David Fisher) at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in Washington, D.C.

2009(8th of Av, 5759): Fast begins at sundown

2009(8th of Av, 5769): Eighty-six year old Dina Babiit who used her artistic skills to survive Auschwitz and to save her mother’s life, passed away.(As reported by Bruce Weber)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/arts/02babbitt.html

2009:The Randi & Bruce Pergament Jewish Film Festival came to a close with aClosing Night Bash!” - A gala dessert reception and a chance to win membership and fitness benefits at the JCC.

2009:An archeologist announced today that a unique Aramaic inscription on a stone cup commonly used for ritual purity during the first century has been uncovered in a dig on Mount Zion in Jerusalem.

2009: In the aftermath of the fatal shooting of a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., a seven count indictment was handed up in U.S. District Court charging white supremacist James von Brunn in his murderous attacked on museum guard Stephen T. Johns.

2009: The New York Times reviews books by Jewish authors including Cooperstown Confidential: Heroes Rouges, and the Inside story of the Baseball Hall of Fame by Zev Chafets.

2010: “A Film Unfinished,” a rigorous and profound documentary that simultaneously exposes the perversity of Nazi propaganda, honors its victims and pays tribute to the resiliency of the filmmaker’s own grandmother and the other survivors of the Ghetto is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2010: The Washington Postreported today that Jewish nonprofit group whose leader was accused of fabricating dramatic stories about rescued sefer Torahs has reached a deal with Maryland investigators forbidding it from publicizing such stories about sacred scrolls unless it can prove them. The agreement ends an investigation into the Rockville-based Save a Torah and its driving force, Rabbi Menachem Youlus, often described as "The Indiana Jones of Torah Scribes."

2010:Israel is tied with Canada, Switzerland, and Australia as the world's eighth happiest country out of 155 surveyed, according to a Gallup World Poll posted by Forbes today

2010: The 9th Congress of The European Association for Jewish Studies (EAJS) came to a close in Ravenna today.

2010(18th of Av, 5770): Ninety-two year old Emmy Award winner Bernie West who served as a writer and producer for such cutting edge sitcoms and “All in the Family” and “The Jeffersons” passed away today.

http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-bernie-west-20100804-story.html

2010: Congressman Anthony “Weiner criticized Republicans for opposing the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act which would provide for funds for sick first responders to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, many of whom reside in Weiner's district. In a speech on the floor of the House, he accused Republicans of hiding behind procedural questions as an excuse to vote against the bill.”

2011(27th of Tammuz, 5771): Eight-year old Shulamit Shamir, wife of Yithak Shamir, passed away today in Tel Aviv. (As reported by Gabe Kahn)

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/146231#.UfRdz50o6po

2011:“Sarah’s Key,” a French film that centers on events that began with the roundup of French Jews in 1942, is scheduled to open in major US cities today.

2011: Starting at 1 pm, a Beach Party, complete with eighty-tons of sand brought in just for the event, is scheduled to take place at the Malcha Mall in Jerusalem.

2011:Following a day of advocacy and meetings at the White House, grassroots leaders from about twenty Jewish social justice organizations are scheduled to gather for Shabbat services and dinner at the Historic Sixth & I Synagogue in Washington, DC.

 

2011: As the doctor’s labor dispute entered its 132nd day Israel Medical Association chairman Dr. Leonid Edelman continued his one-man hunger strike

2011(27thof Tammuz, 5771): Tens of thousands mourned the death of Rabbi Elazar Abuchatzeira at his Jerusalem funeral this afternoon, after he was stabbed to death in the early hours of the morning. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4101678,00.html

2011:Women’s organizations that operate public day care centers for preschoolers, including WIZO and Naamat, today called for parents to join the housing protests and take part in demonstrations on Saturday night. The organizations said that the call comes following an announcement from the Finance and Industry Ministries' proposing a solution the law that currently offers education free from the age of three.

2011: After finishing his career at Wisconsin, Gabe Carimi signed a four year contract with the Chicago Bears.

2011: Punter Adam Podlesh signed with the Chicago Bears today marking the start of season which would see him play in all 16 regular season games where he kicked 89 punts for 3,903 yards for a 43.85 average

2011: Minor league pitcher Josh Zeid who had played his college ball at Tulane was traded to the Houston Astros today.

2012: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback editions of The Emperor of Lies by Steve Sem-Sandberg and An Anatomy of Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halsted and the Miracle Drug Cocaine by Howard Markel 

2012(9thof Av, 5772): Tish’a B’Av

2012(9thof Av, 5772): Eighty-six year old Amos Degani, the Sabra born at Kfar Vitkin who was an MK passed away today.


2012: The fundraiser being held for US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney while he’s in Israel is scheduled to start at 9:30 p.m. this evening well after Tisha B’Av ends at sundown. The fundraiser will reportedly cost $60,000 a plate.

2012: “Glickman,” a documentary about Marty Glickman, is scheduled to have its Bay Area Premiere at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2012:Police closed the Temple Mount to Jewish visitors this morning, the fast of Tisha Be’av, due to fears of “provocation” – despite a promise last night that the holiest site in Judaism would be open to Jewish worshipers

2012: Shahar Peer was the last Israeli to play today, and she too lost in the first round. The tennis player was eliminated from competition at the London Games by Russian medal favorite Maria Sharapova, ending a disappointing day for the blue-and-white team. (As reported by Aaron Kalman)

2012:US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta today touted the close security relationship between Israel and the US, suggesting that Israel remained on board with international efforts to pressure Iran on its nuclear program and had not decided to unilaterally strike the Islamic Republic.

2012(9th of Av, 5772): Ninety year old August Kowalczyk the last survivor of the June 10, 1942 breakout from Auschwitz passed away today.


2013: “The Last Sentence” a movie about Swedish anti-Nazi journalist Torgny Segerstedt is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2013: Leading Jerusalem chefs are scheduled to lead a “Mahane Yehuda Shuk Outing!”

2013: An Israeli negotiating team led by Justice Minister Tzipi Livni is scheduled to meet with Palestinian negotiators at the Washington, DC home of U. S. Secretary of State John Kerry prior to the start of peace negotiations which are scheduled to begin in earnest on July 30. (As reported by Herb Keinon)

2013: A full-capacity crowd gathered this evening at the capital’s newly-launched Jerusalem Press Club to hear a panel discussion among luminaries Dr. Mehmet Oz, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky about Jewish values and its impact on society. (As reported by Daniel K. Eisenbud)

2013: Former Bank of Israel Governor withdrew his nomination to return to the position, Channel 2 reported today, following an ongoing scandal over an alleged shoplifting incident at a Hong Kong duty free store. (As reported by Nev Elis)

2014: The JDC Archives is scheduled to host a presentation by Dr.Gerald Steinacher the Hymen Rosenberg Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln entitled “The Red Cross, Jewish Relief Agencies, and the Holocaust” at the Center for Jewish History.

2014: The Washington Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a Coen Brothers double header with showings of “Blood Simple” and “No Country For Old Men.”

2014: The Historic 6th& I Synagogue is scheduled to host an hour of “Jewish Sangha.”

2014: For the third time since the start of Operation Protective Edge “a UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees said today that a stockpile of Hamas rockets was found in of UNRWA’s Gaza School” – a fact “not publicized by UNRWA on its website or official Twitter feed.” (As reported by Ilan Ben Zion)

2014: After a night where rockets “were fired at central and southern Israel more missiles were fired at Ashkelon and Sderot.

2014: “Amid reports that jihadists with fighting experience from Syria were planning an imminent terrorist attack on Norwegian soil, the Jewish museum of Oslo is scheduled to remain closed today based on a recommendation from the police in Norway. (As reported by JTA)

2014: “A high ranking military official spoke with journalists today about the next stages of the operation and said that "the political leadership must decide now – either we push deeper (into Gaza) or we backtrack." Indicating tensions between the IDF and Israel's political leadership, the senior official said "our responsibility is to lead the offensive to where it needs to go, not to where the public wants. This is not reality TV and rating is not a factor." (As reported by Yoav Zitun)

2014: Today, US-born Sgt. Sahar Elbaz, from the Rimon Unit in the Givati Brigade remained in place while his unit came under attack from a grenade throwing terrorist cell “and despite coming under intense enemy fire” and “a glitch in his firearm” provided “covering fire” killing four of the attackers in the process.

2014: For the third time in less than two weeks, UNRWA announced that rockets had been found in their schools in Gaza.

2015: The StandWithUs Israel Education Center is scheduled to host a speech by Christian Arab Israeli diplomat George Deek.

2015: Channel 2 reported today that an “Israeli strike on a car in the Syrian Golan Heights targeted notorious terrorist Samir Kuntar who took part in a 1979 terror raid where he killed four people including four year old Einat Haran whose head he smashed in with his rifle butt and “has planned multiple attacks against IDF soldiers on the Golan Heights.” (As reported by Joshua Davidovich)

2015: The 92nd St Y is scheduled to host “Jazz & Sondheim, Side by Side,”

2016: At the invitation of The Bucksbaum family the Des Moines Art Center and the Temple B'nai Jeshurun communities are scheduled to celebrate the life of Melva Bucksbaum at the Des Moines Art Center.

2016: Twenty-seven year old Jehoshua Gross “was heading for the north coast of Wales today when he collided with a truck” and then continued to drive recklessly for another sixty miles so that he could, according to his attorney, reach home before Shabbat.

2016: In a refreshing change of pace, Rabbi Feivel Strauss is scheduled to deliver the sermon this evening at Temple Israel in Memphis, TN.

2016(23rd of Tammuz, 5777): Ninety-one year old patron of the theatre Zelda Fichandler passed away today.  (As reported by Bruce Weber and Bob Levey)



2016: The first of the Great Jewish Books Summer Programs “a weeklong exploration of literature and culture for high school students” sponsored by the Yiddish Book Center is scheduled to come to an end. 2017(6thof Av, 5777): Shabbat Chazon

2017: “Futures Past” is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival

2018” “Djon Africa” and Samouni Road” are scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

2018: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education center is scheduled to host a presentation in which “Dr. Diane Afoumado reveals how the Holocaust Survivors and Victims Resource Center staff at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum assist people from all over the world to find their families and learn their fate using the International Tracing Service collection and the Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database”

2018: As part of the “Home: Lens on Israel” series, the Temple Emanuel Streicker Center is scheduled to open the photographic exhibition “The Ultra-Orthodox of Bnei Brak.”

2018: The University of Iowa Hillel chapter is scheduled to host an evening of “Bowling for Dollars” at Pinstripes for the “Chicago Hawkeye Community.”

 

 

This Day, July 30, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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762:Caliph Al Mansur founded the city of Baghdad. By the start of the 10th century wealthy Jewish merchants were playing the role of “court bankers” and were reportedly lending funds to the caliphs and his their minister. 

1192: The forces of Saladin successfully stormed the walls of Jaffa forcing the remaining Crusaders to take refuge in the town’s citadel.

1286: Gregory Bar Hebraeus a bishop of the Syriac Orthodox Church whose name serves a reminder that he was the father of Jewish physician passed away today.

http://sor.cua.edu/Personage/BarcEbroyo/Budge.html

1360: A butcher’s license for a carniceria was issued to a Christian named Bernard Arlouin. In Spain, Jews were not allowed to have butchers licenses.  In other words, they operated butcher shops, but were not allowed to own them. In this case, a Spanish Jew named Jafudenus Amilus operated the shop.

1488: Sixteen Jews were burned at the stake in Barcelona.

1492(9thof Av, 5252): The entire Jewish Community, numbering 200,000 souls was expelled from Spain.

1492: Don Isaac Abravanel gave up his power, wealth and prestige to join his fellow Jews on their perilous road out of Spain.

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/111855/jewish/Don-Isaac-Abravanel-The-Abarbanel.htm

1494: In Toledo, an especially large auto da fé was held today with 16 persons from Guadalajara, Alcalá de Henares, and Toledo burned to death and 30 more condemned to life imprisonment.

1549: Birthdate of Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany who “invited Jews, including Marranos, to settle in Pisa and the free port of *Leghorn, which before long became one of the great Jewish centers of the Mediterranean area.” (Jewish Virtual Library)

1729:  Baltimore, Maryland is founded.  Jews were already living in the colony of Maryland when Baltimore was founded.  The Jewish community in Baltimore is one of the oldest in the country. However, the first building that was built as a synagogue, the Lloyd Street Synagogue, was not constructed until 1845.

1756: In London Elie and Hana Pinto Vega gave birth to Abraham Furtado the President of the Assemblee des Notables and the assistant of the Mayor of Bordeaux.

1794: As part of the Second Partition of Poland, Russian forces “occupied Vilna” a city with a large Jewish population many of whom had supported Kosciuszko’s Uprising and most of whom dreaded the change given their past experience with the Russians during the 17th century. (As reported by Abraham Bloch)

1819: One day after she had passed away, 56 year old “Rosy Isaacs, the widow of Abraham Isaacs” was buried today at the Brady Street Cemetery.

1825:  Birthdate of Ignaz Gorssman, the Hungarian born Rabbi who came to the United States in 1873 to Congregation Beth Elohim.

1825: Birthdate of Chaim Aronson, a Lithuanian Jew, who was inventor and academic. Aronson's inventions, which included several machines for mass producing cigarettes, a clockwork calculator, a prototype for an early movie camera, and the microdiarama, were, for their time, ground breaking. Aronson, however, is better remembered for a series of memoirs he wrote, published long after his death in the book A Jewish Life Under the Tsars This is an autobiography of Aronson's own difficult life, but it also describes insightfully, the life of ordinary society in Imperial Russia.

1829: Daniel O’Connell best known for his work in favor of the Emancipation of Catholics but who also supported Emancipation for Irish Jews and the repeal of the British law "De Judaismo", was elected to Parliament today

1832: Three days after she had passed away erev Shabbat, seventy year old Rachel Elias, the wife of Godfrey Elias” was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.

1833: Joshua Leavitt and Sarah Williams Leavitt gave birth to James Taylor Leavitt the husband of Sarah Bancrot Leavitt and the father of William, James and Samuel Leavitt.

1836: Birthdate of Gustav Solomon Oppert, “German Indologist and Sanskrist who was the brother of Julius Oppert.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0015_0_15159.html

1841: One day after she had passed away, “Jane Davis, the widow of Moses Davis” was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.

1851: Rabbi Lyons officiated at the wedding of Mr. Solomons from Savannah, GA and Frances Joseph from Charleston, SC

1856: In New York Asher Kursheedt and Abigail Kursheedt gave birth to Lionel Judah Kursheedt

1860: The New York Times reported that The Fast of Ab. -- Yesterday was the fast of the month of Ab, the anniversary of the destruction of the temple of Solomon by Nebuchadnezzar, and of the second temple by Vespasian, among the Hebrew population all over the world; and was fully observed in the synagogues of this City. The fast of Ab is really one of abnegation. No meat is eaten, and but very little bread is broken. The synagogues yesterday were hung with black, and the Book of Lamentation was read in the original Hebrew.

1861: Philadelphian Augustus Hassler enlisted for a three year hitch in the Forty-First Regiment where he rose to the rank of Sergeant in Company F.

1861: Philadelphian Abraham B. Harris began serving a three year hit in the 65thRegiment also known as the 5th Cavalry during which he rose in rank from Sergeant, to Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant to Second Lieutenant.

1862: During the American Civil War, General William T. Sherman wrote a letter from Union-occupied Memphis, Tennessee stating, "I found so many Jews and speculators here trading in cotton, and secessionists had become so open in refusing anything but gold, that I have felt myself bound to stop it. The gold can have but one use - the purchase of arms and ammunition... Of course, I have respected all permits by yourself or the Secretary of the Treasury, but in these new cases (swarms of Jews), I have stopped it."

1863: The New York Times reported that “a Jew broker, made his appearance in Westchester, Penn., accompanied by a dozen others, whom he represented as anxious to serve as substitutes, for a consideration. Although some of the men, it is said, boasted of having taken part in the New-York riots, yet they were eagerly caught up by drafted men, and engaged at various prices as substitutes.” [The Times did not report on the ethnic or religious origins of any of the other participants in this scheme. This story was part of a series on the Draft Riots that racked New York in the summer of 1863.  Did the Times identify the rioters as “Catholics” or Irish Catholics? ]

1863: Birthdate of American automaker Henry Ford. For Americans, Ford is the man who made the Model-T. For Jews, he is the man who popularized the "Protocols of the Elders Of Zion." Towards the end of his life, Ford apologized for his involvement with this anti-Semitic literature that still infects the world today.

1863:Chief Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler consecrated the new building housing the Bayswater Synagogue.

1864: In Dublin, portrait photographer and dentist Hyman Davis and his wife gave birth to Julia Davis who became Julia Frankau in 1883 when she married Arthur Frankau and gained fame as a novelist under the penname Frank Danby. (Editor’s note – there seems to be some conflict as to the year in which she was born.  Wiki says 1859.  The Jewish Encyclopedia and “The Bookseller, Newsdealer and Stationer”, a trade journal that carried a contemporaneous obituary used the 1864 date.

http://www.londonfictions.com/julia-frankau-a-babe-in-bohemia.html

https://androom.home.xs4all.nl/biography/p016396.htm

1864:  During the American Civil War, Union Army Sergeant Major Abraham Cohn distinguished himself at the Battle of the Crater at Petersburg, VA.  Cohn would be awarded the Medal of Honor for his fighting during the Wilderness Campaign and the Siege of Petersburg.

1865: In Philadelphia, PA, the Benjamin Lodge of the Free Sons of Israel which conducted its proceedings in German was chartered today.

1870: Birthdate of Emil Schiff who was shipped from Leipzig to Terezin where he was murdered at the age of 72.

1870: Newspapers carry full accounts of what is called “A Horrible Murder” – the murder of prominent New Yorker Benjamin Nathan – and the so far fruitless efforts of the police to solve the crime.

1871: It was reported today that “the industrious Jews” are “annoying Christians.” In New York, the Alanson M.E. Church on Norfolk Street occupies a building adjacent to a tenement house that is “occupied almost exclusively by” Orthodox Jews. The Jews go to the synagogue on Saturday and work on Sunday.  Many of them work as tailors “and the ceaseless whirr of their sewing-machines has proved very annoying to the worshipers in the church.” One of the Jews offered to stop working if the church members would pay him for his lost time.  The trustees have declined his offer and are considering taking legal action against the Jewish worker.

1876(9th of Av, 5636): Tish'a B'Av

1876: “A Jewish Festival,” an article published today, reported that Tish’a B’Av, “a Jewish festival” commemorating “the destruction of Jerusalem was begun at 9 o’clock last evening in many of the synagogues” in New York City “and will be generally observed today at the various Jewish temples of worship, notably those of the orthodox Jews.  In the churches of the latter, the services will consist of chants and prayers for the re-establishment of the Jewish hierarchy.”  In addition to praying and singing, “the festival is…observed…by a fast of twenty-four hours duration.”  [Ed. Note – It is worth noting that this brief but detailed description of a minor Jewish fast day appeared in the New York Times.

1878: Birthdate of Adolf Guttman, the native Kleinstinach who served in the German Army during WW I.

1878: German elections resulted in the reactionary element having a dominant voice in the Reichstag. This date is considered the birthday of modern German anti- Semitism.

1880: Birthdate of Colonel Robert R. McCormick who gained famed as the editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune in an era when newspapers were the dominant voice of the media in the United States.  He was a founder of the American First Committee, a powerful organization dedicated to keep the United States out of World War II which took on a decidedly anti-Semitic viewpoint. 

1880: Birthdate of Bernhard Weiss, the German born lawyer who served as a top ranking police official during the Weimar Republic and fearlessly confronted the Nazis.

1880: “Resting at Schooley’s Mountain” published today provided a brief history of this famous New Jersey resort area. The area had become so popular with Jewish vacationers that two of the cottages, Heath House and Belmont Hall, effectively banned Jewish guests. The ban was lifted when the locals saw its negative impact.  (This was one of only of series of bans instituted at hotels, etc. following the Civil War.)

1881: Birthdate of Paterson, NJ, native Meyer Barnett, WWI veteran and holder of a degree in Electrical Engineering from Columbia.

1881: “Foreign Topics” published today described the nightly anti-Semitic demonstrations taking place in Hammerstein, West Prussia.  The riots are similar to ones that have already taken placed in Baerwald, Pomerania.

1881: It was reported today that troops fired on rioters in Poltava who have been attacking Jews, killing four and wounding two.

1884: Theodor Herzl is admitted to the bar in Vienna.

1884: Two New York detectives apprehended Samuel Barnett, a Polish Jew who reportedly has been committing a series of robberies over the last three months in Harlem.

1884: In Nashville, TN, the jury hearing the case of Meyer Moskowitz and “Zeke” White was discharged this evening.  Moskowitz, a Jew and White had been charged with murdering Meyer Fried of Nashville.  The jury had acquitted White but was deadlocked on the issue of Moskowitz‘s guilt.

1885: Myer S. Isaacs presided over a meeting of the Board of Delegates of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations which had been called to determine how to respond to the death of Sir Moses Montefiore.  The board decided to recommend that all Jewish congregations hold special memorial services on Friday night and Saturday morning in honor of the late philanthropist.  Plans will be made a later date for a more formal memorial service to be held in September.

1885: “Two young gentlemen of Hebrew extraction who were engaged selling bullet-like green apples from a wagon at the rate of one cent per quart” unsuccessfully tried to escape Dr. Cyrus Edson, Chief of the Secondary Sanitary Division, and his officers during a raid on the lower east side as part of Edson’s drive to put an end to the sale of unsanitary produce.

1886: Among the institutions that received money from the Board of Estimate and Apportionment today was the Hebrew Guardian Society in the amount of $2,858.29

1886: “Jew and Gentile Wedded” published today described the elopement of Nellie Goodwin and Meier Weil.  Goodwin the 16 year old daughter of Reverend W.R. Goodwin of the Centenary Methodist Episcopal Church and Weil, the son of prominent Jewish merchant, have left Jacksonville, Illinois for parts unknown.

1886(27thof Tammuz, 5646): Shlomo Ganzfried, the Hungarian rabbi who created the “Kitzur Schulchan Aruch” which may be viewed as a “summary” or abbreviation of the larger work by Joseph Karo which makes Jewish ritual, customs and laws available to the “average” Jew.

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/judaism/FAQ/03-Torah-Halacha/section-42.html

1887: “Wealthy Hebrews Worried” published today described Isidor Freedman’s inability to gain membership in the Utopia Club, a social club for wealthy Jews living in New Haven, CT.  Freedman, part of the firm of Mendel & Freedman had been blackballed by Isaac Ullmann. (Not exactly the kind of story they taught us in Hebrew School)

1888: Forty-five year old Irish-American playwright Barley Campbell author of “Siberia” a drama about the persecution of the Jews of Russia passed away

1888:In Enghien-les-Bains, Val-d'Oise, dramatist Tristan Bernard and his wife gave birth to French playwright Jean-Jacques Bernard

1888: In Paris Louis Lehmann Berr and Henriette Alice Berr gave birth to Maurice Berr.

1890: “The Juvenile Band of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum” will play at today’s concert sponsored by B’nai B’rith for the benefit of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews in Yonkers. 1892: Waldemar Mordecai Wolff Haffkine, a Russian born Jewish bacteriologist, reported the results of his test of his cholera vaccine to the Biological Society in London.

1890: The Times of London reported that the Russian government has ordered the enforcement of the edicts of 1882 which were aimed at limiting the economic opportunities for Jews and forcing them to live “in certain towns.”

1890: The New York Times will forward a check for $30.50 that it received from Mrs. S.J. Nathan to the Hebrew Sanitarium, the charity for which the people of Sucassunna, NJ collected the money.

1891: Morris Goodhart of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society was among those who testified as to the harmful effects of the Standard Gas Company works on the riverfront at east 114th Street.

1891: The Russian immigrants who arrived at Boston yesterday from Liverpool will not be admitted into the country are because “they are deemed likely to be a pubic charge.”

1892(6thof Av, 5652): Parashat Devarim and Shabbat Chazon

1892(6thof Av, 5652): Eleven month old Adrian Calisch, the son of “Gussie Woolner Calisch” and “Rabbi Edward Calisch of Congregation Anshai Emeth,” passed away today after which he was buried at the Springdale Cemetery in Peoria, Illinois.

1892: John Collins chaired the meeting of Fourth Assembly District Republicans held at the Hebrew Institute Hall.

1892: Dr. C.H. Goodman and Mrs. Goodman set sail today aboard the SS Gallia for Liverpool.

1892: Dr. Michael Singer’s denial of charges that he had “absconded” with funds from the Baron Hirsch Fund published today stated that “Mrs. David Bischitz, who is a million has charge of the fund and is the only person who handled any of its money.  We had a disagreement and she gave a certificate of character and 1,500 gulden in place of the usual notice of dismissal.”

1892: “Divided Against Itself” published today described a dispute about the spending of funds by K.H. Sarasohn, the President of Society of the Hebrew Sheltering Home, which was founded “about eighteen months ago to provide temporary home” for Jewish immigrants for from Russia.

1893(17thof Av, 5653): Seventy-six year old Solomon Heyman who operated a successful dry goods business and was one of the Directors of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum passed away while on vacation in Long Branch.

1893: “Sir Richard Burton’s Life” published today provided a detailed review of The Life of Capt. Sir Richard F. Burton, the author of The Jew, The Gypsy and El Islam

1894: Two days after he had passed away, thirty-four year old Joseph Levy was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery” on Buckingham Road.”

1894:Birthdate of Blanche Wolf Knopf. “Although her name and work have been overshadowed by those of her husband, Blanche Wolf Knopf carved out her own place in the publishing industry as vice-president and president of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Blanche Knopf was raised in New York, where she met Alfred Knopf in 1911. They were married in 1916; the year after Alfred Knopf launched his eponymous publishing firm. Blanche Knopf was involved in the firm from the start, and in 1921, she became a director and vice-president. In addition to running the office, Blanche Knopf's duties included frequent travel to meet with and recruit new authors for the press. By all accounts, she excelled in establishing relationships with writers on three continents. Under her leadership, Knopf published translations of French writers Albert Camus, André Gide, Simone de Beauvoir, and Jean-Paul Sartre; South American writers Jorge Amado, Gilberto Freyre, and Eduardo Mallea; and the first American edition of Sigmund Freud's Moses and Monotheism. Knopf published American classics, but under Blanche Knopf's urging the firm also published such new American writers as H.L. Mencken, Willa Cather, Dashiell Hammett, and Raymond Chandler. For her work in support of French literature in America, she was named a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur by the French government in 1949 and made an officer in 1960. Similarly, she was honored by the Brazilian government in 1950 with the Order of the Southern Cross. In 1957, Alfred Knopf became chairman of the board, and Blanche Knopf took over as president. However, in 1960, the firm was sold to Random House, which maintains the Knopf imprint as an independent entity. Blanche Knopf remained involved at the helm of the Knopf imprint until her death in 1966. Her New York Times obituary said that her "alertness and perspicacity in recruiting writers ... and her driving energy as an executive contributed immensely to the success of the house of Knopf." In a field dominated entirely by men, in which she was virtually the only woman in her time to take a leading role, Blanche Knopf had a lasting impact on Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., on the world of publishing, and on American letters.

1894: “Socialist Leaders Went Too Far” described the conflict among the Cloakmakers nearly all of whom are Jewish which was resolved when they chose Socialist Joseph Barondess to serve as their president. One of the points of contention was the Socialist demand that the Union Zeitung which is published in Hebrew with a circulation of 10,000 paid subscribers should be replaced with the Arbeiter Zeitung, “a Hebrew Socialist organ.”

1894: “Five jurors were impaneled” today “in part I. of the Court of General Sessions to try Policeman Jeremiah S. Levy” who is Jewish, “of the Thirty-first Precinct for bribery.

1894: Max Lefkowitz signed an affidavit today saying that Officer Jeremiah Levy was not the man who had cheated him out of $25 in a scheme to provide testimony that would have freed his brother Ignatz who was facing charges of grand larceny.

1895(9th of Av, 5655): Tisha B’Av

1895(9thof Av, 5655): New York banker Simon Wormser passed away today.

1895: The strike of the Brotherhood of Tailors, most of whom were Jewish, seemed to be coming to an today as could be seen by Meyer Schoefield that “at least seventy contractors had already signed an agreement to give the strikers what they demanded” and that another twenty were prepared to sign.

1895: Samuel Gompers addressed a group of strikers tonight at Cooper Union.

1895: Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor who was responsible for the unification of Germany passed away. A complex person, Bismarck’s views changed from the 1840’s when he “could not accept Jews serving in the name of his ‘holy majesty’” to serving as Chancellor when Jewish emancipation came in 1869.  For more see Were They Good for the Jews?by Elliot Rosenberg

1897: In Olean, NY, founding of the Hebrew Relief Association which met on the second Sunday of each month for the purpose of urging “the founding of a City Hospital” whose members included Max L. Cohen, Benjamin Ruttenberg, Morris Cohen and H.I. Gloss.

1898: Moses Montefiore Congregation in Hoboken, NJ is contesting the claim by David Engler that he actually owns the surface rights to the lot on which the synagogue sits and that he has the right to lift the building off of its foundation so that he can build a store on the property.

1899:”The United Hebrew Charities acknowledged” today that it had received a total of $180.50 to help resettle a family of four in the country.  The parents have become chronic invalids from their work in the city and seek to support themselves in a rural area.

1900(4thof Av, 5660): “Political economist Samuel Cohn” the native of Bromberg, Germany passed away today in Berlin.

1901: Fifty-one year old historian Herbert Baxter Adams who wrote “valuable papers on the services” contributed by the “patriotic Jew” Chaim Salomon when others challenged his accomplishments, passed away today.

1901: Those attending the “Conference of Chazanim” which ended today in Vienna “decided to establish a General Cantors’ Association.”

1902: Over 50,000 mourners followed the casket of Rabbi Jacob Joseph during his funeral in New York today.

1902: Dr. Paul Kaplan and A.H. Sarahson, an attorney were among those attending a meeting in the office of Dr. Julius Halpern tonight where the police were denounced “an a committee was appointed to investigate and formulate charges against the officers in charge” at the funeral of Rabbi Jacob Joseph.

1902: “At a meeting of the John Steibling Republican Association of the Twelfth Assembly District a resolution was passed denouncing the employees and heads of departments of the R. Hoe & Co during the funeral” of Rabbi Jacob Joseph when they threw “hot water and missiles on the mourners.”

1905(27thof Tammuz, 5665): Tobacconist Solomon Wallenstein passed away.  Born 1831, he married Esther Hellman Wallenstein, the founding president of the Hebrew Infant Asylum, in 1865.

1905(27thof Tammuz, 5665): “Two female Bundists” – Ester Riskin and Gitial Zakhajm – were killed today by a bomb that “anarchists threw…into a patrol that stood near the Bundist exchange on Surazer Street which led to an attack on the Jews by the military which lasted into the night and left at least Jews dead and an untold number wounded.

1905: In Bialystok, during the anti-Jewish riots, physicians were prevented from treating Jewish victims.

1908: Dr. Franz Kafka walked into the building housing the Worker’s Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia in Prague and began working as an assistant in the legal department.  He would retire in 1922 because of complications from a lung disease.

1909: “The first number of The Temple, a Louisville Jewish weekly edited” by Hyman Gerson Enelow appeared today.

1911(5thof Av, 5671): Moritz Pinner, the father of Rogers Pinner, who was known as ‘Captain Mortiz Pinner’ passed away today.

1912(16thof Av, 5672): Sixty-two year old author and publisher E.P. Goodman passed away today in Philadelphia, PA.

1914: In a move the results of which resonant throughout the Middle East and beyond to this day, two days after the outbreak of WW I, the Ottoman Empire formed a secret alliance with Germany aimed specifically at Russia.

1916: As of today, the American Jewish Relief Committee of which Felix M. Warburg is the treasurer “has collected since its organization about $4,500,000.”

1916: It was reported today that among the contributions received by the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the War included $41 from the Jews of Ironwood, Michigan and $150 from the Canada-Jewish Alliance.

1916(29thof Tammuz, 5676): Dr.Albert Ludwig Sigesmund Neisser passed away.

http://deadscientistoftheweek.blogspot.com/2012/01/albert-ludwig-sigesmund-neisser.html

1917: It was reported today that Rabbi G.W. Margulies, the director of the United Hebrew Community, “one of the leading Orthodox rabbis” in the United States had said on Tish’a B’Av said that “the Jews will reach Zion” in only a few years – perhaps not more than seven years” and that “there were prophecies” in the Zohar “led him to believe that the Germans might win the war.

1917: It was reported today that Rabbi “G.W. Margulies, director of the United Hebrew community and one of the leading orthodox rabbis in this country said that he hoped to see Palestine restored to the Jews within the next seven years.”

1918(21st of Av, 5678): Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik, the son of Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik  and author of the Chiddushei Rabbeinu Chaim, a commentary on the teachings of Maimonides, passed away today. Born in 1853, he was known as Reb Chaim Brisker because of the methodology he developed for studying Talmud.

http://onthemainline.blogspot.com/2007/10/reb-chaim-soloveitchik-obituary.html

1918: In Paris, Rabbi Hyman Gerson went to the burial of a soldier with whom he had spent several hours during the day as he lay dying.

1918: The Jewish Press Bureau in Stockholm described “a great sensation” that “has been caused among the Jewish workmen in Warsaw by the sudden disappearance of nineteen members of the executive committee of the Jewish trade unions.”

1921: Birthdate of U.S. Army Alvin David Ungerleider who as a 23 year old lieutenant stormed Omaha Beach during the Normandy landings and helped to liberate the Concentration Camp at Nordhausen in 1945.

1922: Birthdate of Henry W. Bloch, the co-founder and (since 2000) the chairman emeritus of H&R Block. Henry and his brother, Richard Bloch, founded H&R Block in 1955 in Kansas City, Missouri. Bloch was born in Kansas City. He attended Southwest High School, and was an undergraduate at University of Missouri–Kansas City and the University of Michigan, graduating from Michigan in 1944. Through the Army Air Corps he received graduate training at the Harvard Business School. Bloch and his wife Marion married in 1951 and live in the Kansas City metropolitan area. The Henry Wollman Block fountain in front of Union Station in Kansas City is named in his honor, as is The Henry W. Bloch School of Business and Public Administration at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and the Bloch Building, a major addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Mr. Bloch was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 2001.

1925(9thof Av, 5685): Tish’a B’Av

1925: Birthdate of Jakob Josef Petuchowski a native of Berlin, Germany. He was brought from Germany to London, in a children's transport, prior to the outbreak of World War II. After receiving a B.A. with honors in psychology from the University of London in 1947, Petuchowski moved to the United States in 1948 and earned his rabbinic ordination, master’s degree and Ph.D. from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Petuchowski served in the congregational rabbinate in Welch, West Virginia and Washington Pennsylvania. He was also the High Holiday rabbi of Temple B'nai Israel, Laredo, Texas, from 1956 through 1991.

1928: Claims by Frieda and Goldina Rubinson, two sisters born in Hamburg now living in Tel Aviv that they are the authors of the opera now known as “Turnadot” and that Puccini plagiarized the score from them were greeted with scorn and ridicule by sources in New York including William J Guard of the Metropolitan Opera Company and G. Ricordi & Co, the music publishers. 

1929: In Zurich, at the second session of the sixteenth Biennial Zionist Congress, statistician and agricultural expert Dr. Arthur Ruppin of Tel Aviv delivers an address in which he described the negative impact that conversion, intermarriage, decreasing birth rate and an unchanged mortality rate were having on the survival of the Jewish people.

1930: In Brooklyn, Leon Kretchamr, who “worked with his family’s Catskills hotels” and “Lilyan (Alperstein) Kretchmar gave birth to Elain Kretchmar who gained fame as Elaine Markson, one of “the first women to own a literary agency” which she used “to further the careers of fledgling feminist authors.” (As reported by Sam Roberts)
http://www.marksonagency.com/

1932: In Hamburg Germany, Dr. Hans Bruno and pianist Lotte Bruno gave birth to Michael Peter Bruno all of whom moved to Haifa a year later where young Michael began the education that would lead to him becoming him “a governor of Israel’s central bank and a World Bank Chief Economist.”

1932: The 1932 Olympics opened in Los Angeles. Attila Petschauer a gold medal winning swordsman was part of the Hungarian Fencing Team.  The 1999 film Sunshine is a multi-generational study of Petschauer’s family and vividly depicts his death at the hands of the Nazis in 1943. Jewish Gold Medal winners includedIstvan Barta, Hungary water polo, Gyorgy Brody, Hungary, water polo; Lillian Copeland, USA, athletics, discus throw; George Gulack, USA, gymnastics, flying rings; Endre Kabos, Hungary, fencing, team saber; Miklos Sárkány, Hungary water polo.

1933: “The editor of Der Surmer, Julius Streicher, newly appointed Reich Commissar for Franconia, gave orders that 250 Jewish tradesmen in Nuremberg should be arrested, and ‘set to plucking the grass out of a field with their teeth.’”

1933: Catcher Harry Danning made his major league debut with the New York Giants.

1934: The Rabbinical Advisor Committee of Fifty, which “was appointed by Aldermanic President last week to advise New York City on Kashruth” held its first meeting and “adopted resolution” calling for “strict rabbinical supervision of poultry markets.”

1934: In Milwaukee, Ben Selig, an immigrant from Romania and the owner “of a car leasing company” and is wife gave birth to University of Wisconsin graduate and U.S. Army veteran Alan Huber “Bud” Selig, the owner of the Milwaukee Brewers and the Commissioner of Major League Baseball.

https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/selig-bud

1934: In Lodz, Poland, Eljasz (Edward) and Natka Skornicki gave birth to Paulina Skornicka.

http://digitalassets.ushmm.org/photoarchives/detail.aspx?id=1106065

1936: It was reported today that at the meeting of the Second World Congress of Jewish War Veterans in Vienna, a resolution had been adopted “calling for the establishment of a village in Palestine in honor of the 12,000 German Jews killed in the World War.”

1936: The Palestine Post reported on the appointment in London of the Royal Commission for Palestine, chaired by Earl Peel. Other members were Sir Horace Rumboldt, Sir Laurie Hammond, Sir Morris Carter, Sir Harold Morris and Professor Reginald Coupland. The commission's terms of reference were "to ascertain the underlying causes of the disturbances... to inquire into the manner in which the Mandate was implemented in relation to the obligations of the Mandatory towards the Arabs and Jews... to study legitimate grievances and make recommendations for their removal and for the prevention of their recurrence."

1936: General Franco declared his Fascist government and the Spanish Civil War broke out. During the Second World War, Spain officially remained neutral, yet Franco sent troops to fight against the Russians, and Spain later served as a refuge for fleeing Nazis.

1937(22ndof Av, 5697): Forty-three year old Jacob L. Zucker, the optometrist, former “secretary to the Public Service Commissioner” and “an examiner for the estates tax division of the State Tax Commission” who “was secretary and a founder Temple Shaari Israel of Brooklyn” and the father of “Sidney, Estelle, Mortimer and Mildred” Zucker passed away today “in the Jewish Hospital of Brooklyn.”

1937: Pierre-Marie Gerlier who would be posthumously awarded the title Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 1981 was named Archbishop of Lyon today.

1937: In Memphis, TN, Lewis Glick and Sylvia Kleinman Glick gave birth to Milton D. Glick, nationally renowned academic leader who served as the 15th president of the University of Nevada, Reno

1937: “London by Night” a murder mystery produced by Sam Zimbalist was released today in the United States by Lowe’s Inc.

1937: In Geneva, “The League of Nations Mandates Commission began its session on Palestine today, hearing in private along statement on British policy by W.G.A. Ormsby-Gore, the Colonial Secretary” who put the British Government” as publicly and officially favoring partition.

1938: Today, “the most surprised people in the world were Italians when a report drafted by several anonymous but allegedly eminent fascist university professors warned them of all sorts of grave, though unspecified dangers” threatening them due to the presence of the Jewish minority “in their midst.”

1938: Today Mussolini took is with the speech by Pope Pius on “racism” denying that Italy is following the policies of Germany while “The Tribuna said that racism must not be confused with anti-Semitism.”

1939: Birthdate of movie director Peter Bogdanovich.

1939(14th of Av, 5699): Dutch sculptor Joseph Mendes da Costa passed away.

1939: In a private letter Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of Great Britain described Germany's jealousy of the Jews' superior cleverness and states: "No doubt Jews aren't a lovable people; I don't care about them myself; but that is not sufficient to explain the Pogrom."

1939: Reacting to German anti-Jewish policies and reflecting the attitude of many other officials in Great Britain and Western Europe, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain writes: "No doubt Jews aren't a lovable people; I don't care about them myself. But that is not sufficient to explain the pogrom."

1940: Birthdate of producer Stanley Jaffe, the man who gave us Fatal Attracations.

1941(6th of Av, 5701): At Ponar, outside of Vilna, approximately, 150 Jews are shot.  Most of the victims are elderly.

1941: Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June, the Russians which had agreed to the dismemberment of Poland did an about-face by signing the Sirkorski-Mayski Agreement in which Stalin repudiated his previous treaties with the Germans that had made WW II possible.

1941: “Today the Aktion Klostersturm (Operation Monastery) was ended by a decree of Hitler, who feared the increasing protests by the Catholic population might result in passive rebellions, harming the Nazi war effort at the eastern front.”

1942: “Five hundred and fifty-seven refugees from Nazism who had been stranded in Portugal and unoccupied France, arrived” in Baltimore last night “aboard the Portuguese liner, S.S. Nyassa.” (JTA)

1942: German industrialist Eduard Schulte, whose company has mines near Auschwitz, reveals to a Swiss colleague that Hitler and the German Reich have decided to round up the millions of Jews of Occupied Europe, concentrate them in the East, and murder them using prussic acid starting in the fall of 1942. The information is soon communicated to Swiss World Jewish Congress representative Gerhart Riegner.

1942(16th of Av, 5702): German SS kills 25,000 Jews in Minsk, Belorussia

1942(16thof Av, 5702): Seventy-eight year old George Moses Pirce, the native of Poltava who came to the New York City in 1882 where he earned an MD from New York University after which he combined his medical work with a career as an author in his field.

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Price%2C%20George%20Moses%2C%201864-1942

http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/EAD/htmldocs/KCL05244.html

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43058701?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

1942:Esther "Etty" Hillesum was transferred to Westerbork.

1942: The U.S. government established the Navy WAVES, or Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service, program. Though Navy women would not be allowed to serve outside the continental U.S., or even to go to sea, the military hoped that the recruitment of 10,000 women, who would work in onshore bases, would free sufficient numbers of men to fight overseas. Although women had served as nurses in the navy as early as the Spanish-American War, and officially in the Navy Nurse Corps since 1908, the WAVES program was by far the largest-scale effort to recruit women to active duty in the Navy. In the WAVES program, thousands of women performed nearly every possible job at over 500 naval stations through the Second World War. As military leaders had hoped, they enabled male officers and enlisted men to staff the ships that were responsible for the Allied victory in the Pacific theatre. Among the earliest group of women to enlist in the WAVES was Miriam Miller. Although her parents felt that military nursing "wasn't the life for a nice Jewish girl," Miller enlisted soon after her graduation from the Wilkes-Barre General Hospital School of Nursing, in Pennsylvania. She was assigned first to the Great Lakes Naval Station and then to the San Diego Naval Hospital. Later, when the Navy relaxed its prohibition on women serving outside the continental U.S., she worked in Guam, where she cared for soldiers injured in the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Active in veterans' affairs after the war, Miller was elected President of the Jewish War Veterans National Ladies Auxiliary in 1961.

1943: First publication of Mishmar, a newspaper owned by Hashomer Hatzair that would be re-named Al HaMishmar

1944(10th of Av, 5704): Since the 9th of Av fell on Shabbat, Tish'a B'Av is observed today.

1944: Three tankers, carrying some 1750 Jews from the Italian-held islands of Kos and Rhodes, arrive at Piraeus, Greece, where the Jews are bullied onto trucks and driven to the Haidar detention camp near Athens

1944: More than 100 Jews are deported from Toulouse, France, to Auschwitz.

1944: Edi Weinstein, his father and his friend Berl Goldberg, all of whom who had escaped from Treblinka were discovered by German soldiers.  They killed Goldberg. Weinstein and his father survived and Edi Weinstein actually joined the Polish Army in 1945 helping to fight the Nazis in the waning days of the WW II. 

1945: The administration of Germany is assumed by the Allied Control Council.

1946: A three-day pogrom begins in Miskolc, Hungary.

1946: Birthdate of two time Oscar winning documentary filmmaker Barbara Kopple.

1947: It was announced at a press conference in New York today, that “official confirmation that the Parliament of Surinam, in Dutch Guiana, and the Netherlands Government have both approved the proposal of the Freeland League to settle 30,000 homeless European Jews in Surinam, was received by the Freeland League last week.” (As reported by JTA)

1948: “Escape” directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and produced by William Perlberg was released in Los Angeles today by 20th Century Fox.

1949(9thof Av, 5709): Sixty-eight year old Henrik Galeen, the actor, screenwriter and director from Lemberg whose first major film was “The Golem” a 1915 silent movie depiction of the Jewish character and who was forced to flee Europe when the Nazis came to power passed away today in Randolph Vermont.

1950: James G. McDonald, the U.S. Ambassador to the state of Israel has submitted his resignation.  McDonald is coming to the end of a normal two year posting at Tel Aviv.

1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that more than 1,500 polling stations opened to admit an estimated 880,000 voters for the Second Knesset. There were 17 lists of political parties contesting for the election of 120 Knesset members. About 75,000 Arabs were eligible to vote.

1951: Voter turnout for today’s elections for the 2nd Knesset reaching 75.1%

1951: Birthdate of Indian born, British artist and designer Gary Judah. For a look at his work go to http://www.gerryjudah.com/

1952(8thof Av, 5712): Seventy-nine year old Rebecca Weintraub, a native of Russia who was a 60 year veteran of the Yiddish theatre and the widow of Yiddish actor Sigmund Weintraub passed away today in New York.

1953: Senator Robert Taft of Ohio passed away. Most people do not remember Senator Taft.  But in his day he was a political power.  Known as “Mr. Republican” Taft was considered a “shoe-in” for the Republican nomination for President in 1952.  However, his plans were upset by the surprise entry of Ike Eisenhower into the battle for the nomination.  Ike won and the rest is history. As a Conservative Republican, Taft opposed most the social legislation that was popular among the Jews of his day.  The Taft-Hartley Act was seen as a piece of anti-labor legislation that limited the power of labor and therefore the influence of many Jewish leaders.  However, Taft joined Senator Wagner of New York (his political opponent on most domestic issues) in introducing a resolution supporting a Jewish homeland in Palestine.  The resolution was introduced in October of 1945 and demonstrated the changing attitude towards Jews and the increasingly broad support for the Zionist cause among non-Jews.

1956:In Tashken, Avner and Chana Leviev gave birth to Lev Avnerovich Leviev the businessman and philanthropist who served as president of the World Congress of Bukharian Jews.

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2010/10/billionaires-2010_Lev-Leviev_XUR9.html

1959: “Blue Denim,” the cinema version of the Broadway play of the same name featuring Warren Berlinger as “Ernie” and with music by Bernard Herrmann was released today in the United States.

1963(9thof Av, 5723): Tish’a B’Av

1963: In Los Angeles, Nedra (née Stern) Kudrow, a travel agent, and Dr. Lee N. Kudrow , a physician who specialized in the treatment of headaches gave birth to  Lisa Kudrow the youngest sister of Helene Marla Kudrow and neurologist David B. Kudrow who “has received ten Emmy Award nominations, twelve Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, and a Golden Globe Award nomination” during her acting career.

1965: US President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid. Wilbur Cohen, a man whose active career ran from the New Deal through the Great Society and was serving as Under Secretary of H.E.W. in 1965 was considered to be the driving force behind this landmark legislation that removed the fear of ill health for senior citizens and their families.  Johnson would later name Cohen, the Wisconsin born son of Jewish immigrants, to the position of Secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

1969(15thof Av, 5729): Tu B’Av

1969:Barbra Streisand opens for Liberace at International Hotel, Las Vegas

1969: A memorial service for 64 year old Carlos L. Israels, the son of architect Charles Israels and Belle Linder, the graduate of Amherst and Columbia University Law School, “a specialist in securities law” and “former president of the United Hias Service” who was the husband of “the former Ruth Goldstein” with whom he had three children – Charles, Michael and Elizabeth – is scheduled to held this afternoon at Temple Emanu-El.

1970: Israeli airmen shot down four MIGs flown by Russian pilots over the Suez Canal. This marked the first military encounter between Israeli and Russian forces

1976: Two French tourists were wounded when a bomb went off on a Jerusalem sidewalk.

1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that Britain severed relations with Uganda after Idi Amin's regime failed to provide information on the fate of Dora Bloch, the British-Israeli dual national dragged from a Kampala hospital after her fellow hijacked Air France hostages had been rescued from the Entebbe airport by Israeli commandoes

1976(2ndof Av, 5736): Seventy-five Emile Solomon Sachs, the Lithuanian born South African labor leader passed away today.

http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/emil-solomon-solly-sachs-south-african-socialist-dies-london

1976: Yuri Vudka was “released from a labor camp” today “after serving a seven year sentence for ‘anti-Soviet activities.’”

1978: Funeral services are scheduled to be held this afternoon for Edward A. Cohen, the husband of Ann Cohen and the brother of Joseph Cohen.

1978: Funeral services are scheduled to be held this morning at the Riverside Chapel, for Bee S. Cohen, the “wife of the late Dr. Jacob Cohen” and “sister of Julius Smolen.

1980: The Knesset passed the “The Jerusalem Law” establishing Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel.

1982: “Night Shift” a comedy produced by Brian Grazer, written by Lowell Ganz, with music by Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager and co-starring Henry Winkler was released in the United States today by Warner Bros.

1982: After opening in Japan four days ago “The Last American Virgin” directed by Boaz Davidson who also wrote the script, produced by Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan and filmed by cinematographer Adam Greenberg was released in the United States today.

1983(20th of Av, 5743): MGM executive Howard Dietz passed away.
http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/exhibits/C62

1990: Today Linda Lavin took over the role of “Rose” in the 1989 Broadway Revival of “Gypsy” the musical created by Jule Syne, Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents

1992(29th of Tammuz, 5752):  Ken Meyer, the son of Australian entrepreneur and businessman Sidney Myer, and his wife died today in plane crash.

1992(29th of Tammuz, 5752): Seventy-eight year old  Joe Shuster, co-creator of Superman, passed away.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-joe-shuster-1538812.html?printService=print

1993: “Rising Sun” an American murder mystery with a Japanese twist directed and produced by Philip Kaufman who co-authored the script and co-starring Harvey Keitel was released today in the United States by 20th Century Fox.

1997(25th of Tammuz, 5757):  Double suicide bombings to place in Jerusalem that would eventually claim the lives of fourteen Israeli victims.

1997(25thof Tammuz, 5757):Lev Desyatnik, 60, of Jerusalem; Regina Giber, 76, of Jerusalem; Valentina Kovalenko, 67, of Jerusalem; Shmuel Malka, 44, of Mevaseret Zion; David Nasco, 44, of Mevaseret Zion; Muhi A-din Othman, 33, of Eilabun; Simha Fremd, 92, of Jerusalem; Gregory Paskhovitz, 15, of Jerusalem; Leah Stern, 50, of Jerusalem; Rachel Tejgatrio, 83, of Jerusalem; Liliya Zelezniak, 47, of Jerusalem; Shalom (Golan) Zevulun, 52, of Jerusalem and Mark Rabinowitz, 80, of Jerusalem were murdered by Hamas today at Mahane Yehuda Market.

1999: The INS Dolphin was commissioned today.

1999: Russian born American conductor led Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in the premiere of Peteris Vasks's Symphony No. 2 at the Royal Albert Hall

2000: The African American/Jewish Coalition for Justice hosts a picnic at Seward Park in Seattle, Washington.

2000: Bruce Fleisher carded a three day score of 198 to win the Lightpath Long Island Classic.

2000: The New York Times features reviews books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America With Einstein's Brain by Michael Paterniti, Inside the Halo and Beyond: The Anatomy of a Recovery by Jewish born author Maxine Kumin and Millicent Dillon's new novel entitled Harry Gold about Harry Gold, the American Jewish chemist who acted as a spy for the Soviet Union in the 1930's and 40's.

2002(21st of Av, 5762): Five people were injured by a suicide bomber on Hanevi’im Street in Jerusalem

2002: Simon and Shuster published a paperback edition of Harry Kemelman’s 1964 novel Friday the Rabbi Slept Late,“the first in Rabbi Small mystery series.”

2003(1st of Av, 5763): Rosh Chodesh Av

2004: In “Hyam Maccoby” Lawrence Joffe examines the life an accomplishments of this Jewish scholar who was the grandson and namesake of “Rabbi Hyam (or "Chaim") Maccoby better known as the "Kamenitzer Maggid," a passionate religious Zionist and advocate of vegetarianism and animal welfare.”
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/jul/31/guardianobituaries.religion

2004: Following its premiere 4 days ago, “The Village” a horror film produced by Scott Rudin with a cast that included Adrien Brody and Jesse Eisenbeg was released throughout the United States today by Buena Vista Pictures.

2004:Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle” with a script by Jon Hurwitz and featuring Dov Yosef Tiefenbach and David Krumholtz was released today in the United States.

2006: Jewish golfer Corey Pavin won the U.S. Bank Championship in Milwaukee.

2006: The New York Times features reviews books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition of Freud's Requiem: Mourning, Memory, and the Invisible History of a Summer Walk by Matthew Von Unwerth. “This elegantly meandering look at Sigmund Freud's life and the intellectual world he moved in examines an obscure 1915 essay, "On Transience," in which Freud records a conversation with the poet Rainer Maria Rilke and the psychoanalyst Lou Andreas-Salomé.”

2006: Hezbollah fired a record 140 Katyusha rockets at targets in northern Israel today wounding at least eight people, including a Haaretz correspondent.

2006(5thof Av, 5766): One hundred and six year old Philip Montagu D’Arcy a pioneer in the field of Tuberculosis Research who was the son of solicitor Henry D’Arcy Hart, the husband of Ruth Meyer, the father of Harvard University economics professor Oliver Hart and the brother of engineer James D’Arcy Hart passed away today.

2006(5th of Av, 5766): Murray Bookchin, American libertarian and socialist, passed away. 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2006/aug/08/guardianobituaries.usa

2007: In Jerusalem, Peretz Eliyahu and Victoria Chana collaborate to perform original music tied to ancient texts about love at a Tu B’Av event.

2007: Award winning news anchor for KTLA and published author Hal Fishman’s “last broadcast” took place this evening, “eight days before his death.

2007: Victoria Redel, author of The Border of Truth based on the experiences of Jewish refugees aboard the SS Quanza, presents a reading at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, NY.

2007(15th of Av, 5767): Tu B'Av. The 15th Day of Av, is both an ancient and modern holiday. Originally a post-biblical day of joy, it served as a matchmaking day for unmarried women in the second Temple period (before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E.). Tu B'Av was almost unnoticed in the Jewish calendar for many centuries but it has been rejuvenated in recent decades, especially in the modern state of Israel. In its modern incarnation it is gradually becoming a Hebrew-Jewish Day of Love, slightly resembling Valentine's Day in English-speaking countries. There is no way to know exactly how early Tu B'Av began. The first mention of this date is in the Mishnah (compiled and edited in the end of the second century), where Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel is quoted saying, "There were no better (i.e. happier) days for the people of Israel than the Fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur, since on these days the daughters of Israel/Jerusalem go out dressed in white and dance in the vineyards. What were they saying: Young man, consider whom you choose (to be your wife)…"( Taanit, Chapter 4). The Gemara (the later, interpretive layer of the Talmud) attempts to find the origin of this date as a special joyous day, and offers several explanations. One of them is that on this day the Biblical "tribes of Israel were permitted to mingle with each other," namely: to marry women from other tribes (Talmud, Taanit 30b). This explanation is somewhat surprising, since nowhere in the Bible is there a prohibition on "intermarriage" among the 12 tribes of Israel. This Talmudic source probably is alluding to a story in the book of Judges (chapter 21): After a civil war between the tribe of Benjamin and other Israelite tribes, the tribes vowed not to intermarry with men of the tribe of Benjamin. It should be noted that Tu B'Av, like several Jewish holidays (Passover, Sukkot, Tu Bishvat) begins on the night between the 14th and 15th day of the Hebrew month, since this is the night of a full moon in our lunar calendar. Linking the night of a full moon with romance, love, and fertility is not uncommon in ancient cultures. For almost 19 centuries--between the destruction of Jerusalem and the re-establishment of Jewish independence in the state of Israel in 1948--the only commemoration of Tu B'Av was that the Morning Prayer service did not include the penitence prayer (Tahanun). In recent decades Israeli civil culture promotes festivals of singing and dancing on the night of Tu B'Av. The entertainment and beauty industries work overtime on this date. It has no formal legal status as a holiday-- it is a regular workday--nor has the Israeli rabbinate initiated any addition to the liturgy or called for the introduction of any ancient religious practices. The cultural gap between Israeli secular society and the Orthodox rabbinate makes it unlikely that these two will find a common denominator in the celebration of this ancient/modern holiday in the foreseeable future.

2008(27th of Tammuz, 5678): Eighty-seven year old RAF veteran, naturalist and television presenter John Gordon Miller, the cousin of violinist Yehudi Menuhin passed away today.

2008:Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel, embroiled in a high-profile corruption investigation, announced that he would resign his office after his party chose a new leader in September elections. In a televised public statement made from his official residence in Jerusalem, Mr. Olmert said he would not take part in the leadership election for his Kadima Party, opening the way for the next party leader to try to form a new government.“I have decided not to compete in the primaries in Kadima,” he said. “I will resign from my role as prime minister to allow a new leader to form a new government efficiently and quickly.”

2009(9th of Av, 5769): Tish'a B'Av

2009:Randi & Bruce Pergament Jewish Film Festival presents a screening of “Max Minsky & Me,” a delightful comedy set in contemporary Berlin in which Nelly, a bookish bat mitzvah candidate, who wants to be on her school basketball team so she can meet her prince charming recruits a reluctant coach who offers her athletic training and ultimately, his respect.”

2009: In an interview today the head of the Israel Defense Forces' ground troops during the Gaza disengagement said the decision to evacuate Gaza Strip settlements in 2005 was "utter nonsense." Israel Defense Forces General (Res.) Yiftach Ron-Tal made the comment during an interview on Army Radio, a day before the fourth anniversary of the disengagement on the Hebrew calendar.

 2010:A Grad-type Katyusha rocket fired by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip struck close to an apartment building in a residential area of Ashkelon on today, while two mortar shells exploded in the western Negev just a few hours later.

2010:An Israeli Air Force Boeing aircraft carrying the coffins of six IAF servicemen killed in Monday's Yasour helicopter crash in the Carpathian Mountains landed at the Tel Nof air base. The funerals of the fallen soldiers will be held at various military cemeteries throughout the day today. Lt.-Col. (Res.) Avner Goldman will be buried at 12:15 p.m. in Modi'in; Lt.-Col. Daniel Shipenbauer will be buried at 3:00 p.m. in Gdarot; Maj. Yahel Keshet will be buried at 1:00 PM in Sharona; Maj. Lior Shai will be buried at 2:00 p.m. in Hod Hasharon; Lt. Nir Lakrif will be buried at 12:30 p.m. in Haifa; and St.-Sgt. Oren Cohen will be buried at 1:00 p.m. in Rehovot.

2010;It was reported today that the three bidders still in the mix to buy Newsweek magazine, according to the New York Times, are audio equipment tycoon Sidney Harman; tastefully named hedge fund guy Marc Lasry; and Mort Zuckerman chum Fred Drasner. All three are Members of the Tribe.

2010: “Mother’s Savior: A Revelation” published today chronicles the misfortunes of the Peltzman family and Norbert Stern, “a piano prodigy” whose musical skills were just one more victim of the Nazis.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/nyregion/01about.html

2010: After premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, “The Kids Are All Right” an award winning comedy directed by Lisa Cholodenko and written by Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg and co-produced by Gary Gilbert and Jordan Blumberg was released in the United States today.

2010: “With Curious George” published today the plans for “Illumination Entertainment, the animation company founded by former Fox Animation President Chris Meledandri and whose movies Universal finances and distributes, is developing a new version of ‘Curious George,’"  the creation of the Jewish team of Hans and Margret Rey.

2011: Gefen Books is scheduled to releaseConfidential: The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan, by brothers-in-law Meir Doron and Joseph Gelman, which “tells the story of an Israeli nuclear intelligence agent who found his way into the film business.”

2011(28th of Tammuz, 5771): Yahrzeit of Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum of Uhely, Hungary, author of Yismach Moshe and patriarch of the Hungarian Chassidic dynasties who passed away on the 28th of Tamuz, 5601 (July 17, 1841).

2011: “Blood Relation” and “77 Steps” are scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2011:Those who are protesting the spiraling cost of living in Israel are planning to hold five marches tonight, in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Be'er Sheva, Haifa and Nazareth.

2011: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was expected to put together a team to examine the burden of indirect taxes on the public in the coming days, Army Radio reported today.

2011:An explosion was reported at a depot along the Egyptian natural gas pipeline in Sinai that normally supplies Israel with gas, Army Radio reported today. The attack on the pipeline was the third this month and the fifth since the beginning of 2011. It also followed a shootout between Egyptian security forces and apparent Islamic militants yesterday.

2011:Hundreds of thousands of Israelis took part in protests held in cities across the country tonight, the largest collaborative protest yet in a popular movement over social issues that has swept the country in the past two weeks.

2012: The Northern California Premiere of “Papirosen” is scheduled to take place at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2012: “Yossi,” a sequel to “Yossi and Jagger” is scheduled to be shown at the JCC in Manhattan.

2012:Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin (Likud) today slammed proposals calling for IDF conscription of Arabs. “You don’t have to be a genius to realize that it’s impossible to draft the Arab public. Any initiatives of this sort smack of hypocrisy and even malice,” Rivlin said at a Ramadan Iftar feast at Kafar Qara

2012:Following a day of mostly disappointing results for Israel at the London Olympic Games, two Israelis advanced to the semi-finals in their events in swimming and judo this morning. Amit Ivri set a new Israeli record in the 200 meter women's medley relay this morning. Ivri finished the race in 2:13:29, putting her in 12th place and allowing her to advance to the semi-finals this evening.

2012: (11th of Av, 5772): Ninety-one year old philanthropist Fred Worms passed away today.(As reported by Greer Fay Cashman)

http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-Features/Philanthropist-Fred-Worms-dies-at-91

http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/anglo-file/philanthropist-was-amazing-example-of-a-world-jew-1.455681

2012: “In what appears like a clear endorsement of a presidential candidate, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said tonight that Barack Obama has been the most supportive president on matters of Israeli security throughout the two countries’ diplomatic relations.” (As reported by Yaakov Katz)

2012:The climactic denouement of the Daf Yomi seven-year study cycle of the Talmud was staged in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem tonight, with tens of thousands of haredi men crowding into venues in the two cities to celebrate their having completed the study of the ancient work of Jewish law.(As reported by Jeremy Sharon)

2013: A conference on “The Bible in the Iberian World: Fundaments of a Religious Melting Pot is scheduled to open at Leipzig, Germany.”

2013: “Sukkah City” and “Neil Diamond: Solitary Man” are scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2013: Dancers from the Paris Opera are scheduled to appear at Haifa’s Rappaport Hall.

2013: The Maccabiah Games are scheduled to come to an end.

2013: Ninety-nine year old Berthold Beitz, the head of ThyssenKrupp who “was remembered for his efforts to save hundreds of Jews and Poles from the Nazis while stationed in Poland during World War II” passed away today. (As reported by Melissa Eddy)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/business/berthold-beitz-german-steel-industrialist-who-saved-jews-dies-at-99.html

2013: “President Obama announced his intent to nominate Noah Mamet to be the U.S. ambassador to Argentina despite the fact that Mamet has never been to Argentina.”

2013: Josh Zeid pitched in his first major league game as a member of the Houston Astros.

2013:Senator Dianne Feinstein of California introduced a bill tonight that would have the Senate resolve itself to supporting Secretary of State John Kerry's push for a two-state solution. (By Michael Wilner)

2013(23rd of Av, 5773): Ninety-four year old Ottie Schecthman, one of the pioneering stars of the NBA passed away today. (As reported by Richard Goldstein)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/sports/basketball/ossie-schectman-who-scored-the-nbas-first-points-dies-at-94.html?hpw

2014: Historic 6th& Synagogue is scheduled to host Trivia Night sponsored by B’nai B’rith.
2014: The Washington Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host another night of Coen brothers’ films.
2014: Hamas continued its attack on Israel with rockets being fired towards Ashkelon, Ashdod, Rishon, LeZion, Rehovot and Tel Aviv.(As reported by Matzn Tzuri)
 

2014: “Conservative Jews” were photographed today praying “at the temporary egalitarian Robinson’s Arch prayer pavilion at the southern end of the Western Wall.”


2014(3rd of Av, 5774):St.-Sgt. Matan Gotlib, 21, from Rishon Lezion, St.-Sgt.Omer Hay, 21, from Savyon, and St.-Sgt. Guy Algranati, 20, from Tel Aviv “were killed this morning in Gaza in an explosion at a booby-trapped UNRWA health clinic that housed a tunnel entry shaft.” (As reported by Mitch Ginsburg)

2015: The Annual Karmiel Dance Festival is scheduled to come to an end.

2015: “Only three weeks after being released, Yishai Schlissel stabbed six marchers during the Jerusalem gay pride parade.”

2015(14th of Av, 5775): Lasker Award winning physician Dr. Louis Sokoloff, pioneer of the PET scan passed away at the age of 93. (As reported by Sam Roberts)


2015(14th of Av, 5775): Seventy-eight year New York real estate lawyer Charles Goldstein who turned his legal efforts to recovering looted art for Holocaust victims and their families passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)

2015: In Mountain States Spotlight published today “ADL Board Chair-Elect Jim Kurtz-Phelan” shared “his passion for Israel, the law and working to ensure fair treatment for all.”

2015: Lewis Black is scheduled to perform at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom in New Hampshire.

2015: “In Poland, Searching for Jewish Heritage” published today Joseph Berger described “Jewish Poland” that has virtually no Jews.

2016: “Minister-without-portfolio Tzachi Hanegbi of the Likud party asserted today that hundreds of Yemenite children were kidnapped from Israeli hospitals in the 1950s in connection with the so-called “Yemenite children affair.” (As reported by TOI)

2016: At the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theatre, in Washington, D.C., the curtain is scheduled to come down on the final performance Jonathan Munby’s version of “The Merchant of Venice” which for some has reignited “questions of whether this tragicomedy about a Jewish moneylender exacting a terrible revenge is a credible portrait of Jewish persecution, or something more like an antique, anti-Semitic tract.” (As reported by Peter Marks)

 
2016: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host a survivor talk by Matus Stolov who was saved in part by an aunt who “arranged for false papers for him and his mother through the underground.”

2016(24th of Tammuz, 5776): Shabbat Pinchas

2016(24th of Tammuz, 5776): Sixty-three year old weather meteorologist Dave Schwartz passed away today. (As reported by William McDonald)

2016: Noam Banai, a member of the Banai musical dynasty is scheduled to begin a concert tour with a performance in Tel Aviv.

2017: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback editions of JACKSON, 1964: And Other Dispatches From Fifty Years of Reporting on Race in America by Calvin Trillin and The Inseparablesby Stuart Nadler.

2017: “The Prudential Ridelondon-Surrrey 1000, a World Jewish Relief Challenge Event is scheduled to take place today.

2017: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “The Zookeeper’s Wife.”

2017: Final showing of “Memory Unearthed: The Lodz Ghetto Photographs of Henryk Ross” is scheduled to come a close at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

2018: “Ambiguous Places” and “Leto, a musical drama based on the life of Soviet musician Viktor Tsoy” are scheduled to be shown today at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

2018: JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Tracking Edith” in London

2018: The family of Yotam Ovadia, the husband of Tal Ovadia and father of two children who was murdered by a terrorists last week, continue to sit shiva.

2018: As the stock market opens this morning, investors will find out if the value of Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook continues its precipitous fall.

 

 

 

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

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July 31

904: Thessaloniki, which is also known as Salonica, is sacked and looted by Saracens (an Arab group).  The Jewish population of Thessaloniki dates back at least to the first century of the Common Era.  By the time Benjamin of Tudela visited the city in the 11th century the Jewish population numbered a significant “hundred souls.”  Salonica’s Jewish population would grow when the Ottomans made it a refuge for Sephardic Jews following their expulsion in 1492.

1009:  Pope Sergius IV becomes the 142nd pope, succeeding Pope John XVIII. During the Papacy of Sergius, the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah destroyed the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. There was a two-fold response in the West. Sergius issued a papal bull calling for Islam to be driven from the Holy Land and the Jews were attacked because rumors were circulated blaming them for inciting the Caliph to destroy the church.

1255: An English boy who would become known as Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln disappeared setting the stage for the one of the more notorious blood libels in English history.

1305: In Barcelona it is decreed that anybody who reads works of science and metaphysics before the age of 25 or who adheres to allegorical interpretations which rject the notion of revelation will be excommunicated.

1390: Solomon Halevi converts and takes the name of Pablo de Santa Maria.  He became the Bishop of Burgos and Chancellor to the King of Castille.

1391: Joshua Loki wrote to Pablo de Santa Maria, known as Solomon Halevi before he converted, rejecting Pablo’s interpretation of the messianic role of Jesus.  Lorki would convert ten years later and become a leading tormentor of the Jewish people.

1492: The Jews are expelled from Spain when the Alhambra Decree takes effect.

1527: Birthdate of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor. “In his diary entries, Maximilien described the Jews as a quarrelsome and deceitful people who denounced one another, gave usurious loans to miners and artisans and traded in inferior medals.  Between 1567 and 1573 the emperor repeatedly issued mandates to expel Jews” from Lower Austria.

1556:  Ignatius Loyola, Spanish priest and founder of the Jesuits passed away. When accused of being crypto-Jew or having Jewish ancestry he replied If only I did! What could be more glorious than to be of the same blood as the Apostles, the Blessed Virgin, and our Lord Himself?" Robert Maryks, “an expert on the history of early Jesuits details the significant role of “conversos’’ — Jews and their descendants who were pressured to convert to Catholicism before and during the Spanish Inquisition in his recently published book, The Jesuit Order as a Synagogue of Jews: Jesuits of Jewish Ancestry and Purity-of-Blood Laws in the Early Society of Jesus 

1571: The ghetto in Florence, Italy was established.

1610: Paul V issued “Apostolicae Servitutis ,” a papal bull concerning the need for monks to learn Hebrew.

1725: During the reign of Charles VI, an imperial order fixed the number of registered Jewish families in Moravia at 5,106 and threatened any locality which accepted Jews where they had not been previously settled with a fine of 1,000 ducats. (As reported by the Jewish Virtual Library)

1743(10thof Av, 5503: In Jerusalem, Chaim ben Moses ibn Attar,Talmudist and Kabbalist passed away. He was buried on the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem. Born at Mequenez, Morocco in 1696 he was one of the most prominent rabbis in Morocco. In 1733 he decided to leave his native country and settle in the Land of Israel, then under the Ottoman Empire. En route he was detained in Livorno by the rich members of the Jewish community who established a yeshiva for him. Many of his pupils later became prominent and furnished him with funds to print his “Ohr ha-Chaim” or “The Light of Life,” a commentary on the Pentateuch. He was received with great honor wherever he traveled. This was due to his extensive knowledge, keen intellect and extraordinary piety. In the middle of 1742 he arrived in Jerusalem where he presided at the Beit Midrash Knesset Yisrael. One of his disciples there was Rabbi Chaim Joseph David Azulai, who wrote of his master's greatness: "Attar's heart pulsated with Talmud; he uprooted mountains like a resistless torrent; his holiness was that of an angel of the Lord ... having severed all connection with the affairs of this world. A prolific author, two of his other published works were “Hefetz Hashem or “God’s Desire,” consisting of dissertations on four Talmudic treatises and “Peri Toar” or “Beautiful Fruit,” a novella based on the Shulchan Aruch.

1776(15th of Av, 5536): Francis Salvador, one of the most prominent Jews of the American Revolutionary period, , was shot and scalped by Indians after riding 28 miles to raise a militia after attacks occurred on settlers. His father (also named Francis Salvador) was a wealthy London Jew who financed the earliest Jewish settlers of Savannah, Georgia

1781(9thof Av, 5541): Tish’a B’Av

1800(9thof Av, 5560): Tish’a B’av observed for the first time in the 19thcentury.

1806: In Baltimore, MD, Jacob Myers of Georgetown, SC, married Miriam Etting the daughter of prominent Jewish merchant Solomon Etting.

1821: Lazarus Magnus, the son of Simon Magnus and the husband of Sarah Moses, passed away today in Chatham, Kent, England.

1838(9th of Av, 5598): Tish’a B’Av

1840(1st of Av, 5600): Rosh Chodesh Av

1840(1st of Av, 5600): Nachman Kohen Krochmal, one of “the first Jewish historians to treat Jewish history as an integral part of all human history” passed away.  A native of Brody, Galicia, one of his most famous works was Moreh Nebuke ha-Zeman (Guide for the Perplexed of the Time).

1841; The Ouse Valley Viaduct which had been designed in part by David Mocatta, was opened and in use.

1845: In Great Britain, Parliament passes the Act for the relief of Persons of the Jewish Religion elected to Municipal Offices.

1854: Birthdate of Fritz Hommel author of Ancient Hebrew Tradition in which “he attacked the Graf Wellhausen hypothesis” and “controverts the method deployed by the higher critics of the Old Testament.”

1856:  Christchurch New Zealand is chartered as a city. According to Robert Case, the first Jews settled in Christchurch during the 1850’s. By 1860, there were fewer than four hundred Jews living in all of New Zealand.    Although the Jewish Community of Christchurch has always been a small one, it built a synagogue in 1890.  Today the Christchurch’s Canterburgy Hebrew Congregation consists of a synagogue, Temple Beth-El that offers regular Shabbat services as well as cheder classes, Bar and Bat Mitzvah training, conversion support, holiday services and a variety of social activities. It is also home to the South Island chapter of Habonim Dror and the Christchurch Council of Jewish Women. The community also has a Chevra Kedisha and Chabad House.

1859(29th of Tammuz, 5619): Eighty-six year old Isaac Katzenelnbogen, the husband of Fanny Neuburg, passed away at Furth today.

1861: Philadelphian David A. Barnett began serving with the 99thRegiment who reached the rank Corporal in Company B before dying in 1863 from wounds he suffered earlier at the Battle of Kelly’s Ford in Virginia.

1863(15th Av, 5623): In the wake of a month that saw the bloodies battle of the Civil War and the horror of the Draft Riots, Jews mark a moment dedicated to love.

1870:In the wake of the reported massacre of Jews in Romania, letters have been received in Washington, DC that states that Article 21 of the new constitution guarantees freedom of conscience to all.  These letters claim that the 400,000 Jews in Romania have 176 synagogues in which they “worship in the manner prescribed by their religion.”   The letters conclude by asking if religious persecution really existed why would the Jews be allowed to have so many synagogues which they are free to use

1876: “Jonathan Manly Emanuel,” a son of English born physician Manly Emanuel, who had joined the U.S. Navy in 1862 during the Civil War began serving Tuscarora which was “running a line of sounds for a submarine cable from San Francisco to Yokomama.”

1878(1st of Av, 5638): Rosh Chodesh Av

1878(1st of Av, 5638): Abraham Benisch, the native of Bohemia who was editor of The Jewish Chronicle and helped to form the Anglo-Jewish Association who was a “Zionist” before Herzl, passed away.

1878: In Paris, Siegfried Propper and Bertha Propper, the daughter of Kalmus and Pauline Levy gave birth to Michel Propper, the brother of Georges Propper.

1878: Birthdate of philanthropist and child-welfare activist Madeleine Borg. Borg, who lived her whole life in New York City, was educated at Columbia University, where she studied the causes of juvenile delinquency. Subsequently, she held leadership positions in more than a dozen major child welfare organizations. Her roles included chair of the executive committee of the Jewish Board of Guardians of New York, director of the Child Welfare League, member of the executive committee of the Girls' Service League of America, and trustee of the Training School for Jewish Social Work. She also served on the executive boards of the American Jewish Committee and the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies of New York. Borg's largest contribution to child welfare was probably her role in founding the Big Sister movement, beginning in 1912. Modeled on earlier Big Brother programs targeted at troubled boys, Big Sister programs provide young girls with role models and companions. In 1914, Borg was among the founders of the Jewish Big Sisters, which sought to help poor and troubled girls by providing them with role models from a similar ethnic and cultural background. Today, Jewish Big Brothers/Big Sisters programs also match adults with disabilities with non-disabled friends. Always interested in child welfare, Borg was also active in promoting psychiatric clinics as part of the study of child behavior. In 1954, the Jewish Board of Guardians renamed its Child Guidance Institute in Borg's honor. Borg's public roles also extended beyond child welfare and beyond the Jewish community. In 1929, then-Governor Franklin Roosevelt appointed her to the New York State Old Age Pensions Committee; she also served on the executive committee of the New York City Crime Prevention Bureau. In 1939, she became a trustee of the New York World's Fair. Also in 1939, she became president of the New York Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, the first woman to hold that post. Borg died on January 9, 1956.

1881: It was reported today that the English publishers of the late Lord Beaconsfield’s works are about to issue a new edition of his works called the “Hughenden Edition.”  Surprise has also been expressed that so many of the Disraeli’s possessions have been sold instead of being preserved as family mementoes.

1881: It was reported today after receiving payments from “wealthy Jewish capitalists,” the Sultan has agreed to allow a Jewish colony to be established on 1,500 acre tract in the districts of Gilead and Moab.

1881: “Jews In Russia” published today said that Jews in Russia were not hated because they are richer than their Christian counterparts.  The Jews are hated because they do not practice the vices of the gentile counterparts.  “If the Jews would only get drunk and spend their money recklessly, there would be very little temptation to persecute them.”

1882: “Russian Persecutions” published today, relying on information that first appeared in the London Telegraph described the conditions of the Jews in Kiev where the “persecution by the population” has been replaced by “legal proceedings” that are “less noisy” but even crueler and more effective in persecuting the Jews.

1882: Rishon Lezion or First For Zion was founded by a group of 10 families in Eretz Israel. The settlement marked the beginning of the first Aliyah (going up) to Eretz- Israel, and the beginning of Rothschild’s deep involvement with settlement activities. Later that year, Baron Edmund De Rothschild in response to the Russian pogroms and a plea by Rabbi Samuel Mohilever agreed to help the new Moshava

http://www.rishonlezion.muni.il/eng/Pages/HistoryofRishonLeZion.aspx

http://www.rishonlezion.muni.il/eng/Pages/default.aspx

1882: Eliezer Ben-Yedhuda, the “father of modern Hebrew” and his wife gave birth to Ben-Zion Ben-Yehuda

1882: Today’s review of National Religions and Universal Religions, a collection of lectures by Dr. Abraham Kuenen the Dutch theologian teaching at the University of Lyden, states that “the finest part of the lectures is the analysis of early Jewish religion under the prophets.”

1883: Jewish leaders met in Baltimore, MD, tonight in response to a request for funds to support an agricultural colony of approximately 60 Russian Jewish immigrants at Middlesex, Va.  They were being asked to raise $200 per month to meet the pressing needs of the colonists.  (The settlement at Middlesex was part of an effort to settle Jews away from the major eastern cities in the United States.  These colonies would be found in South America and Canada as well as in the rural United States.)

1884: Samuel Barnett, a Polish Jew, was arraigned before Justice Welde on multiple charges of theft and burglary.  Barnett immediately pleaded guilty to at least one of the charges.  His wife, who had been arrested as an accomplice, was released.  Many of the victims of Barnett’s criminal activities came to the police station looking for their possessions among the many items that had been seized at Barnett’s home at 136 Orchard Street.  This would have put him in close proximity to 97 Orchard Street, the tenement made famous by Jane Ziegleman in her book by that name.

1885: Memorial services were held this evening B’nai Jeshurun in New York City to mark the passing of Sir Moses Motefiore who had died in England on July 28.  Rabbis Henry S. Jacobs and Alexander Kohut delivered the eulogies.  At the end of his remarks, Rabbi Jacobs said, “He conquered prejudice not by yielding to it, but by rising far superior to its pettiness, like the other hero whose loss America is mourning today.” (This closing comment was in reference to President U.S. Grant who had passed away on July 23.  This positive comparison between this larger than life Jewish leader and Grant is further evidence that the Jews of his time did not consider him an anti-Semite.)

1887(10th of Av, 5647): Tish’a B’Av observed since the 9th fell on Shabbat.

1887: “Diamonds and Vulgarity” published today describes the increasing presence of Jewish families and their friends at the New Jersey resort city of Long Branch.

1888: Birthdate of Baltimore native C. Irving Latz, “the president of the Wolf-Dessauer Department Store in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

http://www.jani.org/images/docs/G._Irving_Latz.pdf

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1947/02/14/88755652.pdf

1889: The Sanitarium for Hebrew Children’s fifth free excursion which was paid for entirely by Isaac Stern is will from a pier at the foot of the 5th Street and the East River.

1889: During today’s session of the House Commons, Sir James Fergusson responded to reports that the Russian government intends to enforce the anti-Jewish edicts of 1882. According to the British Charge de Affaires at St. Petersburg, the government is not considering any “fresh measures” aimed at denying the Jews “any of the privileges they now enjoy.” (This begged the question since enforcing edicts from 1882 might not be considered as “fresh measures)

1890: “Persecuting the Jews” published today provided a summary of the edicts  now being enforced which state  that prohibit Jews from owning mining stocks or working in mines; allow Jews to live in only 16 provinces; debar Jews from government posts and serving as officers in the military; prohibits Jews from practicing law, medicine or engineering and “entering any other professions.

1890: It was reported today that Russian government hopes that enforcing the anti-Jewish edicts promulgated in 1882 will force one million Jews to leave the country. (This is a contemporary reference to the Czar’s “one third; one third; one third” policy under which one third of the Jews would convert, one third would leave and one third would die)

1891: “Persecution of Jews” published today provided “harrowing stories…of the extremely unjust laws in force against the Jews” and “the general atrocities practiced upon” them “by the Russian soldiers.” “Any Russian Christian…, who wishes to possess himself of the property of a Jewish neighbor, can obtain it by paying one-tenth of its value to the Mayor or government representative.”

1891: In Washington, DC, Acting Secretary of State William F. Wharton asserted that the Department of State does not have any information regarding any new edicts issued by the Russian government aimed at depriving the Jews of their rights.

1891: A private letter received in Washington “from Moscow asserts that things are worse than ever in Russia” for the Jews.

1891: “A dispatch was received in Wall Street from London” today stating that  Messrs. C. J. Hambro & Son of that City” has “been appointed bankers to the Russian Government” replacing the Rothschilds who have been their bankers for years.

1892: “Still Persecuting The Jews In Russia” published today described the fate the Jews who have been expelled from Moscow.  Many of these families “had resided in Moscow a long time” and had been given a year to get out.  In the end, they were not able to sell their homes and businesses and they were “unable to get a penny of compensation for their splendid synagogue…which while they were to sell at once.”

1892: In the period starting with June 28 and ending today, 93 mothers and children were admitted for treatment at the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children. The sanitarium cannot keep up with demand since “more applications for admission are being received than can be accommodated.”

1893: During the Panic of 1893, there was a run on several New York financial institutions including the Dry Dock Savings Bank on the Bowery, most of whose depositors are Russian Jews.  Today $41,000 was withdrawn and only $14,000 was deposited.

1893: Birthdate of Ali Levin, the native of Russia who migrated to the United States in 1911, joined the Jewish Legion in Toronto, served with 38th Royal Fusiliers in Palestine and eventually made Aliyah in 1955 joining his two daughters – one who lived at Gesher Haziv and the other who lived at Urim.

1893: During a stop in New York, Dionysius Latas, a leading Greek archbishop told reporters “he intends to oppose the persecution of Jews” in his homeland.

1894: Abraham Levy is the lawyer for Jeremiah J. Levy, the Jewish policeman whose case is being heard by a jury, some of whose members are also Jewish.

1894: “Seventy-five little sewing school children held their closing celebration at the roof garden of the Hebrew Institute at East Broadway and Jefferson Street where they enjoyed a generous supply of ice cream.

1895: Colonel George Waring, Jr. a leading sanitary engineer and civic reformer met with 2,000 children at the Hebrew Institute, most of whom were poor and spoke little English.  Waring “told them what children had done and could do for the cleanliness of the city.

1895: In Brownsville, the striking tailors issued a manifesto countering the one issued by the contractors written in Hebrew asking the landlords “to have no mercy on the strikers” who cannot pay their rent.

1895: Tobacco magnate, Sir Albert Levy, the founder of Adrath Tobacco Co. “registered the trademark Adrath in Ireland” today.

1897: “Rabbinical Excommunication” published today relied on information that first appeared in The American Hebrew described a response by rabbis in Jerusalem to aggressive Christian attempts to gain converts among the city’s Jews.  Any Jew supplying their institutions with Kosher meat will have to deal with the threat of “cherem.”

1897: Victor Joze has dedicated “his new book entitled La Tribu d’Isidore,  “the first volume of a series of historical novels about a Jewish family to Emile Zola, the defender of Dreyfus.

1898(12thof Av, 5658): Fifty-three year old New York realtor and clothing merchant who came to the United States from Germany at the age of 22 passed away at his country home in Forest, PA.

1898(12thof Av, 5658): Fifty-five year old Samuel Firuski, who had spent 22 years as an auctioneer in Brooklyn and was a member of Temple Israel in Brooklyn, passed away today at Pavilion Hotel in Sharon Spring

1898: Samuel Gompers arrived in Springfield, Illinois where he planned to attend the upcoming state convention of the American Federation of Labor.  Mr. Gompers spoke out against the condition of workers in the territories recently annexed after the Spanish American War; specifically he demanded that slave labor be stamped out there in and in Hawaii.

1899: Birthdate of New York native and “advertising executive Lawrence Valenstein” who on the day after his 18th birthday founded Grey Advertising Agency and who married Alice Starr with whom he had two children – John and Linda.

1899:”What Paris Talks About” published today described the French reaction “to the sudden death from apoplexy of Baroness Nathaniel de Rothschild…the sister of Baron Alphonse de Rothschild, head of the French branch of the family and the first cousin of…Lord Rothschild,” head of the English branch of the family. The loss was felt even more by the artistic community than the financial community.  In her younger days she “showed real talent as a watercolorist.”  Later in life she bought the paintings of many “modern painters” before they gained fame as an act of generosity.

1900: Herzl leaves Altaussee and travels to Luzern, Paris and London.  The trip will take a toll on his health and he will be ill by the he gets to London on August 7.

1902: “Riot Mars Funeral of Rabbi Joseph” published today descried the outbreak of violence that occurred when the procession of mourners for the Grand Rabbi passed by the R. Hoe & Co. The workers who were at lunch began jeering,  threw buckets of water and finally bombarded the Jews with “paper saturated with oil, bits of iron, small blocks of wood and other missiles” which caused a violent reaction.

1902: It was reported today Julius Weber had not been clubbed to death by police as originally claimed but was in fact being cared for by friends living on Suffolk Street after having been seriously injured during the near riot that had broken out during the funeral procession carrying Rabbi Joseph to his final resting place.

1902(26th of Tammuz, 5662): Seventy-two year old Benjamin Szold passed away.  Born in Hungary in 1829, he came to the United States in 1859 to serve as the first rabbi at Temple Oheb Shalom in Baltimore.  While he accomplished a great deal serving in this capacity, his greatest claim to fame may be that he was the father of Henrietta Szold, the founder of Hadassah.

1904: The Assembly of the Jewish Chautauqua Society is scheduled to end today in Atlantic City, NJ.

1905: Sir Herbert Stern was created a Baronet, of Strawberry Hill in the Parish of Twickenham and County of Middlesex, in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom today.

1906(9th of Av, 5666):Tish'a B'Av

1906: In Austria, thirty-eight year old Siegfried Reginald Wolf and his wife Ida gave birth to Franz Karl Wolf.

1908: Birthdate of New York City native Jack H. Fields, the “President of Garden State Prints” and the “founder of the Free Sons of Israel’s scholarship fund.”

1910: In New Jersey, the first issue of the Newark Wochenblatt, a Yiddish weekly, was published today.

1912: Birthdate of newspaper and Chicago literary institution Irv Kupcinet.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/14/us/for-chicago-s-town-crier-the-stories-linger.html

1912: “The Jewish Socialist Federation came into formal existence” today.

1912(17thof Av, 5672): Fifty-one year old Alphonse Weiner who had been appointed a school commissioner in 1910 passed away today in New York

1912: In Brooklyn, “Sára Ethel (née Landau) and Jenő Saul Friedman,Jewish immigrants from Beregszász in Carpathian Ruthenia, Kingdom of Hungary (now Berehove in Ukraine)” who “worked as dry goods merchants gave birth to Nobel Prize winning economist and Federal Reserve Chairman Milton Friedman.

https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/1976/friedman-bio.html

1914: Fifty-four year old Jean Jaurès who was “one of the most energetic defenders of Alfred Dreyfus” was assassinated today by a French nationalist today.

1914: In Vesoul, Haute-Saône, France Albert Samuel and Hélène Falk gave birth to Raymond Samuel who would gain fame as French Resistance leader Raymond Aubrac.

1914: German Jewish industrialist Walter Rathenau published an article in the Berliner Tageblatt protesting Germany’s blind loyalty to Austria; a loyalty which he felt was leading to a great European war.  

1915: In Brooklyn, Benjamin Aptheker, a successful manufacturer of women's underwear, and Rebecca Komar Aptheker gave birth to their fifth and youngest child Herbert Aptheker the Marxist historian and husband “Fay Philippa Aptheker, his first cousin.”  (As reported by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt)

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/20/us/herbert-aptheker-87-dies-prolific-marxist-historian.html

1916: In Hackney, London, Eva (née Kosky) and Mark Tafler gave birth to character actor Sydney Tafler best known may for his performances in “The Lavendar Hill Mob” and the James Bond thrill “The Spy Who Loved Me” who was the husband of actress Joy Shelton with whom he had three children – Jeremy, Jonathan and Jennifer.

1917: The Battle of Passchendaele, also known as the Third Battle of Ypres where Monty Moss, a buyer for Moss Bros. which had been founded by his grandfather Moses and was now being run by his father George was killed and Canadian Myer Tutzer Cohen, “a lieutenant in the Black Watch” would win the Military Cross for Bravery, began today.

1917: “A large party of American Consuls and missionaries from Turkey, Asia Minor and Palestine” arrived in Berne, Switzerland including H.H. Dick and Ottis A. Glazebook, the Counsel at Jerusalem who said “that about sixty American missionaries and ninety American Jews started for the West” at the same time he had and were “well treated by the Turkish and Austrian authorities during the journey.”

1917: “The East Side Business Men’s Association gave a dinner” tonight in honor of “Borough President Marcus Marks…which was attended by 500 members and their guests” among whom Rabbi Alexander Lyons of Brooklyn and Samuel Goldstein, President of the Federation of Rumanian Jews – both of whom addressed the attendees.

1918:Joseph Schlossberg, General Secretary Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and Abraham Epstein, President Workmen's Circle were among the leaders of a meeting of a Conference of Trade Unions, Branches of the Workmen's Circle, and other Progressive Labor Organizations of Greater New York scheduled to be held be held in Webster Hall, 119 East 11th Street, for the purpose of organizing the workers into a permanent central body for aiding all persons prosecuted who are in need of help, and of arousing public opinion against the further suppression of constitutional rights and liberties.  The Conference will be held under the auspices of the Liberty Defense Union, and has been endorsed by the United Hebrews Trades and the National Executive Committee of the Workmen's Circle.

1918: A Russian wireless message received in London today announced that “the Soviet Government at Moscow has issued a decree against anti-Semitism.”

1919: Birthdate of the Italian-Jewish writer and chemist Primo Levi. Levi spent time fighting with Partisans during the war and survived Auschwitz. These experiences provided much of the material for his writings. He passed away in 1987. (We do not have the space to do his work justice and you are urged to read any of his several works which are available in English.)

1921: In London, “British-born Harold Solomon and Russian-born Flora Beneson gave birth to Peter James Henry Solomon who gained fame as Peter Benenson the found of Amnesty International.

https://www.benensonsociety.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3&Itemid=4

1923: Birthdate of Boston native Maurice Cerier who rose to serve as the “United Jewish Appeal’s assistant vice president for major gifts” before his death in 1985 at the age of 62.

1923: Birthdate of Richard Schifter, a native of Vienna who served as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs from 1985 to 1992.  Schifter was a member of unique WW II intelligence unit known as the Ritchie Boys.

1923: In Montreal, Alton Goldbloom and Annie Ballon gave birth to Victor Charles Goldbloom who served as Minster of the Environment and CEO of the Canadian Council of Christians and Jews.

1923: A Hebrew version of Verdi’s “Traviata” was performed in Jerusalem this evening.  The performance was described as “brilliant.”  The Hebrew version of the opera had previously been performed in Tel Aviv.

1924: In Jerusalem, Benaya Abba Shaul and Iranian born shoemaker and Torah scholar Eliyahu Shaul gave birth to Ben Zion Abba Shaul, “the rosh yeshiva of Porat Yosef Yeshiva.”


1926: Birthdate of Dr. Bernard N. Nathanson, the self-described Jewish atheist who converted to Roman Catholicism.  Nathanson was “a campaigner for abortion rights who, after experiencing a change of heart in the 1970s became a prominent opponent of abortion and the on-screen narrator of the anti-abortion film “The Silent Scream.” (As reported by William Grimes)

1926: In Strasbourg, journalist Bernard Klieger and his wife gave birth to Noah Klieger, the Auschwitz survivor, agent for Mossad LeAliyah Bet and “the doyen of Israeli sports journalism” who also used his literary skills to tell the tale of the Shoah.

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah_Klieger&prev=search

1928: When MGM introduces its first “talkie,” “White Shadows on the South Seas” the famed Lion Logo makes its first appearance.  With so many Jews involved in MGM, including Harry Rapf, Irving Thalberg, Louis B. Mayer and Nicholas Schenck one might wonder if the choice of the Lion was subtle reference to the Lion of Judah. 

1928: Bobbie Rosenfeld won the silver medal in the 100-meter race, though many spectators thought she had actually finished first.

1931(18thof Av, 5683): “Israel Alexander Symmons,” the son of Samuel Symmons, “who was appointed a Metropolitan Police Magistrate in 1911” making him “the first and only Jewish magistrate in London” passed away today.

1932: National elections were held in Germany and the Nazi Party won 230 seats in the Reichstag.

1933: By now, approximately 30,000 people are interned in Nazi concentration camps.

1933: In the Boston neighborhood of Dorchester Alexander Bluestein, “a kitchen equipment salesman” and his wife Edith Gropman Bluestein gave birth to Janice Bluestein who after graduating from college “married her childhood sweetheart, Daniel T. (Dan) Longone” and became Jan Langone the 2000 winner of the “Food Arts Silver Spoon Award for her work in uncovering and preserving American culinary history.”

http://forward.com/culture/213166/cookbook-collector-savors-recipes-for-living-in-mi/?p=all

1934 Today,: Jesse I. Straus, who had already given one fourth of his Macy’s stock because of the increase in federal estate taxes, “revised his 1933 will to remove list of gifs to 18 educational and charitable institutions because “the present Federal and State estate tax laws impose substantially increased tax burdens upon the estates of decedents and may under certain conditions cause undue hardship and financial sacrifice and loss resulting from untimely sale and liquidation of assets of estates to provide for the payment of such taxes.”

1934: Birthdate of Stanley Edwin “Stan” Daniels, the native of Toronto who “won eight Emmy Awards for his work on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Taxi.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/14/obituaries/14daniels.html?_r=0

1936: Birthdate of Uzi Yari, the Ramat Gan native who rose to be a “brigade commander during the Yom Kippur War” and was killed while leading “the elite Israeli army commando unit Sayeret Matkal” as freed hostages taken by terrorists at Tel Aviv’s Savoy Hotel.

1936(12th of Av, 5696):Rabbi Moses Simon Sivitz, renowned Jewish historian died in Montefiore Hospital ... He also wrote five books on Moses after years of research.

1936: “An abortive plot to put typhoid germs in milk delivered to Jews was charged to the Black Legion today” in Detroit, Michigan.

1936: The Palestine Post reported from London that the newly-appointed Royal Commission was expected to arrive in Palestine in October. Meanwhile a new wave of Arab rioting spread towards Tiberias where many Jews were compelled to leave the Old City. There were assaults, arson, and stone-throwing. The Arab police and the British authorities dealt with the rioters in a diffident and condoning manner.

1937: A fight broke out between Gentiles and Jews on the beach at Coney Island “when an unidentified man wearing a lumber-jacket began parading along the beach carry a placed in red which read: ‘No Jews or Dogs Allowed on Beach.’”

1938(3rd of Av, 5698): Seventy year old Vilna native Leon Zolotkoff, the “former editor of the Jewish Daily News of New York, one time assistant district of Cook County and founder of the Chicago Jewish Courier” who was an early and ardent Zionist and the husband of the late Fannie Zolotkoff with whom he had four children, “Julia, Sydney, Hyman and Albert – passed away today in Amityville, L.I.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1938/08/01/98172085.pdf

 

1938: “There were 120 civil marriages at Vienna City Hall” today including many brides “who have had to leave their Jewish employment with a compulsory gratuity” consisting of at least a month’s wages, “which with their savings make for an attractive dowry” but will not do anything to find them new jobs.

1938: Joseph Buerckel, the Commissioner for Austria, issued an order today stating “that the principles of the Nuremberg laws are to exclusively be applied to all dealings with Jews…”

1939: Isadore Breslau, the Zionist leadership's chief representative in Washington, wrote a letter showing  that former Associate Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis actively supported Aliyah in defiance of British policy as outlined in the May 1939 White Paper that severely limited the immigration of Jews to then British-run Palestine. The letter reveals that the widely respected jurist, who had just retired after nearly a quarter century on the court, held views on Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel that were in direct opposition to those of the British government, the Roosevelt administration and mainstream American Jewish groups and leaders."Speaking on the question of the immigration he [Brandeis] said that Jews would continue to immigrate regardless of the White Paper," the letter written by Isadore Breslau reads. "When someone suggested that it was illegal, he said that the Jewish people considered it legal in view of the fact that any attempt to curtail immigration was in violation of the terms of the Mandate; that it may be considered illegal by Great Britain, but that we Jews considered it to be legal."

1940: According to The Olkusz Memorial book “a German police unit arrived in Olkusz” today and gathered all the Jewish men in the main square. There the Jews were forced to lie on the ground while the policemen and members of the SD “registered them”. During this process, the Germans brutally beat the Jews, shooting one of them. In order to further humiliate them, Rabbi Moshe Yitzhak Hagerman was forced to don his tallith (prayer shawl) and tefillin (phylacteries) that had been defiled, and to stand barefoot and pray next to the prostrate men of the Jewish community. At the end of the day, the Jews were permitted to return home, and the Germans left. Due to the beatings suffered by the Jews, the event was subsequently referred to as ‘Bloody Wednesday’”. (For a photo see http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/july/04.asp  )

1941: The Nazis officially undertook The Final Solution. Hermann Goring instructs SS Reich Security Service chief Reinhardt Heydrich by letter "to carry out all the necessary preparations with regard to organizational and financial matters for bringing about a complete solution of the Jewish question in the German sphere of influence." - That influence now covered a dozen countries. - "I further charge you with submitting to me promptly an overall plan... for the execution of the intended FINAL SOLUTION of the Jewish question."

1942:  Governor Wilhelm Kube reports to Hinrich Lohse, Reichskommissar of the Baltic regions and Belorussia, that "Jewry has been completely eliminated" in the Minsk area.  According to Kube ‘16,000 Jews were liquidated in Lida, 8,000 in Slonim.’  In the previous ten weeks, 55,000 Jews have been liquidated.

1942 (17th of Av, 5702):  Bluma Rozenfeld, 19, leaps to her death from a fifth-floor window in the Lódz (Poland) Ghetto.

1942: Israel Lichtenstein writes from the Warsaw Ghetto: "At present, together with me, both of us get ready to meet and receive death. I wish my little daughter to be remembered. Margalith, twenty months old today....I don't lament my own life nor that of my wife. I pity only the so little, nice and talented girl. She deserves to be remembered."

1942 (17th of Av, 5702):  German SS troops gassed 1,000 Jews in Minsk, Belorussia

1942: In what was the first reference to Dan Schoor in FBI files, on this date FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover "asked the chief of the Special War Policies Unit for more information on Schoor's status as a 'representative of a foreign principal' because he was employed as a correspondent for the Netherland Indies News Agency.  During the Red Scare of the 1950's "Hoover told the CIA director that the bureau had looked over Schoor's background and had kept information on this travels to 'Iron Curtain Countries.'"  Is it possible that Hoover did not know that Schoor was the Moscow correspondent for CBS news which would have meant he traveled for Iron Curtain countries?  Ironically, the Soviets expelled him because they did not approve of his news gathering work.

1944: The hull of the Liberty ship "Benjamin Peixotto" was laid down today.  The ship is named for the 19thcentury Jewish leader.

1944(11th of Av, 5704): Eighteen year old Leendert Kleerekoper died at Auschwitz today.  He was the son of Gerrit Kleerekoper, the coach of the of the Dutch ladies’ gymnastics team, which won the Olympic title in Amsterdam in 1928.  The coach, his wife and his 14 year old daughter had already been gassed.

On the exact same day at the exact same place, Kleerekoper, born February 15, 1897, also died together with his wife, Kaatje, and their 14-year-old daughter Elisabeth. His 18-year-old son Leendert died at Auschwitz on July 31, 1944.

1944: Among 1300 Jews deported from Drancy, France (northwest of Paris), to Auschwitz are 258 Jewish orphans seized in and around Paris on July 24. Upon arrival at the camp, all 500 children and 300 adults are gassed. This is the last transport of Jews from the Drancy camp to Auschwitz. In total, 73,853 Jews have been shipped from Drancy to their deaths at Auschwitz and Sobibór.

1944: As Western troops moved forward to Paris, a last train departed with over 300 deported Jewish children.

 1944: After have been transferred to the Special Operations Branch of the OSS, today, Aaron E. Bank “led the Jedburgh Team PACKARD, parachuting into Lozère Department of France and linking up with French Resistance.”

1944: Three thousand Jews were transported from the labor camp at Blizyn to Birkenau where over 500 are gassed to death upon their arrival

1944: By the end of July, French Jew Maurice Löwenberg, founder of the National Liberation Movement resistance group, is tortured to death by the Gestapo.

1944: By the end of July 46,000 Jewish inmates are gassed and cremated at Auschwitz.

1944: Ships carrying the Jewish population of Rhodes arrived at the port of Piraeus and the Jews were immediately shipped to the concentration camp at Haidari in suburban Athens where the Red Cross would not be allowed to supply them food and water.  

1944: By the end of July SS General Richard Baer had become the new Auschwitz commandant.

1945: French collaborationist politician Pierre Laval is arrested in Austria.  Laval was the driving force behind the Vichy Government which was so supportive of the Final Solution that it often delivered Jews “ahead of schedule.”

 

1945: Birthdate of Rabbi Michael Berenbaum, the native of Newark, NJ, who has served as Deputy Director of the President's Commission on the Holocaust, Project Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Director of the USHMM's Holocaust Research Institute and whose books included The World Must Know, Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp

1946: An Anglo-American committee jointly chaired by Henry Grady, an assistant secretary of state and Herbert Morrison, a British Labor Party leader published the Morrison-Grady plan which proposed a British dominated trusteeship that would “supervise separate Jewish and Arab provinces.”  The British loved it because it kept them in power.  The Arabs and the Jews rejected it for the same reason.

1946: In Los Angeles, CA, Patti Lewis (née Esther Calonico) and Jerry Lewis gave birth to Gary Harold Lee Levitch who was the leader of a pop/rock band “Gary Lewis and the Playboys” and who appeared in a couple of his father’s films.

1947: In reprisal for the execution of Avshalom Haviv, Yaakov Weisss and Meir Nakar, the Irgun killed two British sergeants whom they were holding captive.  “Following the death of the two sergeants and the publicity surrounding it, the British public demanded that the troops be brought home.  In Palestine, several Jews were murdered by British soldiers as a counter-reprisal.

1947(14th of Ave, 5707): Sixty-seven year old art historian and collector Léonce Rosenberg who was a leading figure in the world of Modern Art before WW II passed away today.



1948: Harry Dexter White, “the youngest child of Jewish Lithuanian immigrants” was accused today before the House Committee on Un-American Activities of having “been involved in espionage activities on behalf of the Soviet Union during World War II and had passed sensitive Treasury documents to Soviet agents.”

1948: Leo Nomis reported to Modi Alon at Herzliya preparatory to flying with 101 Squadron.

1950: In New Rochelle, NY, Sydney Mitchell, the chief executive officer and partial owner of a furniture manufacturing company in Manhattan and for forty years the president of Beth El Synagogue in New Rochelle” and Cecile Mitchell, “an administrator at the New York Institute of Technology gave birth to Arthur Mitchell a “Canadian politician, a member of the Legislative Assembly of Yukon” and brother of newscaster Andrea Mitchell.

1951: The Jerusalem Post reported on most orderly elections to the Second Knesset. According to this newspaper's fifth successive edition which appeared at 6 a.m. Mapai won 42.23 per cent of the vote, Mapam 19.18, General Zionists 13.47, Hapoel Hamizrahi 7.37, Progressives 5.33, Herut 4.22, Poalei Aguda 1.49, Communists 1.36, Mizrahi 1.11, Aguda 1.07. The rest was split among smaller parties, which couldn't get even 1 percent of the vote to be eligible for a Knesset seat. [Editor's note: The Israelis use a system of proportional representation which works a strong two-party electoral system.  This system encourages all kinds of splintering, factionalism and gives disproportionate power to minor, but cohesive, groups.  This concept was so entrenched the Israeli psyche that not even David Ben Gurion could overcome it.]

1952: Birthdate of Faye Kellerman the St. Louis native who trained to be a dentist but fortunately for us became one of the finest mystery writers of the 20th century.

1952: It was reported today that Yiddish actress Weintraub, the widow of Sigmund Weintraub, is survived by her son Milton Weintraub and her daughters Pearl Weintraub and Mrs. Frances Weintraub Lax.

1952: “Ivanhoe” a cinematic treatment of the novel that includes the tale of Isaac York and his daughter Rebecca produced by Pandro S. Berman was released in the United States today by MGM.

1953: Today, the Jewish Chronicle “said there were 4,000 Jewish servicemen and women serving in the Allied Forces in Korea,” most of whom were Americans.

1954: Mary Clawson, an American living in Jerusalem, watches as Arabs began “shooting over to this (the Jewish) side and after waiting a brief time to investigate to be sure the shooting was not just a trigger-happy Legionnaire, the Jewish side returned the fire.”

1954: A raid led by Meir Har-Zion that takes the unit to the area around Jenin begins.

1956: “Storm Center” a film that took on the twin topics of Communism and censorship at the height of the McCarthy period directed by Daniel Taradash who wrote the script and with film tile sequences created by Saul Bass was released in the United States today.

1960(7th of Av, 5720): Seventy-year old Philip B. Perlman who “became the first Jewish U.S Solicitor General” when Harry Truman appointed him to the position in 1947 passed away today.


1960(7th of Av, 5720):Fifty-three year old Helen Misener the Greenwich (UK) daughter of a Polish born Jew whose acting career included appearing in “A Night to Remember” and starring in a 1939 staging of “Night Must Fall” which produced “for the benefit of deportees on the German-Polish border” passed away today.

1960(7th of Av, 5720): Seventy-two year old Ette Levy passed away today after which she was buried in the “cemetery donated by Samuel Myers Hyams to the Society of Israelites in Natchitoches, LA.”

1960: Gary Lewis, the son of comedian Jerry Lewis, turned fourteen today and received a set of drums which would be his instrument of choice when he formed his band “Gary Lewis & the Playboys.”

1961(18th of Av, 5721): Forty-nine year old Croatian opera star and Holocaust survivor Zdenka Rubinstein, the wife of Bartold Rubinstein died today succumbing to the effects of Parkinson disease.

1961: The one millionth Oleh since the establishment of the Jewish State arrived in Israel.

1963: United Kingdom premiere of “Cleopatra,” co-starring Elizabeth Taylor and Martin Landau, produced by Walter Wagner, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and with a screenplay co-authored by Ben Hecht and Joseph L. Mankeiwicz.

1968: “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter” starring Alan Arkin was released in the United States today by Warner Bros.

1968(6th of Av, 5728): Eighty-two year old retired furniture company president Isidor Teitlebaum, “an honorary vice president of the American Jewish Congress” and “former trustee of Temple Adath Israel in the Bronx” who was married to “the former Seiler” with whom he had one son – J. Lloyd Teitelbam  -- passed away today.

1968: “5 Card Stud” a western film featuring Yaphet Kotto as Little George was released in the United States today Paramount Pictures.

1970: In Finland, premiere of “Getting Straight” a comedy starring Elliot Gould, featuring Jeannie Berlin and John Rubinstein, the son of concert pianist Arthur Rubinstein.

1970: Norwegian General Odd Bull completes his term as Chief of Staff United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO).  His thirteen year term included the Six Day War.

1970: “Move” a comedy directed by Stuart Rosenberg, produced by Pandro S. Berman, starring Elliot Gould, with music by Marvin Hamlisch was released today in the United States by 20th Century Fox.

1971(9thof Av, 5731): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon; No fast because it is Shabbat.

1972: Premiere of “Greaser’s Palace,” starring Allan Arbus

1981: The New York Times reported that Israelis were stunned and startled by U.S. anger following an Israeli air attack on Beirut.  Government officials in Jerusalem are hoping that their adherence to the Lebanon cease-fire arrangement will be seen in Washington as a gesture of good will to American interests.

1981: Morton I. Abramowitz completed this three years of service as U.S. Ambassador to Thailand

1983: Jewish golfer Corey Pavin won the Lufthansa German Open.

1985: Three people were injured in a terrorist bombing at Haifa.

1986: Eighty-six year old Chiune Sugihara passed away.  While servicing as Vice Council for Japan in Lithuania he defied his government and issued transit visas to thousands of Jews allowing them to escape the clutches of the Holocaust.


1987:''Portraits of an Era: Photographs by Irv Kline,'' an exhibition that is part of the Jewish East End Celebration is scheduled to come to a close today.

1987: “The Lost Boys” a comedic horror film directed by Joel Schumacher, produced by Harvey Bernhard and starring Corey Feldman, Jami Getz and Corey Haim was released today in the United States.

1987(5thof Av, 5747): Eighty-four year old Justine Wise Polier, the Portland, OR, daughter of Rabbi Stephen Wise a co-founder of the American Jewish Congress and the NAACP, the graduate of Radcliffe and Yale Law School who served as Judge on New York’s family Court, passed away today.


1987(5thof Av, 5747): Eighty-one year old movie producer Joseph E. Levine who had a hand in bringing over 500 films to the American screen passed away today. (As reported by Nan Robertson)


1987: The third congress of the European Association for Jewish Studies organized by Professor Peter Schafter under the Presidency of Professor Arnold Goldberg came to an end at Scholoss Glienicke, Germany.

1988:Dr. Joanna Lisa Fine, a child psychiatrist, and Stephen Michael Harnik, a lawyer, who graduated together from the Dalton School in 1971 were married today at the Loeb Boathouse in Central Park. Jerome Raik, the president of Ansche Chesed Congregation in Manhattan, officiated.

1990(9th of Av, 5750):Tish'a B'Av

1991: “Hot Shots” a comedy directed by Jim Abrahams who co-authored the script was released in the United States today.

1992(1st of Av, 5752): Rosh Chodesh Av

1994(23rd of Av, 5754): Ninety-four year old Karola Bloch, the anti-Stalinist communist and wife Ernst Bloch passed away today.

1996(15thof Av, 5756): Tu B’Av

1998: One person was injured today when a terrorist threw a bomb at a truck in North Jerusalem.

1998:BASEketballa comedy directed by David Zucker who co-produced and co-wrote the script and co-starring Matt Stone and featuring Al Michaels was released today in the United States by Universal Pictures.

2000: In a vote of 63 to 57, the Knesset chose Moshe Katsav to serve as President of Israel in a race against the favorite, Shimon Peres.

2001: David G. Littman “organized a Parallel NGO Conference during the 53rd session of the UN Sub-Commission (Sponsor: AWE) on the subject of: Racism: Antisemitism / anti-Zionism and Genocidal Hate” which stood in stark contact to the anti-Semitic Conference in Durban.

2002(22nd of Av, 5762): A bomb exploded inside a cafeteria at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, killing nine people, including five Americans.

2003:The Israeli Knesset enacted the Nationality and Entry Into Israel Law, prohibiting any residency or citizenship status to Palestinians who live in the territories and are married to Israeli citizens.  The law was initiated in the midst of the second intifada by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as an anti-terrorist measure.  The law would become the subject matter of 2008 documentary "Just Married."

2006: As of today Kenny G (Kenneth Bruce Gorelick) had sold 48 million albums in the United States.

2006: Funeral services are held at Temple B’nai Torah for PamelaWaechter, 58, who was killed in Friday's shooting at the Seattle offices of the Jewish Federation by an American Muslim.

2007: In Jerusalem, the Israeli Wine-Tasting Festival, a celebration of wine tasting from the best vineyards in Israel takes place at the Israel Museum.

2007(16thof Av, 5767): Ninety-two year old British historian Norman Cohn whose works included Warrant for Genocide  and who was the husband of Verio Broido, the daughter of Russian Jews and the father of writer Nik Cohn passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/27/world/europe/27cohn.html

2007: Today, Jack Lebewohl announced that the Second Avenue Deli, home of the world’s greatest kosher meat knishes and tongue sandwiches, would reopen at a new location in the fall of 2007.http://www.2ndavedeli.com/

2008(28thof Tammuz, 5768): Eighty-nine year old Harold Rosen, the graduate of University College in London, U.S. Army veteran and “academic” at London University’s Institute of Education who was the husband of Connie Isakofsky with whom he had three children – Brian, Alan and Michael – passed away today.

https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/1802/The%20real%20lives%20of%20Eastenders

2008: Solomon "Momy" Levy began serving as Mayor of Gibraltar.

2008: At the Boston Public Library, the photographic exhibit, “Kids with Cameras: Beyond the Walls” sponsored by the Zionist House/Israel Cultural Central and the Consulate General of Israel to New England, comes to a close. Kidswithcameras-jerusalem.com

2009: Opening of The National Parks and Nature Authority’s fifth annual Outdoor Acoustic Music Festival in Ein Hemed, a beautiful nature reserve just 10 minutes from Jerusalem. Each performer at this year’s festival will dedicate at least one song to the Earth, in order to promote environmental awareness.

 2009: In Jerusalem, Ohad Chitman takes the stage at Hama'abada, playing an acoustic show featuring the best hits from his two albums and from the third album on the way.

2009: In Brooklyn, as part of Bargemusic at Fulton’s Landing Yoed Nir is the featured performer in “World of Cello” The Six Bach Suites for Solo Cello and Beyond, Part 1

2009: U.S. President Barack Obama has decided to extend sanctions against Syria, despite positive signs of progress in the relationship between the two nations, a White House statement said today

2009: Two brothers were arrested early this morning in connection with the shooting attack on disgraced soccer star Felix Halfon, who was seriously wounded when he was shot outside a Tel Aviv night club hours earlier.

2009: Mark Polansky, “the commander of the STS-127 mission” “returned to Earth with his crew” today.

2010: A screening of Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story is scheduled to take place at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2010: Ryan “Kalish was promoted to the Red Sox from the minor league team in Pawtucket.”

2010: This morning the IDF confirmed that the Air Force hit several Hamas-linked targets in Gaza overnight.

2010: The ninth congress of the European Association of Jewish Studies under the presidency of Professor Mauro Perania came to a close at Ravenna.

2010(20thof Av, 5770):Ninety-nine year old Mitch Miller, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants who played a major role in the world of popular music and was best known for his “Sing A Long With Mitch” television show, passed away today. (As reported by Richard Severo)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/arts/music/03miller.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

2011: Standing Silent and An Encounter with Simone Weil ,Julia Haslett’s documentary that looks at  the life of French philosopher Simone Weil, one of the great thinkers of the 20th century, who was raised by a secular Jewish family and lived during the rise of Fascism in Europe,  are scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2011: Members of the Cedar Rapids Jewish community are scheduled to celebrate “Faith and Family Day At The Ballpark” as they watch the Cedar Rapids Kernels play the Beloit Snappers

2011: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Are You Serious? How to Be True and Get Real in the Age of Sillyby Lee Siegel and Exorcising Hitler: The Occupation and Denazification of Germany by Frederick Taylor.

2011:The government will absorb the higher cost of gasoline in August, after Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz bowed to pressure from National Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau today and signed a directive cutting the excise tax by an amount equal to the price rise. The price of self-service 95 octane gasoline was due to rise at midnight by NIS 0.31 per liter to NIS 7.53, just short of the record of NIS 7.62 set in May. Instead, it will remain at NIS 7.22, effective until the end of August.

2011: Both Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US ambassador designate Dan Shapiro tried their hands at outreach today, with Netanyahu broadcasting a Ramadan message to Israeli Arabs and Muslims around the world, and Shapiro launching a Facebook page to interact with the Israeli public.  

2012: “Mazel Tov! A Celebration of Jewish Weddings” is scheduled to come to a close at the Jewish Museum of Milwaukee.

2012: As it prepares to move to its new location, Agudas Achim is scheduled to officially vacate its downtown Iowa City location.

2012” “God’s Fiddler” is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2012: Robin B. Jacobson, Director of Library Services, Adas Israel Congregation is scheduled to lead a discussion of Nemesisby Philip Roth sponsored by the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington.

2012:Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi sent a missive to President Shimon Peres, wishing stability and security for all of the region's nations, including Israel.  

2012:Israel's Alice Schlesinger lost in the finals of the under 63kg Judo competition at the London Olympics today, falling to France's Gevrise Emane after losing to Slovenia's Urska Zolnir in the quarterfinals. Earlier on today, Schlesinger had defeated Austria's Hilde Drexler to advance to the quarterfinals.

2012: Aly Raisman, a Jewish American, won the floor exercise in helping the U.S. women's team to the gold medal in the gymnastics competition at the London Olympics. The Americans today won their first team gold medal in women's gymnastics since the Atlanta Games in 1996, finishing with 183.596 points to defeat Russia (178.530) and Romania (176.414).

2013: “American Jerusalem: Jews and the Making of San Francisco” is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2013: The President of the United States “formally nominated Noah Mamet” a Spanish speaking member of the National Jewish Democratic Council to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Argentina.

2013: “When Comedy Went To School” is scheduled to open at the JCC in Manhattan.

2013: Leslie Cohen Berlowitz is scheduled to resign as President of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences today after she was accused of embellishing her resume with a spurious doctoral degree.(As reported by Todd Wallack in the Boston Globe)

2013:Two controversial bills aimed at enabling the government to function better cleared a hurdle when they passed their first reading tonight in a stormy session of the parliament.(As reported by Gil Hoffman)

2013: HUC announced the decision to have Rabbi Aaron Panken succed Rabbi David Ellison as president of The Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, the Reform movement’s rabbinical school. Read more: http://www.jta.org/2013/07/31/news-opinion/hebrew-union-college-names-new-president#ixzz2ag0Q1whk

2014: The Washington Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host “Coen Brothers Trivia Night.”

2014; “Ten days after her husband was killed in battle by Hamas gunmen inside the Israeli border with Gaza, Galaitu Kshaun, the widow of Warrant Officer Bayhesain Kshaun, 39, gave birth to a baby girl early today. (As reported by Yifa Yaakov)

2014: As Ilia Salita became tne new CEO of Genesis Philanthropy Group Michael Fridman, co-founder of Genesis Philanthropy Group released a statement today that said “We are confident that Genesis Philanthropy Group’s management team under the leadership of Ilia Salita will expand and deepen the organization’s impact on Russian-speaking Jewish communities around the world,” (As reported by JTA and Times of Israel)

2014: As anti-Semitic tensions mount a demonstration called by the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions took place in front of synagogue in Lyon, France.

2014: This evening U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry jointly announced that an unconditional 72 hour cease fire between Israel and Hamas is scheduled to go into effect tomorrow morning. (As reported by JTA)

2015: Michael Slive is scheduled to retire as Commissioner of the Southeastern Conference (SEC).

2015: Today, the Associated Press “published a follow-up story reporting that Germany had ‘shelved’ their Nazi war crimes investigation citing that” “a former Nazi commander named Michael Karkoc who led SS units that had been at the scene of “burning villages filled with men and women” as well as “the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, in which the Nazis brutally suppressed a Polish rebellion against German occupation” was not fit for trial.”

2015(15th of Av, 5775): Seventy-five year old author and critic Alan Cheuse passed away today in San Jose, CA.  (As reported by Sam Roberts)


2015(15th of Av, 5775): The 15th Day of Av, is both an ancient and modern holiday. Originally a post-biblical day of joy, it served as a matchmaking day for unmarried women in the second Temple period (before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E.). Tu B'Av was almost unnoticed in the Jewish calendar for many centuries but it has been rejuvenated in recent decades, especially in the modern state of Israel. In its modern incarnation it is gradually becoming a Hebrew-Jewish Day of Love, slightly resembling Valentine's Day in English-speaking countries. There is no way to know exactly how early Tu B'Av began. The first mention of this date is in the Mishnah (compiled and edited in the end of the second century), where Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel is quoted saying, "There were no better (i.e. happier) days for the people of Israel than the Fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur, since on these days the daughters of Israel/Jerusalem go out dressed in white and dance in the vineyards. What were they saying: Young man, consider whom you choose (to be your wife)…"( Taanit, Chapter 4). The Gemara (the later, interpretive layer of the Talmud) attempts to find the origin of this date as a special joyous day, and offers several explanations. One of them is that on this day the Biblical "tribes of Israel were permitted to mingle with each other," namely: to marry women from other tribes (Talmud, Taanit 30b). This explanation is somewhat surprising, since nowhere in the Bible is there a prohibition on "intermarriage" among the 12 tribes of Israel. This Talmudic source probably is alluding to a story in the book of Judges (chapter 21): After a civil war between the tribe of Benjamin and other Israelite tribes, the tribes vowed not to intermarry with men of the tribe of Benjamin. It should be noted that Tu B'Av, like several Jewish holidays (Passover, Sukkot, Tu Bishvat) begins on the night between the 14th and 15th day of the Hebrew month, since this is the night of a full moon in our lunar calendar. Linking the night of a full moon with romance, love, and fertility is not uncommon in ancient cultures. For almost 19 centuries--between the destruction of Jerusalem and the re-establishment of Jewish independence in the state of Israel in 1948--the only commemoration of Tu B'Av was that the Morning Prayer service did not include the penitence prayer (Tahanun). In recent decades Israeli civil culture promotes festivals of singing and dancing on the night of Tu B'Av. The entertainment and beauty industries work overtime on this date. It has no formal legal status as a holiday-- it is a regular workday--nor has the Israeli rabbinate initiated any addition to the liturgy or called for the introduction of any ancient religious practices. The cultural gap between Israeli secular society and the Orthodox rabbinate makes it unlikely that these two will find a common denominator in the celebration of this ancient/modern holiday in the foreseeable future.

2015: Lewis Black is scheduled to perform at the Flynn Theatre in Burlington, VT.

2015: The Museum of Jewish Heritage are scheduled to host SLOW/DOWN/TOWN, “a pre-Shabbat party.”

2016: “Chasing Dreams: Baseball and Becoming American,” a pop-up exhibition from Philadelphia’s National Museum of American Jewish History (NMAJH) “that weaves together America’s favorite pastime and national identity with the story of American Jewish immigration and integration” is scheduled to come to an end today.

2016: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or special interest to Jewish readers including The Angel: The Egyptian Spy Who Save Israel by Uri Bar-Joseph and City of Secrets by Stewart O’Nan, “a thriller set in Post-World War II Jerusalem.
2016: An exhibition which is a companion to New York’s Yiddish Theatre: From Bowery to Broadway by Professor Edna Nahshon at the Museum of the City of New York presented by “the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, the National Yiddish Book Center and the National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene, in association with the Museum of Jewish Heritage” is scheduled to come to a close today.

2016: The final performance of “Redder Blood” co-produced by The Hub Theatre and the Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginias billed as the “Best New Jewish Play of 2016” is scheduled to take place tonight

2016: “IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot landed in the United States today to meet with members of the American military and Department of Defense, as Jerusalem and Washington hammer out the final details of an aid package for the coming years.”

2016: The second “weeklong exploration of literature and culture for high school students where they will “read, discuss, argue about and fall in love with modern Jewish literature” sponsored by the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA is scheduled to begin today. (As reported by Judah Ari Gross)

2017: At a meeting in Milwaukee, WI, in a testament to ensuring Jewish survival through sharing resources, the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership in Chicago is scheduled to provide information about the MA in Jewish Professional Studies, a Milwaukee-area cohort of which is scheduled to being early next year.

2017: In Fox Point, Wisconsin, Rabbi Ronald M. Shapiro is scheduled to present “Great and Esteemed Jews Who Contributed Beauty to the World.”

2017: “Marc Chagall, Flowers and the French Riviera: The Color of Dreams” is scheduled to come a close today in Sarasota, FL.



2018: “The Miseducation of Cameron Post” and a biopic “Mademoiselle Pardis” is scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

2018: “Ziggy Marley, the son of legendary Bob Marley” is scheduled to perform at the Barby Club in Tel Aviv.

2018: Zachary Truboff’s resignation as senior rabbi of Oheb-Zedek-Cedar Sinai Congregation in Lyndhurst is effective today following which he will “return to Jerusalem.”

2018: JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Tracking Edith” in London.

 

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

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August 1

30 BCE:  Mark Antony died.  Following the victory of Octavian and Antony over those who had murdered Julius Caesar, Antony became ruler of the Eastern half of the Roman Empire.  Antony did name Herod as ruler of Judaea.  But when his lover Cleopatra let it be known that she wished to recreate the Ptolemy rule over the area, Antony partially reversed himself by giving the Queen Jericho and numerous other towns in Judaea.  None of this had anything to do with Antony’s feelings about the Jews but rather reflected his passion for Cleopatra. In the end none of this matter since Octavian defeated Antony and control of the Jews passed to the man who became Caesar Augustus.

10 BCE: Birthdate of Claudius 4th Roman emperor. Claudius reigned from 41 through 54. Regardless of how the PBS television series portrayed, for a Roman Emperor, Claudius was a plus for the Jews of his time. He repealed the anti-Jewish edicts of his predecessors. He held the Samaritans responsible for the attacks on Jews in Judea and befriended the Jewish King, Agrippa. At one time he did exclude Jews from the city of Rome. But this appears to have been a matter of dealing with civil unrest sparked the early Christians living in the imperial city.

388: The synagogue located on the Euphrates in Callinicum was looted and burned by Church officials. St. Ambrose (one of the four Latin doctors of the Catholic Church) defended the action. He reprimanded Theodosius the Great for ordering the local Bishop to pay restitution, even though expropriation was illegal under Roman law. St. Ambrose offered to burn the synagogue in Milan on his own. 

527: Justinian I also known as Justinian the Great becomes the Byzantine Emperor.  For gentiles, Justinian might be considered “Great” but he was an enemy of the Jews.  Justinian’s celebrated code contains the following about his policy towards his Jewish subjects. “They shall enjoy no honors.  Their status shall reflect the baseness which in their souls they have elected and desired.”  “The principle of servitus Judaeorum (‘servitude of the Jews’) was established, and the hitherto uneven pattern of persecution was systemized for a Christian civilization march towards its age of faith.”  Justinian banned the recitation of the Shema because its declaration of the Oness of God was at odds with the Trinity.  In response to demands of his Bishops, Justinian banned the public reading of the Torah.  He also forbad the observance of Passover in the years when it preceded Easter on the calendar.

1098: Fifty-three year old Adhemar of Le Puy, the French bishop who was a leader of the First Crusade which proved so devastating to the Jews of the Rhineland and the Holy Land died today at Antioch.

1137: King Louis VI passed away and is succeed by his Louis VII who will launch the Second Crusade.  Louis VII’s reign was not “Jew friendly.” Following the logic of the time that it made no sense to go to Palestine to fight those holding on to the Christian Holy Sites and leave the defilers of Christianity at home alone, in 1144 Louis VII would expel all the Jews who had converted to Christianity and then returned to Judaism. In 1171 the first Blood Libel in France took place in Blois.

1291: The Swiss Confederation is formed with the signature of the Federal Charter. The original Jews settled in what is now Switzerland during the days of the Roman Empire. Records of the Jewish community officially date back to the 13thcentury, with Jews having settled in Basel in 1213, seventy years before the confederation was formed. Jews from France and Germany settled in Bern by 1259, St. Gall in 1268, Zurich in 1273, Schaffhausen, Diessenhofen, and Luzerne in 1299. But anti-Semitism is almost as old as the confederation itself since in1294 in when many Jews living in Berne of the city were executed and the survivors expelled under the pretext of the murder of a Christian boy.

1298: Although assisted by humane Christian citizens, the Jews of Nuremberg were overpowered and butchered today. Among the victims was Mordecai ben Hillel, a pupil of Jehiel ben Asher, with his wife and children.

1431: “King Sigismund assured the Jews of Worms that all edicts annulling the outstanding debts owed them would be declared invalid upon the payment by each Jew of an indemnity.”

1520: In Cracow, Poland, Sigismund I the Old and Bona Sforza of Milan, the niece of the Holy Roman emperor Maximilian, gave birth to Sigismund II Augustus, the Polish King who allowed “Jews to settle in Vilna without restriction” and who issued “the ‘Magna Cara of Jewish Self-Government’’ “which permitted Jews to elect their own chief rabbi and judges.”

1580: Evard Mercurian, the fourth Superior General of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) passed away.  The first three leaders of the order had been Spanish and there was concern that they might be Coversos or at least have Jewish blood.  So Mercuvian, a native of Luxemburg got the job because Pope Gregory XIII wished to dispel an connotation of a Jewish connection.

1626: In Izmir, Mordecai and Clara Sevi gave birth to Sabbatai Zevi, the most famous the False Messiahs.

1670: As a result of a proclamation by the Emperor, as of today, all the Jews had left Vienna.

1658: Coronation of Leopold I who borrowed large sums of money from banker Samuel Oppenheimer to fight the “Great Turkish War.

1753: The Imperial Court rescinded the order confiscating copies of the prayer book and Talmud because they were found not contain derogatory statements about Christianity.

1776(16thof Av, 5536): Twenty nine year old Francis Salvador, the member of a prominent Sephardic South Carolina family and an ardent Patriot, was killed while fighting the Tory and Indian supporters of the British.http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Salvador.html

1787: In the UK, Hannah Montefiore, the daughter of Moses Montefiore and Esther Hannah Racah, married Moses Acona with whom she had five children – “Leah, Judah, Moses Montefiore, Esther and Sarah.”

1789(9th of Av): Rabbi Abraham Isaac Castello, the native of Ancona whose works included "A Memorial Sermon on the Death of Francis I. of Germany", written in Spanish, and translated by Castello's son Joseph Castello into Italian passed away in Leghorn, Italy.

1797: Two Jews named Bromet and DeLemon were elected members of the Second National Assembly of Holland today

1798: The British Fleet under Nelson defeats the French Fleet in the Battle of the Nile.  Nelson’s victory left the British in control of the Mediterranean.  Napoleon’s army had already landed before the battle.  Although the French leader would score victories in Egypt and Syria, crossing through Eretz Israel, his victories would mean little since the French army could not be sustained.  Among the lesser known consequences was the end of promises Napoleon had made during the siege at Acre to create a Jewish homeland.

1819: Birthdate of American novelist Herman Melville who was the special subject of study of Viola Sachs who “conducted research and studies for the decoding of Melville’s master works” and who survived the Holocaust by living in Brazil along with her husband, economist Ignacy Sachs

1820: Hannah Joel, a widow who had died at “Jews Hospital” was buried today at the Brady Jewish Cemetery.

1830: Today Isaac and Hannah Solomon were married at the Western Synagogue.

1833: On a second reading a bill designed to free Jews from all civil disabilities which would open the world of politics to them, was defeated.

1841: Birthdate of Dr. Isidor Cohnstein the native of Gnesen  and gynecologist  who married Ida Cohnstein.

1844: Birthdate of Aaron E. Greenewald, the husband of Sallie Gimbel Greenewald.

1846: Max-Théodore Cerfberr, a colonel in the French Army and president of the Consistoire Central Israelite de France “was reelected to the Chamber of Deputies today.

1852: In Brighton, Dr. Loewe, the Oriental Linguist to the Duke of Sussex and first Principal of Jews’ College London and his wife gave birth to James H. Loewe, the “manager of the East-end branch of the International Bank of London, Ltd., founder and first President of the Finsbury-park Synagogue and of the North London Beth Hamedrash.

1852: This afternoon, the new Jewish Synagogue in Eighth-street, between North First and North Second-streets, was dedicated by appropriate ceremonies of the Jewish religion. There were Hebrew chant and lectures by Rabbi, Max Lilienthal, Rabbi Samuel M. Isaacs and Rabbi Morris Raphall. Dr. Barnard officiated as Rabbi to the congregation. The Synagogue is to be known as the "House of Israel." There were many Gentiles present to view the ceremonies.

1855: Castle Garden opened as the immigrant process center in New York.

1856: Lauritz Weidemann, one of he framers of Norway’s constitution whose opposition to Jewish citizenship was expressed somewhat incoherently when he wrote “"The Jewish nation's history proves, that this people always has been rebellious and deceitful, and their religious teachings, the hope of again arising as a nation, so often they have acquired some remarkable fortune, led them to intrigues and to create a state within a state. It is of vital importance to the security of the state that an absolute exception be made about them" passed away today

1859: The Report of Sir Moses Montefiore to the London Committee of Deputies of the British Jews on the subject of his mission to Rome in the Mortara Case was published today. While Sir Moses was thankful for those who assisted in him arranging meeting with Vatican officials, the Church refused to acknowledge any error in the case.  The conversion stands and the Jewish child stolen from his parents will be raised as a Catholic.

1859: An editorial published today expressed disappointment at Rome’s refusal to yield on the issues in the “Mortara Case” while expressing relief “that such an enormity as the abduction of the Mortara child cannot be repeated even by Rome.”  The Times also points out the horrible conditions under which the Jews of Austria, a patron and protector of the Pope, are living. “The case of the Israelites…bad as it is in Rome, is still worse in Austria.”  Jews are restricted in the vocations they may pursue and are banned from “many of the higher vocations of trade.”  They are limited in their right to move to different parts of the empire and they need a special license if they want to leave the country altogether.  In some parts of the empire, there is a limit on the number of Jewish marriages “so that a young man must await the death of his parent before he can enter the state of matrimony. This hideous and demoralizing law is but one of the many horrors which Austrian persecution has designed for the Israelites living in Austria, and who are kept by the brutal system, in a state of ignorance which the condition of Jewish populations in free countries proves to abnormal with that portion of the human family.” [All of this will change with a stroke of a pen after Austria loses its war with Prussia and is forced to reorganize as the Austro-Hungarian Empire.]

1862: In an interlude between the Siege of Corinth and the Second Battle of Corinth, Jacob C. Cohen of the 27th Ohio Infantry wrote to the Jewish Messenger to describe what life was like as they bivouacked at Camp Clear Creek just outside of the Mississippi town.

1864: Birthdate of South Carolina Senator “Cotton Ed” Smith a supporter of the immigration quota system who wanted to exempt Jews from the quota system” because “their thrift, their economy and their love of learning” appealed to him. (As reported by Henry L. Feingold)

1864: Today, following the end of the Schleswig War, Prussia, under the leadership of Bismarck who relied on his banker Gerson Bleichröder for financial advice took possession of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein.

1865(9th of Av, 5625): Tisha B'Av

1865: It was reported today that “the Israelites in this city and throughout the world solemnized in sorrow and in sadness, in tears and in lamentation, in fasting and in prayer, the annual fast of Ab, founded on the destruction of the Temple, and the overthrow of the national government. Although nearly 2,300 years have elapsed since the first Temple was destroyed, and eighteen centuries since the construction of the second Temple, both occurrences taking place on the same day of the month, the fast is still continued from Monday evening to Tuesday night, in accordance with the Jewish ritual, and in consonance with Israelitish feeling. The fast is inaugurated with reciting the lamentations of Jeremiah, and, after the morning service, several hours are employed in the synagogues in chanting in plaintive tones the compositions of the saints of antiquity, and imploring the God of Israel to remove the rod of chastisement from Israel, and again to resume the light of other days, by the reestablishment of their Temple and restoration of their government to its original splendor.”

1868: In Montgomery, Alabama, “Jacob and Bella (Mayer) Jonas gave birth to banker Nathan S. Jonas, the husband of Jennie Strauss who pre-deceased him.



1869: Birthdate of Moishe Hillkowitz, the native of Riga, who gained famed as New York labor lawyer and Socialist political leader, Morris Hillquit.

1870: Birthdate of Rabbi Tuvia Geffen who gained fame as “The Coca Cola Rabbi.”

1870: A rumor swept New York today that the police had apprehended the murder of Benjamin Nathan – a plumber who with a lacerated face who was caught with a stolen watch belong to the deceased.

1870: “The Jews in Romania” published today reported that there were 176 synagogues serving 400,000 Jews in Romania.

1870: Di Post, the first Yiddish periodical to appear in the United States was published for the first time today in New York City

1870: Benjamin Nathan, the prominent Jewish New York businessman who was murdered in his own home, was buried today at the Jewish Cemetery, Shearith Israel at Cypress Hill. His brother-in-law, Rabbi J.J. Lyons had officiated at funeral that was held at the deceased’s resident.

1873: It was reported today that the last person to see ten year old John Henry Lance was “a Jew peddler in Williamsburg.”

1875: In London, Rebecca and Michaelis Hallensein gave birth to Percy Hallenstein, the brother Emile and Henri Hallenstein who changed his named to Halsted, was the husband of Enid Miriam Gotthelf  and passed away in New Zealand.

1875: “The Jews of Italy,” published today described the conditions of the Jews living in this newly reunited nation.  It focused on the deplorable conditions of many of the Jews living in the old ghetto of Rome along the Tiber, the improved condition of Jews living outside of the capital and the annual ceremony at St. John the Lateran set aside to baptize any Jew who has converted during the past 12 months. However, no Jew has participated in the ceremony in the last twenty years, despite the best efforts of the Church.

1876:  Colorado is admitted as the 38th U.S. state.  The largest number of Jews began arriving in Colorado as part of the gold rush activities in 1859.  Jews helped supply the miners in many of the camps that later became small towns throughout the state.   Hyman and Fred Salomon, two Jewish brothers from Prussia, were leading members of the Denver community by the time statehood was declared.  In addition to their business ventures, they helped organize the Colorado Pioneer Society, the Denver Public Library and the Denver B’nai Brit Lodge.

1876(11th of Av, 5636): Lewis Wormser, the native of Stuttgart who moved to Ireland in 1821 where he became such a successful businessman and leader of the Jewish community that he was waiting to begin serving as Lord Mayor of Dublin when he passed away today.  Had he lived, he would have been the first Jew to hold that position and honor that would fall to Robert Briscoe eighty years later.


1877: Three weeks before her 40th birthday, in the UK, Sarah Ellis, the daughter of Abraham Ellis, married fifty year old Israel Levy.

1878: Birthdate of Alfred W. Fleisher who would be buried in Mount Sinai Cemetery at Philadelphia when he passed away on Christmas Day, 1928.

1878: The Hebrew Orphan Asylum Society of the City of Brooklyn was incorporated today under the leadership of President Ernst Nathan. 

1879: Following the Russo-Turkish War, Czar Alexander II today awarded Joshua be Aaron Zeitlin “ a medal in recognition of his services” as “a contractor for the victorious Russian Army

1879: As reported in the Jewish Messenger, "...About twenty, mostly young men, have formed themselves into a congregation under the name of 'Orach Chaim', Path of Life, their objective being to hold Divine service every day, morning and evening, as well as on Sabbath and holidays on strict orthodox principles, as it has been handed down to them by their fathers."

1880: “A Christian Woman Becomes a Jewess” published today described the conversion ceremony of Mrs. Morse that took place last month in Rochester, NY.

1881: No reason was given today when it was reported that the excursion of Athletic Society of Young Men’s Hebrew Association of Harlem has been postponed until later this month.

1881: Birthdate of Otto Toeplitz, the third generation German mathematician who would seek refuge in Palestine after the rise of the Nazis.

1881: Birthdate of  Fritz Spira, the Viennese actor who played Austrian Emperor Franz Josef in the 1926 film The Third Squadron but whose fame did not keep him from being arrested by the Nazis and dying ignominiously at the Ruma Concentration Camp in 1943.

1882: Henry Robinson married Mary Pillischer today at the Brighton Synagogue.

1882: Birthdate of  Jacob Benjamin Salutsky, the Russian immigrant who gained fame as the J.B.S. Hardman a prominent socialist who serve as Education of Director of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers after having left the Communist movement in apparent disgust.

1882: As the Freight Handler’s strike continued the Russian Jews had been replaced by Germans as workers at Pier Number 39 of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

1883: Birthdate of Amsterdam native Isidore Goudeket the “Dutch gymnast who competed in the 1908 Summer Olympics” was murder at Sobibor in 1943.

1885: John T. Robeson, the U.S. Consul-General in Beirut sent a telegram to the governor-general of Syria protesting the order expelling Mordecai Yitzhak Lubowsky and his brother.  The two Jews were American citizens and the diplomat pointed out that expelling them was a violation of the treaty between the Porte and the United States since it discriminated based on religion.

1885: A well-attended memorial service in honor of the late Sir Moses Montefiore, who was buried on Friday in Ramsgate, England, was held today at the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids, on the corner of Eighty-fourth-street and Avenue A in New York.

1887(11th of Av, 5647): Issac Margolis, the Russo-Polish rabbi who was a descendant of Yom Tov Lippman Heller of Prague  who came to the United States in 1884 and assumed the leadership of Congregation Anshe-Kalvariya  passed away in New York.

1887: Today, on his 18th birthday, Morris HIllquist joined the Socialist Labor Party of America.

1888: Birthdate of Rene Marx Dormoy, the friend of fellow socialist Leon Blum in whose government he served as Minister of the Interior and defeated the attempt of the right-wing La Cagoule to overthrow the Third Republic before WW II.  Dormoy did not turn his back on Blum after the cowardly capitulation of the French and the rise of Vichy – a loyalty that cost him his life.

1889: New York Mayor Hugh Grant received a letter today from Henry M. Leipziger, Director of the Hebrew Technical Institute concerning an exhibit for the upcoming World’s Fair. 

1889: Nine year old Samuel Ehrenstein and five year old Lazarus Ehrenstein were left with Coroner Levy in New York.  A letter said that they were orphans and should be sent to a charitable institution for care

1890: “The British House of Commons” published today describe activities in Parliament including Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Sir James Fergusson’s reassurance that he has no proof that the Russian government plans on enforcing any edicts aimed at reducing the rights of Russian Jews.

1890: “In the House of Lords…the Marquis of Salisbury…said he could not confirm reports…of any anti-Jewish edicts by the Russian government.”

1890: New York Congressman Charles Baker asked the Committee on Foreign Affairs to consider “a resolution protesting ‘in the name of humanity, against such inhuman and barbarous acts as the enforcement by Russia of the edict of 1882, against the Jews, requesting the President to transmit, through our representatives in Russia, this protest to the Russian Government.”

1891: It was reported today that U.S. government believes the fact that nothing has been heard from Dr. J.M. Crawford the United States Consul General in St. Petersburg “for a long time past” is “convincing proof” that the Russian government is not contemplating any action to enforce the edicts aimed at depriving the Jews of their rights.

1891: Simon Wolf and Lewis Abraham of Washington, DC, representing the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury concerning the immigration Russian Jews to the United States.

1891: Secretary of Treasury Charles Foster wrote to Simon Wolf and Lewis Abraham assuring them that the immigration laws would be enforced “efficiently” but “humanely.

1891:  Birthdate of Eliyahu Lulu, who would gain fame as a member of the First Knesset under the name of Eliyahu Hacarmeli.

1891: “The Czar Changes Bankers” published today attributed the Russian government’s decision to move its accounts from the London branch of the House of Rothschild to Messrs. C.J. Hambro & Son to that country’s “attitude toward the Jews.”

1892: Emma Goldman was among those attending the meeting of anarchists held tonight at 193 Bowery.

1892: At a meeting of anarchist of Newark, NJ the speaker praised Alexander Berkman, who had attempted to assassinate Henry Clay Frick during the Homestead Steel Strike, by saying “I trust that in the near future we may all become Berkmanns.”

1893: Birthdate of Rossien, Lithuania native Alexander Sachs who joined his brother Joseph in 1904 in the United States where he was educated at CCNY, Columbia and Harvard and became an influential economist and banker best known for delivering the “Einstein–Szilárd letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt” in October of 1939 which led to the Manhattan Project and the birth of the Atomic/Nuclear Age.


1893(19thof Av, 5653): Joseph Korman, “an educated Russian Jew” who came to the United States about a year ago and who had been “a successful merchant at one time” passed away today after being for six months leaving behind a destitute widow and four children.

1893: Today is the deadline for all the Jews living in Lifland to sell their property and move into the Pale.

1893: It was reported today that Archbishop Dionysius Latas, a prominent Greek prelate, said that if the subject comes up during his visit to Chicago he intends to express his opposition to the persecution of the Jews.

1893: The body of 76 year old Solomon Heyman who passed away yesterday in Long Branch will be brought to New York City today for burial.

1894: “East Side Roof Gardens” published today described the growth of these popular venues including one that  “the young men of the Hebrew Institute” have established at the building on East Broadway and Jefferson Street. From 9 in the morning until 8 in the evening mothers and their “babes in arms” can sit under the big awning on the roof in attempt to stay cool during the summer heat.

1894: The trial of Jeremiah J. Levy a Jewish policeman who has been charged with bribery continued today.

1895: Birthdate of Béla Zsolt, the native of Komárom, Hungary who survived Bergen-Belsen, rode to freedom on the “Kasztner Train” and wrote Nine Suitcases a Holocaust memoir that would later be turned into a one act play.


(For more information about the Kasztner Train see http://www.killingkasztner.com/)

1895: “In The Real Estate Field” published today described the sale of a lot on the southeast corner of Lexington Avenue and 77th Street by the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Society for $87,500.

1895: “The Clothing Industry” published today attributed the success in New York of the “industry  for manufacturing clothing” to “cheap labor.”  This labor “has not been made cheap through any effort or design of the manufactures” but is the result of vast number of Russian and Polish Jews who have “forced down the price” of labor.

1896: It was reported today that the Jewish Colonization Company will pay the expenses of 800 Jews to return to Russia from Argentina because they know nothing about farming and are not able to work on the Hirsch colonies that have been established in that country.

1896: Thirty year old Chaim Silberman, a Hebrew school teacher who arrived in the United States last January told the authorities about his harrowing trip to the United States during which 6 of his fellow passengers died of suffocation in a case of “criminal neglect.”

1896: Colonel Eugene Levy and thirty –six year old Marie Melanie Simikins a former school teacher who converted from Catholicism to Judaism were married today at the mayor’s office.

1898: A case involving that pits the Moses Montifiore Congregation of Hoboken against David Engler who claims to own the lot on which the synagogue sits and who is trying to force the congregation to move its building is scheduled to be hear in The Chancery Court in Jersey City, New Jersey today.

1898: The body 53 year old Elias Jacobs who had passed away at his country home in Forest, PA was brought to New York City where his funeral will be held.

1898(13thof Av, 5658): Ephriam W. Sells, of Sells Brothers Circus, passed away today in Columbus OH.

1899: “The Jews in Babylon” by William Rainey Harpert was published in Volume 14 of The Biblical World.


1899: Mordecai is scheduled to run in the Sixth Race at Brighton Beach. (No word as to Haman or Esther)

1900(6th of Av, 5660): Forty-eight year old “German physiologist” Immanuel Munk, the brother of Hermann Munk, passed away today in Berlin.

1903: Birthdate of Helena Nordheim, one of five Jewish members of the Dutch ladies’ gymnastics team, which won the Olympic title in Amsterdam in 1928. Forty years later, Helena Kloot- Nordheim, her husband Abraham and her 10-year old daughter Rebecca were gassed at Sobibor.

1904: Birthdate of Edward Satz, a native of what was then Lwow, Poland, who gained fame as Eli Mintz who made the transition from the Yiddish Theatre to Broadway playing “Uncle David” in “Me and Molly” and was the brother of Ludwig Satz.


1905: In the United Kingdom, the Star published “Jewish Literary Societies” today.

1905(29thof Tammuz, 5665): Less than a month before his 47th birthday Leo Abram Errera a distinguished Belgian botanist who all wrote Les Juifs Russes: Extermination ou Emancipation?" passed away today in Brussels.

1910: Birthdate of composer and arranger Walter Scharf, “the son of Yiddish theatre comic Bessie Zwerling” who worked with everybody from George Gershwin, to Rudy Valle, to Al Jolson to Elvis Presley.


1911: Jews in Peoria, Illinois contribute one thousand dollars to Jews in Turkey suffering from the aftermath of major fires in that country.

1912(18thof Av, 5672): Eighty-one year old Abraham Benjamin passed away today at St. Kilda, Melbourne.

1912: The Young Men’s Hebrew Association of Camden, NJ was incorporated today.

1913: A day after she had passed away, Jennie Leuria, the daughter of Bertha and Henry Leuria, was buried today at the “Belfast Jewish Cemetery in Northern Ireland.”

1913: Birthdate of multi-talented composer Jerome Moross whose most famous works may be theme music for the western television series “Wagon Train” and the big screen western “The Big Country.”



1913: In Buffalo, NY, “Berith Israel (Anshe Sfar) was “rededicated” today.

1914: Germany declared war on Russia in WW I. The Jews of German fought valiantly for the Kaiser in defense of the Fatherland. But the Iron Crosses they earned would not save them or their progeny from the "Austrian Corporal’s Final Solution." According to Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers by Bryan Rigg, “About 10,000 volunteered for duty, and over 100,000 out of a total German-Jewish population of 550,000 served during World War One. Some 78% saw front-line duty, 12,000 died in battle, over 30,000 received decorations, and 19,000 were promoted. Approximately 2,000 Jews became military officers and 1,200 became medical officers.”

1914: The British Ambassador to France “was to have dined with at Edmond de Rothschild Boulogne-sur Seine villa tonight but they have to dine in Paris instead because “all of his horses and automobiles have been appropriated” by the government as part of the mobilization for war.

1914: In Saint Petersburg, Russia, Alexander Govorkovski and Ester Goverkovsky gave birth to Ella Govorkovski who became Ella Drori when she married Amnon Drori.

1915: It was reported today that with 25,000 Jews already serving in the military, the British War Office has made serious efforts “to meet all of their religious requirements” including wherever possible making arrangements for them “to return from the firing line for Passover and for the Feast of Weeks.”

1915: “The Jews were driven out of Brest-Litovsk” today “by order of the Russian High Command.

1915: It was reported today that the officers of the “New Synagogue” the recently formed “liberal Jewish congregation” on New York’s West Side are Morris Rothschild, Chairman; Jerome Wile, Treasurer and J.L. Frankel, Secretary who will be supporting a professional staff consisting of Rabbi Ephraim Frisch and organist Clarence Adler.

1916: In talking to the press today about the impact of Britain’s attempts to limit food supplies coming into Germany, Filed Marshall Von Batocki, “Germany’s food dictator” noted that “Polish Jews…who largely subsisted on fish were suffering intensely as a result of England’s economic pressure on neutrals particularly in the matter of dish exports to and through Germany.”

1917: In Manhattan, Martha Schallek and Joseph S. Wallenstein gave birth to Herbert Joseph Wallenstein, the Republic political leader who served as Assistant State Attorney General for 20 years starting in 1959.

1917: Harvey B. Franklin, of Stockton, CA is scheduled to begin serving as the Rabbi of Temple Sinai, Oakland, CA.

1917: Eighteen year old Lawrence Valenstein “borrowed $100 from his mother” and today “opened a tiny headquarters” of which would become the Grey Advertising Agency, “one of the country[s leading advertising companies.”  (As reported by Suzanne Daley)

1917: Based on information supplied by Ottis A. Glazebook, the U.S. Consul in Jerusalem who left that city for Switzerland after the U.S. entered the war on the side of the Allies, it was reported today that “there are now in Palestine 500 Jewish-American citizens” all of whom had “been given permission to leave” but preferred “to remain” where they were.

1918: Birthdate of Abraham Brauner, the son of timber wholesaler in Łódź, Poland, who gained fame as movie producer Artur “Atze” Brauner, the husband of Theresa Albert with whom he had four children and the kinsman of 49 people who died during the Shoah including 12 murdered at Babi Yar.

1918: During World War I, while serving in France a member of the Overseas Commission of the Jewish Welfare Board, Dr. Hyman Gerson Enelow wrote from Beaune, France today  “that there is work for everybody who wants to be helpful, that the Jewish soldiers “are very happy to see me” because it makes them “feel like they are not forgotten and that in addition to his official duties, he has spent several hours at the hospital trying to help “our doctors and nurse who are terribly overworked” and providing comfort to the wounded, especially those close to death.

1918: Decree issued “securing the title of the Chestnut Street Cemetery” in Cincinnati, Ohio.

1918: Abraham Schrameck, begin serving as Governor-General of Madagascar.

1918: Joseph Schlossberg, General Secretary Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and Abraham Epstein, President Workmen's Circle were among the leaders of a meeting of a Conference of Trade Unions, Branches of the Workmen's Circle, and other Progressive Labor Organizations of Greater New York scheduled to be held be held in Webster Hall, 119 East 11th Street, for the purpose of organizing the workers into a permanent central body for aiding all persons prosecuted who are in need of help, and of arousing public opinion against the further suppression of constitutional rights and liberties.  The Conference will be held under the auspices of the Liberty Defense Union, and has been endorsed by the United Hebrews Trades and the National Executive Committee of the Workmen's Circle.

1919: As The Hungarian Soviet Republic came to an end, Bela Kun “fled as Romanian troops approached Budapest.”

1919: Hungary limited the number of Jews in commerce, law, medicine, and banking. The new definition of a Jew is someone who converted after August 1, 1919. An estimated 5,000 Jews converted to Christianity during the weeks before the law went into effect. 

1919: “The Jewess of Toledo” “a silent historical drama film directed by Otto Kreisler an adaptation of the 1872 play The Jewess of Toledo by Franz Grillparzer which was based on the relationship between Alfonso VIII of Castile and Rahel la Fermosa in 12th Century Spain” was released in Austria today.

1919(5th of Av, 5679): Seventy-one year old businessman, theater impresario and composer Oscar Hammerstein I, the grandfather of lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II, passed away today.



1920: Birthdate of Israeli politician Michael Dekel, the native of Pinsk who fought with the Soviet and Polish armies during WW II before making Aliyah in 1949.

1920 The Zionist Actions Committee decided “to entrust the Jewish National Fund with the duty of carrying out a plan for a Nordau Garden City in Palestin

1921(26thof Tammuz, 5681): Seventy-three year old “French economist and statistician Alfred Neymarck, the son of Mayes and Henritte Neymark, the husband of Jeanne Neymarck and “vice-president of the International Congress of Societies for Lawsuits and of the International Congress for Landed Property” passed away today.

1922(7thof Av, 5682): Sixty-three year old mechanical engineer Donát Bánki the son of a Hungarian Jewish physician who helped to invent “the carburetor for the stationary engine.”

1924: In Dąbrowica, Poland, Anna (Szapiro) and Maurice Charpak gave birth to Georges Charpak, the French physicist who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1992.

1924: Birthdate of Michael Stuart Rubin who as Michael Stewart was one of stable writers who got their start writing for Sid Caesar and who went on to became the Tony Award winning creator of “Bye Bye Birdies” and “Hello, Dolly!”


1925: The (Turkish) Palestine Citizenship Ordinance went into effect. It said that any "Turkish subject" in Palestine as of August 1, 1925 shall become a Palestinian citizen, unless he opts for Turkish nationality, or nationality of another state.

1926: At Constantinople it was announced that the Jews of Turkey formally renounced their rights as minorities. They would for now on be considered full citizens with equal rights as all citizens have.

1926(21st of Av, 5686): Israel Zangwill passed away. The Russian born, Anglo-Jewish author, Zionist and champion of social justice is best known for two of his works - a novel entitled Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar People a highly successful play entitled The Melting Pot.  Among those who saw and enjoyed this was President Theodore Roosevelt.

1928(15thof Av, 5688): Tu B’Av is celebrated for the last time during the Presidency of Calvin Coolidge.

1929: In Manhattan, Eva and Stanley Garfinkel gave birth to Howard Morris Garfinkel who changed the nature of basketball with his recruiting service and instructional camps. (As reported by Vincent M. Mallozzi)


1930(7th of Av, 5690): Forty-eight year old Jack Zuta, an accountant for mobsters in Chicago was shot by unknown gunman while hiding out in Wisconsin.

1930: “The Cabinet of Doctor Larifari,” a comedy with music by Franz Waxman and filmed by cinematographer Otto Heller was released today in German.

1930: “Grumpy” directed by George Cukor, co-starring Paul Lukas and filmed by cinematographer David Abel was released today in the United States.

1931:  “Tabu” a silent film set in the South Seas with music by Hugo Riesenfeld was released today in the Unites States.

1931: Birthdate of Elliott Charles Adnopoz, who became famous as Ramblin' Jack Elliott

1931: Eduard Strauch who would murder over 10,000 Jews from Riga in the Rumbula Forest joined the Nazi Party and the SA.

1932: Birthdate of Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League.

1933: The Deutsche Modeamt, a newly-formed Nazi fashion office, announces that Jewish firms will not be permitted to exhibit in the exhibition of men's and women's wear.


1933: Fritz Rosenfelder, leader and founder of the sports club at Saanstaat, Wurtenberg, commits suicide because he was expelled from the club; in a final letter to his former club colleagues, he wrote: "I am leaving with no hatred. My only wish is that Germany should be restored to reason . . . How more beautifully could I have given my life for my Fatherland."


1933: The Commissariat for Medical Associations issues a decree prohibiting non-Jewish physicians from having any professional contact with Jewish physicians; non-Jewish medical
men must not serve as consultants, and must not treat patients recommended to them by Jewish physicians.

1933: The Dutch Society of Sculptors and Artists responds to an appeal on behalf of Jewish refugees from Germany by donating many objects of art which will be used in a lottery sanctioned by the Government.

 1936: The report of the Peel Commission was discussed today in Geneva, home of the League of Nations. Poland, Romania and other East European countries, debating the Peel Report on the proposed partition of Palestine, demanded that Great Britain continue to fulfill her obligations under the Mandate. The Arab leadership argued that the rights of the people of Palestine could not be contested and that any partition scheme was contrary to Articles 20 and 31 of the Covenant of the League of Nations. In a contradiction of facts the Arabs did not deny the rights of the Jewish minority in Palestine, and were even prepared to furnish guarantees in this respect, but they unanimously opposed the country's partition and demanded immediate, total independence. But part of the rights of the Jewish community under the terms of the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate was to a Jewish Homeland, not citizenship in an Arab country. In South Africa General J.C. Smuts, vice premier and minister of justice, expressed his grave misgivings about the partition scheme in general, and the smallness of the proposed Jewish state in particular. A total rejection of the partition was also the subject of letters written by Colonel J.C. Wedgwood, MP (Member of Parliament), and addressed to the British and world press.

1936: Following the arrival of Rabbi Stephen S. Wise in Geneva, the organizations committee of “The World Jewish Congress” which is opening in Geneva on August 8 announced today that it “will devote one special session to the present situation in Palestine”

1936: In Detroit, “Prosecutor Duncan C. McCrea said tonight that a chemist questioned about a reported Black Legion typhoid epidemic plot” aimed at Jews living in the area “has declared a high ranking legion officer inquired also how to make hand grenades and how to kill people with poison gas and hypodermic needles.”

1936: Birthdate of Leonard Steinberg, Baron Steinberg of Belfast, founder of Stanley Leisure Ltd and found and first President of the Northern Ireland Friends of Israel

1936: The Olympics open in Berlin.



1937: Karl-Otto Koch, who would have the strange misfortune of being executed by the SS for mismanaging a concentration camp, today “was given command of the concentration camp at Buchenwald.”

1937: Among the passengers on board the French line De Grasse which arrived in New York today was scholar and author Dr. Joachim Prinz and his wife who are scheduled to “tour American cities on behalf of the United Palestine appeal which is seeking to raise $4,500,000 for the settle of Jews from Poland, Silesia and Germany in Palestine.”

1938: At the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans which had been purchased by Seymour Weiss in 1934, “the Main Bar” later known as the Sazerac Bar, opened with its famous “mahogany bar, walnut paneled walls and Paul Ninas murals.”

1938(4thof Av, 5698): Eighty-two year old of New York native Albert Arnstein, the graduate of Packards Business College and the holder of an LL.B from St. Lawrence University who settled in St. Louis where he was President of the United Jewish and Charitable Associations passed away today.

1938: In Austria, on “rent day” another of the Nuremberg Laws went into effect under “which it is sufficient for a single ‘Aryan’ in a block of flats to object to Jewish tenants for the Jews to receive notices” ordering them to vacate the premises – a move which is expected to lead to Jews being able to only live in flats where all of the other residents of the building are Jewish.

1938: “Virtually all Jewish-owned cafes on Vienna’s famous Ring Boulevard were ordered today to close their doors” while all other cafes were ordered to post signs saying “Jews Not Wanted.”

1940: In Tel Aviv, journalist Theodor Loevy and his wife Elisa gave birth to television director and writer Ram Loevy.

1940: Antonio Origo and Iris Cutting Origo an Anglo-Irish writer who helped to save Jewish children through the kindertransport including the painter Frank Helmut Auerbach gave birth to their second child, and first daughter, Donata.

1940: The Nazis begin the expulsion of the Jewish population from Cracow, Poland. One-third would be sent to Warsaw and other Polish towns.1942: The first "reliable report" of the Nazi plan to murder all the Jews reached the West. The U.S. State Department suppressed the report for several weeks, until Jews living in the United States heard about the report from other sources. 

1941: Heydrich informed Himmler, “that in the future there will be no more Jews in the annexed Eastern Territories." Every day in every village and town, Jews would be hunted down, molested, tortured, and executed. 

1941(8th of Av, 5701): Another 1,000 Jews were shot in the city of Kishenev. 

1941: The Nazis established The Bialystok Ghetto.

1942: In Danbury, CT, Annette and Lazarus Heyman gave birth to Abigail Heyman “a photographer whose stark portraits of women at work, at home and at weddings gave a visual concreteness to feminist doctrine of the 1970s about the oppressiveness of traditional female roles.” (As reported by Paul Vitello)

1942 (18th of Av, 5702) Rabbi Shlomo Chanoch Rabinowicz, last Rebbe of the Radomsk dynasty, educator, a director of the Kesser Torah organization, member of the religious council in the Warsaw ghetto was murdered with his family in the Warsaw ghetto

1942: Benjamin Sagalowitz, press secretary of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities phoned Gerhard Riegner with information from an unimpeachable source, a non-Jewish German industrialist, that Hitler had decided to have all European Jews exterminated by means of poison gas by the end of the year.

1943: In Poland the final liquidation of the Bendzin Ghetto began today as the first batch of what would total 8,000 prisoners were deported today.

1943: When the Nazis began their final liquidation of Bendzin Ghetto they are met with unexpected “armed resistance in several bunkers” led by young Jews that “hampered” the Germans forcing them to spend two weeks on this latest venture in murderous cruelty.

1943: Rabbi Louis Werfel, a graduate of Yeshiva College and RIETS “was sent to North Africa, where he served as Chaplain with the 12th Air Force Service Command, where his area of operations included Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Sicily.

1943(29thof Tammuz, 5703): Twenty year old Lydia Litvyak a fighter pilot in the Soviet Air Force during World War II with twelve solo victories, four shared kills over a total of 66 combat missions, over about two years of missions, who was the first female fighter pilot to shoot down an enemy plane, the first of two female fighter pilots who have earned the title of fighter ace, and the holder of the record for the greatest number of kills by a female fighter pilot was shot down near Orel during the Battle of Kursk as she attacked a formation of German planes today.

1943(29thof Tammuz, 5703): Sixty-eight year old Ismar Elbogen the German rabbi and historian who wrote Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History which has been updated many times since its first publication in 1913, passed away in New York City.


1944: Sixty-six year old Manuel L. Quezon, the President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines who willing resettled Jews fleeing the killing grounds of Europe despite local opposition which was part of the theme of the movie “An Open Door” and for which he was posthumously honored by the Raoul Wallenberg Foundation passed away today.


1944: Anne Frank writes the last entry in her diary.

1944: Rose Valland, the French art historian and member of the Resistance “learned that the Germans were planning to ship out a last five boxcars full of art” most of which had been looted from French Jews and notified the Resistance “who prevented the train from leaving Paris.

1944: Future Nobel Prize winner François Jacob who fought with Free French 2ndArmored Division “returned to a liberated Paris.”

1944: Fourteen months after the Warsaw Ghetto, the Polish underground rises against the Nazis in Warsaw. Jewish fighters came of hiding to participate in the fight. However, those who could not come to the aide of the Jews in 1943 would now find out what it felt like. The Soviet Army waited outside the city and did not come to their aid. Instead, they let the Nazis slaughter the Poles and then they entered the city as liberating heroes

1945: Birthdate of Douglas Dean Osheroff, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1996.  His father was Jewish and his mother was Lithuanian.

1945: Former Senator Guy M. Gillette of Iowa today announced his acceptance of the presidency of the American League for a Free Palestine and the post of chief political adviser to the Hebrew Committee of National Liberation.

Declaring that he considers the "so-called Jewish problem not as a Jewish or a Hebrew question, but as an urgent problem of the United Nations and of the decent portion of mankind," Gillette urged that the Allied Control Commission in Europe recognize the "Hebrew national status" and permit "stateless or Axis Jews" to decide their own status as Hebrew nationals, or stateless, or nationals of Germany, Rumania or Hungary. He also recommended:

1. Freeing of all Jews from Axis concentration camps.

2. Extension of UNRRA relief operations to the Balkan countries where, he charged hundreds of thousands of Jews in Rumania and Hungary, particularly, are starving and have not yet received any UNRRA aid.

3. Addition of Jewish representatives to the United Nations War Crimes Commission.

4. Consideration by the Reparations Commission now meeting in Moscow of the "claims and rights" of surviving Jews, and inclusion of compensation for the losses of the Jewish people.

Gillette said that every Jew in Europe should be authorized "to apply to the nearest British consulate and receive his first papers of Palestinian citizenship." He also suggested the creation of an Anglo-American-Russian committee with adequate powers to effect the speediest repatriation of all such applicants to Palestine. These steps, Gillette asserted, are "essential for the commencement of a solution of the entire problem." Annulment by the new British Government of "discriminatory laws against Jews in Palestine" was likewise demanded by Gillette. (As reported by Jewish Telegraph Agency)

1945: The final Little Boy was assembled and ready to be dropped on Japan.

1946(4th of Av, 5706): In Miskol, Hungry industrial workers stage a pogrom. Two Jews are lynched. This is an example of the post-war anti-Semitic violence that led approximately 4,000 Jews to leave Hungary for Palestine during the next two years.

1946: In San Jose Rodolpho Liberman and his wife gave birth to businessman Luis Liberman Ginsburg, who became Second Vice President of his native Costa Rica.

1948: IAF volunteer pilot Leo Nomi took a 25 minute truck ride to Netanya where he flew patrol in a D-114 with three other pilots including Ezer Weizman.

1948: “Syd Antin and Red Finkel flew a pair of S-199s on patrol today, out of Netanya.

1948: Birthdate of Avi Arad the native of Ramat Gan, son of Holocaust survivors from Poland and veteran of the Six Day War who “became the CEO of the company Toy Biz in the 1990s, and soon afterward became the chief creative officer of Marvel Entertainment, a Marvel director, and the chairman, CEO, and founder of Marvel Studios.”

1948: Birthdate of Aline Goldsmith, Kominsky-Crumb, the Long Beach, NY native who “reshaped” the world of comics.


1949: “Mr. Soft Touch” a crime movie directed by Henry Levin was released today in the United States by Columbia Pictures.

1949: Warner Brothers releases a spoof about the movie industry – “It’s a Great Feeling” with a screenplay by Jack Rose and Melville Shavelson based on a story by I.A.L. Diamond, a score by Jule Styne all of which were brought together by producer Alex Gottlieb.

1952: As part of a major cost reduction program at MGM studios, today is scheduled to be the last day of work for Richard Goldstone who has produced nine pictures for the studio over the last three years.

1952: In Manhattan, Dr. Judith P. Sulzberger and Dr. Matthew Rosenschien, Jr. gave birth to Daniel Hays Cohen, the adopted son of Yale educated insurance broker Richard N. Cohen and “great-grandson of Adolph S. Ochs, the family patriarch who bought The Times in 1896, and a first cousin of Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., the company’s current chairman and publisher, and of Michael Golden, the vice chairman. (As reported by Sam Roberts)


 

1953: Birthdate of British born Jewish historian Martin David Goodman who specialized in the Roman period and whose works included The Ruling Class of Judaea: The Origins of the Jewish Revolt Against Rome, A.D. 66-70


1954(2ndof Av, 5714): Seventy-three year old Dr. Harry E. Isaacs, “founder of the American Jewish Physicians Committee, an affiliate of the American Friends of the Hebrew University and the former Chief of Surgery at Beth El Hospital passed away today.

1954: A group of ten raiders under the command of Meir Har-Zion returned from a raid conducted near Jenin where they “attacked two policemen and took one of them prisoner.”

1955: “The Kentuckian” co-starring Walter Matthau with music by Bernard Hermann was released in the United States today by United Artists.

1958: In Jerusalem, Michael and Shulamit Albeck gave birth to biochemist Amnon Albeck, the grandson of Hanoch Albeck, a “professor of Talmud at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who was one of the founders of the scientific approach to the study of the Mishna.”


1956: The Salk Vaccine, created by Dr. Jonas Salk, becomes available to the American public.

1960: Ella Fitzgerald began recording what would become an album of the songs of Harold Arlen known as “Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Harold Arlen Songbook.”

1960: Today, Senator John F. Kennedy, the Democratic Presidential nominee issued a statement “paying tribute to Philip B. Perlman, the former United States Solicitor General who died last night” acknowledging his help in drafting “the national platform of” the recently concluded Democratic convention in which “as in everything in his life, he gave unstintingly of his time and effort.”

1963(11thof Av, 5723): Sixty-six year old “Morton J. Baum” the Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and WW I U.S. Navy veteran who became “president of the Hickey-Freeman Men’s Clothing Company and the husband of Margaret Baum with whom he had two children – Morton, Jr and Helen – died today after suffering a fatal heart attack.


1964(23rdof Av, 5724): Parashat Eikev

1964(23rdof Av, 5724): Seventy-six year old Rufus Learsi (Israel Goldberg) author of History of the Jewish People and The Jews in America: A History who with his wife had three children – David, Arthur and Judith – passed away today. (Editor’s Note: I still have my copy of The Jews in America, the text used at the Adas Israel Religious School where, unbeknownst to me this journey through Jewish history began)



1965: Birthdate of English stage and film director Sam Mendes whose father was from Trinidad and whose mother was an English Jew.

1969: In Shaker Heights, Ohio, Nina (née Saul) and Norman Wain gave birth to muti-talented David Benjamin Wain best known for directing “feature films.


1970: Nobel Prize winner Otto Heinrich Warburg passed away.  Warburg was part of the famed Warburg clan but he was not Jewish.  His father, Emil, had converted to Christianity.

1970: Ensio P.H. Siilasvuo of Finland assumes the role of Chief of Staff United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO)

1971(10th of Av, 5731): Tish’a B’Av observed

1971: “The Omega Man” a sci-fi film directed by Boris Sagal was released in the United States today.

1971: CBS broadcast the first episode in the series “The Six Wives of Henry VII” co-starring Wolfe Morris as the villainous “Thomas Cromwell.”

1973: After opening on Broadway at the Uris Theatre in March, “Seesaw,” a musical with lyrics by Dorothy Fields, music by Cy Coleman and book re-written by Neil Simon transferred to the Mark Hellinger Theatre.

1975: The “Final Helsinki Act” was signed in Helsinki at the summit of 35 nations of Europe, USA and Canada

1976:Natalia Grigoryevna Kushnir and the Russian volleyball team won a silver medal at the 1976 Olympics which closed at Montreal today.

1979: “Melech Epstein Dead at 90” published today provided a brief account of the life of this former Communist and Jewish author.


1979:Alleged violations by Egypt of its peace treaty with Israel were discussed here today by Defense Minister Ezer Weizman and Egypt’s Defense Minister Kamal Hassan Ali who ended his three-day visit to Israel this afternoon. Read more: http://www.jta.org/1979/08/01/archive/israel-complains-to-egypt-about-violations-of-peace-treaty#ixzz2afGP53oc

1979:“Between today and through most of 1985, few merchants were as lavishly praised as Ed Finkelstein,” Isadore Barmash, a former retailing reporter for The New York Times, wrote in his 1989 book, “Macy’s for Sale.”

1979: Following her graduation from rabbinical college in Philadelphia, Linda Joy Holtzman was appointed spiritual leader of the Conservative Beth Israel congregation in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, making her the first female rabbi to head a Jewish congregation in America. 

1980: “Jerusalem Storm Just One More in Tortured History” published today described the city’s history in light of the Knesset’s vote this week “affirming Jerusalem as a united city and the capital of Israel.”


1980: “Raise the Titanic,” an adventure film produced by Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment “and featuring Elya Baskin was released today.

1980: “The Final Countdown” a film that combines the attack on Pearl Harbor with science fiction starring Kirk Douglas and produced by his son Peter was released in the United States today.

1980: Egypt said today that it would not suspend the talks with Israel on autonomy for the occupied areas nor would it recall its Ambassador from Israel in response to the passage of an Israeli law formalizing the annexation of Jerusalem.

1980: Two days after the Knesset passed the Jerusalem Law, an article entitled “Jerusalem Storm Just One More in a Tortured History” which traced the history of the city from ancient times to the period following the Six Days War was published. The article includes the following: “During the war that followed Israel’s independence in 1948, Jordan seized the eastern sector of Jerusalem…and the new state won control of the western sector.  The Jordanians evicted all Jews from the Old City; from 1948 to 1967 was off limits to Jews and most of the old synagogues there were destroyed.”  (Editor’s note – The author, working for The New York Times, writes about an eastern sector and a western sector of Jerusalem as well as the Old City.  The term “East Jerusalem and, its concept as a separate city, is apparently a more recent creation.) 

1981(1st of Av, 5741): Rosh Chodesh Av

1981: Dr. Donald Payne, the husband of Jessica Savitch, passed away today in Washington, DC.

1981: Abu Daoud, a Black September commander who openly claimed to have helped plan the Munich attack, was shot multiple times by a gunman in a Warsaw hotel cafe. Daoud survived the attack

1981(1st of Av, 5741): Paddy Chayefsky passed away. Born in 1923, Sydney "Paddy" Chayefsky began writing scripts for television during its golden age of drama in the 1950’s. He switched to films where he won three Oscar for writing "Marty", "Hospital" and "Network." (As reported by Colin Campbell)


1985: Birthdate of Benjamin Levin, the son of David Robert Levin

1985(14thof Av, 5745): Ninety two year old Jules Salvador Moch, the son of Captain Gaston Moch and the grandson of Colonel Jules Moch who fought with the Free French at Normandy before becoming a political leader passed away in Cabris.

1986: “Howard The Duck” a sci-fi comedy co-produced by Gloria Katz who also wrote the script and featuring Liz Sagal as “Ronette” was released in the United States today.

1987(6thof Av, 5747): Parashat Devarim and Shabbat Chazon

1987(6thof Av, 5747): Harvey Clurman passed away today and was later buried at the New Montefiore Cemetery in Suffolk County.

1989: Morton Abramowitz began serving as U.S. Ambassador to Turkey

1989(29th of Tammuz, 5749): Fifty-nine year old Hungarian born Canadian director who had survived the Holocuast passed away today.


1991: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir accepted a formula for peace talks in the Middle East. 

1991 Publication of Jewish Life in Germany: Memoirs from Three Centuries, edited by Monika Richarz.


1992: In Montclair, NJ, “Stephen Rosenfield, a teacher of stand-up comedy and the founder of the American Comedy Institute in New York City” and actress Katherine Mathilde "Kate" Redway Rosenfield, gave birth to musician and actor Benjamin “Ben” Rosenfield whose most notable role may be have been in the totally amoral drama series “Boardwalk Empire.”

1992: Thirty-four year old producer Scott Rudin “signed a deal with Tri-Star Pictures.”

1993: Showtime broadcast the first episode of Executive Producer Sydney Pollack’s “Fallen Angels” produced by Steve Golin and with music by Elmer Berstein.

1996(16thof Av, 5766): Eighty-eight year old Frank Glassman, the younger brother of Morris Glassman and lineman who played at Wilmington and Bliss College before spending a year in the NFL with the Buffalo Bisons passed away today.

1998: Based on order by the Assassination Records Review Board (AARB) today was the deadline from transferring the Zapruder film of JFK’s assassination from the NARA’s film collection to the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection.

1999: U.K. premiere of “A Price Above Rubies,” a film about Chasidic Jews directed and written by Boaz Yankin and co-starring Julianna Marguiles.

2000: Moshe Katsav was sworn in as President of Israel making him the first person to be elected to a seven year term and the first person from Likud to be elected President.

2000: “Space Cowboys” a geriatric, galactic buddy-movie co-produced by Andrew Lazar and with a score by Lennie Niehaus was released n he United States today.

2000: James “Jim” Steinberg completed his service as Deputy National Security Advisor under President Clinton.

2001: Rita Levi-Montalcini “was appointed as Senator for Life by the President of Italy.

2002: Premiere of “Yossi & Jagger,” an “Israeli romantic drama film directed by Eytan Fox.

2002: The body Shani Ladani, 27, of Moshav Olash, shot and bound, was found west of Tulkarem, near the Green Line, in the industrial zone where he was employed.

2002: Dalia Rabin-Pelossof, the daughter of Yitzhak Rabin, resigned as Deputy Minister of Defense.

2003: Jill Abramson, the Washington bureau chief of the New York Times was one two people appointed today to serve as managing editor of the Times.  She “will be managing editor for news gathering.”

2004: The New York Times book section features a review of'Jerome Robbins': From Stravinsky to the Sharks by Nicholas Fox Weber.

2004: In Aspen, CO, Bernard Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, Inc. is the headline speaker at United Jewish Communities (UJC) eighth annual Jewish Leadership Forum (JLF)

2004: Lexington, KY native Jeffrey M. Lacker began serving as the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

2004(14th of Av, 5764): Sidney Morgenbesser passed away at the age of 82 from complications of ALS.  Morgenbesser was the Emeritus John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia. He attended JTS and earned a Ph.D. from Penn.  He was known for his erudition and his wit.  David Shatz of Yeshiva University recounted the story of Morgenbesser chastising a faculty member for hiding his Jewishness: “Oh, I see your model is Icognito, ergo sum.”

2005 (25th of Tammuz, 5765): George Forman, a longtime comptroller of the American Civil Liberties Union, who brought fiscal discipline to a ramshackle organization near bankruptcy in the late 1970s and later helped it develop into a powerful civil liberties conglomerate, died today at the age of 88.(As reported by Lily Koppel)


2005: President George W Bush nominated Roland Arnall to become the U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands.

2005: A political essay written by Russian businessman and oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky in his prison cell, titled "Left Turn", was published in Vedomosti, calling for a turn to more social responsible state.

2005 (25th of Tammuz, 5765): Al Aronowitz passed away at the age of 77.  He was a pioneering journalist who covered the Beat literary scene and engineered a meeting between Bob Dylan and the Beatles that has passed into rock 'n' roll legend.

2005 (25th of Tammuz, 5765): George Forman, a longtime comptroller of the American Civil Liberties Union who brought fiscal discipline to a ramshackle organization near bankruptcy in the late 1970's and later helped it develop into a powerful civil liberties conglomerate passed away today at the age of 88.  "During the years of crisis he was more responsible than any other single person for keeping the program afloat," said Ira Glazer, the executive director of the A.C.L.U. from 1978 to 2001. He explained how Mr. Forman juggled the bills and even earned interest on a deficit operational budget, and recalled visits from officials of Chemical Bank who complained that although the organization was moving around millions of dollars, its average balance was $3.79.,"He was the chewing gum and rubber bands that held the organization together and made the high intellectual and strategic law possible," Mr. Glazer said. When Mr. Forman arrived at the A.C.L.U. in 1968, the organization had two lawyers, one part-time press person and no one in charge of administration and finances, fund-raising or development. By the time he retired in the late 1990's, the organization had a $50 million annual income, more than $100 million in assets and staffed offices in every state. Before joining the A.C.L.U., Mr. Forman was the comptroller of the Noma Corporation, a large, diversified holding company; he became unemployed when Noma merged with a predecessor of Gulf and Western. During World War II, he was an Army officer stationed in Washington, where he fell in love with a woman with whom he had his only daughter but felt he could not marry because she was not Jewish. He graduated magna cum laude from New York University in 1939 and earned a graduate degree in business administration there.

2006(7th of Av, 5766): Sixty-two year art historian Arlene Raven passed away today. (As reported by Elaine Woo)


2006: A three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Judge Sweet's decision, holding 2–1 that federal prosecutors could inspect the telephone records of Judith Miller

2006(7th of Av, 5766): Skirmishes with Hezbollah guerrillas in the southern Lebanese village of Ayta al-Shaab left three soldiers, including an officer, of a Paratrooper Brigade unit dead and at least another 25 wounded. The names of the fallen have been released: St.-Sgt. Yehunatan Einhorn, 22, of Moshav Gimzo; First Sergeant Michael Levine, 21, of Jerusalem; and Lieutenant Ilan Gabbai, 22, of Kiryat Tivon.

2006:A number of Jewish-owned stores in Italy had their doors sealed with glue and the shutters nailed down overnight as a response to Israel’s policies in Lebanon

2006: Today, Peter “Gelb became the 16th General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera” following with he “launched…several new productions, including Madama Butterfly, The Barber of Seville, The First Emperor.”

2007: U.S. President George Bush imposed sanctions on Syria today because of the role the Damascus government has played in creating regional instability.

2007: U.S. Secretary of State Condi Rice arrives in Jerusalem.

2008:  Solomon "Momy" Levy began serving his term as Mayor of Gibraltar.

2008: Solomon Levy began serving as the Mayor of Gibraltar. 2008: In Falls Church VA (suburban Washington, D.C.), Jewish author Benjamin Rosenbaum reads from and discusses his new collection of SF tales, The Ant King and Other Stories

2009: At Temple Judah, a Triple Header:

  1. Shabbat Nachamu
  2. Rabbi Todd Thalbum officially takes the pulpit at Temple Judah and reads the Torah portion at his first Cedar Rapids Shabbat Morning Service
  3. Raoul Wallenberg Sabbath  Annual  Observance of Raoul Wallenberg Memorial Day (August 4, 2009) which has been proclaimed by the Governor of Iowa for three years in a row. 

2009(11th of Av, 5769): A gunman shot dead two people and wounded at least thirteen others in an attack at a central Tel Aviv gay and lesbian center tonight before fleeing the scene

2010: The Skirball Cultural Center show "Monsters and Miracles: A Journey through Jewish Picture Books," is scheduled to come to a close today.

2010: Jake Tapper completed his service as the interim anchor of ABC’s “This Week” – a career disappointment that would help take him to CNN.

2010: Modern Art, Sacred Space: Motherwell, Ferber, and Gottlieb is scheduled to have its final showing at the Jewish Museum,in New York.

2010: President Shimon Peres is scheduled to travel to Egypt today for a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

2010: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Telling Times:Writing and Living, 1954-2008by Nadine Gordimer, Running Commentary:The Contentious Magazine That Transformed the Jewish Left Into the Neoconservative Right by Benjamin Balint, Norman Podhoretz: A Biography by Thomas L. Jeffers, High Financer:The Lives and Time of Siegmund Warburgby Niall Ferguson and Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldman

2010:The Jewish Community Center in Omaha welcomed nearly 1,000 young Jewish athletes for an Olympic-style competition that will run through August 6.  This will be the third time in 19 years that the Maccabi Games have been held at the Jewish Community Center.

2010(21 Av, 5770): Eighty-eight year old Reginald Levy, the airline captain who thwarted the hijacking of his Belgian airliner in 1972, passed away.(As reported by Dennis Hevesi)


2010:“Curious George Saves the Day: The Art of Margret and H. A. Rey” is scheduled to be shown for the last time today at the Jewish Museum

2011: A screening of “Bobby Fischer Against the World,” Liz Garbus’s documentary that takes us on Fischer’s journey from Jewish child prodigy to world chess master to virulent anti-Semite, is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Festival.

2011(1st day of Av, 5771): Rosh Chodesh Av

2011: Today, “just seven months after a gunman’s bullet nearly killed her, Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords returned to the floor of the House of Representatives” to cast her firs vote. (JWA)


2011: Today “on the 5th anniversary ("yarzheit") of Michael Levin's death according to the Gregorian calendar, a flag was flown over the US Capitol in his memory at the request of a man from his local area, Johnson Reynolds, who considered him both an Israeli and American hero. (A native Pennsylvanian, Levin had been killed in action while serving with a Paratroopers Brigaded during the Second Lebanon War.)

2011: Today, for the first time, the IDF unveiled a special guided missile system that has been used successfully in action in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. Called Tamuz, the missile is based on the Spike Long-Range Missile developed by Rafael and is operated by Meitar, an elite unit which operates under the Artillery Corps. The missile was opened to foreign exports last year

2011: “Kmo Kulam” (Like Everyone Else) by Elisha Banai and the Forty Thieves was released today.

2011:"Volunticipate," a weeklong encounter that brings together representatives of Jewish and Roma, or Gypsy, youth groups from eight countries begins today in Hungary. The youth are gathering to discuss how to build partnerships, plan joint initiatives, and exchange experiences about minority identity and grass-roots civil activism.

2011:Leaders of the protest for affordable housing who met with President Shimon Peres today found a champion for the cause.  Speaking with the social movement's representatives at Beit Hanassi, Peres told them that their protest was legitimate and sincere, and that he would help them in every way possible to change the national agenda.

2011: Haaretz’s board of directors has appointed Aluf Benn as the paper’s editor in chief, effective today. Benn, a veteran correspondent and commentator at Haaretz, replaces Dov Alfon, who has been editor in chief for the past three years and is leaving the paper to establish a new digital enterprise in cooperation with the Haaretz Group

 

2011: “Just seven months after a gunman’s bullet nearly killed her, Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords returned to the floor of the House of Representatives to cast her vote in favor of a bill to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.”

2011: A Kassam rocket was fired at southern Israel from Gaza tonight “moderately wounding a women in her fifties who was his by shrapnel from the rocket.”

2012: Ninety-two thousand Jews are scheduled to gather in New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium for the 12thSiyum Hashas.

2012:US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is scheduled to arrive in Israel today to gauge Israel’s determination to attack Iran and to try to persuade Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to give sanctions and diplomacy more time. (As reported by Yaakov Katz)

2012: “Best of Tel Aviv,” celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Tel Aviv University film school, is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2012: Rabbi Alfredo Borodowski is scheduled to begin teaching “Simply Mordecai M. Kaplan: From Heretic to Prophet of American Judaism” at the Skirball Center.

2012: Yemen Blues, a group organized by Ravid Kahalani and Omer Avital, is scheduled to perform at Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park.

2012: In Houston, TX, brit milhah for Joseph Levy (Yosef Label) Strauss, son of Abbie and Feivel Strauss.

2012: Barbara Berger, whose brother, David, was on the Israeli wrestling team in 1972, wrote in Haaretz today that families of the 11 victims of a Palestinian terrorist attack at the Munich Olympics would continue to advocate for a formal moment of silence at the Olympics, despite the refusal of the International Olympics Committee to allow such a moment this year, the massacre’s 40th anniversary. (As reported by JTA and The Times of Israel)

2012: In some respects, today was a historic turning point for Israel — the day on which ultra-Orthodox Israelis became officially subject to the draft along with the rest of the country’s Jewish citizens. On the ground, however, things looked less than historic. At the army’s induction center in Jerusalem, in a sleepy religious neighborhood near the central bus station, there was the usual trickle of teenagers in shorts, T-shirts and tank tops eventually headed for the various units of the Israel Defense Forces, accompanied by the usual trickle of teenagers in black coats and hats coming to register for draft exemptions

2012:Yakov Toumarkin today became only the second Israeli swimmer to reach the final of an Olympic event by finishing fifth in the semifinal of the men's 200m backstroke event. He also equaled the Israeli national record that he had set earlier in the day in the heats – 1:57.33 minutes. Later on today, Gal Nevo finished fourth in the semifinal of the men's Olympics 200m individual medley. Unlike Toumarkin, however, Nevo's semifinal time was not enough to reach a place in the finals, and he finished tenth overall.

2012(13th of Av, 5772): Eighty-five year old New York Times editor Gerald Gold passed away. (As reported by Douglas Martin)


2012(13th of Av, 5772): Seventy-four year old Esther Kartiganer who played on the undefeated women’s Brandies University basketball team and was a senior producer at “60 Minutes” passed away today. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)


 

2013: “Soldier on the Roof,” a documentary about the Jews living in Hebron, is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival today.

2013: “Crossing Delancey” is scheduled to be shown this evening at the “Only In New York Summer Film Series.”

2013: A gag order was lifted today on an espionage indictment filed against a 46-year-old Jerusalemite member of the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta Haredi Sect accused of offering to serve as a spy for the Iranian regime. (As reported by Havi Rettig Gur)

2013: The 12th Annual March for Pride and Tolerance took place this evening in Jerusalem

2013(25th of Av, 5773): Sixty-seven year old Igal Brightman the chairman and CEO of the major local accounting firm of Deloitte Brightman Almagor Zohar died when his plane crashed outside of Eilat.


2013: The Los Angeles Time featured a review of Hothouse: The Art of Survival and the Survival of Art at America's Most Celebrated Publishing House, Farrar Straus & Giroux by Boris Kachka

2014: The jury is scheduled to announce the winners in the Sukkah Design contest sponsored by Oregon Jewish Museum at the Mittleman Jewish Community Center.

2014: A weeklong workshop “The Holocaust in Eastern Europe in the Records of the International Tracing Service Digital Archive” at the USHMM is scheduled to come to an end.

2014: Based on announcement by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry a 72-hour unconditional cease-fire between Israel and Hamas is scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. local time today.

2014(5thof Av, 5774): Major Benaya Sarel, 26, from Kiryat Arba and St.-Sgt. Liel Gidoni, 20, from Jerusalem both serving with the Givati Brigade were killed today after the cease fire had begun. At the same time 2nd Lt. Hadar Goldin, 23, from Kfar Saba was kidnapped. On August 2, Hadar was declared to have died in today’s attack as well. (In life they were loved and admired. They were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions.)

2014: Twenty-four year old Lt. Eitan Fund “rushed into a tunnel to try and stop the kidnapping of Hadar Goldin who in fact had already been killed by the terrorist – an act of heroism for which he received the Distinguished Service Medal..

2014: Representative Eric Cantor, the Virginia Republican whose last day as House majority leader yesterday, said today that he would resign his seat effective Aug. 18 in hopes that his successor will be able to participate in the lame-duck session after the November elections. Mr. Cantor’s departure means that they are no Jewish Republicans serving in the House of Representatives.

2014: Following his defeat in his party’s primary election Eric Cantor gave up his position as House Majority leader.

2014: Michael Bloomberg’s fellowship, the Genesis Generation Challenge is scheduled to “go live” today.

2015(16th of Av, 5775): Parashat Vaetchanan and Shabbat Nachamu

2015: Today “opposition leader Isaac Herzog issued a call to action against Jewish terrorism, and demanded that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon respond to such acts in the same way as Israel responds to Islamist terrorism.”

2015: Lewis Black is scheduled to appear at the Main State Pier in Portland, ME.

2015: Benjamin Levin, son of David Levin, hits the big Three Oh!

2016: “In the wake of the stabbing attack at the Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade in which six people were injured by an ultra-Orthodox man,” “thousands of people attended a number of anti-violence, anti-homophobia rallies across Israel” this evening.

2016: “The Farewell Party” is scheduled to be shown at The Hampton Synagogue Film Series which is now in its 14thyear.

2016: Dani Dayan is scheduled to take office today “Israel’s new consul general in New York.” (As reported by Josef Federer)

2017(9th of Av, 5777): Tish’a B’Av;

(Editor’s Note:  As we read Lamentations, we will lament giving control to modern day Herodians and Zealots?)

2017: As Jews commemorated “the Babylonian capture and conquest of the First Temple” “new finds in the City of David” that “confirm the biblical account” of the event were being made public. (As reported by Amanda Borschel-Dan)


2017: The IDF is scheduled to “conduct a 24-hour exercise” that “will include a brisk movement of security and forces and vehicles” “in the vicinity of Nitzana communities and the area of the city of Eilat starting” today.

2017(9th of Av, 5777): Seventy-four year old Jeff Brotman, “a founder of Costco” and the husband of “the former Susan Thrailkill” with whom he had two children, Justin and Amanda, passed away today.(As reported by Sam Roberts)


2017: Marvin Krislov is scheduled to begin serving as the eighth president of Pace University in New York.

2017: In London, on Finchley Road, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of the “Zookeeper’s Wife.”

2017: Friends and family of Benjamin Levin, the son of David Levin celebrate his natal day.

2018: In Atlanta, MGM is scheduled to host a free screening of “Operation Finale,” a movie “based on the 1960 covert mission of Mossad agent Peter Malkin as he infiltrates Argentina and captures Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi officer who masterminded the transportation logistics that brought millions of innocent Jews to their deaths in concentration camps.”


2018: “The Ancient Law,” a film that tells the story of a rabbi’s son who gains fame as an actor in Vienna, is scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

2018: “The WOW festival with super star Jason Derulo” is scheduled to place “at Rishon Lezion”

2018: And of course, it would not be a true history, it we did not take a personal moment to wish Benjamin Levin the happiest of birthdays.

 

 

 

 

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

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August 2 
 
338 BCE:  A Macedonian army led by Philip II defeated the combined forces of Athens and Thebes in the Battle of Chaeronea, securing Macedonian hegemony in Greece and the Aegean. Phillip was the father of Alexander Great.  His victory paved the way for Alexander’s conquests which had a major impact on the Jewish people of which we are reminded each year when we celebrate Chanukah.

1100: King William Rufus, the second son of William the Conqueror who “managed to prevent in England the massacres of Jews that occurred in Rouen, and across France and the Rhineland, in the bloody frenzy the preceded the departure of the First Crusade in 1096” was fatally struck by an arrow which may have been a hunting accident or part of calculated plot to remove him from the throne.

1222: Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse and Marquis of Provence passed away. “He was so sympathetic to the Jews that Pope Innocent III caused him to take an oath ‘that he would deprive the Jews of their offices and that he would never appoint any Jews or in any way favor them.’”

1389: Catholic Archdeacon and Jew hater Ferran Martinez is denied the right to act as a judge or to preach after refusing to follow an order of the Pope.  The Archbishop of Seville issued this strong punishment because Martinez refused to issue permits for Jews to build new synagogues, in accordance with the wishes of the Pope.

1492: According to some sources this day marked the beginning of the final expulsion of the Jews from Spain.  According to tradition it was Tisha B’Av on the Jewish calendar.

1549: Birthdate of Russian nobleman Mikołaj Krzysztof Radziwiłł author of Podróż do Ziemi Świętej, Syrii i Egiptu 1582-1584 (The trip to Holy Land, Syria and Egypt 1582-1584) provided a first-hand description of life in Palestine at the end of the 16th century.

1579(10th of Av): Joseph Nasi, duke of Naxos, passed away.


1589: King Henry III of France passed away. Before he was King of France, as Henry of Anjou he was elected as the first King of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.  He owed this victory to a Jew named Solomon Ashkenazi who was the principle adviser to the Emperor of the Ottoman Empire.

1675: The "Great Synagogue" was inaugurated in Amsterdam on Rapenburgerstraat. This was a Sephardic synagogue, home to K.K. Talmud Torah, which was a union of Congregations Neveh Shalom founded in 1608 and Bet Yisrael found in 1618.

1696:  Birthdate of Mahmud I, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. In 1739, Mahmud signed the Treaty of Belgrade that gave citizenship rights to the Ottoman Jews.  Austrian Jews were so impressed with the grant of rights that many of them applied for citizenship in Mahmud’s empire.

1784(11th of Av): Rabbi Simcha ben Abraham Calimani poet and linguist, passed away at Venice.

1790: The United States conducts its first census.  Out of a population of four million people, there are approximately 2,000 Jews.

1792: In Charleston, Mrs. Nathan married Abraham Jones, “the clerk to the synagogue.”

1795: Birthdate of Austrian Talmudist Aaron Kornfeld who was a native of Bohemia.

1799(1st of Av, 5559): Rosh Chodesh Av

1799(1st of Av, 5559): Golem Levi Marx, the infant son of Samuel and Eva Marx Levi passed away today in Trier.

1812: Hannah Moses and Abraham Braham were married today at the Great Synagogue after which they had five children – Esther, Eliza Rosa, William and Edwain.

1819: An anti-Semitic riot breaks out in the city of Wurzberg.  It will be the first in string of such violent actions to plague the Jews of Germany. The violence which lasted until October of 1891 was known as The Hep-Hep Riots taken from the rallying cry of the anti-Semitic rioters.  Nobody seems to know the true origin of the term.

1820: Today,  Stanisław Staszic, a Catholic priest and government minister, “attempted to subject Polish Jewish books to the severest scrutiny” so that “no Jewish book was to be printed or sold in the land or imported from aboard through sale or subscription without the express permission of the Commission of Religion Denominations and Public Enlightenment.”

1830: As turmoil gripped France, Charles X also known as Charles Phillippe during whose reign Judaism was placed on “an equal footing with other faiths” and the rabbinical college in Metz founded in 1829 “as recognized as state institution and granted a state subsidy” abdicated today.

1846(10th of Av, 5606): Tish’a B’Av observed,

1851: At Hyde Park Square, Kensington, UK, Joseph Mayer Montefiore and Henriietta Francisca Montefiore, the daughter of Salomon and Fanny Sichel, gave birth to Alice Julia Lucas

1853: Samuel Joseph Rubenstein, a Jew who arrived from Russian in 1829, was naturalized as a citizen of the United Kingdom today,

1858: In Mannheim, Germany, Lazarus Morgenthau, the son of Moses and Brunhilda Morgenthau, and Seline Babette Morgenthau gave birth to Julius Caesar Morgenthau

1865: Birthdate of Antoine Targe, the native of Saint-Chamond whose investigation in 1903 during the Dreyfus Affair, “established the fact that several forgeries still existed in the War Ministry's offices, that some documents had clearly been altered, that there were erroneous commentaries, that exonerating documents had been hidden, and that others were "receptacles for every sort of gossip from dismissed servants and malicious concierges." He would ensure that these documents were available to the Court of Cassation when it considered the fate of Dreyfus.

1866: The Aroostook Pioneer is quoted as saying that a religious movement is forming in Maine with the intent of immigrating to Jerusalem. A ship is being fitted out at Jonesport which should be ready to sail by the middle of next month. Land has already been purchased near Jaffa where the immigrants plan on making their home. [Ed. Note - the article does not mention if any Jews were involved or note.]

1869: George Elliot (Mary Ann Evans), an unlikely “champion of Jews and Zionism” and author of Daniel Deronda, began writing her masterpiece, Middlemarch, today.


1870: The report that police had apprehended the person responsible for the murder of prominent New York businessman Benjamin Nathan has turned out to be nothing more than an unfounded rumor.  The police are continuing to vigorously investigate the murder but will not take any action against any

individual until they are absolutely sure of their facts.

1873: “Life in Bohemia” published today provides an anecdotal account of conditions in this part of central Europe.  The section “The Jews” described the contempt that many of the Bohemians have for the Jews, which the author compares to that which Brian de Bois Guilbert had for Isaac of York and the other Jews of England in the novel Ivanhoe. Conditions are not better for the Jews of the newly created nation of Romania where Jews have been forbidden to take part in the newest commercial ventures.

1878: Mrs. Josephine Lewinski, the wife Phillip Lewinski, a member of the Lowery gang of counterfeiters applied for alimony and legal fees as part of the divorce proceedings she has brought against her notorious husband.

1878(3rd of Av: Shiye Mordecai Lifshits passed away

1879: In Kensington, UK Leopold (Lippmann) Seligmann, the son of David and Fanny Seligman and Julia Levi gave birth to Edward Seligman

1879: “Caring For The Sick Poor” published today traced the history of medical facilities in New York including the founding of Mount Sinai Hospital by the Jews in 1852.

1879: In New York, Detectives Fogarty and Handy arrested a Jew named Louis Pollard because he had some shoes in his possession that matched the description of shoes stolen last September.  Pollard first claimed that he had bought the shoes at an auction but later said he got the shoes from a woman named Lena Bezona. She was arrested and Pollard was released.

1879: The Medal of Honor was issued to David Orbansky for “his gallantry in action” at the Battle of Shiloh.

1882(17th of Av, 5642): Austrian born author David Podiebrad who specialized in the history of the Jews of Prague passed away today.

1883: Troops were called out to disperse rioters who attacked the Jews living in Ekaterinoslav, Russia.

1884: Twenty three year old Solomon Rintel, a Hungarian born fresco painter living in New York was seen alive for the last time as he retired to his room at boarding house on 6th Street.

1885: Birthdate of Oskar Blumenthal who in 1941 was transported from Prague to Terezin and from there to Riga in 1942 where he was murdered.

1886(1st of Av, 5646): Rosh Chodesh Av

1887: Birthdate of Nathan David Perlman, the native or Prusice, Poland who came to the United States in 1891 and after having graduated NYU Law School and passed the bar in 1909, pursued a political career that led to him being elected to the House of Representatives as a Republican in 1920.


1887: In Jerusalem journalist Israel Dov Frumkin and his first wife Bielke Frumknn gave birth to Gad Frumkin

1887: Birthdate of Aaron Gedalia Kaletzki, who gained fame as Harry “Fuzzy” Kallet, the All-American End at the University of Syracuse and husband of Kathryn Clifford with whom he “had two sons, Clifford and Richard” who spent 55 years working as “a practicing physician in Syracuse New York.

1888: Poor youngsters and their mothers will have the chance to enjoy a free excursion today sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children

1890: “The Jewish Persecutions” published today described the Marquis of Salisbury, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom speech in the House Of Lords in which he assured those present “that there were no grounds for dreading a wholesale invasion of Great Britain of pauper Jews from Russia.”

1890: It was reported today that New York Congressman Charles S. Baker has expressed his concern for the fate of Russian Jews by asking the Foreign Affairs Committee to report favorably on a resolution calling on the President to intervene on their behalf.

1890: The government in Berlin has sent orders to the frontier customs posts to watch for the threatened migration of Jews from Russia in response to the new edicts promulgated by the Czar’s government.

1891: It was reported today that Hartog Veld who has been serving as a Rabbi in Troy, NY is moving to Montreal to serve another congregation in Canada.

1891: “The Jews In Russia” published today challenges the contention that Russia’s treatment of its Jews has nothing to do with religion and his contention that somehow 4 million Jews are controlling the economic lives of sixty million Russians through their practice of usury.

1891: “Jews Who Plow” published today provides Arnold White’s affirmative response to the question “Has a Jew ever been see to plow” in which he includes descriptions of active Jewish agricultural settlements.

1892: In London, Ontario, “Benjamin Warner, a cobbler from Krasnosielc, Poland (then located in the "Russian" part of Poland known as Congress Kingdom), and his wife, the former Pearl Leah Eichelbaum” gave birth to Jacob Warner, who gained fame as Jack L. Warn who, along with his four brothers founded Warner Brothers, which became a giant in the film industry. Among other claims to fame Warner Brothers produced "The Jazz Singer," the first "talking" motion picture. Some of his stars included Bette Davis, James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart. Warner was known for his frugality and was not necessarily that well liked. At one point his son and namesake said of his dad, "At times he gloried in being a no-good sonofabitch. If his brothers hadn't hired him, he'd have been out of work."

1892: “Wild Anarchist Talk” published today described a meeting attended by “300 wild-eyed, unshaven, unclean and foul-mouthed men and about a score of hard-featured cigarette-smoking young women” that was addressed by Emma Goldman who, speaking in German praised the man who had attempted to assassinate Henry Clay Frick.

1892: “This Fellow Praised Berkmann” published today described a meeting of anarchist that met in a Newark, NJ neighborhood “populated almost entirely by Russian Jews…and the lower class of Germans.” (This was one of several meetings held to cheer Alexander Bermkimann, the Jewish anarchist who had attempted to assassinate Henry Clay Frick, the business leader whose exploitative behavior led to the infamous Homestead Steel Strike)

1894: The prosecution completed presenting its case against Jeremiah S. Levy, the Jewish policeman charged with having accepted a bribe from Charles Krumm, “the Chrystie Street concert hall keeper for permitting him to” operate his business “without a license.”

1895: “The Children And The Streets” published today described the visit of Colonel Waring to the Hebrew Institute where he told the immigrant children about the importance of their work in keeping cleaning the streets.

1896: Colonel Eugene H. Levy and his bride Marie have gone to Old Point Comfort for their honeymoon. Levy is a journalist who served with the Confederates during the Civil War.  His wife is a former school teacher who converted to Judaism before the wedding.

1896: It was reported today that Morris Lerner and Levi Milrod have retained Stiefel and Lauer to sue the owners of the SS Herman, the German steamship on which their sons Joseph Lerner and David Milrod who died as a result of their mistreatment while sailing to the United States

1897: Birthdate of Karl Otto Koch, the commander of the concentration camps at Buchenwald and Majdanek who was executed by the Nazis in 1945.

1899: “Boers Remain Intolerant” published today described the Volksraad’s decision to reject President Krueger’s proposal to allow Jews and Catholics to have the franchise. (These are the progenitors of the people who created Apartheid in South Africa)

1902: At a mass meeting in Bradford, PA, forty members formed a Rishon L’Zion a new Zionist society

1903: Redcliffe Nathan Salaman, the son of Myer and Sarah Salaman and his wife Nina Ruth Salaman gave birth to Myer Head Salaman.

1903: Opening of the Bank Leumi’s first branch in Turkish Jaffa.

1906: Birthdate of Chicago native Leo, Arnstein, a graduate of the University of Chicago and partner of Arnstein and Lehr who was admitted to the Illinois Bar in 1928 and served as a director of the Chicago Bar Association for eight years.


1906: Birthdate of Atlantic City native Edwin Harvey Blum the screenwriter whose work includes “Stalag 17.”

1909(15th of Av, 5669): Two weeks before his 78thbirthday Sir Henry Aaron Isaacs “English businessman and politician” who served as Lord Mayor of London in 1889, passed away today.

1908(5th of 5668): Forty-six year old Benjamin Kohlman passed away today after which he was burined at the Springhill Avenue Temple Cemetery in Mobile, Alabama.

1911: In Great Britain, Alderman Henry Hart completes his jubilee of service on the Canterbury Council.

1912: The Jewish Socialist Federation of America whose purposes included the organization of the Jewish Organization of the Jewish Working Class” was officially formed today with offices in New York City.

1912: The list of the trustees of the newly incorporated Young Men’s Hebrew Association of Camden, NJ published in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer included Benjamin Natal, Joseph F. Kantor, Max Goldich, Philip M. Pinksy, Bertrand Schneeberg, Arnold Weiss, Samuel Heine, Jacob Furer and Israel Heine.

1913: SOCIALISTS CAPTURE FIRE PROTEST RALLY; Rose Schneiderman Turns a Fire Prevention Meeting to Their Purposes published today While a number of well-known men, including Amos R. Pinchot, William Jay Schieffelin, Henry Moscowitz, and the Rev. Percy Stickney Grant, were listed as patrons and possible speakers at a fire-prevention mass meeting held at the north end of Union Square yesterday at noon, they were conspicuously absent from the speakers' platform when the meeting was called to order.

1913: It was reported today that Rabbi Isidor Koplowitz has resigned as the rabbi of Tifereth Israel in Des Moines, IA.

1913: It was reported today that “The World’s Congress of Religious meeting in Paris has protested against the Blood charge against Jews in and the Beilis case in particular.”

1913: Noble prize winning physicist Max Born married Martha E., née Ehrenberg. She had Jewish ancestors on her father’s side but was raised as a Lutheran.  This may help explain why born converted to that sect of Christianity in 1914.

1914: In a move that would help push the Ottoman Empire to became a partner with the Central Powers, with all that that would mean for the future of Eretz Israel (among other places) the British seized two modern battleships that were being built in English shipyards for the Turkish navy

1914: In St. Petersburg, the Twelfth International Ophthalmological Congress which Jewish physicians were promised they could attend without any of the usual restrictions on the “length of sojourn” was scheduled to come to an end today

1914: In WW I, German troops began the bombardment of Kalisz, a Polish city in the Russian Empire which would result in “deliberate destruction” of “150 Jewish homes” the death of thirty three Jews in the center of the city.”

1915: “Jewish Deputy N.M. Friedman” began his speech in the Duma today by saying that “In spite of the oppressed condition, in spite of the status of outlawry, the Jews nevertheless managed to rise to the exalted mood of the civil populate and in the course of the last year to participate in the war in a noteworthy manner.

1915: In Methil, Scotland, Janet Gear and Porteous Gear, “a coal miner” gave birth to William Gear, one of the Monuments Men.

1915: “A call was sent out today for a conference of representatives of Jewish societies, congregations, trades unions, lodges and clubs for the purposed of start a campaign for additional funds to aid Jewish war sufferers in Europe.”

1916(3rd of Av, 5676): Seventy-year old historian Martin Phillipson who taught at the University of Brussels because of anti-Semitism in his native Germany and founded the “Society for the Advancement of Jewish Studies” passed away in Berlin.

 

1916: Twenty five of the leading producers of motion pictures including Jesse Lasky met at the Hotel Claridge today “to approve the articles of incorporation” for the newly formed Associated Motion Picture Advertisers.

1916: Colonel Harry Cutler of Providence, Rhodes Island and the Chairman of the Conference Committee of Jewish Organizations who has just returned from Chicago “issued a statement” today reporting that “substantial progress” has been made in reconciling the differences that will make it possible to convene an American Jewish Congress.”

1917: Birthdate of Brigadier General Felix Sparks who as a Lt. Col. “led the 3rd Battalion of the 157th Infantry Regiment of the 45th Infantry Division of the United States Army, the first Allied force to enter Dachau concentration camp and liberate its prisoners.”

1917: As of now there are approximately five hundred American Jews in Palestine and an additional 150 Americans in Turkey, most of whom are college teachers or university professors.

1918: Birthdate of Irving Harold Franklin, the native of Brockton, MA, who is credited with creating the modern glove worn by major league baseball players when they are at bat. (As reported by Douglas Martin)

1918: It was reported today that in London, Mrs. Myer Spielman has been appointed president of the Union of Jewish, succeeding the late Mrs. Nathaniel Louis Cohen who had held the job since the founding of the Union.

1918: It was reported today that “strong efforts are being made to organize the Jewish communities in Batavia and Java, in the Dutch East Indies because the Jewish populations have increased to the size where a viable communal life is possible and necessary.

1918: During a debate in the House of Lords, “the subject of Sir Edgar Speyer’s membership on the Privy Council Sir was brought up by Lord Lincolnshire” who condemned his “brutal and insolent German manner.”  [Editor’s Note – Considering what would happen in 30 years, there it is ironic to hear the Jewish Speyer being condemned for being a German.]

1919: Birthdate of Nehmiah Persoff, the Jerusalem native who became famous as an American actor appearing in numerous films and television series.

1919(6th of Av, 5679): Twenty-eight year old Hungarian communist Tibor Szamuely was killed as during the unsuccessful fight to establish the Hungarian Soviet Republic.

1920: Birthdate of Eliyahu Moyal, MK who served as a community leader in his native Sale, Morocco before making Aliyah in 1945.

1922: Birthdate of Eugene Hirsch Kummel,chairman and chief executive of one of the world’s largest advertising agencies, McCann Erickson Worldwide. “Under Mr. Kummel’s leadership, McCann Erickson created memorable television commercials like Coca-Cola’s ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing’ campaign in the 1970s and, several years later, the Miller Lite campaign, ‘Everything you always wanted in a beer, and less,’ with personalities like George Steinbrenner and Billy Martin arguing, ‘Tastes great, Less filling.’”

1922(8th of Av, 5682): Erev Tish'a B'Av

1922(8th of Av, 5682):Emil Ganz, a businessman and three-time mayor of Phoenix, Arizona., passed away.  The son of German Jews, he was a self-professed atheist.

1923:  After falling ill, Warren Harding the 29th President of the United States passes away.  During his brief tenure, Harding’s record regarding Jews and Jewish issues was mixed.  He signed an immigration bill that was based on national origin quotas which put greatly limited Jewish immigration to the United States.  On the other hand, he appointed famous Chicago advertising man Albert Lasker as Chairman of the U.S. Shipping Board.  Under his tenure, the U.S. Merchant Marine was reorganized and improved.  In 1922, Harding signed a congressional Joint Resolution “favoring the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people.”

1923 (20 Av, 5683): Birthdate of Shimon Peres.



1924: A group of 12 settlers of Ashkenazi origin who received a plot of land from Yehoshua Hankin found Magdiel which would merge with Ramatayim, Hadar and Ramat Hadar in 1964 to form Hod HaSharon.

1924: The first issue of the Saturday Review of Literature appeared. This famous literary publication was formed by Amy Lovemean and three colleagues who had worked together on The New York Evening Post. Loveman was listed as an associate editor. She remained at the Saturday Review for three decades, becoming the magazine's poetry editor in 1950. In the first two decades alone, she wrote close to 800 items for the Review. These included editorials, reviews, and answers to readers' questions. Born in 1881, Amy Loveman shaped the literary choices of generations of readers through her work with two important institutions: The Saturday Review and the Book-of-the-Month Club. Educated at Barnard College, where she earned a B.A. in 1901, Loveman's first literary work was as an assistant to an uncle who was revising The New International Encyclopedia. From that job, she moved to the New York Evening Post, where she became a book reviewer and then associate editor of the newspaper's literary review. In addition to her work at the Saturday Review, Loveman played an important role in the Book-of-the-Month Club, where she joined the reading committee soon after its founding in 1926. In 1939, she became head of the Club's editorial department, a job she balanced with her ongoing work at the Review. In this role, she helped to select books for the Club as well as writing frequent reviews herself. In 1951, she joined the Club's editorial board. Loveman's compelling writing style and devotion to literature were recognized by several awards. In 1946, she received both the Columbia University Medal for Excellence and the Constance Lindsay Skinner Achievement Award of the Women's National Book Association. Loveman died in 1955.

1926: The American Jewish Congress cabled a message of condolence to Mrs. Israel Zangwill over the death of her husband.  The cablegram was signed by Carl Sherman, Acting Chairman and Bernard G. Richards, Executive Secretary.  Dr. Stephen Wise, the President of the AJC is England and is expected to represent the organization at the funeral.

1926: Birthdate of Betsy Bloomingdale of department store fame.  Her husband was part of President Regan’s kitchen cabinet and she was a close friend of Nancy.

1926: Leipzig, Yosef and Regina Wahrman gave birth to Rabbi Shlomo Wahrman, an eyewitness to Kristallnacht who escaped to the United States with his family in 1939 and eventually became Rosh HaYshiva of the Hebrew Academy of Nassau County and prolific author writing about Torah and Judaica. 


1926: Harry Einstein and his wife gave birth to journalist Charles Einstein the author of  The Bloody Spur who was the older half-brother of Albert Brooks and Jacob Einstein

1927: Birthdate of James Milton Young, known simply as “Jimmy” to several generations of congregants at Adas Israel where he served  as “caretaker and chief custodian” for 56 years.  Rabbis and cantors may come and go, but Jimmy was a rock of reliability who always had a kind word for the kids who were forced to hang around on Sundays when their parents were going to faculty meetings.

1927: “Rhenish Girls and Rhenish Wine” a silent film written by Walter Reisch was released in Germany today.

1929(25th of Tammuz, 5689): Seventy-one year old George W. Seligman, the son of the late Joseph Seligman who was one of the founders of the Seligman banking house, passed away today.

1931: Einstein urges all scientists to refuse military work.

1932: “Lillian Copeland set new world and Olympic records in discus, with a throw of 133 feet, 1 5/8 inches, winning a gold medal.


1932: Birthdate of composer Marvin David Levy the native of Passaic, NJ who overcame prison to restart his career.


1933: In Vilna,Ministry of Education announces that the Yiddish secondary school and the Hebrew gymnasium have been granted equality with the governmental high schools, and will therefore have the right to issue university admission certificates to their students.

1933. The Ministry of Justice announces that Jewish students engaged in the study of law or economics will not be permitted to take the final examinations in Prussia, if they intend to become lawyers or university teachers.

1933: In Manhattan, Lillian (Shapiro) Poses one of “the first women to graduate from NYU Law School” who also “worked for several New Deal Agencies” and Jack I. Poses, “founder and president of the fragrance manufacturer Parfums D’Orsay, a founder of Brandeis University and a vice chairman of the New York City Board of Higher Education gave birth to Barbara Joan Poses who after marrying Dr. Ernest Kafka became known as Barbara Kafka, the award winning “food columnist and cookbook author.” (As reported by Sam Roberts and Matt Schudel)


 



1933: In a public address to foreign diplomats and journalists Dr. Anzesoria, Bolivian minister to Germany, indicates that his Government is prepared to open its doors to German emigrants, provided the German Government is ready to negotiate the transfer.

1933: Der Angriff, a newspaper owned by Dr. Paul Josef Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda and Enlightenment carries a story that Jews are organizing themselves into military units to "attack Germany at the first opportunity."

1933 The Breslauer Judengemeindeblatt is closed down by the Nazi state president "in the interest of public security."

1934: Eight-six year old Paul von Hindenburg, the President of Germany passed away. Hindenburg’s death paved the way for Hitler, who was the Chancellor to consolidate power and rule as the Fuhrer.  When it became obvious that Germany had lost the World War in 1918 Hindenburg adroitly shifted the responsibility from the General Staff to the civilians who would become the leaders of the Weimer Republic.  In this way he helped to create the myth that Germany had not been defeated but had been stabbed in the back by traitors at home including the Jews.  This lie help to pave the way for the rise of the Nazis.

1935: “Made Love” a film directed by Karl Fruend, starring Peter Loree, with music by Dimitri Tiomkin was released in the United Kingdom today.

1935: Two months after opening in London, “The 39 Steps” a mystery produced by Michael Balcon, co-starring Lucie Mannheim and with music by Louis Levy was released in the United States today.

1936: In “King Herod Finds a Faintly Sympathetic Biographer” published today, Alfred Kazin provided a review of Herod: A Biography by Jacob S. Minkin.


1936: “Charging that Harold C. Keyes, a former Secret Service operative and at present a private detective of New York City had sought employment with the German Government with the idea of aligning Christian Americans against Jews, particularly in New York, Representative Samuel Dickstein of New York today made public a letter address to Secretary of State Edward J. Flynn requesting that the license of the detective be revoked.”

1937: In Geneva, “the Mandates Commission of the League of Nations decided today to base its examination of the Palestine problem not on the British partition proposal but on the assumption underlying it – that the mandate is unworkable.”

1938: In Berlin, the Nazi issued a new decree announcing the expiration of Jewish Medical Doctor’s licenses on September 30.

1938(5th of Av, 5698):Yakov Mikhaylovich Yurovsky, an old line Bolshevik best known as the man who organized the execution of Czar Nicholas II passed away today.

1939: Eugene Wigner introduced Leó Szilárd to Albert Einstein; a meeting which furthered the cause of getting America to develop the Atomic Bomb ahead of the Axis.

1939: Albert Einstein signed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt urging creation of an atomic weapons research program. Einstein’s support was critical to getting Roosevelt’s support for what would become "The Manhattan Project." (What a difference eight years can make.)

1939: In Manhattan, Phillip Barber, the director of the New York unit of the Federal Theatre Project and script writer Doris Frankel gave birth to Benjamin R. Barber, the founder and president of the Global Parliament Mayors Project, Walt Whitman Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University and author whose most famous work was Jihad vs. McWorld.


1941(9th of Av, 5701): Parashat Devarim, Shabbat Chazon, Erev Tish’a B’Av

1941: The Jews were ordered expelled from Hungarian Ruthenia.

1941(9th of Av, 5701): Over 200 Jews were shot in Kovno on Shabbat.

1941: The board of the Union of Jewish Communities “achieved the cancellation of the order that Jews wear the yellow badge and other measures, including the creation of ghettos in the cities and mobilizing women to join men in forced labor.” (Jewish Virtual Library)

1942: Twelve days after the Nazis began transporting Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka, “the first part of the Ringelblum Archive” was hidden tonight.

1942: After twelve days, approximately 75,000 Jews had been deported to the death camp at Treblinka. 

1942: A large group of Jews who were trapped under Spanish and German rule in Morocco sent an eloquent appeal for help to the AJDC in New York. "Gentlemen, please excuse our daring attitude in addressing this pathetical letter to you, in our distressful hour; but it is written in the Talmud, 'when trouble comes upon Israel like a rushing stream, look for someone to help you.'." 

1943: Harpers announced that Geoffrey Bles, Ltd will release the English edition of Bella Fromm’s Blood and Banquets: A Berlin Social Diary which was published last year in the United States.

1943: The last major deportation from the Bendzin Ghetto continued for a second day.

1943(2ndof Av, 5703): Sixty-six year old Viennese born actress died at Theresienstadt today. 1943: Led by a small group of prisoners using primitive weapons and pistols, inmates at Treblinka attacked the guards and burned down the barracks. Between 300 and 500 prisoners escaped although most of them were either captured or turned over by Polish peasants. Though the revolt did not stop all activities, the German government decided to liquidate the camp, which it did in October. [Samuel Willenberg and Kalman Taigman, 87-year-old Israelis, are devoting their final years to trying to preserve the memory of those slaughtered at the camp.]

1943: Samuel Willenberg, “a 20-year old Polish Jew from Warsaw was one of the prisoners who” today “stole weapons, set fire to the Treblinka death camp and fled into the surrounding woods.”


1943: Birthdate of English author Rose Treman, the “former Chancellor of the University of Anglia” whose The Gustav Sonata was her first novel “on a Jewish theme” and won both “Hadassah Magazine’s Harold U. Ribalow Prize for Jewish fiction” and “the 2017 National Jewish Book Award for fiction.”

1943: Birthdate of Uzi Landau, the native of Haifa who served with the IDF, graduated from the Technin and earned a PhD from MIT before entering the Knesset and holding several ministerial positions.

1943: “Young Ideas” a comedy directed by Jules Dassin was released in the United States today by MGM. (This entry may seem incongruous when compared to the ones just above.  It should give readers an idea of the difference between WW II in the United States and WW II in Europe, Asia and North Africa.

1944: A handful of Jewish survivors of the Kovno ghetto - including Rabbi Efrayim Oshri, author of Responsa from the Holocaust - emerged from hiding. Rabbi Oshri was one of several Rabbis who wrote answers to those with troubling ethical dilemmas growing out of life under the Nazis.  To some, such behavior might seem ludicrous when you consider the conditions.  To others, it is a tribute to the vitality of Judaism and even a form of resistance.

1944(13thof Av, 5704):Eleazer Silas Kadoorie, known as Sir Elly Kadoorie part of the Kadoorie family, a “tribe” of Jews who made their way from Baghdad, to Bombay to Shanghai passed away after having been freed from the Stanley Internment Camp in Hong Kong.

1944: Felix Nussbaum, the surrealist painter and his wife arrived at Auschwitz.

1945: Birthdate of Alan F. Segal the Ingeborg Rennert Professor of Jewish Studies at Barnard College and author of Life After Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion.

1945: Birthdate of U.S. Army Colonel Jack Howard Jacobs who earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions during the Viet Nam War.

1945: Commissioning of HMS Springer and S Class Submarined that would be sold to Israel in 1958 where it was recommissioned as the Tanin or Crocodile.

1945: Birthdate of Alan F. Segal, “a leading scholar known for his comparative studies of how religions view the afterlife.”

1945: The Potsdam Conference, the meeting of the leaders of the Big Three – U.S., U.K. and U.S.S.R. – comes to an end.  Among other things the leaders agreed to the complete denazification of Germany and the prosecution of war criminals.

1947: The Runnymede Park, Ocean Vigour and Empire Rival which were carrying the passengers forced off of the SS Exodus arrived at Port-de-Bouc near Marseilles where “the French Government said it would allow disembarkation…only if it was voluntary on the part of the passengers.”

1948: In New York City, Max Prager and Hilda Prager (née Friedfeld) gave birth radio talk show host Dennis Prager.


1948: “The Israeli Government proclaimed the areas of Jerusalem under Israeli control to be Israeli-occupied territory and appointed Bernard Joseph as Military Governor.

1949: Under a plan of the new Israeli government, part of the old city of Beersheba will be flooded as a 500-acre water reservoir for the projected new Negev city on the heights overlooking Beersheba. The reservoir would be formed by damming the Wadi Saba, rocky watercourse through which 10,000,000 cubic meters of rainwater sweep into the Mediterranean every winter.

1951: “Mr. Belvedere Rings the Bell” a comedy directed by Henry Koster and featuring Zero Mostel as “Emmett” was released in the United States by 20th Century Fox.

1951: “As Young As You Feel” a comedy written by Paddy Chayefsky and featuring Marilyn Monroe in one of her early screen appearances  was released in the United States today by 20th Century Fox.

1951: Birthdate of Andrew Gold, a musical wizard who played backup with Linda Ronstadt before embarking on career of his own that included recording hits like “Lonely Boy” and “Thank You for Being a Friend.” (As reported by Paul Vitello)

1951: Premiere of “As Young as You Feel,” a comedy written by Paddy Chayefsky.

1956: “Bigger than Life” an early cinematic treatment of drug addiction with a screenplay co-authored by Richard Maibaum,  co-starring Walter Matthau and with music by David Raskin was released in the United States today.

1951(29th of Tammuz, 5711):Eighty-two year old Heinrich Loewe a German born journalist, publicist, folklorist, linguist, philosopher, librarian and political figure passed away in Tel Aviv.

1956: “Bigger Than Life” co-starring Walter Matthau, with a screenplay co-authored by Richard Maibaum and music by David Raskin was released in the United States today.

1957:British oil interests were warned today that they might forfeit ownership of their refinery plants in Haifa if they suspended operations in Israel.

1957(5thof Av, 5717): Sixty-six year old Lithuanian born, Brazilian artist Lasar Segal passed away today in São Paulo.




1958: “Badman’s Country” a western film with music by Irving Getz was released in the United States today.

1960: In California, Jane and Gerald Finerman gave birth to Oscar winning movie producer Wendy Finerman.

1960(9thof Av, 5720): Tish’a B’Av

1960: “Young Jesse James” yet another film about the famous outlaw with music by Irving Getz was released today in the United States.

1964: With encouragement from Rudolf Serkin and Alexander Schneider, the second violinist of the Budapest String Quartet, “the new Guarneri Quartet” with Arnold Steinhardt as 1st Violin was launched today “with a concert at Marlboro, VT.

1965(4thof Av, 5725): Seventy-seven year old František Langer a physician who was a general in the Czech Army during WW II who had gained fame as an author and who was the older brother Hebrew author Jiří Langer passed away today.


1967: Birthdate of professional tennis star Aaron Krickstein

1970: Birthdate of Colorado native and PGA tour member Jonathan Andrew Kaye

1971: In Brighton, UK, Harry Lawrence and Sylvia Greybourne, both of whom were computer consultants gave birth to Ruth Elke Lawrnece who gained fame as Ruth Elke Lawrence-Naimark, “the child prodigy in mathematics” who is a “British mathematician and an Associate Professor of mathematics at the Einstein Institute of Mathematics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a researcher in knot theory and algebraic topology.”


1972(22ndof Av, 5732): Sixty-year old author Paul Goodman



1972: Catcher Bob Yeager made his major league debut with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

1973: With the “ancient observation” that “the deeds of a man are his tombstone,” Yitzhak Navon. the chairman of the Zionist General Council and Deputy Knesset Speaker, rounded off a eulogy today for Louis A. Pincus at his graveside at the end of the shiva period” in the presence of his son’s Allon and David and “a large contingent of top Zionist leaders” including “Knesset speaker Yisrael Yeshayahu.”

1976: Max Rayne, the grandson of “a Hebrew scholar and teacher” and the son of Phillip Rayne, a garment manufacturer from London’s East End who had had been knighted in 1969 was “made a life peer as Baron Rayne, of Prince's Meadow in the County of Greater London today.”

1978: “The Magic of Lassie” a musical about the famous collie written by Robert and Richard Sherman who along with Irwin Kostal were also responsible for the music was released in the United States today.

1979(9thof Av, 5739): Tish’a B’Av

1979: “Gilda Radner Live From New York” opens on Broadway.

1980:Egypt has asked for at least a temporary postponement of the talks with Israel and the United States on autonomy for the occupied areas to give the two countries time to respond to President Anwar el-Sadat's protest...

1980: Eighty-five year old Columbus, Ohio, native Donald Ogden Stewart the Academy Award winning screenwriter who during the 1930’s was Chairman of the Hollywood Ant-Nazi League “the first American anti-Nazi organization that was not overtly linked to American Jews” and that “served as the focal point of the film industry’s anti-Nazism from 1936 through 1939 passed away today.

1981: The funeral of playwright and three-time Academy Award Winner Paddy Chayefsky is scheduled to take place at Riverside Memorial Chapel in Manhattan.

1984: The House of Representatives passed legislation spearheaded by Rabbi Malcolm Stern that would separate the National Archives from the General Services Administration which had already been passed by the Senate and which had the support of the genealogy and historical communities who saw this as a way to protect this valuable research tool from unwarranted cuts by the Republican administration.

1985(15thof Av, 5745): Tu B’Av

1986(26th of Tammuz, 5746):  Roy Cohn passed away. Born in 1927, Cohn gained fame (or notoriety) as the counsel for the McCarthy Hearings. He portrayed himself as a rabid anti-Communist. Ironically, it was his high-jinx with David Schine that helped to lead to McCarthy’s downfall and his loss of power.


1988(19th of Av, 5748): Eighty-eight year old Robert Leon “Bob” Berman the catcher whose major league career consisted of playing two games for the Washington Senators in 1918 during which he was part of the battery with the great southpaw Walter Johnson passed away today.


1989: “Parenthood” a comedy produced by Brian Grazer, with a screenplay by Lowell Ganz, music by Rany Newman and co-starring Rick Moranis was released in the United States today by Universal Pictures. 

1990: Iraq invades Kuwait, eventually leading to conflict with coalition forces in the Gulf War.

1990(11th of Av, 5750): Lucy Goldschmidt Moses, a philanthropist, passed away today at the age of 103. (As reported by Joan Cook)


1991: Robert S. Strauss began serving as U.S. Ambassador to the now non-existent U.S.S.R.

1992: In East Brunswick, NJ, Barry Eisenberg, a college professor and his wife Amy “who worked as a clown at children’s parties gave birth to American actress Hallie Kate Eisenberg “best known for being ‘The Pepsi Girl.’”

1992(3rd of Av, 5752): French singer and songwriter Michel Berger died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 44.


1993(15th of Av, 5753): Tu B’Av observed for the first time during the Presidency of Bill Clinton.

1994(25th of Av, 5754): “Yoram Sakuri, 30, of Kiryat Netafim in Samaria, died of stab wounds suffered when a terrorist broke into his home on July 1st.” (Jewish Virtual Library)

1995: Norman Spector completed his services Canada’s Ambassador to Israel – a position some might have felt him uniquely qualified to hold since he was the first Canadian born Jew to hold the post.

1996: Eighty-four year old Michel Debre a member of prominent Jewish who converted to Catholicism who served as the first Prime Minister of the Fifth Republic in France passed away today.

1996: “Emma” a movie version of the 19th century novel starring Gwyneth Paltrow was released today.

1997: “Lady in the Dark,” a musical with music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ira Gershwin and book and direction by Moss Hart, is performed for the last time at the Royal National Theatre in London.

1998(10th of Av, 5758): Tish'a B'Av (The 9th of Av fell on Shabbat)

1998(10th of Av, 5758): Television puppeteer Shari Lewis passed away. Born Shari Hurwitz in 1933, Lewis is best remember for her creations – Hush Puppy, Charlie Horse, and the ever-popular Lamb chop.



1998: The New York Times featured a review of A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey From the Inner City to the Ivy League by Jewish author Ron Suskind

2005: The Jerusalem Post reported that an Israeli financial consortium announced that two Spanish companies were joining the group in preparing a bid for a massive desalinization project.  The need for new supplies of fresh water is critical to the growth of the Israeli economy and the survival of the Jewish state.

2005: Haaretz reported that Tunisia is the new hotspot for Israeli tourists.

2005(26th of Tammuz, 5765): Ninety-four year old Lou Bernstein (born Judah Leon Bernstein) the harmonica player turned photographer passed away today in Boca Raton, FL.



2006(8th of Av, 5766): Some 210 rockets and missiles were launched toward northern communities - the largest number since the beginning of the fighting. Dave Lalchuk, 52, of Kibbutz Sa'ar, was killed and 16 others were wounded, three moderately, in the attacks, as Jews begin to prepare for the observance of Tisha B’Av.

2006: On the same day that over 200 rockets were launched against Israel, Bella Freud “voiced an impassioned denunciation of Israel's "disproportionately violent aggression" in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon Conflict” during “an appearance on the BBC current affairs program Newsnight” today.

2007(18th of Av, 5767): Frank Rosenfelt, a top movie executive at studios including MGM passed away at the age of 85. One of his proudest moments was the acquisition of the movie rights for “Dr. Zhivago.”  One of his biggest disappointments was the failure of the 1976 film “Network” to win the Oscar for Best Picture. (As reported by Douglas Martin)


2008: In Cedar Rapids, at Temple Judah Triple Header Shabbat Morning Service

  1. Rosh Chodesh Av
  2. Completion of Bamidbar
  3. Observance of Raoul Wallenberg Day (actual date is August 4, 2008 by proclamation of the Governor of the State of Iowa

2008: “The Fly, an opera in two acts by Canadian composer Howard Shore was broadcast by Radio France's station France Musique today.”

2008 “Love, Loss and What I Wore” a play by Nora and Delia Ephron co-starring Linda Lavin was performed for the first time at the Bridgehampton Community House.

2009: Cantor Jacob Chomsky of Tifereth Israel sings the National Anthem as part of Jewish Community Day during a Columbus Clippers’ home game.

2009: The Los Angeles Times features books by Jewish authors and/or special interest to Jewish readers including Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector, the Brazilian-Jewish author, by Benjamin Moser

2009: Two Arab families were evicted from Jewish-owned homes in the Shimon HaTzaddik neighborhood of Jerusalem this morning. The evictions took place following a Supreme Court ruling in which the court found in favor of Jewish families who claimed ownership of homes in the area.

2009: The Times of London features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Judas by Susan Gubar.

 

2009(12th of Av, 5769): Seventy-five year old journalist and author Sidney Zion passed away. (As reported by Robert McFadden)


 

 

 

2009(12th of Av, 5769):Seventy-one year old Michael A. Wiener, broadcasting mogul and patron of the arts passed away.(As reported by Geraldine Fabrikant)


2010: “Ahead of Time,” a documentary about author, journalist and photographer Ruth Gerber is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2010:The “First Jewish Women's Music Festival” is scheduled to begin at Falls Village, CT.

2010:A huge explosion destroyed the home of a senior Hamas commander and injured 24, Palestinians reported today. Palestinians said the blast was caused by an Israeli airstrike, but this has been denied by the IDF.

2010:Palestinian militants fired five rockets into the Israeli port city of Eilat with one of them landing in nearby Jordanian city of Aqaba, flaring up tensions in the Middle East anew. Though there were no immediate reports of casualties from the beach resort of Eilat, five persons were injured; four of them seriously, when one of the rockets strayed off course and hit the Jordanian city of Aqaba.

2011: “Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness,” “a riveting portrait of the man who transformed Yiddish from a vernacular language into a literary one” and “The Hangman,” a fascinating and complex portrait of Shalom Nagar, a Yemeni Jew, who as a young man worked as prison guard and was the execution of Adolf Eichmann.

2011(2ndof Av, 5771): Einat Tavori, an Israeli traveling during a break from medical school in Hungary, passed away today after she fell off a cliff while hiking in the mountainous Parvati Valley region of northern India.

2011(2ndof Av, 5771): Ninety year old Nobel Prize winning immunologist Dr. Baruj Benacerraf, passed away. (As reported by Denise Gellene)


2011: The 2011 Security Briefing for Jewish Institutions is scheduled to take place at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue.  Scheduled presenters included local police commanders and senior FBI security personnel.

2011: The IDF spokesperson confirmed today that the air force attacked several targets in Gaza overnight, including a smuggling tunnel in the southern Strip and a terrorist center in the north.

2011: Today Israel's Supreme Court issued an unprecedented ruling ordering the state to dismantle the largest illegal settlement outpost in the West Bank by April 2012.

2011: A senior officer in the Israeli Navy said today that terrorists groups close to Israel are in possession of missiles capable of hitting all Israeli ports and offshore infrastructure such as oil rigs. Brigadier General Yaron Levi, the Navy's intelligence chief, spoke about the matter on today at a conference in Tel Aviv University that focused on the naval theater

2011: In “Shame on Me, and Your for Taking Pleasure in It,” Dwight Garner reviewed Humiliationby Wayne Koestenbaum.

2012: “The Moon is Jewish” is among the movies scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2012: “Fiddler on the Roof” with Cantor Joel Colman in the title role is scheduled to open in a production sponsored by Tulane University’s Summer Lyric Theatre.

 2012: Israel’s Counterterrorism Bureau warned Israeli citizens to leave Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula immediately. “We possess information that Gaza terror groups and others are planning attacks on Israeli tourists in the immediate future,” the government agency said in a statement released today.

2012: Swimmer Yakov Toumarkin provided Israeli sports with a moment of history in an otherwise disappointing day of setbacks at the London Olympics today. The 20-year-old recorded the best ever result for an Israeli swimmer at the Olympics by ending the 200- meter backstroke final in seventh place in a time of 1:57.62 minutes.


2013: “Dancing in Jaffa” is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2013: “The Bible in the Iberian World: Fundaments of a Religious Melting Pot” is scheduled to come to an at Leipzig, Germany

2013: “Fill the Void” is scheduled to open at theatres in Rochester, Richmond, Spokane and Madison, Wisconsin

2013: A revival of “Fiddler on the Roof” is scheduled to premiere tonight at the Starlighters Theatre in Anamosa, Iowa.

2013: President Obama has narrowed the field for Chairman of the Federal Reserve to a trio of Members of the Tribe – Lawrence Summers, Janet Yellin and Donald L. Kohn

2013: Bank Hapoalim chief economist Leo Leiderman has turned down the nomination for becoming the next Bank of Israel governor, Israel Radio reported this afternoon. In a major embarrassment for Israel, Leiderman's announcement makes him the second nominee to pull out within less than a week.

2014: The Washington Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to continue with its program of Coen Brothers films.

2014: The traditional minyan at Temple Judah is scheduled to honor the Righteous Gentiles on Raoul Wallenberg Shabbat while mourning the deaths of the IDF who have given their lives to prevent another Holocaust.

2014: St. Sgt. Maj. (res.) Omri (full name withheld for security reasons), from the Duvdevan Unit, who jumped on a fellow soldier after a grenade was thrown at the unit in Gaza today protecting him with his body.

2014: “After 16 days of a ground incursion inside the Gaza Strip, the IDF started moving troops out of urban areas to the border area today, amid military estimates that the mission to destroy the 31 known terror tunnels will be completed within 24 hours.” (As reported by Roi Kais)

2014: Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids is scheduled to host its first movie night with a showing of “Noah” preceded by Havdalah services.

2015: The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to “Family Day at the Museum” complete with a visit from the ice cream truck.

2015: Marisa Scheinfeld whose photographs are on display in “Exhibits from the Borscht Belt” is scheduled to deliver a talk at Yiddish Book Center’s Brechner Gallery.

2015: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Brush Back by Sara Paretsky.

2015: The JCC of Northern Virginia is scheduled to host a screening of “The Age of Love” this afternoon.

2015: The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to host a public memorial tour.

2015: “Richard Avedon: Family Affairs” is scheduled to close today at the National Museum of Jewish History.

2015(17thof Av, 5775): Three days after having been stabbed Yishai Schlissel during the Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade, “16 year old Shira Banki died of her wounds at the Hadassah Medical Center.”

2016: The Historic Sixth & I Synagogue is scheduled to host an “outdoor screening of ‘Back to the Future.’”

2016: The Historic Sixth & I Synagogue is scheduled to a discussion Purity, the fifth novel by Jonathan Franzen.

2017: German prosecutors said today that Oskar Groening “a 96-year-old former Auschwitz death camp guard who was convicted as an accessory to murder is fit to go to prison.”

2017: Today a 19 year old Palestinian stabbed a 47 year old Israeli “at a supermarket in Yavneh.”

2017(10thof Av, 5777): Eighty-seven year old economist and Kremlinologist Marshall I. Goldman, one of the first to predict the downfall of the Soviet Union passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)



2017: In Germany, “Festival Week, a long-time highlight of Yiddish Summer Weimar” is scheduled to begin today.

2017: In Milwaukee, WI, the Jewish Museum is scheduled to host “It Runs In The Family: Art and the Rosenblatts.”


2018: JW3 is scheduled to host the final screening of “Tracking Edith” in London.

2018: “From the East” and “Our New President,” a documentary about the election of Putin, are scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

2018: JW3 is scheduled the first and only London screening of “Indignation,” based on the Philip Roth novel this evening.

2018: “The Israeli Jazz Spotlight Festival, curated by Nadav Remez” is scheduled to open at the Cornelia Street Café.

2018: “The Interpreter,” a “film starring Academy Award-winning director Jiri Menzel and Peter Simonischek that  brings together an unusual duo: the son of Holocaust victims and the son of the SS officer responsible for their deaths” is scheduled to be shown at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.

 

 

 

This Day, August 3, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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August 3

8 C.E.: Roman Empire general Tiberius defeats Dalmatians on the river Bathinus. As the stepson of Augustus, Tiberius would become Caesar four years after this victory.  Tiberius did appoint Pontius Pilate as the procurator of Judea.  On the other hand, he did have the good sense to overrule Pilate when the Jews of Jerusalem complained that he had desecrated the city by bringing inscribed shields into the Jewish capital. Tiberius’ inconsistent treatment of the Jews was consistent with the moody behavior of the Roman ruler who would have much preferred to serve as a general.

435: Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II exiled the deposed Patriarch of Constantinople Nestorius, considered the originator of Nestorianism, to a monastery in Egypt.  Nestorianism was a form of Christianity that challenged the orthodoxy of its time and presented a political threat to the Roman Empire. Theodosius, like Constantine used the Christian religion as part of his political power base.  Therefore, it is not surprising to note that this is the same Theodosius II who issued Anti-Judaic laws in 438 that “forbade the Jews to accede to any public task,” made proselytism a capital crime and denied Jews the right to build new synagogues or “to embellish the old ones.”

1108: Coronation of Louis VI during whose reign the monarch gradually ceded control of the Jews and the revenue they represented from the King to the Church.

1399: Thanks to the efforts of an apostate named Pesach-Peter a large number of Jews in Prague are arrested and imprisoned.  Lipmann (Tab-Yomi) of Muhlhaussen, the German scholar versed in Torah, Talmud as well as the New Testament, which he had read in Latin was among the victims. 

1492: Columbus set sail for the New World. There is an entry in Columbus' diary noting the expulsion of Jews from Spain right before he set sail. He was accompanied by Luis de Torres who is considered to be the first Jew to arrive in the “New World.” 

1492: Jews depart Spain under orders of expulsion from the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella and Ferdinand.
1493: Property confiscated from Jews and Conversos was used to finance the construction of the monastery of Santo Tomás de Ávila, which was completed today

1599: During the reign of Sigismund III Vasa, the great synagogue in Grodno was destroyed by fire.

1603: Tamar Barocas and twenty five year old Fra Diogo a Assungao, a Franciscan friar who became attracted to Judaism were burnt at the stake by the Inquisition at Lisbon.

1766: Birthdate Rabbi Aron Chorin, the Hungarian born Rabbi who would become a center of controversy for his non-conformists views about Judaism and support for some of the views connected with the new-born Reform Movement.

1770: Birthdate of King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia, the reactionary monarch who would undo the reforms of the Napoleonic period and repudiate the Edict of 1812 that had elevated the civil status of the kingdom’s Jews.

1792(15thof Av, 5552): Tu B’Av

1797: The emperor of Bohemia ordered that Jews, who volunteered for army service, should be allowed to marry outside the restricted quota of marriage of Jews. 

1797: “The Jewish Law of Franz II” dated today was “a milestone on the road towards equal status for the Jews.”

1803: Birthdate of British architect Joseph Paxton who designed Mentmore Towers, the country home of Baron Mayer de Rothschild which “was the first of what was to become a virtual Rothschild enclave in the Vale of Aylesbury, as later, other members of the family built houses at Tring in Hertfordshire, Ascott, Aston Clinton, Waddesdon and Halton.”

1806: Joseph David Sinzheim completed answering the questions that had been laid before the Assembly of Notables to the satisfaction of the French government officials.

1822: Esther and Joseph Davis were married today at the Western Synagogue after which they had six children – Sarah, Hannah, Morris, Emilea, Elizabeth and Mary Ann.

1823: Birthdate of German painter Gustav Richter, the husband of Cornelle Meyerbeer and the son-in-law of composer Giacomo Meyerbeer.

1829: In the Cape Colony, Sir Anthony Oliphant and his wife Maria gave birth to Laurence Oliphant who  supported the building of a railway between Jaffa and Jerusalem, who starting in 1879 began working to “settle large number of Jews” especially those from Eastern Europe in Palestine and who himself lived for a time “in the Germany colony in Haifa.”

1830(14th of Av, 5590): Austrian Rabbi Joseph Moses Spiro, the son of Rabbi Abraham Moses whose works included Mesillah le-Elohenu passed away today at Kanitz, Moravia.

1833: One day after he passed away, 67 year old Godfrey Harris was buried at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery in London.

1836: In Rochester, NY, Alvah Strong and his wife gave birth to August Hopkins Strong, a Baptist minister and theologian whose Systematic Theology: The Doctrine of God “presented another explanation of the alleged inaccuracies in the Hebrew Bible” citing the use of idiom and metaphor by the author of the holy text which means that he was not part of those who believed in the concept of Biblical inerrancy which was so popular at the time.

1836(20thof Av, 5596): Fifty-six year old “Dutch Jurist” Carel Asser, the son of Moses Salomon Asser and husband of Rose Levin who worked for the full emancipation of the Jewish people despite the opposition of Daniel Cohen d'Azevedo, rabbi of the Portuguese, as well as by Jacob Moses b. Saul Löwenstamm, rabbi of the Ashkenazim, who were afraid that political emancipation would result in the disintegration of Judaism

1837: In Bavaria, Germany, Mendel Emanuel Suessenguth and Hannah Johanna Suessenguth gave birth to Lewis Seasongood, “the husband Emma Seasongood” with whom he had two daughters -- Alma Bettman and Clara Berolzheimer.”

1839(23rdof Av, 5599): Seventy-four year old German novelist Dorothea von Schlegel, the oldest daughter of Moses Mendelssohn, passed away today.

1842: Birthdate of Bertha Spiegelberg, the native of Borgholz, Germany who was the wife of Levi Spiegelberg and the mother of New York City native Eugene E. Sperry.

1851: Birthdate of Adolph Greenhut, the native of Bohemia, husband of Eva Greenhut, who came to the United States “around 1866, became a naturalized citizen in 1874” and served as Mayor Pensacola, FL from 1913 to 1915.

1853: Julius Landsberger married Pauline Leo the daughter of Rabbi Simon Leo with whom he had two children one of whom was Richard Landsberger, “the founder of a biological dentistry.”

1856: Birthdate of Alfred Deakin, 2nd Prime Minister of Australia.  In 1905, Deakin appointed Isaac Alfred Isaacs to the position of Attorney General, making him the first Jew to serve in that post. The following year, Deakin scored another “first” for the Jewish people when he named Isaacs as a Justice to the High Court of Australia, 

1857: Today’s “Foreign Correspondence” column reports that the second reading of the Jew Bill has passed by an immense majority.

1857: Lord John Russell’s call for a Select Committee to inquire as to how far a certain act of Parliament that dispensed with the use of the words in the oath which excluded Jews from the House would go was agreed to.

1857: Handbills were posted in Goldsboro ordering all Germans and Jews to leave Goldsboro, NC by August 4, 1857.

1860: Today, in Boston, Louis Goldenberg, a jeweler by trade, informed his neighbors that he was lonely and he was to visit his wife who had gone to the country. Louis Goldenberg aged 55, was a German Jew, born in Russia, who had lived in the United States for the last ten year and had been employed by Currier & Trott as a watch repairer for the last six years. For the last several months Mr. Goldenberg had been engaged in a series of swindles in which at least six prominent jewelers were victimized to the tune of $5,000 in losses..  Mr. Goldenberg’s “visit to his wife in the country” was actually his getaway.

1863: Louis, duc Decazes who while serving as Foreign Minister in 1875 “informed Henri Blowitz, the Bohemian Jew who was the Paris correspondent of The Times of a confidential dispatch from the French ambassador to Berlin, discussing German plans to attack France” which he asked Blowitz to publish as part of an effective plan to prevent the Germans from carrying out their plans married “Séverine-Rosalie von Löwenthal” today.

1865: Philadelphian Theodore Jacobs completed his services as the Assistant Surgeon of the 187th Regiment of the Union Army.

1870: The Toledo Blade reported that Bennett Scope has been hung after being convicted of murdering a Jewish peddler named Jacob Goodman.  Goodman had befriended his co-religionist Scope who had only recently arrived in this country, giving him money and employment. Although Scope protested his innocence to the end, the jury believed that the motive for the murder had been greed. Rabbi Mayer of Cleveland had unsuccessfully appealed to the governor of Ohio to spare his life.  Mayer was with Scope at the execution.

1864(1stof Av, 5624): Rosh Chodesh Av

1870: The Toledo (Ohio) Blade reported that Benenet Scop has been hung in Huron Count, Ohio after having been convicted of murder Jacob Goodman, a Jewish peddler for who he had been working.  The motive appeared to be robbery.

1871: Birthdate of Versailles native and graduate of the Sorbonne Felix Weill, who in 1901 began teaching French at CCNY where he served as “Chairman of the Romance Language Department from 1935 to 1939” and who served as Secretary of the Alliance Francaise.


1873: “Death of an Eminent Hebrew” published today memorialized the life of the late Sir David Salomons the Jewish banker who was leader in the fight for Jews to received full rights of citizenship.  It recounted his struggle which finally led to him serving as the Sheriff of London and sitting in the House of Commons. Described as an able and amiable man who was a generous benefactor to a variety of charities, readers were reminded that Prime Minister Gladstone had advised the Queen to “create him as a baronet,” a hereditary title that now passes to his nephew.

1873: It was reported today, that out of the approximately 320 religious “newspapers” listed in Rowell’s American Newspaper Directory, nine are Jewish as compared with the 47 published by the Methodists.

1876: Birthdate of Joseph W. Pincus, the Russian born agricultural expert who worked with Jewish farmers in the United States who was the author of “The Jewish Farmers’ Best Friend.”

1878: Solomon Goldsmith of San Francisco received a cable today from Louis Goldsmith of New York stating that Michael Reese, a successful Jewish businessman and civic benefactor had died suddenly while visiting the Bavarian town of Wallerstein.

1879: In keeping with generally accepted practice, a Jew named Adolph D. Pollack sold cigars and neckties to customers in White Plains, NY.  His action would lead to litigation challenging the violation of so-called “Blue Laws.”

1881: The body “of Samuel Alt, an aged Hebrew…was found in the water at the foot of East Seventy-sixth street… this morning” bearing marks that would later lead authorities to concluded he had been “robbed and murdered.”

1882: As the Tisza-Eszlar affair came to a climax, a Hungarian jury acquitted the Jewish defendants of murder charges touching off anti-Jewish riots in Budapest.

1883: In “Darlinghurst, New South Wales, Australia,” “Rebecca and George Judah Cohen” gave birth to Sefton Louis Cullen, a barrister and husband of Nancy Cullen who during WW I served with the Royal Fusiliers and the Yorkshire Light Infantry after which he returned to Sydney in 1919 and became “a shareholder of David Cohen and Company, Ltd. In 1935

1883: The anti-Semitic riots continued for another day at Ekaterinoslav, Russia.

1883: A woman and her two children burned to death in a cabin belonging to Ivan M. Lotowski at the Jewish Colony in Estillville, NJ.

1884: The body of Solomon Rintel, a 23 year old Hungarian Jew who worked as fresco painter, was found today in the room he was renting at 403 Sixth Street in New York.  It appears the Rinel took his own life.

1884: Birthdate of composer Louis Gruenberg.  Born near Brest Litovsk Poland, Gruenberg immigrated to the United States.  He was one of several Jewish composers, including George and Ira Gershwin, who incorporated African-American themes in their musical works.


1886: Lord Randolph Henry Spencer-Churchill, the father of Winston Churchill became his party’s leader in the House of Commons. Churchill was also the cousin of Colonel Charles Henry Churchill who while serving as British diplomat in the Middle East in the middle of the 19th century “declared his support for Jewish restoration of sovereignty over Palestine.”

1887: In Rugby, Warwickshire, “William Parker Brooke, a Rugby schoolmaster and Ruth Mary Brooke, née Cotterill” gave birth to poet Rupert Brooke whom Alexander Aciman chosen to characterize as his “favorite anti-Semite.”


1888: Four days after she had passed away “in her 82ndyear, Sarah Salomons (nee Hurwitz) the daughter of Hyman Hurwitz was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

1889:  In Ulster County, NY, a group of ruffians known as the “Yellowstone Cowboys,” armed with pistols and bowie knives forced their way into a boarding house owned by J. Epstein, Jewish innkeeper in Saugerties, chased out the guests and demanded to be fed dinner.  They departed after about an hour.

1890: The Young People’s Association of Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn required the use of two barges for their excursion today to Washington Park on the Hudson River.

1890: “Hebrew, Israelite and Jew” published today which relies on information first published in the Hebrew Journal described the origins of these three terms which today are used in the following manner: “Hebrew refers to race, Israelite refers to the nation, Jews to the religion.”

1890: “Expected Migration of Jews” published today described the impact of new regulations of the Czar’s government which “will tend to drive vast bodies…of Jews who are settled in the frontier provinces” from the country.  “The dread of wholesale transportation to Siberia for failure to observe the edicts will impel the flight westward of many thousands of Jews.”  Jewish leaders in Berlin, Hamburg, and Frankfort have communicated with Jewish leaders in London “for the purpose of preparing” to provide relief for their “distressed” co-religionist.

1890: “An Empire’s Young Chief” published today provides a description of the young Kaiser’s Germany including the fact “that a very large proportion of  Germany’s present authors are Jews and radicals which gives the contemptuous attitude of the dominant Berlin classes toward literature a decided political twist.”

1891: In Paris, a conference of French Jews approved the plans of Baron Hirsh “for the amelioration of the condition of the destitute” Jews which will require “the cooperation of the Jews in Europe and America” in organizing the emigration of the Jews from Russia.

1891(28th of Tammuz, 5651): Leopold Dukes, the Hungarian born student of Jewish literature who spent :20 years in England doing research that enable him “to completed the work of Leopold Zunz” the founder of what some call modern “Jewish Studies” or “Judaic Studies.”

1891: Birthdate of Nathan “Kid Dropper” Kaplan a petty gangster and labor racketeer in New York.

1893: In Warsaw, a Hebrew newspaper Ha’Tzfira printed a story describing “a festive dinner held in a Warsaw suburb” in honor of Rabbi Abraham Eliyahu Harkavi.(As reported by Vered Guttman)

1894(1st of Av, 5654): Rosh Chodesh Av

1894: The attorney for Jeremiah S. Levy the Jewish police officer accused of taking bribes began presenting testimony “in defense of his client” after the Judge denied his motion for acquittal on the grounds that the prosecution had failed to “prove its case.”

1894(1stof Av, 5654): Twenty-seven year old Adolph Hobart Henriques passed away today. He is the son of Solomon Nunes Henriques who passed away 20 years ago.

1895: “Sponging Houses” published today described the different literary treatment of these temporary quarters for English debtors including that found in Henrietta Temple a love story by the Earl of Beaconsfield, Benjamin Disraeli.

1895: Despite attempts to silence him Aaron Drucker spoke out at a meeting in the Church of the Sea and Land being held to convert Jews to Christianity declaring that such meetings should not be held because they were “an outrage to humanity and “if a man is born a Jew of true Jewish parents he is always a Jew and nothing change him!”

1895: Seventy-three year old Maria Moses, the daughter of Emanuel and Ann Moses, was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

1895: Third base man Samuel Earl “Ike” Samuels makes his major league debut with the St. Louis Browns where he “went 1-for-2 in a 5-0 loss to Chicago.

1896: In Chicago, Ukrainian Jewish immigrants Isidore and Rose (Rabinoff) Horowitz gave birth to Ralph Horwitz who gained fame as Harvard All-American football player Ralph Horween who went to play football in the NFL—mirroring the career of his brother Arnold who also played for Harvard the Cardinals.


1896: Birthdate of New York City and fur merchant Abraham Isador Weinblatt, the son of “a cigar maker who had immigrated from Russia in 1888 and “traveling salesman for the firm of Kruskal and Kruskal” who with Milton Simon Mandel formed Mandel and Weinblatt.

1897: According to today’s Times of London, Solomon Schechter of Cambridge University said [The Cairo Genizah] “is a battle field of books, and the literary productions of many centuries had their share in the battle.... Some of the belligerents have perished outright, and are literally ground to dust in the terrible struggle for space, whilst others...are squeezed into big, unshapely lumps."


1898: During the Spanish-American War, the USS Scorpion, under the command of Adolph Marix, the first Jewish graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, ended her blockade duties which had begun after the Battle at Manzanillo Harbor, and then headed back to Guantanamo Bay.

1898: The funeral for fifty three year old Elias Jacobs who had been realtor and “engage in the clothing business for 21 years” is scheduled to take place at nine o’clock this morning at his home on East 80th Street.

1899: The funeral for 55 year old Samuel Firuski who has worked in the auctioneering and storage business in Brooklyn for the last 22 years are scheduled to be held today at Temple Israel in Brooklyn

1899: “Topics of the Times” published today described life among the Boers who are fighting the British including the decision of their Parliament to deny Jews and Catholics which shows these rebels to be something other than advocates for “toleration and progress.”

1901: Birthdate of New Orleans native and U. of Cincinnati graduate Rabbi Gustave Ferdinand Falk, who after being ordained at Hebrew Union College went on to post graduate studies at the University of Chicago before graduating from the New York School Social Work and serving as the “Director at the School for Jewish Studies” in New York City.

1902: Birthdate of Regina Jonas who when she ordained by Rabbi Max Dienemann in 1935 became the first female rabbi in Jewish history.


1910(27th of Tammuz, 5670): The former Chief Rabbi of Turkey, Moise Levy, passed away in Constantinople at the age of 89.

1911(9th of Av, 5671):Tish'a B'Av

1911: In Paramaribo, Suriname, Daniel Joseph Harogh, the “son of David Levy Hartogh and Rachel Fernandes” married Estelle Celine Abrahams today.

1912(20th of Av, 5672): Parashat Eikev

1912: Approximately 75 people attended services at the Social Hall of the Forest House in Kennebunkport, Maine, led by Rabbi Bernard. G. Ehrenreich of Montgomery, Alabama.

1913: Birthdate of Shmuel Tolchinsky, the native of shtetl near Odessa who gained fame as Mel Tolkin the head writer of “Your Show of Shows” where he helped to launch the careers of such greats as “Mel Brooks, Neil Simon and Larry Gelbart.

1914: During WWI, Germany declares war against France, while Turkey declares itself neutral.   During the war, Jews from around the world came to help the French, including 600 Turkish Jews (as well as Jews from other Ottoman territories) signed up with the French Foreign Legion to help in the battle against the Germans.

1915: Congressman Mayer London was reported today to be the chairman of the newly formed People’s Relief Committee which is committed to raise funds to alleviate the suffering of the Jews in the European war zone.

1915: “Russian Allurements” published today described the importance of Riga the port city that was home to “the first Jewish synagogue known in Europe” to the Czar’s war effort.

1915: Edith Cavell a British nurse was arrested in Belgium and charged with harboring Allied soldiers. Sadi Kirschen, the father of Claude-Anne Lopez, would be chosen to serve as her defense attorney.

1916: During World War I, near the Egyptian town of Romani the Central Powers launched their last offensive to seize the Suez Canal in what would become known as the Battle of Romani.

1916: It was reported today that “a new benefit for the Actors’ Fund of America has been arranged by Daniel Frohman in co-operation with the new theatrical club “The Lights” which will take place at the Amsterdam Theatre.

1917(15th of Av, 5677): Tu B’Av

1917: This afternoon, “two days after declaring war on Russia, Germany declared on France and France responded by declaring war on Germany – moves which among other things would pit French Jews against German Jews since Jews served in the armies of both countries.

1917: The “Red Glove” a “new anti-Jewish league formed at Simferopol” “incited the populace to participate in pogroms.”

1917: At Odessa, today, the “Jews were accused of molesting Christians going to church and desecrating churches.
1917: In Leeds, UK, a mass-meeting held “under the auspices of the Jewish Representative Council” adopted a resolution asking the council “to take the necessary steps to protect the interests of those affective by the convention with the Russian Government affecting Russian subjects of military age” living in the United Kingdom.

1917: In Egypt, a Zionist Organization was “formed to guide all Zionist societies” in the country

1917: In Warsaw the dean of the Polytechnic Institute declares “that Jews are merely guests in Poland and their use of Yiddish evidence of the opposition to Polish nationalism.”

1917: In Warsaw “anti-Semites openly agitate for a boycott” against the Jews, urge the closing of all business on Sundays” and “attacked” priests who trade with Jews.

1917: Samuel Gompers, speaking on behalf of organized labor in America, announced that he and his organization would not be attending the planned conference in Stockholm that is called by some a “peace conference.”  Gompers is praised by Allied leaders for supporting the war against the Kaiser.

1918:  Birthdate of Sidney Gottlieb who was an early and important official with the CIA.

1918: During WW I, British troops landed at Vladivostok in what the Bolsheviks would come to view as an attempt by the West to overturn their Revolution

1918:The proposal, made by the American Federation of Labor through its President, Samuel Gompers, to the Mexican labor unions, suggesting that conferences be held on the border between President Wilson and President Carranza, has been favorably accepted here.  Gompers believes that the meetings will help improve relations between the United States and Latin America.

1918: Sixteen year old Yitak Jacov a member of the British Jewish Legion 38th Battalion Royal Fusiliers serving in Palestine wrote in his diary “Now that I placed my life at risk, it is becoming so interesting that I feel that everything must be written down, so that later either I – if I survive – or my friends can re-live these days.”

1919: A wireless dispatch received today in London from Moscow described the shooting of General Gregorieff, “the Russian commander who captured Odessa…and whose troops are reported to have carried out a massacre in the Jewish quarter of Odessa.”

1921: Birthdate of Broadway Composer Richard Adler. One of his most famous hits was Damn Yankees.

1922(9th of Av, 5682):Tish'a B'Av

1923: Birthdate of Hannah Golofski who would grow up to become noted fashion designer Anne Klein. Discovering her gift for design while attending Girl's Commercial High School in Brooklyn, she found work in the garment industry directly out of high school. Within a year, she was working at Varden Petites where she redesigned the firm's line, introducing a new style of ready-to-wear and sophisticated clothing for young (thin) women that would come to be known as Junior Miss. In 1948 she married clothing manufacturer Ben Klein and became principal designer of Junior Sophisticates, a new company established by her husband. In this role, Anne Klein transformed the type of clothing available for petite women like herself. Junior Sophisticates offered elegant styles to shorter women who previously had to make due with more child-like attire. In addition, Klein was the first designer to follow the example of French designer Coco Chanel, adapting men's clothes (suites, jackets, shirts) for women's use. Klein continued to innovate. During the 1950s, she introduced clothing that was sold as "separates," offering women a range of jackets, blouses, skirts, and slacks that could be bought together and then assembled into many different outfits. When the Klein marriage ended in 1960, so did her connection with Junior Sophisticates. In 1963, she remarried and established her own design studio. She specialized in redesigning the failing clothing lines of other companies. In 1968, Anne Klein and Company opened with Klein as director and half-owner. By the early 1970s, more than 800 American department stores and dress shops carried her creations.  Klein won numerous fashion awards. In 1973, she was the only woman invited to participate in a fashion show consisting of five American and five French prominent designers, intended to raise money for renovations at Versailles. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York restaged the American component of this show in 1993. Since the designer's death in 1974, the Anne Klein label has remained a strong presence in retail stores around the world.

1923:  Vice President Calvin Coolidge is sworn in as the 30th President of the United States following the death of President Warren Harding.  Coolidge was not an anti-Semite but some of his actions had a negative impact on Jews. In 1924, he signed the Johnson Act.  This immigration law effectively ended the wave of immigration that had started in 1880.  It contained a National Origins Quota System that favored Western Europeans while barring those from Southern and Eastern Europe.  This quota system would be in place during the Holocaust and would be used to deny Jews entry into the United States.  Silent Cal did speak favorably about the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.  Finally, as Vice President he wrote a letter to a prominent Jewish leader which read in part, “’Teach the ancient landmarks to the youth of the Jewish race…That learning and wisdom which has been a sustaining influence to the Jewish race through all the centuries must be preserved for the benefit of mankind.  The youth of your people can associate themselves for no more patriotic purpose.’”

1924: In New York William and Esther Diamond Kaufman gave birth to Melvyn Kaufman, “a quixotic, unabashedly contentious developer who helped shape Manhattan’s postwar streetscape and is credited with injecting his personal brand of whimsy into the city’s office towers…” (As reported by Margalit Fox)

1924:  Birthdate of author Leon Uris.  The Baltimore native first came to national attention with the publication of Battle Cry, one of a series in what were called “the great American war novels.”  Uris based his on his own experiences as a Marine fighting during World War II.  He gained greater acclaim for his next major work, Exodus.  Exodus is one of those epic works of historic fiction which, in this case depicts the early days of Zionism and the fight to establish the Jewish state despite opposition from the British and the Arabs.  The novel was turned into a cinematic box office hit.  Uris followed this with several more novels on Jewish themes.  Mila 18 recounted the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.  QBVII, was based on a lawsuit actually filed by somebody who felt they had been defamed by a statement in Mila 18.  

1925: In Brooklyn, “Henry A. Rosenthal, who owned a fabric business, and the former Cecile Coles” gave birth Lewis Phillip Rosenthal, who gained fame as Dr. Lewis Rowland, the “leading neurologist” whose name had been in changed while he was a teen because of the Jewish quotas at Ivy League schools. (As reported by Denise Grady)


1925: Birthdate of Chicago native and football coach Marvin Daniel “Marv” Levy, the WW II veteran and Coe College athlete who may have be the only holder of a master’s degree from Harvard to coach multiple NFL teams and who, as of the turn of the century, was the only coach to make it to four Super Bowls with winning the championship game.



1928(17th of Av, 5688): Seventy-seven year old Viennese native Alfred Sach, the son of Babette and Eduard Elkan Sachs and husband of Therese Sachs with whom he had three children – “Betty, Rudolf and Marie” passed away today.

1928: “Under Suspicion,” a “silent crime film” directed by Constantin J. David was released in Germany today.

1929(26th of Tammuz, 5689):  Inventor and scientist, Emil Berliner, passed away.  Born in German in 1851, Berliner worked in a number of fields.  He developed a microphone for the telephone.  He developed the prototype for the modern phonograph record which replaced Edison’s original recording cylinders.  Until the advent of tape and CDs, his phonograph record was the backbone of the recording and music industries.  He also developed a revolutionary lightweight engine which he then put into a experimental helicopter he developed. 


1930(9th of, 5690): Tish’a B’Av

1930: In Newark, NJ. Melvin Lamb and “the former Minna Feldman” gave birth to feminist playwright Myrna Lila Lamb. (As reported by Neil Genzlinger)


1932: “Doctor X,” a horror film directed by Michael Curtiz was released today in the United States by First National Pictures through Warner Bros.

1933: The Foreign Office agrees to support a complaint submitted by Polish Jews of German Upper Silesia to the arbitration tribunal at Beuthen, against the prohibition of skechita in the plebiscite area.

1933: In Toronto, Mayor Stewart orders police to investigate the Swastika Club, an organization that has been placarding local beaches with swastikas.

1933: The Government approves movement for settlement of fifty Jewish families in the Macedonian part of Yugoslavia.

1933: Der Stuermer, Nuremberg daily, begins the publication of a black list of German young women seen in the company of Jewish men.

1933: In Wurzburg, All the Jewish student homes are occupied by Nazi storm troops to be used for party offices; the Jewish Student Association is ordered to dissolve.

1933: In Breslau, The Free Students Association, at a mass meeting decides to boycott lectures by Jewish instructors, and asks the Ministry of Education to expel the Jewish teachers remaining in the high schools.

1933: According to reports from Jaffa, three Revisionist Zionists are under arrest as suspects in the murder of Dr. Arlosoroff are formally charged with conspiring to assassinate the Zionist leader.

1934: Adolf Hitler becomes the supreme leader of Germany by joining the offices of President and Chancellor into Führer.

1936: “A petition designed to bring the German oppression of Jews and non-Aryans formally before the League of Nations as an ‘issue of international concern’ was made public” in New York “and in Paris at the same time” today.

1937: The debate over the Peel Commission report continued at the League of Nations meet at Geneva. The Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations decided to postpone until September its deliberations of the Royal (Peel) Commission¹s Report on Palestine. It set forth, however, in writing, the advantages and disadvantages of such options as the maintenance of the existing Mandate or its modification, the division of Palestine into cantons after the Swiss federal system, or a complete partition. It was also open to other suggestions.

1937: At Zurich, during a meeting of the Zionist Congress the Jewish leaders were also discussing the Peel Commission Report. Dr. Chaim Weizmann said that for the past 2,000 years the Jewish people had not been confronted by the necessity to make such an important decision.  In the meantime, a Jewish water expert warned that the proposed partition border would deprive the Jewish state of all the most important water sources.  Chaim Weizmann and David Ben Gurion led the majority that decided to accept the partition plan in light of the Peel Report. Berl Katznelson, Menachem Ushishkin from Mapai (Labor) as well as the Revisionists and the Orthodox fiercely argued against it.

1937: “In Stepney in the East End of London,” “Pauline (née Hyman), a housewife, and Alfred Berks, a tailor” gave birth to Leslie Steven Berks who gained fame as English playwright and actor Steven Berkoff.

1938: “After having spent fourteen weeks in Palestine the British commission for implementing the partition scheme, head by Sir John Woodhead, has finished it task and its members sailed from Haifa today.

1938: While speaking at a testimonial luncheon being given “to honor him for his work on behalf of Jewish refugees children, comedian Eddie Cantor warned “against a spread of anti-Semitism” in the United States and “bitterly denounced Henry Ford for accepting a decoration from the German government on July 27, 1938.

1940: The government at Vichy France passed anti-Jewish racial laws. 

1941(10th of Av, 5701): Tish’a B’Av

1941: One thousand, two hundred Jews arrested in Czenowitz of whom almost seven hundred were executed. 

1941: One thousand, five hundred fifty Jews were removed from the town of Mitau. 

1941: In the East Galician town of Stanislawow, which was the home of Jerzy Feliks Urman which the Russians had occupied in 1939 but was taken by the Nazis in 1941, “nearly 1,000 intellectuals and professionals” including hundreds of doctors “were murdered” by the Germans and their Ukrainian allies.

1942(20th of Av, 5702): Sixty-nine year old German born Nobel Award winning chemist Richard Willstätter who in 1924 he left his post a prominent German university because of the overt anti-Semitism he encountered passed away today in Switzerland after having left his homeland in the 1930’s.


1943(3rd of Av, 5703): At Bedzin, a man named Baruch tried to challenge Nazi deportation orders and was shot for his effort. 

1943: “The last major deportation of residents from the Bedzin Ghetto” which sparked an uprising by members of the ZOB ended today.

1944(14th of Av, 5704): At Strassenhof Camp, 2,400 Jews were marched away never to return. They were all under the age of eighteen and gassed in a makeshift crematorium. Three days later the Red Army liberated the 600 surviving camp members

1944:  After a series of delays, Monuments Man Lt. James Rorimer landed at Normandy on what had been Utah Beach on D-Day.

1944: At the Haidari Concentration Camp, having stolen all of the glass from the Jews of Rhodes and extracted the gold from their teeth, the Germans loaded them in animal wagons, sealed the doors and shipped them to Auschwitz.

1944: The Henry Gibbons arrived in New York carrying a shipload of Jewish refugees bound for the Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter.


1946(6th of Av, 5706): Parshat Devarim and Shabbat Chazon

1946(6th of Av, 5706): Seventy-seven year old Edwin I. Hyneman, the son of the Leon and Grace Marks Hyneman,  varsity football and baseball player for the University of Pennsylvania and “former part owner of the Philadelphia Phillies” passed away today after enduring the after effects of broken hip sustained when he fell on icy pavement. (Editor’s note - http://www.jewsinsports.org/profile.asp?sport=football&ID=40shows him passing away in 1945, but the New York Times obit is dated 1946)


1947: As tensions mounted in Great Britain following the killing of two British sergeants by the Irgun in retaliation for the execution of three of its fighters, violence broke out today in Manchester where “groups of men began breaking the windows of shops in Cheetham Hill…which had home to a Jewish community since the early 19thcentury” while others tore “down the canopy of the Great Synagogue on Cheetham Hill Road” and surrounded “a Jewish wedding party at the Assembly Hall” shouting “abuse at the terrified guests until one in the morning.”

1947: Three British ships - Runnymede Park, Ocean Vigour and Empire Rival – arrived in Marseilles carrying the Jewish immigrants from the SS Exodus whom the French said would only be allowed to leave the vessels if their departure were voluntary and not coerced by the British.

1948(27th of Tammuz, 5708): Sixty year old Beatrice Venetia Stanley Montagu who chose Edwin Samuel Montagu over Prime Minister Asquith and converted to Judaism to marry the Liberal MP – a marriage that was cut short by his death and was unfulfilling for her while it lasted.

1948(27th of Tammuz, 5708): Emanuel Rothstein died today while flying his Auster for the IAF.

1948(27th of Tammuz, 5708): While flying her Auster, twenty-one year old Zahara Levitov an “American education bomber pilot with the IAF died today in an air crash between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

1948(27th of Tammuz, 5708): Seventy-year old Hungarian nationalist and international pacifist Rosika "Rózsa" Bédy-Schwimmer  “died of pneumonia today in New York City.”



1948: “In testimony under subpoena before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC),” penitent Communist Party member Whitaker “Chambers identified Lee Pressman” the son of Jewish immigrants, “as a member of the Ware group.”

1949:  Founding of the National Basketball Association.  Jewish players and coaches had played a major role in professional basketball prior to World War II.  Ironically, the establishment of permanent professional league came at a time when Jewish participation had begun to decline.  There were still a few stars like Dolph Schayes and Red Holtzman.  Red Auberbach would prove to be the dominant coach of the fledgling league and Eddie Gottlieb continued his life time of involvement in professional basketball as the owner of the Philadelphia Warriors.

1950: In Chicago, “Shirley Levine (née Magaziner) and Marshall Landis, an interior designer and decorator” gave birth to John David Landis, the director of such comedic classic hits “National Lampoon’s Animal House,” “The Blues Brothers” and “Trading Places.”

1950: “A Lady Without Passport” a film noir directed by Joseph Lewish, produced by Samuel Marx, starring Hedy Lamar, featuring Steve Hill with a score by David Raskin was released in the United States today by MGM.

1951(1st of Av, 5711): Rosh Chodesh Av

1951: “The Secret of Convict Lake,” a western produced by Frank P. Rosenberg, with music by Sol Kaplan and script that Ben Hecht helped to write was released in the United States today.

1952: In Helsinki, the Summer Olympics, during which Holocaust survivor Agnes Keleti and gymnast, won four medals, came to an end today.

1953: Birthdate of San Pedro, CA native Robert Edwin “Bob” Gross the forward who played college ball at Seattle University and Long Beach St. before pursuing an NBA career with the Portland Trail Blazers and San Diego Clippers.


1954: After having premiered in New York and Los Angeles, “About Mrs. Leslie” directed by Daniel Mann, produced by Hal Wallis and with a script co-authored by Hal Kanter was released throughout the United States today.

1955(15thof Av, 5715): Tu B’Av

1955: Birthdate of Mitchell Shubow Steir the UNC alum and chairman and CEO of Savils Studley who is married to entrepreneur Nancy Ganz with whom he had two children – Max and Rachel.


1958: The oil pipeline from Eilat to Haifa was completed.  Since Israeli ships and ships that stopped at Israeli ports were barred from using the Suez this joining of Israel’s two major seaports was of great economic importance. 

1958: Today the USS Nautilus which “was constructed under the direction of U.S. Navy Captain Hyman G. Rickover, a brilliant Russian-born” Jewish “engineer who joined the U.S. atomic program in 1946” “accomplishes the first undersea voyage to the geographic North Pole.”

1963(13th of Av, 5723): Parashat Vaetchcanan and Shabbat Nachamu

1963(13th of Av, 5723): Seventy-one year old James D. Zellerbach, the California born son of “Isadore Zellerbach and the former Jennie Baruh” who served as Chariman of the Board of the family business Crown Zellerbach before pursuing a career in public service that including being the U.S. Ambassador to Italy.


1963: Allan Sherman releases "Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda" the musical parody on letters campers sent home to their parents.

1963: Philip L. Graham, the chief executive officer of the Washington Post and the husband of Katherine Graham passed away today.


1965: “You Must Be Joking” a comedy directed by Robert Michael Winner was released today in the United Kingdom.

1965: Sixty year old Murray Webber, the Los Angeles businessman who “served on the City of Hope board of directors for 15 years” passed away today.

1966(17th of Av, 5726): Comic Lenny Bruce passes away from a morphine overdose


1966: “This Property Condemned” a tragic film set in the Deep South directed by Sydney Pollack and produced by John Housman who was the son an Alsatian Jew was released today in the United States by Paramount Pictures.

1966: “The Man Called Flintstone,” an animated film featuring the voices of Mel Blanc, Harvey Korman and Paul Hersh Frees was released in the United States today.

1967: In Paris, a Hungarian Jewish director and writer Peter Kassovitz and his Roman Catholic wife, film editor Chantal Remy gave birth to Mathieu Kassovitz who “has described himself as ‘not Jewish but I was brought up in a world of Jewish humor’”

1970(1st of Av, 5730): Rosh Chodesh Av

1970: “The Adventures of Huckleberry” a film version of the novel directed by Michael Curitz, produced by Samuel Goldwyn, Jr, co-starring Tony Randall and with music by Jerome Moross was released today in the United States.


1970: Igal Shohat and Moshe Goldwasser were taken prisoner when their F4-E Phantom was shot down during the War of Attrition. Tragically, Goldwasswer reportedly died while in captivity and Shohat lost his leg.  [This is entry is a tragic reminder that the brave, unsung heroes have paid the highest price for the Jewish state of Israel.  The least we can do is remember – Zachor – their sacrifice and courage.]

1971(12th of Av, 5731): Sixty-two year old Rutgers law school graduate Philip Jerome Levin, the husband of “the former Janice Hoffman” with whom he had three children “Catherine, Susan and Adam” and “the majority shareholder of MGM” as well as the “head of Madison Square Garden” passed away today.

1973: It was reported today that Shaare Zedek in Jerusalem has announced “that its South African friends” have “decided to endow a ‘Louis Pincus post-operative intensive care project’ in memory of the late Zionist leader Louis A. Pincus.

1975: “Prisoner of Zion Vladimir Markman arrived in Israel after serving three years imprisonment in the USSR.”

1976: “Entebbe Raid Leader Moving Up” published described plans for Brigadier General Dan Shamron the 39 year old commander who led the operation to free the hostages at Entebbe and commanded an armored brigade during the Yom Kippur War to assume a more important position in the near future.

1976: The 1976 Summer Paralympics opened in Toronto where Hagai Zamir would win a medal for volleyball.

1977: The United States Senate held hearings on MKULTRA.  MKULTRA was a study of mind control methods begun at the CIAunder Allen Dulles.  Sydney Gottleib was the director of the project.

1977: The former chief of US Air Force Intelligence, Maj.-Gen. George Keegan (Ret.) accused the Carter Administration of basing its current Middle Eastern policy on quicksand. Keegan charged that the US was not disclosing its back-door intelligence which indicated that the real intentions of the Arab desire to destroy Israel were still there.  

1978: A Broadway reivival of  “Stop the World – I Want to Get Off Off” a musical “with a book, music, and lyrics” co-authored by Anthony Newley directed by Mel Shapiro with a cast that included Sammy Davis, Jr. opened today “at the New York State Theatre in Lincoln Center.

1978: Ezzedine Kalak, chief of the PLO's Paris bureau, and his deputy Hamad Adnan, were killed at their offices in the Arab League building. Three other members of the Arab League and PLO staff were wounded

1979: “North Dallas Forty,” the movie version of a marvelous little sports novel produced by Frank Yalbans who co-authored the script was released in the United States today.

1980: “Israel Applying The 'Brakesim' To Foreignisms; Begin Favors Updating of Hebrew Old Language for New Needs” published today described what some view as “the plague” of invented, non-Hebraic terms that are rapidly being added to what was once viewed as the holy tongue. “Israelis have injected so many non-Hebrew words into ‘the language of holiness’” such as “autonomiya” for the English word “autonomy” or “pluggim” for spark plugs, that “some ultra-Orthodox Hasidic sects which formerly forbade Hebrew speech because it was the language of prayer, have all their members to witch from Yiddish to Hebrew.”

1981(3rd of Av, 5741): Seventy-year old chess champion Wolfgang Heidenfeld the father of chess champion Mark Heidenfeld, passed away today.


1982(14th of Av, 5742): Ninety-two year old Leopold Philipp passed away after which he was buried at the Adath Jeshurun Cemetery in Philadelphia.

1983(24thAv, 5743): Seventy-two year old year old Walter Landauer, the Viennese native who was part of  a popular piano duo whose career spanned almost 40 years.


1985(15th of Av, 5745): Tu B’Av

1985: “An exhibition of Al Hirschfeld’s caricatures” including “several dozen of his works dating from the 1920’s to the 1980’s” that has been on display “on the second floor of London’s National Theatre” marking the first time such a showing had taken place in the United Kingdom is scheduled to come to an end today.

1986: It was reported today that Beatrice Siegel's latest book for young readers is Sam Ellis's Island.

1991(23rd of Av, 5751): Seventy-six Isador Perlman who worked with radio isotopes and taught archeology at Hebrew University passed away today.


 1992: Los Angeles premiere of the “Unforgiven” a dark western featuring Saul Rubinek as W. W. Beauchamp.

1993: The Senate voted 96-3 to confirm Supreme Court nominee Ruth Bader Ginsburg. 

1993: Yakov Kreizbergmade his debut at The BBC Proms conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra today.

1994: A plane piloted by King Hussein of Jordan flew over Jerusalem.  It was the King’s first aerial view of the city and, at the time, seen as harbinger for better times.

1994: Stephen G. Breyer completed his service as Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

1994: Stephen G. Breyer was sworn in as a Supreme Court justice in a private ceremony at Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist's Vermont summer home. At this time Jews are less than two per cent of the population and make up twenty two percent of the Justices on the Court.  

1994: Hadassah’s 80th Convention, held at the New York Hilton, comes to an end

1997: The Long Island Journal featured a report about Camp Wonderland, part of the Suffolk Y Jewish Community Center in Commack that contains a city-of-Jerusalem-playground which is the newest addition to the Y.

1997: It was reported today that “American Jewry funneled more money into religious education, and less into social activism, as the concern grew about runaway assimilation.”

1997: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including  One Hundred Years of Socialism: The West European Left in the Twentieth Century by Donald Sassoon who describes himself as a middle Eastern Jew despite having lived in England for forty years, Selected Poems, 1960-1990by Jewish born Pulitzer Prize winner Maxine Kumin, Our Guys: The Glen Ridge Rape and the Secret Life of the Perfrect Suburb by Bernard Lefkowitz and Nothing Ever Happens on 90th  Streetby Roni Schotter.

1998: Russian composer Alfred Garyevich Schnittke whose father was Jewish and whose mother was not, passed away. 


 

1999: Janet Yellin completed her service as Chair of “President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advsioers.”

1999(21st of Av, 5759: Eighty-five year old Yitzhak Rafael passed away today.  Born in Galicia, he made Aliyah in 1935 and eventually became active in Israeli political life as an MK and Minister of Religions.

2000(2nd of Av, 5760): Seventy-nine year old London native Michael Leverson Meyerson the scion of “a timber merchant family of Jewish origin” who “won the 1971 Whitbread Award for Biography” and whose “autobiography Not Prince Hamlet was published in 1989 passed away today.


2001: 98 U.S. senators express concern about popular anti-Semitism in Russia by sending a letter to then-President Vladimir Putin. The letter asks Putin to take a stronger stance in publicly condemning anti-Semitism, which gained traction from “ideological...

2003: The Sunday New York Times book section features a review of Fabulous Small Jews by Joseph Epstein, a collection of short stories in which “most of the characters are secular Jews who -- like Epstein himself -- are men over 50 who grew up in or around Chicago.”

2003: HBO broadcast the comedy special “Tracey Ullman in the Trailer Tales” which starred Ullman who also wrote the script and directed the show.

2004: The United Jewish Communities (UJC) eighth annual Jewish Leadership Forum (JLF) in Aspen, CO comes to a close.

2005: In a triumph for Israeli scientific and engineering capabilities a “new $250 million desalination plant in Ashkelon began pumping potable water filtered from the Mediterranean Sea” today

2006(9th of Av, 5766) Tish'a B'Av

2006: Jews all over the world observe the Fast Day of Tisha B’Av as the IDF battles against Hezbollah and Hamas. A barrage of Hezbollah rockets slammed into northern Israel today, killing at least eight Israelis. Four people were killed when a rocket crashed directly into a house near the northern town of Ma'alot, and another four were killed when a rocket exploded near their vehicle in Acre. Four people were seriously wounded and two others sustained moderate wounds in rocket strikes in Acre, Hurfeish and Kiryat Shmona. Another 31 people were also lightly wounded in the attacks. Shimon Zaribi, 44, and Albert ben Abu, 41, both of Acre, were killed in the rocket attack on their hometown. Sinati Sinati, Amir Naeem and Mohammed Fouad, all 17-year-old residents of the village of Tarshiha, were killed in the attack near Ma'alot.

2006: In “Hezbollah Missile Threat Assessed” published today, Frank Gardner described the threat still facing Israel after three weeks “of an intensive…air campaign.”


2007: “Hot Rod,” directed by Akiva Schaffer, starring Andy Samberg and with music by Trevor Rabin was released today in the United States.

2007: Israel Defense Forces troops shot and killed Read Abu Ads, the Islamic Jihad commander in Nablus

2008: The Sunday New York TimesEditor’s Choice listings included Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists, by Susan Neiman in which the Jewish born author “champions Enlightenment values without any hint of oversimplification, dogmatism or misplaced piety.”

2008: The Washington Postfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Book of Dahlia by Jewish author Elisa Albert Hitler, The Germans and the Final Solution by Ian Kershawand Hitler’s Priests: Catholic Clergy and National SocialismbyKevin P. Spicer

2008: At the Jewish Museum in New York, an exhibition entitled Warhol's Jews: Ten Portraits Reconsidered comes to an end. Andy Warhol's Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century(1980) depicts renowned luminaries of Jewish culture: Sarah Bernhardt, Louis Brandeis, Martin Buber, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, George Gershwin, Franz Kafka, the Marx Brothers, Golda Meir, and Gertrude Stein. Warhol referred to this pantheon of great thinkers, politicians, performers, and writers as his "Jewish geniuses." Warhol's iconic portraits attest to the lasting achievements and fame of these singular figures. Originally published as a portfolio of silkscreen prints on paper, Warhol was so pleased with the commercial success of his Ten Portraits that he decided to create additional versions of the series as silkscreen paintings on canvas. The Jewish Museum initially showed three sets of paintings and an edition of prints in the fall of 1980. On view in this exhibition are one of the five complete sets of ten paintings, an edition of the final print portfolio, several sketches, a preparatory collage, and the photographs that Warhol used as source images, offering new insights into their development and historical context.

2009: In Jerusalem,Beit Avi Chai's Music on Monday’s series presents A Groyse Metsie: Jewish music in various styles. The Jewish melodies and instruments take on new forms, blending with a range of modern styles such as rock, hip hop, reggae, and even hard rock, and spiced with superb humor. The group includes Eyal Nisenboym on drums, Shai Perelman playing guitar and vocals, David Adah on keyboards, Oren Tsor onviolin and vocals, Nadav Bachar onguitars and vocals and Ofer Eshed on bass.

2009:About half of Israelis believe that in order to be a "true Israeli," one has to have been born in Israel, so finds the Israel Democracy Institute in its annual Israeli Democracy Index, published today.

2009:An American-Israeli crime ring conspired to defraud United States tax authorities of tens of millions of dollars for at least five years, according to Israeli and American court documents filed today. The suspects filed thousands of fraudulent requests for tax refunds in the names of prisoners in federal penitentiaries, without the prisoners’ knowledge, according to an indictment filed in Chicago. They then laundered the money through Israeli bank accounts, the authorities said. Two Americans and seven Israelis went to a Tel Aviv court for a hearing on Monday in connection with the case. Other Americans have been arrested in Chicago and other parts of the United States. The man accused of leading the ring, Marvin Berkowitz, 62, fled the United States for Israel in 2003, according to the Israeli authorities, and has been living in Jerusalem. The American indictment states that the suspects sought to get more than $35 million in federal and state income tax refunds. Israeli investigators say they have found $12 million worth of tax refunds in Israeli bank accounts controlled by Mr. Berkowitz and his accomplices. Mr. Berkowitz is suspected of arranging at least $800,000 in tax refunds to be paid to, or for the benefit of, eight or more members of his family, including two sons who have been arrested in the United States.

Federal officials said the men had sought tax refunds using the identities of about 3,300 federal prisoners. Mr. Berkowitz, who was charged with six counts of identity theft, is suspected of recruiting and paying others to travel to federal courthouses to collect personal information about federal inmates, including Social Security numbers. The Israeli case resulted from an undercover investigation that had lasted for months by the Israeli national fraud unit working with American authorities, the Israeli police said Monday. Last month, 11 Israelis were arrested and accused of swindling millions of dollars by calling elderly Americans from an office in Tel Aviv and telling them they had won the lottery and had to pay a preliminary tax.

2009(13th of Av, 5769): Rabbi Aharon Zelig Epstein Rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Shaar HaTorah-Grodno, passed away today.

2009:Chabad Lubavitch presented a request today to Yad Vashem to recognize a high-ranking military commander in the Third Reich as a righteous gentile for saving Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef Schneerson, the sixth Chabad rebbe. Admiral Canaris, commander of the Nazi Abwehr, or intelligence, had a central role in securing Schneerson's escape from the Warsaw Ghetto along with members of Schneerson's family and entourage, said Yosef Kaminetzky, a writer who recently completed a book on the escape story. Kaminetzky, along with Kfar Chabad secretary Rabbi Binyamin Lipshitz sent a letter of request to Yad Vashem to consider Canaris as a candidate for righteous gentile status. "He saved the rebbe, why shouldn't he be recognized as a righteous gentile?" said Kaminetzky, explaining why it was important to Chabad. "What makes Canaris even more worthy of praise is the fact that he came from the Nazi leadership." However, Dr. Ephraim Zuroff, director of the Wiesenthal Center in Israel called Chabad's request "problematic.""It smacks of a certain particularism," said Zuroff in a telephone interview. "It is not fair to judge Canaris by a specific good deed when at the same he was in the upper hierarchy of the Third Reich." A Yad Vashem spokesperson said that since they had not yet received an official request they could not comment on the Canaris issue. Chabad's effort was based on new information revealed by historian Danny Orbach, the author of a new book in Hebrew entitled Valkyrie -German Resistance to Hitler. Orbach, a doctoral student at Harvard University of modern Japanese history, said he has devoted the last six years to researching German opposition to the Nazi regime. Orbach said that in 2002 he issued a request to Yad Vashem that was later rejected to recognize Canaris as a righteous gentile. Orbach said that Yad Vashem's rejection of the request was based on two claims: first, that Canaris did not risk his life to save Jews, rather he used his authority as a commander; second that Canaris helped the war effort and did not oppose it. "For the sake of historical justice I believe Canaris should be recognized as a righteous gentile," said Orbach. "I have proof that he did risk his life to save Jews and that he also actively attempted to hurt the Nazi war effort by convincing Franco the Spanish dictator not to join the Nazis." Another request presented by Orbach in 2002 was accepted. Canaris's aide Hans von Dohnanyi, who acted on Canaris's behalf, was named a righteous gentile in 2003. Both Von Dohnanyi and Canaris were executed by the Nazis. Canaris was executed in the last days of the war after it was discovered that he had tried to assassinate Hitler. He was hanged naked by SS guards on April 9, 1945 together with Hans Oster, deputy head of the Abwehr under Canaris, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor and theologian who opposed the Nazi regime.

2010: Tzofim Friendship Caravan Family Concert featuring the Israeli Scouts is scheduled to take place at the Washington DCJCC.

2010(23rd of Av, 5770):Israel Defense Forces analysts believe that the Lebanese sniper fire at the Israel-Lebanon border today , which killed Lt. Col. Dov Harari and seriously wounded Captain Ezra Lakia, was in fact an ambush planned by a Lebanese officer who was encouraged by his commanders.

2010(23rd of Av, 5770):Family and friends of Dov Harari, affectionately called "Barry", who was killed Tuesday in a military confrontation on the Israel-Lebanon border, said that Harari loved his country and the Israel Defense Forces, and that everyone who knew him loved him. Harari was killed by sniper fire on his observation post while he was overseeing a tree pruning operation along the border fence with Lebanon.His father, Yaakov Harari, told Channel 2 news that Dov was about to retire from reserve duty, but voluntarily asked to continue. Another relative, Yossi Dayan, talked about Dov's love for the army, saying, "this was supposed to be his last reserve duty. And in the end, it really was."Harari, 45 years old and father of 4, engineering corps reserves battalion commander, was an owner of a building materials store in Netanya. Friends said that he had lived his whole life in Netanya, and that he had met his wife all the way back in elementary school. "They began dating in the eighth grade, and they were the first couple among their friends to get married. Theirs was a warm home, small but always filled with their kids' friends," his friends said.His brother Shmuel said that Dov was loved by many and known to all. "There isn't a single person in Netanya that wouldn't say that he was a good man. He would help people, do good deeds, build furniture for children's nurseries. So many people loved him, he was just plain lovable.""Barry was a guy that knew it all, electronics, carpentry, mechanics," his brother said. "He has left behind a great void. We have to pick up the pieces and move on." Lee, his niece, said, "He raised me, he was the best. He always cared for the people around him, there wasn't a single person in Netanya that didn't know him." She added that "He always looked out for others first, for his kids, for his wife, even for people that he just met."Tamir Ganot, Harari's friend, said, "Barry was an amazing man, salt of the earth. He loved to help out, hammer in hand. He would help out poor people, children's nurseries, old ladies in need of help – he only knew how to give, give, give. Everyone in Netanya knew him."Ganot added that "Barry loved the army and loved reserve duty, all throughout his army career. He was someone who was always called upon, and he would arrive instantly. He is an example of the good Israeli. When the army retreated from Lebanon, he tried to reach the border to help his friends from the South Lebanon Army acclimate in Israel. No one can say a bad word about him – even when he was alive."

Shimon, a family friend, said that "There was nobody like Barry, a man that helped children and poor people, volunteered for everything, modest, humble and shy. He volunteered for reserve duty and loved Israel and the IDF, there was nobody like him. It's impossible to describe the loss. Head and shoulders above the rest, so loved."

2010(23rd of Av, 5770):A Jewish father of three was among the victims of a shooting rampage at a Connecticut beer warehouse. Louis Felder, the director of operations at the Hartford Distributors in Manchester, was one of eight people shot dead Tuesday morning by an employee accused of stealing, who then killed himself.Felder was a member of the Young Israel of Stamford.Steve Hollander, the company's head of marketing, and a member of the Hollander family that founded and owns the company, was reported to have been shot, according to the Hartford Courant. “The Hollander family is probably one of the most venerated families in the Hartford area in the Jewish community," U.S. Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) told the Courant. "There isn’t a charity that they haven’t contributed to.”

2010(23rd of Av, 5770):American Rabbi Bruce M. Cohen, who joined with Farhat Agbaria an Israeli Arab in found Interns for Peace passed away today at the age of 65.

2010(23rd of Av, 5770): Ninety-seven Herman L. “Reds” Bassman the native of Philadelphia native, alum of Ursinus College and Army Air Corps Veteran who was the “oldest living former Philadelphia Eagles player” when he passed away today in Petersburg, VA.


 2011: Rabbi Alfredo Borodowski is scheduled to give the first in a series of lectures entitled “The Essential Heschel: Teachings of a Modern Day Revolutionary Prophet” at the Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning.

2011: Dr. Regina Stein is scheduled to give the first in a series of lectures entitled “Jewish Holidays for Grownups” at the Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning.

2011: Michael “Fishman appeared on the Passover episode of Roseanne Barr’s reality show “Roseanne’s Nuts.”

2011:The Knesset passed a controversial housing bill today, despite the objections of leaders of the housing protest movement that has been gaining momentum across the country in recent weeks. The bill, which will slash red tape for construction by setting up national committees to approve new housing projects, was passed by a vote of 57 to 45. Netanyahu has strongly promoted the bill as the solution to the housing crisis.

2011:MK Benjamin Ben-Eliezer (Labor) told Army Radio today that he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak political asylum several months ago.

  2012(15th of Av): Tu B’Av


2012: Fifty-nine year old award winning theatre and television producer Joan Stein passed away today.



2012: The celebration of the Israeli holiday of love, Tu B’Av is scheduled to begin this morning in the open courtyard of the Citadel of the Tower of David Museum with a musical performance of Neapolitan love songs.  

2012: Sam Kringlen, son of Janice Binder and Jim Kringlen is scheduled to participate in Friday Night Services at Temple Judah as his Bar Mitzvah weekend begins.

2012: Hamas freed a Salafi leader of an al-Qaeda affiliated terror group, it was reported today (As reported by Ron Friedman and Michal Shmulovich)

2012: A bipartisan group of six Congress members is sponsoring a bill that would ensure recognition of the plight of 850,000 Jewish refugees displaced from Arab countries since Israel's War of Independence in 1948. Their bill in the US House of Representatives also would recognize other displaced populations, including Christians from countries in the Middle East, North Africa and the Persian Gulf.

2013: “Lies in the Closet” is among the films scheduled to be shown this evening at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2013: A revival performance of Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and book by Winnie Holzman opened at the Dentsu-Shiki Theatre in Tokyo.

2013: Final performance of “Division Avenue,” a new comedic play by Miki Bone that uses the orthodoxy of the Hasidic culture to explore the challenges facing those trying to find their way in the face of doubt and modern culture´ is scheduled to take place at the June Havoc Theatre.

2013: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the traditional minyan at Temple Judah is scheduled to observe Raoul Wallenberg Shabbat where we Remember the Righteous Among the Nations including Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat who defied his government by issuing transit papers to Lithuanian Jews so they could escape the Holocaust and Aristides de Sousa Mendes who defied his government and issued transit papers to Jews so they could escape

2013(27thof Av, 5773): Eighty-six year old journalist Yehuda Lev the WW II veteran who helped to smuggle Jews into Palestine passed away today.



2013: Israeli swimmers, Guy Barnea and Jonathan Koplover, finished first and fourth respectively qualiftying to swim in the finals at the World Swimming Championships in Barcelona, Spain.

2013: “Betrayed by Braun, Brewers Owner Twists in an Ill Wind” published today described the impact Ryan Braum, “The Hebrew Hammer” has had on fans, friends et al when “he was exposed as serial liar” whose greatness may rest not on his skill but on his use of performance-enhancing drugs.


2014: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reaganby Rick Perlstein, The Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers by Tom Rachman, J.D. Salinger: The Escape Artistby Thomas Beller, The Mantle of Command: FDR at War, 1941-1942 by Nigel Hamilton and Reagan at Reykjavik: Forty-Eight Hours That Ended the Cold Warby Ken Adelman as well as an interview with Amy Bloom.

2014: The Coen Brother’s double feature is scheduled to be shown for the last time at the Washington Jewish Film Festival.

2014 The IDF spokesman announced early this morning, Israeli time that at 11:25 p.m. yesterday, August 2, the Chief Rabbi of the IDF, Brigadier Gen. Rafi Peretz, declared the death of IDF officer Lt. Hadar Goldin, who fell in the Gaza Strip on August 1, 2014. (In life he was loved and admired. He was swifter than eagles and stronger than lions.)  

2014: “Israeli singer David Broza was at the Yehud military cemetery today to sing his song "Mitahat LaShamayim" ("Under the Sky"), the song that was to be Captain Omri Tal and his girlfriend Liat Zimerman's wedding song. Instead, Broza's words floated through the air of the cemetery, over Omri's grave.”

2014: “Some 12,000 people turned out Sunday in Johannesburg, South Africa at a rally in solidarity with Israel.”

2014: “Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel on Sunday of deliberately killing Palestinian mothers and warned it would "drown in the blood it sheds”

2015: “As Israel sweltered in the grips of a sizzling heat wave, with temperatures in Jerusalem breaking 100º Fahrenheit (40º Celcius), the country broke its electricity use record today for the second day in a row.

2015: In Aspen, CO, Ambassador Dennis Ross is scheduled to speak at the Chabad Jewish Community Center.

2015: Starting today, “the Jewish Museum of Maryland in conjunction with the Baltimore Jewish Council and the Maryland State Department of Education, is scheduled to host a three day workshop on Holocaust education that focuses on giving educators the tools to help their students understand the Holocaust.”

2016: Today, “Hasbara Fellowships Canada filed a formal complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, where it accused the student and faculty associations of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) and Durham College of discriminating against Jewish students and Israel, following the banning of Hasbara Fellowships Canada from participating in a student association-sponsored “Social Justice Week” five months ago.”

2016: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to host a screening of John Frankenheimer’s “The Young Savages.”

2016(28thof Tammuz, 5776): Eighty-six year old Dolphin researcher Louis M. Herman passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)


2016: “International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach led a mourning ceremony today for the 11 Israeli athletes and coaches slain by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics — a tribute that a widow of one of the victims said brought “closure” for the families

2016: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to host an exploration of the rebirth of the Lower East Side by a tour of four art galleries conducted by Ronnit Vasserman.

2017: “The Heart and the Wellspring, an Israeli ensemble led by Naor Carmi and clarinetist Chilik Frank” is scheduled to present and evening of “Chassidic Music from Israel at YSW.

2017: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host the final screening of “The Zookeeper’s Wife.”

2017: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host “Carnival, a Summer Soiree” a fun, fundraising activity that includes everything from acrobats to silent auctions.

2017: “In conjunction with the exhibition 500 Years of Treasures from Oxford presented by Corpus Christi College, the Center for Jewish History, and Yeshiva University Museum,” Jan Joosten, Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford is scheduled to lecture on “Hebrew: A Holy Language?”

2018: The Cornelia Street Café is scheduled to host the second night of the Israeli Jazz Spotlight Festival.

2018: “The Prayer” and “Cellfish,” a film that “explores the life and work of artist Shelly Federman” are scheduled to shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

2018: “The American Sephardi Federation Young Leaders” is scheduled to host a “Sephardic Summer Shabbat Dinner” this evening at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan.

 

 

This Day, August 4, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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August 4

70: According to some record, the date on the secular calendar when the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans.

367: Gratian, son of Roman Emperor Valentinian I, is named co-August by his father and associated to the throne aged eight.  The reign of Valentinan I was a period of religious toleration where all cults, including Judaism, were practiced with little or no interference from the state.  Gratian would reverse his father’s policy of toleration, although most of his actual edicts were aimed against the Pagans.

1060: The reign of King Henry I of France ended today when his most famous Jewish subject, Rashi, was 20 years old. 

1265: During the Baron’s War, Prince Edward (the future King Edward I of England), leading the armies his father, King Henry III defeated the forces of rebellious barons led by Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester at the Battle of Evesham killing de Montfort and many of his allies. “During the Barons Wars, the Jews were seen as instruments of royal oppression and one Jewish community after another was ransacked and many of its inhabitants killed during the fighting” which had begun in 1263.  In 1264, the violence became so bad, that many Jews fled to Normandy.  As bad as things were under King Henry III, life would be worse under the reign of Edward who would order their expulsion in 1290.

1278: Nicholas III issued a Papal Bull ordering Jews to hear sermons on conversion. 

1442: Eugene IV issued “Dudum ad nostrum audientam” a Papal Bull that “forbade Jews to live with Christians or fill public functions.1558: The first printed edition of the Zohar appeared. This popularized the study of Kabbalah, mysticism and Messianism. 

1578: This date is considered a Moroccan Purim (Purim de Los Christianos); a celebration of a time when Jews there faced near disaster because forces led by King Sebastian of Portugal nearly succeeded in conquering the country. The Portuguese were defeated at al-Qasr al-Kabir. Their defeat meant that the Inquisition would not be coming to Morocco. The Jews of Morocco saw themselves as being delivered from a Portuguese Haman, hence the name of the celebration. 

1704: During the War of the Spanish Succession, a joint Anglo-Dutch force attacks and captures Gibraltar.  Under the terms of the treaty ending the war, the British will gain control of Gibraltar but the British are enjoined from allowing Jews to settle on this newly acquired possession.  The British ignore the prohibition and Jews are allowed to live there.

1769: Herz Wesel Gumperz and Abraham Wesel Gumperz gave birth Ruben Samuel Gumperz the husband of Roeschen Gumperz

1776: Colonel William Thomson wrote a letter to William Drayton from the banks of the Keowee River in which he described the death of 29 year old Francis Salvador.  Salvador, a Jewish patriot had been killed in South Carolina on the first of the month.  After having been wounded he was scalped.  He died of his wounds and according to Thomson, was lucid to the end.

1780: In London, Solomon da Silva Solis and Benvenida de Isaac Henriques Valentine gave birth to Jacob da Silva Solis who arrived in the United States in 1803 married Charity Hayes with whom he had seven children and still found time to found “Congregation Shanarai Chasset in New Orleans” and later became active in Congregation Shearith Israel in Mt. Pleasant, NY.

1784: Zipporah Phillips, “daughter of Jonas and Rebecca Mendes ‘Machado’ Phillips” became Zipporah Phillips Noah today when she married Manuel Noah with whom she had two children – “Mordecai Manuel Noah and Judith Noah.”

1785: Joseph de Palacios a Sephardic Jew living in Charleston, SC, married Mrs. Nathan Harris, a widow from the Island of St. Eustatius.

1789: Almost a month after the storming of the Bastille on July 14, today “members of the Constituent Assembly took an oath to end feudalism” – an action that would help move the Jews one step closer to full citizenship in a future French Republic.

1790: A newly passed tariff act creates the Revenue Cutter Service (the forerunner of the United States Coast Guard). Some of the Jews were members of, or associated with this valiant force were: musician and vocalist, Mel Torme,; Arthur Fiedler who “volunteered during the early days of World War II for the Temporary Reserve of the U.S. Coast Guard and was later a member of the Coast Guard Auxiliary” and comedian and television star Sid Caear who joined the Coast Guard in 1939. This proved to be a boon to his career. Assigned to play in military shows, he caught the attention of producer Max Liebman, who was impressed by his ability to make other musicians laugh. Liebman took him out of the orchestra and cast him as a comedian, jump-starting his career upon release from the Coast Guard in 1945. And the rest is show biz history. When Sid Caesar was celebrating his 80th birthday, The Coast Guard presented him with a public service award that read as follows:

 

"The Commandant of the United Stated Coast Guard takes great pleasure in wishing a joyous 80th birthday to Coast Guard veteran Sid Caesar and presenting to him this Coast Guard Certificate of Appreciation, in recognition of his public support of the Coast Guard, most notably in the early days of his career as an actor, musician and comedian and more recently as public spokesperson for the U.S. Coast Guard. Mr. Caesar joined the Coast Guard in 1939, after studying saxophone at the Julliard School of Music and playing in a number of prominent big bands. In the Coast Guard, he was assigned to play in military revues and shows, such as "Tars and Spars," but he showed a natural penchant for comedy by entertaining other band members with his improvised routines, prompting show producer Max Liebman to move him from the orchestra and cast him as a stand-up comedian to entertain troops, jump-starting his career upon his release from the Coast Guard in 1945. After leaving the Coast Guard, Mr. Caesar went on to perform his "war routine" in both the stage and movie versions of the revue, and continued under Liebman's guidance after the war, in theatrical performances in the Catskills and Florida, but he never forgot the service that launched his career. Mr. Caesar's performance distinguished the Coast Guard as an honorable and valuable service. Friends and acquaintances say he always kept the Coast Guard close to his heart, especially its hardworking enlisted members. Each and every time the Coast Guard asked Mr. Caesar for a favor, he came through for us, whether it was speaking before the Coast Guard Chief Petty Officers Association or recording audio public service announcements for Coast Guard recruiting campaigns. His respect, admiration and fondness for our service shines bright. Mr. Caesar's years of generosity, concern and dedication to the Coast Guard family are deeply appreciated and are in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Coast Guard and public service."

 

1814: Samuel Marx confirmed with seven other witnesses that his brother Heinrich was born in April 1777 Saarlouis.

1817: Birthdate of Max Ring, the native of Silesia who gained fame as a German poet, author and playwright.

1819: Lewis Emanuel married Rachel Henriks today at the Great Synagogue.

1819: Michael and Catherine Solomon were married today at the New Synagouge..

1821: Birthdate of Louis Vuitton, French designer and founder of the French fashion house that bears his name. According to Louis Vuitton, A French Saga, by French journalist Stephanie Bonvicin the fashion house collaborated with the Nazis during the German occupation of France. Reportedly, “members of the Vuitton family actively aided the puppet government led by Marshal Philippe Pétain and increased their wealth from their business affairs with the Germans. The family set up a factory dedicated to producing artifacts glorifying Pétain, including more than 2,500 busts. Petain's Vichy regime was responsible for the deportation of French Jews to German concentration camps.”

1823: Birthdate of Oliver P. Morton, who as Governor of Indiana during the Civil War gave Frederick Knefler his first “leg up” on a military career that would lead to him becoming a Major General by the end of the war. Morton showed that in America, a man’s patriotism was more important than his religious background.

1827: In Romania, untold numbers of Jews perished when the Jewish quarter of Jassy was swept by fire.

1835(9thof Av, 5595): Tish’a B’Av

1847: Ralph Levy and Phoebe Abrahams were married today at the Great Synagogue.

1856: The "Literary Items" column reported that a soon to be published 8 volume work about the religious and scholastic learning of the Jews by J.W. Etheridge is to be called Jerusalem and Tiberias, Sora and Cordova.  According to the title page, the book was designed to be “A survey of the religious and scholastic learning of the Jews; designed as an introduction to the study of Hebrew Literature.”

1857:  According to handbills which had been posted today is the deadline for all Germans and all Jews to leave Goldsboro, N.C. The order, from parties unknown, stemmed from a violent outburst that had taken place during a trial that pitted Dr. John W. Davis, a popular local physician, against Falk Odenheimer, a German-Jewish merchant.  During the trial Windal T. Robinson, a nephew of Dr. Davis, struck Odenheimer on the head with a spade, or shovel, breaking his skull. In the ensuing mêlée Charley Spaght, a step-son of Odenheimer shot Dr. Davis, seriously wounding him. Even though Davis’ nephew had started the trouble, a crowd formed that wanted to lynch Odenheimer.  Odenheimer had to be taken jail for his own safety where he was protected by a brave local citizen named T.T. Hollowell. Odenheimer and Davis both recovered from their wounds and many of the Jews who had gradually returned to Goldsboro.

1858: Solomon Harris married Elizabeth Hart today at the Great Synagogue.

1858: A report published today describing the impact of the final passage of the Oaths Bill in Great Britain said that “Henceforth Jews may sit in Parliament. The Oaths Bill from the House of Lords has passed in the Commons, and is the law of the realm. A Jew may now qualify without swearing to uphold the Christian religion.” The final passage took place on July 21.  Word of the passage was brought by ship from England.

1860: It was reported today that the Times of London no longer has a “special advantage” or “monopoly on information” which would make a sought after journal because Mr. Reuters, “that clever and far-seeing German Jew” has used his control over “telegraphic communication to see to it that all newspapers receive the same domestic and foreign news make The Daily News the equal of the Times or its other high priced rivals. (Reuters actually converted shortly after he arrived in England from Germany, but the impact of his news service is accurately described)

1861: In Bischofstein, Prussia, Rabbi Goldreich and his wife gave birth to Samuel Goldreich, the resident of Nottingham, UK and President of the South Africa Zionist Federation who was “publicly thank by the High Commissioner for South Africa for services rendered to the Government.”

1864: In accordance with the Proclamation issued by President Lincoln, today was observed as a day of fasting and prayer. All business was voluntarily suspended, the public offices, the banks and stores were closed, and citizens flocked to such places of worship as were open for services.  At the Wooster Street Synagogue, Rabbi S.M. Isaacs, “after the usual morning service, read the Prayer for the Government, and delivered a discourse from Jonah, 3d chapter, 8th verse: "Let men and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let man call unto God with might, and let them turn everyone from his evil way, and from the violence which is in his hands." He referred to the proclamation of the President calling upon all loyal and law-abiding people to convene at their usual places of worship and implore the Almighty not to forsake the nation. He alluded to these days of fasting and humiliation recommended to be observed by the Executive authorities as losing their value from the circumstance that fasting and prayer are too often devoid of meaning; that they are unaccompanied by practical amendment. This idea was predicated on the Book of Jonah, where it is recorded that God repented of the evil he intended the Ninevites, because He observed that they forsook their evil ways and became truly penitent. He adverted to the critical condition of the country and the singular appropriateness of our national appeal to the never-ceasing mercy and goodness of Heaven. Israelites, especially, have reason to sincerely pray for the restoration of the Republic to its former greatness, prosperity and harmony. While recognizing the unspeakable happiness they had enjoyed under the protection of the Stars and Stripes, they should gaze hopefully heavenward, and their supplication would not be in vain. He prayerfully invoked Heaven to endow the rulers and the people of the land with the proper spirit -- the spirit of genuine, earnest patriotism -- that the severe trial to which our capacity for self-government and our professed loyalty to the principles of liberty and right may be for our ultimate benefit and regeneration; that the war which is now desolating the land may be speedily terminated by the return of the disaffected to the embrace of the banner whose far-spreading folds yearned to receive them as of old. He concluded his address with a suitable prayer. "

1865: A Jewish cigar peddler, hailing from New-York, was arrested and taken before Recorder Avery, of Hoboken, today, charged with peddling cigars without a license, and for which he was required to pay a fine of $5. The accused, who gave his name as Louis, pleaded and begged to be let off, declaring that he was poor; had only a dollar and a quarter; that he got married only six months since and that his wife had a baby, etc. When Wolfksy realized that the Recorder was unmoved by his plea for mercy, and that he would have to go to jail if he did not pay the fine, he very quickly produced the money and paid the fine.

1872: A group of Jewish immigrants from Alsac and Lorraine met at Mehl’s Assembly Rooms in New York.  They appointed a committee that was to organize a congregation made up of members from these two former French provinces.

1878: “Ill-Treating A Faithful Wife” published today described eventful life of Mrs. Josephine Lewinski who is seeking a divorce from Phillip Lewinski “one of the members of the notorious Lowery gang of gang of counterfeiters” who were arrested in Brooklyn.

1878: Mr. Ottinger is President of a new Jewish organization in New York that has been formed to provide free trips up and down the Hudson River for poor and sick children during the summer.  If the group can raise more than the $1,200 it already has, it will provide “seaside” recreation for poor Jewish girls working in local shops and factories.

1878:  The facts surrounding the condition of Jennie Minster which has been described as a “case of insanity” were revealed at Bellevue Hospital tonight.  Miss Minster, an 18 year old Jewess, went to work for Simon Metzger, a prominent Jew living in New Haven, Connecticut. Given her beauty and accomplished nature, Metzger made her the governess for her children.  Last week she was brought back to her parents’ home in New York by Mr. Metzger who said she was “a violent lunatic.”  According to Metzger, Miss Minster had been bathing with the family at the summer resorts called Savin Rock when she sank in the water.  She was rescued and when she regained consciousness, “it was found that her fright had entirely robbed her of her sanity.”  Her parents took her to Bellevue where she was placed in a padded cell due to her violent nature.  Authorities accept Metzger’s version of events but are still puzzled as what to do next.

1878: The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the estate of the Jewish businessman Michael Reese is valued at somewhere between five and ten million dollars. The bequests show the same broad generosity that he had displayed during his lifetime. Among the beneficiaries are the University of California which is to get $650,000 and the Hebrew Orphan Asylum which is to get $25,000.

1878: It was reported that “a number of charitable Hebrew gentlemen” in New York “have formed an association for the purpose of taking” sick and poor Jewish children on excursions on the Hudson River.  So far they have raised $1,200.  If they can raise more money they plan to include “poor shop or factory girls” in the excursions.

1881(9thof Av, 5641): Tish’a B’Av

1881: In what would seem to be a strange choice of date, the Young Men’s Hebrew Association is scheduled to host an outing aboard the SS Long Branch will sail out to and around Staten Island.

1881: After the deputy coroner performed an autopsy on Samuel Alt, an elderly Jewish man found floating in the water at the foot of east 76th Street, the coroner concluded  that “death resulted from concussion of the brain and compression due to serious effusion caused by violence.”  The deceased had probably been knocked down by a “violent blow over the left eye” and after being rendered unconscious was “thrown or pushed into the water.”

1882: Birthdate of Jerusalem native Dr. Nima H. Adlerblum, a promoter of the works of John Dewey as well and active member of the world’s Jewish community as can be seen in her role as “a founder of the national cultural and educational program of Hadassah and her authorship of such works as A Perspective of Jewish Life Through Its Festivals





1882: In New York State Supreme Court, Judge Donahue granted Fannie Warburg a limited divorced from her husband August Warburg “on the grounds of inhuman conduct toward her…”  The judge awarded her custody of the four children and appointed a Referee to recommend that amount of alimony she should receive.

1883(1stof Av, 5643): Rosh Chodesh Av

1883: It was reported that the ten Hungarian Jews who have been standing trial on charges that they killed a Christian girl so they could her blood “in their Passover bread” have been acquitted. While the prosecution had not case, the defendants would have been found guilty were it not for the fact that the “abundant perjury” prosecution witnesses had been exposed to the world “under the bright light of publicity.”

1883: Charles A.L. Totten, one of those who supported the plan for the Jews to return to “their old homes in Palestine” “through an international conference” began serving as Professor of Military Science and Tactics at the Cathedral School of St. Paul in New York

1884: It was reported today that Solomon Rintel, a Jewish immigrant from Hungary had taken his own life because he was despondent about having lost his job.  In a note found by Max Schack, his brother-in-law, Rintel had tried to commit suicide three years ago while he was living in Gratz. [Adjustment to a new land was tough on immigrants as stories like this remind us.  The streets were not paved with gold.]

1884: Herzl enters his law practice in the service of the state.

1884: Birthdate of Benjamin Antin, the Russian born American lawyer who served in the New York State Assembly and New York State Senate.

1885: It was reported today the Cassell & Co will soon be published a new novel – As It Was Written: A Jewish Musician’s Story by Sidney Luska. “The name Sidney Luska is a pseudonym.  The author is said to be a young man, the son of a noted lawyer” who has spent so much time with the Jews “that he fairly thinks as a” Jew. (For more about this from an non-contemporaneous source see Josh Lambert’s “As It was written: A Jewish Musicians Story”

1887: Birthdate of Minneapolis native Louis H. Phillips, the WW I veteran, lawyer and National Commander of the United Veterans of the Republic.

1888: At least 20 people died today when the Stern Building in the Bowery went up in flames. The fire probably began in the stove of a loft occupied by Solomon Cohn. At first the authorities thought that the fire was set intentionally but when they discovered that none of the tenants had insurance they discounted that theory.  Mr. Stern, the owner of the building has asked the United Hebrew Charities to take of the funeral arrangements, which along with any medical expenses, he will pay for out of his own pocket.

1888: Rabbi Tabenahus preached his first sermon at the Temple Gates of Hope based on the teachings of Isaiah, “And then thy children shall be taught of the Lord and great peace shall come to thy children.”

1888: “Mistaken Quotations” published today described the repeated attempts to attributed to the Bible stories that are not actually there, including the one that the Hebrews in the Bible were commanded to make bricks without straws. “If men would examine the Bible text more carefully before they assail it or before they attempt it defense, there would fewer blunders made in both directions.” (For those of you living in the United States, you realize that this advice is still very valid in the 21st century.)

1889: In Ulster County, NY, a gang of thugs calling themselves the “Yellowstone Cowboys” were arrested this morning when they returned to a Mr. Epstein’s boarding house with the intent of forcing him to feed them a free breakfast.

1889(7thof Av, 5649): Seventy-seven year old Isaac Phillips, the fifth child of Naphtali Phillips and Rachel Hannah, the husband of Miriam Timble who had converted to Judaism before her marriage, who “served as president of Congregation Shearith Israel” and co-founder of Mount Sinai Hospital passed away today.

1890: In Jerusalem, Rabbi Chaim Hirschenson, originally of Safed, and Eva (Cohen) Hirschenson gave birth to Tamar de Sola Pool.


1891: Twenty-one of the Russian Jews who had been detained at the Barge Office, New York’s entry point for immigrants, were allowed to leave and continue on their respective destinations.

1891: Thirteen Jewish immigrants who arrived at Locust Point, MD aboard a Dutch ship were allowed to land today.

1891(29th of Tammuz, 5651): Seventy-three year old Salvatore de Benedetti, the Italian scholar who took advantage of the news granted to the Jewish people under Victor Emmanuel to pursue an academic career that included becoming a Professor of Hebrew at the University of Pisa where he wrote Vita e Morte di Moses, a compilation of “the legends concerning the great Hebrew legislator.”

1891: “The Russian Jew Exodus” published today described the plans sponsored by Baron Hirsch and supported by Western Jews to deal with wave of immigrants leaving the Czar’s Kingdom.  A delegation will be sent to St. Petersburg to serve as a central committee and will establish provincial committees which will be “charged with regulating the exodus.”  Russian Jews who leave “without the sanction of the Central Committee” will not receive the benefits offered by Baron Hirsch. (Compare the 19th century response to the crisis of Russian Jewry with the 20th century response to the crisis of German Jewry)

1892: “Sanitarium for Hebrew Children” published today provided a summary of the society’s including the fact that from June 28 to July 31, it has provided free excursions for 3,481 mothers and children.

1892(11th of Av, 5652): Eighty two year old Ernestine Louis Rose, the daughter of a Polish rabbi who became a leading feminist, abolitionist and self-declared atheist, passed away.



1893: Abraham Finberg, the President of a small Orthodox congregation at 44 Orchard Street said he is prepared to go to court to retrieve the synagogues records that had been taken Louis Cohen, who had been deposed as the rabbi.

1894: As evidence of the acceptance of Jews at the highest level of British society, Lord Rothschild nominates six horses for the upcoming Derby.

1895: Birthdate of “Brailov, Russia” native Samuel L. Calechaman who came to New Haven, CT in 1897 where he attended Yale, worked as an “insurance agent and chemist” who was an active member of the Jewish Community Center.

1895: Birthdate of New York native Edward Anthony, a reporter for the New York Herald, press director for Herbert Hoover’s 1928 presidential campaign and the publisher of two leading magazines – “Woman’s Home Companion” and “Colliers.

1895: The Jewish citizens of Yonkers, NY, were reported today to have chosen B.H. Shulman to serve as president of their newly formed “religious organization” which hold High Holiday Services at the Odd Fellows Hall this September.

1895: Attorney Meyer J. Stein filed a suit in replevin in Kings County on behalf of a client who had a dispute over a hotel bill from a stay at the Hotel Lowry owned by J.L. Lowery which had sign saying “No Jews” posted.

1895: Aaron Drucker was fined five dollars in the Essex Market Court today  after the Magistrate “told him he had acted wrongly” when he interrupted the services Church of Sea and Land denouncing them as a vehicle for converting Jews to Christianity.

1895: “Jewish Women’s Council” published today provided a history and description of the National Council of Jewish Women which was formed following “the Woman’s Congress held at Chicago in 1893” during the Columbian Exposition. The council was formed in Chicago in 1894 and currently has chapters in 13 cities. Mrs. Rebekah Kohut is President of the New York Council. Miss Rosa Sonneschein is the editor of The American Jewess, the council’s monthly magazine. The next national convention is scheduled to take place at New York in May, 1896.

1896: Rehearsals began today at the Olympia Theatre for Oscar Hammerstein’s “new romantic comic opera ‘Santa Maria.’”

1896(25thof Av, 5656):Bertha Lewis (née Cohen), the daughter of Rabbi Raphael Isaac Cohen, sister of Theresa Otterbourg (née Cohen) and wife of David Lewis with whom she supported many Jewish institutions including “the Seel Street and Princes Road synagogues of the Liverpool Old Hebrew Congregation” passed away today. Her obituary in the Jewish Chronicle states: “She had friends everywhere – in France and Germany as in England. During the last few years, she resided at Devonshire Lodge, Landbroke Terrace, and at her home one was almost sure of meeting somebody interesting – a painter or a sculptor or a professor.”

1897: “The Pan-Anglican or Lambeth Conference issued an encyclical today that, among other things expressed “a wish for an increase in proselytizing among the Jews.” (Ah the 1890’s – the Russian are trying to kill the Jews and the English are trying to convert the Jews)

1898: Joseph Purzin began teaching at a summer school funded by the Baron de Hirsch Fund at Osborn Street and Sutter Avenue in Brownsville.

1898: Corporal Moses Blum, 1st Sergeant John F. Wolfson and Private Charles Myer were among those who became part of the United States Military when the 3rd Mississippi Volunteer Infantry was mustered into service today at Jackson, Mississippi.

1898: Mrs. Bella Pesin and her husband gave birth to Samuel Pesin a graduate of NYU Law School and New Jersey state legislator who served as the Secretary of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association in Hudson, NJ and was the husband of Libby Pessin with whom he had two children – Edward and Ada.

1899:”Actors Get Engagements” published today provided information about the upcoming theatrical season including the fact that Jacob LItt has hired Sidney Herbert to play a leading part in “The Ghetto” which will open at the Broadway Theatre in October.

1900: Birthdate of George Himmelfarb, the son of a Lodz shoe manufacture and the hold of a Ph.D in Comparative Religion who settled in London in 1937 where he gained fame as George Him the “freelance designer and design consultant” whose clients included El Al and illustrator of children’s books including The Little Red Engine Gets a Name.

1900(9th of Av, 5660): Russian-born artist Isaac Levitan died days before his fortieth birthday. For a look at some of his works see



1901(19thof Av, 5661): “Simon Rice of Scranton, PA,” passed away today “in a hospital in Philadelphia” leaving behind bequests that included “$100 each to the Deborah and Jewish Relief Societies of Scranton” and a provision in his will that “the residue of the estates, amounting to $40,000 or $50,000 to be equally divided – after his wife’s demise – between the Hebrew Union College, the Jewish Hospital for Consumptives in Denver, CO and the Farm School in Doylestown, PA.

1902(1stof Av, 5662): Rosh Chodesh Av


1909: In São Paulo, Brazil, “Cecilia Burle, an upper class Brazilian Catholic woman whose family came from Pernambuco and France, and Wilhelm Marx, a German Jew, born in Stuttgart and raised in Trier gave birth to landscape artist Roberto Burle Marx.



1910: Birthdate of Hedwig Lindenberg, the Bucharest native who gained fame as “Hedda Sterne, an artist whose association with the Abstract Expressionists became fixed forever when she appeared prominently in a now-famous 1951 Life magazine photograph of the movement’s leading lights”  (As reported by William Grimes)

1910: Birthdate of American composer and educator William Schuman. Schuman passed away in 1992 at the age of 81. 

1911(10thof Av, 5671): Seventy year old Heinemann Vogelstein a leader of the Reform Movement who served as the rabbi in Pilsen and then Szczein and expressed his opposition to Zionism in a pamphlet entitled “Zionism, A Threat to the Prosperous Development of Judaism” passed away today in St. Moritz.

1911: Birthdate of Jacob Mortimer Rothschild the son of Pittsburgh, PA residents Lillian and Meyer Rothschild.

1911: In Russia, the St. Petersburg Jewish community opened a Teacher’s Training College and Museum in memory of two deceased Jewish communal leaders, Barons Horace and David de Gunzberg.

1911: The Jewish community of Ekaternioslaff, a Russian city on the Dneiper River, petitioned the government for the right to build a medical school next to the local Jewish hospital.  The government agreed if the Jewish enrollment was limited to fifteen per cent.  By October, the governor of the province would be attempting to ban Jews from the town.

1911: In Great Britain, American Reform Rabbi Israel I. Mattuck was named as the first spiritual leader of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue.  Born in 1883, Mattuck, who passed away in 1954, was an author, commentator and proponent of Classical Reform Judaism

1911: At a conference in New York, the Seventh Day Adventists adopted resolutions condemning the mistreatment of Jews.

1911: Birthdate of Bernardo Segall, the native of Campinas Brazil who became a popular American composer and pianist.


1911: Samuel Oppenheimer was elected professor of Astronomy at the University of Vienna.

1912: Birthdate of Raoul Wallenberg, one of the truly great, brave people of history. A Swede, Wallenberg risked his life by going to Hungary in 1944 and literally yanking thousands of Jews from the jaws of death. He disappeared into the hands of the Red Army when it liberated Budapest. Some claim that he passed away in a Soviet prison in 1947. But nobody really knows what happened to him other than the fact the world did nothing to save him.  

1911: Rabbi Israel I. Mattuck was “elected as the first minster of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue” in London.

1912: In Donora, PA, founding of Congregation Ohab Sholom

1912: Birthdate of historian Daniel Baruch Aaron.


1912: In Trenton, NJ, founding of People of Truth Synagogue

1912:  Birthdate of composer and writer David Raskin who wrote the scores for numerous films, many of which were famous in their day but now are only seen on TCM or other such venues.  Raskin was caught up in the Red Witch Hunt of the late 1940’s and 1950’s.  He was not a victim of the blacklist since he gave the investigators the one thing they wanted, the names of more people they could investigate. He passed away in 2004.

1913(1stof Av, 5673): Rosh Chodesh Av (Unbeknownst to anybody, Europe is starting its last twelve months of peace.  A year from now WW I will have begun. To paraphrase one English statesmen, the lights of the world were about to go out and we do not know when they will come back on again.

1914: After Great Britain had declared war on Germany at the start of World War I, Sir Edgar Speyer resigned as a partner in the Frankfort branch of his family’s banking business.   Speyer, the American born son of German parents had become a naturalized British citizen in 1892. Speyer would spend the war defending himself against charges of being disloyal and accusations that he was supporter/spy for Germany.  

1914: “When war was declared” today, “the Jewish Chronicle front page headline proclaimed: “England has been all she could be to Jews; Jews will be all they can be to England” and as proof of that statement “within a year 10,000” Jews had signed up “including Lieutenant Frank De Pass, who was to become the first Jewish soldier awarded the Victoria Cross – and the very first soldier in the Indian Army to be awarded a VC.” (As reported by Lord Sterling, president of the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women (AJEX))

1914: Germany invades Belgium which forces Great Britain to declare war on Germany since the British are guarantors of Belgian independence and neutrality.  It was the invasion of Belgium that “sealed the deal” and turned the nascent European hostilities into World War I.  From the vantage point of the 21stcentury, we can see so many places where this war might have been avoided and all that flowed from it including the Shoah.  In other words, if the Germans had viewed treaties as more than “a scrap of paper” (the way one German leader reportedly described the treaty guaranteeing Belgium’s independence, six million Jews might not have been smoke and ashes.)

1915: “On the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Max Schwartz, “a carpenter who sang in local choirs” and his wife Eva gave birth to Yitzhak Schwartz, the youngest of their six children who gained fame as pianist and band leader Irving Fields who “pioneered the melding of Cuban sound with Jewish rhythm via his Bagels and Bongos series in the 1950's to create a vibe which is equal parts Havana, Harlem, and the Catskills.”


1915: It was reported today that among the ten thousand prisoners being held by the Germans in a camp “near the university town of Giesen in Upper House includes “Russian Jews.”

1916: During the Battle of Romani, the last attempt by the Central Powers to cross the Suez, the Anzac Mounted Division engaged the German Pasha I formation and the Ottoman 3rd Infantry Division slowing their advance and giving other units of the British Army to mount a defense.

1917(16th of Av, 5677): Shabbat Nachamu is observed for the first time after the U.S. began fighting in WW I.

1917: “Late reports from the local exemption boards in all parts of New York tonight indicated that the 30,000 men for the National Army to be supplied by New York City,” a significant number of whom will be Jewish according to Benjamin Swartz, will be met by the end of this week.

1918: Birthdate of Sidney Harman the Montreal native an audio pioneer who built the first high-fidelity stereo receiver, dabbled in education and government, and made a late-in-life splash by acquiring an antiquated Newsweek magazine and wedding it with a sassy young Web site, The Daily Beast…(As reported by Robert McFadden)

1918: “An Allied force landed at Arkhangelsk, Russia, beginning a famous military expedition dubbed Operation Archangel with the professed objective of which was to prevent the German Empire from obtaining Allied military supplies stored in the region” but was really thought to be a way of thwarting the Bolshevik Revolution.

1918: “Mrs. Moses Mielzner, he widow of the late Dr. Moses Mielziner, dean of the faculty of Hebrew Union College…celebrated her 80th birthday anniversary at the home of her son Benjamin Mielziner” where she was joined by “her son Leo Mielziner, the artist from New York City, her daughters Belle and Ernestine, the latter of whom is a Red Cross Nurse at Camp Sherman” but not by her son Rabbi Jacob Mielziner, the 1900 graduate of Hebrew Union College “who is ow living in Copenhagen” with his wife.

1918: Corporal Adolf Hitler was award the Iron Cross, First class, based on the recommendation of his regimental adjutant, Captain Hugo Guttman who was Jewish.

1918: In “East Side’s Patriotic Upheaval” published today, Richard Barry described the change in this predominately Jewish neighborhood from Socialism to American patriotism in the last six months.

1919: Dr. Joseph Silverman, the rabbi of Temple Emanu-El delivered the eulogy at the funeral of Oscar Hammerstein which was attended a large throng including “men and women of theatrical and operatic prominence.”

1919: Abraham Goodman Jacobs and Sarah Jacobs, the daughter of Abraham Simcha (Simon) Flashtiq and Rebekah Flashtiq, gave birth to David Samuel Jacobs

1919: It was reported today that “Hetman Gregorieff who commanded the troops in the capture of Odessa a month ago” where there was a massacre of those living in the Jewish quarter “has been shot with a revolver by a rival commander of the Ukrainian insurgent forces.”

1921(29th of Tammuz, 5681): Seventy-three year old “Alfred Neymarck,” the son of “Mayes and Henriette Neumark” and the “husband of Jeanne Neymarck” with whom he had one child “Henriette” passed away today in “La Tronche sur Isere, France.”

1922: In the Bronx, David Winick, a house painter and his wife the former Sadie Brussel gave birth to “Charles Winick a professor of anthropology and sociology who wrote a book bemoaning the blurring of lines between the sexes and who challenged prevailing views about the dangers of drug abuse.”


1922: “A young Zionist named Zalker was killed by an Arab in the outskirts of Haifa.” Early in the day, five Jewish porters had been injured in a clash with Arabs over who would carry the luggage of tourists arriving at the port.

1922 (10th of Av): Jewish author David Frischmann passed away today



1928: “Warming Up,” a baseball movie produced by Adolph Zukor and Jesse Lasky based on a story by Sam Mintz was released today by Paramount Pictures.

1929: Founding of the Jewish agency for Palestine

1933:In France, An International Committee for the Protection of Academic Freedom and the Rights of Savants in all countries is formed to help German Jewish scholars and students in jeopardy in Germany.

1933: In Austria,President Miklas appoints four Jews as university professors out of nine new appointments.

1933: In the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Sarah (née Tonkin) and Arthur Adelson gave birth to Sheldon Adelson, who in 2011 “was ranked as the world's 16th-richest man with a net worth of $23.3 billion.”

1933: In Moscow, an official map of Soviet nations and nationalities, shows that the Jewish population is two and a half million or 1.7% of the total.

1936: In Danzig, “the Free City’s Supreme Court in a judgement rendered today” “an anti-Jewish boycott was officially sanctioned.”

1936: “Judge William Allen of General Sessions, following a half-hour argument today reserved decision on a motion to inspect and minutes of the June grand jury that indicted Robert Edward Edmondson, pamphleteer on allegations that he libeled the Jewish religion” among others.

1937: Zurich was in a holiday mood with thousands of visitors arriving hourly for the 20th Zionist Congress. Hotels and pensions were filled to capacity. Only one Swiss paper, Die Front, a Nazi organ, published a venomous attack on Jews. Dr. Franz Kahn opened the Congress with the same gavel used by Theodor Herzl at the First Congress in 1897. Dr. Chaim Weizmann delivered his 40-minute opening address. He pointed out the need to decide whether to accept or reject the Royal (Peel) Commission¹s Report on Palestine, pointing out to the advantages and disadvantages of the scheme. 

1937: In Geneva, the Permanent Mandate Commission of the League of Nations examined both the Peel and Palestine administration¹s reports and tried to determine whether the Palestine Mandate, drafted in 1922, was indeed no longer workable and whether the necessary fundamental changes, as requested by Great Britain, ought to be carried out. 

1937: “Artists and Models” a comedy starring Jack Benny, featuring Ben Blue and with music by Victor Young, Leo Robin and Frederick Hollander  was released today in the United States.

1938: Birthdate of Judith Smith Kaye, the first woman to serve as Chief Judge of New York, “the State Judiciary’s highest office.”

1938: In Philadelphia, Edwin and Margaret Dannenbaum Wolf gave birth to Ellen Wolf Schrecker the graduate of Radcliffe and Harvard who is “an American professor emerita of American history at Yeshiva University” and considered by some to be “the dean of the anti-anti-Communist historians.”


1938: The New York Round Table of the National Conference of Jews and Christians” at Hunter College sponsored a “mass meeting” where the topics covered were “The Jew In America,” “Catholicism and Fascism “ and “Students and the Interfaith Movement.”

1938(7thof Av, 5698): Seventy-eight year old Austrian native and “clothing merchant” Leon Tuchman, “the treasurer of the Uptown Talmud Torah,” “a member of Congregation Ohab Zedek” and father of Aaron Tuchman and Rebecca Weil who eight years ago “gave $50,000 to the endowment fund of Yeshiva College” passed away today.

1938: Rabbi Benjamin Plotkin spoke at mass rally this evening sponsored by the New York State International Labor Defense.

1938: It was reported by the official news agency in Germany, that “the City Council has expropriated the old synagogue and administrative buildings of the Jews Cultural Society on Hans Sachs Platz” so what Julius Streicher described as “the disgrace of Nuremberg” can be demolished before the Nazi Party’s annual convention in September.

1938: While on a boating trip, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini discussed Adolf Hitler’s new anti-Semitic laws with his mistress, saying “We must give Italians a feeling of race so that they don’t create half-castes, so that they don’t spoil what is beautiful...

1940(29th of Tammuz, 5700): Just months before his 60thbirthday, Ze'ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky passed away while inspecting a Betar Camp in New York. 



1940: Margret and Hans Rey arrive in Rio de Jeneiro aboard the Angola.

1940: Hugo Gutmann (aka Henry G. Grant) who during WW I served as an officer in a regiment that included Adolf Hitler and his family reached Lisbon and safety after having fled from Brussels across France ahead of the advancing Nazi forces.

1941: The Jewish community of “Varklan, a small town north of modern-day Daugavpils in Latvia” which had been the home to many of the Jews who began arriving in Tulsa, OK in 1902 “was exterminated today by the Nazis.”

1942: The first train with Jews from Belgium went to Auschwitz. The train contained 998 Jews. Normally the Germans would wait until they had an even thousand before sending a train from Belgium to Auschwitz. (On April 19, 1943, three Jewish resistance fighters would stop the Twentieth Train with Jews bound for Auschwitz. Several hundred Jews would escape, although many were caught in later round-ups and sent to the camps. This episode teaches us many valuable lessons. One of them is about Jewish courage in the face of almost certain death. Another of them is that history is not made up of events, but of the events we know about. The ambush took place on the same day as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Both were events of great courage. But we only celebrate the events at Warsaw because that is the one that most people know about.)

1942: One thousand Jews were deported from Theresienstadt. 

1942: In Warsaw, Chaim Kaplan wrote the last entry in his diary before he was murdered: “If my life ends - what will become of my diary?”  Saul Friedlander would see to it that the material covered in the diary would survive the killers and the victims when he would he use it as resource material for The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945

1942(21st of Av, 5702): In Radom, Poland, 10,000 Jews were assembled for deportation to Treblinka. The Germans began shooting them as they gathered.  

1942: An additional 13,000 Jews were rounded up in Warsaw as Operation Reinhard continued into its second month.  

1942: “My Sister Eileen,” a comedy written by Joseph A. Field and Jerome Chodorov and produced by George S. Kaufman which had opened on Broadway at the Biltmore Theatre, transferred to the Martin Beck Theatre where it opened tonight.

1943: “The Man from Down Under” a movie set in post WW I Australia directed and produced by Robert Z. Leonard was released in the Unites States today.

1944: A limited number of Jewish war refugees arrived in New York Harbor.  They then moved to a decommissioned army camp in Oswego New York. Ruth Gerber, an American journalist was selected“to go on a secret mission to escort the refugees to the United States. This journey became ‘the defining Jewish moment’ of Gruber's life.  In her role as a spokesperson for the refugees, Gruber presented the refugees' journey as a human interest story for the press. She told the New York Times that the refugees represented "a cross-section of every refugee now pouring into Italy," including Jews, Catholics and Protestants for whom religious services were held onboard the ship. In a touching moment in Haven, her book recounting the voyage, Gruber recalls a rabbi conducting a service as the boat passed the Statue of Liberty, and her pride in telling the Jewish refugees of the Holocaust that the poem on the base was written by Emma Lazarus, an American Jew.The story of these European refugees stands out as a momentary relaxation of America's restrictive immigration policy. President Roosevelt's decision provided the refugees with a safe haven as "guests" in the United States during the war, with the assumption that "they were destined to be sent back to their homelands when the peace comes." While Roosevelt planned to allow the nearly 1000 refugees to reside in the United States only until the end of hostilities, when the end of the war came, Gruber lobbied the President and Congress—with the help of Catholic, Jewish and Protestant clergy—and convinced the officials to let the refugees stay. While the story ended happily for these refugees, sadly it came at the expense of others waiting in displaced persons camps in Europe. Since the overall immigration laws and quotas remained unchanged, the close to 1000 refugees were just subtracted form that year's quota.

1944(15thof Av, 5704): Tu B’Av – Editor’s note: there are times when the calendar seems to be mocking us.

1944(15, of Av, 5704: “On only the fourth day of the Warsaw Uprising, the 23 year old poet Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński was killed by a German sniper in the city’s Old Town.” (As reported by Benjamin Paloff)


1944: Anne Frank was arrested with her parents and sister. Anne, 15 years old, was sent to Bergen-Belsen where she died in March 1945. 

1944: Victor Kugler, one of the people who helped to hide Anne Frank was arrested by Karl Silberbauer and taken to Gestapo headquarters where he was interrogated and ten transferred “to a prison for Jews and 'political prisoners' awaiting deportation on the Amstelveenseweg.”

1945(25thof Av, 5705): Fifty-five year old Eugene E. Sperry, a native of New York and the son of Levi and Bertha Spiegelberg passed away today in Deal, N.J.

1945: In Haifa Miriam and Shmuel gave birth to Benjamin Zeev Kol-Kari who lost his life when the Dakar, an Israeli submarine sank with all hands on board.

1945: British movie producer Sydney Bernstein received a memo from the British Foreign Office which put an end to the documentary he was making “German Concentration Camps Factual Survey” although the footage he had gathered was used in the war crime trials at Nuremberg.

1945: Birthdate of actor and comedian Richard Belzer 

1947: In the wake of yesterday’s anti-Jewish violence Walter Lever, a working-class Jewish resident of Manchester said that “today, “all premises belonging to Jews for the length of a mile down” Cheetham Hill Road “had gaping windows and he pavements were littered with glass.”

1947: “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” a movies based on the short story character of the same name produced by Samuel Goldwyn, starring Danny Kaye and featuring songs by Sylvia Fine and a score by David Raskin, premiered in Chicago today.

1948: Today, Lee Pressman, a labor lawyer and son of Jewish immigrants, “characterized” the testimony of former Communist Party member Whittaker Chambers as “smering me with the stale and lurid mouthinings of a Republican exhibitionist who was bought by” Time/Life publisher Henry Luce.

1948: “Regulations of the activities of the recognized religions, including Judaism, were set down in the today’s order of the presidium of the Grand National Assembly (which also served as the presidency of the state)

1950: Sixty-four year old Norihiro Yasue “an Imperial Japanese Army colonel who played a crucial role in the so-called Fugu Plan, in which Jews were rescued from Europe and brought to Japanese-occupied territories during World War II” passed away today in Soviet labor camp.

1950: In Rehovot, Daniel and Tzipora Gov gave birth to Israeli entertainer Gidi Gov who “was married to playwright Anat Gov with whom he has three children.”

1951: Birthdate of Yona Metzger, the native of Haifa and IDF veteran who served as Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel.

1952: In Malibu, CA, movie director Don Siegel and actress Viveca Lindfors gave birth to Christopher Donald Siegel who gained fame as actor and director Kristoffer Tabori

1952: Rishon Lezion or First for Israel celebrated its 70th anniversary. Rishon is approximately seven miles southeast of Tel Aviv.  By the time of its 70thcentury, several well-known Israelis had worked or lived on the Moshav.  Two future prime ministers of Israel, David Ben Gurion and Levi Eshkol worked in the winery at Rishon Lezion. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the father of the Modern Hebrew language taught at Rishon LeZion.

1956: “The Indian Fighter” starring Kirk Douglas and Walter Matthau with a script by Ben Hecht and music by Franz Waxman was released in the United States today by United Artists.

1958: In Gabès, Tunisia, Shimon Shalom gave birth to Silvan Shalom, who came to Israel a year later where his political career has included in several ministerial positions including Vice Prime Minister.

1959: “Some five months after its Broadway opening, a Philip Rose production of “Raisin in the Sun” opened at the Adelphi Theatre in London’s West End.

1959: “The Big Fisherman” a Biblical biopic co-starring Susan Kohner and Herbert Lom was released in the United States today.

1961: Birthdate of Barak Obama whose Presidential campaigns were run by David Axelroad; whose first chief of staff was Rahm Emanuel; whose use of Jack Lew, a Sabbath Observant Jew, has filled many positions including Secretary of Treasury. He was willing to triple down on Jewish Justices when he nominated Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court.  While he has been criticized by some for his failure to visit Israel until his second term in office, Obama has fully funded Iron Dome during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.  He has so many Jews on his staff that he has been hosting a Seder since 2009 making him the first President to recline and dine while hoping not leave a stain from the chrain. Of course, it will be up to history and the historians to evaluate his ultimate impact on the Jews as well as everything.

1962: Birthdate of television executive Michael Gelman

1964: Civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney were found buried inside an earthen dam in Mississippi. Schwerner and Goodman were two Jewish youngsters who had come to Mississippi to work in a drive to register Black voters. Chaney was an African-American from Mississippi. Their deaths helped to galvanize support for what would become the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

1966(18thof Av, 5726): Sixty-four year old Helen Tamaris, “the dancer and choreographer” who “put a stress on social responsibility” in a career that spanned forty years and was the wife of her “dancing partner, Daniel Nagrin” lost her fight with cancer and passed at the Jewish Memorial Hospital.


1972: “Alfredo, Alfredo” an Italian language comedy starring Dustin Hoffman was released today in Italy.

1973(6thof Av, 5733): Parahsat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon

1973(6th of Av, 5733): Sam Katzman an American film producer and director passed away Born  in 1907,into a poor Jewish family, Katzman went to work as a stage laborer at the age of 13 in the fledgling East Coast film industry. He would learn all aspects of filmmaking and become a highly successful Hollywood producer for more than forty years.

1977: US President Jimmy Carter signs legislation creating the United States Department of Energy. Dr. James Schlesinger, the son of Russian and Austrian Jews, was named the first secretary of the Department.  Unlike another famous Harvard PhD. named Henry Kissinger, Schlesinger converted to Christianity, when, according to some sources, he discovered that the “faith of his father’s was an impediment to his budding academic career.

1977: "Nobody Does It Better"“a song composed by Marvin Hamlisch with lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager. It was recorded by Carly Simon as the theme song for the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me” was released today.

 1977: Three terrorists who were on their way to Kibbutz Ashdod Ya'acov were killed and two captured after they crossed the Jordanian border. 

1977: Syria rejected the American initiative to hold a Middle Eastern mini-summit in the US and asked for the reconvening of the Geneva Peace Conference instead. 

1978(1stof Av, 5738): Rosh Chodesh Av

1978(1stof Av, 5738): Lilya Yuryevna Brik, the so-called "muse of Russian avant-garde" died at the age of 87.

1981: Birthdate of Ariel Glaser


1981(4th of Av, 5741):  Famed American actor Melvin Douglas passed away. Born Melvyn Edouard Hesselberg in Macon, Georgia, Douglas began his film career in 1931.  Some of his more memorable films include “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House” and the “Americanization of Emily.”  He won two Oscars, including one for best supporting actor as the crotchety old rancher in “Hud.”  He has an additional claim to fame as the husband of Congresswoman Helen Cahagan Douglas.  Rep. Douglas ran against Richard Nixon for the Senate in 1950.  She was an early victim of Nixon and the right-wing Republicans smear tactics in which all liberals were equated with Communists.



1986: Roz Chast’s first cover for The New Yorkerappeared today “showing a lecturer in a white coat pointing to a family tree of ice cream.”



1990 (5750): Shabbat Nachamu

1992: Ran Cohen began serving as Deputy Minister of Housing and Construction.

1992: Eli Ben-Menachem was appointed Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s office.

1992: Mordechai Gur began serving as Deputy Minister of Defense.

1993: Harvey Weinstein, a formalwear manufacturer and chairman of Lord West Formal Wear was kidnapped in New York.

1994: Playwright Arthur Miller’s “Broken Glass” was performed for the first time in Great Britain at “the Royal National Theatre's Lyttelton Theatre.”

1994(27thof Av, 5754): Two days before his 86th birthday Solomon Adler, a U.S. Treasury Employee who served in China during World War II and was later accused of being “a Soviet intelligence source” passed away today.

1994: Actor Richard Lewis has been sober from this date forward.

1996: The Los Angeles Times featured a review of Rich Little Poor Boy: A Ghost of a Chance by Peter Duchin with Charles Michener. Duchin was the son of socialite Marjorie Oelrichs and musical genius Eddy Duchin, the son of Jewish immigrants. When Oerlichs was kicked out of the Social Register for marrying the Jewish Duchin she reportedly said, "Who cares?""It's only a telephone book." [“The Eddie Duchin Story” with Kim Novak and Tyronne Power left the Jewish part.]

2000: David Levy completed his term as Foreign Minister.

2000: “Running on the Sun: The Badwater 135,” a documentary film directed by Mel Stuart (born Stuart Solomon) was released today.

2001(15thof Av, 5761): A triple header – Parashat Vaetchanan, Sabbat Nachamu and Tu B’Av

2002: On the 110th anniversary of the death of Ernestine Rose, the Ernestine Rose society “held a memorial service at London’s Highgate Cemetery to dedicate the restored headstone of Ernestine and William Rose, fulfilling the group’s mandate to ensure that this “courageous and pioneering woman… would no longer rest in an unmarked grave.”


2002(26th of Av, 5762): Mordechai Yehuda Friedman, 24, of Ramat Beit Shemesh, Sari Goldstein, 21, of Karmiel, Maysoun Amin Hassan, 19, of Sajur, Marlene Miriam Menahem, 22, of moshav Safsufa, Sgt.-Maj. Roni Ghanem, 28, of Maghar, Sgt. Yifat Gavrieli, 19, of Mitzpe Adi, Sgt. Omri Goldin, 20, of Mitzpe Aviv, Adelina Kononen, 37, of the Philippines and Rebecca Roga, 40, of the Philippines were killed and 38 others were injured during a suicide bombing aboard Egged Bus 361 at the Meron Junction for which Hamas took credit.

2002: The New York Times book section featured a review of Stravinsky and Balanchine: A Journey of Invention about the relationship between the gentile and his Jewish apprentice by Charles M. Joseph, I’ll Be Short: Essentials for a Decent Working Society by Robert B. Reich, Bill Clinton’s first and Jewish, Secretary of Labor and Elvis In Jerusalem: Post-Zionism and the Americanization of Israel by Tom Segev.

2005(28th of Tammuz, 5765): Eden Natan Zada, age 19, who was absent without leave from the Israeli army opened fire on a public bus traveling to an Arab town in northern Israel, killing at least four people and wounding 10. In the immediate aftermath, passengers swarmed the gunman, killing him before he could leave the bus.

2005: Eliat Mazar announced she had discovered in Jerusalem what may have been the palace of King David,

2005:  The Jerusalem Post reported that for the second year in a row, Canadian hockey Jean Perron legend is conducting camp at the Canada Centre, in the town of Metulla near the border with the Lebanon..

2005: Israeli archaeologist Eliat Mazar announced the discovery the site of Palace of David, a 10th Century BCEbuilding in the Old City of Jerusalem.  The site is widely recognized as a major find but there is dispute over the identification of the building as being David’s Palace which is described in the Bible.

2006: Marissa Carson leads Friday Night Services at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as part of the rituals marking her Bat Mitzvah.

2006: “Three rockets fired by Hezbollah hit Hadera.”

2006: Over 200 rockets were fired at northern Israel, killing three people. At least 86 more were wounded, one critically and five seriously. A barrage of rockets landed near Karmiel just before 6 p.m., killing two people in the villages of Majdal Krum and Dir el-Assad.

2007(20th of Av, 5767): Eight-one year old Raul Hilberg, one of the historians who created the field of Holocaust Studies passed away today (As reported by Douglas Martin)


 

 

2007: To his everlasting credit, Chet Culver, Governor of the state of Iowa, officially proclaims this day as Raoul Wallenberg in honor of the Swedish Diplomats work in saving thousands of Hungarian Jews and as an example of a great humanitarian who provided living proof that one person’s efforts can make a difference in the fight against evil.

2007: The Indianapolis Colts place Mike Seidman on the inured reserved list.

2008: Taking time from dealing with aftermath of the floods and tornadoes that have struck Iowa, Chet Culver, Governor of the state of Iowa, officially proclaims this day as Raoul Wallenberg Day in honor of the Swedish Diplomats work in saving thousands of Hungarian Jews and as an example of a great humanitarian who provided living proof that one person’s efforts can make a difference in the fight against evil.

2008: In a testament to the involvement of Jews in diverse strata of American life, U.S. News & World Report discloses that Henry Kissinger, the first Jewish U.S. Secretary of State has agreed to lend his name to a foreign policy think tank (at the Woodrow Wilson Center) while Sports Illustrated reports on the recent death of legendary baseball writer Jerome Holtzman and marvels at re-emergence of basketball great Nancy Lieberman, who at the age of fifty had two assists in playing nine minutes for the Detroit Shock

2009: During the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to show “Rachel” at the Berkeley Repertory’s Roda Theater.

2009: Despite being forced to deal with worst economic downturns since the Great Depression, Iowa Governor Chet Culver still finds the time to proclaim today Raoul Wallenberg Memorial Day on the 97th anniversary of the great Swede’s birth.  This is the third year in a row that the Governor of Iowa has issued such a proclamation.

2009: Rashi’s Daughters: Book III – Rachel by Maggie Anton goes on sale today.  This is the third and final volume in a fictional trilogy based on the lives of the daughters of the great sage.

2009: Israeli police have broken up an Israeli-American crime ring specializing in tax fraud and money-laundering in an operation codenamed "American Pie."

2009(14th of Av, 5769: Eighty-two year old Israeli author and gadfly, Amos Kenan passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)


2009: Two years after the death of novelist Sidney Sheldon, the author of Master of the Game, William Morrow and Company released a sequel entitled Sidney Sheldon's Mistress of the Game

2009: The Russian gentile who saved former chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau during the Holocaust was posthumously honored at Yad Vashem with the prestigious Righteous Among the Nations award today. As a young adult, Feodor Mikhailichenko risked his life to feed, clothe and protect the young Lolek Lau, who was 10 years his junior, in the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. Last year, Lau, chairman of the Yad Vashem Council, finally succeeded in identifying Mikhailichenko after decades of searching. The deceased Mikhailichenko's two daughters accepted the award, which honors non-Jews who helped Jews during the Holocaust, on their father's behalf. More than 22,700 gentiles have been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations. Mikhailichenko is the 164th Russian gentile to receive this honor. About 200 people, including Lau's family and Israeli and Russian officials, gathered at the Jerusalem museum's Hall of Remembrance, synagogue and Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations for a memorial service and ceremony and to view Mikhailichenko's name on the wall listing the honored gentiles. "I don't know if you can understand the feeling of a child all alone, and here is a man who owes him nothing," Lau told those at the ceremony about Mikhailichenko's heroic deeds. "There are angels of death, but also angels of life, no matter how few, and one of the most prominent among them is this Feodor," said Lau. Mikhailichenko, a Russian prisoner-of-war, and Lau, who had been separated from his brother in Buchenwald, were in the same barracks in the camp. Mikhailichenko used to steal potatoes, collect small rocks in the courtyard near their barracks and cook Lau soup. He also once took a beige sweater from a corpse, unraveled the thread and used it to sew Lau flesh-colored earmuffs so that when Lau removed his hat as per the Nazis' command, his ears wouldn't freeze. When Buchenwald was liberated in April 1945, Mikhailichenko covered Lau's body with his own, acting as a shield to protect him from the gunfire. After the war ended, Mikhailichenko wanted to take Lau back with him to Rostov-on-Don, his hometown in Russia. But Lau, who was eight years old when Buchenwald was liberated, had promised his brother Naftali that he would go to Israel, so he and Mikhailichenko separated. "I must not forget there is a place in the world Israel. He made me repeat the word 'Israel,'" Lau remembered, describing what Naftali had told him. "Tell people to take you there." Over the years, Lau tried to locate his savior. Unfortunately, he had neither a picture nor a last name. Lau asked various people for help, and at one point a notice was printed in a local paper, but to no avail. One Russian dignitary told him point-blank, "There are more Feodors in Rostov than Danis in Tel Aviv," but Lau still hoped that one day he would succeed. "He always spoke about him," Lau's son Rabbi David Lau told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. "We always heard about the fact that he wanted to see him." In fact, at one family birthday party, the children put on a play, and one of them played the part of Mikhailichenko.Then in June of last year, 63 years after the end of the Holocaust, someone contacted Lau with the news: An American researcher studying Gestapo documents about Buchenwald had identified his rescuer. For the first time, Lau said, he had known Feodor's last name. He got in touch with the Chabad emissary in Rostov, who found a lifelong friend of Mikhailichenko. The friend told him Mikhailichenko had died of illness in 1993 at age 66. The friend knew of the little Jewish boy Mikhailichenko had saved and told the Chabad emissary that Mikhailichenko used to tell his daughters, "If he had not gone to Israel, you would have had a brother." Soon after, Mikhailichenko's two daughters, Yulia Selutina and Yelena Belayaeva, came to Israel to meet the person about whom their father had spoken so fondly. "Lolek, who father was so attached to - the child who he loved so much," Selutina told the crowd on Tuesday. Selutina said her father had also tried looking for Lau, but had not been successful. Lau spoke of the debt he owed Mikhailichenko for his selfless deeds, a debt of gratitude he could not quantify. Even though the gates of Buchenwald were inscribed with the words "Jedem das Seine," or "to each his own," Mikhailichenko had not lived like that, Lau said. Pointing first to Mikhailichenko's two daughters, and then to his own son David and his nine-month-old granddaughter, Lau told a group of attendees outside the hall, "If not for their father, both this one and this one would not be here."

2009: Raoul Wallenberg Day

2010: “Surviving Hitler: A Love Story,” a documentary about a young Jewess named Jutta who joined the Resistance and plotted to kill Hitler, is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival

2010: The United Nations peacekeeping force in South Lebanon, Unifil, said today that it had concluded that Israeli forces were cutting trees that lay within their own territory before a lethal exchange of fire with Lebanese Army troops yesterday, largely vindicating Israel’s account of how the fighting started. 

2011: The Jewish community of Cedar Rapids, proudly awaits today’s opening of “13: The Musical” starring one of its youthful and talented members, Bentlee Birchansky.

2011: The 2011 Security Briefing For Jewish Institutions in Northern Virginia is scheduled to place at Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation.

2011: “Next Year in Bombay,” film that “profiles the surprising diversity of India’s Jewish communities, some of which have existed for over 2,500 years” is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2011: IDF aircraft struck targets in the Gaza Strip in the early hours this morning, a day after Palestinians fired at least two Grad rockets, striking deep into Israel.

2011: Israel Medical Association chairman Dr. Leonid Eidelman said today that although progress has been made in negotiations with the Treasury on the doctors' work dispute, sanctions would continue in hospitals and clinics until a final agreement is reached

2011: Tomer Rotem, a Chabad rabbi working in Quito, Ecuador, who was kidnapped on August 1 and held for four days, was released tonight.

2011: Hundreds of Wikipedia activists from around the world will descend upon Haifa today for the seventh annual Wikimania conference, to discuss debate and deliberate all things Wiki.

2011: Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak approved the appointment of Ram Rothberg as the next head of the Israel Navy,after being nominated by IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz

2011: Under the leadership of Irene Rosenfeld Kraft Foods said it plans to split into two publicly traded companies, with one focusing on its international snack brands like Trident gum and Oreo cookies and the other on its North American groceries business that includes Maxwell House coffee and Oscar Mayer meats.

2012: Raoul Wallenberg Shabbat

2012: Actress Roseanne Barr won the 2012 presidential nomination of the Peace and Freedom Party.

2012: Sam Kringlen is scheduled to be called to the Torah this morning as a Bar Mitzvah at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

2012: Yemen Blues, a group that originated in Tel Aviv, is scheduled to perform at the City Winery in New York City.

2012: In Auburn, ME, Temple Shalom Synagogue is scheduled to celebrate the 100thanniversary of the birthday of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg with a special Saturday morning service and screening of a film later in the evening about his rescue work.

2012:Israeli windsurfer Lee Kurzits finished first in race eight of the women’s RS-X competition this afternoon at the Olympic Games, and was in second place overall at the end of the day with strong prospects of a medal.

2012: Bearing banners, shouting slogans and calling for a better Israel and a brighter tomorrow, thousands gathered in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening for a major protest organized by the social justice movements, which put aside their differences to join forces for the event.

2012: IDF forces shot a Syrian man who crossed into Israel through its northern border today. The infiltrator, who was carrying a pair of wire cutters, was identified during a routine patrol and asked to stop; when he didn’t, the troops on patrol opened fire on him, injuring him in the leg.

2013(28thof Av): Yarhrzeit for Larry Rosenstein, of blessed memory, husband of Judy Levin Rosenstein, of blessed memory.  Gone to soon but always remembered! 

2013(28thof Av, 5773): Centenarian Yitzhak Berman, Israeli political leader passed away today.


 2013: “50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr. & Mrs. Kraus” a documentary about Gilbert and Eleanor Karus’ successful effort to save 50 Jewish children from Austria.

2013: The Alexandria Kleztet is scheduled to perform at the Washington DC Jewish Community Center.

2013: A group of 36 Democratic members of the House are expected to arrive in Israel for a one week visit to the Jewish state.  A group of 26 Republicans are expected to visit next week. (As reported by Herb Keinon)

2013: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including a novel by Louis Begley, Memories of a Marriage  and Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish by David Rakoff of blessed memory.

2013: Generall Martin Dempsy, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrives in Israel as the guest of Major General Benny Gantz, Israel’s Chief of Staff who will host meeting meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ya’alon.

2013: Igal Brightman, the chairman and CEO of the major local accounting firm of Deloitte Brightman who died in light plane crash is scheduled to be buried today in Tel Aviv.

2013: At Bloomfield Stadium in Jaffa 12,000 youngsters joined President Shimon Peres, Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai and Education Minister Shai Piron enjoyed an evening with soccer superstran Lionel Messi and his Barcelona Football Club.

2013: American journalist Steven Sotloff was kidnapped by terrorists near Aleppo.

2014: “Aftermath Poland” is scheduled to be shown at the Berkshire Jewish Film Festival.

2014(8thof Av, 5774): “Rabbi Abraham Wallis, a 29-year-old resident of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, was killed in what has been described as  terrorist attack earlier today while working at a construction site for Atra Kadisha, an organization which assures graves are not disturbed during building.”  (In life he was loved and admired. He was swifter than eagles and stronger than lions.)  

2014(8thof Av, 5774): Eighty-six year old physician and Holocaust survivor Emanuel Emek Tanay lost his battle with prostate cancer today.



2014: “An Israeli man was shot in the stomach at the entrance to the Har Hatzofim (Mount Scopus) tunnel in Jerusalem, in what looks to be the capital's second terror attack in a matter of hours.” (As reported by Gil Ronen)

2014: President Barack Obama signed a bill today granting an additional $225 million in US taxpayer dollars for Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system.

2014(8thof Av): In the evening fast of Tisha B’av begins

2015(19thof Av, 5775): Seventy-three year old Hungarian-born  American Jewish historian Yosef Goldman, the son of Rabbi Lipa Goldman who came to the U.S. in 1950 and who was the co-author of Hebrew Printing in America 1735-1926: A History and Annotated Bibliography passed away today.

2015(19thof Av, 5775): Ninety-nine year old “pop art furniture designer” Irving Harper, born Irving Hoffzimer, passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)


2015: Steve Gimbel, author of Einstein: His Space and Times” is scheduled to speak at the Washington DC JCC as part of its Brilliant Minds, Great Thinkers program.

2015: YIVO and the Yiddish League are scheduled to present the New York Premiere of “Chava Rosenfarb: That Bubble of Being”

2016: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to present “The Power of Habit” in which Uri Galimidi will help attendees “learn simple yet highly effective interventions to help you conquer undesired habits and adopt new healthier ones.”

2016: “Australia said it was suspending funding for major charity World Vision late today, hours after Israeli officials accused the group’s manager in Gaza of funneling tens of millions of dollars in aid money to terror group Hamas.”

2016:“Muhammad Halabi, a Hamas member and manager of operations for World Vision in Gaza, was indicted in a Beersheba court today on a number of security-related charges for his alleged role in the scheme to divert “tens of millions dollars to fund the Hamas war machine in Gaza.”

2016: One hundred sixth anniversary of the birth of Raoul Wallenberg

2016: Noam Banai, son of Meir and cousin to Ehud, Yuval and Elisha continued his tour of Israel tonight a performance at the HaArbaim Pub at Kibbutz Talilim.

2016: Anniversary of Iowa Governor Chet Culver proclaiming today Raoul Wallenberg Day, in response to the efforts spearheaded by members of Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids , IA.

2017: This evening, a Shabbat Nachamu Shidduch is scheduled to take begin Kew Garden Hills, Queens, NY.

2017: A Shabbat Nachamu weekend sponsored by the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists is scheduled to open this evening at the Crowne Plaza in Stamford, CT.

2017: Yiddish comedians, Mendy Cahan and Yuri Vedenyapin are scheduled to host a “late-night open stage at the OMA café at the Yiddish Summer Weimar in Germany.

2017: “Left-handed reliever Craig Brewslow was signed “to a minor league deal” today.

2018: “Hitler’ Hollywood” and “The Price of Everything” are scheduled to be shown today at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

2018: “Classical Bridge, an international musical festival, academy and conference designed to build bridges through music” featuring “Israeli musicians Pinchas Zuckerman and Alexander Fiterstein” is scheduled to open today.

2018: Lior Milliger, the Israeli Saxphonist is scheduled to bring his Lior Milliger Trio to New York for their first ever appearance at The Shrine.

2018: “The Israeli Jazz Spotlight festival, curated by Nadav Remez” and “featuring some of the best NYC based Israeli Jazz acts” at the Cornelia Street is scheduled to come to an end this evening.

2018(23rdof Av, 5778): Parashat Ekev; for more see http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

 

This Day, August 5, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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August 5 

135: Betar fell to the Romans



1100: Henry I is crowned King of England at Westminster Abby. During Henry’s reign the first attempts were made to introduce the continental principle - that all Jews were the king's property.  Under King Henry, a clause to that effect was inserted in some manuscripts of the so-called "Laws of Edward the Confessor."

1199: Birthdate of Ferdinand III of Castile.  Catholics remember as the monarch who was canonized as Saint Ferdinand III.  Jews remember him as the King who refused the Pope’s demand that Jews be forced to wear special badge and clothing. Apparently he was afraid that if the Jews mistreated they would flee to Muslim Granada, which would be disastrous for the revenues of the kingdom

1264: Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Arnstadt Germany

1381: Rabbis and communal leaders from Speyer, Worms and Mayence met at Mayence to review and reinforce laws pertaining to marriage and the rights of widows in the wake of the Black Death.  One of the rules enacted was Tekanoth Shum which allowed a childless widow to receive a definite portion of her late husband’s property even though she had refused to marry her brother-in-law.

1391: More than 400 Jews were killed in attacks in Barcelona. Attempts by the city Fathers and Artisans to protect them were of no use. The attacks were instigated for the most part by Castilians, who had taken part in the massacres in Seville and Valencia.


1529: Francis I, King of France and Charles V, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire who was also King of Spain appear to settle their differences by signing the Treaty of Cambrai in which Francis agrees to give up his claim to Italy and Charles gives up his claim to Burgundy (a part of modern day France.) The Jews had been expelled from France in 1394, so officially there were no Jews for Francis to mistreat or exploit. Charles treatment of his Jewish subjects depended upon where they lived.  As King of Spain, Charles followed the line established by his forbearers starting with the Spanish Inquisition. As Emperor he took a much more benign attitude towards his Jewish subjects living in central Europe. Pope Clement VII, whose support of the Jews earned him the “accolade of ‘favorer of Israel’ and a price gracious to Israel,” made the mistake of siding with Francis over Charles in their dispute.  Once in control of Italy, Charles allowed his troops to sack Clement’s Rome, safe in the knowledge that no French troops would come to the Pope’s assistance. Dona Gracia, the famous Marrano businesswomen who reasserted her Jewish identity, lent money to both monarchs and her nephew was well known to both of these competing rulers. 

1540: In Agen, France, Italian scholar Julius Caesar Scaliger and Andiette de Roques Lobejac gave birth to their tenth child and third son Joseph Justus Scaliger, “the Hugenot scholar and professor at the University of Leiden” who “argued that it was only possible to establish the true text and meaning of Scripture gaining an understanding of rabbinic sources” and who “maintained Jews should be permitted to return to western Europe simply because of their economic importance but because of their learning.”

1718: Barent Gompertz married Rachel Isaac today in Amsterdam.

1748: Empress Maria Theresa revoked the edict of expulsion directed at the Jews of Bohemia

1769: In a move that set him apart from many of his predecessors and successors, Pope Clement XIV elevated the conditions of the Jews when he declared that they were “no longer under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition and are instead subject to the authority of Rome's cardinal vicar (Vicariato di Roma). Jews were furthermore given permission to work as artisans and even to own small factories.” (As reported by Austin Cline)

1769: Herz Wesel Gumperz and Abraham Wesel Gumperz gave birth Ruben Samuel Gumperz the husband of Roeschen Gumperz

1772: First of the three partitions of Poland begins.  The Jews of what had been Poland and Lithuania will end up in the Prussian, Austrian and/or Russian Empires.  Ironically, the bulk of them will end up living under Russian monarchs who had committed themselves to keeping Jews out of Russia. 

1788(2nd of Av, 5548): In Trier Rabbi Moses Lwów, the son of Joshua Heschel Lwow and Marie Merlé Lwow and husband of Bella Eger passed away today.

1802: Birthdate of Eliakim Carmoly, a French born Jewish scholar and rabbi who would eventually resign from the rabbinate, move to Frankfurt and devote himself to Jewish literature and to the collection of Hebrew books and manuscripts.

1812: Moss Jewell married Eleanor Joseph today at the Great Synagogue.

1816: Two days after she had passed away, Maria Hart, the daughter of Stephen and Esther Hart was buried in the United Kingdom today.

1820: In Frankfurt, Adelheid (née Herz) and Carl Mayer von Rothschild gave birth to Mayer Carol Freiherr von Rothschild who became the first Jewish member of the House of Lords of Prussia.

1842(29th of Av, 5602): Fifty-three year old German educator and theologian Michael Creizenach, author of the 4 volume work “Shulḥan 'Aruk, oder Encyklopädische Darstellung des Mosaischen Gesetzes," passed away today.

1843(9th of Av, 5603): Parashat Devarim and Shabbat Chazon

1843: Birthdate of Jacob Ezekiel Hyneman, the son of Isaac Hyneman who was born in Richmond, Virginia but moved to Philadelphia, PA.  When the Civil War broke out, the southern born Hyneman cast his lot with the Union, serving with the U.S. Army from 1862 to 1865.

1846: Two days after she had passed, 72 year old Sarah (Moss) Barnett, the widow of the late Joel Barnett, was buried today at the “Brompton Jewish Cemetery.”

1848: Birthdate of Adolph M. Radin, the Polish born, German trained American rabbi who has served congregations in Elmira and New York City including the Congregation Gates of Hope and the People’s Synagogue.

1854: Julius Goldschmidt and Caroline Marie Hansen gave birth to Karl Julius Isak Goldschmidt today.

1854: John Griffins, a native of Poland, was arrested today for swindling Reverend Stephen Wilkins, the pastor of a Baptist church in New York.  Wilkins gave money to Griffins because the latter claimed to be collecting funds for a society for "aiding and better the conditions the Jews."  Griffin’s claims were false.

1860: The consecration of the new synagogue to be used by congregation B'nai Israel, located on the corner of Stanton and Forsyth streets, took place this afternoon. The building, which is capable of holding about 800 people, was formerly a Baptist Church, but has recently been purchased, and converted into a synagogue by the above congregation, most of whom are natives of Holland. The interior transformations required to convert it into a synagogue were not extensive or costly -- the only change being a shifting of the position of the pews, so as to leave a space for the "reading desk" in the centre of the church, and the erection of a semicircular ark in the place of the pulpit. The reading desk is the same as that used in the old synagogue of this congregation, in Christie-street, made of rosewood, and surrounded by an enclosure, or railing, about ten feet square, and of elegant workmanship. On the four corners of the enclosure are gas fixtures, in imitation of candies, and over head depends a magnificent bronze chandelier, with numerous jets, all of which were kept burning during the consecration service. The "Ark" is also made of rosewood, with sliding doors, and, when closed, is screened from public view by rich damask curtains, which were presented by the ladies of the congregation. The synagogue was filled to its utmost capacity, yesterday, by an audience composed about equally of ladies and gentlemen. As the congregation B'nai Israel is among the strictest of the "orthodox" party of the Jews, and opposed to the modern "improvements" and "reforms" that have been introduced into some other synagogues, the old customs, seating the sexes apart, was adhered to, and the ladies occupied the gallery, while the gentlemen sat in the body of the church. Among the Jewish clergy of other congregations present were Rabbi Morris Jerome Raphall, of the Greene-street Synagogue; Rabbi Samuel Myer Isaacs, of the Wooster-street Synagogue and Rabbi J.J. Lyons, of the Portuguese Synagogue. The ceremonies of the consecration were arranged and conducted by Rabbi M.R. de Leeuw, of the congregation B'nai Israel. The consecration service opened with a chant from the choir, which occupied the enclosure surrounding the reading-desk, and was led by the minister of the congregation. The trustees of the synagogue then entered bearing the "sacred scrolls," and proceeded by twenty-four young girls, dressed in white, with blue scarves, and each one carrying in her band a basket of flowers. The trustees took their position in the open space, between the reading-desk and the ark, and were flanked on either side by a column of the young girls, who commenced picking flowers from their baskets and throwing them at their feet, while the choir chanted a dedication psalm. The bearers of the sacred scrolls, accompanied by the honorary officers of the church, men marched in procession seven times around the synagogue, each circuit being accompanied by an appropriate chant from the choir. On each return of the procession to the open space fronting the ark they were pelted with roses from the fair hands of the young misses until the ground was literally covered with these fragrant floral offerings. The seventh circuit having been completed, the ark was opened, the sacred scrolls were deposited therein, the doors were closed, the damask curtains were drawn close around it, and the perpetual lamp which depends from the ceiling in front was ignited, never to expire. After another chant from the choir, Rev. Dr. RAPHALL ascended the platform on which rests the ark, and addressed the congregation in a few remarks befitting the occasion, taking for his text the passage of Scripture commencing, "How beautiful are thy Tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts." He alluded to the persecutions which the children of Israel had suffered under the Roman Empire, and all through the Middle Ages, even to the time when they crossed the ocean and landed in this home of freedom and equality. He spoke of the progress of the congregation B'nai Israel, from the time when he first addressed them in their Synagogue in Pell-street until now, and exhorted them to renewed devotion and praise to the Lord for the prosperity that had attended them. Rabbi Isaacs alluded in disparaging terms to the innovations of the "reform party" among the Israelites, which he attributed to religious pride. He thanked God that the congregation B'nai Israel remained uncontaminated by these pretended reforms, and adhered strictly to the ceremonials of their fathers. A consecration prayer was then delivered by Rabbi de Leeuw, and the ceremonies closed with a Hallelujah by the choir.

1860: The London correspondent for the New York Times reported that the Times of London no longer enjoys any special advantage over its competitors because it has lost its monopoly on information.  The accumulated wealth of the Times had given it access to the telegraph providing it with an advantage over its poorer competitors.   “But since the monopoly of telegraphic communication has been secured by that clever and far-seeing German Jew, Mr. Reuters, all the journals are supplied, share and share alike, at the same time, and at the same tariff. In many specialties, such as "City Intelligence" and "Foreign Correspondence," the Daily Newsis nearly equal to the Times. The leading articles of the Telegraphare generally on the same subjects as those of its high-priced rival, and the Post, Herald and Star each appeal to their own peculiar class of readers.”

1861: At the meeting of the Board of Alderman in New York City this evening the report of the Committee donating $30,000 to the Hebrew Benevolent Society was adopted, but was subsequently reconsidered and laid over, on the motion of Alderman Tuomey.

1861: At a time when President Lincoln had called for “90 day volunteers” Herman Stern began his 3 month service with Company of the 83rd Regiment.

1865: A correspondent for the Levant Herald wrote from Smyrna today describing the mortifying effects of the Cholera epidemic that has struck the city. Among other things he reported that Hyde Clark, the English engineer, has informed Sir Moses Montefiore of the suffering among the Jewish people. In response, the Jewish philanthropist has begun raising funds from the Jewish communities in London and France and it is thought that he and his associate, Dr. Hodgkins might personally come to the city with the necessary aid.

1865(13th of Av, 5625): Shabbat Nachamu

1865: Birthdate of Leopold Bloch, the resident of Pilsen who was transported to Terezin where he was murdered in 1942.

1865(13th of Ave, 5625): Thirty-one year old author Naphtali Keller whose works include to stores - "Sullam ha-Haẓlaḥah" and "Debek lo Tob", a tale of Galician Jewish life passed away today.

1871: Less than a month after his birth, author Marcel Proust, the son of Jeanne Clémence (Weil) Proust, “the daughter of a wealthy Jewish family from Alsace,” was baptized in the Catholic faith of his father Adrien Proust “at the church of Saint-Louis d’Antin” today.

1872: In Baltimore, MD, Moses and Jane (Alborn) Friedenwald gave birth to Racie Friedenwald who became Racie Adler which she married Cyrus Adler.


1872: In London Sir Philip and Lady Magnus gave birth to Laurie Magnus the husband of Dora Spielmann, “the eldest daughter of Sir Isidore and Lady Spielman” and “editor of John Murray’s Educational Publications” who was active in the Anglo-Jewish community as can be seen by his membership on the Jewish Board of Deputies and service as Warden at the West London Synagogue.

1873: “ From A Traveler” published today provides the views of an American merchant in Switzerland on the treatment of religious groups in Europe as opposed to the United States concluding that “in the end tolerated must be secured to all.  I am led to this course of reflection from observing the wrong done the Jews than those inflicted on dissenting Christians.  If the great Rothschild does not devote his accumulated wealth to the assertion and maintenance of the rights of his people then he will deserve the execration of mankind.  That family, with a few others, have it within their power to say to the Governments of southern and eastern Europe ‘this far and no father.’”  (Editor’s note – This view of the all -powerful Jewish families is one of those myths that went up in smoke with the Shoah.)

1876: Leopold Wintner who had assumed the position of the eight rabbi of Temple Beth El in Detroit gave his farewell sermon today. When Wintner delivered a sermon at the Church of Our Father in May of 1876, he became “the first Detroit rabbi to preach in a local Christian church.”

1877: Birthdate of Hermann Ludwig Mass, a Protestant minister from Badem and one of the Righteous Among the Nations who attended the Six Zionists Congress and was imprisoned by the Nazis for helping Jews to escape from Europe.

1877: Birthdate of Ludwig Hollaender, who studied law at the University of Munich and practiced law there before returning to his hometown of Berlin where he fought growing anti-Semitism as the founder and director of the Central Union of Jews in Germany.

1878: It was reported today Peace Society had sent a delegation headed by Professor Leone Levi to the Congress of Berlin that was supposed to present a petition to the leaders of Europe calling for the use of arbitration as a method of settling international disputes.  Britain’s Lord Salisbury expressed his sympathy with the effort but held out little hope for any action.  Levi was an Italian born Jew who moved to Great Britain where he converted and became a lawyer and author.

1879: “Tracing Some Stolen Goods,” published today described how a Jew named Louis Pollard was arrested and falsely accused of stealing shoes worth five hundred dollars from a shoe factory on West Broadway last September.  The police finally realized their error and release him.

1881: It was reported today that mobs have started to attack the synagogues and shops owned by Jews in Pomerania.  The police had to be called to disperse the mobs.

1881: The views of “M. de Bacourt, Talleyrand’s friend, secretary and literary executor” on Americans published today included the following description of the New England Yankee whom others saw as a flinty Protestant as being “the type of the Englishman combined with the subtlety and cleverness of the Jews.  He is a mixture of British pride, coldness and stiffness with Hebrew cunning.” (Editor’s note – One can only imagine how those New Englanders who put stumbling blocks in front of the Jews would have felt about this description.)

1881: Based on information that first appeared in the London Standard, “Beaconsfield’s Manuscripts” published today descried the high prices that these works by Benjamin Disraeli brought at auction citing in particular the original copies of the novels The Young Duke and Contarini Fleming which were written in his own hand.

1882: The Standard Oil of New Jersey is established. During the 1930’s “Standard of New Jersey…forged a synthetic oil and rubber cartel with the Nazi-controlled I.G. Farben.”  This “helped the Third Reich to make significant gains “in the development of synthetic rubber and gasoline”; gains which would prove to be of invaluable assistance to the Nazis during WW II.  During the 1930’s Farben’s holding in Standard of New Jersey “were second only to those of John D., Jr., himself.” (For more about Standard Oil and the Jewish people, see The Secret War Against the Jews by John Loftus and Mark Aarons.)

1883: It was reported today that there was an anti-Semitic riot at Presburg in protest over the not guilty verdicts rendered in the case of Esther Solymosi.

1883: “The Scientific Gossip” column published today explained earlier comments by M.G. Lagneau about the differences in birthrates between Catholics, Protestants and Jews. Although Jews have a lower birthrate than the other two religions, there mortality rate “is remarkably low” a condition  attributed to their religious dietetic and hygienic regulations, early marriages, the fact that most Jewish women do not work out of the home and “general sobriety.”

1885: In Kovno, Lithuania, “Rachel and Hyman Jehuda Osinsky” gave birth to Moshe Osinsky, who came to England in 1900 where as Montague Maurice Burton he became a successful maker and seller of men’s clothing, and married  Sophia Amelia Marks with whom he had four children – Barbara, Stanley, Raymond and Arnold.


 

1885: Herzl withdrew from the court service in order to become a writer.

1888: It was reported today that plans have been to provide the youngsters at the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children with an extra summer excursion.

1888: According to a review of Quince Culture by W.W. Meech published today, the fruit is so mild that In Palestine it is eaten as soon as it is picked from the tree.  According to Jewish tradition, the quince was “the apple” that Eve used to tempt Adam.


1888: “Hearing the New Rabbi” published today described the views of the recently elected spiritual leader of The Temple of Gates of Hope on the use of the pulpit and “the duties of the one who occupies it” which included the idea that just ‘as the statue in our harbor proclaims light and peace to all nations os the pulpit must proclaim light and peace to all mankind.” (Temple of Gates of Prayer was the forerunner of today’s Park Avenue Synagogue)

1889: Salvatore Levy was arrested on charges of obtaining credit under false pretenses.  A  Greek Jew, Levy claimed to be the son of Elie Levy, who had a seat on the Bourse in Paris and had sent him to America.

1889: Assemblyman Charles “Silver Dollar Smith got into an altercation with Samuel Roberts at the Golden Rule Hotel during a meeting of Republicans of the 8thAssembly District.  [Smith was a Jewish political leader named Solomon who, among other things, passed out free Matzot at his saloon each year before Pesach. 

1889(8th of Av, 5649): Erev Tish’a B’Av

1889(8th of Av, 5649): Seventy-seven year old Isaac Phillips passed away this morning in New York City.  A successful businessman, he worked in the cutlery industry in Philadelphia and New York before pursuing a life of public service including work as a Customs Examiner and Surveyor of the Port.  He also edited the Courier Enquirer.  A life-long Democrat, he attended the convention that nominated James K. Polk to serve as President of the United States.. An active member of the Sephardic community, he was one of the founders of Mount Sinai Hospital.  In 1834, he married Sophia Phillips and after she died in 1855, he married Miriam Trimble, a gentile woman who had converted to Judaism. He was the son of Naphtali Phillips who held a position of responsibility at the Custom House and was editor of the National Advocate

1889: The members of gang called the Yellowstone Cowboys were sentenced to the Albany Penitentiary for their role in terrorizing a boarding house owned by Jew in Ulster County. (Compare this to what was going on in Russia at this time)

1889: Seventy-eight year old author and German “feminist” Fanny Lewald who converted to Christianity at the age of 17 passed away today.


1890: When asked about the order to enforce the Russian edicts of 1882 against the Jews, Sir James Fergusson, the Under Foreign Secretary told the House of Commons “that the British Government could interfere with the Czar’s treatment of the Jews.” (Sort of reminds you of the British not being able to “interfere” with Hitler’s “treatment of the Jews.”)

1890: The U.S. State Department cabled the American Legation at St. Petersburg asking if there was “any foundation” to reports of wholesale Jewish expulsion.

1890: A man described as a slender 5’ 8” German Hebrew attempted to obtain three copies of a recently issued book using a forged purchase order from H.C. Squires, a gun dealer on Broadway.

1890: “Dancing At Saratoga” published today provided a summary of activities and events at the New York resort including the fact “that Judge Hilton no longer holds a controlling interest in…the Grand Union Hotel” and there the “Hebrews are once more welcomed there.”

1890: Rabbi Freudntahl, the superintendent of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of Baltimore married “Miss Addie Sutto” at the New York home of her parents.

1890: In New York founding of the “Russian-American Hebrew Association, Educational Alliance” an organization seeking “to exercise a civilizing and elevating influence upon the immigrants, to Americanize them” which defending “the Russian immigrants against unjust attacks” whose President since its founding was Adolph M. Radin.

1891: “Russian Jews Released” published today describe the decision to let a group of Jews from Russia enter Baltimore now that the Maryland State Board of Immigration has been “given satisfactory assurances that the immigrants would not become public charges.

1892: A letter printed in an English publication, the Jewish Chronicle, “confirmed the failure of Baron de Hirsch’s colony in Argentina.” According to the writer, the conditions at Moiseville, the Jewish colony, “baffled description.  The land selected for the settlement was ill chosen and an enormous number of the families are huddled together in tents and sheds, where they have been living for months in idleness and intrigue.” After failing to improve conditions, Colonel Goldsmid disbanded the colony and made arrangements for eight hundred of the colonists to sail back to Europe.

1892: Birthdate of Hartford, CT native Emanuel Cohen, the “newsreel editor for Pattie News,” the vice president in charge of productions for Paramount” and the husband of “the former Madeline Bender.”

1893: “Rabbi Cohen Has The Records” published today described the dismissal of Rabbi Louis Cohen by the congregation at 44 Orchard Street led by President Abraham Finberg and Secretary Samuel Finkelstein and the problems they have encountered in obtaining the congregation’s records from the former rabbi.

1894: “Masquerade Ball at Deal Beach” published today described this social event that included Bryan Kennelly and Lou Rolston dressed as “a Hebrew merchant and his wife.” (Is it Shylock or Rothschild?)

1894: Two days after she had passed away, 45 year old Betsy (Levy) Defries, the daughter of Moses and Esther Levy and the wife of I.L. Defries was buried today at West Ham Jewish Cemetery.

1894: “Remains of the Eight Cities” published today provided a detailed review of A Mound of Many City: Tell-el-Hesy Excavated by Fredrick Bliss the American archaeologist who worked at the site under the auspices of the Palestine Exploration Society and under the direction of the famed British archaeologist Flinders Petrie

 1895: “Objects To Having Jews Converted” published today described “Aaron Drucker’s indignation” that “has been aroused” by the Saturday afternoon meetings in the Church of Sea and Land “for the purpose of converting his co-religionist to Christianity.” He broke up one such meeting when shouted “Such meetings as this should not be held!  It is an outrage to humanity.  If a man is born a Jew… nothing can change him!” Efforts to convert the Jews of the Lower East Side continued despite his objections.

1895: Louis Stern, a New York dry goods merchant, went on trial today in Kissingen, Germany on charges that he had insulted Baron von Thuengen, the Deputy Commissioner of the city’s Spa much to the delight of “the Jew-baiters” and “the anti-Semitic press.”

1895: Birthdate of Newark, NJ native William Sawelson, the WW I Doughboy who was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for service at Grand-Pre, France. Sawelson served as a Sergeant, United States Army, Company M, 312th Infantry, 78th Division. His citation reads: “Hearing a wounded man in a shell hole some distance away calling for water, Sgt. Sawelson, upon his own initiative, left shelter and crawled through heavy machinegun fire to where the man lay, giving him what water he had in his canteen. He then went back to his own shell hole, obtained more water, and was returning to the wounded man when he was killed by a machinegun bullet.”

1895: “The Aldemanic Law Committee met this afternoon and decide to recommend that the Hebrew Benevolent Orphan Asylum Society be allowed to sell the property from 76thto 77th Street, Third to Lexington Avenue.”

1895: It was reported today that Meyer J. Stein, a lawyer in New York has expressed his outrage along with that of several of his co-religionist over the letterhead of the Hotel Lowry that says in red ink “3$ per day. No Jews.”

1896 “Free Trade In Money” published today provides the view of Edward Atkinson that the attempt to switch  United States currency from a gold standard to a bi-metal standard is a plot spearheaded by William Jennings Bryan, the silver miners and “the Jews bankers.”

1896: “Notes of Stage People” published today provided a preview of the fall season in New York including Oscar Hammerstein’s production of the romantic comic opera “Santa Maria” which will open at the Olympia.

1897: The roof garden on the Hebrew Institute Building opened for its second season this evening. The delay in re-opening this facility which provides relief from the heat for thousands on the Lower East Side was brought by the need to finish “extensive repairs…to the building” that will make it nicer for those seeking some semblance of “coolness.”

1897: The Straus sterilized milk booth (so named because they are funded by Nathan Straus) which was located at the roof garden of the Hebrew Institute  last year opened today “for the first time this year.”

1898: “A Riot In East New York” published today described a spontaneous outbursts of violence when Jewish immigrant mothers thought that attempts to vaccinate their daughters were an attempt to put the mark of the cross on their bodies and convert them to Christianity.

1898(17th of Av, 5658): Seventy-six year old Isidor Bush the native of Prague whose “maternal great-grandfather was Israel Hönig, Edler von Hönigsberg, the first Jew raised to nobility in Austria” passed away in St. Louis MO. He moved to the United States after the failed Revolutions of 1848 where he enjoyed an exciting life that included a career in banking, service in the Union Army and helping to develop the Jewish community in St. Louis and the wine growing industry in Missouri; an effort that was felt all the way back to France.

1899(29th of Av, 5659): Seventy-five year old Myer Stern passed away today at Bath Beach while staying at the Hotel Argyle. A native of Bavaria, at the age of 16 he went to work for a banking house owned by the father of Baron Hirsch before coming to the United States where he became a successful banker and merchant.  An active philanthropist, he served as President of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum, first President of the Institute of Deaf Mutes and was a founder of Temple Emanu-El.

1899: Israel Zangwill, the author of “The Children of the Ghetto” was one of the first passengers to come down the gangplank of the SS Campania when “she docked at the Cunard pier” today.

1899: Israel Zangwill left New York this evening to visit Judge Meyer Sulzberger in Philadelphia, PA

1899: The United Hebrew Charities acknowledged that it had raised an additional $200.50 for an impoverished family that sought to move to the country since both of the parents had become chronic invalids as result of overwork in the city. The contributions ranged from as much as $20 from A.A. Levy to fifty cents from Philip Domich.

1902: Herzl’s trip to the Ottoman Empire begun on July 22, 1902 ended today.  Of the trip, Herzl writes, "The negotiations have again led to no results." Herzl comes to the conclusion that the direct road to Palestine was for the time being blocked. He hopes to advance the indirect road of El Arish.
Herzl offers to liquidate the entire Ottoman national debt in return for a concession to "Haifa and its environs."


1903: Herzl begins his journey to visit the Jews of Russia.  The trip will end on the 18th day of the month.

1906: Today, eleven English-speaking Jews held a formal meeting in Havana with the intention of founding a congregation and cemetery. The venue was the home of Manuel Hadida at Pasaje Arcado No. 9. Hadida was a Sephardic Jew originally from Algeria, who apparently had migrated from North Africa to Paris, and then to the United States. Evidently it was from the United States that he moved to Havana. Typical of the period, most of the others were Ashkenazi "Americans," although some had been born in Europe. At the first meeting Louis Jurick was elected chairman of the Hebrew Congregation of Cuba, and Manuel Hadida was chosen as general secretary.

1906: Birthdate of Nobel Prize-winning economist, Wassily Leontif. Born in St. Petersburg, the son of an economist, Leontif received his Ph.D. from Berlin University. He began teaching at Harvard in 1932. He won the Nobel Prize "for the development of the input-output method and for its application to important economic problems." Later in life he developed an interest in environmental issues. He passed away in 1999 at the age of 92.

1908: In Ashton, England, UK Charles Rothschild and Rozsika Edle Rothschild (née von Wertheimstein) gave birth to “Miriam Rothschild, the heiress who discovered how fleas jump, brought Chaucerian wildflowers back to modern England and was acknowledged as one of the world's most distinguished naturalists.’

1908: In Charenton-le-pont, Meir Pines and his wife gave birth to Sholomo Pines the Israeli scholar who made Aliyah in 1940 and is best known for his English translation of Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed.  The Shlomo Pines Society, founded in 1990 is dedicated to advancing his work a preserving his memory http://www.shlomopines.org.il/len/

1910: In Brooklyn, Jennie (Marrow) Green and “Hyman Levy Green, a garment manufacturer” gave birth to biochemist David Ezra Green.


1911: Max von Oppenheim, the son of a member of the Jewish banking family who had converted to Catholicism so he could marry Max’s mother and a team of 5 archaeologist began “a digging campaign” at Tell-Halaf.

1912: In Brooklyn, NY, attorney Samuel Chugerman and his wife Helen gave birth to Daniel Chugerman who gained fame as director Daniel Mann. (A reported by William Honan)


1913: In Mt. Vernon, NY, Abraham and Lena Federman Levy gave birth to Bernard G. Levy, the youngest of their six children who worked as a jewelry salesman for several companies before opening “his own store, ‘Bernie Levy, Jeweler’ in Tuckahoe, NY.”

1914: As Europe stumbles into what will become a World War Montenegro declared war on Austria-Hungary

1915: The German Army occupied Warsaw during WW I

1915: Three thousand mostly young Jewish workingmen and workingwomen attended a mass meeting tonight in Cooper Union “for the purpose of takings steps toward the organization of a Jewish congress” which would to “ameliorate the conditions of Jews all over the world.”

1915: It was reported today that among the ten thousand prisoners being held by the Germans in a camp “near the university town of Giesen in Upper House includes “Russian Jews.”

1916: “The Day’s New Editors” published today described the change in leadership at the “New York national Jewish daily newspaper which is now under the control of a board of three Jewish scholars, Professor Isaac Hurowitz, William Edlin and Dr. A. Coralnick.

1916: “Movie Ad Men In Association” published today described the first meeting of the Associated Motion Picture Advertisers whose Executive Counsel includes Jesse Lasky, Paul Gulick and Harry Reichenbach.

1916: Tickets are scheduled to go on sale today for a benefit arranged by Daniel Frohman to raise money for the Actor’s Fund of America to be held at the New Amsterdam Theatre.

1916:  Having been able to concentrate 50,000 troops at Romani in response the attack by the Germans and Turks, the British Imperial forces went on the offensive putting an end to the last attempt by the Central Powers to take the Suez Canal and opening the way for the British to begin to seriously considera campaign that liberate Palestine and take them all the way to Damascus by war’s end.

1917: In New York, Benjamin Swartz, the Chairman of Draft Board 151 explained the failure of his board to make public its number of recruits because “as a matter of fact, we were going so fast and things were coming in our way in such fine shape that we decided it would be better to wait until we got our quote and then let the good news out and that is what we did.”

1918: It was reported today that the Hebrew University has received a gift of five thousand shares of the Jewish Colonial Trust valued at $25,000 from Jacob Schiff.

1918: “Twenty-four new welfare workers were graduated from the training school of the Jewish Welfare Board of the United States Army and Navy” this evening in New York.

1918: Birthdate of Shlomo Eidelberg.


 

1918(27thof Av, 5678): Seventy eight year old Moritz Guedemann, the chief rabbi of Vienna passed away today.


1919: It was reported today that “as a tribute to the memory of Oscar Hammerstein, Hugo Riesenfeld, Director of the Rioli and the Rialto, ordered the flag on the Rialto to be flown at half-mast” during the funeral of Oscar Hammerstein while a bugler played “Taps” from the roof of the theatre.

1919(9th of Av, 5679): As the Minsk Offensive continues and the Jews of that city wonder if they will be living under Polish or Soviet rule, Tish'a B'Av is observed.

1920: Birthdate of Selma Diamond. Born in London, Ontario this comedienne with the gravelly voice gained lasting fame as Selma on the television hit, Night Court.

1925(5th of Av, 5685): Tu B’Av

1925: In Brooklyn, Phillip and Minnie Shainmark Bloom gave birth to Joel Nachum Bloom “who in his 21 years as director of the science museum and planetarium at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia transformed a lackluster exhibition space into a bright and appealing one with hands-on experiments and walk-through exhibits, including a giant, pulsing human cell…” (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)

1925 Birthdate of Richard Heffner who conducted some two dozen interviews with Elie Wiesel for his public television productions "The Open Mind" and "Dialogues: A Series of Conversations on the Crucial Issues of Our Times” which were published as Conversations with Elie Wiesel




1926: Houdini stays in a coffin under water for more than one hour

1933: Archaeologists working for the Palestine Exploration Fund discovered an ancient synagogue, dating from the sixth century C. E near Nahalal.

1933: “The Big Brain” based on story by Sy Bartlett who also wrote the script was distributed today in the United States by R.K.O. Pictures

1933: In Montreal, The arrival of Sir Herbert Samuel in Montreal, as leader of British delegation to the fifth biennial conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations, is made the occasion of attack by anti-Semitic newspaper, Le Patriot, which charges him with being the emissary of the "Elders of Zion" to open Canada to Jewish refugees from Germany.

1933: The Nazi Lawyers' Association addresses a formal letter to business establishments threatening them with a boycott if they continue to employ Jewish lawyers.

1933: In Frankfort, Court imposes a two months' imprisonment sentence upon a Jewish journalist for wearing a swastika, even though he contends that he renounced Judaism in 1922 and had applied for membership in the National Socialist Party.

1933: In Hamburg, The Heinrich Heine monument is removed from the city park.

1933: The Nazi Rhine officials issue an order prohibiting the employment of Jews as non-qualified labor in the entire Rhine district. Employers are warned of penalties if they employ Jews who do not produce a special card entitling them to employment.

1934: “Good Morning, Eve!” a comedy short starring Leon Errol was released today in the United States.

1934(24th of Av, 5694): One hundred Jews are killed in an anti-Semitic pogrom at Constantine, Algeria.

1936:  Arab disturbances and on the division of responsibilities between the Palestine and the British governments.

1936: “A letter from President Roosevelt, made public” today “by the United Palestine Appeal in connection with its forthcoming publication, the United Palestine Appeal Year Book for 1936 which is designed to raise $3,500,000, declares that the Jews have a right to settle in Palestine.”

1936: “A group of residents of North Bergen, NJ, filed a petition with the township commission” today “asking for the removal of a Talmud Torah, a Jewish religious center and school at 1,154 Fourth Avenue, a residential street of semi-detached houses.”

1937: In Tel Aviv, Amnon Drori and Ella Drori, the daughter of Alexander and Ester Govorkovski  gave birth to Amir Drori

1937: The British Palestinian policy gained its first ground today when Dr. Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Congress, made an eloquent though guarded plea in favor of the partition principle to the biennial congress.

1937: Birthdate of Dan Shomron the Sabra who would play a key role in the 1976 Raid on Entebbe and served as the 13th Chief of Staff of the IDF.

1937: The 20th Zionist Congress, held in Zurich, decided by a vote of 285 against 115, to hold the political debate behind closed doors. 

 1937: In Geneva, the Permanent Mandates Commission reminded the British Colonial Secretary, Mr. Ormsby-Gore, that Britain administered Palestine on its behalf.

1938: As they attempted to halt Arab instigated violence, British troops clashed with a band of armed men, killing three and wounding four.

1938: “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” a musical with a script co-authored by Irving Berlin who along with Alfred Newman wrote the score was released in the United States today.

1938: “Algiers’ produced by Walter Wagner (born Walter Feuchtwanger) and starring Hedy Lamar was released in the United States today by United Artists.

1938: “The Crowd Roars” produced by Sam Zimbalist and featuring Lionel Stander as "Happy" Lane was released in the United States today by Loew’s, Inc.

1939: “Indianapolis Speedway” a drama with a script by Sig Herzig and music by Adolph Deutsch was released in the United States today.

1940(1st of Av, 5700): Rosh Chodesh Av

1941(12th of Av, 5701): Sixty-five year old  Yaakov Ben Zion Mendelson, the rabbi of the Bergen Street Shul  and a leading member of the Assembly of Hebrew Orthodox Rabbis of America and Canada passed away today.

 1941(12th of Av, 5701): The Holocaust continued to gain momentum. In Rasaininai, 213 men and 66 Jewish women were murdered.

1941: A three day long slaughter of Jews begins in Pinsk that results in the death of eleven thousand Jews. 

1942: “Tales of Manhattan” an “American anthology film” produced by Sam Spiegel, with music by Sol Kaplan, with a script co-authored by Ben Hecht and co-starring Edward G. Robinson was released in the United States today by 20th Century Fox.

1942: In the Warsaw Ghetto German soldiers came to collect the 192 (there is some debate about the actual number and it may have been 196) orphans and about one dozen staff members to take them to Treblinka extermination camp. The children were under the care of Janusz Korczak, the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit a Polish-Jewish children's author, pediatrician, and child pedagogue, known as Pan Doktor (Mr Doctor). Korczak had been offered sanctuary on the “Aryan side” of Warsaw but turned it down repeatedly, saying that he could not abandon his children. Now too, he refused offers of sanctuary, insisting that he would go with the children. The children were dressed in their best clothes, and each carried a blue knapsack and a favorite book or toy. Joshua Perle, an eyewitness, described the procession of Korczak and the children through the ghetto to the Umschlagplatz (deportation point to the death camps):

... A miracle occurred. Two hundred children did not cry out. Two hundred pure souls, condemned to death, did not weep. Not one of them ran away. None tried to hide. Like stricken swallows they clung to their teacher and mentor, to their father and brother, Janusz Korczak, so that he might protect and preserve them. Janusz Korczak was marching, his head bent forward, holding the hand of a child, without a hat, a leather belt around his waist, and wearing high boots. A few nurses were followed by two hundred children, dressed in clean and meticulously cared for clothes, as they were being carried to the altar. (...) On all sides the children were surrounded by Germans, Ukrainians, and this time also Jewish policemen. They whipped and fired shots at them. The very stones of the street wept at the sight of the procession.

According to a popular legend, when the group of orphans finally reached the Umschlagplatz, an SS officer recognized Korczak as the author of one of his favorite children's books and offered to help him escape, but once again, Korczak refused. He boarded the trains with the children and was never heard from again.

Korczak's evacuation from the Ghetto is also mentioned in Władysław Szpilman's book The Pianist

"One day, around 5th August when I had to take a brief rest from work and was walking down Gesia Street, I happened to see Janusz Korczak and his orphans leaving the ghetto. The evacuation of the Jewish orphanage run by Janusz Korczak had been ordered for that morning. The children were to have been taken away alone. He had the chance to save himself, and it was only with difficulty that he persuaded the Germans to take him too. He had spent long years of his life with children and now, on this last journey he could not leave them alone. He wanted to ease things for them. He told the orphans they were going out in to the country, so they ought to be cheerful. At last they would be able exchange the horrible suffocating city walls for meadows of flowers, streams where they could bathe, woods full of berries and mushrooms. He told them to wear their best clothes, and so they came out into the yard, two by two nicely dressed and in a happy mood. The little column was lead by an SS man who loved children, as Germans do, even those he was about to see on their way into the next world. He took a special liking to a boy of twelve, a violinist who had his instrument under his arm. The SS man told him to go to the head of the precession of children and play – and so they set off. When I met them in Gesia Street the smiling children were singing in chorus, the little violinist was playing for them and Korczak was carrying two of the smallest infants, who were beaming too, and telling them some amusing story. I am sure that even in the gas chamber, as the Zyklon B gas was stifling childish throats and striking terror instead of hope into the orphans hearts, the Old Doctor must have whispered with one last effort, ‘it's all right, children, it will be all right’. So that at least he could spare his little charges the fear of passing from life to death."The Pianist - Page 96

Sometime after, there were rumors that the trains had been diverted and that Korczak and the children had survived. There was, however, no basis to these stories. Most likely, Korczak was killed with most of his children in a gas chamber upon their arrival at Treblinka. There is a memorial grave for him at the Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw.

1943: Along with 11 other women Liane Berkowitz was executed Plötzensee Prison for their part in the German Resistance Movement.

1943: Harold Alfond, the founder of Dexter Shoes, married Dorothy Levine of Waterford, Maine.

1943: Eva-Marie Buch a member of the Red Orchestra who had been arrested “for passing message to French slave workers in factories” was hanged today “in Plötzensee Prison, Berlin”

 1944:  Polish fighters liberated the Gesoiowaka Labor Camp from the Germans. Among those freed were 384 Jewish prisoners.  

1944: The Mekfure carrying 394 Romanian Jews seeking refuge in Palestine sank today

 1945: The Atom Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. It was August 6th in Japan. The bomb certainly could not have been built without the help of several Jewish scientists. The project to build the bomb owed its start to the letter Einstein sent to Roosevelt in 1939. While views about the use of the bomb have grown over the years, the tens of thousands of Allied soldiers and sailors who were projected to die while invading Japan certainly were not bothered by the use of what some came to call "the Jewish bomb."

1947: Birthdate of Rabbi David Nathan Saperstein, an alum of Cornell, Hebrew Union College and American University, who was “the director and chief legal counsel at the Union for Reform Judaism’s Religious Action Center” and “the first non-Christian to held the post of United States Ambassador-at-Lary for International Religious Freedom”


1947: Today, as the British returned to work from the three-day bank holiday weekend, they dealt with the reality that anti-Jewish riots and “disturbances had “taken place in Glasgow, Bristol, Hull, London, Warrington. Salfrod where “a crowd of several thousand had thrown stones at shop windows, West Derby “where arsonists set fire to a wooden synagogue,” Liverpool where “workers at Canada Dock found ‘death to all Jews’ painted above the entrance” and Ecles where John Regan, “a former sergeant major” told a crowd of 700 that Hitler was right – exterminate every Jew.”

1947: Israel Rokach, the future Mayor of Tel Aviv is imprisoned in the prison at Latrun

1948: Today Austrian banker Sonja Kohn was born to Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe in Vienna. “She grew up in Vienna in a small Jewish community. In the 1970s, with her husband Erwin Kohn, she started an import-export business and moved to Milan, Italy. In 1984 she founded the Bank Medici in Vienna. One year later, she moved to New York. They lived in Monsey, a large, ultraorthodox Jewish community. Increasingly orthodox, she covered her hair as is customary for traditionally orthodox women. The Kohns founded a small brokerage firm, the Eurovaleur Inc. In New York City she became known as “Austria’s woman on Wall Street.” In 1990s, they moved back to Vienna. There, she cooperated with Gerhard Randa of Bank Austria. The Bank Medici was relaunched in 2003 as an Aktiengesellschaft. Sonja is shareholder of 75 percent and is head of the bank's supervising board. She also became consultant of the Vienna Stock Exchange and was member of the supervisory board of Italian Finlombardia bank.

1948: In light of the realities of the military situation and the failure of the UN to act, the Israeli government explicitly rejected the proposal for an internationalized Jerusalem.

1950: The Saturday Review published “The Squaw Man Rides Again,” Robert Gessner’s reviews of the western film “The Broken Arrow”

1953: Premiere of “From Here to Eternity” for which Fred Zinnemann won an Oscar as Best Director.

1955: The task of marking the border between Israel and Egypt “in the Nitzana/Auja vicinity” was completed today.

1957(8th of Av, 5717): Nobel Prize winning chemist Heinrich Otto Wieland passed away.  Wieland was not Jewish. According to one source, Wieland provided educational opportunities for Jewish students who were expelled under the terms of the Nuremberg Laws. Wieland was also an associate of members of the White Rose, a secret anti-Nazi organization whose membership was, for the most part, killed off by the Gestapo during the last years of the war.

1958: Birthdate of  Israeli  political leader Silvan Shalom, the native of Tunisia who made Aliyah in 1959 and served in a number of ministerial positions including Vice Prime Minister

1959(1st of Av, 5719): Rosh Chodesh Av

1962(5th of Av, 5722): Actress Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her Los Angeles home. She was 36. Her death was ruled a probable suicide from an overdose of sleeping pills. Monroe had converted to Judaism when she married playwright Arthur Miller.

1963(15th of Av, 5723): Tu B’Av

1963(15th of Av, 5723): Ninety-one year old bantamweight champion Sigmund “Sig” Hart passed away today.

1964:  Mel Brooks marries Anne Bancroft.

1964: “Bande à part,” which would later be released in the United States as “Band of Outsiders” starring Sami Frey was released today in France.

1964: Birthdate of Adam Nathaniel Yauch, the son of a Catholic father and a Jewish mother, the American rapper “best known as a founding member of the hip hop group Beastie Boys” who “sometimes worked under the pseudonym Nathanial Hörnblowér.”

1964: David Hurst appeared in the role of “Paedagogus” when “Electra” opened at the Delacorte Theatre during the New York Shakespeare Festival.

1965: Sandy Socolow produced a report on the CBS Evening News that showed “U.S. Marines torching dozens of thatched huts” at the village of Cam Ne which “defied the upbeat assessment of the war” being presented by the Department of Defense.

1966: Birthdate of actor Jonathan Silverman the son of Rabbi Emanuel Silverman and the grandson of Rabbi Morris Silverman.

1973(7th of Av, 5733): Seventy-three year old Dr. Ernst Papanek, the native of Vienna who came to the United States in 1940 where he eventual became “a professor of educational psychology at Queens College passed away today.


1973:  In Athens, five people were murdered and another fifty-five were wounded when 2 Palestinian terrorists machine gunned the passenger lounge at the airport.

1975: Birthdate of Iddo Goldberg, the Israeli actor who played Yitzchak Shulman, in the film version of Defiance, the book and film that told the story of the Bielski partisans, a group led by three Jewish brothers who saved and recruited Jews in Belarus during the Second World War.

1976(9th of Av, 5736): Tish’a B’Av is observed for the last during the Presidency of Gerald Ford.

1976: ABC broadcast the first episode of “What’s Happening!!” a sitcom produced by Bernie Orenstein, Saul Turtletaub and Bud Yorkin.

1976: Leonard Bernstein conducted the German-language premiere of Candide, at Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna.

1978: Birthdate of Israeli tennis player Harel Levy.

1979(12th of Av, 5739): Eight-four year old “Jacob S. Potofsky, former president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America” whom President Jimmy Carter described as “one of the giants of the American labor movement” passed away today.


1981: After more than 4 years, the 18th government under Prime Minister Menachem Begin came to an end.

1981: Ariel Sharon replaced Menachem Begin as Minister of Defense.

1981: Yitzhak Berman succeeded Yitzhak Moda’i as Minister of Energy and Water Resources.

1981: Mordechai Tzipori, succeeded Yoram Aridor as Communications Minister

1983(26th of Av, 5743): Eight year old Trenton native Rabbi Saul Habas, the husband of “Ruth Janette Zerkowsky Habas” passed away today after which he was buried in the Natchez City Cemetery in Adams County, Mississippi.

1983: “The Star Chamber” a judicial thriller directed by Peter Hyams, produced by Frank Yablans and co-starring Yaphet Kotto was released in the United States today.

1985(18th of Av, 5745): Eighty-seven year old Arnold “Arnie” Horween who was the first Jewish captain of the Harvard football team and then went on to a career in the NFL and coaching passed away today.


1986(29th of Tammuz, 5746): Ninety year old New York native John Alexander, the WW I veteran who was guided during his career at Rutgers by theatrical legend Paul Robeson and who made football history in 1922 when as a member of the Milwaukee Badgers played the position of “outside linebacker” much to the surprise of the Chicago Cardinals passed away today.

1987: Mathew Broderick was in a car accident in Northern Ireland in which he was seriously injured and the passenger in the other was killed for which he was eventually found guilty of “careless driving and fined $175.

1993: A soldier was kidnapped and killed north of Jerusalem

1995(9th of Av, 5755): Because today is Shabbat, this evening is Erev Tisha B’Av

1995(9th of Av, 5755): Eighty-six year old New York native Bertram Harris who “played guard on the Rutgers University football team from 1928 to 1930: passed away today.

1995(9th of Av, 5755): Israeli composer Menachem Avidom passed away at the age of 87.

1996: “Shylock” a one act play that “focuses on a Jewish actor named Jon Davies, who is featured as Shylock in a production of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice” opened at Bard on the Beach in Canada today.

1998(13th of Av, 5758): Harel Bin-Nun, 18, and Shlomo Liebman, 24, were shot and killed in an ambush by terrorists while on patrol at the Yizhar settlement in Samaria. (Jewish Virtual Library)

1998: Two soldiers were killed during an ambush at Yizhar.

1999: Matan Vilnai succeeded Ehud Barak as Minister of Culture and Sport

1999: Yithak Vaknin began serving as Deputy Minister of Communications.

1999: Efraim Sneh began serving as Deputy Minister of Defense.

2001: The New York Times book section featured a review of Francine du Plessix Gray’s biography of Simon Weil, the ‘atheist Jew’ entitled Simon Weil

2001: U.S. Premiere of “Wild Iris” co-starring Emile Hirsch.

2001: “Israeli helicopters fire a pair of laser-guided rockets at a carrying the Hamas terrorist Amer Hassan Madiri

2001: For the first time TNT broadcast the made-for-television film “James Dean” written by Israel Horovitz and directed by Mark Rydell.

2001(16th of Av, 5761):Tehiya Bloomberg, 40, of Karnei Shomron, mother of five and 5 months pregnant, was killed when Palestinian gunmen opened fire on the family vehicle between Alfei Menashe and Karnei Shomron. Three people were seriously wounded, including her husband, Shimon, and daughter, Tzippi, 14.

2002: At the Umm al-Fahm junction a terrorists set off a bomb killing himself and wounding his Israeli-Arab taxi driver.

2002(27th of Av, 5762): Twenty-nine year old Avi Wolanski and his wife 27 year old Avital Wolanski were murdered “when terrorists” from “The Martyrs of the Palestinian Popular Army” “opened fire on their car.”

2002: “A heavily armed Palestinian in a wet suit was shot and killed by Israeli police as he swam ashore near an Israeli settlement.”

2004: “The rapid growth” of the Casah Bahia chain of department stores “and Samuel Klein’s role in building it into a regional economic force were the subject of one of the case studies in The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid which was pubished today.

2005: In Los Angeles, actress Rena Sofer, the daughter of Rabbi Martin Sofer and Sanford Bookstaver gave birth to their first child Avalon Leone.

2005: Nicole Sarah Mackey, daughter of Mark and Karen Mackey, granddaughter of Harvey and Elaine Luber, and an all-around great person, becomes a Bat Mitzvah in Little Rock, Arkansas.

2006: Marissa Carson, daughter of Laura and Bill Carson is called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah in Cedar Rapids, IA.  As the Israelis are battling those who would destroy the Jewish state, there is additional drama and poignancy to the opening words of her haftarah, “Comfort, ye, comfort my people – Nachamu, Nachamu ami.”

2006(11th of Av, 5766): Fadiya Juma'a, 60, and her daughters Sultana, 31, and Samira, 33 were killed by Hezbollah rockets.

2006: Jerry “Reinsdorf was inducted into the Appleton, Wisconsin Baseball Hall of Fame today in a ceremony at Fox Cities Stadium prior to that evening's game between the Midwest League Wisconsin Timber Rattlers and Beloit Snappers.”

2006(11thof Av, 5766): Ninety-nine year old “producer, direct and actor” the brother of Jack, Jules and Ben White and husband of Claretta Ellis whose career including everything from making musical comedies to WW II armed forces training films.

2007: An exhibition entitled “Dateline Israel: New Photography and Video Art” comes to a close at the Jewish Museum in New York City.

2007(21st of Av, 5767): Eighty-nine year old Amos Manor, the survivor of Auschwitz who was Director of Shin Bet for ten years passed away today.


2007: Tevi David Troy, the holder of a Ph.D. from the University of Texas, a “member of the Kemp Mill Synagogue in Silver Spring, Maryland, where he lives with his wife, Kami (née Pliskow) and their four children” began serving as United States Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services today.

2007: The Sunday New York Times Book Section reviewed Dalia Sofer’s first novel, The September of Shiraz, a “richly evocative, powerfully affecting depiction of a prosperous Jewish family in Tehran shortly after the revolution” and 15 Stars: Eisenhower, MacArthur, Marshall: Three Generals Who Saved the American Centuryby the Jewish author Stanley Weintraub.

2007: The Sunday Washington Post book section reviewed Girls Gone Mild by Jewish author Wendy Shalit andFateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940-1941 by Ian Keshaw.The last decision Kershaw explores -- moving to the industrial-scale murder of Europe's Jews -- wasn't so much a decision as the endpoint of a long trajectory of anti-Semitism that found its ultimate exponent in Hitler and its impetus in the speed of his victories in 1940 and 1941. This final chapter is a horrifying chronicle of the "spiral of radicalization" in Nazi thinking that led from Mein Kampf to Auschwitz-Birkenau. It is a fitting coda to Kershaw's thoughtful, far-reaching examination of events that echo down to today.”

2007: The Cedar Rapids Gazette featured an article about In Tolerance a precision contractor manufacturing company owned by Jewish community leader Robert Becker describing it as “a Cedar Rapids company leading the way in family-friendly policies.”

2007: Eighty-year old Jean-Marie Lustiger, the French Cardinal who was a born Jewish in Poland and whose mother died in a Nazi Concentration Camp, passed away today. (As reported by Tagliabue)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/world/europe/06lustiger.html?pagewanted=all

2008: In Little Rock, AR, opening session of From Ruins to Glory, a course of study based on a virtual tour of the Temple.

2008: In St. Paul, MN, the Modern Marvels series, “Jewish Adventures in the Graphic Novel” examines The Quitter by Harvey Pekar.

2008: Shaul Mofaz officially entered the race to be leader of Kadima and received a blessing by Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef

2008: Yakov Kreizberg conducted his final symphony at the BBC Proms.

2009: The Pittsburgh City Council President declared to to be "Evelyn Kozak Day" in Pittsburgh in 2009 in honor of her 110th birthday, saying that” this daughter of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants “was the oldest living Pittsburgher.

2009(15th of Av, 5769): Tu B’Av - “According to the Talmud (tractate Ta'anit, 30b-31a), Tu B'Av was a joyous holiday in the days of the Temple in Jerusalem: Unmarried girls would dress in simple white clothing (so that rich could not be distinguished from poor) and go out to sing and dance in the vineyards surrounding Jerusalem. One of the happier holidays on the Jewish calendar, the Fifteenth of Av is today considered the Israeli equivalent of Valentine's Day. Yet another holiday with agricultural origins, Tu B'Av is said to be the day that the members of the twelve tribes were first allowed to marry each other. While often forgotten elsewhere, Tu B'Av is a fairly big deal in Israel. People send cards and give flowers to their loved ones, and hold special "Holiday of Love" parties. http://www.sfjcf.org/resources/jholidays/

2009: The Times of London reported today that the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah has stockpiled 40,000 rockets near the border with Israel and is training its guerillas to use missiles capable of striking Tel Aviv

2009: In case of Jews replace Jews, it was announced today that A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips “would take over hosting duties on ‘At the Movies’ from Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz.”

2009(15th of Av, 5769): Budd Schulberg, an American screenwriter, television producer, novelist and sports writer passed away.  He was known for his 1941 novel, What Makes Sammy Run?, his 1947 novel

The Harder They Fall, his 1954 Academy-award-winning screenplay for “On the Waterfront,” and his 1957 screenplay for “A Face in the Crowd.”

2009: The New York Times reviewed Wrestling With Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took On New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City by Anthony Flint

2010: A screening of "Azi Ayima", a documentary that explores the roots of the Moroccan Jewish community, is scheduled to be shown at the Leavantine Cultural Center in Los Angeles, CA.

2010: Bankito, sometimes referred to as "Jewstock" -- a youth-oriented Jewish culture festival is scheduled to begin on the shore of Bank Lake, north of Budapest.

2010: The Senate confirmed Elena Kagan to a seat on the Supreme Court today, giving President Obama his second appointment to the high court in a year, and a political victory as the Senate neared the end of its business for the summer. Ms. Kagan, a former dean of the Harvard Law School and a legal adviser in both the Clinton and Obama administrations, was approved by a vote of 63 to 37 after hearings and floor debate that showcased competing views of Democrats and Republicans about the court, but exposed no significant stumbling blocks to her confirmation. She becomes the fourth woman ever named to the court, and will join two other woman currently serving, including Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Obama administration nominee, who was confirmed almost exactly one year ago.

2010: Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) has been easily re-nominated in his Democratic primary tonight, beating back former Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton's effort to make race an issue against the white progressive Congressman from a majority-black district. With 59% of precincts reporting, Cohen leads by a whopping 79%-20%. This result so far seems identical to last cycle's Dem primary, in which the incumbent Cohen faced a challenge that not only centered around race, but also featured seemingly anti-Semitic attacks against him.

2010: Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, lost out on his bid to buy the Texas Rangers baseball team.

2010(25thof Av, 5770): Ninety-three year old Stanley Simon, the former Vice President of Bulova Watch Company who assisted veterans following World War II passed away today (As reported by Maraglit Fox)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/nyregion/16simon.html

2011: Roseanne Barr appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and announced her candidacy for president in the 2012 presidential election, running on the "Green Tea Party" ticket

2011: In Israel, the JCC Maccabi Games are scheduled to come to a close.

2011: Jewish Rock Artist Sheldon Low is scheduled to perform at a musical family Shabbat service at Temple B'nai Shalom, in Fairfax, VA.

2011: Bellamy, the daughter of Debbie and Michael Beecher will be the center of attention at her baby-naming ceremony that is scheduled to take place at Temple Judah, in Cedar Rapids, IA

 

2011: This morning, the Air Force struck five targets in the Gaza Strip following several strikes earlier yesterday coming in response to increased rocket fire emanating from the Strip in recent days, including one rocket which reportedly landed in the Lachish area but caused no damages or injuries.

2011: Due to escalation in rocket fire from Gaza Strip, Defense Minister Ehud Barak decided today to deploy a battery from the Iron Dome anti-rocket defense system outside the southern city of Ashkelon.

2012: The New York Timesfeatures reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Price of Inequality by Joseph Stiglitz, Einstein’s Jewish Science by Steve Gimbel, Uncanny Valley and other Adventures in the Narrative by Lawrence Weschler and What in God’s Name by Simon Rich

2012: A revival of “Fiddler on the Roof” sponsored by the Tulane Summer Lyric Theatre, featuring Cantor Joel Colman, is scheduled to have its final performance.

2012:Dozens of mortars were fired at Kerem Shalom from the Gaza Strip Sunday night, hours after an IAF airstrike killed a terrorist in Rafah. Authorities urged residents to remain in fortified shelters and lock their doors.

2012:  Lex Shatilov failed to win an Olympic medal today, finishing the men’s floor exercise in sixth place

2012(17th of Av, 5772): Ninety-six year old Martin Segal head of the Segal Company and “the elder statesman of Lincoln Center” passed away today. (As reported by Robin Pogrebin)


2012:In an ambitious and sophisticated attack, global jihad terrorists infiltrated Israel tonight after breaking into an Egyptian military base and stealing two armored jeeps. One of the vehicles, likely boobytrapped, exploded as it rammed through the Kerem Shalom crossing, which is shared by Israel, Egypt and the Gaza Strip. A number of terrorists succeeded in exiting the second vehicle before it was destroyed by an air strike. They crossed into Israel and engaged in a firefight with IDF troops.

2012(17th of Av, 5772): Ninety-eight year old Ben Heineman, the successful businessman who wrote speeches for Adlai Stevenson and advised Lyndon Johnson during his presidency, passed away today. (As reported by Denise Grady)



2012(17thof Av, 5773): Eighty-six year old Sami Rohr passed away today. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)



2013: “The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich” a documentary about “the controversial Jewish psychoanalyst and experimental scientist Wilhelm Reich” is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2013: “Fill the Void” a film that tells the story of an Orthodox Hassidic family from Tel Aviv is scheduled to open at the Bear Tooth Theatre in Anchorage, Alaska which is in an interesting choice of venues for such a film.

2013(29thof Av): Yarhrzeit of Abraham Cahan, the editor of The Jewish Daily Forward who passed away on the 29th of Av, 5711 (August 31, 1951)

2013(29thof Av: Yarhrzeit of Rabbi Samuel Salant


2013(29thof Av: Yarhrzeit of Moshe Leib Halpern, the modern Yiddish poet.

2013: Jeff Bezos announced his purchase of The Washington Post from the family of Katherine Graham, the daughter of Eugene Isaac Meyer the Los Angeles born Jew who bought the bankrupt paper in 1933.

2013: A massive operation to inoculate some 150,000 children in the south of the country against polio began this morning as part of a Health Ministry effort to stamp out the virus before it can infect anyone. (As reported by Haviv Rettig Gur)

2014(9thof Av, 5774): Tisha B’Av

2014(9thof Av, 5774): Eighty-seven year old Dr. Jesse L. Steinfeld, Nixon’s Surgeon-General passed away today.  (As reported by William Yardley)


2014: A 72 hour cease-fire is scheduled to begin today at 8 a.m. local time

2014: This evening, The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide is scheduled to host an Online Resource User-Testing Focus Group which is part of the growing interest in the digitization of historical collections.

2014 Israeli security forces announced the arrest of Hussam Kawasme, a native of Hebron thought to be the ringleader of the terror cell responsible for the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens in mid-June.” (As reported by Avi Issacharoff)

2014: The Israel Antiquities Authority announced today the discovery of “a hoard of coins from the fourth year of the Jewish Revolt against Rome — minted months before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE —“just outside of the Jewish capital city. (As reported by Ilan Ben Zion)

2014: “As the 72-hour truce between Israel and Hamas appeared to be holding, Israel was preparing to send a delegation to Cairo to participate in negotiations. (As reported by Raphael Ahren)

2014: In Jerusalem,  a Palestinian stabbed a security guard “near the police station in Ma'aleh Adumim, close to Jerusalem”  making this third such attack in the last twenty four hours and comes on the same day that Moslem worshippers threw rocks and Molotov cocktails from the Temple Mount.

2014(9thof Av, 5774): Eighty-six year old physician and Holocaust survivor Emanuel Emek Tanay lost his battle with prostate cancer today.



2015: The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to host a screening of “Paper Moon.”

2015: In Baltimore, MD a three day workshop on Holocaust education that focuses on giving educators the tools to help their students understand the Holocaust sponsored by the Jewish Museum of Maryland in conjunction with the Baltimore Jewish Council and the Maryland State Department of Education is scheduled to come to an end.

2015: In Berlin, the 14th European Maccabi Games are scheduled to come to an end today.

2016: As the 2016 Olympics are scheduled to open in Rio, Gabe Friedman writes that the seven Jewish Americans to watch are Aly Raisman (Gymnastics), Nate Ebner (Rugby), Anthony Ervin (Swimming), Merrill Moses (Water Polo), Eli Dershwitz (Fencing), Monic Rokhman (Women’s rhythmic gymnastics) and Zack Test (Rugby).

2016: Israel plans on fielding “its largest-ever Olympic delegation at the 2016 Olympics” which are scheduled to officially open today. (As reported by Luke Tress)

2016: Mathew A. Reimer is scheduled to “ascend the bimah at Temple Sinai” this evening “for the first Shabbat service over which he will officiate as the congregation’s new Senior Rabbi.” (As reported by the Crescent City Jewish News, the source for everything Jewish in the Cajun heartland)

2016(1stof Av, 5776): Rosh Chodesh Av

2016: “The Baghdad municipality announced today it would demolish and then give to a developer the 100-year-old home of Iraq’s first finance minister, Sir Sassoon Eskell,” “who was born into an aristocratic Baghdadi Jewish family in 1860 and who was instrumental in founding the Iraqi government’s laws and financial infrastructure”  “while an official in Iraq’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities slammed the decision as a “violation” of the law.”


2016: Claudio Bonadio, “a federal judge in Argentina” decided today to reopen “a criminal complaint against former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in which she had been accused of conspiring to derail an investigation into the bombing of a Jewish center here in 1994 in which 85 people were killed.”

2017(13thof Av, 5777): Shabbat Nacahamu

2017:“Clevland Partnership Minyan: Bridging Divides” partnership minyan is scheduled to take place at Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple in Beachwood, Ohio

2017: “Gershon Leizerson and The Yiddish Blues Drifters” a “new folk outfit from Jerusalem” is scheduled to perform at Yiddish Summer Weimar this evening.

2017: Lip Schmeltzer who “sang at the annual White House Chanukah Party” in 2015 is scheduled to perform this evening on the second day of the Shabbat Nachamu Weekend sponsored by the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientist (AOJS)

2018: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback editions of An Odyssey: A Father, A Son and an Epic by Daniel Mendelsohn and Class Mom by Laurie Gelman

2018: “The Oslo Diaries” and “My War Hero Uncle” are scheduled to be shown today, on the closing day of the Jerusalem Film Festival.

 

 

 

 

This Day, August 6, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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August 6 

412: Roman emperors Honorius and Theodosius II command that Jews should not be persecuted because of their religion or have their property confiscated without cause but Jews are warned not “to disrespect Christianity. (As reported by Austin Cline)

425: Among the edicts issued by Emperors Theodosius II and Valentinian III is one banning Jews from owning Christian slaves. (As reported by Austin Cline)

1187: As Christians and Moslems vie for control the Middle East, including Palestine, Saladin captured the city of Beirut.

1223: Coronation of Louis VIII, the French monarch “who issued an ordinance that prohibited his officials from recording debts owed to Jews” which deprived the Jews of income and set him at odds with Theobald IV, the powerful Count who ruled Champagne.

1243: After a ritual murder accusation in Kitzingen, Bavaria (Germany), fifteen Jews were tortured to death. Their corpses lay in the street for a fortnight before they were allowed to be buried. 

1284: Genoa defeated Pisa at the Battle of Meloria. This battle took place when Genoa was at the height of period “mercantile expansion.”  According to Cecil Roth, “Genoa was one of the least hospitable and tolerant of Italian states as far as the Jews were concerned.”  Not only did the Genoese not encourage the settlement of Jews, they may have actually actively discouraged them from settling so as to avoid introducing business competitors.  There was no organized Jewish community in Genoa at this time and in fact, there may have only been two Jews living there.  By the 13th century evidence exists that Pisa did have an organized Jewish community of at least 20 families. There are Jewish tombstones embedded in the town walls that date back to the middle of the 13th century.  And a synagogue may have been located on the “Alley of the Jews” during this time.

1301(23rd of Av, 5061): Rabbi David ben Avraham Maimuni HaNagid passed away. Known variously as David Maimuni or Rabbi David Hanagid, this Rabbi was the grandson of the Rambam He was born in 1233 and followed in the footsteps of his grandfather and father as Nagid or "Prince" over the Jewish congregations in Egypt. He was an ally of the powerful Rabbi of Barcelona, Solomon ben Abraham Ben Adret known as Rashba. In 1285, when those who opposed Rabbi Hanagid sought to depose him, Ben Adret supported his declarations of excommunications. An interesting legend has grown up around the Hanagid concerning these attacks. According to the legend the embattled Rabbi prayed at the cave of Meron in Eretz Yisrael. This cave was also known as the cave of Rabbi Hillel and Shammai. Supposedly its waters had magical powers. When cold water issued forth from the cave in response to the Rabbi’s prayers, he excommunicated five hundred of his opponents. On that day the five hundred who had slandered him in Egypt died. Surely a legend like that would have greatly troubled his rational and compassionate grandfather. Hanagid was scholar. For those of you have read Pirke Avot, you might remember Hillel’s comments about a floating skull. Maimonides' grandson, Rabbi David Hanagid, cited a tradition handed down by "the early ones" that the floating skull belonged to none other than Pharaoh himself. Hillel therefore told him: "Because you commanded that Jewish children be drowned in the Nile, you were drowned." It was specifically Hillel who confronted Pharaoh's skull, since as a reincarnation of Moses he was fit to confront Pharaoh.  

1414: Ladsilas, the King of Naples who offered the Jews a charter which would have given them economic equality, passed away.

1492: Following the issuance of the order expelling the Jews from Spain, today, “Infante Henry ordered the Catalonian officials to transfer to him the property of the Jews expelled from Jaca.´(Jewish Virtual Library)

1527: R. Samuel Margolioth of Posen was confirmed as chief rabbi of Great Poland, and was vested with important powers over all the Jews of that district by a document issued by Sigismund I bearing today’s date.

1623: Urban VII who ended the custom according to which a Jew, upon entering the pontiff’s presence was expected to kiss the Holy Father’s foot” and replaced it with a requirement that Jew kiss the spot on the floor where the Pope’s foot had stood began his papacy today.

1698: Birthdate of Nāder Shāh Afshār, the founder of the Afsharid dynasty, who 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.

1718: Barent Gompertz married Rachel Benjamin Isaac in Amsterdam today.

1724(17th of Av, 5484): Sixty-six year old Samson Wertheimer, the husband of Frumet Brulle and father of Sara Wertheimer who was chief rabbi of Hungary and Moravia, and rabbi of Eisenstadt as well as an Austrian financier, court Jew and Shtadlan to Austrian Emperor Leopold I passed away in Vienna.

1762: Myth meets myth.  According to the non-Jewish world the sandwich was born today when the Earl of Sandwich has a servant bring him a piece of meat between two slices of bread so that he can eat without leaving the gambling tables.  As anybody who has ever attended a Seder, the Earl was a Johnny-come-lately since Hillel began eating his sandwich – bitter herbs between two pieces of Matzah – during the days of the Second Temple.

1775: Birthdate of Irish reformer Daniel O’Connell known for fighting for Catholic Emancipation but who also supported the rights of Irish Jews and in 1846 insisted on the repeal of “De Judaismo” which “prescribed a special dress for Jewish. He claimed that Ireland was “the only country unsullied by any one act of persecution of the Jews.”

1781(15th of Av, 5541): As the American and French Armies led respectively by Washington and Rochambeau prepare to being their fateful march from Newport, RI to Yorktown, VA during the American Revolution, Jews celebrate Tu B’Av

1789: Birthdate of Solomon Ludwig (Levy) Steinheim whose poems included Sinai and Obadjah Sohn Amos Lieder aus der Verbannung and whose contribution to philosophy is memorialized by the creation of The Salomon Ludwig Steinheim Institute of the University of Duisburg-Essen in Duisburg Germany


1793: Samuel Marks married Sophia Collan today at the Great Synagogue.

1799(5th of Av, 5559): Marcus Elieser Bloch the German physician who was one of the leading ichthyologists of the 18th century “whose collection of 1500 specimens is preserved at the Museum for Natural History at Humboldt University in Berlin passed away today.

1800(15th of Av, 5560): Tu B’Av  (As can be seen from the next two entries, some people took the love holiday seriously)

1800: Samuel Moses married Hannah Emanuel at the Great Synagogue today.

1800: William Simmons married Eve Jacobs at the Great Synagogue today.

1806: Francis II, the last Holy Roman Emperor, abdicates, thus ending the Holy Roman Empire. But this was not a great loss to this European monarch since he had already declared himself Francis I, Emperor of the Austrian Empire in 1804.  It was in this more powerful role that he would have an effect on the life of European Jews, For example, in 1820, Francis I of Austria required rabbis to study sciences and use the language of the country in prayers and sermons. As a result, a rabbinical seminary opened in Padua in 1829. While moves such as this were supported by followers of the Haskalah, they were viewed with suspicion, if not outright dread, by those opposed to the modernists.

1806: Joseph Nathan married Elizabeth Jacobs at the Great Synagogue.

1810: Rabbi Issachar Dov Baer of Zloczow, author of Mevas-ser Zedek passed away

1811: Two days after she had passed away, 47 year old Ann Levy, the wife of Jonas Levy was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.

1812: Moss Jewell married Eleanor Joseph at the Great Synagogue today.

1817(24th of Av, 5577): Sixty-nine year old Benjamin Mendes Seixas, the Newport, RI born son of Isaac Menes Siexas and Rachel Franks Levy, passed away today in New York City.

1819:  Norwich University founded in Vermont. Rabbi Ken Spiro, the Jewish historian, has a Master’s Degree in History from The Vermont College of Norwich University.

 

1825: Bolivia gains its independence from Spain.  During the colonial period, the Jewish presence would have been made up of Marranos or Conversos some of whom worked in the silver mines and helped establish the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra.  Evidence of Jewish presence may be seen in reports of settlers following “Jewish customs” including “lighting candles on Friday nights and sitting on the ground in mourning when a close relative dies.” A truly recognizable Jewish community appeared in the country in the early 1900’s with the arrival of Russian Jews.

1828: Wolf Cohen married Ann Prins today at the Great Synagogue.

1838(15thof Av, 5598): Tu B’Av

1839: Reuben Phillips married Ellen Hymen at the New Synagogue.

1840: As Europeans – Jews and non-Jews – attempted to deal with the Blood Libel in Damascus, Moses Montefiore sought an interview with Mehmet Ali in Cairo.  When the two met Montefiore “handed him a petition in the name of the Jewish community rerrqauestion permission to go to Damasacus” so he could investigate the charges that had been.  The Jewish leaders need a guarantee of safe conduct so that they could meet with prisoners.

1840: In England, Daniel Levy and Amelia Jacobs gave birth to Angelina Levy.

1842(30th of Av, 5602): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1843(10thof Av, 5603): Tish’a B’Av observed.

1847(24thof Av, 5607): Baltimore communal leaders Samuel Etting passed away at the age of 83. “Maryland had a ban on non-Christians holding office or practicing law, and from 1797, Etting campaigned persistently to have this barrier removed. He finally succeeded in 1826 and was immediately elected to the Baltimore City Council. By the time of his election the American Jewish population numbered 6,000.”

1855: Birthdate of Sir Isaac Alfred Isaacs.  The son of a Polish Jew named Alfred Isaacs, Sir Isaac “was an Australian judge and politician, was the third Chief Justice of Australia, ninth Governor-General of Australia and the first born in Australia to occupy that post.”

1857: It was reported today that Baron Rothschild had resigned his seat in the House of Commons and a noticed had been posted for the election of a replacement.  A public meeting of electors in London pledged to return Rothschild to his seat in Parliament and called upon Lord Russell to resolve the matter that was keeping Jews from serving in Parliament.

1858: After a five-and-twenty years' wrangling the admissibility of the Jews to Parliament has been conceded.

1861: During the Civil War, 24 year old Philadelphia native Lyon Levy Emanuel, the “brother of Louis Manly Emanuel” began his three year enlistment in the Union Army today as a 2nd Lt. in Company F of the 82ndRegiment.

1863: As part of the day of National Thanksgiving which was celebrated today Rabbi Samuel Isaacs of B’nai Jeshurun addressed his congregation in New York City.

1864: Henry Simmons married Hannah Harris in Dublin, Ireland today.

1865: Jacob Schiff came to the United States arriving today in New York City.

1865: As he made good his escape from Union forces, Judah P. Benjamin left Havana for Britain.

1867: Isaac and Julia Elkus gave birth to Abram I. Elkus, the New York lawyer and politician who served as U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during World War I. “In 1902, Elkus' firm James, Schell & Elkus, merged with a firm headed by Joseph M. Proskauer, creating the firm of Elkus, Gleason & Proskauer, a predecessor of the law firm of Proskauer Rose.”

1867: Solomon and Betty Loeb gave birth to their second son, James Loeb who joined Kuhn, Loeb & Co in 1888 and became a partner in 1894 before retiring because of health problems in 1904. A patron of the arts, he endowed the Loeb Classical Library founded the Institute of Musical Art, which later became part of the Juilliard School of Music

1871: It was reported today that The Jewish Messenger has proposed a national conference aimed a promoting “the unity and welfare of the Hebrews” living in the United States.  Among the proposals that the Messenger feels should be considered are that delegates from the various congregations from across the country should meet regularly to discuss measures that would “bring order from chaos, union from discord” as regards the differences between different Jewish groups and that efforts should be started to provide trained rabbis who can meet the needs of the American Jewish community,

1873: Approximately 700 Jewish youngsters including students who attend the six New York schools that make up the Free Hebrew Association and the children living at the Jewish Orphan Asylum and Industrial School went on an excursion up the Hudson River to Excelsior Park.  Among those traveling with this well behaved group were Abraham Oetlinger, President of the Hebrew Free School Associations and several Jewish philanthropists who had raised the funds for the trip.

1877: In Mobile, Alabama, Alfred and Rebecca Proskauer gave birth to Joseph M. Proskauer, the graduate of Columbia Law School, judge on the New York State Supreme Court and husband of Alice Naumburg with whom he had three children – Frances, Ruth and Richard Proskauer.

1878: The case of Lewinski v Lewinski is scheduled to be held in Brooklyn, New York. Mrs. Josephine Lewinski is suing her husband Philip Lewinski for divorce.  As part of the divorce decree she is seeking alimony and the payment of her legal fees. The Lewinski’s are both Jewish.  Six years ago, when Lewinski was a successful businessman he met Josephine Schauffer at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, where she was a ward.  The trustees gave them permission to marry after Lewinski told them that he loved her and she had happily consented to the marriage.  However, Lewinski’s business affairs went sour and he became a counterfeiter.  He was caught and imprisoned.  Mrs. Lewinski stood by him and went to various officials seeking his release.  After he got out of prison, he began spending time with his old associates which is why she is seeking a divorce.

1879: The Congressional Medal of Honor was issued to David Orbansky who had served with 58th Ohio Infantry during the Civil War was it fought its way down the Mississippi River starting with the Battle of Shiloh in 1862.

1880: Sixty-three year old Bavarian native Fanny Heilbronner who married Isaac Samuel in Paris was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

1881: It was reported today that the excursion sponsored by the Athletic Society of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association of Harlem which had been scheduled to take place on August 4 has been re-scheduled for later this month. (August 4 was Tish’a B’Av which probably accounted for the scheduling change)

1881: In Freeport, Illinois, Joshua Oettinger, a German-Jew and his wife non-Jewish wife Helen Stine gave birth to Louella Rose Oettinger, who gained fame as gossip columnist Louella Parsons, an eventual convert to Roman Catholicism.

1881: The government of Argentina appointed a special agent to attract Jewish immigrants from Russia.

1881: It was reported today that Englishmen have developed a more positive attitude towards beef imported from the United States.  Part of that improvement is attributed to the fact that between April and October of 1880, English Jews bought cattle from 15 different shipments without any complaint.  Not one of the animals was rendered not Kosher or “unsound.”  Apparently, the strict observance of Jewish laws concerning the inspecting and slaughter of meat is well enough known among the general populace for this fact to have had a positive impact on the sale of American cattle in the United Kingdom

1882: “Mohammed’s Success” published today includes in its description of the rise of Islam the reminder that “it must not be forgotten that the Arabs and Jews were kindred races, speaking kindred customs, practices and prejudices” and that many Jews, having been “driven out of their own land during successive epochs settled in Arabia.

1883: It was reported today that the Town Council of Ekaterinoslva, Russia has voted to give the Jews 5,000 rubles to compensate them for the losses suffered during a recent attack by an ant-Semitic mob.

1883: “The Nyireghyhaza Tiral” published today described the feelings and treatment of Jews in Europe in the wake of the “blood libel” trial recently held in Hungary.

1884: General Sir William John Codrington passed away.  Codrington served as the Governor General of Gibraltar in 1859 when he provided food and shelter for Jews who had taken refuge in the colony because of the war between Spain and Morocco.

1884: “Hotel Rent By Religious War” published today described the conflicts between Jewish and Gentile society matrons at one of the leading resort hotels in Long Branch, NJ

1884: Rabbi Henry S. Jacobs delivered the principle address this afternoon at the cornerstone laying ceremony for the new synagogue to be used by Congregation B’Nai Jeshurun. The building is located at Madison Avenue, between 64thand 65th Streets in Manhattan. The Chairman of the Building Committee, Newman Cohen, deposited a variety of items including newspapers, coins and a scroll containing the history of the congregation into the cornerstone before it was put in place. Unlike many of the other Jewish congregations in the area, B’Nai Jeshrun will follow Orthodox ritual.

1885: In St. Louis, Caroline and Joseph Lazarus Kranson gave birth to Jake Kranson

1886: Superintendent Jackson, the chief immigration officer at Castle Garden received a cable today from Hamburg informing him that a large number of Romanian and Polish Jews were waiting for a ship at the German port that would take them to America.  According to the message, most of them were paupers.

1886: A major fire in Phoenix, Arizona, finally convinced the city council to accept the proposal of Mayor Emil Ganz to establish a waterworks and fire department.

1887: Today’s “Short Cuts” column contained an excerpt from the American Hebrew about the quality of meals served at the various resort “the mountains.” While patrons complain about the food, they come back year and year out.  The paper concluded that the vacationers except too much for the small amount of money they pay. (The mountains refers to the Catskills which will later be known as The Borscht Belt)

1888: Stern Brothers of West 23rd Street in New York,have promised to provide the fund for today’s excursion sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children.

1889(9th of Av, 5649): Tish’a B’Av

1889: Birthdate of Kamenitz-Podolks, (western Ukraine) native Morris Quasha  who came to the United States in 1894 and after graduating NYU Law School and passing the bar exam was denied admission to the bar by the “character committee” which was forced to change its ruling thanks to Judge Samuel Seabury who demanded that the committee either producer evidence for its ruing or admit him immediately.

1889: Two days after he had passed away, “22 year old Edward Stephen Schloss,” the son of Joseph and Adel Schloss was buried at the Balls Pond Jewish Cemetery.

1890: Coroner Ferdinand Levy is one of the speakers scheduled to address those attending Shoen & Lowenthal’s German American Institute and Kingdergartern, a summer festival at the foot of East 69th Street.

1890: Paul Ohleshaus whose skull was fractured by Timothy Abbot after he stopped him from “tormenting an inoffensive Jew” is “lying unconscious in the Chambers Street Hospital”

1890: At its meeting in Berlin, the International Medical Congress “rejected a proposal to meet in St. Petersburg” because “of the repression of the Jews in Russia.”

1890: As of today, the managers of the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children have $7,118.47 which can be used for their free summer excursions.

1890: The Jews of Edinburgh met today and resolved to raise funds which would be sent to the Jewish Society for the Colonization of Palestine to provide assistance for “Jews expelled from Russia.”

1891: The Executive Board of the Jewish Alliance of America met in Philadelphia, PA, this evening where they adopted “an excellent plan” for meeting the needs of the “friendless and often penniless” Jewish immigrants arriving in the United States.

1891: “The grand annual afternoon and evening picnic of the Daughters of Israel Benefit Society” most of whose members are from Congregation Beth Israel “took place at Bay View Park” today.

1891: “The Russian Jews” published today described the attack on the Jewish quarter of Elisabethgrad by a mob crying “Kill the Jews!”  The authorities did nothing to stop the mobs or put an end to the looting.

1892: “Religious Statistics” published today provided a summary of the Unite States cenus report prepared by Charles E Bull Chief of the Division of Religious Statistics that showed of the 20,347,346 people counted 150,000 of them are Jewish.

1892(13thof Av, 5652): Shabbat Nachamu

1892(13thof Av, 5652): Forty-eight year old Danish economist Ernst Immanuel Cohen Brandes who was a critic of the theories of Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo and Karl Marx passed away today.


1892: Harper’s Weekly published a drawing of Alexander Berkman, the Jewish anarchist who attempted to Henry Clay Frick, the steel magnate who played a key role in the Homestead Steel Strike.


1893: It was reported today that a Jewish organization in London took care of the Russo-German family named Kaiser who had been expelled as Protestants by the government in Kiev along with a stream of Jews.  The English Jews raised $250 to send them on to Winnipeg. 

1894: “A Standard German Life of Heine” published today provides a detailed review of Heinrich Heine’s Life In His Own Words edited by Gustav Karpleles and translated from the German by Arthur Dexter.  According to the review, the refusal of the city of Dusseldorf to erect a statute to the “Hebrew poet” and the attempts to build one for him in the United States has done more to keep him before the public than publication of successive editions of his works would do.

1894: “Swearing Oaths on Books” published today contained the reminder that in English courts “Christians are sworn on the New Testament, Jews on the Old Testament and Mohammedans on the Koran and persons of other religions according to the form prescribed for that purpose by the religion they profess.”  (In the 21st century an American Jewish radio host would come unglued when a newly elected Moslem member of the House of Representatives asked to take the oath of office using a Koran)

1895: The late I.S. Goldberg of San Francisco was reported to have divided his estate equally among the city’s Jewish, Protestant and Catholic Orphan Asylums.

1895: “Jewish Liberality” published today, relying on information that first appeared in The Jewish Messenger, described the decision of the late Abraham Levy of Richmond, VA, to divide his estate among Protestants, Catholics and Jews.”

1895: Louis Stern, the New York dry good merchant is prepared to serve a fortnight in a German jail and pay 600 marks after having been found guilty of insulting Baron von Thuengen who objected to Mr. Stern’s son being in the dance hall at Kur Garden in Kissingen.

1895: In the U.K., Alfred Mond the son of chemist Ludwig Mond and his wife Violet gave birth to Lady Eva Violet Mond Isaacs, née Melchett, Marchioness of Reading who served “as Vice President of the World Jewish Congress and President of its British section” where she was a “vocal supporter of the Zionist cause.”

1896: “Died Too Far Uptown” published today described a case being hearing in New York’s Fourth Civil District Court in which it will be decided if the member of a “downtown Hebrew benefit society” “should die above a certain street” in New York is still entitled to the benefits for which he has been paying dues.

1897: “East Side Roof Garden” published today provided the rules for the facility on top of the Hebrew Institute Building which will allow children to visit along between 8 A.M. and 5:30 P.M. but require them to be accompanied by their parents or guardians from 7:30 P.M. to 11:00 P.M.

1895: It was reported today that Hebrew Institute under the direction of Superintendent of Isaac Spectorsky will be offering concerts five times a week now that remodeling has been completed.

1898: Dr. Adolph M Radin, the rabbi of the People’s Synagogue celebrated his 50thbirthday today.

1898: Anti-Juif Marseillais et de la Région du Midi, a short lived anti-Semitic published appeared at Marseilles for the first time today.

1899: In an interview published today Israel Zangwill said his “soul purpose in visiting America is to supervise the staging of ‘The Children of the Ghetto’” Since “the Hebrew character has never been faithfully portrayed on the stage” and “the Jew has been caricatured” his “aim is to give a true a picture of the Hebrew as he is both as regards characteristics and religion” which is important because many of the characters in his play are Jewish.

1899: “Dreyfus Case Clearly Reviewed published today provides a summary of Joseph Reinach’s explanation of how Dreyfus was wrongly convicted including the fact that the French Army attributed Esterhazy’s treachery to French Jewish officer.

1901(21stof Av, 5661): Thirty year old Hungarian poet and author Emil Makai passed away today.



1901: Birthdate of Arthur Flegenheimer, who gained fame as gangster Dutch Schultz who made his money as a violent bootlegger during the dry days of the Roaring 20’s. Even his fellow gangsters saw him as being out of control and they gunned him down in 1935. Actually, the Jews dodged the bullet on this one. Schultz converted to Catholicism before he died and is buried in a Catholic Cemetery in the state of New York.1903: In Charleston, Rabbi Simenhoff officiated at the wedding of Levy Cohen and Lena Berger.

1906(15thof Av, 5666): Tu B’Av

1908(9thof Av, 5668): Tish’a B’Av

1908: Birthdate of Lawrence Wnuk, the Polish Roman Catholic priest who survived Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Dachau and then “bore witness” against his captors. (Ironically he died on his 98th birthday in 2006)


1909: “The Dollar Princess,” a musical with “additional numbers by Jerome Kern” and a book by Fritz Grünbaum who would die at Dachau, opened on Broadway today.

1909: Birthdate of U.S. economist Solomon Adler, the native of Leeds who was the brother of Israeli Doctor Saul Adler

1911: Birthdate of Norman Gordon a “South African cricketer who played in 5 Tests from 1938 to 1939.”

1912: The Bull Moose Party which was formed by Teddy Roosevelt after he lost the Republican nomination to Taft met today.  The formation of the party would lead to a three way race for the Presidency in 1912 between Taft, Roosevelt and Wilson. Roosevelt had enjoyed strong support among Jewish leaders going back to his days as Chief of Police in New York and his two terms in the White House where appointed a Jew to the cabinet and championed the rights of Russian Jews.  So strong was his support among the Jewish reform leaders that Oscar Straus “led the New York delegation down the aisles at Roosevelt’s breakaway Progressive convention in Chicago and then agreed to run for governor of New York on the Progressive ticket.”  Jewish reformers were obviously in this election as can be seen by the support of Brandies for Wilson.  In the end T.R. lost, but he never lost the good will of a significant part of the Jewish community. According to one source, a Jewish police officer, Otto Raphael, said Kaddish over Roosevelt's body the night before he was buried.

1914: As Europe continued its seemingly unstoppable spiral into war, Austria-Hungary declared war on Russia.

1915: Pincus Rutenberg, one of the leaders of the 1906 Russian Revolution who has been living in Italy was reported today to have been one of the speakers at the recent mass meeting at Cooper Union where the Jewish attendees called for the creation of an organization designed to ameliorate the suffering of their co-religionists around the world.

1915: As the Germans took control of Warsaw from the retreating Russians “a major revival of Jewish political and cultural life began that included the reappearance of previously banned newspaper and the “creation of a Jewish private school system that came to form the basis of the Zionist, Bundist and Orthodox school networks in interwar Poland.”

1915: As part of the Gallipoli Campaign, the Allies mount a diversionary attack timed to coincide with a major Allied landing of reinforcements at Suvla Bay. Despite the courage of the troops, the landings were botched due to the ineptitude of the generals in charge.  The campaign ultimately failed with the hopes of knocking the Ottoman Empire out of the war and breaking the stalemate on the Western Front.  The Zion Mule Corps, an all Jewish supply unit gained the respect of the British during the campaign and this helped lay the groundwork for the creation of all Jewish Battalions in the British Army that would distinguish themselves while fighting with Allenby.

1916: Having stopped the attack of the Central Powers at Romani, the mounted ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand) forces begin driving the Turks back on Oghratina in fighting that would permanently secure the Suez and England bases in Egypt and the Sinai from which they would eventually launch their attack on Palestine and Syria.

1916:  Birthdate of historian Richard Hofstadter.  Hofstadter’s father was Jewish.  His mother was not.  Hofstadter was a professor at Columbia University where he had earned his Ph.D.  Hofstadter came of age during the Great Depression.  He embraced communism because it was the enemy of capitalism, a system that Hofstadter had failed the working men and women of America.  As the thirties wore on, he became equally disenchanted with the Party and the Soviet Union.  The final break came, as did with so many others, over Stalin’s pact with Hitler in 1939.  Hofstadter’s writings were quite influential during the mid-20thcenturies.  Two of his works, The Age of Reform and Anti-Intellectualism in American Life won Pulitzer Prizes and were on the required reading list in many of the history and political science departments at American colleges and universities.  His influence would have been greater had he lived longer.  He died at tragically at the age of 54.

1916: During World War I Julius Mendes Price “was the only foreign correspondent present at the capture of Gorizia by the Italian army” during the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo which began today.

1916: It was reported today that in Palestine, “Syria and Egypt the heat has been excessive with sandstorms at intervals which have been so violent on two or three occasions in June that the traffic in the Suez Canal” which would have included ships carrying Imperial troops coming from India and Australia “had to be suspended for several hours.”

1916: A benefit to raise money for the Actors’ Fund of America arranged by Daniel Frohman is scheduled to take place at the New Amsterdam Theatre in New York.

1916: In “German Not Seeking Conquest, Says German” published today Professor of Economics Julius Bonn denied that Germany “would impose her culture on other nations by the doctrine of “Might Makes Right!’” (Editor’s Note- Bonn, whose family had lived in Germany for centuries, was forced to take refuge in the United States when the Nazis came to power.)

1916: It was reported today that when Abram I. Elkus the new U.S. Ambassador to Turkey was asked if he hoped “for better treatment of the Jews by Russia in view of their good work in the war” he replied that “I can only hope that because of the very valiant service which the Jews have given in the army of the Czar he will accord to them the civil rights which every other subject enjoys.”

1916: Among the contributions listed today by the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews suffering through the War were $30 from the Mercantile Company of Mound City, South Dakota, $749 from the Federation of Jewish Charities in Cleveland, Ohio and $20 from the H.O.R Society of Shreveport, Louisiana.

1917: During the Summer after which the Czar had been deposed but before Lenin took control Alexander Kerensky solidified his position as Prime Minister after having thwarted General Kornilov’s attempted coup.  

1918: Birthdate of Norman Granz, American jazz musician and record producer.

1918: It was reported today that Hebrew University “is one of the first projects for the reconstruction of Jewish Palestine” that has been “proposed by the Zionist Administrative Commission.

1919(10thof Av, 5679): Seventy-eight year old John Moss, the son of Mary Levy and Eleazer Moss, passed away today in his native Philadelphia.

1920: In Bucharest, the government of Romania decides to consider Turkish Jews as enemy aliens. The Romanians intern the Jews, sequester their property and threaten to expel them. The Union of Native Jews of Romania intervenes to help their co-religionist.

1922(12thof Av, 5682): Isaiah Woolf Jacobs passed away today in Milwaukee, WI.

1923: American delegates to the "World Zionist Congress, as well as hundreds of other American Jews who have come to Carlsbad for the gathering took part in a memorial service to President Harding held here yesterday, to which all Americans were invited.

1924: In the Bronx Morris and Shirley Haber gave birth to Herbert Lawrence Haber “, the chief labor negotiator for the City of New York from 1966 to 1973.” (As reported by Paul Vitello)

1924: The Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor made public the text of a letter sent with its approval by Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor to former Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson, who had asked the council not to make a decision on Presidential endorsements until it had the acceptance speech of John W. Davis before it, a request which was refused

1925(15thof Av, 5685): Tu B’Av

1925: In New York City, Herbert Abraham, the son of Rosalie and Samuel Abraham and his wife Dorothy Abraham gave birth to Jane Abraham who became Jane Bowie when she married Oscar Bowie.

1925(15th of Av, 5685): Izaak Naftali Botwin, a member of the Polish Communist Party who had been convicted of killing “an agent of the Polish secret police” whose last words were ″Down with bourgeoisie! Long live the social revolution!″ was executed today a firing squad – a “martyrdom” that would lead to his name being used a battalion of Jewish volunteers who fought against Franco’s fascists in the Spanish Civil War in 1937.


1926: In New York, the Warner Brothers’ Vitaphone system premieres with the movie Don Juanstarring John Barrymore

1926: Harry Houdini performs his greatest feat, spending 91 minutes underwater in a sealed tank before escaping.

1926: Birthdate of Oscar-nominated screenwriter Norman Wexler.


1929: A month before his death, Louis Marshall wrote a letter to Julius Rosenwald in which traced the history of the Jewish Theological Seminary, praised its many accomplishment and expressed his fear that adequate funding would not be available to ensure the growth of this unique educational institution. (This letter would inspire Rosenwald to contribute a half million dollars to JTS after Marshall passed away in September of 1929)

1930: The photo of two young black being lynched today provided the inspiration for the Abel Meerpol to compose “Strange Fruit, one of the most haunting jazz ballads of the past century.”


 1930: Birthdate of Marvin Pomerantz, the Des Moines, Iowa native who would become a successful businessman, public benefactor, a friend and adviser to Republican governors and presidents for four decades,  who twice served as president of the Iowa Board of Regents. He was the eighth of nine children of Jewish immigrants who came to Iowa from Poland in 1912. In 2006, he published his autobiography entitled The Best I Can Do.

1932: In Beirut, Jacob Safra, “the Lebanese Sephardi Jewish Banker” and his wife Esther gave birth to “Lebanese Brazilian banker” Edmond J. Safra.

1933: In Springfield, New Jersey, an unidentified plane flies over an open-air meeting of United Singers Society and scatters German language pamphlets protesting against the decision of the Society to prohibit representatives of the Friends of New Germany from attending its meetings. The Friends of the New Germany was a pro-Nazi organization formed at the behest of Berlin that would morph into the German-American Bund. The United Singers Society was a German organization made up conservatives who are not sympathetic to the Friends of New Germany.  Attendees complained that the noise of the plane interrupted the community sing-along taking place below.

1934: “One More River” a drama that was a supplement to the saga about the Forsyte family, directed by Carl Laemmle was released in the United States today.

 

1936: “Former New York Governor Alfred E. Smith, Lillian D. Wald and Norman Thomas” today “endorsed a movement to petition the League of Nations to intercede in behalf of the oppressed minorities in Germany, according to Sol M. Stroock, chairman of the American Jewish Committee, who spoke” tonight “over radio station WMCA on ‘German Persecution Before the League.’”

 

1936: “Mass emigration as the solution of Poland’s Jewish problem was advocated by the Foreign Ministry in a statement issued today by the official Political Information Agency.

1937(29th of Av, 5697): Miss Eleanor Septima Cohen, prominent for many years in Jewish and non-sectarian benevolent activities, died today at a Baltimore hospital at the age of 79. Her grandfather, Benjamin I. Cohen, was one of the founders and president of the Baltimore Stock Exchange. A philanthropist who supported numerous Jewish and non-Jewish causes and institutions, Miss Cohen was a descendant of Solomon Etting (her great-grandfather) and Jacob I. Cohen (her great-uncle) who were instrumental in the fight for Jews to obtain religious rights in Maryland.

1937: Dr. Chaim Weizmann’s Palestine partition policy gained so much support today at the Zionist Congress meeting at Zurich that many of its supporters and opponents believe it has already gained enough votes to ensure that it will be adopted when voted on this Monday, August 9.

1938: Near Hedaria, several Jewish laborers were wounded when they were fired on by and a band of Arabs.

1938: “The Nazi regime expatriated” (banished) Manfred George the German-Jewish author who had fled his homeland in 1933 living in various countries as an exile until he finally came to the  United states where he the Aufbau “into an important journalistic voice for the Jewish exile community.”

1938: In Danzig, “the Gestapo raided a number of hotels, restaurants and cafes and frequented by Hews and demanded that all present establish their identity and explain their presence in the Free City.”  This was the first of two nights of what were described as “harsh anti-Jewish measures.

1939: “The Dinah Shore Show” starring the singer of the same name debuted on NBC Radio.  Dinah Shore was the stage name of France Rose Stein, the Jewish lass from Tennessee who was a graduate of Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

1940: As more than 12,000 persons stood out in the street, a funeral service was held today for Vladimir Jabotinsky, author, soldier and world leader of the New Zionist Organization, at the Gramercy Park Memorial Chapel in New York.

1942: The 5,500 Jews imprisoned at Gurs whom the French turned over to the Nazis were shipped to Drancy from where most of them would be sent to their death at Auschwitz.

1942(23rd of Av, 5702): Sixty-eight year old Cincinnati native Millard William Mack, the son of William and Rebecca Mack, the husband of Lydia Mack and the father of William Jacob Mack passed away today in Traverse City, Michigan.

1942(23rd of Av, 5702): Three thousand Jews were slaughtered in the streets of Minsk. One hundred would escape and form a partisan unit 

1942: The Palestine Regiment consisting of, three Palestinian Jewish battalions and one Palestinian Arab battalion was officially formed as part of the British military armed forces. Despite the efforts by the British to enlist an equal number of Jews and Arabs into the Palestine Regiment, three times more Jews volunteered than Arabs. Arab reluctance and Jewish enthusiasms accounts for the numerical disparity. At the time of its formation, the Regiment was principally involved in guard duties in Egypt and North Africa. The British also wanted to undermine efforts of Hajj Amin al-Husayni who successfully drummed up Arab support for the Axis Powers against the Allies.

1943: In Vilna, over a dozen Jews were shot as they attempted to resist deportation orders.

1945: The Atomic Bomb named Little Boy is dropped on Hiroshima.  The “Jewish Bomb” as some call it hastened the end of the war and save the lives of untold numbers of Allied soldiers and sailors who would have died during an invasion of Japan as well as the millions of lives of Japanese who would have also died.  Without the work of Oppenheimer, et al, the war would have lasted anywhere from three to five years longer.

1946(9th of Av, 5706): Tish'a B'Av

1946: Leonard Bernstein conducted American premiere of Britten's Peter Grimes, BMC.

1946: In New York City Professor Irene Golden Dash and greeting card published Martin Dash gave birth to historian Deborah Dash Moore whose “GI Jews: How World War II Changed a Generation was “awarded the Saul Viener Prize for Best Book in American Jewish History.”


1946: Gabriel Charitos is elected First Mayor of a free Rhodes, after 600 years of occupation.

1948(1st of Av, 5708): Rosh Chodesh Av

1948(1st of Av, 5708): Russian born author Dr. Ben M. Edidin, the hold of a Doctor of Education degree from the University of Buffalo who “worked for the Tel Aviv Board of Education from 1935 to 1937” and was the husband of “former Dorothy Edelman with whom he had a daughter, Judith” passed away today while serve as the “assistant director of the Jewish Education Committee of New York.”

1952: Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett denied that Israel was constructing air bases for atomic bombs on its soil and that it had agreed in the past, or will agree in the future, to serve a foreign power for such purposes.

1952: Over 500 members of the World Assembly of Jewish Choirs turned Jerusalem into a city of song.

1952: The first English draft of the text of the agreement between Israel and West Germany was drawn up and agreed to at The Hague. Israel announced that a special German Goods Purchasing Commission would be appointed as soon as the Jewish negotiating team returned from The Hague. The issues of reparations from the Germans and diplomatic relations between the two governments were two of the most contentious items confronting Israeli and Jewish society.

1957(9th of Av, 5717): Tish’a B’Av

1959(2nd of Av, 5719): Salman Schocken passed away at Pontresina, Switzerland. Born in 1877 in Margonin, Province of Posen, German Empire (today Poland) , he was a German Jewish publisher and businessman. Salman Schocken was the son of Jewish shopkeeper in Posen. In 1901, he went to Zwickau, a German town in southwest Saxony, to help run a department store owned by his brother, Simon. Together they built up the business and established a chain of stores all over Germany. In Chemnitz and Stuttgart, Schocken commissioned the German Jewish architect Erich Mendelsohn to build branches of the Kaufhaus Schocken. In 1915 Schocken was co-founder of the Zionist journal Der Jude (with Martin Buber). After Simon's death in 1929 Salman Schocken became sole owner of the firm. The same year, in which Schocken's friend Franz Rosenzweig also died, 1929 he established the Schocken Institute for Research on Jewish Poetry. In 1931, he founded the publishing company Schocken Verlag, which reprinted the recently completed Buber-Rosenzweig translation of the Bible.In 1934, after the rise of Nazism, Schocken left Germany for Palestine. In 1940, he settled in the United States. In Jerusalem, he built the Schocken Library, also designed by Erich Mendelsohn. He was a board member of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and bought the newspaper Haaretz, which is still owned by his family. He also founded Schocken Publishing House Ltd. and opened another branch in New York (Schocken Books). The Nazis forced him to sell his German enterprises to Merkur AG but he managed to recover some of his property after the war. Schocken became the patron of Shmuel Yosef Agnon when he was a struggling writer in Palestine. Recognizing Agnon's literary talent, Schocken paid him a stipend that relieved him of financial worries and allowed him to devote himself to writing (Agnon went on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature).

1960:  Shabbat Nachamu: Bar Mitzvah of David Levin at Adas Israel in Washington, D.C. – the words of Isaiah never sounded so sweet! This was the first time that a large group of adults got a chance to be dazzled by his voice and skill.  Fifty years later, he is still dazzling us.  This also marked the first Bar Mitzvah at Adas Israel that was officiated by Rabbi Stanley Rabinowitz.

1965: President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1965 Voting Rights Act.  The passage of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Right Act of 1964 marked one of the high water marks in the battle for equal rights for all Americans regardless of race, religion, national origin and sex.  Both of these landmark laws were supported by Jewish voters, communal leaders and elected officials.

1967: Birthdate of sportscaster David Greenberg

1968(12th of Av, 5728): Eighty-three year old Columbia law school graduate Leonard Wallstein, the holder of several governmental positions that required the utmost integrity including Commissioner of Accounts under Mayor Mitchell, “special assistant corporation counsel under Mayor Walker and head of the legal staff under Robert Moses and the husband of Olive Rose Wallstein with whom he had “three sons, Leonard M. Jr, Robert R. and William C.” passed away today in New York City.


1969: “Eighteen Soviet Georgian Jewish families” made an appeal to the United Nations calling “for their right to leave the Soviet Union.”

1969(22nd of Av, 5729): A month before his 66th birthday, Theodor W. Adorno, passed away.


1970: Elimelekh Rimalt completed his service as the Minister of Postal Services in Israel.

1971(15th of Av, 5731): In one of those ironies of the calendar Tu B’av, the holiday about love, was celebrated on the day before Shabbat Nachamu – the Sabbath of Comfort.

1973(8th of Av, 5733): Erev Tish’a B’Av

1973: Birthdate of Bronx native Max Kellerman, boxing commentator and sports talk radio host who is the husband of the former Erin Manning with whom he had three daughters - “Esther, Sam and Mira.”

1976(10th of Av, 5736): Seventy-three year old Russian born American cellist Gregor Piatigorsky passed away today.


1976: Kenya and Uganda “formally agreed…to end their state of belligerency and resume normal relations.”  The strained relations came following Israel’s rescue mission at Entebbe in which the Ugandans claimed the Kenyans had played an active role.

1977: The United States officially disclosed that the nuclear facilities in the US were unable to trace more than 3,000 kilograms of highly enriched uranium and plutonium. A number of American newspapers speculated that the minerals might have found their way to Israel.

1978: Eighty year old Pope Paul VI who visited Israel in 1964 and who is remembered for “the impetus he gave to a continuation of the Catholic Church’s rapprochement with Judaism initiated by the late Pope John, and his personal encouragement and support of the Guidelines for the implementation of Nostra Aetate No. 4, a document that holds promise of a new era in Catholic-Jewish relations” passed away today.Read more: http://www.jta.org/1978/08/08/archive/israeli-jewish-leaders-express-sorrow-at-the-death-of-pope-paul-vi#ixzz39Tm3K17x

1985: Thomas R. Pickering presented his credentials as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.

1986: In London, at the Almeida Theatre, the curtain came down on a revival of the Kurt Weill musical “Johnny Johnson.”

1986:Bernard Lewis publisheg his seminal work Semites and Anti-Semites, which explores modern anti-Semitism in the Arab world.

1986(1st of Av, 5746): Rosh Chodesh Av

1986: Birthdate of Lod native Natan Goshen, the Israeli musician whose first “Kol Ma Sheyesh Li” was released in 2011/

1986: The Israeli Supreme Court upheld the pardon given to Shin Bet chief Avraham Shalom, in connection with the “300 Bus Affair.”

1990: The funeral for philanthropist Lucy Goldschmidt Moses who passed away at the age of 103 is scheduled to take place this afternoon at Temple Emanu-El.

1991(26th of Av, 5751): Eighty-five year old violinist and viola player Max Rostal passed away today.



1995(10th of Av, 5755): Tish’a B’Av

1998: Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky spent 8 1/2 hours testifying before a grand jury about her relationship with President Bill Clinton.

1998: Robert D. Sack, “the son of Eugene Sack, who served as rabbi of Congregation Beth Elohim for 35 years” began serving as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit today.

1990: Funeral services are held at Temple Emanu-El for philanthropist Lucy Goldschmidt Moses 

1991(26th of Av, 5751): Eighty-five year old Austrian born British violinist whose pupils included Yifrah Neaman and Edith Peinemann and who” played in a piano trio with Heinz Schröter and Gaspar Cassadó passed away today.

1995(10th of Av, 5755): Since the 9th of Av fell on Shabbat today Tish'a B'Av is observed.

1998: Castle Hill, which included a mansion designed by Chicago architect David Adler was designated today as a National Historic Landmark.

1998: “Tango” an Argentine-Spanish film with music by Lalo Schifrin was released in Argentina today.

1999: “The Iron Giant” an animated science fiction film starring Eli Marienthal and with music by Michael Kamen was released today in the United States.

2000: The New York Times book section featured reviews of In Search of Deep Throat: The Greatest Political Mystery of Our Time by Leonard Garment, one of a handful of Jews who worked for Richard Nixon, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering by Norman G. Finkelstein, Benjamin Zucker's first novel, Blue which is at once a spiritual challenge and a gorgeous typographical object. Echoing the style of the Talmud, the book presents a continuing narrative in the center of each right-hand page, where a passage from the Mishna -- ancient commentary on the Torah -- would ordinarily be placed.

2001: President George W. Bush receives President's Daily Briefing entitled Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US and does nothing in response.  It will be left to future historians to determine if a response might have avoided the first successful attack on Washington, D.C. since the British burned the city in 1814.  To paraphrase Elie Weisel, the only thing we know for sure is that now the world knows what it feels like to be Jewish in the worst sense of that term.

2001(17th of Av, 5761): Yitzhak Snir, 51, of Ra'anana, an Israeli diamond merchant, was shot dead in Amman, in the yard of the building where he kept a flat. His body was found the following morning

2004: FOX broadcast the final episode of the “The Jury” produced by Barry Levinson who also played the role of “Judge Horatio Hawthorne/.”

2005(1st of Av, 5765): Rosh Chodesh Av

2005: In Cedar Rapids, despite summer vacations and myriad of other distractions, the small Jewish community at Temple Judah mustered more than a minyan for the Traditional Shabbat morning services.

2006(12thof Av, 5766): Ninety year old Esther Abraham, who was the first Miss India when she won the crown in 1947 and whose cinema fans knew her as Pramila passed away today.


2006 12th of Av, 5766): Fifteen Israelis are killed by Hezbollah rocket attacks. Among them were the following twelve soldiers:

Sgt. Gregory Aharonov, 34, of Or Akiva, moved to Israel from the Ukraine in 1991. Despite concerns about serving, Aharanov obliged when he was called up. Aharanov was named after his grandfather who died, also at the age of 34, in World War One. Aharanov was the manager of a cosmetics factory and is survived by his wife, two children, parents and older sisters. He was laid to rest at 4 p.m. on Monday. Sgt.-Maj. Marian Berkowitz, of Ashdod, was called up Wednesday and has a younger brother who is currently serving in Lebanon. Friends described him as fun loving and that he "loved challenges." Berkowitz is survived by his parents and two brothers. He was laid to rest at 4 p.m. on Monday in the Ashdod military cemetery.

CWO Yosef Karkash, 41, of Afula, met with Shlomo Buchris, his cousin and fellow reservist, early Sunday. Later that day, both cousins were killed by the Katyusha. Relatives are devastated, and were quoted as saying that they "don't know which family to visit and console first." Karkash is survived by his wife and two daughters. He was laid to rest at 5 p.m. in the Afula military cemetery.

Sgt.-Maj. Ro'i Yaish, 27, of Herzliya got his call up order last week. "He loved his motorcycle," friends said. "You couldn't touch his bike or his helmet. Whenever we heard his bike, we knew he was coming and everyone would get excited." Ro'i is survived by his parents and three brothers. Ro'i was laid to rest at 5 p.m. in his hometown.

Despite being recently hurt in a field trip to the Judean Desert, St.-Sgt. Yehuda Greenfeld, 27, of Maale Michmas, was called to duty. Greenfeld leaves behind a two and a half year old daughter and a four month old son. Greenfled is survived by his wife and two kids, along with his parents and five brothers. He was laid to rest at 5 p.m. in the Herzliya cemetery.

St.-Sgt. Shaul Shai Michlowitz, 21, of Netanya, had finished his army service three months ago, and was waiting for his request to serve additional time as a career soldier to be authorized. Instead, he received an emergency call-up order last week. Shaul is survived by his parents and two sisters. He was buried at 5 p.m. in the Netanya military cemetery.

St.-Sgt.Maj. Daniel Ben-David, 38, of Moshav Ahituv, volunteered to join fellow paratroopers in Lebanon, despite his family's objections. Ben-David was described by a neighbor as "always laughing and hugging" and as someone who "loved to help people." Ben-David is survived by his wife and three children. He was buried at 5:30 p.m. in the Ahitub cemetery.

Warr.Ofc. Shmuel Halfon, 41, of Bat Yam, was called up two weeks ago, only to be told that he could return home last week. One day after he went home, Halfon was called up again. Family members said that Halfon loved the army and liked serving reserve duty. Halfon left behind three sons, one of whom is 11 months old. Halfon is survived by his wife and three sons. He was laid to rest at 7 p.m. in the military section of the Holon cemetery.

Sgt.-Maj. Ziv Balali, 28, of Kfar Sava, was about to celebrate his 29th birthday next month. Ziv recently completed a degreee in Middle East Studies. He is survived by his parents and sister. He was laid to rest at 7 p.m.in the military cemetery in his hometown.

St.-Sgt.Maj. Shlomo Buchris, 36, of Moshav Sde Yitzchak, reassured his brother that while other troops had gone into Lebanon, he had not yet entered and was fine. Just a short time later, Buchris was killed. Buchris was named after his father, who fell in the Six Day war.
He was buried at 7:15 p.m.in the Sde Yitzhak cemetery.

F.-Sgt. Mordechai Abutbul, 28, of Shlomi who was buried at 10 p.m. in the military section of the Shlomi cemetery.

Captain Eliyahu Elkariaf, 34, of Moshav Granot. He will be laid to rest on Tuesday at 5 p.m. in the military section of the Kfar Ata cemetery.

2006: Surprisingly, the Chicago Tribune published an op-ed article by David Memet entitled, “Bigotry Pins Blame on Jews.”

2006: The Sunday New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including  Spoiling For A Fight: The Rise of Eliot Spitzer by Brooke A. Masters and Richard Hofstadter: An Intellectual Biography byDavid S. Brown. (Hofstadter’s father was Jewish.)

2006: Anglo-Jewish author Michael Rosen was the subject of the BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs program.

2006: The WorldPride which was scheduled to be held today in Jerusalem did not take place due to the conflict being fought in response to attacks on Israel by Hezbollah.

2007:  In “Climates” which appeared in The New Republic, Leon Wieseltier, takes issue with the behavior and media treatment of the “super-rich” citing specifically Sanford Weill and “the obscene Stephen Schwarzman, who is very bad for the Jews.”

2007: The New Republic published a review of Jesus in the Talmud by Peter Schafer.

2007(22nd of Av, 5767): Mose Fishman, who as a 21 year-old from New York fought Fascists in Spain with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, passed away at the age of 91.

2007: At a meeting in the synagogue of the Novominsker Rebbe, more than a dozen religious heavyweights – including Rabbi Aryeh Kotle and Rabbi David Zwiebel – consider evidence that that chickens may have been mistreated in past Kapparot ceremonies and acknowledged that the problem rose to a level that could violate rabbinic law.  After the conference, the rabbis collectively issued a call for members of the community to clean up the process during this year’s holiday season.

2008: After a meeting today between Prime Minister Ehud Omert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, officials from both sides announced that Israel will release about 150 Palestinian prisoners at the end of the month as a gesture to President Abbas.

2008: “Pineapple Express,” a comedy produced by Judd Apatow and written by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen who also starred in the film was released today in the United States.

2009(16th of Av, 5769): Ninety-three year old Dutch real estate tycoon whose parents and brothers were murdered in a Nazi concentration camp passed away today.


2009: In Jerusalem Beit Avi Chai presents Part 4 of “Symbolically Speaking": Visual images of Israel, Hebrew culture, Zionism, and Judaism in which art scholar Dr. Gideon Ofrat traces the course of five icons of Jewish art until they reached Israeli galleries, thereby telling the story of modern Hebrew culture with its hopes and disappointments, highs and lows.

2009: Final night of the Israeli Wine Tasting Festival at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

2009: Funeral is held for Amos Kenan at a Kibbutz in central Israel.

2009: Voting closes for the selection of those who will appear in the Only In America Gallery of the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, PA.

2009: Robert David Sack, the son of Rabbi Eugene Sack took senior status as Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

2009: Israel's largest political party, Kadima, shut down its official Web site today, claiming it had been infiltrated by Palestinian hackers.

2009: A Cobb, GA rabbi is seeking to declare Georgia’s Kosher Food Labeling Act unconstitutional, saying it de-legitimizes interpretations of “kosher” by different Jewish communities. Shalom Lewis, rabbi of Congregation Etz Chaim, filed suit today in Fulton County Superior Court. He is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Georgia and Atlanta law firm King and Spalding. The Kosher Food Labeling Act, enacted in 1980, mandates that any food sold as kosher must meet “orthodox Hebrew religious rules and requirements.” Lewis, a conservative Jew, said he cannot fulfill his rabbinical duties because his theological interpretation of the state’s kosher laws differs from that of Orthodox Judaism. He said he violates state law when he approves some foods as kosher that are not kosher under Orthodox definitions. According to the lawsuit, for example, there are disagreements between the Orthodox and Conservative Jewish communities as to whether swordfish and sturgeon may be eaten under dietary laws. The same is true for many dairy products and wines, the suit said. Lewis also said the state should not endorse one religious group’s beliefs over another. “It’s an intrusion into the separation of church and state clause.” A state Attorney General’s Office spokesman declined comment. Orthodox are among the more traditional Jews. Conservative Jews are more open to change than Orthodoxy. About one in three American Jews belong to a Conservative synagogue, according to the 2000-2001 National Jewish Population Survey. About one in five are Orthodox.

2010: In Omaha, Nebraska, the JCC Maccabi Games are scheduled to come to an end.

2010: In Springfield, VA, a Wine and Cheese Reception is scheduled to take place at Adat Reim prior to Friday night Shabbat services.

2010: According to a report by London-based Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) head Yuval Diskin met with Egyptian officials today to discuss the Grad rockets fired at Eilat and Aqaba earlier this week. Cairo officials have been searching for two trucks that were used in the firing of the Grad rockets. The newspaper hinted that head of Egyptian Intelligence, Omar Suleiman, was present at the meeting.

2010: CNN host Fareed Zakaria has returned an award to the Anti-Defamation League over the group's opposition to building a mosque near Ground Zero. Zakaria, also a Newsweek columnist, had received the Hubert H. Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize in 2005 Foxman wrote in a letter responding to Zakaria. Foxman said he hoped that Zakaria “will come to see that ADL acted appropriately” and would reclaim his award.

2010(26th Av, 5770): Sixty-two year old Tony Judt, a highly praised and controversial historian who wrote with sharp persistence about the changing world at large and the tragic world within - the fatal disease that paralyzed him - died today at his home in New York City. (As reported by William Grimes)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/books/08judt.html?pagewanted=all

2011: “In Heaven Underground: The Weissensee Jewish Cemetery a film that provides “A lush, surprising and utterly absorbing journey into the lively stories hidden among the tombstones, pathways and woodlands of the Weissensee Jewish Cemetery, which has been in continuous operation in Berlin for 130 years,” is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2011(6th of Av): At Shabbat Chazon services in Cedar Rapids, congregants celebrated the second anniversary of Todd Thalblum, as Rabbi at Temple Judah with a special Kiddush.

2011:More than 250,000 people took part in demonstrations across Israel tonight to protest the high cost of living.

2012: Athletic competition is scheduled to begin today at the Maccabi Games in Memphis, TN after opening ceremonies were held yesterday.

2012:AACI - Association of Americans & Canadians in Israel- is scheduled to present a program commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Raoul Wallenberg at the Dr. Max and Gianna Glassman Family Center in Jerusalem featuring a special message from Raoul Wallenberg's niece Louise von Dardel

2012:Two Kassam rockets hit the Hof Ashkelon region today. The rockets exploded in an open area and there were no reports of injury or damage.

2012(18th of Av, 5772): Sixty-eight year old Pulitzer Prize winning composer Marvin Hamlisch passed away today. (As reported by Rob Hoerburger)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/08/arts/music/marvin-hamlisch-composer-dies-at-68.html?_r=1&hp

http://www.marvinhamlisch.com/

2012(18th of Av, 5772): Eighty-nine year old R. Peter Straus, the son of Nathan Straus Jr. and Helen Sachs Straus, “who took over WMCA in New York in the late 1950s and turned it into one of the nation’s most innovative radio stations, broadcasting what are regarded as the first radio editorials and political endorsements and helping to popularize rock ’n’ roll” passed away today (As reported by Robert McFadden)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/09/business/r-peter-straus-wmca-radio-pioneer-dies-at-89.html?_r=2&hpw&

2012:Representatives of the families of 11 Israeli athletes murdered at the 1972 Olympics attacked International Israeli Olympic Committee Chairman Dr. Jacques Rogge at a memorial event in London.

2012:The Tel Aviv City Council rejected a proposal to include Arabic on the city's official emblem

2013: “Closed Season,” a film about a young German student who visits a holocaust survivor in Israel is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2013: The fans of Faye Kellerman are filled with excitement and anticipation as The Beast, the latest in the Decker/Lazarus novels arrives at book stores across the country.

2013(30thof Av, 5773): Rosh Chodesh Elul
 
2013: “The Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece by Ted Koppel entitle ‘America’s Chronic Overreaction to Terrorism’”
 

2013(30thof Av, 5773): Eighty six year old Jerry Wolman the former owner of the Philadelphia Eagles football team and the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team passed away today. (As reported by Richard Goldstein)


2013: Zygi “Wilf, along with his brother and cousin, were found liable by a New Jersey court for breaking civil state racketeering laws and keeping separate accounting books to fleece former business partners of shared revenue” leading the judge award “the two business partner plaintiffs Ada Reichmann and Josef Halpern $84.5 million in compensatory damages, punitive damages and interest that the Wilfs must pay.:
 
2013: Beginning this morning, passengers traveling on Dan’s #5 bus line in Tel Aviv may suddenly encounter a much quieter and cleaner ride, aboard the country’s first fully electric – and vibrantly orange – bus. (As reported by Sharon Udasin)

2013: A poll released today “by the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University, found that 63 percent of Jews in Israel oppose a withdrawal to the 1967 lines with land swaps as part of any peace arrangement with the Palestinian Authority, even if it meant Israel would hold onto the Etzion Bloc, directly south of Jerusalem; Ma’aleh Adumim, east of the capital; and Ariel in the central West Bank about 34 kilometers (21 miles) east of Tel Aviv. (As reported by Asher Zeiger)

2013: “Rabbi Artur Ovadia Isakov, the Chabad rabbi shot in a likely terrorist attack in southern Russia has been discharged from an Israeli hospital after recovering from surgery to repair his live. One or more terrorists shot him in the chest as he was getting out of his car near his home.” (As reported by Jewish Press)

2014: Annual commemoration of the role the Jews of Corfu played in defending the island against the Turks during the invasion in 1716.

2014: Dr. Diane M. Sharon is scheduled to begin teaching a four week course, “Biblical Temptress: Sacred or Scandalous?”

2014: Tomasz Jankowski a freelance genealogist specializing in Jewish genealogy and founder of Jewish Family Search is scheduled to present “Legal and Practical Aspects of Genealogical Research in Galicia (Poland and Ukraine)” at the Center for Jewish History.

2014: “Israel has reportedly agreed to extend the current ceasefire in Gaza Strip today as indirect Israel-Palestinian negotiations over extending a truce in Gaza got underway in Cairo. However, Hamas was quick to deny the reports, saying it will renew fire at Israel as soon as the current lull has ended.” (As reported by Roy Kais)

2014: According to a poll published today, more Israelis believe Hamas emerged victorious in Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip than think that Israel did” (As reported by Gil Hoffman)

2014: A school bus driving children home from three Jewish private schools in Sydney, Australia today was boarded by eight drunk men who proceeded to yell “Heil Hitler” and “Kill the Jews,” threatening to cut the children’s throats before disembarking (As reported by Stephanie Butnick)

2015: The Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia is scheduled to host the Camp Omanoot Performance: "Fiddler on the Roof"

2015: The stolen Stradivarius violin was returned to Roman Totenberg’s daughters today, after which Nina Totenberg said "we’re going to make sure that it’s in the hands of another great artist who will play it in concert halls all over the world.”

2015: “The Train,” a “short film in which Eli Wallach made his final cinema appearance playing the role of “a holocaust survivor who in a meeting teaches a self-consume and pre-occupied young man that life can change in a moment” premiered today at the Rhode Island International Film Festival.

2015: Larry and Mindy are scheduled to sing “Simon & Garfunkel” tonight at Café Yaffo.

2015: The Historic 6th& I Synagogue is scheduled to host “An Evening with Delta Spirit & Friends.”

2016: “From a Dacha Wall, a Clue to Raoul Wallenberg’s Cold War Fate” published today described how “newly published diaries” hidden in the wall of a Russian estate provide evidence the Swedish diplomat was murdered by the Soviets.


2016: “The Writer” and “Baba Joon” are scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2016(2ndof Av, 5776): Parashat Matot-Masei – Completion of Bamidbar


2017: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Best Minds of My Generation: A Literary History of the Beats by Allen Ginsberg and recently published paperback editions of I’m Supposed to Protect You From All This: A Memoir by Nadja Spiegelman, East West Street: On the Origins of “Genocide” and “Crimes Against Humanity” by Philippe Sands and Hot Milk by Deborah Levy.

2017(14thof Av, 5777): Eight-seven year old Canadian “commercial real estate” mogul Jack Rabinovitch who is best known for creating the Giller Prize, Canada’s pre-eminent English language award, which was his way of honoring the memory of his “second wife Doris Giller” passed away today. (As reported by Ian Austen)


2017: “After Auschwitz: The Stories of Six Women,” the documentary that opens with the word “You’re free. Go home” is scheduled to be shown at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.

2017: “Charlemagne Palestine’s Bear Mitzvah in Meshugahland” is scheduled to come to an end at the Jewish Museum.


2017: The exhibition “500 Years of Treasures From Oxford” is scheduled to come to a close at the Yeshiva University Museum.


2017: “The Arcades: Contemp”orary Art and Walter Benjamin” is scheduled to come to a close at the Jewish Museum.


2017: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to host a Tu B’Av celebration this evening at the Center for Jewish History

2018: “Classical Bridge, an international musical festival, academy and conference designed to build bridges through music” featuring “Israeli musicians Pinchas Zuckerman and Alexander Fiterstein” is scheduled to continue for a third day.

2018: JW3 is scheduled to host a screening this evening in London of “Generation of Wealth.”

2018: Prime Minister Netanyahu will not be traveling to Columbia today so that he can be in Israel in case his support is needed for a cease fire in Gaza that is reportedly being negotiated by the United Nations. (As reported by Maayan Lubell)

 

 

This Day, August 7, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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August 7

117:  The Roman Emperor Trajan passed away.  Trajan came to think of himself as another Alexander the Great and moved east towards Babylonia with the intent of extending the boundaries of the Roman Empire.  One of Trajan’s first moves was to conquer Parthia and then continue his eastward march towards to the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers.  Unfortunately for him Parthia refused to remain conquered.  They rebelled against Trajan forcing him turn back and try and subdue them a second time.  The Jews of Parthia, many of whose families had fled the Roman Legions fifty years earlier when Rome sacked Jerusalem, were active in the revolt since they had no desire to live under Trajan or any other emperor.  If this were not enough reason for Trajan to have no love for the children of Israel, the Diaspora Revolts centered, primarily in the Jewish communities of Egypt and Cyprus broke out in 115, and last until the year of Trajan’s death. These revolts further drew down on the empire’s military might helping to end Trajan’s dreams of glory.

317: Birthdate of Constantius II, Roman emperor who, unfortunately for the Jewish people, followed in the footsteps of his father, Emperor Constantine. “Judaism faced some severe restrictions under Constantius, who seems to have followed an anti-Jewish policy in line with that of his father]. Early in his reign, Constantius issued a double edict in concert with his brothers limiting the ownership of slaves by Jewish people and banning marriages between Jews and Christian women. A later edict (issued by Constantius after becoming sole Emperor) decreed that a person who was proven to have converted from Christianity to Judaism would have their entire property confiscated by the state. However, it should be noted that Constantius' actions in this regard may not have been so much to do with Jewish religion as Jewish business; apparently, it was often the case that privately-owned Jewish businesses were in competition with state-owned businesses. As such, Constantius may have sought to provide as much of an advantage to the state-owned businesses as possible by limiting the skilled workers and the slaves available to the Jewish businesses.”

1106: Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, passed away.  During the period of the First Crusade acted to protect his Jewish subjects giving rise to the notion that rulers of the Holy Roman Empire saw themselves as “guardians” of their Jewish subjects.  Henry protected the rights of German Jews to pursue commercial activities.  In opposition to the Pope, Henry allowed any Jews who had been forcibly converted to return to Judaism.  Anyone who harmed “their Jews” was liable to be charged with treason.  The price of this protection was the acceptance of the role as “servi camerae,” i.e. “serfs of the imperial chamber.”

1316: John XXII is elected Pope.  During his reign, John the second of Avignon Popes would take the unpapal role of opposing a crusade, in this one proposed by King Philip V.  He did banish the Jews from all “Roman territory after his sister Sangisa conspired with “several priests to give testimony that the Jews had ridiculed by words and actions a crucifix which was carried through the street in a procession.”

1610: Paul V, issued “Exponi nobis nuper fecistis,” a papal bull concerning the dowries of Jewish women.

1634(13th of Av, 5394): Sara Abigail da Silva, daughter of Semuel da Silva passed away which led her husband Benjamin ben Immanuel Musaphia, the Spanish doctor and kabbalist  to dedicate “Zekher Rav, an adaptation of the creation myth in which all Hebrew word roots are used exactly once, to her.”

1705: Rabbi Zvi Ashkenazi sent a letter, co-signed by two other rabbinic judges, “exonerating David Nieto of all charges and the taint of Spinozian heresy.”

1713: A commission in Amsterdam declared that Nehemiah Hayyun was not guilty of heresy and he was returned to the community at public ceremony held at that city’s great synagogue.

1772: In a letter from Jacob ben Abraham Benider to the Earl of Rochford (Britain), Jacob tells how he was appointed by the Emperor of Morocco to be the Moroccan Minister to the English Court of King George III.  

1782: General George Washington created the Purple Heart, a medal given for acts of military valor which was later given to those wounded in battle including Samuel Sobel, the Jewish Chaplain serving with the First Marine Division during the Korean War and Eric Greitens, a decorated Navy Seal who went on to be elected the first Jewish Governor of the state of Missouri.

1789: The United States War Department which would be renamed the U.S. Defense Department by President Truman, is established. The first Jew to hold the title of Secretary of War is Judah P. Benjamin.  But he held the job with Confederates, not the United States.  James Schlesinger, was the first person who was born Jewish to serve as U.S. Secretary of Defense.  However, he had converted to Christianity.  Harold Brown, who served under President Carter, was the first Jewish person to ever hold the top civilian military job.

1791: King Louis XVI of France signed into law a bill passed by the Assembly “that the Jew taxes should be remitted without an indemnification and that every tribute, under whatever name – protection money, residence tax, or tolerance money – should cease.”

1796(3rd of Av, 5556): Samuel Scheindlinger, the “first rabbi in Sale” who passed away today while serving as the Rosh Bet Din in Lemberg.

1812: Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, who supported and aided the Czar's army during the Napoleonic wars, was forced to flee his hometown from Napoleon's forces which were advancing through White Russia in their push toward Moscow. After five months of wandering he finally found refuge in Pyena.

1820: Jacob De La Motta, the Georgia native who served as a surgeon in the U.S. Army during the War of 1812 wrote a letter to President James Madison which he attached to a copy of the remarks he had made at the dedication of the new synagogue in Savannah.  It read in part, “Believing that you have ever been, and still continue to be, liberal in your views of a once oppressed people, and confident that you would cheerfully receive any information appertaining to the history of the Jews in this country, have induced me to solicit your acceptance of a Discourse pronounced on the occasion of the Consecration of the new Synagogue recently erected in our city.” (This stands in stark contrast to anti-Semitic environment Jews were dealing with in post-Napoleonic Europe.  As reported by Jewish Virtual Library)

1830: Following the July Revolution, Jean-Pons-Guillaume Viennet a French deputy, proposed that recognition of a state religion should be removed from the constitution.  The proposal met with general approval and was another step towards Jews becoming fully integrated into French society.

1831: Two days after she passed away Erev Shabbat, Catherine Joseph, the wife of Judah Joseph was buried today at the Lauriston Road Jewish Cemetery.

1833: Isaac ben Raphael married Krendel bat Aaron at the Western Synagogue today.

1834: Isaac ben Asher married Nennela bat Nathan at the Western Synagogue today.

1835: Birthdate of Governor Roswell Flowers who appointed Edward Jacobs a lawyer and leader of the Jewish community to serve as Loan Commissioner

1839(27th of Av, 5599): Eighty-six year old Baron Bernhard von Eskeles the co-founder of banking-house of Arnstein and Eskeles  and the founder of the Austrian National Bank who was also a patron of the arts passed away today near Vienna.

1840: As Europeans – Jews and non-Jews – attempted to deal with the Blood Libel in Damascus, a delegation head by Adolf Cremieux and Moses Montefiore arrived in Egypt.

1840: Birthdate of Edward Henry Palmer who 1869 took part in the survey of the Palestine Exploration Fund’s survey of the Sinai and the author of The Desert of the Exodus: Journeys On Foot In The Wilderness of the Forty Years’ Wandering.

1842(1st of Elul, 5602): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1844: Birthdate of French geologist Auguste Michel-Lévy

1846(15th of Av, 5606): Tu B’Av

1846: Beginning of the dedication of the Eagle Street Synagogue in Cleveland, Ohio.

1846: Samuel Costa married Sarah Levy at the Bevis Marks Synagogue today.

1850: In Laupheim, Klara Adler and Elkan Henle gave birth to composer and cantor Mortiz Henle.

1853: Birthdate of Shalom Bapuji Israel (AKA Shalom Ezekiel) the native of Belgaum, India the husband of Elisheba (Bathshebabai) Wargharkar and father of Moses Shalom Bapuji Israel Wargharkar who was a member of the civil service serving in Bombay who was “an active promoter of native female education.”

1855: One day after she had passed away, Eugenius Ugo Foa, the daughter of Ocatve Foa and Adele Alberto Fermi was buried at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

1861: Birthdate of Baltimore native Ophthalmologist Charles Henry May, the 1883 graduate of the Columba University College of Physicians and Surgeons who invented an electric ophthalmoscope and the author of the “Manual of Diseases of the Eyes”

1861: During the Civil War, “Colonel Max Friedman, the commander of “The Cameron Dragoons, the 65th Regiment, 5th Cavalry of the Pennsylvania Volunteers” which “was organized in July of this year “was mustered into federal service today.

1861: Two days after she had passed away, Martha Levy who had married Woolf Levy at the New Synagogue in 1813, was buried today at the West Ham Jewish Cemetery.

1861: Philadelphian Joseph Gallinger, “who enlisted when he was 18 years old” began his service with Company B of the 123rd Regiment.

1862: "From Central Europe: A Scheme for Paying the National Debt " published today reports from Hanover Germany, that “a leading Jewish banker in Hamburg” has a plan “for defraying the expenses of war in America, raising a revenue, and paying the national debt” which he plans to present to the Secretary of the Treasury.  He proposes to use a lottery based system similar to that used by the Austrians and the Russians to save the credit of the United States. He proposes, on a semi-annual loan of $200,000,000, to issue eighty thousand representative shares at $2,500, which shares are to be subdivided into certificates, twenty-five in number for every share, and bearing the uniform value of $100, to which shall be attached a promissory coupon for two and a half per cent semi-annual interest. Every certificate, numbered for each share successively from one to twenty-five, is to be made payable semi-annually two months after the interest therefore becomes due, and to be taken up each in its regular order. In addition to this, he proposes the distribution of prizes, to be drawn after the manner of lotteries, and allotted to the holders of the drawn and fortunate shares -- every certificate representing a ticket or chance in the semi-annual drawing. These prizes, ranging variously from $200,000 down, are to be one hundred in number, and make a total of $490,000 every, half year. The loans, upon this basis, it is calculated, would cost the Government six per cent.

1862: “A Scheme for Paying the National Debt” published today described a plan that “a leading Jewish banker in Hamburg” plans on presenting the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury that will employ the same system of loans and lotteries used in Europe to wipe out America’s debt.

1862: “Speculators Proscribed” published today quotes the following telegram from General Grant:

“To Brif.-Gen. J.T. Quimby, Columbus, Ky.:

GENERAL: Examine the baggage of all speculators coming South, and, when they have specie, turn them back. If medicine and other contraband articles, arrest them and confiscate the contraband article. Jews should receive special attention.

(Signed) U.S.GRANT. Major-General

1863: Philadelphian, Benjamin B Goodman who had begun his military career as a Sergeant in Company of the 27th Regiment completed his service in the Union Army as First Lieutenant in Company G of the same regiment.

1865: Birthdate of Micha Josef Berdyczewski, the Ukrainian native and son of a rabbi who wrote in Hebrew, Yiddish and German.

1865: The Sixty-Fifth Regiment a twelve-hundred man cavalry unit consisting of ten companies from Philadelphia and two companies from Pittsburgh which was organized by Colonel Max Friedman and which had a large number of Jews was mustered out of service today at Richmond after four years of service with the Union Army.

1865: After more than four years of service, Leopold Goldstrom, who had risen from the ran if Private to Quartermaster Sergeant of Company E in the Fifth Cavalry completed his service with the Union Army today.

1865: Two days short of having served a full four years with the Fifth Cavalry, Sergeant Jacob Trautman completed his service with the Union Army

1865: Philadelphian Henry Schloos, a Corporal with Company E who had been wounded near Richmond, VA in December of 1864 completed his service with the Union Army.

1865: The New York Times published the following letter from one of its readers who took exception to the use of the term “Jew” in a previous day’s publication along with an “apology from the paper.

To the Editor of the New-York Times:

Being one of a large number of the "Jewish" subscribers and supporters of your journal, I this morning noticed in your paper an extraordinary fact that a "Jew" was in trouble for selling cigars to make a living, without a license. May 1, as a Jew, ask you why this dreadful crime should call forth from you the fact that the perpetrator was a "Jew?" Was it because you so seldom hear of a Jew being in trouble or committing crime, that it deserved your special mention of the fact that the man was a Jew and not a Catholic, Protestant or of any other denomination? By informing me through your columns, you will much oblige MANY JEWISH SUBSCRIBERS.

We do not know that there is any propriety in giving prominence in a report to the religious persuasion of any delinquent before the courts. Nor do we believe the practice to be a common one. It was done in the instance above complained of, inadvertently. Unless a journal is in the habit of making such insidious distinctions in matters of religion, nationality, and so-forth there is probably little gained by parading a casual grievance of this kind. We don't suppose one in ten thousand readers of the TIMES will have noticed the slip (if such it must be called,) in our report until they read this. Certainly, there is no daily newspaper in the world less chargeable with sectarianism than the TIMES, and no class of our citizens know this better than those in whose behalf our correspondent professes to write. -- [ED, TIMES.]

1868: Today, the Israelite, “an Anglo-Jewish publication…wished Andrew Carr Commons, the editor of the Workingman’s Advocate, success in his efforts to advance the cause of trade unionism in America.”

1868: In San Francisco, Leopold Seligmann, the native of Bavaria and husband of Fanny and David Isaac Seligmann and his wife Julia gave birth to Hugo Seligman

1871: One day after she had passed away, sixty-one year old Clara Ann Abrahams, the wife of David Abrahams was buried today at the West Ham Jewish Cemetery.

1873: Birthdate of Alice Lillie Seligsberg, social worker and Zionist who helped to found Hadassah.

1873: In a letter dated with today’s date. John T. Leonard, sent a letter to the Sherriff of Placer County California, in which he claimed to have information as to who had murdered the late Benjamin Nathan of New York City.  The letter was actually addressed to the Superintendent of the New York City Police Department

1873: B.D. Dunman, the Sheriff of Placer County California wrote to Superintendent Matsell of the New York City Police Department that he had a letter from John T. Leonard in which Leonard claimed to have vital information about the unsolved murder of Benjamin Nathan. Dunman said he was enclosing a copy of the letter and would await instructions from Matsell as to what should be done next.  (The Nathan Murder was a major scandal in New York in which suspicion was cast on several people including Nathan’s sons.  The murder has never been solved.)

1874: Late this afternoon, Simon Meyer, a Jew from Poland, entered a saloon at Port Jefferson, New York.  For some unknown reason, Captain Simpson, skipper of the schooner James Owen, “committed a brutal and…unprovoked assault” on the Jewish Peddler.  The crowd of citizens separated the two and Simpson ran off.  But a little while later, he went into a store and attacked Meyer again.  This time Simpson was arrested and made to stand trial for these assaults.

1875: Julius Myers was the first President of The Hebrew Benevolent Society was organized today in Alpena, Michigan. (As reported by Rabbi Robert Layman)1876: “Sodom and Gomorrah,” an article published today contains a description of Selah Morrel’s archeological expedition in Palestine that include visits to a series of “tel’s”  (mounds) that correspond to various sites mentioned in the Bible.

1877: A reprint ofan article by Alfred Austin that had appeared in The National Review in which the British poet examined the life of Benjamin Disraeli including allusions to the prejudices he faced was published today in the United States.  In the end Austin concludes that in terms of Disraeli, “the English people blamed what was blameworthy, distrusted what was untrustworthy, and admired what was admirable. Had not wit ripened into wisdom, had not duty burned ambition pure, he never would have become Prime Minister of England.”

1878(8th of Av, 5638): Erev Tish'a B'Av

1879: The London Truth featured an article that described the relationship between the ancient Temple in Jerusalem and such biblical figures as Haggai, Joshua and Zerubbabel with the Fraternal Order of Masons.

1880: William Daly, the attorney for Gustave Hauser gave notice of his intention to appeal the jury’s decision that B.N. Crane did not have to repay the money his client had paid for the burial of person whom the undertaker had identified as being Jewish.  Hauser contended that Crane knew the deceased was not Jewish and misled the Jewish community so that the burial expenses would be covered.

1881: “A Cemetery for Strangers” published today described an upcoming concert that will be held to raise funds for a Jewish cemetery in Long Branch, NJ.  The concert is the second such fund-raiser held by a group under the leadership of Joseph Seligman.

1882: By nine o’clock this morning a crowd of more than three hundred Jews had gathered on the sidewalk in front of the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society.  The destitute immigrants were seeking aid from the society.

1882: In New York, the eight-week long freight handlers strike came to an end when the workers capitulated even though the Italians and Jews who had been filling in for them appeared to be willing to join their ranks. (Businessmen would successfully pit members of different ethnic groups against each as a way to break a strikes; a tactic that would lose its effectiveness in the 1890’s)

1882: It was reported today that the British Museum has just bought the Judaeo-Persian manuscripts that had been acquired by Dr. Adolf Neubauer

1882: “Literary Notes” published today described the purchase by the British Museum of “The Judaeo-Persian manuscripts” recently acquired by Dr. Neubauer.

1882: Shortly before noon, a crowd of desperate Jews rushed up the stairs of the offices of the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society.  The situation deteriorated and the police were called to quell the commotion.  Mr. Heilprin, the Superintendent of the Society, said the action was understandable because they had been misled by so many agencies in Europe that they no longer trust promises of future help

1883: It was reported today 100 people have been killed or wounded during anti-Semitic riots in Ekaterinoslav, Russia.  The mob has destroyed many of the homes and businesses belonging to the Jews including the liquor stores.

1883: “An Important Discovery” published today reported that the owner of a newly discovered manuscript has offered to sell it to the British Museum for five million dollars. The manuscript, which is nearly 3,000 years old contains a version of the Ten Commandments that differs from the one found in the Book of Exodus. 

1883: Mrs. Ivan M. Lotowski, a Jewess from Estellville, NJ lies near death after her cabin burned under mysterious circumstances which she has refused to describe to authorities.

1884: In Leadville, Colorado, the board of directors Temple Israel approved a contract for the building of a sanctuary at 201 West 4th Street.

1886: “Charitable Work Criticized” published today described a turf war between Jewish agencies.  The President of the Jewish Immigrants’ Protective Society wrote a letter to the President of the United Hebrew Charities asking him to withdraw his organization’s representative from Castle Garden.  The Society was supposed to be taking care of the “resident poor” and most of the arriving immigrants were heading for the American West, thus bringing them under the purview of the Protective Society.

1886:”On The Watch For Paupers” published described the scheme of some of the subagents of English shipping lines to transport poor Romanian and Polish Jews to the United States for the highly discounted price of 38 marks of $10 per person.

1887: It was reported today the next excursion sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children will be paid for by “a friend.”  This anonymous donor is a woman who has been sponsoring the cruises for the last three years.

1888(30th of Av, 5648): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1890: As of today the managers of the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children “have received…$6,983” which will be used to provide free excursions for the children and their mother.

1890: Talmudic scholar Shalom Albeck and his wife gave birth to Hanoch Albeck who would follow in his father’s footsteps and become a Professor of Talmud at Hebrew University.

1891: In St, Louis, Missouri, Joseph Lazarus Kranson and Caroline Kranson gave birth to Nathan Newton Kranson

1892: It was reported today the newly opened St. Vincent Hospital offers many services but unlike Mt. Sinai Hospital, it does not an “out-patient department” nor does it provide service for “convalescents that no longer require medical or surgical treatment.”

1893: “Education and the Family” published today provides a review of Talks by Twilight by Abbott Kinney who writes that Jews and Catholics in the United States enjoying the “happiest…family life.”

1894: Dr. James Drew, a professor of Biblical Literature who had written a Hebrew grammar book passed away.  He was a member of the Palestine Exploration Committee, the leading organization for modern archaeological exploration of 19th century Eretz Israel.

1894: Elias Ganse, the Jew who rented the ground floor at 236 Broome Street which he used as a saloon and liquor store stands accused of setting fire to the building so that he could collect on a $2,500 insurance policy.  The  smell of kerosene and the discovery that the fire had four points of origins was the Fire Marshall’s first clue that the fire was not one of those accidental conflagrations that was common to the Lower East Side.

1895: Henry Marks was elected to represent the constituency consisting of St. George, Tower Hamlets in the general elections that end today in the United Kingdom.

1895: “Gifts to Hebrew Charities” published today lists the bequests to Jewish organizations made by the late Eugene Kelly that total $9,500 which are to be distributed by Joseph Seligman.

1898(19th of Av, 5658): Sixty-one year old German Jewish Egyptologist Georg Moritz Ebers who discovered the Ebers Papyrus, a collection of medical writing from approximately 1550 BCE.


1899(1st of Elul, 5659): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1899: Birthdate of Austrian native Dr. Gusatve Joseph Landau, who came to the United States in 1900, pursued a career as an Oral Surgeon and was the father of Elissa Pamela Landau, the future wife of Barry Steven Glassman.

1899: Captain Dreyfus today “refused to see the last set of photographs of children” that his brother had brought from Paris to Rennes where the French officer was about to go on trial for a second time.

1899: At Rennes, France, “the second trial by court-martial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus of the Fourteenth Regiment of Artillery” who had been sentenced to life imprisonment in 1894 “after having been convicted of delivering to the agents of a foreign power documents connected with the defense of France” began at 7:10 this morning

1899: “Jews Talk of Buying Cyprus” published today described the decision of Jews meeting in Berlin to gather more information about the American plan to purchase the Mediterranean island as site for Jewish colonization “before proceeding in the matter.”

1901: In San Francisco, “The Willing Workers of the Bush Street Temple was organized” today “for the purpose of aiding financially Congregation Ohabai Shalom, its Sabbath School and cemetery.”

1903: Herzl arrives in St. Petersburg, where he seeks Russian intervention with Turkey on behalf of his Zionist proposals to secure Jewish settlement in Palestine, and to permit open Zionist activity in Russia. He is received twice by Count Wenzel von Plehve, Russian minister of the interior, who is believed to be responsible for the Kishinev pogrom. Herzl's most important achievement is Wenzel von Plehve’s acquisition as a supporter of Zionism. Von Plehve would do anything to rid Russia of her Jews.

1904: Birthdate of Ralph J Bunche, an African-American who hand an unusual career with the United States government before going to work with the United Nations shortly after its founding. a founder & UN diplomat (Nobel 1950) Beginning in 1947, he was involved with the Arab-Israeli conflict. He served as assistant to the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine, and thereafter as the principal secretary of the U.N. Palestine Commission. In 1948 he traveled to the Middle East as the chief aide to Count Folke Bernadotte, who had been appointed by the U.N. to attempt to mediate the conflict. In September, members of the Stern Gang assassinated Bernadotte. Bunche became the U.N.'s chief mediator and concluded the task with the signing of the 1949 Armistice Agreements. This was a Herculean task that began with negotiations on the island or Rhodes. Bunche had to conclude separate agreements between each of the combatants and Israel. He received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in 1950 

1904: Birthdate of anti-Nazi activist Hanna Melzer.

1904: An attorney living in Solomonville, a town in the southeastern Arizona Territory founded by Anna and I.E. Solomon wrote a letter describing the Solomon family’s preparations for the upcoming wedding of their daughter Lillian. In the same letter, the lawyer lamented the fact that another local attorney and Lillian had been in love with each other but Anna Solomon “raised a big hullabaloo” because “he was not one of the chosen people” and the relationship came to an end.

1905: “Petticoat Lane” by James Douglas published today described a place where he says “the Jew barters and the Gentile buys.”

1906: Birthdate of American philosopher Nelson Goodman.

1910: The Sixteenth Annual Convention of the Independent Western Star Order opened in Cleveland, Ohio.

1911: Representative Seaborn A. Roddenbery of Georgia introduced a bill “providing for exclusion of aliens over 14 years of age unable to read and write, those not possessing one hundred dollars in cash, those not having certificates of good moral character, those not passing physical test equal to that of that of the United States Army, those judged to be physical, mentally or morally unfit to be American citizens and a head-tax of $50.”

1911: Senator William P. Dillingham of Vermont introduced a bill “providing an educational test for immigrants, the exclusion of those not eligible for naturalization, the consolidation of the Chinese exclusion law with the general immigration statues, the procuring by each immigrant of a certificate of admission and identity and other restrictive features.”

1914: Ludwig Wittgenstein, the 25 year old Austrian philosopher volunteered as a gunner in the Austrian army. Wittgenstein’s story was all too common. His paternal grandparents were Jewish.  His father, a well-to-do industrialist was raised as a Christian and young Wittgenstein followed in the faith of his father, not his grandfather.

1914: As the conflict widens, the first contingents of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) began arriving in France thinking they would “be home by Christmas” and having no idea that they would in France for four years.

1915: In Brixton, south London, “Arnold Mishcon, a rabbi who emigrated from Russian Poland, and his wife Queenie” gave birth to Victor Mischon, the future Baron Mischon, “a leading British solicitor” and Laborite who firm represented Princess Diana in her divorce proceedings.


1915(27th of Av, 5675): Lt Leo Edwin Davis, Manchester Regiment, was killed at Gallipoli. Of him one of his soldiers wrote. 'I was his orderly and all the men used to say what a nice officer we had got. He was as cool a man as I ever saw and never troubled'

1915: On Shabbat, Samuel Pochansky, the eldest son Eli Pochansky, an Orthodox Jew, entered his father’s home on Cherry and Grand Streets where he tormented his father by blowing cigarette smoke on him and taunted him which so enraged the Shabbat observant father that he struck his son and then struck his wife and daughter because they defended Samuel

1915: As the Gallipoli Campaign in which the Zion Mule Corps distinguished itself continued to stall, the Australian 3rd Light Horse Brigade suffered severe losses during a failed attack at the Nek.

1915: During the Gallipoli Campaign, a brigade under the command of Sir John Monash led the ill-fated attack on Hill 971.

1915: In a heavily-bombed trench at Gallipoli, Lieutenant Leonard Keysor caught Turkish explosives and threw them back at the enemy for 50 hours straight. He was wounded twice but refused medical attention. He was awarded a Victoria Cross for his bravery.

1915: According to reports reaching Berlin tonight from Warsaw, the Polish capital has fallen to Germans following an attack on August 5 that was led by a Prussian reserve division which means that a significant Jewish population that has been ruled by Russians since the partitions in the 18th century will now be governed by the Germans who claim to be so much more enlightened.

1916(8th of Av, 5676): Erev Tish’a B’Av

1916: “An impressive Black Night service, commemorative of the fall of the Temple in Jerusalem 1,847 years ago was conducted” tonight by Dr. H. Pereira Mendes, the rabbi at Shearith Israel where “the auditorium of the synagogue was draped in black and the only light was from the individual candles which those in attendance held.”

1916: During WW I, the Ottoman and Germany forces that had launched an attack intended to take the Suez from the British continued their retreat which tonight reached Bir el Abd, the supply base established three weeks ago.

1917: During WW I, forty-two women and children, the families of American Jews arrived” in Berne “today in Jerusalem.”

1918: The Central Committee began publishing Der Emes (“The Truth”) today in Moscow.  It was the continuation of a short lived publication Di Varhayt 

1918: Following the Aisne-Marne Offensive which ended yesterday, future Medal of Honor Winner William Shemin began fighting along the Vesle River, near Bazoches.

1920: In Vienna, popular singer Lifshe Schaechter and her husband gave birth to Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman who married Jonas (Yoyne) Gottesman and after surviving the Holocaust  came to the United States where she raised three children – Taube, Hyam and Itik – and gained fame as a “Yiddish poet and playwright.


1920: Ossip Samoilovich Bernstein won the “State Chess Championship” today at the “annual tournament of the New York Chess Association” in Albany.

1920: “Adolf Hitler gives a speech in Salzburg in which he asserts the importance of eliminating the Versailles Treaty and furthermore blames the Jews — not just for the treaty, but for all of the problems afflicting Germany.” (As reported Austin Cline)

1923: Birthdate of Liane Berkowitz a member of the German resistance movement who was executed in 1943

1925: Nahum Shtif established YIVO (Yiddish Scientific Institute - Yidisher Visenshaftlikher Institut) as a Yiddish academic institute with its center in Vilna. Its goal was to promote scholarly research in Yiddish, especially on Jewish life and history in Eastern Europe. In addition, it standardized Yiddish spelling and gathered thousands of documents on Jewish culture and folklore from over much of Europe.

1926: “The Three Mannequins” a silent film written by Max Glass, starring Paul Graetz and with sets “designed by the art director Hans Jacoby” was released in Germany today.

1926: On Long Island Marcus and Anna (Low) Kaufman gave birth to author Sue Kaufman whose works included Diary of a Mad Housewife.

1926: Birthdate of English “political activist and journalist” Maurice Ludmer, the son of “a Salford hairdresser and a Hebrew teacher, whose life was unalterably changed when he visited Blesen while serving with the British Army during WW II.

1927: The Maccabee soccer team of Palestine defeated the Brooklyn Wand-erers by a score of 2 goals to 1 at Hawthorne Feld in Brooklyn today, thus completing their tour of the United States with an even break of five victories, five losses and one tie.

1927: It was reported today that Henrikas Rabinavicius “who was described as the only Jew” serving “n the Lithuanian diplomatic service” has “resigned as Consul General “ in New York “after Premier Augustinas Waldemaras of Lithuania stated that he want his country’s New York representative to be ‘a Lithuanian, not a Jew.’”

Consul General of the Lithuanian Republic in New York and “the only Jew” serving “in thee quit his post

1927: The Zitenfeld twins, Bernice and Phyllis have arrived in Boulogne France, with the plans for swimming the English Channel.

1929(1st of Av, 5689): Rosh Chodesh Av

1929(1st of Av, 5689): Victor Luitpold Berger, a founding member of the Socialist Party of America and the first member of the Socialist Party to serve in the United States House of Representatives, died today from injuries sustained in a streetcar accident. Berger's views on World War I were complicated by the Socialist view and the difficulties surrounding his German heritage. However, he did support his party's stance against the war. When the United States entered the war and passed the Espionage Act in 1917, Berger's continued opposition made him a target. He and four other Socialists were indicted under the Espionage Act in February 1918; the trial followed on December 9 of that year, and on February 20, 1919, Berger was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. The trial was presided over by Judge Kenesaw Landis, who later became the first commissioner of Major League Baseball. His conviction was appealed, and ultimately overturned by the Supreme Court on January 31, 1921, which found that Judge Landis had improperly presided over the case after the filing of an affidavit of prejudice.[12]In spite of his being under indictment at the time, the voters of Milwaukee elected Berger to the House of Representatives in 1918. When he arrived in Washington to claim his seat, Congress formed a special committee to determine whether a convicted felon and war opponent should be seated as a member of Congress. On November 10, 1919 they concluded that he should not, and declared the seat vacant. Wisconsin promptly held a special election to fill the vacant seat, and on December 19, 1919, elected Berger a second time. On January 10, 1920, the House again refused to seat him, and the seat remained vacant until 1921, when Republican William H. Stafford claimed the seat after defeating Berger in the 1920 general election.Berger defeated Stafford in 1922 and was reelected in 1924 and 1926. In those terms, he dealt with Constitutional changes, a proposed old-age pension, unemployment insurance, and public housing. He also supported the diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union and the revision of the Treaty of Versailles. After his defeat by Stafford in 1928, he returned to Milwaukee and resumed his career as a newspaper editor.On July 16, 1929 Berger was struck by a streetcar at the corner of 3rd and Clarke Streets in Milwaukee. The accident fractured his skull, and he died of his injuries on August 7, 1929. Prior to burial at Forest Home Cemetery his body lay in state at City Hall and was viewed by 75,000 residents of the city.

1931: “Huckleberry Finn” a movie version of the Mark Twain novel directed by Norman Taurog and produced by Adolph Zuckor and Jesse Lasky was released in the United States today by Paramount Pictures.

1931: “The Miracle Woman” a movie based on “Bless You Sister” a play co-authored by Robert Riskin produced by Harry Cohn with a screenplay by Jo Swerling was released in the United States today by Columbia Pictures.

1932: Eighteen year old Holocaust survivor wrote a description of his trip to “the beer garden in Hausenheimer “ in his diary today.

1933: Birthdate of Elinor Clair Awan, the daughter of a Jewish father and a Protestant mother who gained fame as Elinor Ostrom, the award winning political economist.

1933: In Springfield, New Jersey, for the second day in a row, an undetified plane flies over an open-air meeting of United Singers Society and scatters German language pamphlets protesting against the decision of the Society to prohibit representatives of the Friends of New Germany from attending its meetings. The Friends of the New Germany was a pro-Nazi organization formed at the behest of Berlin that would morph into the German-American Bund. The United Singers Society was a German organization made up conservatives who are not sympathetic to the Friends of New Germany.  Attendees complained that the noise of the plane interrupted the community sing-along taking place below.

1933: In Germany, an order is issued forbidding Jews to remain in the towns near Nuremberg

1933: The municipality of Nuremberg forbids Jews to use municipal swimming pools and baths.

 

1933: The Baden Government issued new citizenship regulations declaring that no Jew, no Jewish descendants, and no one married to a person of Jewish blood will be permitted to obtain citizenship; non-Jews applying for citizenship must prove their pure "Aryanism."

1933: The Leipzig Fair Management announces that non-Aryans will be admitted to the exposition; and though there will be a "Brown display" of goods limited to Germans only, Jews will not altogether "be eliminated from the bazaar."

1933: In an interview with Herschel Farbstein, of the Executive of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, President Ignacy Moscicki of Poland expressesd his satisfaction with the share Polish Jewry has played in the rebuilding of Palestine.

1933(15th of Av, 5693): The Nazis murdered Felix Fechnebach, a Jewish Editor in Dachau.

1935: In Chicago, 40,000 fans watched Joe Louis knocked out King Levinsky after only 2 minutes and 21 seconds of the first round.

1936: In Geneva, Dr. Stephen S. Wise, the president of the World Jewish Congress  “told newspaperman at a reception today” said that the first meeting of the Congress which will open tomorrow will be attended by ;250 delegates and would be the “most representative meeting of its kind in Jewish history.”

1937: “Blonde Trouble” a romantic comedy based on the George S. Kaufman musical “June Moon” was released today in the United States by Paramount Pictures.

1937: “A Yiddish newspaper called Der Freihaits Kempfer or Fighters for Libertyappeared at the Front” during the Spanish Civil War today.

1937: Menachem Ussishkin was unanimously elected president of the 20th Zionist Congress, held in Zurich.

1937: The debate over the recommendations of the Peel Commission raged on among and between Jews, Arabs and various third parties. Opening the deliberations, Chaim Weizmann, on behalf of the Zionist Organization, proposed to accept the Royal (Peel) Commission's partition plan in principle, but simultaneously declared the present scheme unacceptable. He complained that world Jewry failed to make a massive aliya in the early 1920s. Weizmann urged that the current challenges demand an undivided Jewish front and thought that the eventual emergence of a Jewish state would facilitate the Jewish-Arab understanding. Dr. Moshe Kleinbaum (Sneh) also urged the congress to accept the Jewish state, but sought to empower the Zionist Executive to negotiate different frontiers.  

1938(10th of Av, 5698):Tish'a B'Av

1938: In Danzig, a second night of Gestapo raids aimed at Jews frequenting local hostelries and dining establishments.  Several British Jews who vacationing along the Baltic were victimized along with the local Jewish population.”

1938: As Malcolm McDonald, the British Colonial Secretary, visited Palestine he got a firsthand taste of Arab violence when “a settlement near Tel Aviv” was subject to an attack by Arabs armed with heavy weapons including machine guns while another band of Arabs broke into a Jewish mosaic factory near Petah Tikvah and burned it.

1938: Seventy-five year old Constantin Stanislavski, found of the Moscow Art Theatre whose relationship with “Yiddish actress Stella Adler” is the subject of “Stella in the Bois de Bologne” passed away today.


1939: Birthdate of Lynn, MA, native Verna Bloom, the actress who has played roles as varied as Mary, the mother of Jesus and Marion Wormer, the promiscuous dean’s wife in “Animal House..”

1939(22ndof Av, 5699): Leonard Merrick, born Leonard Miller in London, an overseer in the Kimberly Diamond mine and solicitor who worked in the theatre before becoming, in his day, a popular novelist, passed away today.



1940: The Jews of Algeria lose their French citizenship with the abrogation of the Cremieux Decree.

1941(14th of Av, 5701): In Zhitomir, Russia  402 Jews were gathered and brought to the town square, where they were forced to watch the public hanging of the two Jewish judges, Wolf Kieper and Moshe Kagen.  After the hanging, “A large crowd of locals had gathered to watch the event, and participated in the public abuse, beating and murder of the 402 Jews gathered in the town square.”


 1941(24th of Av, 5702): Four hundred and two Jews were forced to watch the pubic hanging of two Jewish judges – Wolf Kieper and Moshe Kagan- in Zhitomir, Ukraine.


1942(24thof Av, 5702): Janusz Korczak, a Polish-Jewish educator, children's author, and pediatrician known as Pan Doktor ("Mr. Doctor") or Stary Doktor ("Old Doctor") who wrote under the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit died with the orphans he had been caring for at Treblinka http://www.timesofisrael.com/court-confirms-janusz-korczak-was-killed-in-treblinka/

1942: During World War II the Battle of Guadalcanal begins as U.S. Marines initiate the first American offensive of the war with landings on Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomon Islands.  Jewish boxer Barney Ross (he was lightweight, welterweight and junior welterweight champion in the 1930s) had enlisted right after Pearl Harbor even though at age 32 he was well passed draft age.  During the battle of Guadalcanal, he was seriously wounded while rescuing injured comrades from a Japanese ambush. His heroism under fire earned him a Silver Star. Other Jewish Marines who served on Guadalcanal included Lou Diamond and LeRoy Diamond, model for the film Pride of the Marines

1942: A photograph, a copy of which survived the war, was taken today of Jewish policeman and Germans during an aktion in the Warsaw Ghetto.


1944: Approximately 68,000 Jews remained in the Lodz Ghetto.. This was the largest gathering of Jews outside of the camps left in all of Europe. Of this remnant, 67,000 of were told they were to be resettled. Instead they are sent to Birkenau. The shipment of Jews that began today lasted 23 days, finally ending on August 30. Once there, most of the Jews meet the usual horrific fate - selection, death by gas, and then the cremation of their bodies. Some of the crippled were specially selected by Dr. Mengele. He still had plenty of subjects to use for his medical "studies" and experiments

1945(28thof Av, 5705): Forty-six year old Carl Pack, the native of Worcester, MA and graduate of Brooklyn Law who served as a member of the New York State Assembly and the New York State Senate passed away today.


1945: It is reported that there are eight Rabbis left in Salonica.

1947: Fourteen members of the SS, 4 kapos and 1 civilian faced charges of war crimes “committed in the operation of the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp on the first day of the “Dora Trial.”

1948: Birthdate of Dan Halutz who served as Commander of the Israeli Air Force and Chief of Staff of the IDF.

1948: In Brooklyn, NY, Irving and Celia Appel gave birth to sports management executive and author Martin E. “Marty” Appel the author of Pinstripe Empire: The New York Yankees from Before the Babe to After the Boss and husband of Lourdes Appel.

1949: In New York the former Beverly Behrman and her husband Norman Bertram Coleman, Sr. gave birth to Norman Bertram “Norm” Coleman, Jr. the future U.S. Senator from Minnesota.

1951: The New York Times reports from Tel Aviv that many prominent United States Zionists who are gathering here for the opening next week of the World Zionist Congress are trying to use their influence to bring about an Israeli coalition government of the Socialist Mapai party and the General Zionists.

1952: In its on-going war against Arab terror Israeli police and soldiers caught 37 infiltrators trying to enter the country in the week just ended. 

1953: In New York City Clifton and Annalee Jacob Fadiman gave birth to Radcliffe College graduate and award winning author Anne Fadiman whose works included The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures and The Wine Lover’s Daughter

1953: “The Band Wagon,” a musical comedy co-produced by Arthur Freed, written by Betty Comden, Adolph Green and Alan Jay Lerner and co-starring Oscar Levant was released today in the United States by MGM.

1954: Birthdate of Jonathan Jay Pollard

1954: “King Richard and the Crusaders” a medieval costume drama co-starring Laurence Harvey and with music by Max Steiner was released in the United States today.

1955: Birthdate of comedian and television producer Marc Weiner.


1955: Bar Ilan University was founded. Since its founding, Bar Ilan has grown to become one of Israel’s largest universities. The main campus is located outside of Tel Aviv and currently has 32,000 students with a faculty of over 1,600. For more about the school see its English language website http://www.biu.ac.il/index_eng.shtml.  

1957: Today, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, the President of Israel was among those who attended the consecration of “the Rabbi Dr. I. Goldstein Synagogue, a synagogue on the Edmond J. Safra Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University in Israel named in honor of Rabbi Israel Goldstein, an American-born Israeli rabbi, author, and Zionist leader” which was “designed by two Israeli architects--the German-born Heinrich Heinz Rau and the Brazilian-born David Resnick.”

1958: Filming of “The Geisha Boy” starring Jerry Lewis came to an end.

1959: In London “Dominic Elwes, a portrait painter, and Tessa Kennedy, an interior designer” gave birth to producer Cassian Elwes, the brother of actor Cary Elwes and artist Damian Elwes

1960: In New York Margaret "Meg" Duchovny and Amram "Ami" Ducovny a writer and publicist who worked for the American Jewish Committee gave birth today David Duchovny, award winning star of the X-Files.

1960: “It Started in Naples” a romantic comedy directed Melville Shavelson was released in the United States today.

1961: Twenty-eight year old Moshe Carmeli married Elisheva Cohen while working on his doctorate at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa

1963: A month after its premiere screening “Beach Party” the first in a series of teen summer movies directed by William Asher under the guidance of Executive Producer Samuel Z. Arkoff was released in the rest of the United States today.

1964: In an act that proved to prophetic, Ernest Gruening of Alaska was only one of two U.S. Senators to vote against the Gul of Tonkin Resolution

1966: Funeral services for “dancer and choreographer” Helen Tamiris whose career spanned almost 40 years are scheduled to take place this afternoon in New York City.


1968: “With Six You Get Eggroll” a comedy directed by Howard Morris and produced by Martin Melcher was released today in the United States by National General Pictures.

1968: Actress Barbara Bach (born Barbara Goldbach) and her husband gave birth to “singer-songwriter Francesca Gregorini.”

1969(23rdof Av, 5729): Sixty-three year Budapest born French composer Joseph Kosma passed away today.


1969: Birthdate of American journalist Scott Stossel author of My Age of Anxiety.


1969: One soldier was killed and 12 more injured in bus bombing near El Hamma.

1970(5thof Av, 5730): Seventy-three year old Benjamin “Bennie” Zeidman, also known as B.F. Zeidman whose lengthy career in the movie industry began in 1911 at Lublin Studios passed away today in Philadelphia.

1970: A cease fire was declared between Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon on the one hand and Israel on the other.  

1970: A cease-fire agreement was reached, forbidding either side from changing "the military status quo within zones extending 50 kilometers to the east and west of the cease-fire line." Minutes after the cease-fire, Egypt begins moving SAM batteries into the zone even though the agreement explicitly forbids new military installations and by October there are approximately one-hundred SAM sites in the zone.

1971(16th of Av, 5731): Rabbi Yitzhak-Meir Levin, a Haredi (ultra-orthodox Jewish) politician passed away. “He had political roles in Poland and Israel. One of 37 people to sign the Israeli declaration of independence, he served in several Israeli cabinets, and was a longtime leader and Knesset minster for Agudath Israel and related parties. Born in Góra Kalwaria (known as Ger in Yiddish) in the Russian Empire (today in Poland), Levin studied at yeshivas, before being certified as a rabbi. A founder of Agudath Israel in Poland, he was elected to Warsaw Community Council as a representative of the organisation in 1924, and five years later was elected to the World Agudath Israel presidium. In 1937 he was elected as one of the two co-chairmen of the organisation's executive committee. Between 1937 and 1939 he was a member of the Sejm, the Polish parliament, representing Agudath Israel. In 1940 became the sole chairman. He was also involved in founding the Beis Yaakov school system for religious Jewish girls. Following the outbreak of the Second World War, Levin helped refugees in Warsaw, before immigrating to Mandate Palestine in 1940, where he became head of the local branch of Agudath Israel. After signing the Israeli declaration of independence in 1948, Levin joined David Ben-Gurion's provisional government as Minister of Welfare. He was elected to the first Knesset in 1949 as a member of the United Religious Front, an alliance of the four major religious parties, and was reappointed to his ministerial role in the first and second governments. After retaining his seat in the 1951 elections Levin rejoined Ben-Gurion's government as Minister of Welfare, but resigned in 1952 in protest at the National Service Law for Women. He remained a member of the Knesset until his death in 1971, but not a member of the cabinet; in his remaining terms, he represented Religious Torah Front -- an alliance of Agudath Israel and its laborer's branch Poalei Agudath Israel.”

1972: Sandy Koufax is inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, New York

1973(9thof Av, 5733): As the Egyptian Army engages in training exercises that will lead to the Yom Kippur War, Jews observed Tish’a B’Av

1974: Premiere of “California Split” starring George Segal and Elliott Gould.

1976: President Amin of Uganda is reportedly asking President Kenyata of Kenya to act “as a go-between with Britain in efforts to normalize relations” between the two nations.  Uganda had broken diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom in the wake of the Entebbe Rescue Mission.

1977: Wayne L. Horvitz, who President Jimmy Carter had named director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service in April 1977 played a behind-the-scenes role in the negotiations between the Communications Workers of America and the American Telephone and Telegraph Company that averted a nationwide strike just before tonight’s  midnight deadline

1977: After 1.050 performances, the curtain came down on “Shenandoah,” a musical with a book co-written by the producer Philip Rose and featuring Robert Rosen as “Henry.”

1978: “Israeli, Jewish Leaders Express Sorrow at the Death of Pope Paul VI” published today described the saddened reaction of everybody from Yitzhak Navon to Menachem Began to Rabbi Shlomo Goren to the death of the pontiff of whom Goren said, “He tried to remove the chronic hatred between Christianity and Judaism.” (JTA)

1983: After 199 performances, the curtain came down on the Broadway production “Merlin” a musical co-authored by Richard Levinson with music by Elmer Bernstein and lyrics by Don Black which had been playing at the Mark Hellinger Theater.

1986:  “Ex-Aides Charge Brooklyn College Violated Rules” published today described allegations made against basketball coach and former NYU standout Mark Reiner. (As reported by Michael Goodwin)


1987: “Masters of the Universe” a sci-fi fantasy film produced by Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan was released in the United States today.

1987: “Who’s That Girl” a comedy with a script co-authored by Ken Finkleman was released in the United Sates today.

1988: “Safe Men” a comedy directed and written by John Hamburg costarring Michael Lerner was released in the United States today by October Films.

1992: After premiering in Los Angeles, “The Unforgiven” a very dark Western with music by Lennie Niehuas and featuring Saul Rubinek as W. W. Beauchamp was in the rest of the United States today by Warner Bros.

1992: “3 Ninjas” a comedy directed by Jon Turteltaub was released in the United States today.

1996: Rabbi Eli Suissa, the native of Morocco whose family moved to Israel in 1956 became Minister of Religious Affairs a position he held for only five days until replaced by Netanyahu. 

1997: Thirty-seven year old James Phillip “Jamie” Rubin began serving as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs.

1998: “Safe Men” a comedy written and directed by John Hamburg and co-starring Michael Lerner was released today in the United States.

1998: Publication of paperback edition of The Picador Book of Contemporary Scottish Fiction by Peter Kravitz the native of London who has spent “most of his life in Edinburgh where among other things, he served as the editor of Polygon for ten years.

2001(18th of Av, 5761): Wael Ghanem, 32, an Arab Israeli resident of Taibeh, was shot and killed by Palestinian assailants on the road near Kalkilya. Police believe he was murdered because of suspected collaboration with Israeli authorities.

2001(18thof Av, 5761): Zohar Shurgi, 40, of Moshav Yafit in the Jordan Valley, was shot and killed by terrorists while driving home at night on the Trans-Samaria Highway.

2003: During an interview on the "Sean Hannity Radio Show," Alabama State Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore says that he may ignore the federal court order to remove the 5,280-pound granite Ten Commandments monument which he installed at the state's judicial building.  For those who object to the display, this is a matter of separation of church and state.  Moore claims that the Biblical commandments are a cornerstone of the American legal system.  One problem that he and those of his ilk never address is which version of the commandments should be shown – Hebrew, Latin or English; Exodus or Deuteronomy; Jewish, Catholic or Protestant.

2004: “The Nautch Girl” a two-act comic opera with music by Edward Solomon was performed for the first time by the Royal English Opera Company of Rockford, Illinois.

2005:  Quarterback Bennie Friedman was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In the following article entitled Benny Friedman: Considered NFL’s First True Passer” Seymour “Sy” Brody described the prowess of one the early stars of the NFL.

Benny Friedman was finally inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame today.
After many years of being overlooked, while friends and sports figures campaigned for his induction, it became a reality.
Friedman was considered as football’s first great passer. He changed the running game into one of running and passing and, as a result, revolutionized college and professional football.Benny Friedman was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1905, to orthodox Jewish parents. He went to high school in Cleveland. Upon graduation, he went to Michigan University where he was a quarterback on the football team. The first three games of the 1924 season found Benny Friedman sitting on the bench. Michigan’s legendary coach, Fielding Yost retired before the season. He convinced Coach George Little that he should start Benny Friedman against Wisconsin. Friedman became an instant star by throwing a 62 yard touchdown pass and running 26 yards for a touchdown.Benny Friedman and Bennie Oosterbaan were college football’s greatest passing combinations. Friedman was twice named All-American as a quarterback and as a halfback.. After graduating in 1927, he turned pro and joined the Cleveland Bulldogs of the National Football League.Professional football at this time didn’t enjoy the same attention that it has today. Red Grange and Benny Friedman were the stars of that era. They attracted large crowds for their games. Benny Friedman was named All-Pro for four years and he led the league in passing and passing touchdowns.The Cleveland Bulldogs folded and he moved to the Detroit Wolverines. The New York Giants wanted Benny Friedman so much that they bought the entire Detroit Wolverines franchise so that they could have him. The Giants finished the 1929 season with a 13-1-1 and for the first time made a profit.In 1934, Friedman retired from professional football and became the head coach at City College of New York (CCNY). In 1949, he became the Athletic Director of Brandeis University and was the head coach of the football team. It was his hope to make the Brandeis football team the “Jewish Notre Dame.”Benny Friedman was named one of the 300 Greatest Players of All-Time by Total Sports, the Official Encyclopedia of the National Football League. He was elected to the College Hall of Fame, the University of Michigan Hall of Honor, the State of Michigan Sports Hall of Fame and the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.Paul Gallico, a top football expert and sports writer of his day, said, ”The things a perfect football player must do are kick, pass, run the ends, plunge the line, block, tackle, weave his way through broken fields, drop and place kick, interfere, diagnose plays, spot enemy weaknesses, direct an offensive and not get hurt. I have just been describing Benny Friedman’s repertoire to you.” Forty-two years after Football Pro Football Hall of Fame opened in Canton, Ohio, Benny Friedman got his spot there. David Friedman, a nephew, gave the speech for the family at the induction ceremony. He said, “despite being denied for so long, his uncle would have been very respectful of the honor.”

2005:  Bibi Netanyahu resigned from the Israeli cabinet in protest over the withdrawal from Gaza.  While his followers and those in the settler movement praised him, others saw the resignation at this time as a form of political grandstanding designed to help Netanyahu wrest control of Likud from Sharon

2005: Showtime broadcast the first episode of “Weeds” a “dark comedy drama created by Jenji Kohan” co-starring Alexander Gould.

2006(13th of Av, 5766): John Livingston Weinberg the American banker and businessman who ran Goldman Sachs from 1976 to 1990 passed away. 

2006(13th of Av, 5766): Three Israel Defense Forces soldiers were killed and four others wounded in fierce fighting with Hezbollah militants today in southern Lebanon. Two of them were identified as Major Yotam Lotan, 33 of Kibbut Beit Hashita and Staff Sergeant Malk Moasha Ambao, 22, from Lod.

2007:  The Jerusalem Post reported that swastikas and other Nazi symbols had been painted on at least 100 gravestones the large Jewish cemetery in Czestochowa, Poland and that officials of the Israeli government expressed their anger over the failure of the Polish government to publicly condemn the continuing anti-Semitic rhetoric of Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, founder of Poland's Catholic, nationalist Radio Maryja whose audience is estimated at between 1.5 million and 2.5 million daily.

2007: Today, Poland's chief rabbi and the mayor of a Polish town joined efforts to clean gravestones at a Jewish cemetery that vandals had desecrated with Nazi symbols. Rabbi Michael Schudrich said that he and Tadeusz Wrona, mayor of the southern city of Czestochowa, joined about 20 Polish art students who spent a couple of hours scrubbing black paint off some of 100 gravestones at the city's Jewish cemetery.

2007: Britain declared the New West End Synagogue in London a national monument putting it in the same category as Buckingham Palace and Stonehenge. The decision means the British government will henceforth be responsible for the synagogue's upkeep, and the Jewish community can request state funding for any necessary renovations. Only one other synagogue has been declared a British national monument - Bevis Marks in East London, the country's first synagogue, which was built in 1701. New West End was built in 1879. "We're happy and excited," said the synagogue's rabbi, Geoffrey Shisler. "Above all, the decision proves that the British government recognizes the Jewish contribution to the kingdom's history." Shisler noted that both Chaim Weizmann, Israel's first president, and Herbert Samuel, who was the first British high commissioner for Palestine, were members of New West End, and plaques mark both of their former seats. The synagogue's first rabbi, Simeon Singer, translated and edited the Authorized Daily Prayer Book, an edition of the siddur (Jewish prayer book) that is still commonly used in Orthodox synagogues throughout the British Commonwealth. Today, the congregation numbers some 400 families, and "because of the synagogue's beauty, we are also the most popular place in Britain for [Jewish] weddings," Shisler said. Altogether, Britain has some 15,000 national monuments and about half a million lower-level historic preservation sites. New West End had previously been a historic site, but the Jewish community had asked the relevant government agency, English Heritage, to upgrade its status, and after inspecting the building three months ago, the agency approved the request this week. In its decision, English Heritage wrote that the upgrade was justified by both the synagogue's exceptional architecture and its historic importance. "The New West End Synagogue is the architectural high-water mark of Anglo-Jewish architecture," said Simon Thurley, chief executive of English Heritage. Hannah Parham, the agency's protection adviser, added that "a lot of early 19th-century synagogues tried to follow the styles of their Christian counterparts, but the New West End synagogue celebrated the cultural heritage of the people it served." The synagogue was designed by George Audsley of Scotland.

2008: In Washington, D.C.  Kenneth M. Pollack, director of research at the Brooking Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy, discusses and signs his new book, A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East, at Politics and Prose Bookstore

2008(6thof Av, 5768): Seventy-seven year old Bernard Jules "Bernie" Brillstein, the talent agent and television executive who helped produced shows from the “corn-ball Hee Haw” to the “sophisticated Saturday Night Life” passed away today.


2008: Rep. Steve Cohen was all smiles after resoundingly winning his primary today in Tennessee, but it was hardly a pleasant campaign for the freshman Democrat. A white Jewish incumbent representing a predominantly black Christian constituency, Cohen defeated Nikki Tinker by a 4-to-1 margin, despite efforts by his black opponent to insert race and religion into the primary.

2009: In New York, Yoed Nir performs at a Bargemusic Concert in a program entitled “World of Cello” The Six Bach Suites for Solo Cello and Beyond, Part 2.

2009: “Breath Made Visible,” a “documentary film about modern dance legend Anna Halprin” was released today in the United States.

2009:Six month after its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, “500 Days of Summer,” a comedy written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt premiered today at the Sundance Film Festival.

 2010: “Amos Oz: The Nature of Dreams” is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2010(7thof Tammuz, 5770): Ninety-one year old chemist Jacob Bigeleisn  who worked on the Manhattan Project, passed away. (As reported by Kenneth Chang)


2010: “Imagining Madoff” written by Deboarah Margolin is scheduled to have the final performance of its first run at Stageworks/Hudson, a theater company in this town, about 30 miles south of Albany. Elie Wiesel had used legal threats to shut down the original version of the play which was to have premiered in Washington, D.C. Apparently Mr. Wiesel was offended by the fact the  Ms Margolin had used a characterization of him for her drama.

2010: Michael Leventhal, son of Shelley Arenson and Bruce Leventhal is scheduled to be called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, IA.

2010: Chief Justice John Roberts swore in Elena Kagan as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  Justice Kagan is a “third” twice over.  She joins two other women serving on the court making it the first time that three women have served at the same time.  She joins two other Jews making it the first time that three Jews have served on the Court at the same time.  Being Jewish did not prevent Justice Kagan from being sworn in on Shabbat.

2011: The final performance of “13: The Musical” starring Temple Judah’s very own Bentlee Birchansky is scheduled to take place tonight.

2011: “In Another Lifetime,” a film about a group of Hungarian Jews who “begin staging a Strauss operetta” for those living in an Austrian village in an attempt to avoid the Final Solution, is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2011: Wikimania, the annual international conference of the Wikimedia community which is being held in Haifa is scheduled to end today.

2011: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Paradise Lust:  Searching for the Garden of Eden by Brook Wilensky-Lanford

2011: Israel's finance minister says the government will take swift action to reduce the soaring cost of living, looking to ease tensions a day after 300,000 people demonstrated across the country. Yuval Steinitz told Israel Radio today that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is slated to announce the formation of a special committee of government ministers and experts to address the demands of protesters angered over housing costs and a growing wealth disparity.

2011: The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange opened to major losses today, as indices plunged by more than 6 percent, immediately prompting a series of brief suspensions in trading.

2011: An earthquake measuring 4.2 on the Richter scale was felt for several seconds across Israel today, shortly before midday. The U.S. Geological Survey placed the epicenter of the tremblor in the Mediterranean Sea, 71 km northwest of Tel Aviv and 80 km west-southwest of Haifa. The quake was primarily felt in the Lower Galilee, the Haifa bay, Ra’anana, Petah Tikva and other parts of the coastal plain.

2011(7th of Av, 5771): Ralf Pinto, who founded the Algarve Jewish community in western Portugal and was instrumental in the restoration of the Faro Jewish Cemetery there, passed away today. He would become the first person to be buried there since 1923.

2011(7thof Av, 5771): Eighty-three year old educational innovator Stanley Bosworth passed away today (As reported by Douglas Martin)


2012: San Francisco’s Congregation Sha’ar Zahav is scheduled to host a special yizkor or remembrance today to raise awareness about suicides and bullying

2012: Jared Loughner, the man accused of killing six people and wounding then-U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords in 2011, is scheduled to plead guilty in a Tucson court today (As reported by Reuters and The Forward)

2012: An Israeli American man escaped from his captors today after being kidnapped while hiking in the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador.Mickey Grossman, 64, a 1973 Yom Kippur War veteran, was captured August 5 by approximately 20 gunmen whose affiliation is unclear, as well as several members of the Huaorani Tribe, near Yasuni National Park, which reportedly is an unfriendly area to foreigners

2012: Jewish-American gymnast Aly Raisman won a gold medal in the floor exercise as well as a bronze on the balance beam at the London Olympics. Raisman, 18, of Needham, Mass., took the gold today with a score of 15.6 to edge Catalina Ponor of Romania and Aliya Mustafina of Russia, the silver and bronze medalists.

2012: Romanian Jews expressed outrage today after a politician who made comments denying the Holocaust in the country was appointed to a ministerial position.

2012(10thof Av, 5772): Ninety-year old Judith Crist, one of American’s most noted film critics, passed away today.



2013: The 2013 Summer Author Talk Series is scheduled to come today with “Fay Moskowitz, And the Bridge of Love.”

2013: “Before the Revolution” a story about the Iranian Jewish Community is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2013(1stof Elul, 5773): Rosh Chodesh Elul

2013(1stof Elul, 5773): Ninety-two year old Elisabeth Maxwell, the widow of media tycoon Robert Maxwell passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)


2013(1stof Elul): Purim de los Christianios observed commemorating the defeat of Portuguese King Sebastian at the “Battle of the Kings.”

2013: Barred once again from entering the women’s section of the Western Wall, some 300 activists from the Women of the Wall prayer group held their monthly Rosh Hodesh (new moon) prayer service at the back of the Western Wall compound this morning, raising their voices in song against the jeers and whistles of a large gathering of ultra-Orthodox protesters. (As reported by Debra Kamin)

2013: As peace negotiations began in Washington, a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip landed overnight in an open field in the Eshkol region of southern Israel. No injuries or damage were reported (As reported by Yoel Goldman)

2014: The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to host “Artist Panel: Creating A Legacy” where attendees can “meet Chicago Holocaust survivor artists Gerda Meyer Bernstein, Vera Klement and Ava Kadishson Schieber and view their stunning artwork.”

2014: Hamas officials said that if its demands are not met on ending the blockade the true will end tomorrow.

2014: “Israel will have to host its Davis Cup World Group playoff tie against Argentina abroad after the ITF ruled today that it can't be held in Tel Aviv due to the security situation.” (As reported by Allon Sinai)

2014: Hamas said today that it had executed several Palestinians “on suspicion of helping Israeli forces during the recent” fighting in conflict and that it had executed its spokesman Ayman Taha “on suspicion of spying for an Arab country and financial corruption.” (As reported by Khaled Abu Toameh)

2015: The Historic Sixth & I Synagogue is scheduled to a Shabbat dinner and “a low-energy service with Rabbi Shira and Chazzar Aaron Shneyer.

2015: Oriental Lab, a Jerusalem instrumental group, is scheduled to give a live pre-Shabbat performance at the Tower of David.

2015: Following the firing of three rockets from Gaza last night “Terrorists in Hamas run Gaza fired a rocket into Israel this afternoon, where it struck the Eshkol region.”

2015: “The Trauma of World War II Might Outlast Its Survivors” published today described the efforts of “a Scottish group called Never Again Ever” to start “a campaign to help support the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors.”

2015: “Yuval Diskin, a former head of the Shin Bet security service” warned today “that societal divides have led to the creation of a hardline Jewish settler state along Israel”

2015: “Employees at Ben Gurion International Airport are scheduled to strike this evening, shutting down the airport for 24 hours.” (As reported by Times of Israel)

2016: “Isaac Mizrahi: An Unruly History” the Jewish Museum’s “first exhibition” focusing on the American fashion designer” is scheduled to come to an end today in New York.

2016: The second “weeklong exploration of literature and culture for high school students where they will “read, discuss, argue about and fall in love with modern Jewish literature” sponsored by the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA is scheduled to come to an end today.

2016: In California, the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival 36 is scheduled to come to an end today.

2016: The IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy is scheduled to begin today in Seattle, Washington.


2016: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Hot Milk by Deborah Levy, The Inseparables by Stuart Nadler. Siracusa by Delia Ephron, Focus: The Secret, Sexy, Sometimes Sordid World of Fashion Photographers by Michael Gross and I’m Supposed To Protect You From All This: A Memoir by Nadja Spiegelman, the daughter of Art Spiegelman, the author of Maus.

2017(15thof Av): Tu B’Av – Jewish Valentine’s Day




2017: This year's New York City TUBAV Party is scheduled to take place starting at 7:00 PM at the BOAT BASIN Cafe at 79th street and Riverside Park) MUST WEAR WHITE!

2017: In New York City, the Stone Creek Bar is scheduled to a Tu B’Av event “Jewcy Presents: Love Bites.”

2017: Yiddish Summer Weimar is scheduled to host a Yiddish Dance Orchestra Workshop today.

2018: “Front man of legendary band “Beach Boys”, Brian Wilson, is” scheduled to perform “at Menora Mivtachim Arena in Tel Aviv” today.

2018: “Yemen Blues founder Ravid Kahalani to perform his Arabic and African-infused music with backing from oud player Ahmed Alshaiba at the Brooklyn Bowl” this evening.


 

 

 

 

This Day, August 8, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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August 8 

117 C.E.:  Hadrian named Emperor of the Roman Empire.  He is remembered as the man who accepted the limits of the Roman empire, as can be seen by the construction of Hadrian’s Wall in what is today Great Britain.  It was designed to keep the barbarians out of the empire and was viewed as the greatest engineering feat of the Roman legions.  Hadrian was also seen as a man of culture who a devotee of Greek learning.  Jews remember him as the man who brought on Bar Kochba’s Rebellion.  At the end of this extended but ultimately failed clash of arms. Hadrian made war on Judaism itself.  He sought to build a temple to Jupiter on the Temple Mount.  He hunted down the Jewish sages and created the list of martyrs some of whom we invoke by name each year on the High Holidays.  In Jewish writings he is referred to as “the Wicked or the Evil One.”

1356: The King of Aragon sent his Jewish physician to tend to the wounds of a Muslim who was fighting in the king’s army.  

1385: In Rome, the Senate made good on Boniface IX’s promise “to the Jewish physicians Angelo di Manuele and Solomone de Sabalduchio of Perugia” by according the Jewish community of Rome a yearly reduction of 30 florins for the taxes of the two doctors because of the services they had rendered to the city’s poor.

1391: In Barcelona, the citadel where many of the Jews had gone for protection was stormed, by the mob and more than 300 Jews were murdered, among the slain being the only son of Hasdai Crescas.

1488: Makre Dardeke  (Teach of Young Children)was published for the first time in Naples Italy, by Joseph Ashkenazi.  This Judaic glossary was trilingual: Hebrew, Arabic and Italian.  [For more see “A history and guide to Judaic dictionaries and concordances, Volume 3, Part 1” by Shimeon Brisman]

1524: Giles of Viterbo who studied Hebrew with “grammarian Elias Levita” and provided him with sanctuary when war drove him for Padua to Rome today became Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.

1541: The Jews of Great Poland were authorized by King Sigismund to elect a chief Rabbi

1588: In the war between England and Spain, the Battle of Gravelines comes to an end.  Conventional commentators see it as turning point in history because it marked the end of the Spanish Armada's attempt to invade England. Any defeat suffered by Spain, the land of the Inquisition had to be seen as a plus from the Jewish point of view.  More specifically, the end of the Battle of Gravelines meant that the Spanish Armada could not support the landing of Spanish troops in the Netherlands.  Part of the mission of the Armada was to provide support for Spanish forces fighting to impose Catholic rule on the Protestant Dutch.  The Spanish were determined to bring the Inquisition to the Netherlands to punish the heresy of the Protestants and would of course have doomed the future for the Sephardic Jews who had already settled in Holland or would be settling there.  If the Spanish had been successful at Gravelines, the 23 Jews who would sail into New Amsterdam would have found a Catholic government that would have not provided them aid, shelter and a New World in which to settle.  It is not too great a stretch to say that a line can be drawn from Drake’s victory over the Armada at Gravelines to the founding of the Jewish Community in America.  As we have said many times in our studies in Cedar Rapids, you must understand history to understand Jewish history and seeing history through the Jewish prism is not the same as seeing history in its general form.

1641(2ndof Elul, 5401): Joseph Bueno, the Bordeaux trained doctor of medicine described as “this new Jewish physician” by the French Ambassador E’Presses who was unable to save the life of Prince Maurice of Orange and was the father of Ephraim Bueno passed away today.

1653: Birthdate of Normandy native Jacques Basnage de Deauval, the Protestant minister and author whose works included L'Histoire des Juifs (History of the Jews) which the author said is "a survey of all that pertains to the religion and the history of the Jews since Herod the Great.”

1648: Mehmed IV began his reign as Sultan of the Ottoman Empire during which Safed, the home to numerous Jewish mystics and sages “was destroyed by Arabs” and the Jews of Yemen were banished to Mawza Desert

1654: Jacob Barsimson sailed for New Amsterdam from Holland aboard the Peartree and landed on August 22. Some consider him to be the the first Jewish immigrant to travel to what is now New York City. Other dates have been giving for this sailing. Regardless, the official date of the start of the Jewish community comes later in 1654 when 23 Portuguese Jews landed in New Amsterdam.

1655: The Russians captured Vilna. As part of the peace settlement between Chmielnicki and Czar Alexis, the east bank of the Dnieper became part of the kingdom of Moscow. Jews were once again subject to expulsion and murder.

1670: After Leopold I evicted the Jews from Vienna; he sold the Jewish quarter for 100,000 florins. The Jewish quarter was then renamed Leopoldstadt in his honor. The Synagogue and the Bet Midrash (study hall) were turned into St. Margaret's Church.

1765(21st of Av, 5525): Elkalah Myers Cohen, the first wife of Myer Myers died at the age of thirty, leaving him three sons and two daughters.

1804: Birthdate of Dr. Gedelia Daniel Rudolph Warburg.

1805: Today Hungarian Rabbi Moses Münz “declared that” Aaron Chorin, the author of "'Emeḳ ha-Shaweh"“was to blamed for certain statements in the first part entitled ‘Rosh Amanah’ which were apt to mislead the public” but “reaffirmed that the book contained no heresies.”

1809: A group of 70 people led by the followers of the Vilna Gaon arrived in Eretz Yisrael.

                                                                                                            

1816: Today “the Austrian Beobachter, a semi-official government newspaper, vigorously attacked Lubeck for having expelled the Jews, without waiting for the action on the Jewish question by the Diet.”(Max J. Kohler)

1817: Frederick VI granted Hartvig Philip Ree “the right to build a sugar refinery at Aarhus.”

1820: Birthdate of composer and conductor Jules Stern the native of Breslau “who established his reputation” when he conducted the first performance of Mendelssohn’s oratorio “Elijah” in 1847.

1821: Herman Hendricks married Abigial Rose Levein at the Great Synagogue today.

1827: Moses ben Abraham HaCohen married Beila bat Menahem Mendel at the Western Synagogue today.

1827: Ralph Solomon married Blumah Simmons today at the Great Synagogue

1829: In Paris, Lucinde Paradol and Léon Halévy the son of the writer and chazzan Élie Halévy gave birth to journalist Lucien-Anatole Prévost-Paradol

1846: Second and concluding day dedicatory services for the Eagle Street Synagogue in Cleveland, Ohio.

1849: Birthdate of Henri Cordier, the native of New Orleans who grew up in France and eventually became President of the Société de Géographie

1850(30th of Av, 5610): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1854: It was reported today that all of the people of Jamaica, regardless of religious persuasion, have responded sympathetically to the plight of the Jews living in Jerusalem and other parts of Palestine.  They have raised $2,000 to help alleviate their suffering which includes the effects of a famine brought on by an outbreak of “pestilence” and skyrocketing food prices.  The suffering of the Jewish communities is blamed on Czar Nicholas who has prevented the Jews from receiving financial aid usually sent from Russia.

1857: In Fairfield, CT, “railroad tycoon William Henry Osborn and his wife, Virginia Reed Osborn gave birth to Dr. Henry Fairfield Osbron proponent of “biological determination” that was being used to keep Jewish immigrants from entering the United States as could be seen during “the hearings for the emergency immigration law o 1921.

1862: Philadelphia native Henry Arnold began his service with Company F of the 123rd Regiment, a unit that would see action four months later at the Battle of Fredericksburg.

1862: During the Civil War, Philadelphian Michael Baer began serving as a First Lieutenant in Company F of the 123rdRegiment.

1868: Baron James Mayer Rothschild purchased a Chateau for 4.4 million francs. The estate became Château Lafite Rothschild. However, Baron James, died just three months after purchasing Lafite and the estate became the joint property of his three sons: Alphonse, Gustave, and Edmond.

1871: The Court of Special Sessions in New York, Judge Shandley presiding heard an usual case today.   Mr. Robert Thomas, a member of the Alanson Methodist Episcopal Church complained that a Jew named Nathan Koyofski was disturbing their Sabbath (Sunday) Services with noise made by his sewing machine. Koyofski lives in a tenement adjoining the building housing the church.  Requests from church members that he stop his work had proven fruitless so they were forced to take legal action.  Koyofski ‘s lawyer contended that any attempt by the state to dictate which days were for work and which were for worship “would be an infringement of fundamental American principles…”  Shandley found Koyofski guilty of violating the law that stated “explicitly that no one should willfully disturb religious worship, of whatever nature it might be…” If anybody disrobed the Jews on Saturday, they would have an equal righ to complain.  The Judge suspended the sentence. But he warned Koyofski that if he were brought before him again on a similar charge, he would have to go to jail.

1873: Louis and Lillian (Wolff) Seligsberg gave birth to Alice Lillie Seligsberg a social worker and Zionist who helped to found Hadassah.


1878(9th of Av, 5638):Tish'a B'Av

1879: A major fire has destroyed much of Sarajevo today including the city’s Jewish quarter.

1881(13th of Av, 5641): Just 6 days before his 52nd birthday Jules Moch a Colonel of the 130th Regiment in the French Army, the father of Gaston Moch and the grandfather of Jules S. Moch passed away.

1882: “Discontented Russian Jews” published today provided the reasons for the angry outbursts that had taken place yesterday at the offices of the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society. After having been subject to indignities in various European cities as they made their way to the United States, several of the Jews felt betrayed when they found out that they would not be receiving 160 acres and enough financial support to begin life as farmers.  At the same time, their lack of language skills has made them feel they will never be able to earn a living and some are so frustrated that they want to return to Russia.

1882: The Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society was reported to be sending groups of Russian immigrants to agricultural communities near Hartford, CT and Vineland, CO on a daily basis.  The society is planning on sending 25 men to South Orange, NJ next week so that they can start a new colony.(The unprecedented mass migration of Eastern European Jews was already overwhelming available resources in the first of its four decades)

1883: It was reported today that the dinner provided at the recently held conference of Jewish congregations in Cincinnati was a violation of Jewish dietary laws since included Little Neck clams, soft shell crabs and shrimp salad. In response to reports that some “of the conservative congregations would withdraw from the union,” Rabbi Wise disavowed responsibility for the menu since it was paid for by private individuals who could spend their money as they please.  Besides, the rabbi said that “the American Hebrews’ religion does not center in the kitchen or the stomach.”

1883: Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Budapest following the acquittal of Jews charged with the ritual murder of Esther Solymose

1884: It was reported today that “The Woskhod, the Hebrew journal, has received a warning from the authorities for violating the press laws.”  (This must be a reference to Voskhod, a monthly founded by Adolph Landau in 1881. http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Voskhod

1885: “The Four Great Moses” published today identifies the leading Jews with that name – Moses of Biblical fame, Moses Ben Maimon (Maimonides), Moses Mendelssohn and Moses Montefiore, who “put into practice the teachings of his three great predecessors…”

1886(7th of Av, 5646): Gedaliah Tiktin the son Solomon Tiktin whom he succeeded as the rabbi in Breslau and who received the Order of the Red Eagle for his services rendered during the Franco-Prussian War passed away today.

1887 A payment of $1, 097.23 was made to Leopold Feiss today by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

1887: A payment of $157.57 was made to A.J. Friedlander to by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

1888(1stof Elul, 5648): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1888: In Harrisburg, PA, “ Julius Kantor, a German orthodox rabbi, and Mary, a Lithuanian, who immigrated to Pennsylvania some years earlier” gave birth to J.R. (Jacob Robert) Kantor , the American psychologist who, while at the University of Chicago married Helen rich with he had one child, “Helen J. Kantor, “the professor at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.”



1888: Birthdate of Austrian native Maurice Moses Maisel, who came to the United States in 1897 after which he moved to Albuquerque, NM where he operated a store.

1889: The funeral of Isaac Phillips is scheduled to take place today at his home in New York City.

1889: The United States Deputy Marshall said that “Simon Baruch, a Spanish Jews accused of stealing approximately $150,000 while in Austria arrived at New York aboard the SS Hammonia.

1890:N.J. Arbeely was appointed to serve as an interpreter at the Barge Office (the major entry point for immigrants in New York) based on his fluency in several foreign languages which includes Hebrew.

1890: A squad of police moved through an a area bounded by Hester, Essex, Division, Orchard  and Norfolk streets arresting fifty immigrants, including a number of Jews for violating city ordinances concerning pushcarts, stands and other commercial conveyances that blocked the streets.

1890: The will of the late Alexander Bach was filed for probate today.

1890: Mendel Feldstein saw two men, one of whom was Jacob Rohnewitch bury$90 worth of jewelry that they had stolen from Israel Simovitch.

1891: Birthdate of German violinist Adolf Busch.  Busch was not Jewish.  But early on, he saw the dangers of the rise of Hitler and moved to Switzerland. When WW II he moved to the United States where he continued his career until his death in 1952.

1891: “No Swindle Like This One” published today described commercial machinations engineered by Steve Ryan of Atlanta, GA  which victimized nearly 400 people most of whom were Jewish merchants from several locations in the United States.

1892: Birthdate of Solomon Bennett Freehof “a prominent Reform rabbi, posek, and scholar. A native of London, he moved to the U.S. in 1903, received a degree from the University of Cincinnati in 1914 and was ordained by Hebrew Union College in 1915.  He was a World War I army chaplain, a liturgy professor at HUC, and a rabbi at Chicago's Congregation Kehillath Anshe Maarav before moving to Pittsburgh.”

Rabbi Freehof served as president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the World Union for Progressive Judaism. Beginning in 1955, he led the CCAR's work on Jewish law through its responsa committee. He also spearheaded changes to Reform liturgy with revisions to the Union Prayer Book. For many years, he served as the pulpit rabbi at Rodef Shalom in Pittsburgh, PA.”  According to the congregation, "For more than 35 years, Dr. Freehof's weekly book review series attracted audiences of more than 1,500 Christians and Jews." He retired in 1966 and passed away in 1990. He was a descendant of the Alter Rebbe.

1893: Reverend Herman P. Faust of the Hebrew Christian Mission accused the United Hebrew Charities of refusing to give needy Jews.  He specifically cited the case of Joseph Korman, a Russian Jew whom he said had been denied aid and when he died it was left to his group to pay for the burial and provided for his widow and orphans (more to come tomorrow)

1895: Birthdate of Annie Stein Lazarus, the wife of Sam Lazarus with whom she had

five children – Jacob, Leon, Frances, Ralph and Irwin – before passing away in 1970 and being buried in the Valdosta, Georgia.

1897: “From Cactus Aristocracy” published today described society in Los Angeles where “the big fortunes are held …by three classes:  “the native ranch interest;”  “the lumber dealers;” and “the Jews.” “The Jews…are socially conspicuous but less obtrusive than either of the other two.”

1897: It was reported today that Herr von Diest’s pamphlet that accuses Bismarck of “gaining wealth by questionable methods” will delight the anti-Semites because of its attacks on the Rothschilds and Gerson von Bleichröder, the Jewish banker who handled financial matters for the Chancellor and Prussia.

1898(20th of Av, 5658) Sixty-seven year old Adolph Sutro, the first Jewish mayor of San Francisco who made his fortune in the Comstock Lode passed away today.

1899 Israel Zangwill is scheduled to return to New York today after visiting with Judge Meyer Sulzberger in Philadelphia.

1899: Three days after she had passed away, Anna Hendelah Waley, the daughter of Phillip Joseph Salomons and Cecilia Salomons and the wife of Simon Waley was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery today.

1899: Funeral services for Myer Stern were held in the Temple Emanu-El today forenoon, and many men prominent in business and fraternal circles were present. Rabbi Gustav Gottheil and his assistant, Dr. Joseph Silverman, officiated. In an earnest eulogy Rabbi Gottheil spoke of Mr. Stern's philanthropic character, and of his activities in various organizations. In his brief eulogy Rabbi Silverman said “Myer Stern made the world better for being here. He catered neither to the great nor the strong but follolowed where the principles of truth, right and justice led.”  Mr. Stern was the author of The Rise and Progress of Reform Judaism : Embracing a History Made from the Offical Records of Temple Emanu-El of New York, with a Description of Salem.

1900: In Dresden, Rosa Philippine (née Blum) and Ignatz Siodmak gave birth to German American director Robert Siodmak.


1900: Birthdate of composer and conductor Victor Young, the native of Chicago who has “received 22 Academy Award nominations.”

1902: In Yelisavetgrad, Russian Empire, “Max Corash, a Jewish doctor facing conscription into the Russian Army” and his wife gave birth to Goldie Corash who married American real estate developer David Michelson and gained fame as supercentenarian Goldie Michelson



1903: Dorothy Levitt drove the Napier motor-boat at Cowes and won the race.

1903: Morris Rosenfeld recited an original poem and A.D. Savage spoke about “Zionism from the Christian point of at today’s celebration of the 25thanniversary of the founding of Peta Tikva hostedby the CCNY Students’ Zionist Society.

1905: In Ashland, VA, Martha and William E. Dodd, FDR’s first Ambassador to Nazi Germany gave birth to William Dodd, Jr.  The younger Dodd accompanied his father to the posting in Berlin and became an ardent anti-Fascist at a time when famous Americans like Lindbergh were cozying up to Hitler.  Unfortunately, like many of his political persuasion he became a victim of the Right Wing Ant-Communist this college professor with a PhD ended his days as a clerk at Macy’s.  Whatever their views before they came to Berlin Ambassador Dodd and both of his children saw the danger of the Nazis and tried to warn America about it.

1908: Birthdate of Arthur J. Goldberg. Son of Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine, Goldberg became a labor lawyer who championed the rights of the workers. President Kennedy appointed him as Secretary of Labor in 1961. In 1962, Kennedy named him as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court to succeed Felix Frankfurter. Goldberg resigned to service as Ambassador to the United Nations under President Johnson. Johnson named Abe Fortas to replace Goldberg on the High Court. Goldberg passed away in 1990.

1909: First Jewish community organization is founded in Santiago, Chile – Sociedad Unon Israelita de Chile.  At the same in Argentinia, a group of Jewish students founded Juventud Israelita Argentina which produce a journal entitled Juventud, which became a favorite among Argentinian Jewish intellectuals.

1910:  In the Bronx, “Rebecca (née Saperstein), a Romanian Jew, and Victor Kosow, a Russian Jewish immigrant who worked as a clothing salesman” gave birth to Sylvia Kosow who as the actress Sylvia Sidney Sydney arrived in Hollywood after playing leading roles on Broadway just as the talkie era began. She quickly became one of Paramount's top women stars along with Marlene Dietrich, Miriam Hopkins and Claudette Colbert. In the 1950’s her career seemed to come to an end.  However, she gained fame toward the end of her life playing in the television comedy “WKRP” and the film Bettlejuice. She passed away at the age of 88.


1910: Birthdate of Harry A. Pearson, a graduate of Cooper Union and NYU who went on to become director of research at Sonotone Corporation.

1911: During the 62nd Congress Public Law 62-5 sets the number of representatives in the United States House of Representatives at 435. There were 5 Jews serving in the House during the 62nd Congress including, Jefferson Levy, Julius Kahn, Victor Berg, Henry Goldfogle, Adolph Sabath. By contrast, the 111th Congress (the session meeting in 2010) there were 31 Jews serving in the House of Representatives; 30 Democrats and one Republican.

1911: Moses Gaster, the Romanian born Jewish scholar who was Chief Rabbi of the Sephardic communities in England, wrote a letter to the Board of Deputies (the governing body of the British Jewish Community) protesting the wording of an amendment introduced into the Slaughter of Animals Bill before Parliament at the insistence of the Board.

1912: In Brooklyn, Helen Chugerman and attorney Samuel Chugerman gave birth to Daniel Chugerman who gained fame as director Daniel Mann, the father-in-law of Harold Ramis of “Ghostbusters” fame.

1913(5thof Av, 5673): Fifty year old Solomon H. Bauer, the Polish born rabbi who moved to Jerusalem in 1885 with “his son-in-law, Rabbi Chaim Eliezer Waks” where he “turned private homes in a residential religious college” and “cultivated Etrog orchards near Tibeiras” before finally settling in the United States where he led three Chicago Congregations ‘--Agudas Achim North Shore Congregation, Moses Montefiore Congregation and Anshe Emet – passed away today.

1914(16thof Av, 5674): Parashat Vaetchanan and Shabbat Nachamu

1914: During WW I, the Germans returned to Kalisz, a city which during the inter-war period had a population that was almost thirty per cent Jewish, and took and shot 100 hostages.

1914: German industrialist Walter Rathenau went to see the Head of the General War Department in Berlin to offer his support to the war effort.  “Rathenau proposed to ‘save Germany from strangulation’, and with a few days was put in charge of a specially created War Raw Materials Department.”  His job was to keep Germany in the war.  But because he was a civilian and a Jew he was faced with constant hostility from the German General Staff.

1915: According to reports published today German correspondents describe German troops as being welcomed to Warsaw as liberators by crowds in the streets “filled with Poles, Jews, Germans and Russians.”

1915: After having failed in the attack on Hill 970 during the Gallipoli Campaign, troops under the command of Sir John Monash unsuccessfully attacked Hill 60 after which they were withdrawn to Lemnos.

1915: A Conference of Jewish representatives from 110 organizations took place today at the Educational Alliance Building in New York where plans were made to raise additional funds for Jews trapped on the Eastern Front which includes 600,000 of their co-religionists.

1915: “A group of secular, Yiddish-speaking socialists formed a third committee, the People's Relief Committee (PRC), whose officers were Meyer London, chairman, and Isaac Goldberg, treasurer. The Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) accepted the PRC as its third constituent member and limited the organization's activities to house to house collections from the non-Orthodox Jewish community.

1916(9thof Av, 5676): Tish’a B’Av

1916: It was reported today that in his sermon marking the start of the Tish’a B’Av observance Rabbi Mendes told the congregants at Shearith Israel that “it was particularly sorrowful to the Jews at this time to know that their co-religionists were fighting against one another under every banner in Europe” and that “in the heart of every Jew there was the hope that after the struggle (WW I) justice would be done to his race.”

1917: Birthdate of scriptwriter Malvin Wald who was responsible for the gritty film noir “The Naked City” starring Kirk Douglas


1917: During WW I, “representatives of several national Jewish organization met in Washington today and formed the Jewish Board for Welfare Relief Work in the United States Army and Navy” which will provide services “for the benefit of the 50,000 or more Jewish youths who will be among the first American fighting forces sent to war’ similar to those provided by the YMCA for non-Jewish military personnel.

1918(30thof Av, 5678): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1918: Australian troops under General John Monash spear headed the successful attack of the British army at the Battle of Amiens.  Amiens was the opening round in the great allied offensive that would force the surrender of the German Army.  Monash’s key role would be recognized when he was Knight Commandeer of the Order of the Bath by King George V.

1919: Birthdate of Murrey Marder, the crusading journalist who was the first to expose the tissues of lies created by Joe McCarthy during the Anti-Communist witch hunt – a smear campaign that the Right continues to in the second decade of the 21st century.


1920: Birthdate of Bernard Schoenbaum, the son of Jewish immigrants, “who in hundreds of cartoons in The New Yorker needled the relatively affluent, the media-conscious, the irony-besotted and the socially competitive.”

1920: Establishment of Gdud HaAvoda VeHaHaganah al shem Yosef Trumpeldor a “socialist Zionist work group also known as Gdud Ha’Avoda that its name from Joseph Trumpeldor, the one-armed Russian soldier who died defend Tel Hai from attacks from the Arabs.

1921: In Manhattan actress Lillian Bonner and movie producer Ephraim Asher gave birth to “William Asher, a producer, director and screenwriter in the early days of television who directed some two dozen shows — most notably “Bewitched,” which starred his wife, Elizabeth Montgomery, and more than 100 episodes of “I Love Lucy” (As reported by Denise Grady)

1922: Birthdate of Gertrude Himmelfarb, the native of Brooklyn who gained fame as Bea Kristol, the husband of Irving Kristol and mother of William Kristol who has made her career as an intellectual historian and has perhaps made her larger mark on the world as a conservative public intellectual.


 

 

“Raised in Brooklyn, Himmelfarb earned her B.A. from Brooklyn College before studying at the University of Chicago. At Chicago, beginning in 1942, she studied with a group of predominantly Jewish, immigrant, and conservative thinkers who were in the process of reformulating Western political thought. Their approach to history and politics profoundly shaped Himmelfarb's own thinking. She earned her Ph.D. in history in 1950, and later published her dissertation, Lord Acton: A Study in Conscience and Politics (1952). Beginning with that dissertation, which focused on a Victorian-era British parliamentarian, Himmelfarb has devoted her scholarly career to studying the Victorians on both sides of the Atlantic. As she wrote about Acton, she consistently found the Victorian era to be "highly relevant for the post World War II world." In most of her writings, she has advanced the argument that a modern decline in emphasis on personal morality is at the root of political and social problems of the late twentieth (and early twenty-first) century. The Idea of Poverty: England in the Early Industrial Age (1984) favorably examined Victorian treatment of the poor, while Marriage and Morals Among the Victorians (1986) and Poverty and Compassion: The Moral Imagination of the Late Victorians (1991) both described Victorian dedication to traditional social mores as superior to the "value-free" relativism that succeeded it. Himmelfarb believed that the past was superior to the present and she extended this belief to her assessment of historical methodology. When she joined the faculty of the City University of New York in 1965, the "new social history," which emphasized the experiences of "ordinary" people over the traditional political narrative, was just taking hold. The "new social history" also emphasized quantitative methods and borrowed heavily from psychology, sociology, and Marxism. Himmelfarb condemned all of these innovations, arguing that they "belittle[d] the will ... and freedom of individuals." Later, she was equally harsh in her critique of postmodernism and multiculturalism in history.More recently, Himmelfarb has turned her pen more directly to the travails of modern society. In two books, The De-Moralization of Society(1995) and One Nation, Two Cultures (1999), she argues that a lack of moral courage is at the root of modern social ills. In the earlier volume, she contrasts modern America to the Victorian age and argues that reinstating social stigmas on out-of-wedlock births and welfare recipients, for example, could help to eliminate dependency and illegitimacy. In the later volume, she argues that the counterculture of the 1960s represented a break with a long-standing earlier social system, and that what she regards as modern social pathology (premarital sex, confessional memoirs, profanity, divorce) has its roots in that break. Her most recent book is The Roads to Modernity: The British, French, and American Enlightenments (2004). Although a New York Times reviewer called One Nation, Two Cultures"not convincing," Himmelfarb has received significant recognition for her work. She has won fellowships from the Rockefeller, Guggenheim, and Wilson foundations, and ten honorary degrees. In addition, through essays in Public Interest, Commentary, the Times Literary Supplement, and the New York Times, she has reached a public well beyond the academy. A 1999 New York Times essay on "compassionate conservatism," for example, showcases her voice as an influential conservative public intellectual. Himmelfarb's neoconservative identity is bolstered by her personal connections to husband Irving Kristol, editor for forty years of the journal The Public Interest, and son William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard. Himmelfarb is currently a professor emeritus at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.”

.1922: In Vienna, Siegmund Gernreich and Elisabeth (née Müller) Gernreich gave birth to Rudi Gernreich, a designer of American fashions for women who created and/or popularized such then daring items as the miniskirt and the topless bathing suit.


1922: Birthdate of Dr. Leon Eisenberg, who “conducted some of the first rigorous studies of autism, attention deficit disorder and learning delays and became a prominent advocate for children struggling with disabilities.” (As reported by Benedict Carey)

1923: Samuel J. Bloomingdale, the President of Bloomingdale Bros. hosted a luncheon at his office today during which Francis Leffler announced the completion of plans to raise funds from the manufacturers in the house furnishing trades that will help erase the $500,000 deficit in the budget of the New York Federation that supports the Jewish Philanthropic Societies. (As reported by JTA)

1924: In Bălți, Simon Greenberg and his wife gave birth to Lia Greenberg whose parents sent her to Palestine in 1940 where gained famed as Lia van Leer “the founder of the Haifa Cinematheque, the Jerusalem Cinematheque, the Israel Film Archive and the Jerusalem Film Festival.”

1924

1924:Plutario Elias Calles, President-elect of Mexico, spent a few hours in Atlantic City today for the so he could meet with Jewish labor leader Samuel Gompers and the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor, which is in session here at the Ambassador Hotel.

1925:  In one of their largest rallies ever, 40,000 Ku Klux Klansmen marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.  The Klansmen marched in full hooded regalia and were watched by adoring throngs.  The Klan was not just a Southern organization.  Large groups could be found in such Mid-Western states as Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.  The Klan was anti-Semitic as well as anti-Catholic and opposed to all non-Caucasian races including African-Americans.  Memories of this march help to explain the timidity of the Jews in the 1930’s when it came to pressing the case for opening the doors to refugees from Nazi Europe.

1925: In Manhattan, Michael Goldman, “a native of Dublin” and “the former Rebecca Perlman” both of whom were lawyers gave birth to Arnold Perlman Gold, the Texas Longhorn undergrad and “pediatric neurologist who, along with his wife Sandra was a leading proponent of “an empathetic bedside manner.” (As reported by Richard Sandomir)


1926: Hundreds of residents of the Jewish quarter of Paris assembled at the Garenord station at 11 o'clock tonight to greet the poet Chaim Nachman Bialiak with shouts of "Heidad!", and the singing of Hatikvah on his visit to the French capital after “the conclusion of the Zionist Actions Committee in London.” (JTA)

1928

1929: Heinrich Himmler and his wife gave birth Gudrun Margarete Elfriede Emma Anna Himmler, their only biological child” who was loyal to her father up until the moment of her death in 2018.


1928(22ndof Av, 5688): Seventy-four year old Alfred S. Brandeis, the son of Adolph and Fredericka Brandeis, the husband of Jennie Brandeis and the brother of Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court passed away today.

1929: “On the ground that Alfred Dreyfus, a writer and sculptor, has been committed to a sanitarium as insane although he is of sound mind, an application was made” today “to Supreme Court Justice Frankenthaler for an order directing that the question of his sanity be determined by a jury.  Dreyfus had been committed to a mental institution more than a year ago by his brother Walter Ludwig Drefyus.

1931: Birthdate of Joshua Matza Israeli political figure and “president and CEO of State of Israel Bonds, a global enterprise that generates more than $1 billion in annual sales. Israel utilizes the funds for economic development projects. Matza was recommended for the post in 2002 by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and then-Finance Minister Silvan Shalom. Matza served 18 years in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, as a member of the Likud party. He was a cabinet minister in the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, holding the portfolio of minister of health. Matza also served 20 years on the Jerusalem City Council, 10 of which were in the capacity of deputy mayor.”

1931: The Arab National Association adopts a resolution indicating that the Arabs do not intend to obey the government's orders to cease agitation against sealed armories and will continue to defy the British government in Palestine.

1933: Dr. Daniel Mulvihill, a New Yorker visiting Berlin “was assaulted by a German citizen…apparently because he had failed ‘to salute a Nazi detachment.’”

1933: The police and the Aeronautics Board of the Department Commerce began an investigation today into reports that a an unidentified plane had, for the last two days, been dropping German language pamphlets on a meeting of the United Singers Society protesting the exclusion of the Friends of the New German from its activities.  The Friends of Germany is pro-Nazi while the United Singers Society is a conservative German organization that does not support the Nazis.  The investigation was begun at the behest of Albert F. Frosh, president of the United Singers Society.

1933: In Czernowitz, Romania, the Maccabee sports organization submits a claim for 100,000 lei as compensation for cancelling the Maccabiade, international meet of Jewish athletes, forbidden by Rumanian Government, owing to fears that Lord Melchett, head of Maccabee World Union, would be molested by anti-Semites. Lord Melchett was Sir Alfred Moritz Mond, the son of Ludwig Mond.  He was a leading British businessman, politician and supporter of Zionism.

1933: The German Government announced that those East European Jews who will be deprived of their citizenship in accordance with a recent decree will be given the status of Staatenlose (men without citizenship in any country); this explanation is accompanied by estimates that 10,300 East-European Jews had been naturalized in Prussia alone since 1922.

1933: The All-German Richard Wagner Association, meeting at Beiruth to arrange for the Wagner Festival, decides to amend its by-laws so as to exclude all "non-Aryans," and to instruct its branches throughout Germany to expel Jewish members. It was actions like this that created the myth that Wagner, who was dead by now, was an anti-Semite.

1933:  In Regina, the Jewish Colonization Association prepares statistics for the World's Grain Exhibition and Conference which show that 557,000 Jews in eight countries engage in agriculture and cultivate 5,410,750 acres of land, and that the Jewish farmers in Canada raise 500,000 bushels of wheat annually. The family of Ekiel Bronfman was one of those Jewish families who did not succeed in its agricultural endeavors.  Thanks to Ekiel’s son Sam, they found another way to make money from grain besides growing it

1933: In Germany, The Ministry of Labor issues an ordinance which provides that no Jewish physician is to remain associated with any sick benefit association, with the exception of front-line war veterans, and establishes an official list of sick fund doctors, from which all Jews are excluded.

1935 (9th of Av): Yiddish poetess Rivka Galin passed away

1935: “Following complaints from Dr. Schacht plus reports on the public disagreement with the wave of anti-Semitic violence, Hitler ordered a stop to "individual actions" against German Jews today.”

1936: The World Jewish Congress was convened in Geneva. Stephen Wise and Nahum Goldman founded the Congress. Although they organized a boycott of German goods, they felt that a more direct approach would prompt the Nazis "to even harsher policies."

1936: “Girls’ Dormitory” starring French born actress Simone Simon whose Jewish father would die in a WW II concentration camp was distributed in the United States today by 20th Century Fox.

1937(1stof Elul, 5697): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1937(1stof Elul, 5697): Sixty-four year old Theodore A. Peyser the native of Charleston, West Virginia, passed away today while representing New York’s 17thcongressional district.



1937: As the debate over the Peel Commission Report continued Rabbi Dr. Stephen Wise, president of the Zionist Organization of America, assailed the partition plan as abandonment of trust, but his rejection did not oppose the very idea of the creation of a Jewish state. He said that Great Britain cannot say that it failed as a trustee. It failed to try and, if the whole truth be told, it has tried to fail. David Ben-Gurion refused even to consider the notion that Jews might ever remain a minority in their homeland. He wanted Eretz Yisrael to provide the solution to the entire Jewish problem. Ben-Gurion held that the Jewish state should be proclaimed immediately, as an alternative to the Peel Commission's partition. This will accelerate the country's development and Jews will become a powerful factor in Palestine. He firmly believed that Jews and Arabs can live in peace. A decade later Ben-Gurion would take an opposite stance and embrace partition with Jerusalem as an international city.  Ben-Gurion was a Zionist.  He was also a realist and statesman.

1937: In Los Angeles, Lillian (née Gold) and prop supervisor Harry Hoffman gave birth to their second son Dustin Hoffman, the younger brother of attorney and economist Ronald Hoffman.

1938: Sir Harold Alfred MacMichael, the High Commissioner of Trans-Jordan and Commander in Chief of Palestine issued an appeal for an end to the “ruinous campaign of murder and sabotage.

1938: An Italian newspaper, the Tevere, printed an attack on the Jewish historian Emil Ludwig.  The attack on Ludwig was triggered by comments about  “the race problem” made by Mussolini “in 1932 that are included in his book, Conversations With Mussolini that are in sharp contrast with the views now expressed by the Fascist dictator who has allied himself with Hitler.

1938: Hadassah headquarters in the United States received a cable from the Youth Aliyah offices in Berlin stating that fifty seven Jewish boys and girls fleeing Germany and Austria had arrived in Palestine and that another 110 young Jewish refugees embarked today for the trip to Palestine. 

1938: The Nazis opened the Mauthausen-Gusen Concentration camp.

1940:  Today, when Hermann Goering instructed the German Air Force to commence Operation Adler “he informed his subordinates that ‘within a short period you will wipe the British Air Force from the sky.”

(Editor’s Note – if he been correct, the Holocaust would have come to the British Isles and who knows where else.  And all of the “smart people:” including Lindbergh and Joe Kennedy, the American Ambassador to the Court of St. James” thought Goering would have his airborne victory.)

1941: Neilma Myer, the daughter of Australian businessman and philanthropist Sidney Myer, became Neilma Gantner when she married Vallejo Gantner in Melbourne.

1941: In Hungary, enactment of The "Third Jewish Law" which prohibited intermarriage and penalized sexual intercourse between Jews and non-Jews.

1941: Georges Mandel, the Franco-Jewish journalist who became a leader of the Resistance and whom Winston Churchill “was believed to have preferred as a leader of the Free French” instead of DeGaulle was arrested “on the orders of Pierre Laval the Prime Minister of the fascist, anti-Semitic Vichy government.

1941: Corporal Hank Greenberg, the all-star baseball player now serving with the U.S. Army is placed in charge of a five man anti-tank crew.

1942: Gerhart Mortiz Riegner sent the “Riegner Telegram” describing plans for the Final Solution to Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, the President of the World Jewish Congress. “Have received through foreign office following message from Riegner Geneva STOP Received alarming report that in Fuhrers headquarters plan discussed and under consideration all Jews in countries occupied or controlled Germany number 3½ to 4 million should after deportation and concentration in East at one blow exterminated to resolve once and for all Jewish question in Europe.”


1942: “During World War II, six German saboteurs who secretly entered the United States on a mission to attack its civil infrastructure were executed by the United States for spying” today.


1942: All 2,000 Jews of Szczebrzeszyn refused to gather for a deportation round up. The Germans commenced a search for them. Only 400 were found. They were all killed.

1944: The Frank family and all those who had been hiding with them in attic were taken from their prison cells and sent to the Westerbork Concentration Camp.

1944: After a kangaroo trial in Berlin that was overseen by Goebbels, Hitler hung several of the German officers and other conspirators who tried to kill him. They are hung on meat hooks with chicken wire around their necks. The butchery is filmed and sent to Hitler for review. Over the next several months many more conspirators would be sent to trial.

1944: Seventy-seven year old Gustav Fruend who had been living in Prague before being deported to Terezin was murdered there today.

1944(19th of Av, 5704): Famed expressionist painter Chaim Soutine passed away. Born in Belarus in 1894, Soutine moved to Paris in 1911 where he developed his unique style. He flourished in the inter-war years. However, his good times were not to last after the invasion of France by German troops at the start of World War II. As a Jew, Soutine had to escape from the French capital and hide in order to avoid arrest by the Gestapo. He constantly moved from one place to another and was sometimes forced to seek shelter in forests, sleeping outdoors. Suffering from a stomach ulcer and bleeding badly he had to leave his safe hiding place for Paris in order to undergo emergency surgery, which failed to save his life. Chaim Soutine died of a perforated ulcer just two weeks before the French capital was freed by Allied forces. After his death his vivid colors and passionate handling of paint gained him recognition as one of the foremost Expressionist painters. If Soutine had merely been an Expressionist Painter and not a Jewish Expressionist Painter, he would have probably lived to a ripe old age covered with glory and honors.

1944: Wireless operator Denise Bloch, a French born Jewish secret agent working with the SOE (the British version of the American OSS) was shackled to one of her fellow agents today after having captured by the Nazis and was placed on a train – the first leg of a trip that would end with her execution at Ravensbruck.

1945: First baseman Mike Schemer made his major league debut with the New York Giants.

1947: The Empire Lifeguard which had suffered a hold blown its hole at Haifa while transporting Jewish DPs was “refloated today and towed to Port Said” for repairts.

1948(3rd of Av, 5708): Seventy-eight year old Leo Morris Franklin, a leading Reform rabbi who served Temple Beth El in Detroit from 1899 to 1941, passed away today.

1951: Birthdate of Bronx native Martin Brest the NYU grad who went on to a career as a director, screenwriter and producer that got its biggest start with “Going in Style” and “Beverly Hills Cop.”

1953:  Birthdate of Donny Most who played Ralph in the sitcom “Happy Days.”

1953: Birthdate of Alexander Pinkhosovich Podrabinek the Russian born human rights activist and “refusnik”


1960 (15th of Av, 5720): As Jews observe Tu B’Av no love was lost as Nixon squared off against Kennedy in the presidential campaign.

1962: “Valley Jewish Center Dedication Scheduled” published today in the Los Angeles Times

1963: In New York, “comedy writer Saul Turtletaub” and his wife gave birth to director and producer Jonathan Charles “Jon” Turtletaub who is responsible for some forgettable films such as “3 Ninjas.”

1964: French music man Serge Gainsbourg and his second wife Françoise-Antoinette "Béatrice" Pancrazzi gave birth to their daughter Natacha.

1964: It was reported that Alaska Democrat Ernest Gruening was one of only two Senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.  The two senators saw the resolution as “unconstitutional because it was ‘a pre-dated declaration of war power’ reserved to Congress. This vote cost him his seat in the Senate; a fate that many of the johnny-come-lately opponents such as the anti-Semite J. William Fulbright were spared.

1965(10thof Av, 5725): Tish’a B’Av

1965(10thof Av, 5725): Eighty-seven year old Edith Jacobi Baerwald passed away today.



1965(10thof Av, 5725: Seventy-one year old Minks native Sidney Davidson, the founder of “Davidson Brothers” a New York “underwear company, a founder, in 1939 “of the United Jewish Appeal of Greater New York” and the husband of “the former Sarah Machilis” with whom he had two children – Jean and Morton – passed away today after suffering a heart attack.


1966: Three months after having been released in the United Kingdom and Australia, “It Happened Here,” a film that looks at what might have happened if the Nazis had won WW II filmed by cinematographer Peter Suschitzky, was released in the United States today.

1973: “The Stone Killer” a film about murdering Italian and Jewish mobsters” directed and produced by Michael Winner starring Martin Balsam, Stuart Margolin and Norman Fell was released today in the United States.

1973: In a move that will have profound repercussions for the United States, the rest of the World (and of course the Jews, Richard Nixon delivered an address to the nation tonight saying this his Presidency would officially end tomorrow at noon.

1975: Jacob “Jack” Austin was appointed to the Upper House of the Canadian Parliament today to serve as a Senator from Vancouver.

1975: “Farewell My Lovely” the murder mystery produced by Elliot Kastner and Jerry Bruckheimer, with a screenplay by David Zelag Goodman and music by David Shire was released in the United States today.

1976(12thof Av, 5736): Sixty-six year old Berlin born Eddie Rosner, the jazz musician known as “The White Louis Armstrong,” passed away today,


1976: Three Israelis were injured when a bus was fired on near Hebron.

1977: Officials in Washington agreed that there was no evidence that more than 8,000 pounds of the lost American enriched uranium and plutonium had ever reached Israel.

1977: The Jerusalem YMCA, one of the most beautiful in the world and the only one to have a membership 98 per cent Jewish, celebrated its centenary.

1979(15thof Av, 5739): Tu B’Av

1980: Today, the National Park Service determined that Dewey House which had been designed by David Adler was eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.”

1980: As part of the on-going Soviet campaign to punish Jewish refusniks, Grigorii Geishis was put on trial at Leningrad.

1982: Just two weeks before her 84th birthdate Rosie Goldschmidt Waldeck, the author whose works include Athene Palace passed away.  Born a German Jew in 1898, she converted to Catholicism and became a U.S. citizen in 19391982:Where are the Arab ‘brothers' now?” by Daniel Pipes appears in the Chicago Tribune.


1984: Funeral services were held today in Jerusalem for “Rabbi Louis Rabinowitz, former Chief Rabbi of the Orange Free State in South Africa and more recently a Herut Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem.” (As reported by JTA)


1984: Based on an order from the Israeli Supreme Court, financer Shmuel Flatto-Sharon is scheduled to report to jail today where he is “to start a three- month sentence for bribery during his campaign for the Israeli Parliament in 1977, which was successful.”

1986: “The Transformer: The Movie” an animated feature film featuring the voices of Judd Nelson, Lionel Stander and Leonard Nimoy was released in the United States today by the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group.

1986: Warner Bros. released “One Crazy Summer,” a romantic comedy produced by Michael Jaffe and featuring Jeremy Piven in the role of “Ty.”

1987: Mary Travers, the folk singer, plays Emma Lazarus, as one of a series of radio spots for a a program entitled “Voices of Freedom.”  Ms Travers said her character also had such contemporary relevance. ''She doesn't talk about history as if it's frozen in time,'' Ms. Travers said of Lazarus. ''Her words are valuable not as the words of a woman willing to struggle with inequity in 1883, but as the words of an American willing to struggle with inequity in 1987.''

1987:  ''Yiddish Theater in London, 1880-1987 an exhibition included in this summer's Jewish East End Celebration is scheduled to come to an end.

1987: ''Daughters of the Pale,'' an exhibition that in words and photographs documents the experiences of daughters of Jewish immigrants, is scheduled to come to an end in London

1988: Israeli Ambassador Moshe Arad met with Rev. Jesse Jackson. The two men and their advisers said they discussed a wide range of issues, including the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians; the plight of black Israelis; Israel's relationship with South Africa, and recent friction between blacks and Jews in this country, particularly in Chicago and New York.

 

1988: Israeli Ambassador Moshe Arad met with Rev. Jesse Jackson. The two men and their advisers said they discussed a wide range of issues, including the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians; the plight of black Israelis; Israel's relationship with South Africa, and recent friction between blacks and Jews in this country, particularly in Chicago and New York.

1989: A Broadway revival of the musical “Shenandoah” with a “book” co-authored by producer Philip Rose opened today.

1990: Oil prices fell and the stock markets in the New York and Tokyo steadied today after the United States decision to send troops to Saudi Arabia and reports that the oil-rich kingdom would increase its production in what would be part of the start of Gulf War I, the first conflict in which Israel would stand down and trust the United States to defend its airspace from Arab attack.

1990: “I’m Dangerous Tonight” a horror film featuring Natalie Schafer debuted on USA Network tonight.

1993: The third in a series of family tours to Israel sponsored by the American Jewish Congress is schedule to begin today.

1993: The Bosnian family sponsored by Temple Beth Am arrived in Seattle, Washington.

1995: Eighty-nine year old SS officer Kurt Becher who was involved in deals to trade money and goods for sparing the lives of Hungarian Jews that included dealings with Rudolf Kastner passed away.


(For more about Rudolf Kastner see Gaylen Ross’s award winning documentary “Killing Kasztner: The Jew Who Dealt With Nazis” http://www.killingkasztner.com/

and Kastner’s Train by Anna Porter and

1996: Mel Torme, an icon of the American Jazz scene, suffered a stroke which effectively ended his career.

1996: “Haifa” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.

1999: PGA golfer Bruce Fleisher won the Lightpath Long Island Classic.

1999: The New York Times includes reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War, 1941-1945 by Leo Marks, Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings: Volume 2, 1927-1934and Broke Heart Blues by Joyce Carol Oates, the author who discovered late in life her own family's Jewish history: Her grandmother, who immigrated to the United States in the 1890s, kept her religion hidden for fear of persecution.

1999: Avery Corman, the novelist, who has just completed working on a new musical with Cy Coleman, discusses ''The Musical: The American Jewish Theater in Its Heyday'' at Temple Adas Israel on Elizabeth Street in Sag Harbor

2001: Hamas claimed credit for today’s bombing at Moshav Beka’ot

2002: “Queen’s Opens J.B. Salsberg Papers to the Public” published today included a brief description of the life of the Polish born Canadian Labor Zionist.


2003(10th of Av, 5763):Third Petty Officer Roi Oren, 20, an Israel Navy commando, was shot in the head and killed in an assault on a Hamas bomb factory in Nablus.

2004: Second and final performance  by the Royal English Opera Company of Rockford, Illinois of “The Nautch Girl,” a comic opera composed by Edward Solomon.  These are the only times the opera has been performed in North America.

2004: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace by Dennis Ross

2005:  Legislation is introduced in Congress that would make it illegal to deny life insurance to people based on their travel habits.  Those traveling to Israel, including at least one Jewish member of the House of Representatives have been denied life insurance.  While those pushing the legislation have not accused the life insurance industry of an anti-Jewish bias, one of the non-Jewish supporters of the bill noted that he had never been denied insurance even though he had taken repeated trips to his ancestral homeland, Ireland.

2005: Today “Haaretz quoted a top Palestinian Authority religious cleric, Sheikh Jamal al-Bawatna, the mufti of the Ramallah district, in a fatwa (a religious edict) banning shooting attacks against Israeli security forces and settlements, out of concern they might lead to a postponement of the pullout. According to Haaretz, this is the first time that a Muslim cleric has forbidden shooting at Israeli forces.”

2005: “Kevin Youkilis took the field in the 9th inning along with Adam Stern and Gabe Kapler, setting a "record" for the most Jewish players on the field at one time in American League history and the most in Major League Baseball history since four Jewish players took the field for the New York Giants in 1941. (Jewish Virtual Library) 

2005: Wolf Blitzer began hosting The Situation Room, a two-hour afternoon/early evening program on CNN

2005(3rdof Av, 5765): Eighty-seven year Nathan “Fred” Asher, the Naval Academy Graduate, who took command of the destroyer U.S.S. Blue during the bombing of Pearl Harbor and was the husband of Slema Straus with whom he had three children – Dennis, Karen and Jeffrey – passed away today in California.

2006: Five ambulances donated to Magen David Adom by Canadian Jewry were flown to Israel from New York by CAL Cargo Airlines. The ambulances were donated as a sign of solidarity with the situation in Israel and to help with the treatment of the injured from the conflict in the northern part of the county. "The company is currently doing all it can to give preference to urgently required cargo for the security forces and other state bodies," a statement from CALCargo said

2006 (14th of Av, 5766): Staff Sergeant Oren Lifschitz, 21, of Kibbutz Gazit and Staff Sergeant Moran Cohen, 21, of Kibbutz Ashdot Yaakov were killed  in battles in the south Lebanon village of Bint Jbail. St.-Sgt. Yesmao Yallao 26, from Or Yehuda and Cap. (res.) and Gilad Balahsan, 28, of Karmiel were killed in clashes with Hezbollah near Leboneh.

2007: The last two concerts The Zimriya - The World Assembly of Choirs are held at 8 P.M., at Einav Cultural Center in Tel Aviv and at Independence Hall on Mt. Scopus. The Zimriya has been held every three years since 1952.

2007: Donald Fisher the founder of GAP “announced plans to build a 100,000-square-foot (9,300 m2) museum in the San Francisco Presidio, tentatively named the Contemporary Art Museum of the Presidio, to house his art collection” – plans which would be abandoned in 2009 when Fisher and his wife “decided to enter into a partnership with SFMOMA to display the world famous collection.”

2007(24th of Av, 5767): Melville “Mel” Shavelson, writer, director and producer passed away at the age of 90.


2008: Israeli President Shimon Peres attends the Olympic Games' opening ceremony at the invitation of the Chinese government.  Since the games open on Friday, the Chinese government has agreed as a goodwill gesture to house him in a hotel within the Olympic complex so he will not desecrate the Sabbath.  While Beijing and Jerusalem seem to be worried about the rituals of Shabbat, they do not seem to have the same concern about the Biblical strictures about caring for the widow, the orphan and the stranger in your midst as can be seen in Darfur and Tibet.

2008: In “Jewish Roots in India,” published today the Washington Post reviews The Girl From Foreign by Sadia Shephard in which the American born author traces the Jewish roots of her Indian grandmother who lived as a Moslem.

2008: In Virginia, Jody Wagner resigns her position as Secretary of Finance.

2008(7th of Av, 5768): Ted Solotaroff passes away at the age of 80



2009: In Jerusalem, Beit Avi Chai's Saturday night music line, directed by Shaanan Street, presents "Eve’s Women": Four musicians create a magical, diverse musical world, with fresh, new arrangements of familiar melodies and songs from Jewish tradition, klezmer tunes, and Hasidic songs. A fascinating musical journey including improvisations created in each concert.

2010: A documentary entitled “Einsatzgruppen: The Death Brigades” is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2010: Bankito, sometimes referred to as "Jewstock" -- a youth-oriented Jewish culture festival on the shore of Bank Lake, north of Budapest is scheduled to come to an end.

2010: First Jewish Women's Music Festival at Falls Village, CT is scheduled to come to an end.

2010: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including two novels set in Nazi-occupied Holland by Dutch author Hans Keilson – The Death of the Adversary and Comedy in a Minor Key, Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart, As Husbands Go by Susan Isaacs, 97 Orchard by Jane Ziegelman and Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg; The Letters Edited by Bill Morgan and David Stanford

2011: The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to come to an end.

2011(8thof Av): Erev Tisha B’Av – fast starts at sundown

2011: This evening, a delegation of 18 Washington-based ambassadors from four continents and one other senior diplomat who have embarked on a fact-finding mission to Israel and the West Bank organized by The Israel Project (TIP) will go to the Old City of Jerusalem to observe the commemoration of Tisha B’Av

2011: Three mortar shells fell last night in Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council, causing damage to a fence. No injuries were reported. The incident comes after a spate in rocket attacks launched from the Gaza Strip last week. Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in a cabinet meeting yesterday that the recent rocket fire from Gaza was carried out by Palestinian breakaway groups and an Islamic Jihad organization, adding that he views the recent escalation with great severity and believes the attacks will continue.

Since the beginning of 2011 more than 340 rockets have been fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

2011: Today, the High Court of Justice rejected a petition asking that the government be ordered to deploy the Iron Dome rocket defense system in Gaza border communities.The ruling to reject the petition, which had been brought by the Eshkol Regional Council, follows an upsurge in Palestinian rocket fire against the South in recent days.Some 340 rockets and mortar shells from Gaza have hit dozens of southern communities this year, the IDF Spokesman’s Office said today In rejecting the petition, Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch, Justice Salim Joubran and Justice Uzi Fogelman ruled that in balancing all relevant considerations including budgets, changing security realities and operational matters, the government’s decision not to deploy the Iron Dome in the area was reasonable. The panel of justices also said that the court had no reason to intervene in operational decisions regarding where to deploy the Iron Dome system. “We believe the [government] will make the necessary decisions in accordance with the requirements of the time and place,” the justices said. Haim Yalin, head of the Eshkol Regional Council, slammed the court’s decision and said that the government must take immediate responsibility to defend residents affected by Gaza rocket fire. “The High Court ruling said it was up to the government to defend us, so we are asking them – go ahead, protect us, defend us,” Yalin told The Jerusalem Post. “The government needs to take responsibility. It’s about social justice.” In its High Court petition, the Eshkol Regional Council argued that the government should be ordered to deploy the Iron Dome to protect communities in the so-called “Gaza envelope,” specifically those located between 4.5 and seven kilometers from the Strip, from terrorist rocket fire. Homes in communities located within 4.5 kilometers of Gaza have been equipped with government-funded rocket-roof protection. However, structures located between 4.5 and seven kilometers from the Gaza security fence lack rocket protection. Iron Dome, a mobile air defense system, was developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems to intercept rockets and artillery shells with a range from 4.5 to 70 kilometers. It was deployed this week outside Ashkelon in response to rocket fire from Gaza. Communities in the Eshkol Regional Council say the system should protect them too. In the petition, the council said the government has put the lives of residents living in these communities at risk by failing to deploy Iron Dome or to provide any other rocket protection. The distinction between homes located less than 4.5 kilometers from Gaza – which received government funding for rocket protection – and homes located over 4.5 kilometers from the security fence is no longer relevant, argues the Eshkol Regional Council, because the Palestinian rockets have a range well in excess of 4.5 kilometers. The petition also claimed that the government’s failure to protect communities by deploying the Iron Dome violates the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty. In response, the state argued that the High Court should not intervene in the “military decision” regarding how and where to deploy the anti-rocket system. The state noted that Iron Dome is portable, and is deployed in different areas depending on operational need. If the court were to order the state to deploy Iron Dome in a specific area, budgetary limitations would result in other communities not receiving protection, particularly as the range of Palestinian rockets has grown in recent years and therefore it is not possible to deploy Iron Dome to protect every community, the state argued. Attorney Eduardo Wasser, representing the Eshkol Regional Council, told the Post that the High Court’s ruling to reject the petition was “very disappointing. “If we understand the ruling correctly, the court found that the [government’s] pledge [to protect communities near the Gaza Strip] was made under different conditions, and that the government can retract that pledge,” he said. Wasser also noted that the justices ruled that it was the government’s responsibility to use other means, apart from the Iron Dome, to protect communities in the “Gaza envelope.” Wasser added that he was uncertain that the government would do so. “In other words, the court is telling us that we must rely on the government to take responsibility for defending us, but until an alternative means is found to protect us I’m not convinced that we can do so,” he said. Yalin said that he was now calling on the government to find a way to protect communities between 4.5 and seven kilometers from the Strip. “It is up to the government to either stop the rocket fire, or find a way to defend its citizens,” the council head said. “The residents of the ‘Gaza envelope’ are suffering, we have suffered for years – and now we will do everything in our power to make the government take responsibility and defend us from rocket attacks. Because who else apart from the government of the State of Israel can take responsibility and protect its citizens?”

2011: During a discussion on the subject, the High Court criticized the Israel Medical Association's (IMA) conduct during negotiations with the finance and health ministries. Supreme Court President Judge Dorit Beinisch said "the IMA's behavior does not arouse faith, this is no way to negotiate." The High Court decided on t0day to give doctors and representatives of the Finance Ministry another week to try to reach an agreement that would end the sanctions affecting the health system. At the end of the week there will be another hearing before the High Court and the different parties will present the progress made. 

2012: The Summer Learning Institute is scheduled to begin at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio.

2012: “Hope Springs” a comedy directed by David Frankel was released today in the United States by Columbia Pictures and MGM.

2012: “Photographer David Rubinger, who immortalized paratroopers reaching the Wall in the 1967 war, recreated his iconic image with a female trio holding a Torah scroll (As reported by Aaron Kalman)

2012: Lincoln Center Out of Doors, the annual free festival of music and dance, is scheduled to present the U.S. debut of The Alaev Family, a Bukharin groove band from Israel with deep roots in the music of Tajikistan and Jewish Bukhara.

2012: Citing disappointing results for Israeli athletes in the 2012 Olympic games, Minister of Culture and Sports Limor Livnat announced today that she will establish a committee of experts to look into this year’s failures in order to bring about better results in the next Olympics, set to take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in the summer of 2016

2012: The British Guardian newspaper today acknowledged it was wrong to call Tel Aviv Israel’s capital, but reiterated its stance that Jerusalem is not the capital either, since it is not recognized as such by the international community.

2012: A series of Hezbollah terror attacks inside Israel were foiled recently by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) after a group of Israeli-Arabs helped smuggle 20 kilograms of high-grade explosives into Israel. Today, eight residents of Nazareth and the town of Ghajar - half of which is in Israel and the other half in Lebanon - were charged in the Nazareth District Court with assisting in the infiltration of the explosives.

2013: “Esther Broner - A Weave Of Women,” a documentary about the pioneering feminist and scholar is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2013: At Zefat, the three day International Klexmer Festival “the biggest festival of Jewish soul music in the world” is scheduled to come to an end.

2013: Nobel Prize Winner Daniel Kahneman, a Princeton psychologist known for his application of psychology to economic analysis who “escaped Nazi Europe and served in the Israeli army” was one of the people President Obama named as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

2013: In response to a “security concerns” no planes were allowed to land at or leave the Eilat airport when the IDF closed the facility for two hours today. (As reported by Asher Zeiger)

2013(2ndof Elul, 5773): Ninety-two year old Jack Zomlefer, a brilliant chemist, successful business and educated Jew who shared his last years enhancing the quality of  the Jewish community in Cedar Rapids ,passed away today.

2013*2ndof Elul, 5773): Ninety-year old opera star Regina Resnik passed away today. (As reported by William Yardley)


2013(2ndof Elul, 5773): Actress Karen Black passed away today.


2014: Israel’s Dimona Theatre/Cultural Lab and the Classical Theatre of Harlem are scheduled to “present a succinct journey into Shakespeare’s Macbeth in Sugar Hill.

2014: “High-profile Toronto Jewish delicatessen owner Zane Caplansky is scheduled to send his food truck to the outdoor screening ‘Laila’s Birthday’ a dark comedy by Palestinian director by Rashid Masharawi.” (As reported by Renee Ghert-Zand)

2014: In Milwaukee, Congregation Shalom is scheduled to host its final concert of the summer featuring Becky Spice and Jack Forbes in “an original cabaret show.”

2014: True to its word Hamas ended the cease fire by firing rockets into Israel today including one that scored a direct hit on a house “in the embattled city of Sderot.”

2014: “United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the renewed rocket fire on Israel and also called for a return to a truce in Gaza. (As reported by Yitzhak Benhorin)

2014(12thof Av, 5774): Eighty-five year old director/producer Menahem Golan passed away today.



2015(23rdof Av): Parsha Ekev

2015(23rdof Av): Yahrzeit of Rabbi Benjamin Arron of Cracow

2015: In New York, “a live performance of chamber ensemble led by the Music Director, Israeli Cellist Elad Kabilio” is scheduled to be part of this evening’s Ballet Festival.

2015: The 92nd St is scheduled to host “Le Roc USA Party”

2016: Judge Claudio Bonadio’s decision to reopen a criminal complaint against former President Kirchner in which had been accuse of conspiring to derail an investigation into the bombing of Jewish community center in 1994 which took the lives of 85, was made public today.

2016:  “Jerusalem Boxing Club is scheduled to be shown as part of The Hampton Synagogue Film Series now in its 14thyear.

2016: Noam Banai, son of Meir and cousin to Ehud, Yuval and Elisha continued his tour of Israel tonight with a performance at 26 Bialik, Beersheba.

2016: Gary Gans is scheduled to speak on “What Mourning Customs Did Our Immigrant Families Bring with Them” and Avraham Groll is scheduled to speak on “Jewish Life In Poland (10th-18th centuries) at the 36thIAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy today in Seattle.

2017: This evening in Weimar, Germany YSM is scheduled to host a series of jam session featuring Yiddish songs and klezmer music.

2017: “An ensemble of four male dancers combining hip hop with ballet, choreographed by Roderick George, a former soloist of American Dance Company Cedar Lake is scheduled to perform part of this year’s “Tel Aviv Dance.”

2018: Diarna, The Geo-Museum of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Life is scheduled to present “Beyond Tunis: A Comprehensive Mission to Tunisia” featuring photographer Chrystie Sherman as part of the Passport to Jewish History series.
2018:”Operation Wedding,” a documentary that tells the story of “young Soviet Jews seeking to escape the Soviet Union: is scheduled to be shown at the Kew Gardens Festival of Cinema.


 

 

 

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

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August 9

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1753(9th of Av, 5513): Tish’a B’Av

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

1793(1st of Elul, 5553): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1793(1st of Elul, 5553): Jacob Aaron passed away today ervev Shabbat which meant he would not be buried in the Alderney Road Jewish Cemetery until Sunday.

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

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

1821: Birthdate of Austrian poet Heinrich Landesmann.

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

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

1828: At Kent Road, London, Daniel Levy and Amelia Jacobs gave birth to Charlotte Levy.

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

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

1836: In New York City, Jacob and Belvidere del Mar, gave birth to their “oldest son Alexander del Mar” “an American political economist, historian, numismatist and author” who “was the first director of the Bureau of Statistics at the U.S. Treasury Department.”




1839: Today “Rabbis Samuel Aba and Pinchas Shapiro, two brothers in charge of a large Chasidic printing plant in Slavuta, Poland, received 1,500 lashes each and were imprisoned for life in a Moscow jail.” (As reported by Abraham Bloch)

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

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

1851: In Mitau, Courland, Russia, Selig Braude and his wife gave birth to Abraham Samuel Braude who served as the rabbi at Mitau before coming to the United States in 1891 where he became the Rabbi of Congregation Ohave Sholem Mariampol at 1347 South Canal in Chicago, Illinois.

1854: John Zachariah Laurence married Miriam Solomon at the Western Synagogue today.

1854: Isaac Mozes Pereira Mendoza married Sara Isaac Monis at the Portuguese Jewish Synagogue in Amsterdam.

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

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

1858: In London, birthdate of musician Isidore Lara

1858: Birthdate of Levenworth native Henry Wollman, a senior partner in Wollman and Wollman and a member of Temple Emanu-El on 5th Avenue.

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

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

1861: During the Civil War, Philadelphian Jacob Trautman began 4 years of serving in Company E of the 5th Cavalry.

1861: During the Civil War, Philadelphian Henry Schlosss began 4 years of serving in Company E of the 5th Cavalry during which he would be wounded in fighting a Richmond in 1864.

1862: During the Civil War, Philadelphian Jacob Canter began his service with Company C of the 126th Regiment.

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

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

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

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

1872: Birthdate of Julius Gareché Lay the American diplomat who in 1915, as the American Consul General in Berlin worked with Isidore Hershfield to relieve the suffering of the Jews caught in the war zone of Poland and Galicia.

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

1878:

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

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

1881: In Vienna, banker Moritz Bauer and Jeannette Bauer née Honig gave birth to Adele Bloch-Bauer.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1890: Mendel Feldstein told his landlord this morning at breakfast that he had seen two men hide a bag of jewels last night and that they had threatened him when they realized he was aware that he had seen them.1890: A list of those charities receiving bequests of a thousand dollars from the late Alexander Bach was published today included: Mount Sinai Hospital, Montefiore Home for Incurables, Hebrew Benevolent and orphan Asylum Society, United Hebrew Charities, Temple Gates of Hope, Hebrew Free School Association, Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews and Temple Israel of Harlem.  The Deborah Nursery was on the list but only for $500.

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

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

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

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

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

1896: Three days after she had passed away, 55 year old Agnes Rosa Samuel “the fourth daughter” born to Rosa and Ralph Henry Samuel was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

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

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

1896: Birthdate of Russian psychologist, Lev Vygotsky.

1896: Due to the “sever heat” the milk depots funded by Nathan Straus will be kept open all day. 1896: “Free Milk For Sick Children” published today described the easing of restrictions by Nathan Straus to make free milk available to the children to New York as well as instructions for the best ways for children to drink it.

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

1898: During the Spanish-American War, Mathew N. Levy of Norfolk was mustered into Company H of the 4th Virginia Volunteer Infantry.

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

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

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

1903: Today, a meeting of rabbis was held in Cracow that “opened with a solemn oath taken by all present to the effect that Jews had never been guilty of ritual murder and that no Jewish law ever sanction such practices.”

1903: In Cleveland, the first annual picnic hosted by the United Zionists today “was a great success socially and financially.”

1903: “A committee was appointed to canvass for donations and subscriptions for a Jewish publication” during today’s meeting The Chovevi Zion in Scranton, PA.

1910: In Camden, NJ, “on opening Sons of Israel Synagogue at eighth and Sycamore Streets” this “morning, it was discovered that two valuable silver cups had been stolen.”

1911(15thof Av, 5671): Tu B’Av

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

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

1913: It was reported today that the University of Geneva has conferred an honorary doctorate on French chemistry professor Gabriel Lippmann.

1913: It was reported today that Polish born socialist and journalist Stanislaus Mendelson, the son-in-law of Naham Sokolow and husband of fellow socialist Maria Jankowska has passed away.

1914:  Five days after  the declaration of war, a war in which 10,000 Jews would sign up to serve in just the first year,  The H.M. S. Birmingham, a Royal Navy Cruiser sank the U-15 marking the first time that a German submarine was “lost to a an enemy warship)

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

1916: In World War I, Italian forces take Gorizia, a battle during which General Roberto Serge showed such courage that he was cited for bravery and a year later “promoted to chief of staff of the Fifth Army Corps.

1917: It was reported today that the officers of the newly formed Jewish Board for Welfare Relief Work in the United States Army and Navy are Chairman, Colonel Harry Cutler of Providence, RI; Vice Chairman, Dr. Cyrus Adler of Philadelphia; Treasurer, S.S. Rosenstamm of New York and Secretary, Sidney Goldstein of New York.

1917: “Through the Intelligence Department of the Mayor’s Committee on National Defense, the Provisional Zionist Committee” tonight “made public a letter describing conditions among Jews in Warsaw under German rule” “the veracity and authenticity of” which “is vouched for by” Dr. Stephen S. Wise, Chairman of the Zionist Committee and Associate Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis who is the committee’s honorary chairman.

1918(1stof Elul, 5678): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1918: The Archbishop of Warsaw met with several Jewish leaders who expressed the hope that “the new Polish state would prove “tolerant to the Jewish communities.”

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

1918: It was reported today that the 34th infantry participated in pogroms at “Jarislawa and other Galician towns’ where “the police did nothing to protect the Jews.

1918: It was reported today that “Miss Julie Heineman who is doing relief work overseas has been decorated by King Albert of Belgium with the Queen Elizabeth medal in recognition of her work for” those French people have been wounded or blinded.

1918: During WW I which fighting at Chipilly Ridge Nathan Lieberman, a Corporal in Company of C of the 131st Infantry (which had had been the 1stInfantry of the Illinois National Guard) “displayed unusual gallantry he rushed a machine gun nest whose fire was checking the advance” of the unit and captured 4 prisoners as an added bonus.

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

1922(15thof Av, 5682): Tu B’Av

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

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

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

1925(19th of Av, 5685): Fifty-nine year old philanthropist Sidney Salzado Peixotto passed away today in California.

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

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

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

1927: In New York City, “Dr. Henry Minsky, an eye surgeon who was chief of ophthalmology at Mount Sinai Hospital, and Fannie Reiser, a social activist and Zionist” gave birth to Marvin Minsky who has made many contributions to AI (Artificial Intelligence), cognitive psychology, mathematics, computational linguistics, robotics, and optics. In recent years he has worked chiefly on imparting to machines the human capacity for commonsense reasoning. Minsky is on the faculty of MIT and winner of the ACM Turing Award.

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

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

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


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

1930(15thof Av, 5690): Shabbat Nachamu and Tu B’Av

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

1931: Birthdate of South African native Sir Mark Aubrey Weinberg, the English trained barrister and financier who founded Abbey Life Assurance Company and Hambro Life Assurance


1932:  In Berlin, Holocaust survivor Hermann Pressman and his family -- Father Zysia, mother Hinda Leah, brother Hermann and sister Sonia --  went to the zoo today “and then to the Rubenstein kosher restaurant.”

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

1933: Ben Jeby (Morris Benjamin Jebaltowsky) was knocked out in the seventh round today ending his reign as middleweight champion.

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

 

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

1936: It was reported today that “among the questions to come before the first Jewish World Congress will be the defense of Jewish equality, re-establishment of the rights of Jews in Germany, the struggle against anti-Semitism and participation in Jewish reconstruction work in Palestine.”

1936: At the opening business session of The World Jewish Congress today in Geneva, Dr. Leon Kubowitski of Belgium made a proposal for a permanent organization that would be ‘elected for four years, meet regularly biannually” and be overseen by “a central council that should meet semi-annually” and an “executive that should have specific administrative duties.

1937: In New York, premiere of “Souls at Sea” featuring Joseph Schildkraut as “Gaston de Bastonet.”

1937: The political resolutions committee of the World Zionist Congress which was elected today began an all-night debate in Zurich on “the Weizmann policy on the partition of Palestine.”

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

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

1938: I “Children Go to Palestine,” published today described the migration of 167 Jewish children from Austria and Germany to Palestine.  The youngsters are part of the Third Aliyah and are being settled at Ain Harod and Kfar Jecheskiel.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1942: In London, world premiere of one of the most popular children’s films “Bambi” based on Bambi, A Life in the Woods by Felix Saltan, “the grandson of an Orthodox rabbi.”

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

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


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


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

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

1944: “Leon Kubowitzki (later Aryeh Leon Kubovy), the head of the WJC's Rescue Department, relayed a message from Ernest Frischer of the Czechoslovak State Council to the US State Department urging the destruction of the gas chambers and the bombing of railways lines leading to the Auschwitz death camp. US Undersecretary of War John J. McCloy rejected the suggestion five days later…”

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

1945: More than 500 people attended the funeral services for State Senator Carl Pack today who was the honorary vice president of Temple Beth Elohim in the Bronx.

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

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

1949: In New York City, “aerospace engineer and inventor David Kellerman and his wife Sylvia gave birth to mystery writer Jonathan Kellerman, the author of the series featuring Dr. Delaware, the husband of mystery writer Faye Kellerman and father of novelist Jesse Kellerman and author Aliza Kellerman.

1949: “Trottie True” a film based on a novel by S.J. Simon and Caryl Brahms, with music by Benjamin Frankel was released today in London, UK.

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

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

1955(21stof Av, 5715): Just six days before her 73rd birthday, Walla Walla, Washington native Marion Eugénie Bauer, the composer and music critic, passed away today “in South Hadley, Massachusetts, where a rabbi conducted her memorial service.”




1959: “The Ugly Duckling,” a British comedy starring Bernard Bresslaw was released today in the United Kingdom

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

1960: Larry Sherry came in to relieve starter Johnny Podres and protect the team’s 3 to 2 victory over the Milwaukee Braves.

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

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

1962(9thof Av, 5722): Tish’a B’Av

1964(1stof Elul, 5724): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1964(1stof Elul, 5724): Fifty-eight year old NYU law professor Edmond Nathaniel Cahn, a graduate of Tulane University, Director of the American Civil Liberties Union and an author whose works drew on the lessons of the Hebrew prophets passed away today in New York.


1964: “More than 2,000 American Legionnaires and members of their families witnessed the dedication” today of a wooded area in the Skokie Division of the Country Forest Preserve in Northbrook in honor of the 131st Infantry Division whose members included Corporal Nathan Lieberman which won the battle of Chipilly Ridge 54 years ago today

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

1967(3rdof Av, 5727): Seventy year old Austrian born British actor Anton Walbrook who did not return to his native land when the Nazis took power because his mother was Jewish passed away today in Bavria.



1967: Hafez Tahoub, a former Jordanian district judge, and Mussa el-Bitar, an insurance agent, were arrested today by Israeli authorities for instigating a general in east Jerusalem that was aimed at crippling the economy in the section of the city that had been occupied by the Jordanians from 1948 until June of 1967.\1969: Birthdate of New York lawyer and politician Andrew Cohen.


1969(25thof Av, 5729): Seventy-seven year old Robert Owen Lehman, Sr. the son of Philip Lehman the cofounder of Lehman Brothers and Carrie Lauer who became head of the investment bank when his father retired in 1925 and guided it through the roaring-twenties, the Great Depression and the era of unprecedented post-war prosperity passed away today.


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

1973(11thof Av, 5733): Ukrainian born, Israeli actor David Vardi, who had Hebraized his name from David Rosenfeld passed away today in Tel Aviv.


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

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

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

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

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

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

1983(30thof Av, 5743): Rosh Chodesh Elul

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

1991: As the Fed expressed its displeasure over Salomon Brothers trading activity, Bond Trader Paul William Mozer was suspended today.

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

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

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

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

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

2002(1stof Elul, 5762): Rosh Chodesh Elul

2002(1stof Elul, 5762): Eighty-six year old Marian Pollock, the wife of Louis Pollock passed away today.

2002(1stof Elul, 5762): Seventy three year old Emmy award winning composer Peter Matz passed away today.


2004(22ndof Av, 5764): Ninety-two year composer David Raskin who earned two Oscar nominations while composing over 400 scores for movies and television series including the western “Wagon Train” and medical series “Ben Casey” passed away today.



2004: TNT broadcast the final episode of “The Grid” a miniseries starring Julianna Margulies.

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

2005:  The Jerusalem Post reported on The Dry Bones Project.  The project is the brainchild of Yaakov Kirschen, creator of the popular Dry Bones Cartoons.  The project is intended to use humor to fight anti-Semitism.  Kirschen plans to talk about his work at international conference of cartoon aficionados to be held later this month.  An example of the projects work is The Shmendrick Awards. Those awarded Shmendriks will be "honored" during a ceremony in this year's Animation, Comics and Caricature Festival in the Tel Aviv Cinematheque from August 27 to 30. “.This year, the winners (or rather, the "ineffectual losers") are the mayor of London, Ken Livingston, for his frequent remarks disparaging the Jewish state (in first place); the American Presbyterian Church for divesting from companies doing business in Israel (in second place); the Neturei Karta - a small group of ultra-Orthodox Jews who protest against Zionism and the State of Israel (in third place); and an honorable mention for Prince Harry, who appeared in a Nazi costume two weeks before the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. For more info on the project, go to http://www.drybonesproject.com.

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

2005(4th of Av, 5765): Eighty-five year old Abraham Jacob “Abe” Hirschfeld, the New York real estate investor and Democratic Party activist passed away today.


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



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



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

2007: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Saudi Arabian government continues to bar Jews and Christians from bringing items such as Bibles, crucifixes and Stars of David into the country and is threatening to confiscate them on sight. "A number of items are not allowed to be brought into the kingdom due to religious reasons and local regulations," declares the Web site of Saudi Arabian Airlines, the country's national carrier.

2007:A 23-year-old Jewish woman was attacked in Noisy-le-Grand, near Paris, by two youths who beat her and shouted anti-Semitic slogans, said the French National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism. The attackers shouted "You dirty Jew" at the woman before stealing the mobile phone she was using and beating her violently about the head and body. One of the two attackers was later arrested by police and put in custody. According to Rebecca, the two aggressors recognized her Jewish origin when they saw a Star of David around her neck. At first she didn't mention the anti-Semitic character of the attack to police out of fear for reprisals, but she did so later after speaking to the National Bureau of Vigilance against anti-Semitism.

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

2008: Five of Israel's representatives will be competing in the first day of the Olympic Games today. Judoka Gal Yekutiel will be the first Israeli to take part in the Games, facing Athens 2004 bronze medalist Tsagaanbaatar Hashbaatar of Mongolia on Saturday afternoon in the first round of the under-60kg event at the University of Science and Technology Gymnasium. Gymnast Alex Shatilov will compete at the National Indoor Stadium, while Gal Nevo, Anya Gostomelsky and Tom Be'eri will swim for the first time at the National Aquatics Center.

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



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

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

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

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


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

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

The mayor’s car was damaged in this evening’s attack, which occurred as Barkat was leaving a personal meeting with a prominent Jerusalem rabbi in the Ezrat Torah neighborhood.

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

2010:Oscilloscope Laboratories said today that it would appeal the rating by the Classification and Rating Administration for "A Film Unfinished," which explores a Nazi propaganda film taken in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942. With an R rating, viewers under the age of 17 must be accompanied by an adult. The rating board explained its decision, saying the movie contained “disturbing images of Holocaust atrocities, including graphic nudity.” “This is too important of a historical document to ban from classrooms,” Adam Yauch, an owner of Oscilloscope and a founding member of the Beastie Boys, said in a statement issued today. The film, which was first screened at the Sundance Film Festival this year, is set to open nationally later this month.

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


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

2011.” New Zealand Jewish Council chairman Geoff Levy described the interim agreement as “a positive outcome” for the 7,000-member Jewish community.

2010:The synagogue of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, luminary sage and father of modern religious Zionism, was reopened today in southern Tel Aviv 30 years after it closed its doors. The synagogue, Shaarei Torah, is located in the Neveh Shalom neighborhood just north of Yafo (Jaffa).

Following the informal re-dedication today amid singing and dancing, the synagogue is now open for daily prayers.

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

2011:The British Jewish community has expressed its shock over the recent rioting which has shaken the UK over the last few days. The Board of Deputies of British Jews called for unity and said today that the community’s thoughts were with the victims. “The Jewish community, like all right minded people, will have been shocked and appalled at the wanton destruction and criminality witnessed on our streets over the last few days,” Jon Benjamin, chief executive of the Board of Deputies. “Attacks on businesses and property are also assaults on the lives and livelihoods of decent hardworking people, trying to get by in difficult times, and the perpetrators are beneath contempt.” Yesterday, the Board’s interfaith manager Philip Rosenberg spoke alongside Muslim and Christian representatives at a vigil in Tottenham, calling for unity and a concerted effort by communities to address the problems they face.

 2011:Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, who is a member of the Trajtenberg Committee created to examine the demands of the social-movement protesters, visited the Rothschild Boulevard tent protest on this evening where activists explained to him their discontent with the government, and particularly the minister's, inefficiency. In response to a demonstrator's inquiry about so-called tycoons' lack of responsibility to the general public, Katz said that the situation was "serious" and that "we need to deal with it."

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


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


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

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

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

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

2012:Al-Quds also reported this morning, that Mossad had transferred a list of names to Egyptian Intelligence that contained nine names of terrorists connected to the attack in Rafah. According to the same source, this led Egyptian intelligence to send a request to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, using senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar as an intermediary, to extradite members of  the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ paramilitary wing.

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

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

2012(21st of Av, 5772): Eighty-three year old Mel Stuart director and producer whose career ranged from the ultra-light (Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” to the very serious (The Triangle Factory Fire Scandal) passed away today in Beverly Hills.



2012: The Cleveland Indians fired Scott Radinsky as their pitching coach.

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


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


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

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

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

2013: An Israeli Air Force drone reportedly struck a jihadist rocket launcher in the Sinai Peninsula near the Israeli-Egyptian border, killing four suspected terrorists who were planning to launch missiles at Israel, Egyptian security sources told Reuters today. Details of the strike remain unclear. Five different security sources told Reuters the strike was done by Israel, while an Egyptian army spokesman issued a statement on Facebook several hours after the strike denying Israel was behind it. Israeli officials, meanwhile, declined to comment on the reports.

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

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

2014: “After nearly two years of campaigning, millions of dollars spent and one tropical storm that delayed voting in this easternmost corner of Hawaii for nearly a week, Senator Brian Schatz won the Democratic nomination for his seat” today.

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


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

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

2015: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish writers and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Days of Awe by Lauren Fox and We’re Still Here Ya Bastards:

How the People of New Orleans Rebuilt Their City by Roberta Brandes Gratz

2015:April Slabosheski , the Holocaust Educator at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to teach “Holocaust Memorials: Context, Interpretation, Memory,” a class “where participants will learn about concepts that underlie widely known Holocaust memorials throughout the world.”

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

2015: Adei Ad, which is part of the Shilo bloc of settlements was among the outposts raided today by police and agents of the Shin Beit security service who “detained at least nine people.”

2015: In an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria broadcast today, President Obama “said Israeli interference in internal US affairs ahead of a Congressional vote on the Iranian nuclear deal was unprecedented.”

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

2015: The Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust is scheduled to host a talk by Betty Cohen the Amsterdam native who “spent two years in hiding” until she and her family “were discovered and sent to concentration camps.”

2016(5th of Av, 5776): Ninety-one year old Russian sculptor Ernst Neizvestny passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)


2016: Linda Levi is scheduled to speak on “The JDC Archives and What We have to Offer Jewish Genealogists” at the 36thIAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy.

2016: A gag order was lifted today which made public the arrest of 38 year old Wahid al-Bursh, “as senor United Nations engineer” on charges of “abusing his post in order to aid Hamas.”

2016:The Last Jews Of Baghdad” which “provides a historical and personal view of the persecution, torture, escape, and flight of over 160,000 Jews from Iraq between the years 1940 and 2003” is scheduled to be shown at the Southampton Jewish Film Festival.

2017: “The Caravan Orchestra,” “a collaborative project of Jewish Summer Weimar and the Franz Liszt Music Academy in Weimar” is scheduled  tonight in Erfurt “in celebration of Erfurt’s sister partnership with Haifa.”

2017: The Suzanne Dellal Centre is scheduled to present “Dust,” “an ensemble of four male dancers,” as part of Tel Aviv Dance.

2018(28th of Av): Yarhrzeit for Larry Rosenstein, of blessed memory, husband of Judy Levin Rosenstein, of blessed memory.  Gone too soon but always remembered! 

2018: The Breman Museum is scheduled to co-host “Theatre as Social Change,” “a panel discussion with theatre directors and educators, Mira Hirsh and Patrick McClorey.

2018: In the early morning hours, Israeli time, dozens of rockets have been fired into Israel from Gaza wounding civilians and forcing untold thousands to spend the night in shelters while the sound of rockets mixes with the sound of silence from a world that will care when the IDF strikes back at the terrorists.

 

 

 

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

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August 10
 
612 BCE: Sinsharishkun, King of the Assyrian Empire was killed and his capital city of Nineveh was destroyed.  This is the same Assyria that destroyed the Northern Kingdom and laid siege to Jerusalem.  This is also the same Nineveh to which God had sent Jonah.

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

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

1002: “Shortly after gain the support of the Saxons” Henry II, the Holy Roman Emperor whose expulsion of the Jews from Mayence was lamented in dirges composed by the poet Simon ben Isaac and of which Gershom ben Yehuda said, “Thou hast made those who despise They Law to have dominion over Thy people…” “arranged for Archbishop Willigist to crown his wife…as Queen of Germany” today “in Paderborn.”

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

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

1391: Massacre of the Jews in Gerona, Spain.

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

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

1675: The Portuguese-Jewish synagogue opens in Amsterdam.

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

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

1792: As the French Revolution, which would eventually bring the rights of citizenship to French Jews, intensified, Louis XVI was imprisoned today.

1793: On the first anniversary of the end of the Louvre, which among other things contains “4,000 engravings, 3,000 drawings, and 500 illustrated books” donated by Baron Edmond de Rothschild in 1935, was opened to the public for the first time as a museum.

1793(2ndof Elul, 5553): Thirty-four year old Jacob Aaron (Kopel ben Aaron Berstat) passed away today in London.

1794: In Detmold, Germany, ‘Talmud scholar Immanuel Menachem Zunz and Hendel Behrens, the daughter of Dov Beer,] an assistant cantor of the Detmold community” gave birth tobLeopold Zunz  also known as Yom Tov Lipmann Tzuntz, "the German Reform rabbi and writer who was the founder of what has been termed the "Science of Judaism" (Wissenschaft des Judentums), the critical investigation of Jewish literature, hymnology and ritual.

 

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

1808: Emanuel Lazarus married Sophia Simmons today at the Great Synagogue.

1808: Isaac ben Uri married Reizecha bat Judah Leib today at the Western Synagogue.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1832: Philip Minis, a Savannah physician and the son of Judge Isaac Minis shot and killed James Stark after the latter had called him a “damn Jew,” “a coward” and had pulled a gun on him in the City Hotel at Savannah.


1835(15thof Av, 5595): Tu B’Av

1835: Frederick David Goldsmid, MP and his wife gave birth to their oldest daughter Helen who as the wife of Lionel Lucas whom she married in 1855 was active in the Anglo-Jewish community as can be seen by her service as the President of the Workrooms Committee of the Jewish Board of Guardians, Treasurer of the Jewish Ladies’ West End Charity and Patroness of the City of London Benevolent Society for Assisting Widows of the Jewish Faith.

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

1845: Two days after he had passed away, Lambert Ellis, the husband of Sarah Ellis with whom he had six children – Asher, Abraham, Esther, Jonas, Anna and Moses – was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.

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

1846: President James K. Polk signed the Smithsonian Institution Act into law” which created the museum known as the Smithsonian Institution of which the National Museum of American Jewish History would eventually become an affiliate institution. 

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

1854: The Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau opened today.

1856: In Stuttgart, Dr. Friedrich Heimerdinger and his wife gave birth to General Erwin von Heimerdinger the father of Gertrude von Heimerdinger who “was employed in the German Foreign Office as assistant Chief of the Diplomatic Courier Section. An anti-Nazi, she secretly arranged for special passes to enable diplomat Fritz Kolbe (the main Allied source of intelligence) to make frequent trips to Switzerland to pass on information to Allen Dulles, head of American O.S.S.” (Jewish Virtual Library)

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

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

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

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

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

1861: Forty-year old Samuel (Isaac) Henry Gluckstein a cigar maker from Dusseldorf became a naturalized citizen of the United Kingdom today.

1861: Philadelphian Nathan Rosenfelt who was later wounded at the Battle of Antietam, began serving with company A of the 72nd Regiment.

1861: Henry Isaacs “enlisted with Company M” of the 72nd Regiment today.

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

1861: Philadelphian James Comelien began serving in the 5th Cavalry where he reached the rank of Lieutenant.

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

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

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

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

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

1873: In Cleveland, Ohio, William Hocking and Julia Pratt gave birth to William Ernest Hocking the Harvard professor who in 1936 expressed his opposition to Jewish settlement in Palestine because it “lacks rainfall” and it is “the immediate” cause “for turbulence on the part of the Arabs” while attacking the Pro-Palestine Federation led by its President, Charles Edward Russell.

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

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

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

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

1875: In Cincinnati, Ohio, William Jacob Mack and Rebecca M. Mack gave birth to Jacob William Mack

 “a member of the executive board of Hebrew Union College, president of Wise Temple in Cincinnati, Ohio, and president of the International Association of Garment Manufacturers and Chairman of the Mack Shirt Corporation.

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

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

1878: Birthdate of San Francisco native and U.C. Berkley undergrad, Saul Epsteen, noted mathematician and author.


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

1879: In Dresden, “Gustav and Amalie Pinthus” gave birth to Dora Pinthus who married Oskar Michael Blumenthal and became Dora Blumenthal the name under which she was murdered at Theresiendstadt Ghetto.

1879: Two days after she had passed away, Catherine (Elisa) Levy, the wife of Lewis Levy with whom she had had seven children – Esther, Jane, Abraham, Amelia, Frances, Samuel and Philip – was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.

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

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

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

1880: In Romania, Abraham and Vera Landesco gave birth to Alexander A. Landesco, the graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School and director of “relief work in East Europe for the Joint Distribution Committee” after World War I who spent 25 years with Lazard Freres and Company was the husband of Olga Spiegel Landesco.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1885: Birthdate of Cincinnati native and Harvard Law School graduate who was a WW I veteran and a director of Big Brothers in Chicago.

1886(9thof Av, 5646): Tish’a B’Av

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

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

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

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

1889: In Brooklyn, “Mary (Miriam) Natelson and Samson Nateslon, who married Dr. Meyer Weiner and as Ethel Weiner, the Brooklyn school teacher, “vice president of the Jewish Teachers Association” and “a sister of the Rachel Natelson… who collaborated with Henrietta Szold in founding Hadassah.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1895: Birthdate of Harold Reichman, the native of Cincinnati, Ohio who at the age of 18 changed his name to Harry Richman – the name under which he carved out a career as “a singer, actor, dancer, comedian, pianist, songwriter, bandleader, and night club performer” who began his film career in the classic “Putting on the Ritz.”


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

1896: Birthdate Pediatrician Dorothy Wilkes Weiss, the wife of Charles Wilkes who was active in Hadassah while living in San Francisco.


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

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


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

1898: One day after she had passed away. Phoebe Winkel, the “wife of Israel J. Winkel” with she had five children – Joseph, Solomon, Kate, Sarah and Leah – was buried today at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.

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

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

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

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

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

1906: Birthdate of Abie Bain, the native of St. Petersburg, Russia who reportedly began his boxing career in the United States at the age of 12 as a flyweight but boxed as middleweight for most of his career except when he stepped up to Light Heavyweight class to fight Maxie Rosenbloom.

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

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

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

1911: Birthdate of American playwright Jerome Chodorov, the New York native who is the brother of playwright Edward Chodorov.


1912(27thof Av, 5672): Parashat Re’eh

1912: Approximately 75 people attended services at the Social Hall of the Forest House in Kennebunkport, Maine, led by Rabbi Bernard. G. Ehrenreich of Montgomery, Alabama.

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

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

1913: One day after he had passed away, Myer Friedland, the husband of Eva Friedland with whom he had two children – Martha and Annie – was buried today at “the Belfast Jewish Cemetery in Northern Ireland.”

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

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

1915: During the Gallipoli campaign, which saw the appearance of the Zion Mule Corps, forces under Mustfa Kemal (who would gain fame as Ataturk)) defeated the Allies during the Battle of Sari Bair.

1916: Oscar S. Straus and Henry Morgenthau, the two previous U.S. Ambassadors to Turkey were sitting at the speakers table with Abram I. Elkus, the latest appointee to the position at a dinner at the Fruendschaft Society where the attendees expressed “satisfaction and pride in the service rendered to the nation by the Jews.”

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

1916: It was reported today that in Warsaw which is now under German rule “death from starvation” is so prevalent among the Jews, “that Jewish mothers feel happy to see their nursing babies die” because it puts an end to their suffering and that even the “wealthiest” Jews “cut off their daughters’ hair and sell it to be able to buy indispensable thing like bread for their dying children.”

1916: It was reported today that a commission has been to Switzerland to seek help in maintaining the soup kitchens for the Jews in Warsaw, but that the real hope is that American Jews will send aid because “should America not aid” them, the Jews of Warsaw “will be lost.”

 

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

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

1917: “Professor Felix Frankfurter of Harvard, the assistant to the Secretary of War, who went abroad recently as a member of a semi-official commission” that sought to determine “the condition of the Jews of Palestine” returned to Washington, D.C.

1917: In Berlin, “five orthodox representative of the Jewish community resigned because of the appointment of a radical reformer, Dr. Benzion Kellerman, as a rabbi of the synagogue of the South-eastern district.
1918: During the Battle of Amiens which General John Monash was the commanding field officer, the French re-took the town of Montdidier.

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

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

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

1920: In London “Eight year old Jewish chess wonder” Samuel Rzeschewski “played simultaneous games against twenty strong amateur player at the Gambit Chess rooms” his evening and won 18 of he games and having two end in a draw.

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


1921: Eight days she had passed away, Rebecca Linneweil, the wife of Salomon Linneweil and the mother of Henriette Linneweil was buried today at London’s Edmonton Adath Yisroel Jewish Cemetery.

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

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

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

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

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

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

1929(4thof Av, 5689): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon

1929(4thof Av, 5689): Seventy-five year old Aletta Jacobs, the female trailblazer who followed in her father’s footsteps and became a physician and was an active suffragette passed away today.


1929(4thof Ave, 5689): Seventy-five year old Aletta Henriëtte Jacobs “the first woman to attend a Dutch University officially and the first female physician in the Netherlands” passed away today.



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

1929

1929: “The Awful Truth” a comedy filmed by cinematographer David Abel was released today in the United States.

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

1932: In today’s diary entry, 18 year old Hermann Pressman, who would survive the Holocaust” described spending his Sunday evening with friends at a Berlin café.

1932: In Berlin “conductor and composer Walter Goehr” and wife gave birth to “British composer and professor Peter Alexander Goehr.


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

1933: Eighteen year old Heddy Lamarr married “Austrian military arms merchant and munitions manufacturer” Friedrich Mandl who “was reputed to be the third richest man in Austria.

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

1936: At Geneva, “the Polish delegation to the World Jewish Congress charged early today in a statement present at the third day’s session that Poland’s 3,500,000 Jews were being terrorized and made paupers. (Editor’s note – the rising tide of Polish anti-Semitism during the 1930’s might help to explain the ease with which her Jewish population was all but wiped in the Shoah)

1936: It was reported today that economist Jacob Lesthiesky estimated that “Nazism has reduced 20 to 22 per cent of All Germans to dependence on relief and 20 per cent of the Jews have already liquidated their affairs in preparation for emigration” and that Polish economist Dr. Arjeh Tartakower estimated that 200,000 Jews in world are being compelled to emigrate due to “economic or political pressure.”

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

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

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

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

1938: Nuremberg Synagogue is burnt down.

1939: Bernhard Maissner (also known as Bejrich Bernhard Majzner) was forced to move to Bentschen, Poland before being shipped to Treblinka where “later he was declared to have perished.”

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

1942(27th of Av, 5702): Twenty-seven year old Berta Samuel who had been shipped to Auschwitz from Drancy died at the Nazi death camp today.

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

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

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

1944: In Manhattan, “Dr. Abraham Leff, a psychiatrist, and the former Rose Levy, a pharmacist” gave birth to Eugene Joel Leff, the lawyer who got justice for the victims of Love Canal.  (As reported by Sam Roberts)


1945(1stof Elul, 5705): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1945: A day after the United States dropped the Atomic Bomb on Nagasaki, the Japanese government sent word through diplomatic channels that it would accept the terms of the Potsdam Conference which meant that WW II was close to coming a close.

1945(1stof Elul, 5705): Staff Sargent Jack Winer, he “only son of a Jewish immigrant mother from Russia” and “a navigator for the 345th Bombardment Group, was killed during an air raid today days before the surrender of Japan” after which he was reinterred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in 1949 and erroneously “ended up with a cross on his headstone instead of the Star of David.”

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

1948(5th of Av, 5708): Sixty-five year old Viennese native Nathan Eibschutz, the “son of Rabbi Rahmiel Eibschutz,” “a founder of Israel Zion Hospital,” the President and Treasurer of the Night and Day Press printing house and the husband of Ceclia Friedman Eibschutz, of blessed memory and the former Monya W. Tepperman, passed away today in Manhattan.


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

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

1949(15thof Av, 5709): Tu B’Av

1949(15thof Av, 5709): Yiddish author and Belarus native, Yosef or Joseph Tunkel who used “he pen name Der Tunkler” passed away today and was then “buried in the New Mount Carmel Cemetery.



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

1953: “The Caddy” a Martin and Lewis comedy directed by Norman Taurog and a script co-authored by Danny Arnold was released in the United States today.

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

1959:  Birthdate of actress Rosanna Arquette.

1960: In East Bergholt, Suffolk, “screenwriter, novelist and journalist” Frederic Raphael gave birth to English artist Sarah Natasha Raphael.

1960: The original “Ocean’s 11” directed and produced by Lewis Milestone, co-staring Sammy Davis, Jr. and Joey Bishop and featuring Norman Fell was released in the United States today.

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

1964: It was reported that Alaska Democrat Ernest Gruening was one of only two Senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.  The two senators saw the resolution as “unconstitutional because it was ‘a pre-dated declaration of war power’ reserved to Congress. This vote cost him his seat in the Senate; a fate that many of the johnny-come-lately opponents such as the anti-Semite J. William Fulbright were spared.

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


1969(26thof Av, 5729): Seventy-two year old Arthur J  “Art” Strauss also known as Dutch Strauss the fullback and running back for Phillips College before turning pro with the Toledo Marrons and the Kansas City Blues passed away today.

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

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

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

1977: “The Kentucky Fried Movie,” a comedy written by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker was released in the United States today.

1979: “Americathon” a comedy produced by Joe Roth and starring Harvey Korman and Peter Riegert was released today in the United States today.

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

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

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

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

1986: A Broadway revival of “Me and My Girl” featuring George S. Irving in “his Tony nominated performance as Sir John” opened today at the Marquis Theatre.

1988:  After opening in Australia, “Crimes of the Future,” “a Canadian sci-fi film” directed by, produced by, written by, filmed by and edited by David Conenberg was release today in the United States.

1989(9thof Av, 5749): Tish’a B’Av

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

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

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


1991(30thof Av, 5751): Shabbat and Rosh Chodesh Elul

1991(30thof Av, 5751): Eighty-five year old Hans Jacob Polostky, the native of Zurich and German educated orientalist who made Aliyah in 1935 to escape the Nazis and became an award winning Professor at Hebrew University passed away today.


1993: Ruth Bader Ginsburg was sworn as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme court. Thus she became the second woman, and the first Jewish woman, to serve on the Supreme Court. Ginsburg replaced retiring justice Byron R. White. “Born in Brooklyn on March 15, 1933, Ginsburg was the first in her immediate family to attend college. She earned her B.A. from Cornell, with High Honors in Government, in 1954. Admitted to Harvard Law School, she delayed her studies to move with her husband to Oklahoma, where she worked for the Social Security Administration. Returning east, Ginsburg enrolled at Harvard in 1956, but switched to Columbia Law School for her final year when her husband accepted a job offer from a prestigious New York law firm. At both Harvard and Columbia, Ginsburg was accepted to the Law Review; at Columbia, she tied for first in her class. Despite this record of achievement, Ginsburg found it difficult to work as a lawyer upon graduation. Few judges and no law firms were willing to accept a woman as clerk or staff member. Finally, she won a clerkship with Judge Edmund L. Palmieri of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Palmieri accepted her only on the promise from a male lawyer that if Ginsburg did not work out, the man would leave a law firm job to become a law clerk. That proved unnecessary. After her clerkship, Ginsburg worked for the Columbia Project on International Civil Procedure, which did basic research on foreign systems of civil procedure and recommended changes in the U.S. system of transnational litigation. With the completion of the Columbia Project, Ginsburg embarked on an academic career, first at Rutgers University (1963-1972) (where she was paid less than her male colleagues), and then at Columbia (1972-1980), where she was the first tenured woman on the law faculty. Just before her move to Columbia, Ginsburg also became co-director of the ACLU's Women's Rights Project.

Dividing her time between Columbia and the ACLU, Ginsburg worked extensively on sex-discrimination cases, especially those relating to employment. In this work, Ginsburg filed briefs in nine major sex discrimination cases that were decided by the Supreme Court, personally arguing six of them. Ginsburg argued that protections granted to persons under the constitution should apply to women and, thus, successfully established that differential treatment based on gender was unconstitutional. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed Ginsburg to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. She served there for thirteen years, until her nomination and confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court. In nominating Ginsburg to the Supreme Court, President Clinton described her as "one of our nation's best judges, progressive in outlook, wise in judgment, balanced and fair in her opinions." He also said that "Ruth Bader Ginsburg cannot be called a liberal or a conservative. She has proved herself too thoughtful for such labels." Ginsburg's record as a centrist likely helped to ease her confirmation; the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously endorsed her nomination, and the full Senate voted 96-3 in her favor.

On the Court, Ginsburg's work has been characterized by cool logic and reason, and a pragmatism that takes into account the real-life implications of Court decisions. In her written decisions she has continued to establish the constitutional basis for prohibiting discrimination based on gender. Justice Ginsburg has actively participated in this year's 350th anniversary celebrations of Jewish life in North America, pointing proudly to Judaism's eternal pursuit of justice, the promise of America, and the accomplishments of Jewish women who have preceded her. The resignation of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor makes Justice Ginsburg the only woman on the Supreme Court.”

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

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


2000(9thof Av, 5760): Tish’a B’Av

2000:At the U.S. Olympic swimming trials in Indianapolis, Indiana, Dara Torres swam the 100-meter butterfly in a time of 57.86. In 2005, Torres was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.”

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

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

2003: “Shattered Glass” a biopic based on the fraudulent journalistic career of Stephen Glass premiered today at the Toronto International Film Festival today.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2009: Opening of the Tzfat [Safed] Klezmer Festival

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

2009: Israeli aircraft bombed tunnels early today along the Gaza Strip border with Egypt, Hamas officials and witnesses said. There were no immediate reports of casualties from the predawn raid against targets in the town of Rafah. The Israeli military had no immediate comment. Israel has frequently attacked tunnels it says are used to smuggle weapons or materials to build weapons into Gaza from Egypt. The bombings may also have been response re-newed mortar and rocket attacks by terrorists in Gaza.

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

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


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


2010: Paul Hunt began serving as Canada’s Ambassador to Israel.2010: The first public screening of “A Film Unfinished” is scheduled to take place at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City. 2010: While testifying before the Turkel Committee today, Defense Minister Ehud Barak “placed the blame” for the botched flotilla raid “on the IDF, which he said was responsible for warning the government if ‘the mission cannot be carried out.’ In the case of the flotilla the IDF did not warn, Barak said.

2010: “The Human Resources Manager” the movie version of the A.B. Yehoshua novel by the same name directed by Eran Riklis and starring Mark Ivanir was released today in Israel.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2012: Shai Wosner is scheduled to perform at Lincoln Center

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2014: “Rocket fire from the Gaza Strip continued today, with over nine rockets being shot at Israel throughout the day. Six hit the Eshkol Regional Council in the early hours, while two others slammed into Sderot, starting a small fire. Two more rockets were intercepted about the city.” (As reported by Ilana Curiel)

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

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

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

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


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

2015: Thanks to the efforts of New York State Assembly member Todd Kaminsky, the nephew of Mel Brooks, the emergency room at the Long Beach Community Center that had been closed since Hurricane Sandy reopened today.

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

2015: “I’m convinced that Fiamma Nirenstein” whose appointment as Israel’s ambassador to Rome has rattled the Italian Jewish community “will bring with her to the position lots of diplomatic and political experience, and will succeed in deepening the relationship between Israel and Italy, our close friends, and act for diplomatic, economic, cultural and security cooperation,” Netanyahu said in a statement today

2015: “A disaster at Ben Gurion International Airport was narrowly averted today when a drone came dangerously close to an incoming plane, forcing the aircraft to adjust its course.”

2015: Just days before his death, Kate Edgar, “the longtime personal assistant” of Dr. Oliver Sacks “who described herself as his ‘collaborator, friend, researcher and editor’ wrote in an email ‘He is still writing with great clarity.  We are pretty sure he will go with fountain pen in hand.’”

2015: “The Obama administration, citing the potential for economic and political harm to the Palestinian Authority and the broader peace process, asked a judge today to “carefully consider” the size of the bond he requires for the authority to appeal a huge damages award for its role in six terrorist attacks in Israel that killed and injured Americans.

2016: William Korn is scheduled to lecture on “Pioneer Jews of Leadville, Colorado, 1878-1914” and David McDonald is scheduled to lecture on “A Gentile in the Tribe: Using Christian Church Records” at the 36th IAJGCS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Seattle.

2016: Today Luciana Berger was not selected by the “Labor Party candidate for the position of Metro Mayor of Liverpool.”

2016: “Deli Man” a film that paints a portrait of the rapidly disappearing delicatessens in the United States” is scheduled to be shown in London tonight. 

2017: In Weimar, YSW is scheduled to host both a Dance Orchestra Workshop and Dance Workshop followed in the evening by a series of Yiddish music jam sessions.

2017: “Ballet Pécs, the first contemporary ballet company of Hungary,” is scheduled to present “Carmen” as part of the dance festival in Tel Aviv.

2018: Seventy years and one day after fifty year old Chaim Soutine died in Paris while trying to avoid capture by the Gestapo, the Jewish Museum is scheduled to host a tour of the exhibition “Chaim Soutine: Flesh” featuring thirty of picture painted by the French expressionist.

2018: “Classical Bridge, an international music festival, academy and conference designed to build bridges through the music” featuring violinist Pinchas Zuckerman and clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein is scheduled to continue today in New York.

2018: As Israelis awaken, the question on everybody’s mind is will the truce with Hamas that was supposed to go into effect last night hold or will the rockets and flammable kites return.

 

 

 

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

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August 11

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

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

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

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

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

1778: Birthdate of Prussian native Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, the German nationalist whose statement in 1810 that "Poles, French, priests, aristocrats and Jews are Germany's misfortune” are an example of views that Peter Vierck among others  claimed made him “the spiritual founder of Nazism” – a claim challenged by the highly respected Jacques Barzun who “observed that Viereck's portrait of cultural trends supposedly leading to Nazism was "a caricature without resemblance" relying on "misleading shortcuts.”

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

1793: Thirty-four year old Jacob Aaron who had passed away on Shabbat, was buried today at the Alderney Road Jewish Cemetery in the UK.

1799(10th of Av, 5559): Tish’a B’Av observed for the last time in the 18thcentury

1800: Today, “Benjamin Nones,” who had come to the United States from Bordeaux in 1777 “published a reply to an anonymous anti-Semitic letter which had been printed on August 5 in the Gazette of the United States.

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

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

1824: Yitzhak ben Sampson married Perla bat Benjamin today.

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

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

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

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

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

1843(15th of Av, 5603): Tu B’Av

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

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

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

1851: In Vienna, Eleanor and Josef Pick gave birth to Leopold Pick

1852: In Bielostok, Russia, Noah Brodsky and his wife gave birth to Hyman Brodsky who “was instrumental in establishing Sheltering Homes, Talmud Torah Schools, Free Schools, Free Libraries, Building Associations, Loan Associations, Chevra Kadisha and Zionist Societies in New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Providence, RI, Troy, NY and Newark, NJ where since 1899 he has served as the rabbi of Congregation Anshe Russia.

1852: One day after he had passed away, Simon Simmons, the son of Joseph of Rosa Simmons and the husband of Catherine Davis with whom he had seven children – Rosetta, Esther, Israel, Caroline, Joseph, Mary Ann and Elizabeth – was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.

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

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

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

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

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

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

1862: During the Civil War, Philadelphian Jacob Benedict a Corporal in Company H of the 122ndRegiment began serving in the Union Army.

1862: During the Civil War, Philadelphians Elias Bear, Lewis Cohen, Isaac Davidson, Henry Myers and David Fellenbaum began their nine month enlistment in the 122ndRegiment.

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

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

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

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

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

1873: Philadelphian Jonathan Manly Emanuel, the son of London born physician Manly Emanuel, who had joined the U.S. Navy as an engineer during the Civil War completed a month tour at the Navy Yard in Philadelphia today after which he was assigned to the “Tuscarora.”

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

1879: The New York Times featured a review of Somebody’s Ned by Mrs. A.M. Freeman. This is a work of romantic fiction combined with a murder mystery.  In this case the star crossed lovers are a French Catholic named Danton Roland and French Jewess named Rachel Rosenthal as well David Dudley and Jessica-Rachel.  The plot thickens when Solomon Rosenthal is found dead. To find “who done it” go to

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

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

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

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

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

1882: In Silesia, Rabbi Jacob David Kallen and Esther Rebecca Glazier gave birth to Horace M. Kallen, one of seven children all of whom, in 1887, came to the United States where Kallen would graduate from Harvard, become the first Jewish professor at Princeton while maintaining a leadership role in the American Jewish Community.



 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1891: Three days after she had passed away, 52 year old Frederika Myers, the wife of Morris Myers was buried at the Stockton Jewish Cemetery.

1892:  Birthdate of publishing giant Alfred Knopf.

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

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

1894: Birthdate of Ernst Angel the Viennese born man of letters who wrote the script for “Love on Wheels, a British musical comedy before morphing into an American psychologist

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1899: In Mitau, Latvia, merchant Lazar Hirshhorn and his wife Amelia gave birth to their 12thchild, Joseph Herman Hirshhorn, the self-made financier and prospector best known for his role in establishing the Joseph H. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.

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

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

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

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

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

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

1908: Nathan Solity married Miriam Mendie today at the New Briggate Synagogue in Leeds, UK

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

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

1911(17th of Av, 5671): One hundred seventeen year old Rabbi Isaac Reich passed away at Szamos Hungary.

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

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

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

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

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

1912: In Providence, Rhode, Island, found of Beth Israel synagogue.

1912: In Kenosha, Wisconsin founding of B’nai Zedek synagogue.

1914: Jews are expelled from Mitchenick, Poland

1914: In a move that showed the British navy did not understand the strategic consequences of its mission, two German warships entered the Dardenlles – a move that would push the Ottoman Empire into the arms of the Central Powers.  (Editor’s note – one can only wonder what would have happened to the Middle East, including Palestine if the Ottomans had remained neutral or joined the Allies.)

1915: As the Cossack and Dragoons continued their attack on the Jews of Lokachi in the Province of Volinski a gendarme found the blood covered coat of Gershon Pfeffer, a Jew who had been dragged off into the woods three days earlier when he resisted being lined up with the other Jews who were then robbed “of all their money and valuables.”

1915: Today in San Francisco., Attorney Edwin R.A. Seligman delivered “The Next Step in Tax Reform,” the Presidential Address at the “Ninth Annual Conference of the National Tax Association”

1916: It was reported today that Oscar Straus, the former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, “assailed Jews who sought to forget their ancestors and their Jewish inheritance” saying “that if the present fashion in Jewish families of giving their children names as remote as possible from those with a Jewish sound continued, within a short time only Americans of Puritan ancestry would have names of Abraham and Jacob, Ruth and Esther.”

1917: It was reported today that the British Labour Party has adopted a memorandum on issues that will be part of a peace settlement that stated “in behalf of the Jews equal citizenship rights with other inhabitants is demanded from all countries and it is hoped that Palestine will be free from Turkish domination and become a free state under international guarantees to which such Jews as desire my return to work out their own salivation free from interference from nations and religions.”

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

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

1918: It was reported today that in a recent speech given by Dr. von Seidler, the Austrian Premier to the Lower House of the Austrian Reichstag, he said that “most of the Jews” in Austria “are counted as Germans unlike all of the other groups like the Poles, Czechs and Italians who are counted separately. (Editor’s note – considering what would happen twenty years later, this method might have come as a shock to those caught up in the Anschluss)

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

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

1921: In Haifa, “agronomist Yechiel Weizman and his wife gave birth to Yael Weizman, who as Yael Allingham, the wife of Conal Wolsey Allingham, invented “polymeric mulch sheets and mulch films for use in agriculture.”

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5138792.html

1923: In the Bronx, Benjamin Meschess and the former Anna Grosse gave birth to Arnold Mesches,, a scenic designer who was tracked by the F.B.I. for a quarter of a century. (As reported by William Grimes)

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/arts/design/arnold-mesches-artist-who-was-recorded-by-the-fbi-dies-at-93.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

1923: At a session of the World Zionist Congress meeting in in Carslbad, Czechoslovakia, that continued until 2 o'clockthis morning, Dr. Chaim Weizmann and Nabum Sokolow, heads of the World Zionist Organization, defended their administration from the attacks to which it has been subjected during the last few days.

1925: Birthdate of Philadelphia native Arnold Schulman the University of North Carolina trained screenwriter whose work on such films as “Love With A Proper Stranger” and “A Hole in the Head” have earned him Writers Guild and Oscar nominations.

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

1926: Birthdate of Brooklyn native Saul Fredericks Rabiner, the Tulane trained doctor and WW II veteran who served on the faculty at the Prtzker Medical School.

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

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

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

1929: Birthdate of Frankfurt, Germany native Geoffrey H. Hartmann one of “the Jewish children evacuated from Nazi Germany as part of a Kindertransport” who became a Professor of English and comparative literature at Yale, co-founder of the Judaic studies program at Yale and the “first director of what is now the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale.”

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

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

1930(17thof Av, 5690): Sixty-five year old Hungarian native, Rudolph Farbert, the father of Lillie, Bertrum, Leona, Arnold and Nettye who served as Rabbi at Congregation Gates of Heaven from 1885 to 1887  and Mt. Saini in Texarkana, TX passed away today in Chicago after which he was buried at Waldehim Jewish Cemetery.

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

1932(9thof Av, 5692): Tisha B’Av

1932: Birthdate of American architect Peter Eisenman

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

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

1933: Judah Bergman, the World Light Welterweight Champion, who boxed under the name of Jack kid Berg, “married Bunty Pain, a dancer at the Trocadero, today at Prince's Row register office in London.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

http://www.askart.com/askart/m/leo_mielziner/leo_mielziner.aspx

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

1936: “The Polish delegation to the World Jewish Congress charged early today…that Poland’s 3,500,000 Jews were being terrorized and made paupers” and that “anti-Semitic agitation is making the Jews the scapegoats for” Poland’s “ills” which “has led to the loss of Jewish life and property.”

1936: In Geneva, tonight, at the meeting of the World Jewish Congress, Rabbi M.L. Perlsweig, head of the World Zionist Organization's political information department, accused the British authorities in Palestine of "political ineptitude so gross as to be almost unbelievable” while “Rabbi Stephen S. Wise of New York paid tribute to the self-restraint of the Palestine Jews…”

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

1937: In Santa Monica, CA, Harry Herschel and Shirley (née Weissman) Cohen gave birth to Iris Margo Cohen who gained fame as ballet dancer and actress Allegra Kent.

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

1937(4th of Elul, 5697): Detective Isidore Astel, the patrolman who shot a killed a hold-up man during a gun battle last December in Manhattan for which he was decorated with “the gold Police Combat Cross” died today “in the Hospital for Joint Diseases.

1937: New York Mayor La Guardia is scheduled to attend today’s outing sponsored by the Brooklyn Division of the American Jewish Congress which consisted of “a boat rid up the Hudson River on the steamship Delaware.”

1938: “The Osservatore Romano, the authoritative Vatican organ, today protested strongly against the Italian press boycott of the speeches in which Pope Pius has denounced the new racial theories” in words that included “Where Hebrewism means suffering, pain and a target for persecution, it cannot hope for a better defender than the Catholic Church.”

1938: After returning from a trip to Palestine, “Malcolm MacDonald, Dominions Secretary” delivered a radio talk today in which he said the “pacification of Palestine will not be accomplished quickly” but that in the meantime “the British Government will administer its trust on the basis of justice between the Jews…and Arabs. (Editor’s note – in less than a year, the infamous White Paper would make a lie of this as far as the Jews were concerned.)

1939: “When Tomorrow Comes,” a “romantic comedy” directed and produced by John M. Stahl was released today in the United States.

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

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

http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Epstein.html

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

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

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

1942: Today “Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr (called “the most beautiful woman in Hollywood”) received a patent with composer George Antheil for a “frequency hopping, spread-spectrum communication system” designed to make radio-guided torpedoes harder to detect or jam.”

http://jwa.org/thisweek/aug/11/1942/actress-hedy-lamarr-patents-basis-for-wifi

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

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

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

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

http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/Zionist_Battles_for_Israeli_independence_guerrilla-war_1940s_Israel_independence_pdf

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

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

1950: In Riga, Frieda and Zalman Baskin gave birth to Ilya Zalmanovich Baskin who came to the United States in 1976 where he gained fame as actor Elya Baskin whose first film appearance was in “The World’s Greatest Lover”

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

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

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F70B12FD395A137A93C0A81783D85F458585F9

http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/kohut-rebecca

1951: Today thirty-nine year old actress Sara Berner married theatrical agent Milton Rosner with whom she had a daughter Eugenie before divorcing in 1958.

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

1953: Birthdate of Stephen M. Katz, the native of Jericho, NY and Doctor of Veterinary Medicine who worked at several overseas locations including the Yotvata Hai-Bar Nature Reserve in Israel before pursuing a political career as a Republican member of the New York States Assembly.

1953: CBS broadcast the last episode of “Steve Randall” “a television series starring Melvyn Douglas.”

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

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

1959(6thof Av, 5719): Eighty-seven year old Yiddish author and playwright David Pinski passed away today, five months are his wife Adele had passed away.

http://findingaids.cjh.org/?pID=1522286

1959(6thof Av, 5719): Eighty-three year old Bertram Joseph Cahn, the son of “Joseph and Miriam Cahn,” the “husband of Irma Cahn” with whom he had three children and the Northwestern educated lawyer who served on the Crime Commission and belonged to the Urban League, passed away today in his native Chicago

1961: Birthdate of Toronto native David Brooks, the award winning New York Times columnist and author whose “oldest son” reportedly served in the IDF

https://www.nytimes.com/by/david-brooks

1961: In Palo Alto, CA, Tola Fay Minkoff (née Stebel) and Jack Robert Minkoff gave birth to Academy Award winning director Robert Ralph Minkoff, whose most famous work to date is “The Lion King.”

1962: "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do"“a song recorded by Neil Sedaka, and co-written by Sedaka and Howard Greenfield” “hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100” today.

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

https://www.nytimes.com/1964/08/12/archives/leopold-mannes-pianist-dies-inventor-headed-music-school.html

http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/223.html

1965:Rolf Friedemann Pauls, the man chosen to be Bonn’s first Ambassador to Israel arrived today at a “heavily guarded Lydda Airport.”

1968: In London, Nigerian native Henry Okonedo and his wife Joan Allman the Jewish Pilates teacher gave birth to Tony Award winning actress Sophia Okonedo who was raised in the faith of her mother.

1969(27th of Av, 5769): Bea Adelman who is memorialized at B’Nai Israel in Spartanburg, SC, passed away today.

1970(9th of Av, 5730): Tish’a B’Av

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



1975: Birthdate of Edina, MN native Alex Bernstein the 6’3”, 325 pound guard who played three years of college ball at Amherst before pursuing a brief NFL career with the Raven, Jets and Browns.

1975: “Prisoner of Zion David Chernoglaz received an exit visa to Israel.”

1976(15th of Av, 5736): Tu B’Av

1976(15th of Av, 5736): Twenty-nine year old Harold W. Rosenthal of Philadelphia was an aide to Senator Jacob Javits, Japanese tourist guide, Yutako Hirano and two Israelis – Solomon Weisbeck and Ernest Elias – were murdered and thirty others were  by two Palestinian terrorists who unsuccessfully attempted to hijack an El Al plane at the Istanbul airport.

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

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

1982(22nd of Av, 5742): Worcester native and “publisher” James Kahn passed away today in Brookline, MA.

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


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

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

1983: Birthdate of Rochester, NY, native Adam Podlesh the outstanding punter for University of Maryland Terrapins who has played for the Jacksonville, Chicago and Pittsburgh NFL teams.

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


1987(16th of Av, 5747): Eighty-six year old Clara Peller who gained fame as the “Where’s the beef” lady passed away today in Chicago.


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

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

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

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

1992: “MY Sam Simonthe fourth vessel of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society fleet, named after American television producer and writer Sam Simon, who donated the money to purchase the vessel” was launched today.

1993: “Searching for Bobby Fischer,” a movie version of the book by Fred Waitzkin the father of Jewish chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin co-starring Max Pomeranc was released in the United States today.

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

1995: “A Kid in King Arthur's Court” a film based on a Mark Twain novel co-starring Ron Moody as “Merlin” was released in the United States today.

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

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

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

1997: Eighty-six year old Monument’s Man Walter Farmer passed away today. (Editor’s note – some but not all of the Monument’s Men were Jewish.  Regardless of their origins, this unit played an invaluable role in trying to return looted art to the Jews who owned it and of course, played an invaluable role in trying to preserve the treasures of Western Civilization)



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

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

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

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

2000: Today, Daniel Singer “Dan” Bricklin the co-creator of “the VisiCalc spreadsheet program known also as “The Father of the Spreadsheet” introduced the term "friend-to-friend networking"


2001(22ndof Av, 5761): Parashat Ekev

2001(22ndof Av, 5761): Ninety-year old Canadian journalist, dedicated Zionist and founder of The Canadian Jewish News passed away today.


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

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


2005: A memorial service was held today at Temple Beth David in Temple, CA for Nathan “Fred” Asher a graduate of the Naval Academy who took command U.S.S. Blue since the skipper was ashore and in a harrowing trip lasting one and half hours guided the ship out to open waters and safety while Ensign Milton Moldane, a graduate of Washington University Law School “took charge of the forward machine guns” fighting off the attacking Japanese aircraft.

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

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

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

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

2006: “Jules Feiffer: If You Really Loved Me, You’d Find Me, The Strips 1960 - 2000” a collection of over 60 cartoon strips by the Pulitzer Prize winning author, cartoonist and playwright which has been on display at the Adam Baumgold Gallery is scheduled to come to an end today.


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

 

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

 

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

 

2008Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Finance Minister Ronnie Bar-On decidedto implement all of the recommendations of the State Commission of Inquiry into the government's handling of Holocaust survivors.One of the key recommendations was to increase the monthly stipend of about 43,000 survivors to the level of 75 percent of the stipend given by the German government to recipients of its restitution payments.

2008: Palestinian terrorists in Gaza violated a truce agreement with Israel, firing a Kassam rocket at the western Negev town of Sderot. Noam Bedein of the Sderot Media Center told The Jerusalem Post that there were no wounded in the attack and no damage. Bedein added, however, that the projectile landed right next to a home that was hit in the final rocket attack launched from the Strip before the truce went into effect in late June. The incident continues a pattern of sporadic cross-border shelling and rocket launches since the cease-fire was declared.

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

2009(21stof Av, 5769): Robert William LeVine passed away to at the age of 71.(As reported by Emma Stickgold)http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2009/08/13/robert_levine_71_helped_russian_jews_with_funerals/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


2011: Interior Minister Eli Yishai (Shas) said today during a meeting with that the “time is ripe for an upheaval in the coalition” in order to solve the ongoing social crisis that has rocked the country over the past month.

2011(11thof Av, 5771): Noach Flug,a Holocaust survivor who dedicated his life to fighting for the rights of other survivors is remembered as "a towering figure" passed away today in Jerusalem at the age of 86.

http://sdjewishjournal.com/site/2516/holocaust-survivor-noach-flug-dies-at-age-86/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

2013: Finance Minister Yair Lapid lashed out today at the decision to build more than one thousand new homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, calling it "a double mistake."

2014:”Marvin Hamlisch, What He Did for Love” and “The Jewish Cardinal” are scheduled to be shown at the Berkshire Jewish Film Festival.

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

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

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

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




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

2015: At a time when “an estimated 47,000 African migrants, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan, have managed to illegally enter Israel via Egypt, seeking jobs or asylum” “Residents of south Tel Aviv demonstrated tonight against a High Court of Justice ruling that would limit to 12 months the detention time for migrants in holding facilities” because they feel that their neighborhood has “the State of Israel’s warehouse” for these individuals. (As reported by the Times of Israel)

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

2015:  “Inside Out/ Outside In” an exhibition of three women artists including Isa Lousie Levy opened today.

2015: “Hours after Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon warned that Palestinian terror group were seeking to carry out attacks” “members of the IDF, Border Police and Israel Police arrested 15 wanted Palestinians in a series of operations” tonight.(As reported by Stuart Winer)

2016: Comedian Gary Gulman is scheduled to appear at the summer benefit fund raiser sponsored by the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Educational Center.

2016: “In a world awash in religious and sectarian tensions, the three Olympic victors in the women’s all-around gymnastics competition delivered a multi-faith mosaic on the medals podium today in Rio, with a Christian, a Jew and a Muslim taking gold, silver and bronze respectively.”


2016: In New Orleans, Congregation Gates of Prayer is scheduled to host the first meeting of PFLAG which “promotes the health and well-being of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons, their families and friends through: support, to cope with an adverse society; education, to enlighten an ill-informed public; and advocacy, to end discrimination and to secure equal civil rights.”

2016: Madeline Isenberg is scheduled to lecture on “Different Traditions Even In Death: Ashkenazi vs. Sephardi Tombstones” and Brooke Ganz is scheduled to lecture on “Using the Gesher Galicia Website and All Galicia Database to Research Towns and Families” at the 36thIAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Seattle, Washington.

2017(19th of Av, 5777): “Yisrael Kristal, a Holocaust survivor who was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records to be the world’s oldest man and one of the ten oldest men who ever lived, passed away today in his home in Haifa. He was one month shy of his 114th birthday.” (As reported by Liel Leibovitz)


2017(19th of Av, 5777): Seventy-eight year old attorney and radio personality Neil Chayet passed away today. (As reported by Richard Sandomir)


2017: “Menashe” a film that “marks the feature debut of documentary-trained director Joshua Z. Weinstein, who shot his movie, partially under wraps across a two-year period, in the Hasidim community of Brooklyn, N.Y.’s Borough Park district” opened in Chicago.


2017: In Weimar, the YSW is scheduled to host “a Shabes-inspired, audience participation evening of song, stories and dance, directed by Alan Bern and Yiddish Summer Weimar artists.”

2017: The Jerusalem Arts and Crafts Fair which started on August 7 and runs until August 19 is closed today because of Shabbat.

2018(30th of Av, 5778): First Day Rosh Chodesh Elul

2018(30th of Av, 5778): Parsashat Re’ay; for more see http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/

2018: “Classical Bridge, an international musical festival, academy and conference designed to build bridges through music” featuring “Israeli musicians Pinchas Zuckerman and Alexander Fiterstein” is scheduled to come to an end today.

2018: As a sign of the vitality of small community Judaism, in Coralville, IA, Pam Hills is scheduled to be called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah at Congregation Agudas Achim.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

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August 12

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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


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

1656: “The Jews of Barbados were granted ‘the privileges of laws and statutes of the Commonwealth of England and of this island, relating to foreigners and strangers.’” (Abraham P. Bloch)

1793(4thof Elul, 5553): Meyer Jacob passed away today and was buried at the Alderney Road Jewish Cemetry.

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

1816: Henry Harvey married Louisa Hart at the Hambro Synagogue today.

1817: Birthdate of German Orientalist Max Grünbaum

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

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


1829: John Hadkins married Maria Woolf at the Great Synagogue today.

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


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

1835: Isaac Jacobs married Matilda Levy at the Great Synagogue today.

1840: At Petersburg, VA,Rabbi Abraham H. Cohen officiated at the wedding of Capt. I.S. Cohen of Columbia, SC and Virginia Davis, he daughter of Ansley Davis

1842: Birthdate of Emily Bath, the native of Jefferson, Indiana who was interred in the Jewish Cemetery in Natchitoches, LA when passed away in 1924

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

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

1845: Two days after he had passed away, Mendel Samuel, the husband of Amelia Emanuel with whom he had five children – Samuel, Charlotte, Jane, Anne and Lewis – was buried today in the United Kingdom

1845: Today a month after the death of Henrik Wergeland, the Norwegian leader who gone from being an anti-Semite to favoring the admission of Jews as full citizens of his country, passed away, “the constitution committee referred their recommendation to repeal” the ban on Jews to the Parliament.

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

1847: Lawrence Emanuel married Eve Braham at the Great Synagogue today.

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

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

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

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

1857: Joseph Magnus married Sarah Natali today.

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

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

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

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

1862: Philadelphian Samuel W. Rowe began serving as a 1st Lieutenant in Company B of the 122nd Regiment.

1862: Philadelphian Benjamin F. Baer began serving as a Captain in Company F of the 122nd Regiment.

1862: Philadelphian Solomon H. Kamer began serving as Corporal in Company G in the 128th Regiment.

1863: Philadelphian Nathan Fromm, a Corporal in Company A of the 167thRegiment completed his service with the Union Army today.

1863: Philadelphian Joseph Jacoby, a Sergeant in Company I of the 167thRegiment completed his service with the Union Army today.

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

1873: Birthdate of New Yorker Alexander Alexander who passed away in 1940 at Miami Beach, FL.

1876(22ndof Av, 5636): Parashat Eikev

1876(22ndof Av, 5636): Forty-eight year old Leopold Blumberg, the Prussian Army Veteran who came to the United States in 1854, settled in Baltimore, MD and joined the Union Army after the attack on Fort Sumter finally succumbed to the effects of the wounds he received when shot by a sharpshooter at the Battle of Antietam in 1862.

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

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

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

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

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

1880: In Hungary, Kalman Hartman and the former Sarah Luchs gave birth Gustav Hartman attorney, Republican Party leader, jurist and philanthropist who founded the Israel Orphan Asylum in 1913 which he oversaw until his death in 1936

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

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

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

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

1883(9thof Av, 5643): Tish’a B’Av

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

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

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

1884: Birthdate of Yiddish writer David Bergelson whose “only child, Lev, was an eminent Soviet biochemist who served as a Soviet Army captain during World War II and emigrated to Israel in 1991 with his wife Naomi, where both he and his wife died in 2014 and who was ironically murdered by Stalinist anti-Semitic purge that took place 68 years to the day from the date of his birth.


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

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

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

1885: Birthdate of Russian native Samuel Maurice Pearl, who came to Boston in 1901, earned a medical degree from Tufts University and practiced medicine in Boston where he also served as a “trustee with B’nai B’rith.

1887: Congregation Keneseth Israel of Philadelphia, PA made a payment of $152 to the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

1887: Seymour Bottigheimer the son of Ellis Bottigheimer of Richmond, VA turned celebrated his sixteenth birthday today while waiting to find out if he had been admitted to Hebrew Union College.

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

1888: In St. Paul, MN, Silas Abraham Vehon and Anna Vehon gave birth to Isadore Vehon who was a merchant in Salina, KS and the husband of Josephine Bondy.

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

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

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

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

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

1893: Birthdate of Elmira, NY, native Irwin Wallace Alpert, the orthopedic surgeon educated at Union College and the University of Buffalo.

1893: In New Orleans, Maximilian Heller, the rabbi at Temple Sinai and a leading member of the Reform movement and Ida Annie Heller gave birth to Isaac Sherck Heller

1893: Birthdate of sculptor Bashka Paeff, the native of Minks who began her training at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and created such works as the “Lexington Militia Man” relief.


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

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

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

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

1897: Two days after he had passed away “in his 47thyear,” Michael Isaacs was buried today at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.1898: An armistice took effect ending the Spanish-American War. “In the Spanish-American War, Jews once again demonstrated that they are willing and ready to fight and serve in defense of our country. When the battleship Main was sunk on February 15, 1898, there were 15 Jewish sailors who went down with the ship. The executive officer of the Maine, and later a vice admiral in the United States Navy, was Adolph Marix, a Jew. Marix was the chairman of a board of inquiry to investigate the mysterious sinking of the Maine. It is interesting to note that his father was an interpreter in the Lincoln Administration and that Abraham Lincoln appointed Adolph Marix to the United States Naval Academy. When the United States declared war against Spain on April 21, 1898, the first volunteer was Colonel Joseph M. Heller, who left a thriving medical practice to become an acting assistant surgeon in the Army. About 5,000 Jews served in this war. When the Jewish High Holy Days were approaching in 1898, there were 4,000 requests for furloughs to attend services. There were indeed 30 Jewish Army officers and 20 more in the Navy in the Spanish-American War. Jewish casualties ran high for the percentage of Jews in the service. Twenty-nine were killed, 47 wounded, and 28 died from disease - for a total of 104. Corporal Ben Prager received the Silver Star Medal for his bravery in the Philippines in 19 skirmishes and engagements. The official citation describes his accomplishments: "When the engagement was fully opened up, Corporal Benjamin Prager and seven other soldiers from Companies A and L, 19th United States Infantry, moved out and charged the enemy ... and after twice charging in the face of heavy fire, succeeded in dislodging the enemy and putting the entire force to rout. With true soldierly spirit, the success was followed up and the enemy was driven out of the city across the river and mountains." Colonel Teddy Roosevelt commanded the Rough Riders, which included a large number of Jews. The first Rough Rider killed was a 16-year-old Jewish boy, Jacob Wilbusky. Colonel Roosevelt promoted five men in his command for their bravery in the field without knowledge of their religion. One of them was a Jew. Sergeant Maurice Joost of the First California Volunteers, a regiment that had more than 100 Jewish soldiers, was the first man to fall in the attack on Manila. There were 280,000 American soldiers in this war, which was four-tenths of I percent of the population. Jewish soldiers were one-half of I percent of the American Jewish population; therefore, Jews served in greater proportion than did the remainder of the nation's citizens.”

1898: Birthdate of actor Oscar Homolka who was not Jewish but whose first wife was Jewish and who left for Great Britain when the Nazis came to power.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1902(9th of Av, 5662): Tisha’ B’Av

1902: In Dallas, TX, Rabbi Simon Glazer and Ida Cantor Glazer gave birth to B. Benedict Glazer, the both Charles and Aubrey Glazer, who followed in his father’s footsteps after being ordained at HUC, leading congregations in New York and Detroit, Michigan where he also served on the state’s Commission on Civil Rights.

1905: Birthdate of Chicago native Ruben Grossman, who moved to Palestine in 1929 where as Ruven Avinoam he taught English literature at Hezliyyah high school, became a published author, serve as “supervisor of English studies at the Israel Ministry of Defense” and raised a son Noam, an author who died in the War of Independence.

1908(15th of 5658): Tu B’Av is observed for the last time during the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.

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

1911: It was reported today that “in a recent address Czar Ferdinand of Bulgaria said that he hoped the Jews would always regarded as political equals in that country…”

1911: It was reported today due to “constant persecution,” one hundred Persian Jewish families from Shiraz “who have lost their homes” “have petitioned the Jews of London” for funds to help them emigrate to Palestine.

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



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

1912: On his 50th birthday Julius “Rosenwald made a dramatic entry into large-scale philanthropy” wheh he “announced he would be giving away close to $700,000 (about $16 million in current dollars), and encouraged other wealthy individuals to support good causes of their own. “Give While You Live,” was his slogan.”


1912(29th of Av, 5672): Twenty-seven year old Chester H. Brunswick, the “Deputy Harbor and Wharf Commissioner” passed away today in St. Louks.

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

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


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

1913(9th of Av, 5673): Tish’A B’Av

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

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

1915: In Wennetka, a suburb of Chicago Alfred Samuel Alschuler, Sr. and Rose Alice Alschuler, the daughter of Charles and Mary Haas, gave birth to Richard Haas Alschuler

1915: At the Dardanelles, during the Gallipoli campaign, for the first time a ship was sunk by torpedo from a British seaplane

1915: Sixty year old Eli Pochansky, “an Orthodox Jewish father” who believes that smoking  cigarettes on the Sabbath is a sin deserving of severe punishment” appeared in Tombs Court today “on a charge of assaulting members of his family who do not conform to his views.”

1916: Isaac Don Levine, the Russian born American newspaperman who covered the Russian Revolution for the New York Herald Tribune described a meeting of the ruling Cabinet held in July where discussion of the “Jewish Question” included approval of the abolishment of the Pale of Settlement and agreement to discuss it further when “the Minister of Finances, Pierre Bark and the Imperial Controller N.N. Pokrovsky return from abroad.”

1916: At a farewell luncheon at the City Club, “Abram I. Elkus, the newly appointed Ambassador to Turkey, told Jewish editors and educators” including Herman Bernstein “that serious problems awaited him in Turkey but he hoped to to solve them to the satisfaction of the Administration and of his friends.”

1916: “Italian troops landed at Salonika” home to an ancient Jewish community that would be wiped in the Shoah, and joined in the fighting with Allied forces.

1916:  In the aftermath of the Battle of Romani, the first clear victory by Allied troops over the Ottomans, the Anzac Mounted Division entered Bir el Abd and found that the Austrians, Turks and Germans had withdrawn and was head back to El Arish and beyond.

1917: It was reported today that, “following the example set by Nathan Straus who has offered his New York City home for sale for the benefit of Jewish war sufferers, Mrs. Charles Brady of Rock Island, Illinois has given away her jewels with the idea that they will be sold and the proceeds given to the Central Jewish Relief Committee” which is attempting to raise $10,000,000 under the leadership of Harry Fischel who is the treasurer.

1917: “About 100 Palestine Jews, principally the wives and children of men who were naturalized years ago in the United States arrived” in Berne, Switzerland “today from Jerusalem on their way to New York.”

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

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

1918: The “announcement of the decision of the Prussian Foreign Minister that Jewish laborers will not be admitted to Germany from the East has caused resentment in all Jewish circles especially in Austria” where the realization has set in that while “Russia has abolished all laws placing limitations on Jews” “Germany is the only European state which wises to drive out the Jews.”

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

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

1920: “Colonel Harry Cutler” who has been “named by Secretary Baker” to serve “on the War Memorial Commission left for Europe” today aboard the SS Imperator.

1921: Following an earlier donation by Mrs. Nathan Straus of jewels valued at $18,500 to the “Zionist Organization of America for medical and health services in Palestine, today, “Nathan Straus presented eight milk stations and a pasteurization laboratory” to the city of New York.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1931: “Following the death of President George Cowen and the resignation of Sigmund T. Hess, Walter T. Kohn was elected president of Temple Beth Miriam in Long Branch, NJ.

1931: Martha and Jackie Fields, the winner of two boxing world championships were joined in a marriage today which did not last since they separated in 1940 and divorced in 1944.

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

1936: In Vienna, Ernest and Mimi Hausner gave birth to Evelyn Hausner, the Austrian born refugee who gained fame as Evelyn Lauder, the wife of Leonard Lauder.

1936: Today, New York City “Mayor La Guardia accepted…membership on a committee sponsoring the publication of the United Palestine Appear Year Book for 1936 which will aid the $3,500,000 campaign for the settlement in Palestine of Jews from Germany, Poland and other lands” writing to the committee that “the regeneration of Palestine through the settling of more than 30,000 refugees from Germany is a warning to oppressors and tyrants.”

1936: “A proposal was made today to finance by an individual tax the permanent world organization that the World Jewish Congress is meeting” at Geneva “to create” while “the boycott commission agreed today to recommend that the Jewish congress endorse the German boycott, establish a special department to extend and strengthen this boycott and issue economic reports exposing subsidies for products made in Germany.”1937: The British Colonial Secretary, Mr. W.G.A. Ormsby-Gore, declared in Geneva, during the deliberations of the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission, that he was told by Dr. Chaim Weizmann that the political resolution adopted by the 20th Zionist Congress opened the door to negotiations for giving effect to the Peel Commission¹s proposals for the partition of Palestine and that talks on this subject would start at the conclusion of the September sessions of the League of Nations Council. Reports from Damascus indicated that Syria had become the center of activity for the training of armed men, the future leaders of the Palestine Arab uprising. The recent attack on Kfar Menahem was a trial measure perpetrated by such roving terrorist bands. The Arab Higher Committee denied that foreign money donations were used to carry out such military and sabotage training, carried out in preparations for future disturbances. 

1937: “A contract was drawn up today requesting ‘musical dramatic work…suitable for radio broadcasting” that would result in Marc Blitzstein creating “I’ve Got the Tune,” an opera dedicated to Orson Wells for CBS Radio.

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

1938(15th of Av, 5698): Tu B’Av

1938(15th of Av, 5698): Seventy-four year old German born Egyptologist Ludwig Borchardt who married Emilie (Mimi) Cohen, the daughter of artist Eduard Cohn, in 1903, and was involved in the excavations of the Pyramid of Sahure and Amana where the bust of Nefertiti was found passed away today in Paris.

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

1939: Birthdate of David Jacobs, the Baltimore screenwriter who created “Dallas” the prime-time CBS soap opera that made JR Ewing a household name.

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

1940(8th of Av, 5700): Erev Tish'a B'Av

1940: In New York City, Ruth (née Goldberg) Kostner and her husband, Wall Street executive Theodore Kostner, gave birth to Gail Kostner who gained fame as screenwriter and author Gail Parent.

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

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

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

1941: “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” the movie version of the 19th century novella with a script co-authored by Samuel Hoffenstein, music by Franz Waxman and filmed by cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg was released in the United States today.

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

1942: Eighty-seven year old Jacob Gould Schurman who as President of Cornell University in 1905 sent a check to Jacob H. Schiff “for the fund in relief of the suffering Jews of Russia” along with a letter saying “The atrocities of the Russian mob have been beyond all description or imagination” and that it was his prayer “that the Christians of America may…remember with compassion and help with the generous contributions their sorely stricken Jewish brethren in Russia” passed away today.

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


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


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

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

1944: “Just days before the liberation of Paris” 39 year old Suzanne Spaak, the lady of luxury who joined the joined Leopold Trepper’s “Red Orchestra and saved 163 Jewish children from sent to the death camps before being captured, tortured and murdered by the Nazis – actions for which she recognized by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Among the Nations – “was executed by the Gestapo today.

http://www.aish.com/ho/p/The-French-Resistance-Socialite-Heroine-who-Saved-60-Jewish-Children.html?s=mm

1944: Birthdate of Jersey City, NJ native Steven Katz, the hold of Ph.D. from Cambridge (UK) who has served as “the director Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies” at Boston University.

1945: In Brooklyn, Henry Rascoff, a pediatrician, and the former Minna Martz, a criminal lawyer gave birth to Joseph Fishel Rascoff the accountant who “became the business manager and tour producer of the Rolling Stone, U2 and Paul Simon. (As reported by Richard Sandomir)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/11/business/media/joseph-rascoff-dead-business-manager-for-rolling-stones.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

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

1946(15thof Av, 5706): Tu B’Av

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

1946: Birthdate of New York native William D. Rubenstein, the Swarthmore and Johns Hopkins University trained historian who has taught in Great Britain and Australia and is the author of Men of Property: The Very Wealthy in Britain Since the Industrial Revolution.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1950(29thof Av, 5710): Parashat Re’eh

1950(29thof Av, 5710): Fifty-nine year old Austrian native Morris Jacobovits, who served as a rabbi in Cologne and Strasbourg as well as a chaplain in the French Army and worked with “the French Underground and various American relief organizations” to help adults and children regardless of religion during the occupation before escaping to Switzerland with his family and finally arriving in New York where he was serving “Congregation K’hall Adath Jeshurun” when he passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1950/08/15/91630268.pdf

1950: After 581 performances, the curtain came down today at the Broadhurst Theatre on the original Broadway production of “Detective Story” written by Sidney Kingsley and in which Lee Grant “earned praise for her role as a shoplifter.”

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

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

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

1952: “Park Row” a drama directed, produced and written by Samuel Fuller was released in the United States today.

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

http://yivo.org/events/index.php?tid=205&aid=1396

1956: William Shatner married Gloria Rand.

1957(15th of Av, 5717): Tu B’Av

1957: “Chances Are” a popular song with lyrics by Al Stillman was released today.

1958: In New York, psychologist Sally Landsburg and Alan Landsburg gave birth to actress Valerie Landsburg “best known for her role as Doris Schwartz in the 1982 television series ‘Fame.’”

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

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

1964: “The Patsy” a comedy directed by Jerry Lewis who co-wrote the script and co-starred along with Ina Balin, Phil Foster and Peter Lorre was released in the United States today.

1964:  Ellen Siegel, a “Freedom Summer volunteer” wrote a letter today in which she said, ““For the first time in my life, I am seeing what it is like to be poor, oppressed, and hated. And what I see here does not apply only to Gulfport or to Mississippi or even to the South … The people we’re killing in Viet Nam are the same people whom we’ve been killing for years in Mississippi. True, we didn’t tie the knot in Mississippi and we didn’t pull the trigger in Viet Nam—that is, we personally—but we’ve been standing behind the knot-tiers and the trigger-pullers too long.” (JWA)

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

1970: “Soldier Blue” a movie based on the Sand Creek Massacre produced by Harold Loeb and co-starring Peter Strauss was released today in the United States.

1971:  Birthdate of actor Michael Ian Black

1971: “The Black Belly of the Tarantula” an Italian horror film featuring Barbara Bach was released today.

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

1976(14th of Av, 5733): Sixty-three year old Harry A. Pearson the graduate of Cooper Union and NYU and director of research for the Sontone Coporation passed away today in White Plains, NY five days after his birthday.


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

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

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

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

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

1988: “Tucker: The Man and His Dream” a biopic comedy written by Arnold Schulman and David Seidler and co-starring Martin Landau was released in the United States today.

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

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

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

1997(9th of Av, 5757): Tish’a B’Av

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

1999(30th of Av, 5759): Eight-two year old character actor Ross Elliot passed away today.


2000: Television wizard Steve Bocho, whose hits included “Hill Street Blue” re-married today.

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

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

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

2003(14th of Av, 5763): Forty-three year old Yehezkel (Hezi) Yekutieli was murder today by terrorist suicide bomber at Rosh HaAyin.
 
2004(25th of Av, 5764): Thirty year old Capt. Michael Y. Tarlavsky was killed today when his unit was attacked in Najaf, Iraq.(As reported by Maia Efrem)

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

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

2005: Today, the Younker’s main store in downtown Des Moines which had been operating at the 7th and Walnut Streets location since 1899 when it moved there “by three Polish Jewish immigrant brothers Lipman, Samuel, and Marcus Younker” was closed today

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

2008:Rabbi David Loksen and Rabbi Shmulie Hecht, of the Brooklyn, New York-based Chabad Lubavitch Jewish Community Enrichment Program who are volunteers with Chabad Hawaii, leave Guam.  They have been working with the island’s small Jewish community since July 22, 2008

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

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

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

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

2009:Two Israelis were lightly wounded in a shooting attack in the northern West Bank tonight, according to the IDF. An initial investigation established that two of three young passengers driving in a car near the settlement of Ma'ale Levona, near Nablus, were lightly injured when Palestinians in a passing car opened fire on them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

2012: “More than 1,000 people gathered at Rostov-on-Don, which 70 years ago witnessed the worst Holocaust atrocity in Russia.  Wearing arm bands marked with a Star of David, the crowd today marched to the mass grave of approximately 27,000 people executed by German soldiers near the city in 1942. Most of the victims were Jewish, according to the Russian Jewish Congress. Leading the procession was Rabbi Meir Lau, a Holocaust survivor and former chief rabbi of Israel. “The unprecedented turnout shows the memory of the Jewish genocide in Rostov is shared and preserved by Jews and non-Jews,” Russian Jewish Congress President Yury Kanner said.(As reported by Haaretz)

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

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

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

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

2013: The Israel Prisons Service published “the list of the first 26 convicted terrorists who will be released as part of Israel’s confidence-building measures to help the restart of peace talks with the Palestinian Authority. The list included 17 names of prisoners who had murdered Israelis, including Abu-Musa Salam Ali Atia of Fatah, who murdered Holocaust survivor Isaac Rotenberg in a Petah Tikvah construction site in 1994.” (As reported by Haviv Rettig Gur and Aaron Kalman)

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

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

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

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



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




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

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

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

2015: “Researchers open 'neglected chapter' of Ukraine's Holocaust history” published today revealed how a “project commemorating the killing of Jews” revealed “tensions between Soviet and modern Ukrainian historical narrative.”

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

2015: Holocaust survivor Peter Kubicek who “calls himself the luckiest man alive” is scheduled to speak at the National Czech & Slovak Museum and Library in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

2015(28thof Av): Yarhrzeit for Larry Rosenstein, of blessed memory, husband of Judy Levin Rosenstein, of blessed memory.  Gone too soon but always remembered! 

2016: Today, “Treasure hunters relaunched their search for a lost Nazi gold train allegedly loaded with loot and buried in southwestern Poland, despite there being no scientific evidence it exists.”

2016: “Israel’s Or Sasson beat Cuba’s Alex Maxell Garcia Mendoza to win a bronze medal in the men’s over-100kg competition at the Rio Games” today,

2016: Diana van den Boogaard and Adam Brown are scheduled to provide a Preview of the 2017 conference to be held at Orlando on the final day of the 36thIAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Seattle, Washington.

2016: Flooding began in Baton Rouge, LA, which would eventually cost 34 families in the state capitol’s Jewish community their homes.

2016: “From the Deep” a play “inspired by the story of Gilan Shalit and Israeli POW Ilan Shaiach” is scheduled to open at The Fringe in New York City.

 2017(20th of Av, 5777): Parashat Ekev

2017: Following the June Chicago Dyke March, “when three Jewish participants at the LGBTQ demonstration were ejected for carrying LGBTQ Pride flags adorned with the Star of Daivd

2017: In the Negev, Mitzpe Ramon is scheduled to host “special events in the Spice Route Quarter” complete with telescopes to provide the best possible viewing of the Perseids Meteor Shower which is at its most impressive today organizers of the Slutwalk Chicago used “red umbrellas to block sings being held by Zioness Movement members who had “joined the initial rally in a local park, carrying signs depicting a woman wearing a Star of David necklace and some wearing rainbow-colored T-shirts emblazoned with a Star of David.”

2017: Hatikva 6 is scheduled to host Hanan Ben Ari at the International Jerusalem Arts and Crafts Fair -(the Hutzot Hayotzer festival)

2017: In Weimar, The Yiddish Summer Farewell Ball is scheduled to be held tonight marking the end of YSM 2017.

2017: As Jews observe Shabbat, they mourn the passing at Haifa Erev Shabbat of “Yisrael Kristal, a Holocaust survivor who was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records to be the world’s oldest man who He was one month shy of his 114th birthday. (As reported by Liel Leibovitz)


2018: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest Jewish readers including Famous Father: A Memoir of Group Up Bernsteinby Jamie Bernstein and Get What’s Yours: The Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security co-authored by Laurence J. Kotlikoff

2018(1st of Elul, 5778): First Day Rosh Chodesh Elul – Blow the shofar for the first time; for more see http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/

2018: Demonstrators who are expected to be carrying Nazi flags as they did last year in Charlottesville, VA are scheduled to take to the streets of Washington, DC

2018: Israeli cellist Inbal Segev is scheduled to perform solo works by 21st century women including “Anna Clyne, Missy Mazzoli, Augusta Reed Thomas and Gity Razaz.”

2018: In Los Angeles, “Yiddishkayt is scheduled to join with the Southern California Arbeter Ring/Workmen’s Circle and the Sholem Community to view the 1925 classic film JEWISH LUCK, with titles in English translation” as part of events marking “the 66th anniversary of Stalin's purge of the members of the Jewish Antifascist Committee and” the 70thanniversary of the “murder of the Committee leader, the great Yiddish actor Shloyme Mikhoels.”


.

 

 

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

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August 13

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

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

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

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

985: Birthdate of the Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim who “ordered…Jews to wear wooden calves around their necks.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

1550: “The Jewish community of Salonica,” the Greek city that was at this time part of the Ottoman Empire, “invited the Jews of Provence” who were being expelled from France to settle in their community. (As reported by Abraham P. Bloch)

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

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

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

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

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

1793: In Stamford Hill, UK, Benjamin Goldsmid and Jessy Salomons gave birth to Albert Goldsmid.

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

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

1817: In Frankfurt am Main Malchen Schloss and David Philipp Schloss gave birth to Jenny Schloss

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


1824: Nota ben Solomon married Reizecha bat Moses Israel at the Western Synagogue.

1829: One day after she had passed away, Shifra bat Joel, the wife of Jacob ben Moses was buried at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.

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

1833: Eighty-nine year old Simon Solomon Wilks, the husband of Elizabeth Wilks with whom he had seven children – “Abraham Philip, Israel, Leah, Sara, Mary and Elisha” – was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.

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

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

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

1851: In England, Cigar Maker Samuel (Isaac) Henry Gluckstein and Hannah Coenraad Gluckstein who had gotten married at the Great Synagogue on Saint James’ Place in 1845 gave birth to their fifth child Isidore Gluckstein.

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

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

1861: Philadelphian Joseph Lewenberg began serving with Company I of the 23rdRegiment.

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

1862: Philadelphians, Emanuel Lehman, Jacob Lehman, Eli Arnold, Charles Lillienstein and Daniel S. Myers began a nine month hitch with the 127thRegiment.

1862: During the Civil War, Aaron Miller began serving with Company F of the 129thRegiment today.

1862: During the Civil War, William Lazarus who would be killed during the Battle of Antietam began serving with Company E of the 132nd Regiment.

1862: Henry Bear began serving with Company H. of the 133rd Regiment today.

1862: The Keystone Battery, a Pennsylvania Light Artillery Regiment in which Leon da Silva Solis-Cohen served until just before the Battle of Gettysburg was organized today in Philadelphia.

1865: Morris Sontheimer completed four years of service with Company K of the 108thRegiment of the Eleventh Calvary.

1865(21stof Av, 5625): Fifty year old Bavarian native Henry Bendel, the son of Abraham and Pessle Bendle who married Mary Anker Bendel with whom he had 8 children passed away today in Albany, NY.

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

1871: “Berton Gotthemier” the husband of the former “Julia Zachariah” with whom he had two children – “Lavinia and Maurice” – was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1878: Birthdate of Arthur Yitzhak Biram, the native of Saxony who earned a Ph.D. at the University of Leipzig and completed training as a rabbi before emigrating to Ottoman Palestine in 1913 where his academic accomplishments to him being awarded the Israel Prize for education in 1954.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1895: American opera singer Francesca Halle and Joseph Gluckstein who with his brothers Isidore and Montague founded J. Lyons and Co. gave birth to Hannah Gluckstein the British painter known simply as Gluck who also the brother of Sir. Louis Gluckstein.



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1900: Forty-seven year old Russian theologian and philosopher who “profoundly disagreed with the views of novelist Dostoevsky about the Jews” because he did not “see Judaism…as the antithesis of Christianity but as a forced that could help reconcile the peoples of Eastern Europe and revitalize Christianity” passed away today.

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

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

1909: Birthdate of attorney Joshua J. Nasaw, the husband of Beatrice “Bea” Kaplan Nasaw and the father of historian and author David Nasaw.

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

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

1911: In New York City, Jacob and Rebecca Reiter gave birth to NYU graduate William Bernbach, “the founder and chairman of the Doyle Dane Bernbach advertising agency and the husband of the “former Evelyn Carbone with whom he had two sons, John and Paul – the New York attorney and patron of the arts.

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

1912: In Vineland, NJ, founding of Ahabat Achim synagogue

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

1913: In Bavaria, Moritz and Rachel Hellmann, the daughter of Rabbi Isaac Bamberger and Julie Judith Bamberger, gave birth to Julie Hellmann

1913: Birthdate of Melvin Frank, the Chicago native and graduate of the University of Chicago whose screen writing efforts included two classics “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House” and “White Christmas” that helped to create the “middle class American dream.”


1914: The Great War, which will bring so many changes to Jews throughout the next four years, began to take shape as a great conflict as today, on the same day, “four squadrons of the Royal Flying Corps flew from Dover to France while Austria invaded Serbia as its armies crossed the Drina.

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

1915: In a move that would presage the greatest naval threat to the Allies, a German submarine sank the H.M.T. Royal Edward in the Ægean Sea.

1916: It was reported today that Abram I. Elkus, the new United States Ambassador to Turkey is scheduled to set sail on August 17 for Copenhagen and then spend two or three days in Berlin before continuing on to Constantinople.

1916: It was reported today that Herman Bernstein, the editor of The American Hebrew, in speaking about the service of Oscar Straus, Henry Morgenthau and Abram Elkus as American diplomats said, “The world is more exacting toward a Jewish statesman” meaning that “in addition to serving his country, he must by the brilliance of his service disarm prejudice and raise the prestige of the Jewish people.”

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


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

1917: It was reported today that to meet the needs of the thousands of Jews “who will be drafted into the” United States Army and Navy, “the need for Jewish Chaplains to tend to their spiritual wants” has become clearly apparent which has led Representative Isaac Siegel of New York has introduced a bill into Congress which provides that “The President may appoint not exceeding twenty Chaplains at large for the United States Army representing religious sects not recognized in the apportionment of Chaplains now recognized by law..”

1918: Based on information first supplied by the Vienna Morgen Zeitung, “the Jews who were supporters of the Austro-German Alliance…must now alter their opinion regarding Austria’s foreign policy since Germany no longer allows Jews to cross her frontier” and enter the country while Russia, as a result of the Revolution has lifted all of her laws aimed at suppressing the Jewish population.

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

1918: In a move that will have unforeseen meaning for decades to come the “British Government recognized the Czecho-Slovaks as an Allied nation on the same day when the Czechs declared their independence and declared war on Germany.

1920: One day after she had passed away Myer Lukowsky was buried today at the “Belfast Jewish Cemetery in Northern Ireland.”

1921: “The Hotel of the Dead” a silent film written by Walter Wassermann, starring Rosa Valetti and featuring Hermann Picha was released today in Germany.

1921: In Philadelphia, a $15,000 donation to the Jewish Hospital (now the Einstein Medical Center) established the May Fleisher Rosenburg Memorial Fund.

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

1928(27thof Av, 5688): Seventy-one year old Nathan Lamport, the son of Tsvi Hirsch Lamport and Esther Lamport  and the husband of Sarah Lamport passed away today in Dobbs Ferry, NY after which he was buried in Jerusalem. He was“nationally known Orthodox leader and philanthropist, president of the Board of Directors of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary and donor of $200,000 toward the Yeshiva College now in process of construction.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1936:Felix M. Warburg, New York banker and philanthropist, today was named chairman of the American division of the executive committee of the Council for German Jewry.

1936: It was reported today that two Jewish newspapers in Berlin are not publishing any news about the Olympics because “neither has received a press card or been recognized in any way.”

1936(25thof Av, 5696): Late tonight in Safed, “Arab terrorists” “broke in the house of Rabbi Alter Ungar who was asleep with his family” and threw a bomb that “decapitated the rabbi” and killed an eight year old girl and a six year old boy.

1936: It was reported today that “there are no real Jews on the German Olympic team” since “Helen Mayer is only half Jewish” and that “there is no evidence that Olympics has made any difference (improvement) in the status of German Jews.”

1936: In Geneva, “The World Jewish Congress adopted eight resolutions by acclamation today and tonight cover the Palestine problem, the German boycott, emigration, anti-Semitism, the German Jewish question, refugees, relief and Soviet Russia.”

1936: Roger W. Straus, the co-chairman of the National Conference of Christians and Jews was appointed as “special assistant” in the Landon Presidential Campaign and “hit at reports that the Republican National Chairman had anti-Semitic tendencies.”

1937(6thof Elul, 5697): “Four members of a Jewish family,” including three children were “shot dead by Arabs who broke into their home in Safed.

1937: Dr. Isidore Frank, a chaplain in the NYPD and assistant rabbi at Mount Neboh Temple officiated at the funeral for Detective Isidore Astel which attended by hundreds of patrolman and Mayor La Guardia who “paid tribute to his heroism in the line of duty” which led to his death following his thwarting of a robbery in December of 1936.

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

1938: “Fifty-five Austrian Jews,” including ten women and three children “who have been deprived of their livelihoods and homes” following the Anschluss arrived in Helsingfors, Finland, aboard a Finnish liner but were forbidden to come ashore because of irregularities in their passports” even though the local Jewish community promised to provide food and shelter for the refugees and the Cabinet granted temporary permission for their landing.

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

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

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

1940(9th of Av, 5700): Tish'a B'Av1940: During World War II, the Battle of Britain the Luftwaffe attacked British airfields   Field Marshall Goering told Hitler that the Luftwaffe could bomb the British into submission making an invasion unnecessary. On the other hand, by destroying the RAF, the Germans would be able to invade the British Isles with complete control of the skies insuring a Nazi victory.  If the British had lost the Battle of Britain, the Final Solution would have been that much closer to being truly “final.”  For more about the role of Jews in actually fighting the Battle of Britain see http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/ww2/sugar4.html.   Failure to win the Battle of Britain soured Hitler on the capabilities of the Luftwaffe and caused him to turn his face eastward towards the Soviet Union.  The invasion of the Soviet Union would result in the millions of Jews coming under the sway of the Final Solution.

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

1942: Four days after its world premiere in London, “Bambi” one of the most popular children’s films which was based on Bambi, A Life in the Woods by Felix Saltan, “the grandson of an Orthodox rabbi” opened in New York City today.

1942(30th of Av, 5702): Sixty-nine year old German born Nobel Award winning chemist Richard Willstätter who in 1924 he left his post a prominent German university because of the overt anti-Semitism he encountered passed away today in Switzerland after having left his homeland in the 1930’s.


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

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

1942: For the next fourteen days, 53,750 Jews from Warsaw will be deported to the Treblinka death camp.

1942: United States State Department officials and the British Foreign Office decide that the Riegner Cable outlining details of the Holocaust be kept secret.

1943: “A group of 367 Jews with Spanish citizenship arrived at Bergen Belsen, and in violation of his instructions Spanish diplomat Sebastian de Romero Radigales kept them alive until the Spanish government “changed its position and permitted their transfer to Spanish Morocco.”


1943: Y. Ben Ami wrote a letter to Peter H. Bergson proposing “the creation of a ‘Free Palestine League’ to influence United States policy on the Middle East and to wage a publicity campaign to create public support for an independent Palestine.” (Ben Ami would have a son, Jeremy who became the executive director of “J Street.”)


1944:  The Monuments Men under the command of James Rorimer “met as a group for the first time today outside the ruins of Saint Lo.”

1944: Following today’s arrest of an SOE agent and a French officer by the Gestapo, Krystyna Skarbek with the SS officer in charge, and using a combination of threats and bribery obtained the release of her comrades.

1945: Thirty-five Jews sacrifice their lives to blow up Nazi rubber plant in Silesia

1946: British authorities open detention camps on the island of Cyprus to hold Jewish refugees who have been prevented from entering Palestine due to British restrictions on immigration.

1946: In Brooklyn Anna Blumenthal and Dr. Julius Yellen gave birth to Janet Louise Yellen the American economist who has a career as an academic and public service including chairing the Council of Economic Advisers and holding senior positions with the Federal Reserve.

1948: Harry Dexter White, the son of Jewish immigrants from Lithuania, who had been accused of being a communist and a traitor denied being a member of the party when testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee today.

1948: On what came to be known as “Black Friday” due to the horrible weather conditions, during the Berlin Blockade, American and British aircrews delivered a record amount of supplies to the citizens of the Western Zone in what was part of an effort to halt Communist Russia’s imperial designs on western Europe – designs, as the Stalin purges were showing were inimical to the survival of the Jewish people.

1948(8th of Av, 5708): Silent screen star Elaine Hammerstein, daughter of Arthur Hammerstein and granddaughter of Oscar Hammerstein, died in an automobile accident.

1951: “A Nahal group from the Ezra movement” Sha’alvim, “a religious Kibbutz in central Israel…affiliated with Agudat Israel.

1951: Gonen a Nahal settlement which was “civilianized in 1952 by a group of Hebrew Scouts” was established today in the Upper Galilee “

1952: In New York Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt welcomed the 50,000th visitor to the Bond Drive’s Israeli Industrial Exhibition. The Hebrew lettering on a gleaming, Kaiser-Frazer car, assembled in Israel, made a great impression.

1953(2nd of Elul, 5713): Seventy-three year old history Eugen Täubler who began his career teaching  ath the Higher Institute for Jewish in Berlin and finished it teaching at HUC in Cincinnati, Ohio, passed away today.



1955: Two years after the death of Joseph Stalin, old-line Bolshevik Semyon Dimanstein was rehabilitated by the Communists running the Soviet Union.  Born in 1886, Dimanstein reportedly became a Rabbi after studying at a Chabad Yeshiva before becoming a Russian revolutionary.  He was widely identified with Jewish issues inside the Soviet Union including the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the Far East and Yidn in FSSR (Jews in the Soviet Union). He was a victim of Stalin’s murderous purges in 1938. Rehabilitation is sort of like the Communist version of Resurrection.

1957: In Philadelphia, PA, “veteran WCAU Philadelphia news anchor Gene Crane and his first wife Joan”

 gave birth to David Crane,  who helped to create one television’s most popular sitcoms – “Friends” which will live on forever in re-runs.

1958: “God’s Little Acre” the film version of a novel by the same name directed by Anthony Mann with a script by Philip Yordan and Ben Maddow, starring Vic Morrow and with music by Elmer Bernstein was released today in the United States.

1959(9th of Av, 5719):Tish'a B'Av

1961(1st of Elul, 5721): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1961: Ernst and Karola Bloch were on a lecture tour in the Federal Republic of German when the Berlin Wall “went up” today forcing them to forsake their home Leipzig (East Germany) and settle in Tubingen (West Germany)

1961(1st of Elul, 5721): Seventy-nine year old Sir Ellice Victor Sassoon, who became a Baron on the death of his father Edward Elias Sassoon and who made much of his fortune in the orient passed away today. 



1964: In Los Angeles, “stage and film director Gordon Davidson” and his wife Judi Davidson” gave birth to movie actor and director Adam Davidson who “won the Academy Award for Best Short Subject” for “The Lunch Date.”

1965: It was reported today that the auditorium of newly built Anna Lazaroff Synagogue in Kfar Chabad

“was donated by Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Ferkauf, of New York, honoring Mr. and Mrs. Isidore and Rose Silverman.” (JTA)

1970: Two months after being released in the United States, “Two Mules for Sister Sara” directed by Dan Siegel and with a screenplay by Albert Maltz was released in Mexico today.

1973(15th of Av, 5733):Maurice Bisgyer, retired executive vice president of B'nai B'rith, the Jewish service organization, died today at the age of 75.

1973:The body of Sir Moses Montefiore, father of modern Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel, will be returned to Jerusalem a century after his death, the Israeli Government said today. The body will be moved from Ramsgate to Israel in 1975.

1976(15th of Av, 5755): Tu B’Av

1976: It was announced today that “the working title” of the film to be made about the raid on Entebbe “is ‘Operation Jonathan,’ in honor of Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Netanyahu, a 30 year old American born Israeli officer who killed during the rescue operation.”

1976: Having returned to NYC from a campaign trip to Rochester, Daniel P. Moniyhan who is running for a seat in the U.S. Senate was reported today to have “said that the Entebbe raid followed by” the terrorist attack at Istanbul “were indications of the failure of the international community to cooperate to cope with terror.”

1976: The Palestinian terrorists “who killed four persons in an attempt to hijack an Israeli plane at Istanbul were reported today to have “said they had been instructed to kill as many Israelis as we can” and that they were “active warriors of the PLO” which “they had joined six months ago.”

1976: Abraham Hirschfeld, a candidate for the U.S. Senate from New York was reported today to have named “a coordinator for his effort to win support in Hispanic areas of the state.”

1977: President Carter’s administration rejected the Israeli request for the co-production rights of the F-16 fighter-bomber and announced that Israel would not be able to purchase the 250 planes as requested. This number had been reduced to 50 or 75 on grounds that the Israel Air Force no longer needed to maintain its air superiority over the Arabs.

1978(10th of Av, 5738): Tish’a B’Av observed

1982: “White Dog” a cinematic treatment of Romain Gary’s novel of the same name “directed by Samuel Fuller” who co-authored the script was released in the United States by Paramount Pictures today.

1987: “Lyricist Lorenz Hart Lives On Through Sisterly Devotion” published today described the efforts of Dorothy Hart, the sister-in-law of the composer to preserve his legacy as can be seen by her new book The Complete Lyrics of Lorenz Hart.


1982: “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” directed by Amy Heckerling was released in the United States by Amy Heckerling.

1987: “Didn’t We Almost Have It All” a Grammy nominated song written by Michael Masser was released today.

1991:The publisher Robert Maxwell said today that he had reached a private agreement with the publisher and other shareholders of Israel's Ma'ariv-Modin Group to acquire the majority of shares in the company, which owns the Israeli daily Ma'ariv. Ma'ariv is published in Hebrew in Tel Aviv. Financial details were not given. A statement said Mr. Maxwell would be the chairman and publisher and hold more than 70 percent of the shares. Dov Judkowski, who with Mr. Maxwell controls more than 75 percent of the shares, will be editor in chief and deputy chairman. "I shall put at the disposal of Ma'ariv-Modin all the funds necessary for the swift development of the paper, for the benefit of both the group and its staff," said Mr. Maxwell, who recently acquired The Daily News in New York.

1993: “A Bronx Tale,” a crime film produced by Jane Rosenthal premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.

1993: Belgian middle distance runner Nathan placed 10th in 800 metres at the 1993 World Championships which opened today at Stattgart.

1995: Aharon Barak succeeded Meir Shamgar as President of the Supreme Court of Israel.

1999(1st of Elul, 5759): Rosh Chodesh Elul

2000: The New York Times book section featured a review of Half-Jew: A Daughter's Search for Her Family's Buried Pastby Susan Jacoby and Rodinsky’s Room a mystery about David Rodinsky coauthored by Iain Sinclair and Rachel Lichtenstein, granddaughter of Polish Jewish refugee Gedaliah Lichtenstein.

2001: In the fight against West Nile Virus, pesticides are applied at Baron Hirsch Cemetery In New York

2003: “The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rules to refuse to reconsider a three-judge panel ruling that a Ten Commandments plaque from 1920 can remain on the Chester County courthouse in Pennsylvania. The appeals court was overruling a decision that the plaque with the commandments “violated the separate of church and state.” (As reported by Austin Cline)

2005:The 20th annual Conference on Alternatives in Jewish Education (CAJE) opens at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst

2005(8th of Av, 5765): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon; Erev Tish’a B’Av

2005(8th of Av, 5765): Ninety-two year old movie producer Armand Deutsch passed away today.


2006: A Woman in Jerusalem by A. B. Yehoshua (translated from the Hebrew by Hillel Halkin) was reviewed in the Book Section of the New York Times. A human resources manager is described as “the nameless main character” of this latest acclaimed novel.  Finally a novel features a Jewish human resources manager – how can one not be excited at the prospect of reading this? 

2006: The Book Section of the Washington Post featured a review of  Peter Hartcher’s Bubble Man: Alan Greenspan and the Missing 7 Trillion Dollars which the reviewer describes as a “flawed jeremiad” that attempts to blame Greenspan for the collapse of the dot com bubble and the losses that may or may not have taken place.

2006(19th of Av, 5766): Mahadi Hiyat, 83, was killed when a rocket crashed directly into his house near the town of Shlomi. Hiyat was the sole Egyptian resident of the northern Jewish community of Ya'arah.

2007: A copy of Faye Kellerman’s latest novel, The Burnt House is contributed to the Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, thus insuring that its library will have a complete collection of her detective mysteries. With The Burnt House, Kellerman returns to her literary roots with Rina and Peter Decker, the Jewish couple that solves murders.  Besides the fact they are slick yarns, where else can you be on the trail of multiple murderers while one of the characters talks about “hashgacha pratite” and another reassures his spouse that they could enjoy a visit to Santa Fe since “they have a Chabad there.”

2007: Some 75 people from the Jewish community of Rochester, New York, attended a dedication ceremony today to honor a rediscovered burial plot, long unknown to the community, where over 100 Jews from the 19th century were buried. The first Jewish graveyard in the city, and a special graveyard section for "Poor Jews" were recently rediscovered during a "Mitzvah Day" cleanup organized by a local synagogue. Cemetery records noted the Jewish area and separate "Jewish Poor Lot," where 105 Jews, mostly children who had died from disease and sickness, were buried anonymously. The ceremony was attended by various members of the community, including one man whose great, great grandfather (1797-1867), was buried in the cemetery. While Jews in the city knew about the existence of the Jewish cemetery, they did not know where it was located, until it was randomly rediscovered in 2005 during a Mitzvah Day cleanup organized by ReformsynagogueTempleB'rith Kodesh. While some participants served food in soup kitchens, or visited old age homes, congregant Earl Gurell, together with several others, were sent to Mt.HopeCemeteryto clean up areas no longer in use. As they cleaned, they discovered the Jewish cemetery, where 90 percent of the tombstones had fallen down or been desecrated. Subsequent research by Gurell and Jerry Zakalik showed that these sections were the first public Jewish burial plots in Rochester. Cemetery records dated part of the original purchase to April 3, 1848, by several founders of the then Orthodox synagogue B'rith Kodesh, seven months before the synagogue was established. Another, adjacent section was purchased by the Rochester German Benevolent Society in 1849. Thirty years after its founding, Temple B'rith Kodesh became affiliated with the Reform Movement, remaining so to this day, and is currently the largest synagogue in Rochester, which has a Jewish population of roughly 20,000.

At the time of the first discovery, cemetery staff also informed Gurell of "The Jewish Poor Lot," an additional site on the cemetery grounds, which the Jewish community had no prior knowledge of. This plot of land was purchased from the city for $1 in 1885, to bury poor Jews who couldn't afford their own land. With the help of members of B'rith Kodesh many of the tombstones were repaired and memorial stones dating each of the plots were erected at the sites.

From the 1840's to the 1870's, 128 children and 47 adults were buried in the B'rith Kodesh area. The "Jewish Poor Lot" was used between 1886 and 1912, with 85 children and 15 adults buried.

The plots where Jews were buried were referred to as "Jew ground," Gurell told The Jerusalem Post. At the time of the first purchase in 1848, the Jewish community was only a few decades old, comprised mainly of German immigrants. The fact that the city was willing to sell the land to the Jews is a sign that "the city was liberal enough to provide a place for the Jews," said Joel Elliot, executive director of B'rith Kodesh. "The ceremony is a reclaiming of frontier heritage."

2008: Forty Reform Jews land in Israel for a first-of-its-kind trip to meet the Israeli Reform movement.

2008: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez met with Jewish leaders today, pledging to work together against anti-Semitism and open up channels of communication despite differences on Middle East politics.

2009: Funeral for Robert William Levine, the businessman and philanthropist who worked to aid Russian immigrants is scheduled to take place at Temple Emanuel in Newton, MA followed by burial at Memorial Park in Sharon, MA.

2009: In Jerusalem, the Yiddishpiel Theatre helps prepare people for the High Holidays by presenting a “unique musical event which combines stories about the great cantors and Jewish and cantorial soul songs.

2009: In Jerusalem, Beit Avi Chai,A cultural center that explores concepts of Jewish and Israeli identity and creativity presents a workshop led by Dr. Meir Buzaglo, Department of Philosophy, at Hebrew University entitled Rambam in the 21st Century that asks the questions, “How does the Rambam’s thinking relate to the basic questions of the modern age?”\

2009:The Israel Defense Forces said today that they were investigating reports of a kidnapped soldier. 2009: The Jewish Lads’ and Girls’ Brigade (JLGB), “the UK’s oldest Jewish youth which was founded as the Jewish Lads’ Brigade by Colonel Albert E.W. Goldsmid” “broke the Guinness World Record for the largest custard pie fight at their annual summer camp with 253 people taking part and throwing 648 pies in a matter of minutes.”

2009: Rai Ephraim Simon, co-director of Friends of Lubavitch and a father of nine donated one of his kidneys to Samar Chasid living in Williamsburg who is the father of ten.

2009 Today, 36 year old Tzipora “Obziler convened a press conference to announce her retirement from professional tennis.”

2009 Patriot’s rookie Julian Edelman scored his first professional points on today in a pre-season game with the Philadelphia Eagles returning a punt 75 yards for a touchdown

2010(3rd of Elul, 5770):  On the Hebrew calendar today marks the 75th anniversary of the passing of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook. He passed away on the 3rd of Elul, 5695. During the British Mandate, “Rabbi Kook was the first Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of the Jewish population in the Land of Israel in modern times, and had great love and respect for the secular Zionist movement…”

2010: Temple Judah is scheduled to celebrate the 88th birthday of Marianne Bern at the Oneg following Friday night services.

2010: The man who killed Meir Kahane in 1990 claims he did not carry out the shooting alone, as previously thought, but was part of a three-man terrorist cell with links to al-Qaida. Its original target was future prime minister Ariel Sharon, according to a newly-leaked US government document. During his investigation for an article into alleged counter- terrorism blunders published in Playboy magazine today, freelance journalist Peter Lance uncovered official FBI memos which bring new information to light about the murder of the Israeli politician in New York.

2010:The reopening of Shaarei Torah,the synagogue of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, luminary sage and father of modern religious Zionism, coincided with the 75th anniversary of Rabbi Kook's death.

2011: The Gaga Summer Intensive that included Ohad Naharin's Repertoire is scheduled to come to a close today. Ohad Naharin “is an Israeli contemporary dancer, choreographer, artistic director, and musician.”

2011(13th of Av, 5771): Shabbat Nachamu

2011: The Summer Israeli Folk Dance Mostly Couples Marathon is scheduled to take place at Buttenwieser Hall in New York City.

2011: Social protests took place throughout Israel today, with demonstrators turning out en masse in Haifa, Be’er Sheva and Afula.

2011:Gunmen abducted an American Jew after breaking into his house in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore today in an unusually brazen raid that illustrated the threat to foreigners in this militancy-wracked, US-allied country. The US Embassy identified the victim as Warren Weinstein. A man by that name serves as the Pakistan country director for J.E. Austin Associates, a development contractor that works with the aid arm of the American government, according to a profile on the LinkedIn networking website.

2012: Five short films created by Israeli directors - Occupy Rothschild, Wall to Wall, Busted, Word Games, A Wonderful Day – are scheduled to be shown in NYC

2012:The Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry announced today that the price of a price-controlled loaf of bread will rise by 6.53 percent tomorrow.

2012: Hezbollah has rockets that can hit any Israeli city, a leading official of the organization said this afternoon. In the morning Walla News reported a battery of the mobile Iron Dome anti-missile defense system was installed near Safed last week as part of an ongoing series of tests.

2012:Israel may need to destroy parts of Lebanon and Gaza if Hezbollah and Hamas rain missiles upon the country in response to an Israeli attack on Iran, former Mossad head Danny Yatom said today

2012(25thof Av, 5772): Eighty three year old real estate mogul and philanthropist Zev Wolfson passed away today.


2013: “Israel: A Home Movie” is scheduled to be shown at the Morris Cafritz Center for the Arts as part of the Year-Round Washington Jewish Film Festival.

2013: “Little Me” a Neil Simon musical opened at the Rose and Crown Theatre in London.

2013: “The High Court of Justice today rejected a petition by the families of terror victims to block the release of 26 Palestinian prisoners who were convicted of terrorism, ruling that it is not for the court to involve itself in what is a diplomatic rather than a legal process.” (As reported by Stuart Winer)

2013: The Israel Defense Forces gained 125 new recruits today as over 300 immigrants from North America landed in Israel, part of a charter flight organized by the Nefesh B’Nefesh organization. (As reported by Joshua Davidovich)

 2013: Amir Levy is scheduled to appear in “Bellimi and the Sultan” at the Robert Moss Theatre

2014: The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to unveil two plaques honoring rescuers from Italy and Poland at the Ferro Fountain of the Righteous

2014: Dr. Mark W. Weisstuch is scheduled to deliver the second in his series of lectures on “The Merchant of Venice: A study of despair and humanity” at the Skirball Center for Jewish Life and Learning.

2014: “Jewish people must be allowed to pray on the Temple Mount during the High Holidays and Sukkot, lawmakers in the Knesset Interior Committee said today.” (As reported by Lahav Harkov)

2014: “Rockets were fired from Gaza tonight two-hours before the midnight deadline to Sunday's 72-hour cease-fire, as the IDF enhanced its troop presence along the border preparing to once again wage war against Hamas in Gaza.” (As reported by Herb Keinon, Hhaled Abu Toameh and Michael Wilner)

2014: “Accompanied by Senate Majority co-leaders Dean Skelon and Jeff Klein together with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Andrew M. Cuomo, the Governor of New York, called on President Reuven Rivlin today to affirm the State of New York’s support for the State of Israel in light of the continued threat of attacks by Hamas and other terrorist organizations.” (As reported by Greer Fay Cashman)

2015: ““Asif Kapadia’s Amy Winehouse film is” is scheduled to be shown in London under the auspices of the UK Jewish Film which “aims to develop a culture where Jewish and Israeli film is recognized and enjoyed by the widest possible audience, and to bring Jewish related film to the heart of British culture.”

2015: Jews On Bikes is scheduled to cosponsor “What It Takes: Havdalah” where attendees will “gain the skills to make Havdalah on their own” at the Historic 6th& I Synagogue.

2015: It was reported today, that the appoint of Fiamma Nirenstein, a former Italian MP and journalist who immigrated to Israel in 2013 to serve “as Israel’s ambassador to Rome has rattled the Italian Jewish community amid fear of accusations of dual loyalty.”

2016: In “Obit for the Obits” Bruce Weber bid farewell to his role an obituary writer for the New York Times. (Editor’s Note – This a moment of mixed emotion.  On the one hand we are glad that Mr. Weber will get to enjoy the fruits of a long life.  On other hand, he will be sorely missed.  His obits have provided mountains of information.  And his writing his elegant and amazing.  He is able to capture the life of people, some of whom are obscure and/or long forgotten, in a handful of well-chosen words.  I can think of no greater way to end one’s life than to be a subject of Bruce Weber’s writing.)


2016: At its triennial assembly which ended today, ‘The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America approved a resolution calling on the U.S. government to end all aid to Israel if Israel does not stop building settlements and “enable an independent Palestinian state.” (Editor’s Note – considering Luther’s view on Jews, he would be so proud of his spiritual descendants.)

2016: “Israeli superstar David Broza” and the Jazz Encounters are scheduled to perform at National Sawdust.

2016(9thof Av, 5776): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon; Erev Tish'a B'Av;

2016: The “22nd annual March around the Old City Witt the Women in Green” is scheduled to begin at 9:30 pm with the reading of “Eicah” in Independence Park.

2016: At midnight, “floodwaters began to flow into Ellen Sager’s Baton Rouge” – one of the 34 homes owned by Jewish resident of the city that would be lost to the rising waters.


2016: The Jerusalem Soul Center is scheduled to host the annual reading of Eicha starting at 8:45 pm which this year will be “dedicated to the Memory of Mike Levin z'l, our holy brother and lone soldier friend killed 10 years ago in the Lebanon War and buried on Tisha Bav 2006.”

2017: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Bed-Suy Is Burning, a novel by Brian Platzer and the recently released paperback edition of You’ll Grow Out Of It by Jessi Klein as well as recommendation for the sleep deprived to read Go The F**K To Sleepby Adam Mansbach.

2017: The Gula Bar and Restaurant at 4 David Remez Street in Jerusalem is schedule to host an Ilan Jazz Trio Concert featuring singer and pianist Ilan Chouraki.


2017: Dov Boros, the native of Budapest who survived the Gestapo and the Arrow Cross, who survived the Budapest ghetto is scheduled to talk about his experiences at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.

2017: Rita is scheduled to host Shimon Buskila at the Jerusalem Arts and Crafts Fair.


2017: The exhibition “Generation of Wealth by Lauren Greenfield” came to a close at the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles.

2018: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Through Lotte’s Lens” a documentary that tells the extraordinary story of the ‘Hitler Émigrés’, the refugees – mainly Jewish who escaped the Nazi regime in the 1930s and found refuge in the UK.”

2018: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled “to host the U.S. premier of MGM's new motion picture Operation Finale- the story of the Mossad capture of Adolph Eichmann” followed by a presentation by “Avner Avraham, former Mossad agent and special Operation Finale film consultant.”

2018: In New York the Muslim American Leadership Alliance and the American Sephardi federation are scheduled to host “An Evening of Islamic and Jewish Calligraphy” led by “experiential educator and artist Ruben Shimonov.”

 

 

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

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August 14

508: Maurice, the Emperor of the Byzantine Emperor who in 592 would punish “the entire Jewish community of Antioch after a Jew violated one his laws” began his reign today.

1197: "In the year 4957, on the twenty-eighth of Ab, there was a great persecution of the Jews in the kingdom of Leon at the hand of the two kingdoms that came to besiege it. At that time they removed thence the twenty-four sacred books which were written about 600 years before. They were written by R. Hillel ben Moses ben Hillel, and hence his name was given to the codex, which was called 'Hilleli.' It was exceedingly correct; and all other codices were revised after it. I saw the remaining two parts of it, containing the Former and Latter Prophets, written in large and beautiful characters; these had been brought by the exiles to Portugal and sold at Bugia in Africa, where they still are, having been written about 900 years ago. Kimḥi in his grammar on Num. x. 4 says that the Pentateuch of the Hillel Codex was extant in Toledo."

1349: Walram of Jülich , the Archbishop of Cologne who “protected” the Cologne Council from paying the debt it owned to “a Jewish banker named Meyer of Siegburg who was officially condemned to death, passed away today.

1385: In what might be called the “Battle of the Johns” The Portuguese forces commanded by King João I (King John I) defeat the Castilian army of King Juan I(King John I) at the Battle of Aljubarrota, leaving King Juan as ruler of Portugal. The victory of King João I guaranteed the existence of an independent Portugal which would provide a haven for Jews fleeing Christian persecution in Spain at the end of the 14th and start of the 15thcenturies.

1433: John I (King João I) of Portugal passed away.  As the following entry shows, King John I provided a haven for at least one Jew seeking to escape persecution in Spain.

In 1391, an anti-Jewish riot inspired and provoked by the church occurred in Seville and spread rapidly throughout Spain. Jews were being beaten and killed by religious fanatics and many others who were just taking advantage of the rioting to rob the Jews. The streets were flowing with Jewish blood; synagogues, homes and businesses are being destroyed; Jewish property is being stolen. The rioters were yelling; "Convert or Die!" The church promised peace and safety to the Jews who convert. Don Samuel Abarbanel, an observant Jew and his family were forced to convert. At that time the Abarbanels was one of the most distinguished families in Spain.  Its patriarch is Don Samuel Abarbanel, Treasurer of the State, Courtier, and friend to three kings of Spain. But even somebody as powerful as Don Samuel was not immune from the violence. He took the Christian name of Juan Sanchez de Seville and continued to serve King Henry III as his treasurer. He and his family attended church and mass on Sunday, but at great risk they were secret Jews, trying to eat kosher, observe the Sabbath and holidays and pray to Hashem. It was not an easy thing for them to do but they did so for about six years when it became increasingly more difficult. By 1397 Juan Sanchez de Seville and his family were able to escape to Portugal where they threw off their Christian customs and names and resumed their practice of Judaism.

Don Samuel Abarbanel's reputation as a brilliant financier and statesman preceded him. King John I had his agents approach Don Samuel to ask him to be an advisor to the king. Don Samuel readily agreed, and a long personal friendship and relationship began. The relationship was not only between the king and Don Samuel, it was between their two families, their children, and their grandchildren. Samuel's son Judah followed in his father's footsteps. Don Judah was highly respected by King John I who frequently sought his advice. King John I was called "King John the Great." The title was well justified. During John I's reign Portugal prospered. Portugal was entering the age of exploration and acquiring new territories and becoming rich. Don Judah Abarbanel's advice to the king was invaluable in pursuing this course of action. One of King John's sons was Prince Henry the Navigator who ran a school of navigation and encouraged its Navy to explore, discover and settle new territories and to bring greater wealth and prestige to Portugal.      

1447: Following a fire in Posen (Poland) where the original charter granting the Jews "privileges" was written, (by Casimir the Great), Casimir IV renewed all of their rights, making his charter one of the most liberal in Europe. This charter lasted less than a decade before it was revoked.

1587: When Vincent I succeeded his father William as Duke of Mantua today Salamone Rossi was serving in his first year as a court musician and concertmaster.

1587: Thirty nine year old to “Federico II of Gonzaga, the ruler of the Italian city of Mantua at the time of the birth of Leone de' Sommi, the first “unapologetically Jewish playwright and poet” and a ruler who enjoyed Jewish comedians enough to hire “Solly and Jacob” passed away toay.
 
1591(24thof Av, 1591): Abigdor Eisenstadt, aka Abigdor Sofer ben Moses, “the author of translation of festival prayers and a prayer-book from Polish into German” passed away today.

1629: Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, who had been befriended by “Bohemian Court Jew and financier” Jacob Bassevi and who “was arrested at the order of the imperial court of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II, put in prison in Vienna, and accused of insulting Christianity” was freed today because a group of “generous Jews” paid a first installment of 2,000 florins on the 10,000 florin fine that had been levied against him,

1688: Birthdate of Frederick William I of Prussia whom Veitel-Heine Ephraim served as court jeweler and mint master.

1716:  Italian Rabbi Isaiah Bassani wrote a poem in honor of Zebulon Conegliano passing his examination in medicine today in Padua.

1725: “The Jewish Law of 14 August 1725” “forbade the settlement by Jews in places where they had not previously been settled” including Reichenberg.

1735: Birthdate of Jacob Meyer mystic and magician who gained fame as Jacob Philadelphia the name he took when he converted to Christianity.

1767: The will of Barbados resident Emanuel Aboaf was dated today.

1788: In Amsterdam, Abraham Benjamin Cohen and Elizabeth Gompertz gave birth to William Cohen.

1779: In Prague, Selig Trebitsch, ḥazzan at the Old New Synagogue and his wife gave birth to Rabbi Menahem Nahum Trebitsch whose writings included “Shelom Yerushalayim"

1787(30th of Av, 5547): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1787(30th of Av, 5547):Isaac de Pinto “a Dutch Jew of Portuguese origin, a scholar and one of the main investors in the Dutch East India Company” passed away. He had been born in 1717 in Amsterdam. In1748, Pinto helped stadholder William IV of Orange, sending or lending him money to defeat the French at Bergen op Zoom. In return he asked for uplifting measures against Jewish merchants forbidding them to sell clothes, gherkins or fish on the street. He proposed to send the poorest Jews to Surinam. Pinto was a man of broad learning, but did not begin to write until nearly fifty, when he acquired a reputation by defending his co-religionists against Voltaire. In 1762 he published his Essai sur le Luxe at Amsterdam. In the same year appeared his Apologie pour la Nation Juive, ou Réflexions Critiques. The author sent a manuscript copy of this work to Voltaire, who thanked him. Antoine Guenée reproduced the Apologie at the head of his Lettres de Quelques Juifs Portugais, Allemands et Polonais, à M. de Voltaire. In 1763 De Pinto became bankrupt as a result of speculation; he had to sell his house on Nieuwe Herengracht with five famous fixed wall-paintings by Jan Weenix. De Pinto moved to another fine mansion in The Hague; he and his family were invited to the palace when Mozart and his sister played. In 1768, Pinto sent a letter to Diderot on Du Jeu de Cartes. His Traité de la Circulation et du Crédit appeared in Amsterdam in 1771, and was twice reprinted, besides being translated into English and German. His Précis des Arguments Contre les Matérialistes was published at The Hague in 1774. Pinto's works were published in French (Amsterdam, 1777) and also in German (Leipzig, 1777).

1793: Birthdate of Baruch Auerbach, the “educator and philanthropist” who founded the Jewish Orphan Asylum in Berlin.

1815: Birthdate Rabbi Maier Zipser “one of the leaders of the Conservative (Neolog) movement of the Hungarian Jewry.”


1822: In New York, Thomas Strong gave birth to Dr. James Strong a student of the Hebrew language whose pamphlet on the subject was published before the Civil War.  Strong was a member of the Palestine Exploration Committee and traveled there in 1884. (Strong was part of a group of 19th century Christians whose interest in Palestine laid the groundwork for the archaeological activities that became “Israel’s National Pastime.”)

1829: Birthdate of Jules Moch a graduate of Saint-Cyr who fought served in the Crimean War and was captured at the Battle of Sedan during the Franco-Prussian War.

1840: Birthdate of New York native Manuel Augustus Kursheedt

1840: The U.S. government sent instruction to Mr. Glidon, the American Consul expressing President Van Buren’s concern over the treatment of the Jews of Damascus and his wish that United States work in concert with the governments of Europe to relieve their suffering.

1840: In New York, Asher Kursheedt and Abigail Judah City College of New York alum Manuel Augustus Kursheedt, whose activities in the Jewish community included serving as “the director of the United Hebrew Charities and the Educational Alliance, managing secretary of the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society and President of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.

1844: Morris de Saxe married Abigail Isaacs at the Great Synagogue today.

1850: David Hyams married Rebecca Arrobas today at the Great Synagogue today.

1850: One day after he had passed away, Myer Moses was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.

1855(30th of Av, 5615): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1859: Congregation Gemiluth Chassed was founded today in Port Gibson, Mississippi.

1861: Second Lieutenant Leopold Rosenthal began who would be wounded at Fort Magruder in Virginia began his three years of service with the 5th Cavalry today.

1862: Philadelphian Jacob Stern began his service with Company E of the 133rdRegiment.

1862: Jacob Ezekiel Hyneman, a native of Richmond, VA who had moved to Philadelphia with his father in 1850 enlisted in the U.S. Army during the Civil War.  Unlike some other native Virginians, Hyneman was able to choose fighting for the Union as opposed to defending slavery.

1863: Birthdate of London “communal worker” Felix Arthur Davis.

1863: "Affairs at Vicksburg” published today describes conditions a month after the fall of the Confederate Citadel including the following, "When the news reached the North that Vicksburg had fallen, a few thousand Hebrew patriots immediately made an exodus in this direction, with a view of opening a few hundred clothing stores at once. Greatly to their disgust Gen. Grant refused to allow any trade whatever, and much to their pecuniary grief they found that they had brought their shoddy to the wrong market. Something, however, must be done, and so fifty or sixty opened shops for the repair of watches, an equal number opened establishments for taking pictures, another quantity went to work gathering up the immense amount of old rags left everywhere by the rebels, while the balance stood disconsolately for a time around corners cursing Grant in every dialect originating at Babel, and then returned up the river. Those who went into the rag business had a good thing, for rags are high and the quantity left by Confederates in this place was enormous."

1864: In Columbus, Indiana, Samuel Ginsburg and Rachel L. Helfman gave birth to Bernard Ginsburg the husband of Ida Esther Goldman and resident of Detroit, Michigan who was Director of the Jewish Orphan Asylum in Cleveland for eight years and began serving as the first vice-president of the National Conference of Jewish Charities in 1904.

1865: Prussia and Austria signed the Gastein Convention that established the rules for governing Schleswig and Holstein which was one of the steps on Bismarck’s path to making uniting Germany under Prussian rule and making it the dominant power in Europe – a path that led to three wars: Franco-Prussian, WW I, and WW II – which had major impacts on the Jews of the Continent which included the Holocaust.

1865: Today's Foreign Items column reports that The Chief of Police in Warsaw has forbidden the Jews to wear their ancient dress and coiffure, (two curls sticking out from a velvet cap.

1865: Officer Thomas Ward who was murdered by a gang of felons in the line of duty, died at the Jew's Hospital. (Jew’s Hospital would later be known as Mt. Sinai.  The hospital took on the role of treating New Yorker’s regardless of religion during the Civil War when it treated large numbers of Union soldiers wounded during McClellan’s ill-fated Peninsula Campaign.)

1872: A letter published today signed simply “A Jew” took issue with the New York Tribune’s characterization of President Grant’s views on, and relationships with,  the Jewish people.  The writer denied the Tribune’s claim that Grant had apologized for General Oder No. 11 by saying “that his chief of staff had issued and that he (Grant) had countermanded it.  When questioned on the subject in 1868, Grant said that “he issued that order under misapprehension, and regretted his action.  He took the responsibility and did not claim credit for countermanding it.”  The Tribune, whose publisher Horace Greely, was running against Grant for the Presidency, was making the same claims against Grant that had failed to dissuade Jews from voting for the Civil War hero in 1868.  The writer concludes by stating that The Tribune does not understand Jews.  Jews think for themselves.  Some will vote Democrat.  Some will vote Republican.  But none of them will be swayed by the Tribune’s re-hash of the claims left over from the 1868 Presidential Campaign.

1873: According to Chief of Police John Malloy, the man who was murdered in Albany is a Brooklynite named John D. Weston.  He was allegedly murdered by Emil Lowenstein, a German-Jewish barber who had been enlisted by Mrs. Weston with enticements of sharing in the decedent’s property and enjoying her company.

1874(1st of Elul, 5634): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1874: It was reported today that the police superintendent of New York had received a telegram from the Sheriff of McLean Country, Illinois, stating that the ”German Jew named Levy” had confessed to murdering New York businessman Benjamin Nathan.  The sheriff doubts that truth of the confession and thinks the man is “a humbug” looking for a free trip back to New York.

1877: Two days after she had passed away, Adelaide Collins, the daughter of Solomon Collins and Catherine Isaacs and the husband of John Collins with whom she had four children – Kate, William, Louisa and Solomon – was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

1878: It was reported today that the government is doing nothing to alleviate the suffering from the effects of the famine in southern Morocco.  The Jews of the region are receiving some assistance from co-religionists

1879:  Harris Levy, a 28 year old Polish Jew was shot in the arm on Forsyth Street in New York.  Levy was as a night watchman for Louis Solomans, a manufacturing tailor whose businesses occupied three rooms on the building’s 6th floor.

1881: “Bleichroder and Thiers” published today described one Frenchman’s reaction to Barthelemy St. Hilaire recommending that the President of the Republic name Gerson von Bleichröder the German Jewish banker with close ties to Chancellor Bismarck be named a Knight of the Legion of Honor.

1881: In Kiev, Abraham and Dvora Wellcher gave birth to Laibel Welcher gained fame as aviation pioneer Arthur L. Wlesh who was a flight instructor and friend of the Wright Brothers.

1881: It was reported today that donations to help defray the cost of the next excursion sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children can be sent to the offices of the Jewish Messenger on Walker Street.

1881: A concert sponsored by several prominent Jews is scheduled to be held today to raise funds for a cemetery at the popular resort town of Long Branch, NJ. The cemetery, “The Strangers’ Cemetery, will be open to all – rich or poor, Jew or Gentile

1882: It was reported today that there are forty Jews living in Hoboken NJ.

1882: It was reported today that yesterday’s account in the Congressional Record of speech given by S.S. Cox in defense of the Jews of Russia could not have happened since Congress had already adjourned. This was an example of the time-honored technique of entering things into the Congressional Record that were not actually said on the floor of the House and/or Senate.

1882: It was reported that a barrel of gunpowder had accidentally exploded at a shop in Grodeno, Russia killing an untold number of Jewish children attending a nearby school

1882:“Old Time Business Ways” reviewed The Growth of English Industry and Commerce by William Cunningham which included a description of how the reality of Jewish money lending in Medieval England.  While it appeared that the Jews had a monopoly on money lending, “the King had indirectly a monopoly on money-lending” because the Jews “were mere chattels of the King” which meant that “all that they had was his.”

1883: “With Hermann Guthe’s publication of his monograph on the scroll fragment completed” today “the Shapira’s manuscript” which was a scroll of Deuteronomy “officially achieved scholarly recognition.”

1884: It was reported today that Rabbi Henry Zindorf of Detroit’s Temple Beth El has been chosen as Professor of History and Hebrew Literature at Hebrew Union College.

1886: On the Lower East Side, Louis and Mary Strauss Frankenthaler gave birth to George Frankenthaler who served as the State Supreme Court Justice and New York County Surrogate.

1887: The members of the jury that convicted Israel Lipski of murder are scheduled to meet with the condemned man’s solicitor today.

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

1887: It was reported today that that Israel Lipski’s solicitor has “sent a telegram to the Queen” asking her to stay the execution because “he is in possession of facts which will enable him to establish” Lipski’s innocence.

1887: “Old World News By Cable” published today included a description of the excitement gripping London over the upcoming hanging of Israel Lipski, a Polish Jew who was found guilty of murdering Miriam Angel.

1888: An excursion for sick children under the age of six sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children will take place this morning at nine.

1888: Birthdate of Dr. Paul Zucker, the successful German architect who, when the Nazis came to power left for the United States where he became a citizen in 1944.


1889: The seventh free excursion of the summer sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children is scheduled to leave from the Fifth Street pier of the East River.  Only children without contagious diseases and six years of age or younger will be allowed on the boat.

1889: One hundred twenty Jewish families arrived in Buenos Aires giving birth to the modern Argentinean Jewish community.In 1889, 824 Russian Jews arrived in Argentina on the S.S. Weser from Podolia in western Russia. Many of them became gauchos (Argentine cowboys). The gauchos bought land and established a colony, which they named Moiseville. Due to lack of funding, the gauchos appealed to Baron Maurice de Hirsch for funds and the Baron subsequently founded the Jewish Colonization Association. During its heyday, the Association owned more than 600,000 hectares of land, populated by more than 200,000 Jews. While many of these cooperative ranches are now owned by non-Jews, Jews continue to run some of the properties.

1890: It was reported today that donations to help defray the costs of the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children can be sent to  Nathan Lewis, President; Dr. H. Gomez, Vice President; Hezekiah Kohn, Treasurer: and Joseph Davis, honorary Secretary.

1891(10thof Av, 5651): Sixty-four year old Emile Frank, the widow of Joseph Frank and passed away at Huguenot, NY. The funeral will be delayed because the body has to be taken back to New York City and tomorrow is Shabbat.

1891:Mr. Rosenbluth, of the Sanitary Aid Society who works with the Trustees of the Baron Hirsch Fund gave one of the Russian Jewish refugees living at Highstown, NJ $5,000 and sent him out to purchase farm lands in an attempt to replicate the success that Jewish refugees have enjoyed farming in Connecticut.

1892: Lewis Novra the son of George Novra and Rebecca Abrahams was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

1892: Rabbis Aaron Wise and David Cahn officiated at the wedding of Lottie Naomi Swartwood and Leopold Kahn known as “Admiral Dot.” Kahn and Swartwood were both dwarfs.  He had begun performing with P.T.Barnum until he formed the American Lilliputian Company in 1877 where both of them were stars.

1892: Louis-Norbert Carrière the government commissioner who successfully pled at Rennes for Dreyfus's second conviction was appointed government commissioner to the Dreyfus court martial in Rennes today,

1892: “Decline of the Hat Industry in the Oranges” published today offered numerous reasons for the decline of millinery business in New Jersey including the fact that Polish Jews in Newark and Orange are finishing hats for eight and three quarters of a cent per dozen.  “American workmen have always been paid 25 cents per dozen.”  (In reality, the problem was the tariff)

1893: When representatives of the Board of Health, the Street Cleaning Department, the Fire Department and the Police swept through Hester Street and Mulberry Bend in an attempt to clear out the pushcarts and street vendors, they were forced to deal with “an old Jew” selling pears who had padlocked his cart in place and a Jew selling calico wrappers who claimed he could not move his cart because the wheel was broken.

1893: Birthdate of Samuel Simon Leibowitz, American attorney and jurist who would gain fame as the lawyer who defended the Scottsboro Boys.


1893: Jack O”Mara, the bartender at Patrick Devitt’s saloon in Brooklyn, is scheduled to go before the judge on charges that he handcuffed a Jewish paddled named Bruns and then stole his pack.

1894: Two day after his death “in his 48thyear,” Oscar Alexander, the husband of Sarah Woolf with whom he had nine children – Henry, Rachel, Leah, Hannah, Amelia, Rebecca, Bertha, Jacob and Rose – was buried today at the West Ham Jewish Cemetery.

1896: Heinrich von Gossler was appointed Prussian Minister of War. During his tenure in office he would defend Jewish manufacturers of rifles of when they were attacked by anti-Semites in the Reichstag. 

1897: In Chicago, Samuel Marlow, a German Jew and his son were arrested today when “officers raided a little frame house on 26thPlace” where they found a still that could produce 52 gallons of moonshine a day.
 
1898: As the staff at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum works to deal with an epidemic of dysentery “a well-known physician said that there forty to fifty cases in apartments in the same neighborhood which he attributed to polluted water.

1898: “The Arrival of the Immigrant” published today described the arrival of Italians at Ellis Island and the Barge Office who have replaced the wave of Jews “from the Ghettoes, the Judenstrasses and the village streets of Russia, Russian Poland and all of Jewish Western Europe” that filled these offices through-out the 1880’s.

1899: A New York Times reporter went to 3,815 Park Avenue which Abraham Reinold, a patient at Georgetown University in Washington, DC gave as his address.  The address given by this mysterious Jews was a vacant lot and no one in the neighborhood knew who he was.

1899: Birthdate of Evelyn Kozak the native New Yorker whose parents had left “Russia to escape anti-Semitic attacks” who would be described as the world’s oldest living Jew when passed away at the age of 113.

1899: In Paris, the police have surrounded the office of the Anti-Semite League where M.M. Guerin , the president of the league and Max Regis, the “noted –Jew baiter” and former Mayor of Algiers have barricaded themselves in attempt to avoid arrest “for political crimes that are punishable with penal servitude.”  A mob of their supporters shouting “Vive l’armee” and Mort aux Juifs’ has gathered outside the building.

1899: “Dreyfus Fight Thickens” published today described the split in French society that centers “around the shadowy and emaciated red-haired Jew, whose uniform of an artillery Captain so ill fits and befits his figure physiognomy.” 

1901: Two days after she had passed away “in her 16thyear,” Rachel Davis, the daughter of “Isaac and Betsy Davis” was buried at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.

1903: Birthdate of Hezl Rosenblum, the native of Kaunas who was “a signatory of the Israeli declaration of independence, he worked as editor of Yedioth Ahronothfor more than 35 years.”

1904: Rabbi Meir Berlin and his wife gave birth to Judith Lieberman the wife of Rabbi Saul Lieberman.

1904: Lillie Solomon, the daughter of Anna and I.E. Solomon, who was born in Solomonville, Arizona Territory in 1879, married Jewish merchant Max Lantin of Globe.

1905(13th of Av, 5665): English painter Simeon Solomon passed away. For examples of his art and a whole lot more see


1905: Louis M Mayer and his first wife, Margaret Shenberg gave birth to their eldest daughter Edith “Edie” Mayer who married producer William Goetz.

1907: In Deal, NJ, Judge Joseph M. Proskauer, who served on the New York State Supreme Court before becoming a partner in the law firm now known as Proskauer Rose and the former Alice Naumburg, who helped found the Euthanasia Society of America, a right-to-die group gave birth to “Ruth Proskauer Smith, a longtime reproductive rights advocate who helped found what is now Naral Pro-Choice America.” (As reported by Margalit Fox)


1910:Birthdate of French-Jewish photographer Willy Ronis

1910: Birthdate of Natan Alterman the Warsaw native who gained fame as an Israeli poet, playwright, journalist, and translator.

1910: Birthdate of Herta Herzog, the author of “The Jews as 'Others': On Communicative Aspects of Anti-Semitism” and the wife of Paul Felix Lazarsfeld.

1910(9th of Av, 5670): Tish’a B’Av

1910(9th of Av, 5670): Moses Frankfurt who had been born in 1828 and was married to Babette Frankfurt passed away today in Norfolk, VA.

1911: In Richmond, Indiana, a meeting of the Society of Friends adopts a resolution protesting the treatment of the Jews of Russia.

1911: Today Lazarus Schwartz was elected Mayor of Mobile, Alabama, a position he would hold until 1915.

1914: In what would prove to be a costly act of bravado “the French First and Second Armies crossed the Franco-German border and began fighting the Battles of Morhange and Sarrebourg and the Battle on Mortagne which were part of the ill-fated Battles of the Frontiers – a doomed offensive that would almost cost the Allies the war in the Summer and Fall of 1914. (Editor’s note - there is a direct line from these defeats to the defeats suffered in 1940 and the subsequent collapse of France which led the Jews to Drancy and then to the death camps.)

1915: “In Brixton, south London,” “Arnold Mishcon, a rabbi who emigrated from Russian Poland, and his wife Queenie” gave birth to Victor Mischon, the British solicitor and Laborite who as a life peer became Baron Mishcon in 1978.


1915: Harry H. Schlacht, who is working to form “the American Legion, composed of foreign born Americans who have received military organization” said tonight “these people are loyal Americans” who “are anxious and willing to join the Foreign Legion and are ready to respond to the call for drill just as soon as army officers are appointed to train them.”

1916(15th of Av, 5676): Tu B’Av

1916: It was reported today that the in Russia “no definite decision has been reached” by the government but “the wish has been expressed that the circular of the ex-Minister of the Interior, Prince Cherbatoff abolishing the pale of settlement be confirmed and incorporated by the legislative institutions i.e. the Duma and Council.”

1917:  A memorandum from the Jewish Socialist Labor Union has been delivered to the Dutch-Scandinavian Labor Committee which calls for “perfect civil equality for Jews in every country and their re-establishment in the provinces” which they were forced to leave because of the war.

1917: It was reported today that “the situation in Palestine this Summer is the most serious since the war began,” that “a scheme for the looting of Jerusalem is already being executed” and the only hope of the inhabitants “is that the British armies now hammering at the gates of the Holy Land may soon drive out the Turks.

1917: A cablegram from Kiev sent to The Day, a Jewish daily in New York announced today “that the Ukrainian Congress had elected a member of the Jewish Socialist Territorialist Party as Minister for Jewish Affairs in Ukraine”

1917: In the Bronx, Harry and Molly Glickmann give birth to Martin “Martry” Glickman. A graduate of Syracuse University, where he played football, Glickman was best known for his skills in track & field. In 1936, Glickman was one of two Jews on the U.S. 400 yard relay team at the 1936 Olympics.  The two were replaced just before the event.  According to Glickman, this was in response to pressure Avery Brundage, an anti-Semite and supporter of the Nazi regime. Glickman went on to a very successful career as a sports broadcaster. Glickman’s parents came from Jassy where the Germans and their Romanian allies slaughtered over twenty thousand Jews during the summer of 1941. 

 1918: As the Amiens Offensive, in which John Monash played such a key role comes to an end French forces continue to engage the flagging Germans at the Battle of Montdidier.

1921(10th of Av, 5681): Tish’a B’Av is observed for the first time during the Presidency of Warren Harding.

1926: Birthdate of Martin Broszat “a prominent West German historian and a specialist on Nazi crimes against the Jews.” (As reported by Eric Pace)


1928: The original production of “The Front Page,” directed by George S. Kaufman, opened at the Times Square Theatre

1929: The Jewish Agency for Palestine was founded.  The Jewish Agency “became the main organization through which Palestinian Jewry maintained its contacts with world Jewry and with the Mandatory authorities and foreign governments.  It was, in fact, the de facto government of the Jews in the Jewish homeland.

1931: In Chicago, Irene Rose (née Mauser) and Cedric Michael Raphael gave birth to Oscar winning screenwriter Frederick Michael Raphael.

1932: The 1932 Olympics in which Attila Petschauer a gold medal winning swordsman was part of the Hungarian Fencing Team, came to an end today. The 1999 film Sunshineis a multi-generational study of Petschauer’s family and vividly depicts his death at the hands of the Nazis in 1943. Jewish Gold Medal winners includedIstvan Barta, Hungary water polo, Gyorgy Brody, Hungary, water polo; Lillian Copeland, USA, athletics, discus throw; George Gulack, USA, gymnastics, flying rings; Endre Kabos, Hungary, fencing, team saber; Miklos Sárkány, Hungary water polo.

1933: While speaking in Prague, Dr. Stephen S. Wise, honorary president of the American Jewish Congress, approves of the boycott against German goods and services.

1933: The Government prohibits the circulation in Germany of all Jewish newspapers printed in foreign countries, irrespective of language, and commands Jewish libraries to remove such periodicals from their quarters.

1934: After buying “the defunct synagogue building formerly run by Rabbi Meyer Isserman,” Rabbi Yaakov Ben Zion HaCohen Mendelsohn opened the Bergen Street Shul today – a “ceremony attended by hundreds of locals along with rabbis from Passaic, West New York, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia.”

1935: President Roosevelt signed into law the Social Security Act.

1936: Today, “the World Jewish Congress adopted the main principles of its organization on a permanent basis, empower the executive committee, which is to be elected, to draft statutes and put them into force” and “also voted a $75,000 budget to finance during the first year the work to which this session has committed the congress.”

1936: It was announced today “at Second Corps Area Headquarters on Governors Island” that “Jewish soldiers in the United States Army will be granted to observe the High Holy Days” starting at noon on September 15th.

1936: Following appeals by ninety-two American citizens to the United States Consul and appeals by a number of Polish citizens to the Polish Consul “for protection against Arab terrorists in Safed” the consuls of these two countries “made representations to the Palestine Government” in Jerusalem “regarding the safety of their nationals in the city of Safed.”

1936: Arnold Spencer Leese was put on trial in London on charges of seditious libel against British Jews. In 1935, Leese who was a licensed veterinarian had proposed using gas chambers to murder Jews.  This led to an indictment “on six counts relating to two articles published in the July issue of The Fascist (the IFL newspaper) entitled "Jewish Ritual Murder," which later appeared as a pamphlet.” He would be convicted and served 6 months in prison.  The experience did not chasten him since he would help members of the Wafften SS escape Justice which would lead to another prison term in 1947.  Leese was so extreme that he attacked fellow fascist Oswald Mosley for being soft on the Jews.

1937: In his closing statement to the 20th Zionist Congress, held in Zurich, David Ben-Gurion said that the subject of a passionate debate regarding the proposed Jewish state was not the integrity of Palestine, which no Zionist can forgo, but the methods for securing the quicker achievement of the common aim. He welcomed the decision of the two-thirds majority of the Executive to negotiate the precise contents of the scheme, while this did not imply any assent to the principle of Partition.

1937: Nazis continued to harass the Zionist delegates in Zurich.

1937: Commissioning of the The USS Blue (DD-387)which on December 7, at Pearl Harbor, Ensign Nathan Asher, a graduate of the Naval Academy took command of since the skipper was ashore and in a harrowing trip lasting one and half hours guided the ship out to open waters and safety while Ensign Milton Moldane, a graduate of Washington University Law School “took charge of the forward machine guns” fighting off the attacking Japanese aircraft.

1937: While the League of Nations debated the recommendations of the Peel Report, Arab attacks against Jews in Palestine continued. Shots were fired at Motza and other Jewish settlements in a significant number of increased terrorist attacks all over the country.

1938:Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, announced today that the Jewish children who were among the Austrian exiles expelled from Burgenland by Nazis and set drift on the Danube four months ago will be cared for by the Youth Aliyah (immigration) of movement and sent to Palestine before Sept. 30.

1938(17th of Av, 5698): Fifty-six year old c, the Latvian born Cantor who in 1922 composed Yiftah (Jephthah) passed away today.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Abraham-Zevi-Idelsohn

1938: Arab terrorists conducted a series of early morning attacks including one by 200 armed Arabs at “the tiny Jewish colony of Shimroon” and another at Kfar Yabetz where Arabs “burned an orange packing house and uprooted four hundred trees on the grounds of the Kibbutz.”

1939:A resolution expressing "deep regret" that the executive of the Jewish Agency for Palestine did not resign immediately upon publication of the terms of the recent British White Paper was adopted today by the World Mizrachi. Mizrachi announced plans to fight the White Paper and calls on World Zionists to refuse to cooperate with the British in Palestine.

1939:Birthdate of Eric Weissberg the American banjo player, best known for the theme from the movie Deliverance.

1940: While fleeing from Paris which had been conquered by the Germans, Italian banker and philanthropist Angelo Donati stopped in Marseille where he was the best men at the wedding of his cousin Piero Sacredoti  and Marseille Ilse Klein, daughter of Siegmund and Helene Klein.

 1941: All residents of the Jewish community of Lesko, Poland, are transported to Zaslaw, Poland, and executed.

1941: In the aftermath of the German invasion of the Soviet Union which raised the rate of Jewish genocide exponentially, Stalin sought to ingratiate himself with the West by signing a military alliance with Poland today – just two years after the Communist Jackal had eaten his half of Poland after the Nazi conquest.

1941: Today, a training report described Isidore Newman, who was being trained as a Wireless Officer with SOE as being “self-assured and thinks with precision.”

1941: In Hungary, The Union of the Jewish Communities obtained “the liberation of the rabbis, leaders of communities, and teachers employed in Jewish schools, who had been arrested after the outbreak of war with the U.S.S.R., from the Targu-Jiu concentration camp. (Jewish Virtual Library)

1942(1st of Elul, 5702): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1942(1st of Elul, 5702): The Germans killed 1,850 Jews from the Lenin ghetto including the parents, sisters and younger brother of Fay Shulman


 

1942: Esther "Etty" Hillesum returned to Amsterdam from Westerbork

1942: The Archbishop of Lvov provided hiding places for Jewish children and Sifrei Torah.

1942: The entire Jewish community from Gorlice, Poland, is deported to the Belzec extermination camp.

1942: On the evening of 14 August 1942, the first day of the Hebrew month of Ellul, a Friday, the SS surrounded the ghetto in the village of Zagrodski, near Pinsk in Belarus (Belorussia), home to five hundred Jewish families. “The commotion and noise on that night”, recalled Rivka Yosselevska, “was not customary, and we felt something in the air.”

1942: A woman named Rivka Yosselevska is one of just four Jews to survive a bloody burial-pit massacre outside Zagrodski, Poland, near Pinsk.

1943: Premiere of wartime musical comedy “This Is the Army” directed by Michael Curtiz, produced by Hal Wallis and Jack Warner, featuring 19 songs by Irving Berlin, co-starring George Tobias.

1944: Twenty-five year old Edwin Newman, the future NBC television journalist and anchor married Rigel Grell today.

1944: Five days after “Leon Kubowitzki (later Aryeh Leon Kubovy), the head of the WJC's Rescue Department, relayed a message from Ernest Frischer of the Czechoslovak State Council to the US State Department urging the destruction of the gas chambers and the bombing of railways lines leading to the Auschwitz death camp. US Undersecretary of War John J. McCloy rejected the suggestion five days later, writing to Kubowitzki: "After a study it became apparent that such an operation could be executed only by the diversion of considerable air support essential to the success of our forces now engaged in decisive operations elsewhere and would in any case be of such doubtful efficacy that it would not warrant the use of our resources."

1945: From Larissa, Greece it was reported: "One synagogue is completely destroyed, not even the foundation exists, so thorough has been the German destruction. The other synagogue has been almost-completely destroyed, also- It cannot be used in its present condition

1945: Japan surrendered unconditionally to end WW II.  It took two atomic bombs and the invasion of Manchuria by the Soviet Army to finally convince the Japanese that all was lost.  The official surrender ceremony would not take place until September, 1945 on the decks of U.S.S. Missouri which would be anchored in Tokyo Bay.  While there is general agreement as to what the official start dates were for World War II, we have seen that the end dates both the war in Europe and in the Pacific get a little fuzzy. 

1945: Alfred Eisenstaedt took the iconic photo of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square as part of the V-J celebrations that was published in Life magazine.


1946: Today, “Will Rogers, Jr” the son of the popular American entertainer and “Board Member of the American League for a Free Palestine” wrote to Barley C. Crum, a Roman Catholic “member of the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry on Palestine” who supported opening Palestine to unrestricted Jewish immigration” in which he said the League was “determined to challenge” the British claim of “illegality” when it came to the issue of “Hebrew immigration into Palestine” “by publicly announcing the intention to repatriate the Hebrew people to Palestine and by assuming public responsivity for this action…”

1947:  India granted independence within British Commonwealth.  According to some historians, the end of British rule in India had an impact on British policy in Palestine.  The reason the British had wanted to control Palestine, according to them, was to protect the Suez Canal which was part of the route connecting Britain and India.  Once India was independent, the imperative for holding on to Palestine was no longer there and the British were no longer quite so keen to spend blood and bullets on rocks and sands of Palestine.  There other imperial holdings including Transjordan, et al were enough to meet English commercial and political needs.

1947: “The Buchenwald Trial or United States of America vs. Josias Prince of Waldeck et al in which 31 people answered charges of war crimes “related to the Buchenwald concentration camp and its satellite camps” came to an

1947: “Life With Father” a movie version of the novel by the same name directed by Michael Curtiz and music by Max Steiner was released in the United States today Warner Bros.

1948(9th of Av, 5708): Since it is Shabbat, the fast will begin in the evening and be observed on Sunday.  There is an irony in this since it is the first time this day of mourning will be observed in an independent Jewish state.

1948(9th of Av, 5708): Tish’a B’av

1948: A day after testifying before HUAC where he denied being a communist, Harry Dexter White suffered another heart attack as he was arriving at his farm in Fitzwilliam, NH.

1948: Habib Vidal, "the owner of a printing shop and the custodian of the synagogue at Helwan" was one of the Jews arrested in Egypt.  Vidal was sentenced to 15 months at the Huckstep Prison despite the fact that he had not been formally charged or tried in a court of law.  (In Ishmael's Houseby Martin Gilbert)

1948: The Pan York, a ship filled with Jewish DPs as well as American volunteers for the Israeli army, arrived in Haifa.

1948: Birthdate of Kathi Kamen Goldmark who “had made a lot of friends in the literary world by shepherding authors on book tours when one day inspiration struck: what the very best authors yearn to be, she realized, are rock stars.” (As reported by Douglas Martin)

1951: “A Place in the Sun” starring Shelly Winters and featuring Paul Frees with music by Franz Waxman was released in the United States today by Paramount Pictures.

1951:The Jerusalem Postreported that Jerusalem was assured of a regular supply of ice for domestic purposes from outside of the city and that the government granted a subsidy, due to the cost of the transport of ice from the coast. The Jerusalem Program for Zionism, replacing the Basel Program drawn up at the First Zionist Congress in 1897, was drawn up for the 23rd Zionist Congress to be held in Jerusalem on August 14.

1952(23rd of Av, 5712): David Zvi Pinkas passed away.  At the time of his death at the age of 57, Pinkas was Minister of Communication in the Israeli government.

1952:Shlomo-Yisrael Ben-Meir became on MK “as a replacement for the late David Pinkas.”

1952: Israel and the representatives of the World Jewry announced that they reserved the right to demand restitution payment for the undeclared and heirless property in Austria.

1952: At this time, life in Israel was very difficult.  The Jewish settlers were pioneers in the truest sense of that term. For example, The Medical Advisory Council told the government that a large section of the Israeli population, mainly those who depended solely on the government’s rationing scheme, did not receive sufficient nutrition.

1953: In Los Angeles, Oscar winning set designer and art director Harry Horner and the former Joan Frankel gave birth to James Roy Horner the composer who won two Oscars for the romantic disaster film “Titanic.” (As reported by Sam Roberts)


1953: “The Affairs of Dobie Gillis” a musical comedy based on the short stories about this adolescent created by Max Shulman was released in the United States today.

1953: Forty-eight year old Max Colpet (born Max Kolpenitzky) a native of Koningsberg, whose parents died in a concentration camp during WW II and who was a friend a collaborator with fellow artist Billy Wilder became a United States citizen today.


1955. “Zero Mostel declined to name names and jousted with the members of Congress, invoked the Fifth Amendment, while standing up for his right to the privacy of his personal political beliefs.”

1957:Mohammed V, who according to Meredith Hindley, found Vichy’s laws pertaining to Jews “appalling” and did what he could given his limited power, to ameliorate their affect went from being Sultan of Morocco to being King of Morocco.

1959(10th of Av, 5719): Seventy-year old labor economist, college professor and author Selig Perlman whose works included A Theory of the Labor Movement and The History of Trade Unionism in the United States passed away today.


1963(24th of Av, 5723): A month after his 57th birthday, playwright Clifford Odets succumbed to colon cancer.



1969(30th of Av, 5729): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1969(30th of Av, 5729): Eighty-eight year old author and publisher Leonard Woolf, the husband of Virginia Woolf passed away today.


1972(4th of Elul, 5732):  Actor, composer and musician Oscar Levant passed away.


1973(16th of Av, 5733): Seventy-eight year old Lady Eva Violet Mond Isaacs, née Melchett, Marchioness of Reading passed away today.


1974: “Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia” produced by Martin Baum, with music by Jerry Fielding and co-starring Helmut Dantine, an Austrian gentile whose anti-Nazi activities landed him in a concentration camp after the Anschluss, was released in the United States.

1974: “Valery and Galina Panov demonstrated outside Soviet Embassy in London on behalf of Victor Polsky, the Soviet Jewish activist accused of “dangerous driving”.

1975: A letter from President Gerald R. Ford with today’s date praised John Gunther Dean, the U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia for carrying out the evacuation of the capital city which was “one of the most difficult assignments in the history of the Foreign Service” “with distinction.

1976: It was reported today that “In Morris Township, NJ, the Rabbinical College of America announced that its new President would be Albert Richman” an electrical engineering executive who was a graduate of Cooper Union and “a founding member of the Technion.”

1976: It was reported today that during a White House reception, when Betty Ford, whose husband is running for re-election “was introduced to Bernice Tannenbaum, the board nominee for Hadassah president” she “laughed and said ‘If you’re elected and we’re elected, I’ll see you here again.’”

1977: The new Likud cabinet had announced a policy of equalization of services for the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza. Officials claimed that this did not mean annexation or a change in the legal status of these areas, an opinion which was disputed by Arabs, foreign observers and the press.

1977: The American Jewish leadership asked US President Jimmy Carter to clarify his position on his possible recognition of the PLO.

1977: According to Time MagazineIsrael provided Lebanese Christians with $30 million to $35million in direct aid.

1979: After losing her seat in the 1977 elections Esther Herlitz “returned to the Knesset today as a replacement for the deceased Yehoshua Rabinovitz.

1979(21st of Av, 5739): Sixty-seven year old Yehoshua Rabinovitz, who had served a Minster of Housing and Minister of Finance, passed away today.

1980: Jimmy Carter, the man who brokered the Camp David Peace Accords, was nominated by the Democrats for a second term.

1980: Bruce Sundlun who become Rhode Island’s second Jewish Governor was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention which came to an end today.

1981(14th of Av, 5741): Sixty-five year old Morton B. Levin, a native of Philadelphia who worked for the federal government for over 3 decades and who was a member of Adas Israel passed away today.


1981: Warner Bros. released “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do) the Oscar winning song “written by Burt Bacharach, and Carole Bayer Sager.

1982: In Moscow, Anna Shulkina and Aleksandr Epshteyn gave birth to Boris Epshteyn investment banker and attorney, turned Chief Political Analyst for the Sinclair Broadcast and “senior advisor to Donald Trump whose marriage to Lauren Tanick Ephsteyn in 2009 has produced one child to date.

1982: Birthdate of Benjamin Cohen who became known for his dot.com enterprises as a teenager and for a dispute with Apple computers over the domain itunes.co.uk. In 2006, he became technology correspondent for Channel 4 News in the UK

1983: Elvira and Mark Kunis gave birth Mila Kunis who plays “Jackie” on the television hit, That 70’s Show.

1983(6th of Elul, 5743): Seventy-six year old Brooklyn born Julius Yablok, the son of Lena and Louis Yablok and the husband of Miriam Yablok who played quarterback for Colgate University, coached St. Francis College and law partner of Mickey Marcus  passed away today in California.

1985(27th of Av, 5745): Eighty-six year old actress Edith Holm "Gale" Sondergaard who along with her husband writer Herbert Biberman was blacklisted passed away today.

1986(9th of Av, 5746): Tish'a B'Av

1987: Premiere of “No Way Out” co-produced by Laura Ziskin

1987(19th of Av, 5747): In Little Rock, Arkansas, Sheldon Luber, son of Elaine and Harvey Luber passed away.  He left us too soon, but he will always be remembered.

1989(13th of Av, 5749): Ninety-two year old Rosa Levin Toubin, the daughter of Joe Levin and wife of Sam H. Toubin passed away.  A native of Brenham, TX, this graduate of Rice University demonstrated her skill as a Jewish Texan historian with the publication of  History B’nai Abraham Synagouge.

1989(13th of Av, 5749): Sir Dove-Myer Robinson passed away. Born in 1901, he “was Mayor of Auckland City from 1959 to 1965 and from 1968 to 1980, the longest tenure of any holder of the office. He was a colorful character and became affectionately known across New Zealand as "Robbie". He was one of several Jewish mayors of Auckland, although he rejected Judaism as a teenager and became a lifelong atheist. He has been described as a "slight, bespectacled man whose tiny stature was offset by a booming voice and massive ego.”

1990: Leonard Bernstein conducted Copland's Symphony No. 3, BMCO

1991:Comedian Jackie Mason marries his manager Jyll Rosenfeld.

1993: According to Argentinian prosecutor Alberto Nisman the authorization for the Argentinian prosecutor Alberto Nisman, the authorization for the bombing of the AMIA (Argentine Israelite Mutual Association) was given at today’s meeting of Iran’s National Security Council (As reported by Adiv Sterman)

1994: The fifth congress of the European Association for Jewish Studies opened today in Copenhagen.

1994: Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, the terrorist known as "Carlos the Jackal", is captured. Carlos involvement with Arab Terrorists, specifically the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) began in 1970. By July 1970 Ramirez was at a training camp in Jordan and after a meeting with Abu-Sharif the PFLP's recruiting officer he became known as Carlos the Jackal. The PFLP gained strength and started to form alliances with other terrorist groups such as the Baader-Meinhof gang and the Italian Red Brigade. Carlos' reputation within the organization grew after "Black September" where he fought against the Jordanian army trying to purge their country of terrorists. In 1972, the PFLP ordered Carlos to kill a respected member of the Jewish community in London, Edward Sieff the president of Marks & Spencer. In December 1973 Carlos went to Sieffs house and shot him, luckily not fatally. Carlos had preceded this by a hand grenade attack on the London headquarters of an Israeli bank and a car bomb in Paris in 1972, which injured 63 people. His international reputation was born. In 1976 he was involved in a skyjacking of an Air France jet to Uganda that lead to the famous raid on Entebbe by Israeli Special Forces

1994(7th of Elul, 5754):  Hamas took credit for the murder of 18 year old Ron Saval today in an ambush near the Kissufim Junction.

1994(7th of Elul, 5754):  Eighty-nine year old Elias Canetti, a novelist, playwright and cultural historian who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981, passed away today (As reported by William Grimes)



1996(29th of Av, 5756): Eighty-eight  year old Albert Neuberger, the German born physician who was a Professor of Chemical Pathology and a Fellow of the Royal Society, passed away.


1998: “Slums of Beverly Hills” a comedy about “a teenage girl struggling to grow up in the late 1970s in a lower-middle-class nomadic Jewish family that moves every few months” directed and written by Tamara Jenkins, co-starring Natasha Lyonne Alan Arkin and Carl Reiner and featuring David Krumholtz and Carl Reiner was released today in the United States by Fox Searchlight Pictures.

1999(2nd of Elul, 5759):  Phillip Klutznick, U.S. Secretary of Commerce under President Carter, passed away

2002: “In an….interview with American Journalist Amy Goodman Shulamit Aloni described how she believes the charge of antisemitism is used to suppress criticism of Israel.”


2002(6th of Elul, 5762): Seventy-eight year old artist Larry Rivers (Yitzroch Loiza Grossberg) passed away today.


2002: Argentine pianist “Alberto Portugheis was the only Europe-based pianist to play in the concert "Homage to V Scaramuzza" at the Colon Theatre” today.

2003(16th of Av, 5763): Moshe Carmel “an Israeli soldier and politician who served as Minister of Transportation for eight years” passed away today.

2005(9th of Av, 5765): Tish'a B'Av:

2005: “The evacuation of Neve Dekalim” an Israeli settlement in Gaza was completed today as part of the unilateral disengagement plan that was supposed to put an end to violence in the Gaza Strip.

2005: Members of the Ukrainian Conservative party demanded that Jews be prevented from teaching the Tanya in Jewish schools and synagogues. While Ukrainian officials denied any anti-Semitic intentions, others saw a link between this policy and those being...

2005:  The Jerusalem Post reported that “members of the Ukrainian Conservative Party and several far right-wing editors demanded that Jews be prevented from teaching the Tanya in Jewish schools and synagogues.”  While Ukrainian officials at the embassy in Tel Aviv offered assurances that their government was opposed to any anti-Semitic behaviors, others saw a similarity between these demands and those being made in other republics of the former Soviet Union.

2005:  The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported that the Library of American will publish an eight volume collection Phillip Roth’s novels and stories beginning later this summer.  Roth joins Saul Bellow and Eudora Welty as the only American to have their complete works preserved by the Library of America during their lifetimes. 

2005: The Sunday New York Timesbook section included a review of The Last Expedition: Stanley’s Mad Journey Through the Congoby Daniel Liebowitz and Charles Pearsonwhich describesthe quest to find Emin Pasha who was a Silesian born Jew named Isaak Eduard Schnitzer

2006: A U.N. sponsored cease fire takes place along the border between Israel and Lebanon marking an end to five weeks of fighting.

2006:Kohenet’s first Hebrew Priestess Training Institute began today, at the Elat Chayyim Retreat Center in Accord, NY

2006: A Polish humanitarian organization is working to provide humanitarian assistance to hard-hit residents of northern Israel. The non-governmental Polish Humanitarian Organization will ask the Polish government as well as private donors for about NIS 1 million in aid for residents in the north for two projects, in addition to separate funding for Lebanese civilians, said Janina Ochojska, the group's founder and president. "If you really are a humanitarian organization you have to work for the victims of both sides, and not only be supporting one side," Ochojska said, in veiled criticism of the major international humanitarian organizations that have focused their work on the Lebanese civilians who have fled their homes during the war. She noted that while all the big humanitarian NGO's could be found working with Lebanese refugees, she was astonished to hear that hers was the first international humanitarian organization to have visited Israeli communities that have been pounded by 4,000 Katyusha rockets over the last month.  She added that her organization will seek UN and EU funding for the humanitarian aid projects in Israel. "These people may not be in refugee camps, but they are in shelters and some of them have lost their houses as well," she said. The Polish organization, which was established in 1992, has provided humanitarian assistance to 23 countries, including most recently to those hit by the tsunami in southeast Asia. This project is the first time they are working in Israel, although future projects dealing with water in both Israel and the Palestinian territories are also being planned. The initiative comes as the central Polish city of Lodz is hosting a group of 15 youngsters from northern Israel for a two-week all-expenses-paid vacation in Poland to give them a respite from the war in the North.  All of this comes sixty years after the infamous pogrom at Kielice, Poland which took place in July,1946, over a year after the end of World War II.2006: It was reported today that Randy Lerner had agreed to purchase the Ashton Villa football club for £62.6 million

2006: Cease fire goes into effect intended to end the “war” between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

2006: A month “after a Hezbollah Katyusha rocket hit a train depot killing eight Israel Railways workers service was restored today to the KIryat Motzkin Railway Station, “an Israel Railways passenger station serving the city of Kiryat Motzkin and the surrounding Kerayot region.”

2007: Haaretz reported that fifty-nine years after they were killed in the War of Independence near the Arab village of Tel Arish, the Israel Defense Forces has identified the bodies of five fighters. The men were soldiers in Battalion 52 of the Givati Brigade, and have been identified as First Lieutenant Yehiel Rosenfeld, Private David Kohavi, Private Itzhak Hamami, Private Yehoshua Lustig and a fifth soldier. The remains of the soldiers, who up until now were considered missing, were identified in unmarked graves in the Nahalat Itzhak cemetery. Their families have been notified. The mission to locate the bodies has gone on for approximately ten years. Nine months ago, the graves of the five were dug up, and samples from the bodies were sent to a laboratory in the United States, where DNAfrom the bones was compared to samples from family members. The decision to dig up the graves was made after lengthy debates between the Chief Rabbinate and the IDF unit that searches for missing people. During the debates, it was determined "beyond reasonable doubt" that the IDF knew the identities of the missing soldiers. The breakthrough was made thanks to the possibility of carrying out the tests in the United States, using technology unavailable in Israel. "These were nine months of taut nerves, during which consistent contacts were maintained with the families," said a source from the IDF unit carrying out the searches. The five soldiers fell during a battle over "Pillbox Hill" near the Arab village of Tel Arish, near Holon. The battle was fought to gain free access between Jerusalem and Jaffa. The remains of Corporal Amos Danieli and Private Itzhak Kandler, also of Batallion 52, are still missing. The remains of a total of 109 fallen soldiers are currently missing, and the fates of ten soldiers are unknown.

2007: Rosh Chodesh Elul, 5767

2008: In Becket, MA, Gallim Dance appears at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. “Prior to founding Gallim Dance, artistic director Andrea Miller danced with master choreographer Ohad Naharin’s Batsheva, in Tel Aviv. Now, Miller presents her own explosive movement vocabulary, which hangs somewhere between elegance and insanity, in this smart, powerful program.”

2008(13th of Av, 5768):Marvin Pomerantz, 78, a friend and adviser of Republican governors and presidents for four decades who twice served as president of the Iowa Board of Regents, passed away today in Iowa City.

http://okhenderson.com/2008/08/20/in-memoriam-marvin-pomerantz/

http://iowaindependent.com/4086/former-regent-gop-political-adviser-marvin-pomerantz-dies-at-78

2009: In New York, opening performance of “Peace Warrior” by Israeli Professor Doron Ben-Atar of Fordham University. a historian of the early American republic and a playwright.

2009: In New York, Rooftop Films presents a screening of “Bloomfield or a Childhood Memory" by Eran Barak.

2009: Willy Ronis celebrates his 99th birthday. “The sole survivor of a generation of famous French photographers that included Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Doisneau, Ronis has become a media darling. Yet, this son of a Ukrainian-Jewish portrait photographer father and a Lithuanian-Jewish pianist mother, both of whom fled pogroms to settle in Paris, still remains a belatedly recognized outsider. Ronis’s religious mother made sure her son had a Jewish education (Willy was bar mitzvahed at Paris’s venerable Grande Synagogue on the Rue de la Victoire, familiarly known as the Rothschild-Schule). Ronis, however, remained an nonbeliever like his agnostic father, reserving his real devotion for the labor movement. Outraged to see his father working himself to an early death, the young Willy, despite years of studying to be a violinist and composer (the latter studies were with the noted French-Jewish musician André Bloch), became his ailing father’s assistant. An unrelenting diet of tediously static identity photos and posed marriage snapshots spurred Ronis to redefine photography for himself as something essentially dynamic, capturing movement on the spur of the moment with crackling energy. Soon after his father’s death in 1936, Ronis created some of his most celebrated images, like “Front Populaire, 14 Juillet 1936” (“The Popular Front,” July 14, 1936), which immortalized the revelry of humble Parisians after the election of Léon Blum, the first Socialist — and first Jewish — premier of France. A moderate left-winger, Blum resolved to augment workers’ rights, and despite many attacks, such as one by a right-wing National Assembly deputy who termed Blum a “cunning Talmudist,” the newly elected Socialist was widely seen widely as a symbol of hope (short-lived, as it turned out). Ronis’s immediate empathy with workers was translated into photos marked with seemingly unplanned architectural symmetry (which Ronis himself has likened to Bach’s counterpoint), especially when compared to the relatively cold formalism of Cartier-Bresson, or the sometimes sentimental, staged images of Doisneau. Armed with a secondhand Rolleiflex, Ronis captured vivid, strikingly natural-seeming images like “Rose Zehner, Grève aux Usines Javel-Citroën, 1938” (“Rose Zehner, Strike at the Javel-Citroën Factory, 1938”), showing a powerful female labor organizer haranguing fellow workers with theatrical zest. Depicting hefty French laborers as moving with the grace of professional dancers became a Ronis specialty. His subject, Rose Zehner, soon became a Resistance fighter. Zehner would be reunited with Ronis decades later in a 1982 feature-length documentary film, “Un Voyage de Rose” (“Rose’s Voyage”), in which both photographer and subject reminisced about their left-wing friends of long ago. These included French-Jewish cinematographer and union activist Henri Alekan and popular singer Francis Lemarque (born Nathan Korb of Lithuanian-Polish Jewish origin). More pertinent to Ronis’s growing aesthetic mastery was his collegial friendships with fellow photographers like Izis (born Israëlis Bidermanas in Lithuania), David “Chim” Seymour (born David Szymin in Warsaw) and Robert Capa (born Endre Ernö Friedmann in Budapest). The steady rise of European fascism made Ronis feel especially close to these émigré friends and colleagues. Already feeling excluded as a boy, due to schoolyard antisemitic jokes, Ronis was not inclined to try to live under the German occupation overoptimistically, as many French Jews did at first. As Ronis recently told a Radio France Internationale interviewer with typical lapidary concision, “I didn’t want to wear a yellow star.” So he fled to the South of France with false papers (his mother, who refused to leave Paris, managed to survive the occupation, shielded by friends and neighbors). After the war, when Ronis returned to Paris with the woman who would become his wife, he quickly realized that many of his Jewish relatives, friends and neighbors had not been as fortunate. An atypically tragic aura invades some of Ronis’s postwar photos, like those taken at a 1949 commemoration held at Oradour-sur-Glane in west central France, the site of a Nazi massacre where almost an entire village, including women and children, was burned alive. Ronis’s images taken during the commemoration ceremony show visitors (especially children) reacting to the site with somber reverence. As if in a subliminal search for other survivors, Ronis soon became a visual poet of Belleville, then, as now, a lower-class Parisian neighborhood with a historic population of Jewish residents. As Karen Adler’s perceptive “Jews and Gender in Liberation France” (Cambridge University Press, 2006) notes, Ronis “humanized Belleville’s poverty and architectural decline” after World War II. Essential to his capturing of these lines and forms is that for a while after the war, cars were still very scarce, until eventually they returned in force to Paris, suffocating the city. Away from Paris the same year, Ronis took what remains his most loved photo, “Le Nu Provençal: Gordes, 1949” (“Nude in Provence, Gordes, 1949”), a celebration of sensuality that shows his wife at a wash basin in a village bedroom in Southern France. Despite such exultant imagery, to some observers Ronis retains a sense of dislocation and apartness that is integral to his artistry. His friend and fellow photographer Brassaï dedicated his volume of “Conversations With Picasso” “to Willy Ronis, the distant one.” Amid all the merited hoopla, it is worth recalling that this photographer’s sheer survival has an element of the escape artist to it, a sleight of hand that perhaps can never be fully analyzed or understood. Having retired from photography almost a decade ago because of arthritis, and having survived his wife as well as their son, Vincent, Ronis now lives in a humble two-room flat in Belleville. He emerges for public appearances and patiently receives visitors eager to interview and photograph him, sometimes with frankly odd results. Despite what seems like friendly forbearing toward young shutterbugs, Ronis recently confessed to the French daily Le Monde: “I have little esteem for machine-gun [photographers]. It may be a severe notion of my trade, but I believe an image must be deserved before it can be taken.” Ronis has deserved, and taken, some of the memorable images of his century.”

2009(24th of Av, 5769): Erev Shabbat, Leonard Arik Karp, 59, was accosted and murdered by a gang of youths while walking with his wife and daughter along the Tel Aviv beachfront tonight.

2009: The City of Pittsburgh designated today as “Evelyn Kozak Day” which coincide with her 110th birthday.

2010: The 35th Hutzot Hayotzer International Craft Fair is scheduled to come to an end.

2010(4th of Elul, 5770): Eighty-eight year old Moshe “Misha” Lewin, Polish born Holocaust surviror and noted Russian history professor passed away today.

http://www.upenn.edu/emeritus/memoriam/Lewin.html

http://www.archives.upenn.edu/faids/upt/upt50/lewinm.html

2010: The Daily Mail rates Isaac Rosenberg as one of the ten greatest British poets.

2011: The headstone unveiling for Rose Becker is scheduled to take place today at Eben Israel Cemetery

2011: The 31st IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy is scheduled to open today in Washington hosted by the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington.

2011:  The JCC Maccabi Games are scheduled to open in Philadelphia, PA and Springfield, Mass.

2011: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz: Volume I, 1915-1933 edited by Sarah Greenough and recently released paperback editions of Dreyfus: Politics, Emotion, and the Scandal of the Century, by Ruth Harris, Where I Live: New and Selected Poems 1990-2010 by Maxine Kumin and The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman.

2011:Twenty high-school teachers brought to Israel by the UK-based Holocaust Education Trust will complete a 10-day education training seminar at the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem..(As reported by Jerusalem Post)

2011:Israeli NBA star Omri Casspi is returning to Maccabi Tel Aviv, David Federman, one of the club's owners said in an interview with Army Radio today. According to Federman, the majority of Casspi's contract has been negotiated and he will be joining Maccabi for the upcoming season, granted the NBA labor dispute continues and the 2011-2012 NBA season is delayed or canceled all together as many suspect. (As reported by Jerusalem Post)

2011: Egypt, in coordination with Israel, has deployed its military in the northern Sinai Peninsula in order to gain control over the anarchy that has taken hold of the region, a senior Israeli defense official said  today.

2011(14th of Av, 5771): Seventy-seven year old transplant expert Dr. Fritz Bach passed away. (As reported by Douglas Martin)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/18/us/18bach.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

2012: The Eyal Vilner Big Band, led by Tel Aviv native Eyal Vilner, is scheduled to perform at the Garage Restaurant in NYC.

2012:Sacramento city leaders are scheduled to vote on a resolution making Ashkelon its 10th sister city (As reported by Ari Ben Goldberg)

2012: The price of a price-controlled loaf of will bread is scheduled to rise by 6.53% today. “The price of standard 750-gram loafs of dark or white bread will rise to NIS 5.24; a 500-gram challah will increase to NIS 5.72; a 750-gram loaf of sliced and packaged dark bread will cost NIS 7.87; and a 500-gram loaf of sliced and packaged white bread will cost NIS 6.99.”(As reported by Jerusalem Post)

2012: Funeral services for Zev Wolfson are scheduled to be at Sh’or Yoshuv Institute followed by interment at Wellwood Cemetery in Farmingdale, NY.

2012:European rabbis said today that they were lobbying Apple Inc. to pull a mobile app version of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a notorious anti-Semitic forgery

2012: Some 350 new immigrants from North America — including five sets of twins and two sets of triplets — were welcomed personally by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Ben Gurion Airport this morning. “I’m proud of you,” the prime minister told the group. “We’re all proud of you. Friends of Israel, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, are all proud of you.”

2013: Noam Kat, the Minister for Public Diplomacy at the Embassy of Israel is scheduled to provide a briefing on The Middle East Process.

2013: Israeli jazz guitarist Assaf Kehati and his trio are scheduled to perform at the Bar Next Door in New York City.

2013: Today, Kevin “Pillar was called up to the Blue Jays for the first time in his career.”

2013: The inauguration of Rabbi David Lau “took place today at the official residence of the President of Israel.”

2013: The IDF launched an airstrike on Gaza early this morning in response to rockets fired into southern Israel from the territory, the army said in a statement.

2013: Twenty six convicted Palestinian terrorists were freed by Israel, and welcomed home to the West Bank and Gaza, as part of the US-brokered deal that enabled the resumption of peace talks. (As reported by Asher Zeiger and Michal Shmulovich)

2014: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to host “Jewish Italy: Food Culture and Travel” during which attendees can “discover Italy’s cucina ebraica (“Hebrew kitchen”) and desserts like sour cherry cheesecake from Rome’s famed Forno del Ghetto.”

2014: “The owners of 21 grocery store branches and kiosks” are scheduled to attend court session in Tel Aviv this morning “where they are expected to be ordered to close on Saturday.” (As reported by Niv Elis)

2014:”The State Department confirmed today that weapons shipments to Israel would be undergoing additional review due to the war in Gaza, but denied reports that the Pentagon had engaged in weapons transfers to Israel behind the back of the White House and State Department.” (As reported by Rebecca Shimoni Stoil)

2014: “The Simon Wiesenthal center requested that a small hamlet south of Paris known as La-Mort-aux Juifs—‘Death to the Jews’—since the 11th century change its name.” (As reported by Stephanie Butnick)

2014: “Today, the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) initiated both criminal and civil charges against Tony Ehrenreich, provincial secretary of the Western Cape branch of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, for hate speech and incitement to violence against the Jewish community’s leadership” when he wrote “The time has come to say very clearly that if a woman or child is killed in Gaza, then the Jewish board of deputies, who are complicit, will feel the wrath of the People of SA with the age old biblical teaching of an eye for an eye,” he wrote. “The time has come for the conflict to be waged everywhere the Zionist supporters fund and condone the war killing machine of Israel.”

2014(18th of Av, 5774): Eighty-year old Leonard J. Fein the Jewish man of letters who founded and edited Moment Magazine and who was the brother of Rashi Fein passed away today.



2015: In “Sabbath” published today, Oliver Sacks examines the big questions of life using the Jewish day of rest as his point of reference.


2015: Shira Garielov, the Israeli musician who “was kicked off American Idol” and is working on “her second LP for the Israeli market” is scheduled to perform at Arlene’s Grocery.”

2015: After premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in January, “Mistress America” a comedy directed, produced and written by Noah Baumbach was released in the United States today.

2015: After premiering at the Washington Jewish Film Festival in February, “Rosenwald a documentary film directed by Aviva Kempner about the career of American businessman and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald was released in the United States today.

2015: The Secure Community Network issued an alert today warning that Hamza bin Laden, who has ambitions to lead al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization founded by his father, posted an audio message calling “for the targeting of Jewish American interests globally.”

2015: Prime Minister “Netanyahu announced the appointment” Danny Danon who in 2013 “asserted that his Likud Party’ was “staunchly opposed to a two state solution” “as Israel’s next Ambassador to the United Nations.” (As reported by David Horovitz)

2015: An exhibition featuring the work of Haifa born artist Guy Yanai is scheduled to come to an end today.


2016: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including American Heiress: The Wild Sage of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst by Jeffrey Toobin and Cousin Joseph: A Graphic Novel written and illustrated by Jules Feiffer.

2016: the UKJF is scheduled to sponsor a screening of “Bulgarian Rhapsody” – Bulgaria’s official submission to the 2015 Academy Awards.

2016: “Shadows From My Past” is scheduled to be shown today as part of the Tisha B’av Film Series.

2016(10thof Av, 5776): Fast of Tisha B’Av observed since the 9th of Av fell on Shabbat.

2016(10thof Av, 5776): Ninety-three year old Obie award winning actor Fyvush Finkel passed away today. (As reported by Joseph Berger)


2017: “The Police National Fraud Unit today detained Israeli diamond mogul Beny Steinmetz and four others for questioning in a money-laundering investigation involving real estate deals abroad, police said in a statement.” (As reported by Stuart Winer)

2017(22ndof Av, 5777): Ninety-seven year old St. John Law School grad Milton Mollen, the navigator who spent part of WW II in a Nazi POW camp and who was the leader of the corruption fighting Mollen Commission passed away today. (As reported by Joseph P. Fried)


2017:  In New Orleans, Kenneth Hoffman is scheduled to his new position today as the executive director of the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience.

2017: “The Legacy of the Hebrew Orphans’ Home” an exhibition that “highlights the oldest Georgia-based Jewish non-profit from inception to present through photography and stories” is scheduled to open today at the Breman Museum

2017: Israeli singer and actress Miri Mesika is scheduled to host Yehuda Poliker at the Jerusalem Arts and Crafts Fair today.


2018: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Through Lotte’s Lens” a documentary that tells the extraordinary story of the ‘Hitler Émigrés’, the refugees – mainly Jewish who escaped the Nazi regime in the 1930s and found refuge in the UK.”

2018: “The Israeli rock band ‘Tattoo’ is scheduled to open tonight’s performance by “English song-writer and singer Marc Almond” at the Caesarea Amphitheatre in the Israeli seaside resort city that dates back to Roman times.

 

 

 

 

This Day, August 15, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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August 15

423: Honorious Flavius, the Western Roman Emperor who confiscated gold and silver which had been collected by the synagogues to be sent to Jerusalem and “defined Judaism as an unworthy superstition  passed away today.

1096: The armies of the First Crusade set out from Europe to deliver Jerusalem from the occupying forces of Islamic Turks. Championed by Peter the Hermit in 1093, Pope Urban II had sanctioned the crusade at the Council of Clermont in 1095.

1286: As what the original and 21st tenants of the city might find as an act of usurpation, during the era of the Crusaders, Henry II was name King of Jerusalem succeeding his brother John I whose death he was rumored to have hastened with the use of poison.

1309: Knights of St. John, complete their conquest of Rhodes. Apparently the Knights treatment of the Jewish population was comparatively benign since many Sicilian conversos would move to the island because “they remembered the Knights’’ liberal policy towards the Jews or Rhodes.”

1418: Birthdate of Johannes Hinderbach, the Prince-Bishiop of Trent who created a blood libel when he blamed the Jews for the death of Simon of Trent.

1461: Trapezunt surrenders to the forces of Sultan Mehmet II marking the real end of the Byzantine Empire. The experience of the Jews of Anatolia had been uneven in the days of the Byzantine (Christian) Empire.  The Jews of Constantinople remained in place after the Islamic forces came to power under Mehmet II.

1488: In Cordoba, Christopher Columbus and his companion Beatriz Enriquez de Arena gave birth to the explorer’s second son Ferdinand Columbus



1534: Ignatius of Loyola and six classmates took initial vows that would lead to the creation of the Society of Jesus in September of 1540. In its early days, the Jesuits accepted Jewish converts and their descendants who were known as New Christians were admitted to the order.  After the death of Loyola, the Jesuits adopted the Spanish attitudes and refused to accept New Christians or their descendants as members.

1753(15h of Av, 5513): Tu B’Av

1769: Birthdate of Napoleon Bonaparte.  Napoleon had profound effect on the Jews of Europe.  But if one asks “Was Napoleon good for the Jews” the best answer might be, “It depends.”  For one version see


1776(30th of Av, 5536): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1784: In Gorizia, Rabbi Abraham Vita and his wife gave birth to Isaac Samuel Reggio an Austro-Italian scholar and rabbi.

1796: In what may have been the first attempt for a governmental entity to protect Kashrut in the United States, the Common Coincil suppressed the butcher license of Nicholas Smart, a non-Jew, for affixing Jewish seals to non-kosher meats.  Pg 246

1806: Rabbi Joseph David Sinzheim delivered a sermon in the synagogue of Paris in honor of the emperor's birthday that strengthened Napoleon's favorable opinion of the Jews, who received the imperial promise that their rights as French citizens would not be withdrawn.

1815 (9th of Av): Rabbi Joseph Isaac Horowitz, known as “The Chozeh” of Seer of Lublin author of Divrei Emet, passed away.

1818: In Alsace, France, Alexandre Aron and Charlotte Aron, the daughter of Asser Lion and Gitlé Loëw gave birth to Jérôme Aron-Duperret

1819: Birthdate of Joseph Jacob Goldmark, the Hungarian physician who came to the United States after the failed revolution of 1848 where he discovered red phosphorous and became the father-in-law of Louis Brandeis and Felix Adler.

1830: Birthdate of Henry Aaron Isaacs who became sheriff of London and was knighted in 1887 and was elected Lord Mayor of London two years later.

1831: In Bavaria, David Isaac Seligmann and Fanny Seligmann gave birth to Leopold Seligmann, the husband of Julia Levi.

1831: Birthdate of Leopold Morse, the native of Wachenheim, Germany who moved to the United States in 1849 where he opened a successful clothing store in Massachusetts and became so active in the Democratic Party that he served as a delegate to the National Convention and a member of the House Representatives.

1838: Lewis Nathan married Hannah Cohen at the New Synagogue.

1838(24th of Av, 5598): German businessman Moses Moser whose business associates included Moses Friedländer and Moritz Robert and who was a close personal friend of Heinrich Heine passed away today in Berlin.

1842: Charles Henry Churchill, the British Consul in Damascus whose area of responsibility included Palestine, delivered his formal proposal to Sir Moses Montefiore concerning the role of Jews in the Middle East.  A Zionist before Zionism existed, Churchill proposed “that the Jews of England conjointly with their brethren on the Continent of Europe should make an application to the British Government through the Earl of Aberdeen to accredit and send out a fit and proper person to reside in Syria for the sole and express purpose of superintending and watching over the interests of the Jews residing in that country.” Charles Churchill was the grandfather of Sir Winston Churchill.

1849: Moss Davis and Jane Davis were married today at the Great Synagogue.

1849: Joseph Seligman and Babette Seligman gave birth to Helene Seligman who became Helene Spiegelberg when she married Emanuel Spiegelberg.

1854: M.H. Bresslau began serving as editor of The Jewish Chronicle (New Series) and Working Man's Friend" an Anglo-Jewish newspaper which he renamed “The Jewish Chronicle and Hebrew Observer."

1854: In Hesse, Levi Hoechster and Betty Hoechster gave birth to Max Hester.

1855(1st of Elul, 5615): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1858: In Montreal Abraham de Sola, the first chazzan Shearith Israel and Esther Joseph, “daughter of Henry Joseph, one of Canada’s earliest Jewish settlers” gave birth to “businessman, Zionist leader and author Clarence Isaac de Sola, the husband of Belle Maud Goldsmith with whom he had “two sons and two daughters.”

1857: Birthdate of Albert Ballin, the German-born businessman who served a general manager of the Hamburg America (Shipping) Line.

1861: Ralph Disraeli, the brother of Benjamin Disraeli, and Katherine Trevor were married today in Middlesex, England.

1861: Austen Henry Layard, the archeologist who excavated Nimrud and Niniveh as described in Discoveries at Nineveh began serving as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.


1862: Philadelphians Corporal Lehman K. Strouse and Sergeant Albert Mers began serving in the 125thregimen.

1862: Philadelphian Private Joseph Levi began serving with Company G of the 129thRegiment.

1864: During the American Civil War, Isaac M. Abraham of Philadelphia who had been serving with the Union Army since November of 1861 was wounded while fighting near Deep Bottom Virginia as member of Company G of the Eighty-Fifth Regiment.

1865: It wasreported today  that "A letter in the Journal de Posen alleges that the official journals, not daring to support the accusations launched by the Moscow Gazette against the Polish nobility, imputing to them the recent fires in Lithuania, and, on the other hand, feeling it necessary to throw the blame upon somebody, represent the Jews as the authors of these disasters. According to the official journals, the Jews, having first insured their houses for a sum superior to their real value, themselves set fire to the buildings to pocket the difference. If this criminal calculation has been made in certain cases, the supposition of its existence cannot give an explanation of all the disasters of this nature that have lately taken place; for, although insurance against fire is much practiced in Lithuania and Ruthenia, it is to be seen only in the more important towns, while a great number of fires have broken out even in the smallest towns."

1868(27th of Av, 5628): Parashat Re’ey

1868(27thof Av, 5628): S.A. Bierfield was lynched by the K.K.K. in Franklin TN. This was the first such reported incident involving a Jew. “A masked mob of Ku Klux Klansmen broke into the dry goods store of S. A. Bierfield, a Russian Jew, in Franklin, Tennessee, and fatally shot both Bierfield and his Black clerk, Lawrence Bowman. The reason given by the lynchers was a false charge of Bierfield's implication in a murder a few days earlier. But as the New York Times reported about a week later, the real reason for the lynching was that Bierfield was "an intelligent advocate of the present reconstruction policy of Congress and a friend to the freedmen of his neighborhood, among whom--he being a merchant--he commanded quite a trade, and perhaps found it expedient to keep one from among their number in his employ." A Nashville newspaper account stated that Bierfield was "an active and prominent Republican, having considerable influence with the colored people. . . . Our informant says that was his only crime"

1869: Two days after he had passed away, Joshua Jacobs, the son of Isaac and Catherine Jacobs was buried today at the “Halfway (Queenborough) Jewish Cemetery” in Kent

1871: Jacob Levi a German Jew swindled Alois Grieshaber out of $545 today using a form of the “pigeon drop.”  Grieshaber eventually discovered the swindle and went to the police.  Levi, who had become wealthy as a swindler, was tried, convicted and sent to Sing Sing Prison in 1872.

1873: On his 42 birthday, Leopold Seligman and Julia Levi gave birth to Walter Seligman

1873: John J. Malloy, Chief of the Brooklyn Police, notified police in several “Western cities” to be on the lookout for Emil Lowenstein, a German Jewish barber who sometimes uses the alias of Livingston.  Lowenstein is wanted in connection with his part in the murder of John Weston.  The governor of New York has offered a $500 reward for his capture.  Police believe that Mrs. Weston was a confederate in the plan and that she planned to run off with Lowenstein once they had murdered Mr. Weston and taken his money.

1873: “England’s New Master of the Rolls,” an article published today reports on the announcement that Sir George Jessel will soon be serving as the new Master of the Rolls. The Master of the Rolls dates back to the 13th century and “is the second most senior judge in England and Wales, after the Lord Chief Justice”. When he assumes the office later this month, Jessel will be the first Jew to serve in this capacity. The Jewish Chronicle noted the irony of Jessel’s appointment.  At one time the Master of the Rolls was officially known as “the Guardian of the Converted Jews” but thanks to a changed in the Judicature Act such is no longer the case. Jessel was the son of a coral merchant named Zadok Aaron who graduated from the University College London because his religion kept him from attending either Oxford or Cambridge

1874: Birthdate of Cincinnati, Ohio native  Rose  Fechheimer who z”like many other Rookwood artists, studied at the Cincinnati Art Academy, decorated pieces at Rookwood Pottery for ten years, between 1896 and 1906 and died in October, 1961 at Santa Monica, California.

1877: The funeral of Rabbi J.J. Lyon took place at the 19th Street Synagogue today. Albert Cardozo, father of future Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo was one of the pallbearers.

1878(1st of Elul, 5547): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1879: In Belarus, Zvi Mileikowsky and Liba Gitl Milikovsky gave birth to Rabbi Nathan Mileikowsky the father of historian Benzion Netanyahu and the grandfather of Yonatan Netanyahu of blessed memory (the Hero of Entebbe) and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

1879: According to reports published today police still do not feel like they have the true story surrounding the shooting of Harris Levy, a 28 Polish Jew who worked as a night watchman for a workshop owned by Louis Soloman, a manufacturing tailor.  Levy claims he was shot by an unknown assailant.  The police think the wound was self-inflicted.  However, they cannot find any evidence that it was suicide and Soloman believes the story about the burglar since his workshop was robbed 5 or 6 weeks ago.

1879: Justice C.W. Chocrane found Adolph D. Pollack, a Jew from White Plains, NY, guilty of having sold merchandize on Sunday, in violation of the law.  Chochrane suspended the sentence because it was Pollack’s first offense, but warned the defendant not to open his store again on Sunday.

1879: It was reported today that Lord Salisbury, British Foreign Minister, feels that it is time for Romania to fulfill to honor its commitments to improve the situation of its Jews since the autonomy the country enjoys was conditional on these promises.

1880: It was reported today that Silesia has a population of 3,800,000 of which 47,000 are Jewish.

1881: It was reported today that M.J. Butler, the proprietor of the Manson House donated the use of the hotel’s dining room for the concert that had been held to raise funds for a cemetery in Long Branch, NJ, that will be open to all regardless of faith or financial status.

1881: “Jews in Germany” published today described the pervasive anti-Semitism in that country that stands in stark contrast to the theme of the “Nathan the Wise” which is a popular German theatrical production.

1881: In New York City, “Moses Siegman and Anna Solfrey gave birth to Arthur Siegman the owner of Arthur Siegman, Inc. “one of the largest manfuacturers of men’s neckwear in New York, if not in the whole United States who married Beatrice Rosenzweig of Brooklyn in 1912 and whose advice to young men in is “Work Hard, be steady, learn to love your business and make friends.”

1882(30th of Av, 5642): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1882: In Walla Walla Washington, “shopkeeper Jacques Bauer” and “modern language teacher Julie Bauer gave birth to Marion Bauer the composer and music critic who was the younger sister of fellow musician Emilie Bauer.




1882: “Mr. Cox’s Wild Eloquence” published today provided a summary of speech by Representative Samuel S. Cox that he delivered during the last session of Congress in which he “eloquently” reviewed “the atrocities perpetrated on the Jews of Russia” and concluded “with an appeal for help and sympathy from America” to help the Jews overcome their plight.

1883: An unnamed British Jew representing a London business firm was expelled from Russia today even though he was carrying a British Passport.

1883: Among those receiving funds from the Board of Estimate and Apportionment was the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society which got $1,896.85.

1884: “Doom of the Ghetto at Rome” published today described the crumbling condition of the former Jewish quarter.  Paul IV was the first Pope to move the Jews across the river into “somber Tower of Marcellus.  He was the same Pope who used to force the Jews to listen to annual sermons on Holy Cross Day in hopes that they would convert.

1885: In Kalamazoo, Michigan, “Hungarian-born Jewish storekeeper, Jacob Charles Ferber, and his Milwaukee, Wisconsin-born wife, Julia (Neumann) Ferber” gave birth to Pulitzer prize winning author Edna Ferber who works included Show Boat, Giant and Cimarron– big books that treated big topics.


1885: In Kovno, Hyman Jehuda Osinksy and Rachel Osinsky gave birth to Meshe David Osinsky who came to Britain in 1900 where he gained fame as Sir Montague Maurice Burton the founder of Burton London and Burton Menswear.

1886: Based on information that first appeared in the Hebrew Standard it was reported today that a young Jewish lady “refused to play at a game of kissing forfeits, giving as her reason the quotation ‘Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves’ (Hosea, XII, 2)”

1887: It was reported today that Israel Lipski has been granted a reprieve from the hangman’s rope.

1887: Three days after he had passed away, seventy-two year old Philip Gowa, the husband of Juliette Gowa and father of Josephine Gowa was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

1887(25th of Av, 5647): Sixty-seven year old Danish author Meïr Aron Goldschmidt whose works included A Jew, “the first novel to provide an” an insider’s “description of the Copenhagen Jewish milieu” passed away today.

1888: Congressman Ford’s Immigration Committee heard testimony today in New York from Daniel Harris a journeyman cigar maker who testified on the impact of foreigners on his business.  In the past two decades foreigners have gone from being 10 per cent of the cigar makers to being 90 percent.  Wages have gone from fifty dollars a week to twelve dollars a week.  He blames part of this one the arrival of thousands of Russian and Polish Jews many of whom have their tickets to the United States by charitable organizations.

1888: Birthdate of Girsh Yankelovich Brilliant who as Grigori Yakovlovich Sokolnikov became a leading Bolshevik who would be murdered by Stalin during the purges of the 1930’s/

1888: In Vienna Leopold Leopoldi (whose name was Kohn before he changed it) and his wife gave birth to Herman Leopoldi the Austrian composer and performer who survived Buchenwald.

1889: Birthdate of  Jekuthiel Ginsburg, the native of Poland, who came to the United States in 1912, earned his degrees in Mathematics at Columbia and founded the Institute of Mathematics at Yeshiva University.



1890: Jacob Levy was delivered to the City of London lunatic asylum, Stone, in Kent, as an insane person. Born in 1856, at Aldgate to Joseph and Caroline Levy, he was a butcher who was a suspect in the Jack the Ripper Cases.

1890: The Jewish Messenger reported that Mr. Lippman Levy has left New York and returned to Cincinnati, Ohio.

1890(29thof Av, 5650): Montagu Meyer Gluckstein, the German born husband of Betsey Gluckstein passed away today in London

1890: It was reported today that Mount Sinai Temple has elected Godfrey Taubenhaus as rabbi

1891: Congregants at the House of Miriam in Long Branch, NJ, donated approximately $165 in response to today’s appeal made by Rabbi William H. Karuskopf.

1891: In London, the lead article in the Daily News deals with “the question of the Jews of Russia.”

1891: “Russian Refugees” published today described the difficulties faced by the Jewish immigrants from Russia who had been sent to Hightstown, NJ by the Baron Hirsch Fund.  Wallach & Sons of New York opened a shirt factory there and agreed to hire them as workers.  However, none of them have any experience and do not like the work.  They have complained to Jesse Seligman about conditions, but Seligman has expressed the feeling that those who are complaining are a few malcontents who do not want to work.

1892: “Orthodox or Reform?” published today described main issue that will be dealt with when a “conclave of Rabbis gathers in New York in October.  The Reform have clashed with the Orthodox by adopting a resolution making performance of “the Abrahamic rite” (circumcision) optional for those wanting to convert to Judaism.  The change championed by the Reform movement grew out of the fact that the daughter of Rabbi Wise, their leader, had married her physician, Dr. Maloney, who was Catholic.  Maloney said he would convert but he would not submit to circumcision.  According to the Orthodox, it was at that point that Rabbi Wise decided that the “Abrahamic rite” was optional.

1892: Meyer Reinherz of the of the United Hebrew Charities appeared in the Essex Market Police Court as the complainant in the case again Edward Pollock, an Austro-Hungarian reporter who had written several articles about Ellis Island and the Jewish boarding houses

1892: “A Wedding of Midgets” published today described the courtship and marriage of Leopold Kahn and Lottie Naomi Swartwood.  The 48 inch tall Jewish comedian met the 49 inch tall love of his life in Philadelphia where he was performing with the American Lilliputian Company. They overcame the obstacle of religion when she agreed to convert before they married and took the name Naomi which she incorporated into her secular name.

1892: “Will Not Object to Crosses” published today described the decision of Russian Jews who are the members of the Erie Street Congregation in Cleveland, Ohio to rent a hall from the Young Men’s Christian Association for use during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  It was agreed that “inasmuch as the crosses were more than twenty feet above the hall…and there were no crosses in the decoration in the room itself” there was no reason not to rent the room which will provide the needed space for the upcoming High Holiday services.

1893: The police promise to keep Hester and Mulberry Streets clear of all peddlers and vendors, many of whom are Jewish, after having conducting a successful operation to remove all such obstacles.

1893: In Seattle, WA, “Viola (Cohen) Kahn, the daughter of a famous rabbi” and “successful businessman Julius Kahn gave birth to “Dorothy Kahn, the eldest of their three children” and a leading Social Worker during the 1930’s and 1940’s.


1894: One day after he had passed away sixty-seven year old Leah Cohen, “the widow of Woolf Cohen was buried at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”

1894: Birthdate of Louis B. Popkin the New York born journalist and public relations executive who was the editor of the American Hebrew and a board member of the Joint Distribution Committee, Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the Fair Play for Palestine Radio League.


1895: While stopping at the Union Square Hotel Senor Segundo Alvarez, the Mayor of Havana blamed the troubles in Cuba on American adventures including Carlos Roloff, “a Polish Jew” who has gotten funding from “the cigar-makers of Key West” whom some “say has landed in Cuba with a thousand men, guns and ammunition and dynamite.

1896: In Prague, Martha and Otto Radnitz, the manager of a sugar refinery, gave birth to “Dr. Gerty Theresa Radnitz Cori was the first American woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology, in 1947, which was shared with her husband, Dr. Carl F. Cori, and Dr. B.A. Houssay of Argentina.” (As reported by Jewish Virtual Library)

1897: The New York Times published a lengthy favorable article about the Zionist cause led by Herzl and the upcoming congress to be held in Basel, Switzerland.

1897: It was reported today that Joseph Barondess has started a new labor organization in opposition to the Hebrew Trades and the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance.

1897: “The Jewish State Idea” published today described the history of Jewish settlement in Palestine and the challenges facing the Zionists as they meet at Basle.

1897: “The Adaptiveness of the Jew” published today summarizes an article by Professor A.S. Isaacs that first appeared in the August issue of the North American Review in which he said that “critic of Judaism…must familiarize himself with the history of the Jew in every land” in which he has lived.  And then “he must account for that marvelous vitality…which has made the Jew at home whether” on the banks of the Vistula, the Thames or the Euphrates or “amid the orange groves of Sicily or the plains of Arabia.

1898: “Bad Water Kills Orphans” published today described the efforts to care for those at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum who have become ill during the latest outbreak of dysentery in the neighborhood which has been attributed to polluted city water.

1898: On this date Clara, Baroness von Hirsch signed the 15th and final codicil of her will.

1899: In Washington, DC, the Treasurer of the Dewey Home Fund received a letter and a contribution of ten dollars from Mrs. Lizzie A. Cohen, Treasurer of the Woman’s Democratic Club of Salt Lake City which did not surprise him since the Jews have “contributed liberally” to this cause from the beginning.

1898: The fifteenth and final codicil for the will of Clara, Baroness von Hirsch, formerly Bischoffsheim, the widow of Baron Moritz von Hirsch which declares that her estate should be administered in Vienna under the terms of Austrian law is filed and attested to.

1899: As passions flare in France during the second court martial of Captain Dreyfus Bonapartists and Oreleanists held rallies and dinners during which they challenged the very existence of the French Republic. (These divisions are meaningless today.  In a nutshell, these were two right wing groups seeking to bring down the republican government and replace it with a monarch.  Of course, each group wanted their own candidate to fill the job.  The important thing to remember is that while Jews focus on the anti-Semitic aspect of the Dreyfus Affair, it really was part of a larger conflict between republicans and reactionaries.  The last act of this dreadful conflict would be played out at Vichy and Drancy four decades later)

1899:The Third Zionist Congress begins meeting in Basel.

1899: The American delegation at today’s Third Zionist Congress includes Professor Richard Gottheil of Columbia University and his wife, Miss Eva Leon, Rabbi Stephen Wise, Rabbi Marcus Jastrow of Philadelphia, Henrietta Szold of Baltimore and William Schurr of Chicago.

1899:”Would-Be Suicide Shaming” published today described the condition of Abraham Reinold who has been a patient at Georgetown Hospital ever since he tried to shoot himself while visiting Washington, DC. 

1902: Birthdate of Iris Margaret Origo, an Anglo-Irish writer who helped to save Jewish children through the kindertransport including the painter Frank Helmut Auerbach.

1902: Birthdate of Jack S. Popick, the native of Kishinev who came to the United States in 1904, became a successful businessman who helped co-found the Graduate School Education at Yehsiva University and served on the board of the Jewish Family and Children Services

1902: In Montreal, Clarence Isaac de Solla and Belle Maud de Sola gave birth to Raphael David de Sola, the grandson of Cantor Abraham de Sola.

1902: In the “Jewish Harlem Section” of New York City, Ruth Green, a widow whose husband died in a factory accident before the birth of her son, gave birth to Charlie Green who gained famed as World Bantamweight Champion Charlie Phil Rosenberg.

1903: Birthdate of Wilma Shannon Warburg the wife of Frederick Marcus Warburg.

1904(4thof Elul, 5664): Fifty-nine year old Gustav Przibram, the son of Salomon and Marie Przibram and the husband of Charlotte Przibram passed away today in Switzerland.

1905: Birthdate of Philadelphia native and violinist Louis Pearlman, the “director of the Pearlman School of Music” and the “conductor of the Doylestown Symphyony.”

1907(5th of Elul, 5667): Seventy-six year old violinist and composer Joseph Joachim passed away.

1908: In Galicia, Joseph Weinberg, “a metal worker who operated a body and fender repair business after he came to Baltimore” and homemaker Sarah Weinberg gave birth to their second child Harry Weinberg the successful businessman and husband of the former Jeanette Gutman with whom he had one child, Morton and created the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, just one of his many charitable entities.



1911: B’Nai Brith contributes $3,382 to Jews who have suffered during the fires that raged through Constantinople.

1911: The 10th Zionist Congress elects Professor Otto Warburg, Dr. Hantke, Dr. Shmaryahu Levin, Hahum Sokolow and Victor Jacobsohn as successors to David Wolffsohn

1913: In London, Abraham Jacobs and Sarah Jacobs, the daughter of Abraham Simcha (Simon) Flashtiq and Rebekah Flashtiq gave birth to Marie (Esther Miriam) Lewis

1914:  The Panama Canal opened to traffic.  The territory that made up the nation of Panama had been amputated from Columbia in a revolution supported, if not created, by the United States so that a canal could be built.  Panama has a very old Jewish community.  When the Canal opened there were about six hundred Jews, mostly Sephardic, living in Panama.  Panama is the only country, with the exception of Israel, to have elected two Jews as President.

1915(5th of Elul, 5675): Albert Bettelhein, journalist and author, convicted by a Georgia jury of murder, was lynched by an anti-Semitic mob.

1915(5thof Elul, 5675): In Frankfurt am Main 62 year old Karl Ferdinand Moritz Flesch passed away.

1915(5thof Elul, 5675): Ninety year old Sarah Blumenthal, who was living with her Mr. and Mrs. Solomon Shillon, her son-in-law and daughter and her granddaughter Fanny “was killed last night when she accidently “feel from a window of her room on the 5th floor of an apartment house at 34 West 116thStreet.”

1915: Robert Moses married “Mary Louise Sims, of Dodgeville, Wisconsin, the granddaughter of the Reverend George Sims, a Methodist circuit rider.

1915: In Asbury Park, NJ, a crowd of more than 200 people heard several prominent rabbis say that “the very fate of the Jewish race in Continental Europe and Palestine depends in large measure on America’s response to the Old World’s entreaties” for financial aid.

1915: “An Inside View of Russia in War Time” published today provided a review of Russia and the Great War by Gregor Alexinsky




1915: “Russia’s Expulsion of Jews” published today described “the horrors wrought by a decree that forced 200,000” Jews to “leave the War Zone” with almost no warning.

1915: The original Broadway production of “The Blue Paradise” with music by Signmund Romberg and Edmund Eysler opened at the Casino Theatre.

1915: “Miss Theresa Dreyfus of New York, who has recently returned from Jerusalem” where she “said thousands of male Jews had allied to the Moslem war colors while their women and children remained at home in poverty and misery.”

1916: In the see-saw fighting in the Caucasus Mountains the Turks took back Mush and Bitlis from the Russians in the kind of miserable fighting that would help to bring on the Revolution in 1917.

1917(27thof Av, 5677): Eighty-two year old philanthropist Abraham Slimmer passed away today in Dubuque, IA.



1917: It was reported today that Samuel Gompers has been “denounced at a workingmen’s council.”\1917: It was reported today that Minister for Jewish Affairs in Ukraine Silverfarb is the first person to hold this unique position that he uses the penname “Basin.”

1918: Birthdate of Sanford Daniel Garelik, the first Jewish chief inspector of the New York Police Department.  Garelik graduated from the Police Academy in 1940 along with Gertrude Schimmel who became the first female and the first Jewish female deputy chief of police.

1918: As the effects of the Aimens offensive in which Sir John Monash played such a major part took effect, German long-range guns fired on Paris for the last time.

1919: Birthdate of Stanley Frazen, “a longtime film and television editor who was a member of the Army Air Forces' First Motion Picture Unit during World War II.”

1921: Birthdate of August Marian Kowalczyk, the Polish actor and director who “was the last survivor of a breakout from Auschwitz on June 10, 1942.”

1922: Birthdate of sculptor and printmaker Leonard Baskin.

1924: In Brooklyn, Dr Henry and Celia Kresky gave birth to Edward Mordecai Kresky  “an investment banker who was an architect of the debit refinancing plan that saved New York City from bankruptcy in the 1970’s” (As reported by Paul Vitello.

1925: Charlie Chaplin in "The Gold Rush" opens with a gala performance at midnight.

1926: Birthdate of Sami Michael, the left wing native of Baghdad who in 1949 came to Israel where he became an author and the President of The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI).

 

1926: The Chevra Kadisha, at its last meeting here, decided to contribute a sum of 5,000 pesos to the Palestine campaign. At the same time, it decided to contribute a sum of 500 pesos to the Jewish Colonization work in Russia. (As reported by JTA)

1928: In Rochester, NY Abraham and Hannah Glazer gave birth to their fifth child Malcolm Irving Glazer the CEO of First Allied Corporation who owned two football teams – Manchester United (soccer) and Tampa Bay Buccaneers (NFL)

1929(9th of Av, 5689): Tish'a B'Av

1929: Several hundred members of Joseph Klausner's Committee for the Western Wall, among them members of Vladimir Jabotinsky's Revisionist Zionism movement Betar youth organisation, under the leadership of Jeremiah Halpern, assembled at the Western Wall. They raised the Jewish national flag and sang the Hatikvah. The authorities had been notified of the march in advance and provided a heavy police escort in a bid to prevent any incidents.

1933: In Prague, the Conference of the Women's International Zionist Organization (Wizo), attended by 103 delegates from 19 countries, came to a close after hearing that its membership is now 50,000; adopts budget of £47,000, and approves resolutions encouraging immigration into Palestine of German-Jewish youth, especially those of the middle classes, urging more certificates for girl immigrants, and equal rights for women.

1933: In New York City Romanian born Adele (née Israel), and Hungarian-born baker, Samuel Milgram gave birth to social psychologist Stanley Milgram.

1933: In Bucharest.—M. Pandrei, Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Education, in an interview with the press, denies that the Government intends to establish a “numerus clauses” in the universities of Romania, and announces that owing to a lack of laboratory facilities, a general limitation of students is contemplated.

1934: Premiere of “Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back,” a comedic murder mystery with a script co-authored by Henry Lehman and music by Alfred Newman.

1935: “Alice Adams” produced by Pandro S. Berman with music by Max Steiner was released in the United States today by RKO.

1935:  Humorist Will Rogers and aviator Wiley Post were killed when their airplane crashed near Point Barrow, Alaska.  Rogers was one of the most popular celebrities of his time.  His radio shows, movies and columns were devoured by millions of Americans.  This son of the American Plains got his first big break when Flo Ziegfield featured him in the famous Zigfield Follies.  According to legend, he took away Will’s horse, left him with a rope and the wit that became his trademarks.

1936(27th of Av, 5696): Parashat Re’eh

1936: In Geneva, The World Jewish Congress adjourn tonight until 1938 after approving the recommendation of the nominations committee that included naming Federal Judge Julian W. Mack of New York as honorary president; “”Rabbi Stephen S. Wise as chairman of the executive committee; Louis Lipsky of New York as chairman of the council; and Louis Sturz who is chairman of the American Jewish Congress’s finance committee as treasurer.”

1937: In Tel Aviv, Amnon Drori, the son of Isaschar Dov (Bar-Drora) Drori (Freier) and Shulamit Drori (Bar-Drora) and Ella Drori, the daughter of Alexander Govorkovski and Ester Goverkovsky gave birth to General Amir Drori, the winner of the Medal of Courage and “the first director general of the Israel Antiquities Authority.” (Some sources show his birth at August 5)

1937: Sha’ar HaNeveg (which was renamed Kfar Szold) a new agricultural village east of Gedera was established. It was the 17th village to be settled in 1937.  Kfar Szold was only two hundred yards from the Syrian border.  In January, 1948, even before the state of Israel had been created, the Syrian army attacked the settlement in a determined effort to destroy it and kill the inhabitants.  Nine hundred Syrian soldiers attacked a settlement manned by fewer than hundred defenders.  After a spirited defense, the British army, for once, intervened on behalf of the Jews and the Syrians withdrew.

1937: Lord Melchett, Prof. L. Namier, H. Sacher, M. Ussishkin, Dr. S. Wise, Berl Katznelson, Dov Hos, Rabbi Berlin, Dr. Glickson, and Franz Bernstein joined the Advisory Commission, formed to assist the new Zionist Executive to negotiate the country’s partition under the Royal (Peel) Commission¹s scheme.

1937(8th of Elul, 5697):Solomon Wander, one of the first Jewish immigrants to form the Jewish community in Albany. New York passed away at the age of 71.


1937: The New York Times describes the growing tension in Palestine on the streets of Jerusalem and Haifa and the British response which includes the recommendation by a Royal Commission for "a surgical operation" on Palestine which will result in the creation of a Jewish State, an Arab State and a new British mandate over Jerusalem with a corridor to the sea.

1938: “The Gladiator” a comedy produced by David L. Loew with a script by Arthur Sheekman and music by Victor Young was released in the United States by Columbia Pictures.

1938: Birthdate of Lewis E. “Lew” Lehrman the founder of Rite Aid Drugstore and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History who ran for Governor of New York in 1982 on the Republican ticket.

1938:  In San Francisco, CA, Anne A. and Irving G. Breyer gave birth to Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.

1938: As Arab violence spirals to new levels of intensity, “six Jews were killed and two, both women, were seriously injured near Haifa this afternoon when a bus going to Mount Carmel was ambushed by Arabs while passing through a forest. It is believed several of those killed were Jewish special policemen.” A bomb was detonated on the road running between Herzliah and Raananh wounding some of the 25 workers in a truck bound for a local orange grove.  Several other acts of violence and sabotage took place including a bomb-throwing episode on the streets of Tel Aviv.

1938: Paul Ferdinand Strassmann, the Jewish born German gynecologist who became a Protestant, passed away.


1939: “The Wizard of Oz” the classical musical produced by Mervyn LeRoy with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by Yip Harburg “both of whom won the Academy Award for Best original Song for ‘Over the Rainbow’ “had its Hollywood Premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theater.

This is another example of Jews creating an icon of American popular culture.

1939(30th of Av, 5699): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1941:  Heinrich Lohse, Reich commissioner for Eastern Territories of the Ostland (Eastern Europe) region, decrees that Jews must wear two yellow badges, one on the chest and one on the back; that Jews cannot own automobiles or radios; and that their presence in public places will be severely proscribed.

1941 A Jewish ghetto is established at Riga, Latvia.

1941: Last of the remaining 25,000 Jews in Kovno were removed to Viampole. Each is allotted three square feet of living space.

1941: Six hundred Jews are taken from Stawiski and shot in nearby woods.

1941: A massacre begins at Rokiskis that leaves 3,200 men, women and children, shot by the next evening.

1942: On Shabbat, “the Germans entered the ghetto in the village of Zagrodski, ordering the Jews to leave their houses for a roll call” and then left to stand outside all day without any food or water.

1942: This evening, “a truck arrived at the ghetto in the village of Zagrodski. “The Jews were ordered on to it, and drove out of the ghetto. Those for whom there had been no room on the truck were ordered to run after it. For the rest of the tale of the ensuring slaughter read http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/einsatz/rytest.html

1942: The Germans open Jawiszowice, a slave-labor camp located near Auschwitz.

1942: One thousand Belgian Jews, including 172 children, are deported to their deaths in the East.

1943: Nearly 1000 French Jews of Polish birth are deported to a slave-labor camp on Alderney, one of the British Channel Islands seized in 1940 by Germany, and are put to work building fortifications. Hundreds of the Jews die due to ill treatment and exhaustion

1944: “Operation Dragoon,” the Allied invasion of southern France in which former B-17 pilot Bruce Sundlin served as a bombardment spotter for the OSS, began today.

1944: “Children standing behind the ghetto fence in Lodz, Poland.”


1945:  V.J. Day – Victory over Japan Day is proclaimed by the Allies after having received official word of that the Japanese had indeed surrendered.


1945: Bess Myerson, who refused to change her name to something less Jewish and won the Miss New York beauty pageant based on her performance of music by Edvarg Grieg and George Gershwin as well as on her looks.

1947: Birthdate of Brooklyn native Allen H. Weisselberg, the “CFO the Trump Organization.”

 1947: With the end of the British rule of the Indian subcontinent, two new nations declared the independence.  One was Islamic Pakistan; the other was India which while heavily Hindu retained a large Islamic population.  India’s relations with Israel have been a mixed bag.  In the early days, under Nehru, the Indian government was anti-Israel, taking the lead, for example in denying it admittance to the Bandung Conference.  In more recent times, relations between the two states and their citizens have improved.

1947: Following today’s division of the Indian sub-continent into two states, Indian airlines responded to the Prime Minister Nehru’s request that they fly Hindus living in Pakistan to India.  Among those participating was Abie Nathan who was a co-pilot for one of the Indian airlines. 

1948(10th of Av, 5708): Tish’a B’Av observed since the 9th of Av fell on Shabbat

1948(10th of Av, 5708): As Israel fights for her independence Tish'a B'Av is observed today because the 9th of Av fell on Shabbat.

1948: Mitchell Flint, a WW II naval combat pilot who had planned to celebrate his graduation UC-Berkley by attending the Olympics in London but chose to fly for the IAF “out of concern for the plight of Holocaust survivors” flew his first two missions today – the first involving “a search for a last aircraft” and the second being an “attempted interception” of an enemy aircraft.

1948: In Iraq, a leading Jewish businessman, Shafiq Adas was hanged on trumped up charges of treason.  His body was mutilated by a crowd of on-lookers.

1948: American Michael “Mike” Flint joined Israel’s squadron 101.

1948: Two Israeli and two Arab soldiers were killed during a second unsuccessful Arab attack on the Mandelbaum House a key defensive point in Jerusalem.

1949(20th of Av, 5709): Fanny Binswanger Hoffman passed away. (As reported by Selma Weintraub, a past national president of the Women’s League for Conservative Judaism)


1950: In Indianapolis, Indiana, Anne and Wolf Rosenblum gave birth to Gail Sue Rosenblum who gained fame as Gaylen Ross “American actress, writer, producer and director” who produced the awarded “Killing Kasztner”

(For more see Gaylen Ross’s award winning documentary “Killing Kasztner: The Jew Who Dealt With Nazis” http://www.killingkasztner.com/

1951: Prime Minister David Ben Gurion's plan to take control of the Zionist movement outside of Israel from political parties and transfer it to non-partisan regional organizations was attacked here today by delegates to the twenty-third World Zionist Congress.

1951(13th of Av, 5711): Pianist and composer Artur Schnabel passed away.



1951: The last inmates of Bergen-Belsen left the camp on their way to the United States. Bergen- Belsen was originally set up in 1943. Many of its inmates were Jewish prisoners who had dual citizenship with Latin American countries or entry permits to Palestine. A few hundred were used by the Germans for prisoner exchanges. Though not a death camp per se, over 51,000 people died there including Anne Frank.

1951: In Philadelphia, premiere of “His Kind of Woman” directed by Richard Fleischer

1953: Seventy-seven year old Reinhold Quaatz the German right wing politician “who endorsed anti-Semitic policies” despite the fact that his mother was Jewish and avoided the Holocaust passed away today.

1954(16thof Av, 5714): Abram Pofcher, the son of Michael and Rose Nizel Pofcher and the husband of Mamie Pofcher  with whom he had five children passed away today after which he was buried in Suffolk Country, MA.

1955: “A Kid for Two Farthing” a screen version of the novel by Wolf Mankowitz who wrote the screenplay with music by Benjamin Frankel and co-starring David Kossoff was released today in the United Kingdom.

1959(11thof Av, 5719): Shabbat Nachamu

1959: “In the summer of her freshman year of college Judith Sussman married John M. Blume which meant she was Judy Blume, the name under which she became an award winning auther.

1959: As the Los Angeles Dodgers made a surprising run for the National League pennant ‘Larry Sherry walloped three hits, including his first home run, and pitched eight and two-thirds innings of scoreless relief ball today in leading the second place Los Angeles Dodgers to a 4-3 decision over the Cardinals.”

1960: It was reported today that “some quiet talk in the corridors of the U.N. here and in the Foreign Ministry in Buenos Aires may lead soon to restoration of full diplomatic relations between Israel and Argentina which had soured after “the two countries had clashed bitterly over the abduction of Adolf Eichmann.”


 1961: “Marines, Let’s Go” a Korean War that President Kennedy did not like with music by Irving Getz was released today in the United States.

1961: Elections were held today for the fifth Knesset Ben-Gurion’s Mapai came in first with 34.7% of the vote which earned 42 seats.  Herut, led by Menachem Begin and Liberal  led by Peretz Bernstein tied for second with each getting a little more than 13% of the vote which translated into 17 seats for each party.

1961: “The Lawbreakers” with music by Johnny Mandel who wrote the theme for MASH (Suicide is Painless) and featuring Jay Adler as “Abe Hirsch” was released in Germany today.

1962(15thof Av, 5722) Tu B’Av

1962(15thof Av, 5722): Sixty-three year old Russian native David Jacob Sandweiss who came to the U.S. in 1909, earned a Medical Degree from the University of Michigan, practiced in Detroit where he raised his son Samuel with his wife Frieda.

1968:  In Brooklyn, “Sandra (née Simons), who has worked as a professional singer, banker, travel and real estate agent, and Brian Messing, a sales executive for a costume jewelry packaging manufacturer” gave birth to actress Debra Messing who plays Grace, “the Jewish interior designer” on the television show Will and Grace.

1969(1stof Elul, 5729): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1969(1stof Elul, 5729): Sixty-six year old movie producer William B. “Bill” Goetz, the husband of Edith Mayer,  who was one of the founders of what is now 20th Century Fox and who had a stormy relationship with is father-in-law Louis B. Mayer passed away today


1969: The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, which became the iconoclastic hippie happening simply known as Woodstock, began today in Bethel, NY, at the farm of Jewish dairyman Max B. Yagur.

1970: “The Appointment” a drama directed by Sidney Lumet and written by James Salter (James Arnold Horowitz) was released today in Sweden.

1971(24thof Av, 5731): Eighty-year old Paul Lukas, the Budapest born Jew Pál Lukács, who won the Oscar for Best Actor for his role in the anti-fascist drama Watch on the Rhine passed away today in Morocco.


1971: A new paperback version of Tillie Olsen's classic short story collection Tell Me a Riddle was issued

1973: Black September, the Palestinian terror group, kills 3 and wounds 55 in Athens

1974: “Once Upon a Scoundrel” a comedy starring Zero Mostel was released today.

1975: “Yakov Vinarov, a 21 year old engineering student who refused conscription into the army, was sentenced in Kiev to three years’ imprisonment for “evading military service”.

1976: It was reported today that “in preparation for the raid on Entebbe Airport, Israeli intelligence officers allegedly hypnotized several previously-released hostages” one of whom “was able to give helpful physical details of the airport” where the terrorists were holding their captives.

1976: The National Convention of Hadassah is scheduled to open today in Washington, DC.

1977: The Arabs in the administered territories and neighboring countries continued to dismiss the Israeli government’s decision to equalize the standard services on the West Bank and in Gaza as one more step toward annexation. Israeli opposition, the Alignment and the Democratic Movement for a Change, dismissed the plan, claiming that Israel could not afford to give residents of the administered territories services equal to those enjoyed by Israelis. The new prime minister, Menachem Begin called upon the Labor Opposition to support his government if and when Israel would be pressed to accept the PLO as a negotiating peace-talks partner.

1980: The World Conference on Records – Preserving our Heritage at which Malcom H. Stern spoke on “Jewish Families: Their Assimilation into North American Culture” came to a close today.

1980: “The Girl in the Book” by Primo Levi was published for the first time in La Stampa.1983(6th of Elul, 5743): Seventy-six year old Brooklyn born Julius Yablok, the son of Lena and Louis Yablok and the husband of Miriam Yablok who played quarterback for Colgate University, coached St. Francis College and law partner of Mickey Marcus  passed away today in California. (There is some confusion since some sources report his demise as taking place on August 14)


1983(6th of Elul, 5743): Eighty-eight year old Benjamin V. Cohen a member of FDR’s “Brain Trust” who stayed on to work with Harry S. Truman passed away.  (As reported by Marjorie Hunter)



1984: A car bomb was discovered on Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem and defused about 10 minutes before it was to have exploded. In the car were about 12 kilograms of explosives and another three kilograms of iron nails.

1984: “Buckaroo Banzai” a sci-fi film co-starring Ellen Barkin and Jeff Goldblum was released in the United States by 20th Century Fox.

1984: “The Woman in Red” a comedy directed by Gene Wilder who also wrote the script and starred in this film produced by Victor Drai which also featured performances by Charles Grodin and Gilda Radner opened today in the United States.

1985(28thof Av, 5745): Eighty-one year old Lester Cole, one of the founders of the Writers Guild of America and a member of the Communist Party who was among the ten writers sent to prison for failing to answer questions asked by a committee of the House of Representatives passed away today in California.


1986: “The Fly” a remake of an early version the sci-fi thriller directed by David Cronenberg with music by Howard Shore and starring Jeff Goldblum was released in the United States today 20th Century Fox.

1986: “Manhunter” a “crime thriller” directed by Michael Mann who also wrote the script was released in the United States today by De Laurentiis Entertainment Group.

1986: “Armed and Dangerous” a comedy produced Brian Grazer who co-authored the script along with Harold Ramis and co-starring Eugene Levy was released in the United States by Columbia Pictures.

1992: Giorgio Perlasca, an Italian businessman who saved more than 3,000 Jews from deportation to Nazi concentration camps in World War II, passed away today at his home in Padua, Italy. He was 82 years old. Mr. Perlasca died of a heart attack, The Associated Press reported. Trapped in Budapest late in the war by the fall of the fascist Italian Government, Mr. Perlasca, a livestock trader, joined in a plan conceived by international relief workers and diplomats from neutral countries to save as many Jews as possible from the Nazis. When the Spanish diplomatic representative fled Budapest in November 1944, Mr. Perlasca, who had been a volunteer in Franco's army in the Spanish Civil War, persuaded Hungary to accept him as the Spanish representative, and in two months he issued travel documents to thousands of Jews to save them from deportation. In 1987 Mr. Perlasca, whose achievements had gone largely unnoticed, was made an honorary citizen of Israel and was honored by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum there. In 1990 he received the Medal of Remembrance of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. A tall, quiet man, Mr. Perlasca told The Jerusalem Post in 1987 that he had been motivated by neither religion nor politics. "I couldn't ignore it," he said. "I did what I had to do. I was lucky. I had friends among the Jews who were being killed by the Nazis. That gave me courage."

1993: TraveldoctorOnline commemorated “the 55th anniversary of the death of the Berlin gynecologist Prof. Paul Ferdinand Strassmann. In the first half of the 20th century, Strassmann was one of the leading specialists of plastic surgery of the female genital tract. Famous gynecologists and surgeons, e.g. the Mayo brothers, visited the Strassmann clinic in the Schumannstrasse with the aim of learn new surgical techniques. The present paper aims to outline particularly the life of Paul F. Strassmann but also his importance in the creation of modern gynecological surgery.”

1996(30th of Av, 5756): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1997: “Event Horizon” a sci-fi film co-starring Jason Isaacs with music by Michael Kamen was released in the United States today by Paramount Pictures.

1998: The curtain came down tonight on a three month revival of Neil Simon’s “Sweet Charity” at London’s Victoria Palace Theatre.

1999: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Edward Albee: A Singular Journey: A Biographyby Mel Gussow and Inside Picture Booksby Ellen Handler Spitz.

2000(14th of Av, 5760): Eighty-year old Harry Kuniansky the native of Atlanta and star football player for the Georgia Bulldogs who earned a Purple Heart in WW II and formed Raco General Contractors in Marietta, Georgia, passed away today.

2002(7th of Elul, 5762): Haim Yosef Zadok a native of Galicia who made Aliyah in 1935 and served as Jurist and political leader, passed away.


2003: Stan Lee voiced the character “Frank Elson” in the broadcast of an episode of “Spider Man” titled “mind games.”

2003: “In Doctor Writes ‘Epic Saga’ of Jews in Medicine,” Max Gross reviewed Jews and Medicine: An Epic Saga by Frank Heynick


2004: The Sunday New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish authors including Dark Voyage by Alan Furst andThe Numbers Game: Baseball's Lifelong Fascination With Statistics by Alan Schwarz

2004: In “Past, Prologue and Paris” published today Alice Steinbach visits the world of the Camondo family and reminds us tenuous the fate of even the most powerful Jews can be.

2005: Deadline for Israeli citizens living in Gaza to accept government compensation packages as part of the voluntary evacuation plan.

2005: The evacuation of Gaza “under Major General Dan Harel of the Southern Command” began at 8 a.m. when “a convoy of security forces entered Neve Deakalim.”

2005:  Haaretz reported that the Israeli Defense Forces unit that is responsible for finding the remains of missing soldiers discovered the burial site of eight soldiers who died during the War of Independence.  The missing eight died in fighting on May 13, 1948near Kibbutz Nahshon. Their remains have been re-interred in cemeteries on Mount Herzl and Rosh Pina.

2006: The Sony BMG Masterworks label released Jay "Bluejay" Greenberg’s first CD. It includes his Symphony no. 5

2006(21st of Av, 5766): Myriam Fefer, a Jewish businesswoman, was brutally murdered in her home in Lima Peru.

2007(1st of Elul, 5767: Rosh Chodesh Elul; First Day of the month of Elul.  Psalm 27 will be recited from this date through Shemini Atzeres.  Shofar is blown daily at Shacharit except on Shabbat through the penultimate day of the month of Elul.

2007: Yad Vashem posthumously honored a Romanian reserve officer who blocked the deportation of Romanian Jews to Nazi death camps during World War II. Theodor Criveanu joined the Righteous Among the Nations group of non-Jews who rescued Jews from the Nazis. His son, Willie Criveanu, accepted the award on his behalf. Yad Vashem said it could not estimate how many Jews he saved. Criveanu married the daughter of one of the Jews he saved. He died in Romania in 1988.

2008: At the Israel Museum an exhibition entitled “Swords into Plowshares: The Isaiah Scroll and Its Message of Peace” comes to an end.

2008:Bais Chana Jewish Women's Weekend Retreat opens in St. Paul, Minnesota

2008:A Kassam rocket was launched into Israel from the Gaza Strip in the afternoon. The rocket hit an open field in the western Negev. No casualties or damage were reported.

2008:In a letter published today in Corriere della Sera, former Italian President Francesco Cossiga described a "secret 'non-belligerence pact' between the Italian state and Palestinian resistance organizations, including terrorist groups" such as the PFLP.

2008: Jody Wagner announces her candidacy for Lt. Gov. on the Republican ticket in the state of Virginia.

2008(14th of Av, 5768): Ninety-one year record producer Jerry Wexler who coined the term “rhythm and blues” passed away today. (As reported by Patricia Sullivan)


2009: The 92nd Street Y sponsors Israeli Folk Dance: Summer Marathon 2009.

2009: In Jerusalem, Amit Erez hits the stage at Hama'abada, playing an acoustic show which blends folk and indie style music, influenced by musicians such as Nick Drake and Elliot Smith on the one hand, and Shalom Hanoch on the other. Erez performs songs from his new album, including "Last Night When I Tried to Sleep" and "I Felt the Ocean on my Fingertips."

2009: As part of the activities designed to welcome Rabbi Todd Thalblum and his family to Cedar Rapids, Temple Judah celebrates a special outdoor Havdalah service at Woodpecker Lodge.

2009: A revival “How Now Dow Jones” with a book by Max Shulman, music by Elmer Bernstein and lyrics by Carolyn Leigh opens at the New York International Fringe Festival.

2009:According to a report broadcast today on Voice of Israel government radio wealthy foreign Arabs have bought up hundreds of dunams of land in the Galilee, land, which was owned privately and which was zoned for agricultural use, was sold due to economic hardship.

2010: Defense Minister Ehud Barak gave his approval today for the purchase of the fifth-generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) by the Israeli Air Force from the US.

2010: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Denial: A Memoir of Terror By Jessica Stern

2010: The Los Angeles Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldmanand Quantum: Eisenstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality by Manjit Kumar.  [Editor’s note – The only person I know who is smart enough to understand this is Dr. Joe Rosen, so if you have questions write to him not to me.]

2011: The 31st International Conference on Jewish Genealogy (sponsored by the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington) and the Washingtoniana Division of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library are scheduled to offer a free talk on "What’s Your Story? An Introduction to Genealogy and Family History"

2011:Hutzot Hayotzer, the popular international arts and crafts fair that has become a Jerusalemite ritual, is scheduled to open today.

2011(15th of Av, 5771): Tu B’Av- Jewish Saidie Hawkins Day

2011:A marble statue of Hercules dating back to the second century C.E. has been found in an archeological dig in northern Israel, Israel's Antiquities Authority announced today.

2011:The Israel Medical Association said in a discussion at the High Court today that it would be willing to hold mediated talks on points of contention with the Ministry of Finance, so long as certain conditions are upheld..

2011: “No Loss For Words” published in today’s Sports Illustrated provides a portrait of Marv Levy, the coach who took the Bills to four Super Bowl, and a review of his soon to be published first novel, Between the Lines.

2011: The documentary “Gloria: In Her Own Words” about the life and times of Gloria Steinem premiered on HBO. (As reported by Jewish Women’s Archives)http://jwa.org/thisweek/aug/15/2011/gloria-steinem

2012: The brit of “Baby Boy Sann” the son of Debbie and Ron Sann is scheduled to take place at Adas Israel in Washington, DC

2012: In Boston, MA, Congregation Beth Elohim is scheduled to sponsor an evening of “Jewish Meditation.

2012: Cantor Regina Heit is scheduled to lead the Learn and Lunch at Temple Emanuel in Denver, CO.

2012: Members of Israel’s national soccer team apologized today for laughing during a lecture the day before on the murder of Hungarian Jewry by the Nazis. Some players tittered during a talk in Budapest, one day before the team’s friendly match against Hungary, the Sport Channel reported today

2012:Egg, milk and chicken prices are expected to rise by up to 17 percent by the end of this year, the Agriculture Ministry forecast today. A study conducted by the ministry’s Research, Economy and Strategy Division said the price increases can be attributed mainly to the prolonged drought in the US, which has triggered a rise in the cost of agricultural commodities.

2012(27th of Av, 5772): Sixty-eight year old “David M. Lederman, who led the team of scientists that developed the first fully implantable artificial heart — which, although it had limited success, prompted further advances in the treatment of late-stage heart disease” passed away today (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)


2013: Israeli jazz guitarist Assaf Kehati and his trio are scheduled to perform at the Bar Next Door in New York City.

2013: Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, two of the Jewish members of “Kiss”  “became a part of the ownership group that created the LA Kiss Arena Football League team, which plays their home games at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California.”

2013: Oakland A’s first baseman Nate Freiman had four hits today including a homer and a double.

2013: “Soul Doctor,” a musical based on the life of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach opened tonight at the Circle in the Square in New York City.

2013: “An archeological team headed by Dr. Alexander Fantalkin of Tel Aviv university has announced the discovery of one of the largest construction projects in the entire Mediterranean basin: a system of fortifications from the 8th century BCE, as well as coins, weights and parts of buildings from the Hellenistic period, have all been found in the archeological dig Tel Ashdod Yam – where the harbor of the philistine city of Ashdod used to be. The site is about 3 miles south of today’s thriving Israeli city of Ashdod.’ (As reported by Yori Yanover)

2013: Documents linked to Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist known for his efforts to save Jews from World War Two concentration camps, were sold at auction for more than $122,000, a New Hampshire auction house said today.

2013: Hebrew University is ranked first in Israel and 59th globally, according to the 2013 Academic Ranking of World Universities released today. (As reported by Lahav Harkov)

2014: Today is the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington’s deadline for raising funds to save the original portions of the synagogue mural on 415 M Street, NW in Washington, D.C.

2014: Mark Ethan Toporek is scheduled to lead a talk on “Gender Benders” following a screening of “Liberace” at the 92nd Street Y.

2014: In London, The Tricyel Theatre and the UK Jewish Film Festival issued a joint statement saying that the Tricycle’s initial decision to refuse to host the festival “because of the event’s Israeli’s government funding “provoked considerable public upset” and that the theater has “invited back the UK Jewish Film Festival on the same terms as in previous years with no restrictions on funding from the Embassy of Israel in London.” (As reported by JTA)

2014:“After nearly two years of campaigning, millions of dollars spent and one tropical storm that delayed voting in this easternmost corner of Hawaii for nearly a week, Senator Brian Schatz won the Democratic nomination for his seat today defeating his challenger, Representative Colleen Hanabusa, by fewer than 1,800 votes — less than 1 percent of the total cast -- bringing one of the longest and most acrimonious primary contests in the state’s history to an apparent end.” (As reported Ian Lovett)

2014: “Israeli-American athlete Donald Sanford, the husband of Israeli baskeball player Danielle Deke., made some Israeli history todayy when he won a bronze medal in the 400 meter dash in the European Athletics Championships in Zurich, Switzerland – the first running medal for Israel in the history of the championships.” (Times Of Israel)

2014: Even as the cease fire seems to be holding for another day, Israel's Davis Cup tie against Argentina originally scheduled for Tel Aviv next month has been moved to Florida, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) said today.

2014: In Zurich, American-Israeli sprinter Donald Sanford won the bronze medal in the 400 metres sprint at the European Athletic Championships which “he dedicated to the IDF.”

2014: Nate Freimans “61-game errorless streak, the seventh-longest first baseman errorless streak in Oakland history” came to an end today.

2015(30thof Av, 5774): Rosh Chodesh Elul

2015: Tenth anniversary of the Israeli evacuation from Gaza. 

2015: A sixteen year old Palestinian stabbed a border police officer who was “conducting a routine security check…at the Beita Junction.”

2015: The friends, family and fans of Gaylen Ross “American actress, writer, producer and director” who produced the awarded “Killing Kasztner” are scheduled to join in celebrating a “milestone birthday.”

(For more see Gaylen Ross’s award winning documentary “Killing Kasztner: The Jew Who Dealt With Nazis” http://www.killingkasztner.com/

2015: One hundred thirtieth anniversary of the birth of Edna Ferber.




2015: The 2015 MoCCA Arts Festival Awards of Excellence Exhibit featuring the works of Israeli illustrator Keren Katz is scheduled to come to an end today.

2015: “A Decade Later, Many Israelis see Gaza Pullout as a big Mistake” published today described the reaction to a move that was supposed to put end to violence in Gaza which was attributed to the presence of Jewish settlements.


2015: The Havdalah Bike Ride, a six mile event is scheduled to depart from the park across from the Historic 6th& I Synagogue this evening followed by a community Havdalah service.

2015: At the Concordia Library in Oregon, Jeannie Opdyke Smith is scheduled to speak about her mother, the late Irene Opdyke who was a brave and inspiring figure who received international recognition for her life-saving actions during the Holocaust when working for a high ranking German official.

2016: “Scapegoat,” a short film by Gal Haklay and Shulamit Tager, won first prize in the original design category at the 13th annual Animation Block Party Awards, Bezalel announced today. (Reported by JTA)

2016: “Hanna’s Journey” is scheduled to be shown as part of The Hampton Synagogue Film Series.

2016: “The Israeli orchestra, conducted by Zubin Mehta, performed today at the National Grand Theater during celebrations of the 109th anniversary of the Lima Philharmonic Society at which Peru’s President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, whose father was a Jewish refugee, conducted Israel’s Philharmonic Orchestra during the playing of the Peruvian national anthem

2016:  On what is a double header for the celebration of women of Jewish letters celebration of the anniversary of the birth of Edna Ferber and the birth of Gaylen Ross.


2017 In partnership with Confucius Institute U.S. Center, the Jewish Historical of Greater Washington is scheduled to host a concert featuring Robyn Helzner who “served as Cantor for the United Jewish Congregation of Hong Kong and officiated at the first modern bar mitzvah celebrated in Beijing” followed by a viewing of “the exhibition Jewish Refugees in Shanghai on loan from the Shanghai Jewish Refugee Museum.

2017: “Israeli Mizrahi pop singer-songwriter and composer Moshe Peretz is scheduled to host 31 year old singer and songwriter Nathan Goshen at the Jerusalem Arts and Crafts Fair.

2018: In Jerusalem, Beit Avi Chai is scheduled to host “David” a children’s play about the king and the future mother of Solomon

2018: Friends and family of the mullti-talented  Gaylen Ross are scheduled to celebrate someone who has advanced the understanding of Jewish history in difficult times.

2018: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to host “a concert with Robyn Helzner to celebrate Jewish culture and history in China through lively stories, photos, video and music.”

 

 

This Day, August 16, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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August 16

1027:  The King of Georgia, Giorgi I, passed away. Jews were among the subjects of this monarch who ruled over a country situated in the Caucuses, on the eastern edge of the Black Sea.  Leonti Mroveli, an eleventh century chronicler of Georgian history, offers various dates for the arrival of the Jews including the period after the destruction of the First Temple or after the destruction of the Second Temple.  Other sources claim that the first Jews arrived during the time of Alexander the Great or during the Sixth Century of the Common Era when they were fleeing persecution of the Byzantines.  No matter which source you choose to believe, The Jews were there when King George died and remain there to this day.

1284: A year before he began his reign as King of France, Philip IV, who expelled the Jews from his realm to avoid paying his debts began his reign as King of Navarre and Count of Champagne.

1419: Wenceslaus IV, the Emperor who failed to continue the Imperial protection of the Jews of Luxembourg which led to their expulsion in 1391 passed away today.

1486: Twenty men and five women were burned after being sentenced at an auto-de-fe in Toledo on the charge of Judaizing. Among them were Dr. Alonso Cota and many other notables of the town. They were marched through town being humiliated wearing the dreadful san benito, with their hands tied to their neck behind their backs.

1648(28th of Av, 5408): Rabbi Joshua Höschel ben Joseph passed away in Cracow.  Born at Vilnius in 1578, he studied both the Kabbalah and the Talmud.  He wrote Maginne Shelomoh and She'elot u-Teshubot Pene Yehoshua'

1532: John Frederick I began his reign as Elector of Saxony during which, four years later in August of 1536, in response to the teaching of Martin Luther “issued a mandate that prohibited Jews from inhabiting, engaging in business in, or passing through his realm.”

1599(25th of Av, 5359): Isaiah Menahem Ben Isaac passed away today while serving in the rabbinate in Cracow.

1664: Sixty-five year old Christian Hebrew language student and author Johannes Buxtorf the Younger who “employed Abraham Braunschweig to purchase Hebrew books for him and for many years corresponded with the scholarly Jacob Roman of Constantinople regarding the acquisition of Hebrew manuscripts and rare printed works” passed away today.

1648(28th of Av, 5408): Rabbi Joshua Höschel ben Joseph, a student of Rabbi Samuel ben Phoebus of Cracow and  Rabbi Joshua Falk whose students included Rav Shabbatai HaKohen, passed away today.

1675: Ukrainian leader Bogdan Chemlnicki (with the blood of over 300,000 Jews on his hands) died.

1724: In London, Bavarian immigrants Yehezkel (Ezekiel) and Judah Hirsh gave birth to their son Aaron Hart. The family changed their name from Hirsh to its English version, Hart.  Hart would go on to become a successful businessman and “is considered the father of Canadian Jewry.”

1772: Israel Abbady was appointed Chazan in Barbados – a position he held until 1794 when he was replaced by David Sarfaty De Pien

1776(1st of Elul, 5536): Rosh Chodesh Elul; for the first time the shofar is sounded in the newly independent United States of America.

1799(15th of Av, 5559): Tu B’Av

1799: “The Prague Jew Pzřibram bought a house in the village of Hanichen (Hanychov) from Joseph Porsche but was ordered by Count of Clam-Gallasto sell it within a year to a gentile.”

1807: During the “Gunboat Wars” which helped lead to the “complete emancipation of the Danish Jews, the British began the bombardment of Copenhagen.

1834: In Amsterdam, Joseph Barend Stokvis, Jr., a Jewish physician and obstetrician and his wife gave birth to Barend Joseph Stokvis a physician and professor of physiology and pharmacology at the University of Amsterdam who was the husband Julia Elisabeth Wertheim and a leader of the Dutch Jewish community

1840: During the Damascus Affair, in a move supporting the Jewish prisoners, the British led European powers issued a stern warning to the Egyptian Khedive that he should move his forces away from the Turkish frontier.

1842: Birthdate of Jakob Rosanes, the native of Brody who gained fame as a mathematician and chess master.

1845: In Bonnevoie, Luxembourg, Miriam Rose (Lévy) and Isaïe Lippman, the manager of the family glove-making business gave birth to Gabriel Lippman, French physicist who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1908.


1845: In what might have been the first mention of potato blight in the British Isles, today Gardeners' Chronicle and Horticultural Gazette reported "a blight of unusual character" in the Isle of Wight the home of the Isle of Wight Jewish Society

1847: A day after she had passed away, 71year old Grace (nee Da Costa) Cohen, the widow of Judah Cohen was buried today in the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.

1848: William Flatau married Rebecca Meseena today.

1849: Birthdate of Sibylle Riqueti de Mirabeau, the French anti-Semite and “anti-Dreyfusard” who wrote under the pseudonym of GYP.  While testifying in a court case she “gave her profession as ‘anti-Semite’ rather than ‘writer.’”

1851: In Buffalo, VA, Robert and Anna Harvey gave birth to William Hope "Coin" Harvey the populist leader who wrote the anti-Semitic Tale of Two Nations, “the story of a wealthy London banker, Baron Rothe, who engineers a plot to keep the United States from ever using a silver as currency.”

1852: In reporting on the clash between Sir Robert Peel and Benjamin Disraeli over the issue of Free Trade "Items of Foreign News" column published today quotes the following disparaging remarks that appeared in The Morning Chronicle. "When Mr. Disraeli attempts to trade on the policy of Sir Robert Peel, it will be difficult to refrain from challenging him in the words of the Hebrew prophet, 'Hast thou killed and also taken possession.'"  [Editor's Note: the quote is from 1 Kings 21:19]

1858: In Konigsberg, Prussia, Michaelis Spicker and Flora Rosenthal gave birth to Max Spicker

1859: In London, birthdate of “communal worker” Ernest Louis Franklin

1860: David Wemyss Jobson was found guilty of libeling the character of Sir James Furgurson in the London Central Criminal Court today.  Among the many prominent witnesses to appear was Benjamin Disraeli. When asked by the Defendant “Are you a Jew now or not?”  Mr. Disraeli repIied, “I am what I always was -- a Christian.” This is an interesting answer since Disraeli was actually born a Jew.  Was he being disingenuous or was he taking poet license in writing his own biography.

1861: Jacob Miller, who would be killed at South Mountain in 1862 began serving in Company A of the 45thRegiment.

1862: The Chicago Tribune published a tribute to the Jews of Chicago.

1864: Two days after he had passed away, sixty-one year old John Levy, the son of David Levy and Hannah Solomons was buried today the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”

1868(28th of Av, 5628): Fifty-five year old Ruben Joseph Wunderbar the author who succeeded Max Lilienthal as principal the Jewish school at Riga passed away today in his hometown of Mitau.

1872: Birthdate of Maurice Fishberg, the native of the Ukraine who came to the United States in 1890, and earned his medical degree from New York University in 1895 after which he married Bertha Fishsberg with whom he had two children – Dr. Arthur Maurice Fishberg and Dr. Harriet Fishberg – and became “a professor of clinical medicine of the University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College.”

1873: Lipman “Lip” Pike, one of the first Jewish major league baseball players, “raced a fast trotting horse named Clarence in a 100-yard sprint at Baltimore's Newington Park, and won by four yards with a time of 10 seconds flat, earning $250 ($4,570 today).”

1873: It was reported today that the Governor of New York has offered a $500 reward for the apprehension of Emil Lowenstein who allegedly murder John Weston in Albany, NY.  Mrs. Weston has already been arrested for her role in the killing.  Lowenstein, a German Jewish barber’s assistant, is thought to be headed for an unnamed “Western city.”

1875: It was reported today that of the 57,200 children attending primary schools in Algeria, 5,646 “are native Jews.’

1875: In Prague, Moritz Moses Piesen and Rosalia Piesen gave birth to Hugo Peisen the husband of Annie Piesen and treasurer of the Brooklyn Federation of Jewish Federation.

1875: It was reported today that 40 year old Joseph Samuels and 15 year old Sallie Mossheim were arrested in New Jersey. This tangled tale of two Jews includes a married man (Samuels) and the daughter of a successful businessman, who fell in love and ran off together.  The case is complicated by the fact that Sallie’s father reported that $500 was missing from his safe and this same amount was found in his daughter’s possession.

1880: Sir Saul Samuel completed his second term as a Member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales

1880: “Hebrew Poetry” published today provided a detailed review of The Historical Poetry of the Ancient Hebrews, a two volume work by Michael Heilprin.

1880: Based on information that originally appeared the Journal de St. Petersburg it was reported today that Jews account for 0.22 of the illegitimate births in the European portion of the Russian Empire

1881: It was reported today that Count Kutisoff, who is investigating the causes of the anti-Jewish riots met with a deputation of Jews from Kharkoff.  The Jews told him that the causes were not just economic.  The count said that the government was determined to stop the violence.  He said that they needed “to regulate the abnormal conditions” in the Western provinces where “the Jews outnumber the Christians and monopolize trade.”  (The Western provinces included the Pale of Settlement and it is inconceivable that the Russian leader did not know that there were so many Jews there because that is where the government had confined them)

1882(1st of Elul, 5642): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1882: It was reported today that the speech by Congressman Cox on the persecution of Russian Jews that appears in the Congressional Record was in fact never given since Congress had already adjourned. Cox had apparently taken advantage of the time honored practice of entering remarks in the Record that has gone into the 20th century.

1884: In Luxembourg City, “Berta (Durlacher), a housewife and Mortiz Gernsbacher, a wine maker” gave birth to Hugo Gernsbach, “an inventor, author, editor and publisher who has been called the father of modern science fiction.”


1885: Birthdate of Kiev native and New York City “merchant” Jacob Ravinovich.

1885: Beth Hamedresh Hagadol, an Orthodox congregation formed by Polish Jews 30 years ago, dedicated its new sanctuary on Norfolk Street this afternoon. Rabbi Abraham Ash, the spiritual leader of the congregation, was the driving force behind the project.

1885: The Associate Members’ Literary Society of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association held a Grant-Montefiore Memorial Meeting this evening in New York City. G.A. Ettinger delivered a speech in which compared both of these saying that although one was a man of war and the other a man of peace, “they were alike in one respect, that both labored for the emancipation of the human race.”

 1886: Based on information that first appeared in the Warsaw Courier two Polish peasants have been sentenced to six months in prison after having been found of disinterring  two Jewish corpses, cutting off their hands and then grinding them into “little morsels for…medicinal purposes.”

1886: “Last of the Roman Ghetto” published today reported that within the next couple of weeks the Jew’s quarter of Rome, “a picturesque piece of antiquity” will disappear.  The reporter of the Pall Mall Gazette (a British publication) described the ghetto as a place where “the Jews had made themselves…a sort of second fatherland” where they could observe “their habits and traditions…in a little town” they had all to themselves.

1887: Joseph Froehlich of Davenport, Iowa donated $4.00 to the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

1887: The will of Jonas Heller which was filed for probate today gave $10,000 for the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews on the condition that the Directors erect a prominently placed tablet saying “In Memory  of Jonas Heller, Trustee, from______ to ______ Bequeathed Ten Thousand Dollars.”

1888: It was reported today that Levi Davis, a prominent Jewish citizen living in New Brunswick, NJ, has filed a suit seeking $10,000 in damages from Charles Scheede “for ruining his daughter Jennie.” Schweede, who is a partner in the clothing firm of Schweede Brothers denied the charge.

1888: It was reported today that Siegfried Porter, a native of Bohemia who is now an American citizen, testified before Congressman Ford’s Immigration Committee that he was now able to earn seven or eight dollars a week as a cigar maker because of the influx of Russian and Polish Jews.  According to the embittered witness the Jews were willing to work for four or five dollars a week and that they lived in such poor conditions that they were able to save three dollars of that.

1888: Birthdate of T.E. Lawrence, known to history as “Lawrence of Arabia.”  In the popular mind, Lawrence is remembered as a driving force behind Arab nationalism.  However, Lawrence was not anti-Zionist.  In “The Changing East” he wrote of the way in which the Zionist settlers would help improve the economic and social condition of the Arab population.  “In 1919 he drafted a letter for Emir Feisal for a meeting with Felix Frankfurter, a leader of American Zionists. In his letter Feisal wished ‘the Jews a hearty welcome home’ and asserted ‘our two movements complete one another.’ ‘There is room in Syria for both of us’ he concluded.”

1889: Birthdate of Maurice Copisarow, he Russian born Chemist who came to England in 1908 where he received his education and co-authored a paper with fellow chemist Chaim Weizmann.

1889: Birthdate of Chicago native and University of Michigan Law School graduate Sigmund David.

1890(30th of Av, 5650) Rosh Chodesh Elul

1890: Rabbi Gustave Gottheil is scheduled to deliver a sermon today entitled “Who Needs Converting?”

1890(30th of Av, 5650): On Shabbat, New York attorney Montague L. Marks passed away today.

1891: The funeral for Emilie J. Frank, the widow of Joseph Frank, is scheduled to be held at the home of her daughter Mrs. William Rosenberg at 40 West 95th Street.

1891: As local merchants expressed their indignation over the high-pressure tactics of sales person working for the “Jewish Times” the publishers said that the agent had sent in the ads but that they “were not aware of his making false representations” to obtain them.

1891: “Russian Jew Question” published today described the impact the articles that George Kenan has written on this subject have had including Prime Minister Gladstone urging Continental  to conduct “a full and fair” investigation of the issue.

1892: “Charges Against Edward Pollock” published today described events surrounding Meyer Reinherz’s an agent of the United Hebrew Charities, decision to file a complaint against Edward Pollock for allegedly attacking him while writing stories for Austro-Hungarian newspapers.”

1893: A circular was disturbed today setting forth the rights of the thousands of unemployed Jewish workers and the wrongs done to them and calling for a mass meeting tomorrow at the Walhalla Hall on Orchard Street.

1894(14th of Av, 5654): Just two days before her 74th birthday Elisa “Elka” Hirschfelder Bodenheimer, the daughter of Fradel and Jakob Hirsch Moses Hirschfelder and the wife of Hermann Bodenheimer with whom she had eight children passed away today in Germany

1895: In Massachusetts, the Worcester Hebrew Benevolent Society which had been founded in 1891 received its charge today.

1895:  Birthdate of novelist Albert Cohen.  A native of Greece, Cohen worked for various international organizations located in Switzerland. He became a Swiss citizen after World War I and based some of his fiction on experiences with the League of Nations.  The Greek native, who was a Swiss citizen, wrote in French.

1896: Birthdate of Buffalo native wood engraving artist Asa Cheffetz.



1896: “Heat and the Babes” published today described various steps being taken to beat the August heat including the decision of the Hebrew Institute to open a free roof garden on the top of its building.

1897: Birthdate of Sir Hersch Lauterpacht the Austro-Hungarian born British Jurist who served as a member of the United Nations Internal Law Commission and a Judge of the International Court of Justice.

1897: In Missouri, Russian born Joseph Lazarus Kranson and Caroline Kranson gave birth to Bernard J. Kranson today.

1898: Children are being removed from the Hebrew Orphan Asylum at 138th Street and Amsterdam Avenue because of an epidemic of dysentery.

1898: “For Jewish Worshippers” published today described a letter J.E. Bloom, Assistant Adjutant General, Third Brigade, Second Division, Third Army Corps wrote to the President and Executive Committee of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association in New York suggesting that they raise funds to be used to “provide a large tent for holding religious services for Jewish soldiers” attending the re-union at the Chickamauga Battlefield this Fall.

1898: “Great Charity Enterprise” published today described plans for a fundraiser to be sponsored by the Young Men’s Hebrew Charity Association in Chicago.  Half of the funds will go to Michael Reese Hospital and the other half will go to the United Hebrew Charities.

1899: It was reported today that “the leading Jews of Europe are” planning on holding a meeting “in Switzerland in order to form an international association for their defense against the crusade of the anti-Semites and to protect the Jews in France after the Dreyfus court-martial is ended.”

1899: The New York Federation of Zionists met at Cooper Union tonight. “They adopted resolutions against anti-Semitism and for the rejuvenation of Zion.”

1899: “Jews Aid The Dewey Home Fund” published today described the “considerable interest” that the Jews have shown in raising money to buy a home for the Hero of Manila Bay.  “At least one-fourth of the names making up the list of contributors so far are Jews.”

1899: In South Africa, President Kruger “has issued a brochure supporting his proposal regarding the removal of religious disabilities” which would the discrimination against the Jews by the Protestant dominated government.

1899: Julius P. Witmark, J.W. Bratton, Sager Midgley, J. Leslie Gossing, J.J. Raffael, Miss Alic Magil, Smith O’Brien, Miss Grace L. Weir and Fred Rycroff proved the entertainment tonight at the Arverne Hotel Casino where a fund-raiser was held for the benefit of the Hebrew Infant Asylum.

1899(10th of Elul, 5659): Abraham Cohen Labatt, native of Charleston, SC who founded several Reform Congregations from South Carolina to Louisiana to California to Texas passed away in Galveston.


1900: The Fourth Zionist Congress comes to an end in London.

1902: In Dvinks Latvia, Mendel and Sarah (Einhorn) Siegel.to philosopher, educator, founder of Aesthetic Realism Eli Siegel


1902:  Several thousand persons greeted Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, at Mountain Lake Park, Maryland where he delivered an address before the Chautauqua Assembly on "Labor and Capital -- the Workman's Side of the Story."

1903(23rd of Av, 5663): Seventy-one year old Moses Polock “a well-known and somewhat eccentric antiquarian bookseller” who was the maternal uncle of Abraham Simon Wolf Rosenbach as well as mentor passed away today.

1903: In Newark, NJ, The Young Ladies’ Zionist Society hosted an ice cream festival this evening at Foresters’ Hall where several “well-known Zionists” addressed the attendees.

1903: Herzl stopped in Vilna where a tremendous ovation is awaiting him. Old Reb Shleimele lifted his hands over Herzl and pronounces the Priestly Benediction. After one day of rest in Altaussee, Herzl left for Basle and the Sixth Congress.

1903: In Brooklyn, NY, “the annual ice cream festival of the Shosanath Zion was held” today “at the Arion Hall.”

1909: La Divorziata, the Italian version of Die geschiedene Frau (The Divorcée), “an operetta in three acts by Leo Fall with a libretto by Victor Léon” opened today “at the Teatro Lirico Internationale in Milan.”

1909 (29th Av): Rabbi Samuel “Shmuel” Salant Chief Ashkenazic Rabbi of Jerusalem, who was a leading Talmudist and a friend of Moses Montefiore passed away and was buried on the Mount of Olives.


1911: Rabbis David de Sola Pool and H.Z. Masliansky and laymen Louis Lipsky and Reuben Brainin were among those who spoke at “a mass meeting at the Educational Alliance” marking the opening of the Tenth Congress of the Federation of American Zionists.

1912(3rd of Elul, 5672): Seventy year old Elias Landauer who with “his spouse, Bertha Bodenheimer Landauer, immigrated from Germany in 1866 settled in Harrisonburg, Louisiana where he operated a retail supply business for 22 years before coming to New Orleans and opening Landauer & Meyer, a wholesale hat store” passed away today.

1913: In “Brest, a town called Brest-Litovsk, then part of the Russian Empire, but today Belarus” Zeev and Hassia Biegun” gave birth to Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.  The life of Menachem Begin is too colorful and controversial to be covered in this brief guide.  His life became one of many contradictions.  Consider that this political heir to Jabotinsky, the man who waged violent war against the British in the last years of the Mandate was the man who signed the peace accord with Sadat.



1914: As WW I expanded, the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) which would later include Dr. Michael Adler as the first Jewish chaplain to serve with the British Army overseas, landed in France today

1915: It was reported today that Louis D. Brandeis and Nathan Straus will address the upcoming national meeting of Jews to be held at Cooper Union.

1915: Among those who were reported today to have addressed the mass meeting aimed at raising money for Jews in the war zone were Dr. M.S. Margolies, President of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of New York, Dr. Moses Hyamson the rabbi of Congregation Orach Cahim in New York and Rabbi Aaron Tietelbaum of Jerusalem.

1915: A lynch mob from Marietta, GA arrived at the prison in Milledgeville.  After cutting the telephone wire emptying the gas from the prison’s automobiles and handcuffing the warden, they seized Leo Frank and drove away from the prison.

1916: Neutral Romania continued its negotiations with the Entente Powers, as the Allies try to get her to declare war on the Central Powers – a move that could have profound effect on the suffering Jewish population of that eastern European nation.

1917: Two after she was killed in air raid along with her husband during WW I, Leah Cohen, the wife of John Cohen was buried at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.

1917: Two days after he was killed in an air raid along with his wife, 54 year old John Cohen was buried at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.

1917: The State Department instructed Ira Nelson Morris, the American Minister to Sweden “to forward $25,000 for the continuation of soup kitchens and relief of Jews in Turkey.”

1917: In the East New York section of Brooklyn Benjamin and Bertha Taubman gave birth to “Dorothy Taubman, who developed a method to help pianists strengthen their techniques and avoid repetitive strain injuries.” (As reported by Vivien Schweitzer)

1918(8th of Elul, 5678): Sixty-eight year old Dr. Adolf Rosenzweig, the rabbi at the New Synagogue (Neue Synagoge) in Oranienburger Straße, Berlin passed away today and was buried under a gravestone on which was written "The law of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips" (Malachi 2:6).

1918: It was reported today Joseph Duveen, “a well-known member of the Anglo-Jewish Community” has offered to provide the funds for a National Gallery for modern foreign art that had been planned for by a committee chaired by Lord Curzon in 1915.

1919: “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is distributed in Germany and the United States.

1920: Morris Abrams, “an from Russia who ran a successful company that produced machinery and factory tools” and the former Freda Sugarman gave birth to Dr. Herbert Leroy Abrams “a radiologist at Stanford and Harvard universities and a founder of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 for its work in publicizing the health consequences of atomic warfare.” (As reported by William Grimes)


1921: In London, The Times published the first in a series of articles by it “Constantinople Correspondent” that “incontrovertibly demonstrated that ‘The Protocols’ consist in the main of ‘clumsy plagiarisms’ from a French political pamphlet directed against Napoleon III and published in Brussels in 1865 by a French Lawyer named Maurice Joly and entitled ‘Dialogues in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu.’”

1922: Birthdate of Herbert Vogel, the New York born postal clerk, who, along with his wife, became “fabled art collectors. (As reported by Douglas Marin)

1922: “Theatrical release of ‘Up and at ‘Em’” a silent film which “marks the first Hollywood screenplay” by Lewis Mileston.”

1923: Rabbi Meir Shapiro “introduced his idea” of “a daily regimen” of studying the Babylonian Talmud “one day at a time in a cycle of seven and a half years” “at the First World Congress of the World Agudath Israel in Vienna” today.

1923: Birthdate of Shimon Peres, Zionist leader who would hold numerous positions including President of the Jewish state.  There are as many views of Peres as there are candles on his birthday cake.

1925: The Palestine Foundation Fund reported that it had spent $8,646,750 in the economic rebuilding of Palestine during its four years of existence, just concluded. More than 60 per cent of this sum has come from American Jews, according to the statement, the balance being collected from fifty-two other countries. $2,570,785 was expended on farming enterprises and $1,624,695 for Hebrew education. Samuel Untermeyer is President of the American branch of the fund.

1926: Sephardic and Oriental Jews at a Zionist conference in Vienna had their delegates gather for the purpose of furthering Zionist interests among their peoples. 

1927(18th of Av, 5687): Forty-eight year old Jennie Weiner passed away today after which she was buried at the Waldheim Jewish Cemetery in Cook County, Illinois.

1927(18th of Av, 5687): Seventy-five year old Leopold Pick, the husband of Betty Pick passed away today.


1929: Although warned by the Zionist Executive that the Arabs were preparing to attack the Jews of Jerusalem in massive riots, High Commissioner Sir John Chancellor refused to cut his vacation short, declaring that relations between the sides were improving. After Friday prayers on the day after the ninth of Av, two thousand Arabs attacked Jews praying at the Western Wall. One Jewish youth was stabbed in the back. The British Government refused to condemn the attack leading the Arabs again to believe that the British supported their riots.

1930: “Dreyfus” or “The Dreyfus Case,”as would be known when released in the United States, based on a novel about the French officer directed by Richard Oswald and starring Fritz Kornter in the title role was released today in the Weimar Republic (Germany)/

1930(22nd of Av, 5690): Gustave Frohman who along with his brothers Charles and Daniel worked together as theatrical producers and advanced men passed away.



1931: Birthdate of “piano prodigy” Michael “Mickey” Leonard the native of Rockville Center, NY who became a leading composer and arranger. (As reported by Daniel L. Slotnik)



1932: In Washington, DC, “Marceline Gray and George Jackson Eder, a lawyer and economist who for a time worked in the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt” gave birth to Richard Gray Eder the New York Times foreign correspondent who “won a Pulitzer Prize for his book reviews in The Los Angeles Times.”


1933: Following a baseball game in Toronto, six hours of violence broke out between Harbord Playground, which was predominantly Jewish, and St. Peter's, a baseball team sponsored by a church at Bathurst and Bloor that became known as the Christie Pitts Riot.

1933: In New York, more than seventy thousand workers joined a strike called by the ILGWU under the leadership of David Dubinsky

1933: Three hundred Polish Jews including a group of 140 chalutzim leave for Palestine.

1933: Local authorities in East Prussia inform Jews that they must call for their mail because Nazi postmen will be humiliated in delivering mail to Jews.

1934: Birthdate of Dr. Daniel Norman Stern “a psychiatrist who increased the understanding of early human development by scrutinizing the most minute interactions between mothers and babies” (As reported by Douglas Martin)

1936: The 1936 Olympics came to an end in Berlin.  Calls for boycotting the Hitler Olympics fell on deaf ears.



1936: The New York Times published a lengthy review of Jewish Studies in Memory of George A. Kohut, 1874-1933, edited by Salo W. Baron and Alexander Marx.


1936(28th of Av, 5696): An eight year old Jewish boy “was killed and nineteen Jews were injured by the explosion of a bomb thrown by an Arab from a train window into one of the principal streets of Tel Aviv today as the train was passing the city en route to Jaffa.” In the last three days ten Jews – 7 adults and 3 children – have been killed in Safed, Haifa and on the highway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.  Authorities fear that this latest in a series of attacks that began four months ago will finally provoke the Jewish population into acts of violence aimed at their attackers. 

1936(28th of Av, 5696): “Julius Vagshall, an employee of the Palestine Electric Company was shot by assailants from the darkness near Mikveh Israel” and two others were wounded in what was the climax to a night of terror in which at least twenty people were wounded including British constable.

1936: “Saar Now Shares Reich Hardships” published today described the deteriorating conditions of the territory seized by the Germans 18 months ago including a scarcity of capital for investment that “has been greatly intensified by the emigration of approximately 5, 000 Jew…who under the Rome protocol were allowed to take all of their property with them…”

 

1936: In Cleveland, Ohio, between 25,000 and 30,000 followers of Father Charles E. Coughlin heard him this afternoon in Municipal Stadium describe “his disillusionment in President Roosevelt” and “challenge the Jews of America to accept the doctrine of Christian brotherhood…”

1936: According to the Palcor Agency, the Palestine Government “was accused of negligence in the protection of Jews from Arab violence.”

1936: “The World Jewish Congress decided tonight to incorporate as a permanent organization in Switzerland” with offices in Geneva, Paris and New York that should be financed by the $75,000 that will be raised in 1937.

1936: “A Yiddish Novel” published today provided a review of Noah Pandre written by Salman Schneour and translated by Joseph Leftwich.


1936: “Studies in Memory of George Kohut” published today provided a review of Jewish Studies in Memory of George A. Kohut edited by Salo W. Baron and Alexander Marx


1936: It was reported today that “all efforts of Emir Abdullah to mediate between the Palestine Government and the Arabs have been futile” because “none of the older Arab leaders dare accept the British Government’s proposal of a royal commission in the fact of the militant Nationalist youths” who have been attacking Arabs who oppose them.

1936: It was reported today that “a reign of terror is prevailing throughout Palestine” where “Arab leaders, especially Arab police officer are just as exposed to the bullets” of Arab terrorists “as Britons and Jews.”

1936: In “Habimah in Emek,” published today Arthur Settel described a recent performance of “Jew Suss” in Ain Taun a village in the Valley Of Jezrel on the northern plain of Palestine.

1937: “Hammer Icons” published today tells the story of Armand and Victor Hammer, “two of the most startling characters in the U.S. art world.

1937: The 20th World Zionist Congress comes to an end with a resounding vote of support for Dr. Chaim Weizmann who was re-elected as President with only 8 delegates voting against him

1937: Talks are proceeding between Americans of Jewish and of Arab origin with a view to-exploring the possibilities of bringing peace between their peoples in Palestine by applying the American federal principle, it was revealed by Adil Arslan, one of the Arab High Committee's two delegates here.

1938(19th of Av, 5698): Arabs killed three people when they kidnapped a Jewish family today at Atlit.

1938: Andrej Hlinka, a Catholic Priest, a leader of the Slovak National Party and “a symbol of Slovak fascism” passed away.  He opposed the democratic principles of Czechoslovakia and was an admirer of Hitler and Mussolini.  Although he died before the war, he was considered to be the spiritual “godfather” of Slovak nationalism that sent 70,000 Jews to the concentration camps, most of whom perished.

1939: More than 600 Zionists from all parts of the world attend the twenty-first World Zionist Congress, which opens in Geneva today. The congress will last thirteen days.

1939: Birthdate of American banjo player Eric Weissberg best known for “Dueling Banjos” which provided the musical background for “Deliverance.”

1939(1st of Elul, 5699): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1940: “Foreign Correspondent” a spy film produced by Walter Wanger, with music by Alfred Newman and filmed by cinematographer Rudolph Maté was released in the United States today.

1940: The Vichy (France) government prohibited aliens from practicing as physicians, dentists or pharmacists.  This destroyed the livelihood for numerous Jews who had fled to France before the war and/or were not living in Vichy at the time of the French surrender to the Nazis.  The Jews living in Vichy France would learn that anti-Semitism was part and parcel of the Petain government.

1940: Today the building at 770 Eastern Parkway in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York was purchased by Agudas Chassidei Chabad (the Chabad-Lubavitch community) to house the living quarters, study and office, Yeshivah, and synagogue of the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn who had arrived in New York (following his rescue from Nazi-occupied Warsaw) five months earlier [It would later serve as the headquarters of his son-in-law and successor, the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, and become the vortex of Chabad-Lubavitch's global network of institutions of Jewish education and outreach.]

1941: Birthdate of Brooklyn native Vivian Hoffman who gained famed as Vivian Stromberg a champion of women’s rights around the world and founder of Madre.


1942: In the Warsaw Ghetto at today’s selection only two members of Władysław Szpilman’s family “were passed as fit to work” while “the rest of the family was taken to the Umschlagplatz.

1942: Tonight, all the members of Władysław Szpilman’s family were shipped from Warsaw to Treblinka where they were murdered.

1943:  Nazi troops enter the Jewish ghetto at Bialystok, Poland and over the next four days destroy the more than 30,000 Jews inside. Hundreds of Resistance fighters, led by Mordechai Tenenbaum-Tamaroff and Daniel Moszkowicz--who battle back with small arms, axes, and bayonets--are annihilated. Those who survive are transported to death camps, where 25,000 are killed

1943: Inmates revolt at the slave-labor camp at Krychów, Poland.

1943: During World War II, the keel for the SS Oscar Strauss was laid today.

1943: Maurice H. Rindskopf was among the officers serving on ehe USS Drum, an American submarine as she left Brisbane on her seventh war patrol

1943: The Spanish government stated that they would allow more repatriated Jews to come to Spain, "only if those in Spain already left." The obvious lack of sentiment on the part of Spain was apparent to the Joint Distribution Committee, which went ahead and placed a "priority" on emigration of "these so-called Sephardics." The Jews who did make it to Spain were not in any way treated like citizens.

1944: A train arrived at Birkenau from Athens with 1,651 Jews from Rhodes and 94 from Kos. Upon arrival and then separation, Sidney Fahn would see his wife and young child for the last time. Only 151 of these Jews would survive.

1945: In Chicago, Illinois, Eleanor (née Pottasch) and Elmer Balaban, who owned several movie theatres and later was a pioneer in cable television gave birth to Robert Elmer “Bob” Balaban the “actor, author, producer and director who gave one of his most memorable roles in “The Monuments Men” as Private Preston Savitz.

1945: Today, “President Truman called…for the free and open settlement of Palestine by Jews to the point consistent with the maintenance of civil peace.”  For the first time he revealed that that U.S. government has informed the British who are attending the Big Three’s Berlin Conference. (The Big Three were the U.S., U.K. and U.S.S.R.)

1945: Former Iowa Senator Guy Gillette who is President of the American League for a Free Palestine expressed his “disappointment at the inconclusive nature of the American position” about Jewish settlement “as outlined by” President Truman today.  According to Gillette, millions of displaced persons have been returned to their homes.  Yet, the Jews, who suffered the most, have been denied a clear solution to their plight.  The League of Nations had already had already designated that Palestine should be a free and independent nation.  According to Gillette, Palestine “is the historic national territory of the Hebrew people and their right to enter it should no longer be challenged.

1945: “Dr. Abba Hillel Silver of Cleveland, Ohio and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise of New York were elected member of the executive board of the Jewish Agency for Palestine by the general council of the World Zion Conference today in London, UK.”

1946: In New York City, “Margot (née Verblow), a singer, and William Warren, a real estate agent whose original surname was "Warrenoff" gave birth to act Academy Award nominated actress Lesley Ann Warren.

1948: Birthdate of Patrick Balkany, the native of Neuilly-sur-Seine, who is a member of the National Assembly of France

1948(11thof Av, 5708): Sixty-seven year old “Yiddish dramatist and novelist Peretz Hirschbein” lost his three year battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s Disease), and passed away today in Los Angeles



1948(11thof Av, 5708):  Fifty-five year old Harry Dexter White passed away today after having answered accusations before HUAC that he was a communist and a traitor.



1948: Three months after the establishment of the State of Israel, an agreement was signed between the Bank Leumi and the temporary Government. The official charter appointing the Bank as the Government's financial agent was signed by Hoofien and the Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. On that very day, the official bank notes of the new state, bearing the name of the Anglo-Palestine Bank and the signatures of Hoofien and Barth, were distributed. The Israeli pound becomes legal tender.

1949: Herzl's remains are transferred to Jerusalem and reburied on Mount Herzl.

1949: Netiv HaLamed-Heh ( נְתִיב הַל"ה‎‎,  Path of the 35) a kibbutz in central Israel located in the Valley of Elah, was established today by demobilized members of the Daled Company of the Palmach's Harel Brigade. It was initially named Peled (an acronym for Plugot Daled, lit. Daled Company) It was later renamed after the 35 Haganah soldiers killed in a convoy to resupply the Gush Etzion kibbutzim during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine (Lamed-Heh is 35 in Hebrew numerals).

1950: “No Way Out” a film noir directed by Joseph L. Mankeiwicz with music by Alfred Newman was released in the United States today by 20th Century Fox.

1951: “The Guy Who Came Back” featuring Zero Mostel was released in the United States today by 20th Century Fox.

1956(9th of Elul, 5716): A squad of Fedayeen attacked Egged Bus 391 traveling from Tel-Aviv to Eilat murdering three soldiers and a female civilian passenger and wounding an additional three civilian passengers. (Editor’s Note – Fedayeen was the 1950’s name for the terrorists.  The names have changed over the decades but the deadly attacks remain the same.)

1959(12th of Av, 5719): Harpsichordist and composer Wanda Landowska, who was credited with the 20th-century revival of harpsichord music passed away.



1960: Cyprus gains its independence from the United Kingdom (Great Britain).  Jews have lived on the island of Cyprus since the days of the ancient Greeks.  In modern times, Cyprus provided a haven for Jews trying to escape from Hitler’s Europe.  After the war, the British set up internment camps on the island where they detained Jews trying to run the blockade and reach pre-Israel Palestine.  Israel established diplomatic relations with Cyprus and the Israeli embassy served as focal point for the small Cypriot Jewish community. 

1961: Frank Robinson hit a homer off of Larry Sherry as the Jewish pitcher and the Dodgers came out on the short end of game with the Reds losing 6 to 0.

1965(18th of Av, 5725): Eighty-four year old Russian born NYU Law School graduate Harry Handler, “the principal of the Stone Avenue Talmud Torah in Brooklyn” for 39 years and the husband of “the former Esther Liskowsky” passed away today while “visiting his son Dr. Archie Handler.”


1971(25th of Av, 5731): Seventy-six year old Edward Anthony, the former director of public relations during Herbert Hoover’s successful presidential campaign and magazine editor passed away today.


1972: “Two British girls, unaware that the gramophone given them by 2 Arab acquaintances in Rome was booby trapped” carried it on board an El Al Flight bound for Lod” where it exploded in the luggage compartment causing “slight damage.” (Jewish Virtual Library)

1973(18th of Av, 5733): Selman Waksman, Ukrainian-born American biochemist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine passed away.


1976: In Washington, the national convention of Hadassah continued for a second day.

1978: Pitcher Ross Baumgarten makes his major league debut with the White Sox.

1978: In Moscow, the government continued its “anti-Zionist trials” today with Alexander Podrabinek as the prisoner in the dock.

1984: Hadassah leader Bernice S. Tannenbaum brought “a five-member delegation” to the White House where they “met with President Ronald Reagan for 40 minutes over tea, coffee and cookies, to lobby against the resolution linking Zionism and racism.” Reagan agreed “to publicly repudiate” “the United Nations resolution defining Zionism as a ‘form of racism and racial discrimination’” and “that the U.S. delegation would walk out of” the U.N. Conference at Nairobi “if the Zionism-equals-racism resolution was included in the final conference declaration.”

1985: Lieutenant General Sidney T. Weinstein, one of the highest ranking Jewish soldiers at that time, began serving “as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Headquarters Department of the Army

1985: Birthdate of Bensiyon Songavkar, the Indian born Jewish professional cricketer.

1988(3rd of Elul, 5748): Auckland City Councillor Harold Goodman, the husband of Dame Barbara Goodman, passed away.

1988: Ed Koch, the Jewish Mayor of New York City says he plans to wipe out street-corner windshield washers

1988: The New York Times included reviews of Confessions of a Good Arab by Yoram Kaniuk, translated by Dalya Bilu and The Road to Ein Harod by Amos Kenan, translated by Anselm Hollo.

1989: 15th of Av, 5749): Tu B’Av

1989: Today, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a telegram to Israeli security forces warning that Hezbollah terrorists were on their way to Brazil “in order commit attacks on diplomatic representatives of Israel.”

1991(6th of Elul, 5751): Sixty-six year old “Dr. Gerson D. Cohen, chancellor emeritus of the Jewish Theological Seminary” and the husband of scholar Naomi Choen passed away today.


1992: In Buenos Aires, Ricardo and Silvana Schwartzman gave birth to Tennis Champion Diego Schwartzman known as “El Peque.”


1993: The two men who kidnapped Harvey Weinstein, a formalwear manufacturer and chairman of Lord West Formal Wear are arrested in New York when the go to pick up the ransom.  Weinstein survives and lives to the ripe old age of 82.

1993(29th of Av, 5753): Eighty-eight year old grand prix driver Rene Dreyfus passed away today.


1994: The first ever Papal Nuncio to Israel presented his credentials in Jerusalem

1994(9th of Elul, 5754): Seventy-two year old Pennsylvania born WW II Army Veteran Alfred Sachs, the longtime employee of the “Maryland Toll Authority’s Harbor Tunnel” and husband of Dorothy Sachs passed away today.

1995(20th Av, 5755): Sixty-six year old newspaper executive Stanley Asimov, the brother of Isaac Asimov passed away today.


1996(1st of Elul, 5756): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1996(1st of Elul, 5676): Forty-seven year old composer Miles Goodman passed away today.


1996: “The Fan” a film that takes a dark look at celebrity produced by Wendy Fineman, with music by Hans Zimmer and co-starring Ellen Barkin was released in the United States today by TriStar Pictures.

1998: The New York Timesfeatured a review of The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of Public Relations by Larry Tye.  Bernays is the Austrian born Jew who was the nephew of Sigmund Freud.

2000(15th of Av, 5760): Tu B’Av observed for the first time in the 21st century.

2000:A documentary film entitled “The Ballad of Rambling Jack Elliot” about the life of Brooklyn native Elliott Adnopoz the son of a middle class Jewish doctor who transformed himself into a musical iconoclast opens at the Film Forum.  The film was written and directed by his daughter Aiyana Elliot.

2002: “The Adventures of Pluto Nash” a comedy produced by Martin Bregman released in the United States today.

2002: As proclaimed by Mayor Martin O’Malley and Governor Parris N. Glendening today was observed as Eli Siegel Day.

2002(8th of Elul, 5762): Martin Deutsch the American physicist who studied positronium passed away. Positronium is a temporary state in the decay of the positron which is the antiparticle of the electron (and that is more than I really know about this.)

2003: Idid Amin, the former President of Uganda who had been trained as a paratrooper by the Israelis and who provided a safe haven for the Palestinian hijackers in 1976 passed away today.


2005: The evacuation of Gaza continued for a second day.

2005:  The Jerusalem Post reported that Britain had played a major role in Israel’s development of a nuclear capability in the late 1950’s. 

2006: As part of the cease-fire agreement, Israeli troops turn control of territory in Lebanon over to UNIFL.  At the same time, in one of those many ironies of history, the army of Lebanon returns to the southern part of the country for the first time since the 1970’s thanks to the attacks of the IDF on Hezbollah strongholds. 

2007: Israel and the United States signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the new American defense package for Israel. Under the new aid agreement, the U.S. will transfer $30 billion to Israel over 10 years, compared with $24 billion over the past decade. The aid deal signed at represents a 25 percent rise in U.S. military aid to Israel. Israel is slated to receive the first pay out in October 2008, amounting to $2.55 billion. That sum will grow each year by $150 million, until it reaches $3.1 billion in 2011.

2008: At Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Bar Mitzvah of Daniel Finn.

2008:Today, Itai Magidi will be the first Israeli to take part in the athletics competitions, running the 3000m Steeplechase qualifiers and all seven of Israel's sailors are scheduled to race at the Beijing Olympics.

2008, Martha Nussbaum—University of Chicago professor and Boston Review contributing editor—became a bat mitzvah  in a service at Temple K. A. M. Isaiah Israel in Chicago's Hyde Park, chanting from the Parashah Va-etchanan and the Haftarah Nahamu, and delivering a D'var Torah about the connection between genuine, non-narcissistic consolation and the pursuit of global justice.”

2009: The Washington Post features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Rashi by Elie Wiesel.

2009:The Massachusetts secretary of state’s office has rejected a proposed settlement by an investment firm to repay nearly $6 million to state investors who lost money in Bernard L. Madoff’s fraudulent investment scheme.

2009: “Can Game Theory Predict When Iran Will Get the Bomb” published today describes Bruce Bueno de Mesquita’s answer to this question.


2009: Led by his widow, Betty Levin, a true Ashish Chayil, the family and friends of Dr. Jacob Levin, of blessed memory, gather to dedicate a classroom named in his honor at North Suburban Beth El Synagogue.  Dr. Levin taught in this room for several years and his time as a Religious School teacher was but one example of his contributions to the Jewish community. He will always be missed.  He will always be remembered.

 

2010:KlezKanada is scheduled to open in Lantier, Quebec.

2010:An IDF soldier was lightly wounded today in clashes with Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip.

2010:A bomb squad checked out two unattended suitcases outside the consulate, the Los Angeles Police Department said

2011: Today is the release date for The Gift of Rest: Rediscovering the Beauty of the Sabbath by Senator Joe Lieberman

2011: Today, “in a jailhouse interview with Yahoo! Sports, Nevin Shaprio” who was imprisoned for running a huge Ponzi scheme” made good on the promise for the revelations exposing a lack of NCAA-mandated institution oversight at” the University of Miami “which allowed his illegal and unethical behaviors to continue unimpeded for years.”

2011: The 2nd Avenue Deli reopened at its new location on 1st Avenue and 75th Street in the Upper East Side much to the joy of those who enjoy the best kosher meat knishes and tongue sandwiches imaginable.

2011: Wendy Turman, JHSGW Curator/Archivist is scheduled to deliver “an illustrated lecture tracing the history of the Jewish community in the Washington area from the arrival of the first Jewish Washingtonian in 1795 to today, when the region's Jewish community has grown to more than 215,000 people.

2011:Representatives from the National Union of Israeli Students and leaders of the tent city protest movement met this morning with former chief rabbi of Israel and current Head Rabbi of Tel Aviv Yisrael Lau, where they held a discussion on the ongoing social justice protests.

2011:Israel's parliament interrupted its summer recess today to debate popular protests against high living costs but there seemed to be little sense of urgency among the smattering of lawmakers, some of whom tapped away on mobile phones and iPads. During the session dozens of protesters tried to break into the building through the back gate. Knesset Guard officers held them back but the confrontation soon turned violent.

2012: The Knesset is scheduled to convene in a special session during its summer recess to approve Avi Dichter as Home Front Defense Minister (As reported by the Jerusalem Post.)

2012(28th of Av): Yarhtzeit of Larry Rosenstein – gone to soon but never forgotten

2012(28th of Av): HaRav Akiva Ehrenfeld, president of the Chasam Sofer Institutions in the U.S. and President of Kiryat Mattersdorf passed away tonight at Shaare Zedek Medical Center and was buried that night on Har HaMenuchot near the grave of his father


2012: Bulgarian police released a computer-generated image and a fake driver's license photo of a man believed to be an accomplice in the bombing of an Israeli tour bus in Burgas that killed six.  (As reported by JTA)

2012: “Shimon Peres, Israel’s president and elder statesman, spoke out against the prospect of a lone Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, a message that contradicts the hawkish, go-it-alone line emanating from the offices of Israel’s prime minister and defense minister.” (As reported by Isabel Kirshner)

2012: Police resumed searching for the remains of Grad rockets in the desert outside Eilat this morning, hours after two loud blasts rocked the resort town.

2013: In Montgomery, AL, the Capri Community Film Society is scheduled to show “Fill the Void,” a cinematic treatment of the life of a Chasidic family from Tel Aviv.

2013: Amir Levy is scheduled to perform at the New York International Fringe Festival.

2013: Seven months after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, “Jobs” a biopic co-starring Jose Gad as “Steve Wozniak” and featuring Brett Gelman and Lesley Ann Warren was released in the United States today.

2013: In Herndon, VA, Congregation Beth Emeth is scheduled to host a special Shabbat Community BBQ where everybody can meet the new Rabbi – Michelle Goldsmith.

2013: In “Israel Keeps a Wary Eye on Turmoil in Egypt” published today, Isabel Kershner describes the Jewish state’s reaction to the violence going on within its neighbor with which it signed a peace treaty that has held for more than three decades.

2014: In Mandeville, LA, the Northshore Jewish Congregation (NJC) is scheduled to host “Havdalah on the River” to help welcome Rabbi Deborah Zecher who will be leading the congregation’s High Holiday Services.

2014: The Historic 6th& I Synagogue is scheduled to host #NoFilter featuring Grace Helbig, Hannah Hart and Mamrie Hart

2014: “A Hamas official today threatened Israel with a prolonged war of attrition if the group’s terms for a permanent ceasefire agreement, currently being negotiated in indirect talks in Cairo, are not met.” (As reported by Times of Israel)

2014: Following a declaration by Fatah’s military wing to “increase its terror attacks against Israeli citizens” tonight Arab terrorists threw a Molotov cocktail at an Israeli car near Bethlehem inflicting first and second degree burns on the 40 year old driver who was also hit by stones.(As reported byUzi Baruch and Ari Yashar)

2014: “Over ten thousand people assembled in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square tonight for the largest pro-peace rally the country has seen since the start of the war in Gaza in early July.”

2014: By today, the 101stanniversary of the birth of Menachem Begin, the Israel State Archives, the Israel State Archives will have published “a collection of documents on the life the former Prime Minister best known as the leader of the Irgun and the signatory for the 1973 peace accords with Egypt.


2015(1st of Elul, 5775): Rosh Chodesh Elul

2015(1st of Elul, 5775): Eighty-two year old art collector Melva Bucksbaum, whose first hubsband had been Iowa shopping center and real estate mogul Martin Bucksbaum, passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)


2015(1st of Elul, 5775): Sixty-eight year old Jacob Bekenstein, the “physicist who revolutionized the theory of Black Holes” passed away today.  (As reported by Dennis Overbye)

2015(1st of Elul, 5775): One hundred fourteen year old, “Goldie Steinberg, reportedly the world’s oldest Jew” passed away today.




2015: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Patricia Drucker’s Sophie and the Sibyl in which “a novelist imagines an incident that inspired George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda which portrayed the concepts of what would become Zionism in a positive light and Alice Hoffman’s The Marriage of Opposites, “a novel inspired by the painter Camille Pissarro’s parents.”

2015: UK Jewish Film which “aims to develop a culture where Jewish and Israeli film is recognised and enjoyed by the widest possible audience, and to bring Jewish related film to the heart of British culture” is scheduled to host a screening of “She’s Funny That Way.”

2015: In Kiryas Joel, the school year is scheduled to begin for the children whose parents have signed an affidavit stating “We the parents are confirming in writing that our cellphones/smartphones are in accordance to the rules of the community and yeshiva, according to the guidance of our holy grand rabbi and the judge. We also confirm that we do not possess in our home another cellphone/smartphone except for the ones mentioned above.” (A reported by Brian Shaefer)

2015: The Illinois Holocaust & Education Center is scheduled to present “Soviet Composers Discovering A Jewish Sound” featuring violinist David Lisker, pianist Ani Gogovo and cellist Richard Hirschl.

2015: The Jewish Museum of Maryland is scheduled to show “An American Tail,” the classic animation that “follows the story of Fievel a young Russian mouse, who while emigrating to the United States, gets separated from his family and must relocate them while trying to survive in a new country.”

2016: Today, “The Beth Din of America was added to the list of defendants in a $100 million class action suit against Rabbi Barry Freundel, the prominent Washington, D.C., spiritual leader who was convicted of secretly videotaping women in his synagogue’s ritual bath, and several Jewish institutions.”

2016: In Memphis, TN, Temple Israel is scheduled to host a session of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy! - The Spiritual Wisdom of Judaism in Reducing Stress.”

2016: “Jewish-American gymnast Aly Raisman won the silver medal at the 2016 Rio Games today, competing against teammate and reigning world champion Simone Biles who took gold.”

2016: “The Kind Words” a film by Shemi Zarhin which has been “nominated for 12 Ophir Awards” is scheduled to be shown in Tacoma, Washington.

2017: Avraham Tal, a judge on Voice of Israel is scheduled to host Rishon LeZion born singer and rapper Muki at the Jerusalem Arts and Crafts Fair.

2017: “Jerusalem’s Tower of David is scheduled to host a White Night of music, art, and design in the largest event of its kind in Israel this evening.

2017: In Cedar Rapids, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to discuss Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner.

2017: The “organizers of the March for Racial Justice” issued “a lengthy statement in which it said that the group “was unaware that the September 30 date it chose for its march” was the Jewish Day of Atonement but that the date which has just been announced a few days ago could not be changed.

2017: Stephen Allen Schwarzman, the founder of The Blackstone Group completed his service as the Chairman of the Strategic and Policy Forum today.

2018: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host the final screening of “Through Lotte’s Lens” a documentary that tells the extraordinary story of the ‘Hitler Émigrés’, the refugees – mainly Jewish who escaped the Nazi regime in the 1930s and found refuge in the UK.”

2018: The report of “police officers foiling a stabbing attack in Jerusalem’s Old City last week” “was cleared for publication today.

2018: “At the Security Cabinet Meeting” today “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a document titled "Security model 2030" which outlines the new budgetary additions to the country's security budget, has been formulated by Netanyahu over the past couple of years.” (As reported by Itamar Eichner)

 

 

 

 

This Day, August 17, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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August 17

986: During the days of the First Bulgarian Empire, the army of Emperor Samuil of Bulgaria and his brother defeat the Byzantines led by Basil II.  The Bulgarian Empire had provided a haven for Jews escaping from the Byzantine Army so the Bulgarian victory was good news for the Jews. 

1236: Pope Gregory IX issued a list of charges against Emperor Frederick II that included a reference to “the matter of Jewish communities of which certain churches were deprived.” (This would appear to be a clash over who “owned the Jews” which would determine who could tax them)

1592: The pope prohibited Jews from admitting Christians into their synagogues.

1655: In a patent dated today, Antonio Fernandez Carvajal, a Portuguese-Jewish merchant, and his two sons were granted citizenship as English subjects.  This made them the first naturalized English Jews.

1655: Portuguese born merchant Antonio Fernandez Carvajal and his sons were officially granted denizhenship as English subjects. (As reported by Joseph Jacobs)   Official granting of citizenship of Jews is one that would be debated in England for the next two centuries

1665: The small colony of Surinam recently occupied by the English gave full rights to the Jews (mostly Spanish and Portuguese refugees) to practice Judaism and run their own affairs. This remarkably liberal charter was transferred over to the Dutch when they conquered the colony. They used it as a means of encouraging the Jews to remain.

1629: Birthdate of King John III of Poland.  King John ruled from 1674 until his death in 1696. He ruled in a period when Poland was disintegrating under rebellions from the Ukraine and attacks from Sweden. Like previous Polish monarchs, King John was reasonably well disposed towards his Jewish subjects since he saw them as a valuable economic asset.  But as Poland drifted into chaos his views were increasingly unpopular among the nobles and the Catholic clergy. Denizenship confirmed a limited amount of English rights on foreign born residence.

1692: Jews were forbidden by law to work as peddlers in Berlin.

1740: Beginning of the Papacy of Benedict XIV who authored “Singulari noblis consoldtioni on the topic Christians and Jews Marrying”, Probe te meminesse which set “down the rules for baptizing Jewish children,” Elapso proxime anno which dealt with Jewish heresy despite the fact that “a heretic had to be a Christian to commit the sin” and Beatus Adreas which gave credence to a three hundred year old blood libel involving Andreas Von Rinn.

1762: The Council of 4 Countries (semi-autonomous congress of Polish Jewry) met for the last time. It functioned for almost 200 years before the Polish government ordered its dissolution.

1786: Frederick II (The Great) who had enough problems with Jews living in Prussia but did exploit them for financial gain passed away today.He did keep them at “arm’s length” as can been seen when he overturned the vote that would have admitted Moses Mendelssohn to the Berlin of Academy of Science. After the partition of Poland, he inherited a Jewish population that was too impoverished to offer him gain.  While he found it impractical to expel them from their Polish homes, he would not allow them to move into Prussia, effectively quarantining these “beggar Jews.”  In 1780, he wrote of the Jews that they were “‘usurious vermin who multiply so infamously.’”

Frederick followed in the footsteps by retaining Veitel-Heine Ephraim as court jeweler and mint master. Born in 1703, he was charged by sum of debasing the country’s currency.  Any truth to that charge was covered up when Frederick ordered an end to any investigations into the matter.  He married Elke Fraenkel which made him the brother-in-law of David Frankel, who was elected rabbi of Berlin in 1743.  

1787: The Jews of Budapest, Hungary, received permission from the government to conduct religious services in private homes provided no rabbi officiated.

1790: Julia Asher, a native of London and Raphael Raphael gave birth to Samuel Raphael who died in Amsterdam in 1844.

 1790:  President George Washington visits Newport, Rhode Island, where he is given “the address of the ‘Hebrew Congregation of Newport’” that expressed their appreciation for the rights and liberties that the Jews enjoyed in the United States.  It was in response to this document, that Washington wrote his famous reply guaranteeing the Jews religious liberty and promising them that they would be able to sit under their own vine and fig tree and none would make them afraid.

1790: Moses Seixas, the warden of Congregation Kahal Kadosh Yeshuat Israel, better known as the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, penned an epistle to George Washington, welcoming the newly elected first president of the United States on his visit to that city. Newport had suffered greatly during the Revolutionary War. Invaded and occupied by the British and blockaded by the American navy, hundreds of residents fled, and many of those who remained were Tories. After the British defeat, the Tories fled in turn. Newport’s nineteenth-century economy never recovered from these interruptions and dislocations. Washington’s visit to Newport was largely ceremonial—part of a goodwill tour Washington was making on behalf of the new national government created by the adoption of the Constitution in 1787. Newport had historically been a good home to its Jewish residents, who numbered approximately 300 at the time of Washington’s visit. The Newport Christian community’s acceptance of Jewish worship was exemplary, although individual Jews such as Aaron Lopez and Isaac Elizer were unable to obtain full political equality as citizens of Rhode Island. The Jews of Newport looked to the new national government, and particularly to the enlightened president of the United States, to remove the last of the barriers to religious liberty and civil equality confronting American Jewry. Moses Seixas’s letter on behalf of the congregation – he described them as “the children of the Stock of Abraham” – expressed the Jewish community’s esteem for President Washington and joined “with our fellow citizens in welcoming [him] to New Port.” The congregation expressed its pleasure that the God of Israel, who had protected King David, had also protected General Washington, and that the same spirit which resided in the bosom of Daniel and allowed him to govern over the “Babylonish Empire” now rested upon Washington. While the rest of world Jewry lived under the rule of monarchs, potentates and despots, as American citizens the members of the congregation were part of a great experiment: a government “erected by the Majesty of the People,” to which they could look to ensure their “invaluable rights as free citizens.” Seixas expressed his vision of an American government in words that have become a part of the national lexicon. He beheld in the United States “a Government which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance—but generously affording to All liberty of conscience, and immunities of citizenship: - deeming every one, of whatever nation, tongue or language equal parts of the great Governmental Machine: – This so ample and extensive federal union whose basis is Philanthropy, mutual confidence, and public virtue, we cannot but acknowledge to be the work of the Great God, who ruleth the Armies of Heaven, and among the Inhabitants of the Earth, doing whatsoever seemeth [to Him] good.” Seixas closed his letter to the president by asking God to send the “Angel who conducted our forefathers through the wilderness into the Promised Land [to] conduct [Washington] through all the difficulties and dangers of this mortal life.” He told Washington of his hope that “when like Joshua full of days, and full of honour, you are gathered to your Fathers, may you be admitted into the Heavenly Paradise to partake of the water of life, and the tree of immortality.”

Not surprisingly, it is Washington’s response, rather than Seixas’s epistle, which is best remembered and most frequently reprinted. Washington began by thanking the congregation for its good wishes and rejoicing that the days of hardship caused by the war were replaced by days of prosperity. Washington’s concluding paragraph perfectly expresses the ideal relationship among the government, its individual citizens and religious groups:

“May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while everyone shall sit under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.”

Washington’s letter, a foundation stone of American religious liberty and the principle of separation between church and state, is signed, simply, “G. Washington.” Each year, Newport’s Congregation Kahal Kadosh Yeshuat Israel, now known as the Touro Synagogue, re-reads Washington’s letter in a public ceremony.

1791:Birthdate of Richard Lalor Sheil the Irish politician, writer and orator who spoke out in favor of allowing Jews to sit in Parliament.

1807: Robert Fulton's first American steamboat, the Clermont left New York City for Albany, New York on the Hudson River, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world. The copper for the boilers in the Clermont, and many of Fulton’s other ships was supplied a Sephardic Jew named Harmon Hendricks.

1814: Barnett Levy married Bluma Phillips today at the Hambro Synagogue.

1815: In Bavaria, Moses and Brunhilda Morgenthau gave birth to Lazarus Morgenthau.


1816: Four days after she had passed away, Esther (nee Moses) Gomperts, the widow of Joseph Gomperts was buried today at the “Hoxton Old Jewish burial Ground.”

1825: Shumel ben Isaac married Sheina bat Joseph at the New Synagogue today.

1827: In Württemberg, Germany, Bernhard Frankfuter, the son of “Mkrjam and Moses Levi Frankfurter” and his wife Esther Frank gave birth to Bronnet Frankfurter

1842: Emanuel Lion married Rosetta Medex at the Great Synagogue today.

1848: Morris Solomons married Caroline Abrahams at the Great Synagogue today.

1856:” One day after she had passed away, Catherine Salaman was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1859: Aaron Abecasis married Esther Brandon at the Bevis Marks Synagogue today.

1859: Joseph Nordon married Rachel Levin today at the Western Synagogue today.

1856: In California, Strasburg native Charles August Lauff, “the youngest child of Jacob and Caroline Ashelmann Lauff and his wife, Mrs. Maria J. Sebran gave birth to their oldest child, Joseph L. Lauff.

1861: Congressional Medal of Honor Winner Abraham Greenawalt and Jane Greenawalt gave birth to Anna Greenawalt, the sister of Harry Greenawalt.

1863: During the Civil War, Isaac Hyneman, was permanently assigned to the United States Signal Corps.  During the next three years he would see combat in such memorable battles as Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and the Wilderness Campaign before being at Appomattox Court House where the war ended.

1871:  A dispatch datelined Berlin reported that cases of cholera in Suwalki, Poland which has a population of 60,000 half of whom are Jews are decreasing. 

1872: “The Tribune and the Hebrew Voters” published today reported that the New York Tribune, the newspaper owned by Presidential candidate Horace Greeley, is making “frantic”, “clumsy” attempts to overcome the impact of anti-Semitic story told by James Mitchell Ashley, the former governor of Montana at public meeting with Mr. Greely sitting at his elbow.

1873: In New York, David Lewis Einstein and Caroline Einstein gave birth to Florence Einstein who became Florence Walston when she married Sir Charles Walston.

1875: Baron George de Worms and Louisa de Samuel gave birth to their third child and only daughter Henrietta Emmy Louisa Amelia de Worms.

1878:  A Modern Hebrew Poet: the Life and Writings of Moses Chaim Luzzato by A.S. Isaacs was reviewed today in a column styled “A Jewish Singer.” Luzatto was an Italian Rabbi known as the RaMCHal.

1879: In Warsaw, Aaron David Gelbfisz, a peddler, and his wife, Hannah Reban (née Jarecka) gave birth to Szmuel Gelbfisz (Samuel Goldfish) who gained family as movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn.


1879: It was reported today that all places of business in White Plains, NY, were closed last Sunday as result of the conviction of a Jew named Adolphe D. Pollock for having previously kept his business open on Sunday.  Barber shops were the only business exempted from the closing ordinance.

1879: An editorial that originally appeared in the Jewish Messenger which was reprinted today said there was something wrong with the laws in White Plains if the government could not find a way to punish Jews who violate “their own and the general Sabbath by transacting business.”  The Messenger has “no sympathy for the hypocrite and money grabber who breaks his own Sabbath, yet claims the privilege of selling goods on Sunday because…he is a Jew.”  On the other hand, there should be some kind of allowance made for the Jew who closes his business on Saturday that would allow him to conduct business on Sunday as long as he “is not conspicuous.

1880: “The Turk and the Greek” published today examined the current conditions in the Balkans including French Prime Minister Michael Waddington’s decision to champion the cause of the Rumanian Jews at the Congress of Berlin despite the counsel from “a few intelligent Jewish politicians” for France to abstain from involvement in “matters in no way affecting French interests.”

1881: It was reported today that the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society is planning to host another excursion for the poor children of the Lower East Side,

1882: It was reported today that Samuel Obreight has been declared sane by the state Supreme Court.  Obreight’s family had had him declared insane and institutionalized because he had married a Christian girl. The judge ruled that the family’s “wounded sectarian pride” should not be the basis for such a charge. The judge said that the marriage was one of the outcomes of the religious liberty enjoyed in this country since the Revolution.

1883: Nathan Gottgetren, alias Nicholas Gilbert, a 35 year old Jew was brought back to New York by two detectives from Putnam County. A married man and confidential bookkeeper, he has been arrested on charges of forgery.

1883: This afternoon, the members of Shaarai Berocho (Gates of Blessing) dedicated their new facility located on East 45thStreet in New York.  The congregation was founded in 1858 under the leadership of Rabbi Elias Epstein.

1883: It was reported today that the Jewish World of London has announced “that Count Tolstoi, the Russian Minister of the Interior, has ordered the enforcement of the decree forbidding Jewish manufacturers from employing Christian workmen.”

1883: It was reported today that “a British Jew, representing Raphael Tuck & Sons,” a London business firm has been expelled from Russia despite having a “proper British passport.”

1884: It was reported today that a mobbed attacked seven Jews were killed and an untold number injured by a mob at Dombrovitz, Russia.

1884: Two days after he had passed away, Lewis Moses was buried at “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”

1885: It was reported today that G.A. Heap, the U.S. Consul General in Constantinople has sent a second, more strongly worded protest to the Turkish government  protesting the expulsion of Americans from Jerusalem because they were Jews.  Heap pointed out that the expulsions are in violation of a treaty between the two nations and that he is referring the matter to Washington.

1885: The Book of Psalms translated from the Hebrew and edited by John G. Lansing is among the tomes appearing on today’s “New Books” list

1885: It was reported today that Rabbi Ash will continue serving as the Rabbi of Beth Hamedrash Hagadol after its move into new facility on Norfolk Street. Ash had urged the congregation to buy the building from the Methodists at a cost of $45,000 and to spend the $10,000 necessary to prepare the inside for use by the Jews.

1885: In a speech given to a Jewish literary society whose members were 16, 17 and 18 year old Jewish boys, it was reported that G.A. Ettinger that the recently deceased Sir Moses Montefiore had sought “to free his people from the shackles of prejudice and the evils of persecution” while the recently deceased General U.S. Grant (and former President of the U.S.) had “labored to free 4,000,000 human beings from the shackles of slavery.” As if to dispel any charges past, present or future that Grant was an anti-Semite, a bevy of speakers including Julius Levy, Eugene N. Levy and William Grossman, echoed Ettinger’s sentiments about the recently deceased Giant of Judaism and the General who had saved the Union.

1886: “The Jews of Italy” using information that has appeared in the Lunario Israelitico of Leghorn and the London Times provides a snapshot of Jewish society in the middle of the 19th century.  There are approximately 45,000 Jews living in the country which means they comprise about 1 per cent of Europe’s Jewish population.  Rome has the largest Jewish population – 5,600.  Mantua now has the leading rabbinical school while Padua is home “to the greatest Hebrew scholar in Italy, Rabbi Ende Lolli…)

1887: It was reported today that Jonas Heller, who passed away in March, bequeathed gifts of $2,500 to Mount Sinai, the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, the United Hebrew Charities, the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids and the Hebrew Technical Institute. (The list of recipients provides a snapshot of major Jewish institutions in post-Civil War New York City)

1887: “Julius Weisbaden, a miser and monomaniac, was found dying in his room” today “and was taken to Bellevue Hospital”

1887: Temple Emanuel contributed $264 to the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

1888: In a case of Jew versus Jew, Samuel Gompers has testified before Congressman Ford’s Immigration Committee.  Gompers, an English born Jew who professed his loyalty to his adopted country said that the “importation” of Polish and Russian Jews had depressed the wages of cigar-makers.  Gompers said that he had no problem with Jews being brought to the United States for humanitarian reasons but he did have a problem with the current process which was designed to depress wages.  Gompers then went on to decry the conditions in the cigar industry where all workers, regardless of their origins, were exploited by the owners. (The latter information was surely not well received by Congressman Ford)

1890: It was reported today that “Michael Gernsheim & Co, the bankers, have made a new move in their fight against an assessment on the stockholders under the reorganization scheme of the Houston and Texas Central Railway Company.”

1890: Birthdate of bacteriologist Harry Plotz who was a leading physician in the fight against typhus.

1890: “King of the British Gypsies” published today included information on the origins of the gypsies who, according to some, were “the mixed multitude” that went out of Egypt during the Exodus. According to Ernst Hengstenberg since there is no mention of them during the wanderings in the wilderness or after the entrance into Canaan they must have left the Israelites shortly after the crossing at the Sea of Reeds.

1890: Dr. Bernard Drachman is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Judaism and Ethics” at Cooper Union which is the seventh in a series of public lectures sponsored by the Jewish Theological Seminary.

1890: “Precious Stones” published today compared the “frequent and enthusiastic” references to precious stones in Hebrew literature” with the “paucity of allusion to them in…Greek literature” which the author attributed to the Jewish view of these stones as objects to be used in the creation of art while the Greeks saw them, like all other objects, as potential gods.

1890: “Czar and Kaiser To Meet” published today described the upcoming meeting between the two monarchs during which the condition of Russia’s Jews will be discussed.  Baron Max von Oppenheim who has the backing of the “Jewish financial houses in Germany and Austria” has expressed his concerns as have the Rothchilds who have obtained “the assurance…that the existing condition of the Russian Jews would not be made worse.”

1891: “He Swindled Undertakers” published today described the anger that a number of New York undertakers feel toward a young Jewish man who has been soliciting ads from them for the Jewish Times.  First he tells them about complaints in the community about their services and then tells them that advertising in the paper will defuse the anger since most Jews have a very high opinion of the Jewish Times.

1891: The American Hebrew mourns the recent deaths of poet James Russell Lowell and New York Timesman, George Jones.

1891: “Angry Jews In Boston” published today described the disgust the Jews felt when they came to take possession of the Old Church of the Messiah, which they planned to convert into a synagogue.  The Jews were so repelled by the damage that the Episcopalians had done to the building that they were willing to forfeit their $500 deposit.

1891(13thof Av, 5651): Eighty-two year old Louis Goodheim, who had been living at the Hebrew Home since 1884 took his own life.  Goodheim, who had once been a successful merchant in London, left a note thanking the staff for its kindness.  He had told his brother that he was in such agony that if he had had a gun he would have shot himself

1891: In Peoria, Illinois, “Gussie Woolner Calisch” and “Rabbi Edward Calisch of Congregation Anshai Emeth,” gave birth to Adiran Calisch who would tragically passed away before his first birthday.

1891: “The Russian Refugees” published today described the problems encountered by Jewish colonists who have been settled in New Jersey under the auspices of the Baron Hirsch Fund.

1893: As the unemployment rate reached 12% and continued to rise during the depression brought on by the Panic of 1893, approximately 5,000 unemployed Jews gathered for a peaceful mass meeting at Walhalla Hall turned violent as the worker vented their frustrations when jobs that were advertised turned out to be nonexistent.

1893: “One of the Czar’s Victims” published today described the arrival of Vladimir Korlenko, who had spent six years in Siberian exile and who has two sympathetic novels on “the Jewish question in Russia, in New York where he is staying at the Astor House.

1894 (15th of Av, 5654): Tu B’Av

1894: One day after he had passed away, Simon Isaac Cohen was buried at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery” on Buckingham Road today

1895: In two days of meetings, Herzl meets Rabbi Moritz Güdemann and Berlin philanthropist Heinrich Meyer-Cohn in München. Güdemann was an Austrian born Rabbi who was sympathetic to the Zionist cause but was concerned about the tendency to downplay the religious component of re-settling the land.  Herzl looked to Gudemann to introduce him to the Rothschilds.

1895: Based on information that first appeared in The London Daily News it was reported today that there are 571, 300 people living in Warsaw of whom 190,300 are Jews.

1896: Birthdate of Lotte Jacobi the Prussian-born photographer whose subjects included Albert Einstein, Marc Chagall and Alfred Stieglitz. She left Germany and settled in New York in September, 1935 “as persecution against Jews increased.”

1896: Birthdate of Johannes Kleiman, the Dutch business associate of Otto Frank who was arrested by the Gestapo for his role in hiding the famous Frank family.

1896: In Clinton Township, NJ. Mrs. Paul Wissen found a body in the barnyard who “had a Hebraic cast to his features” but whom could not be positively identified.

1897: At Rishon Lezion, Reveivel Miransky one of the Bilium who founded Rishon Lezion and his wife gave birth to Joshua Myron. During World War I, Mr. Myron was a Sergeant in “the camel-mounted Zionist brigade that fought with Vladimir Jabotinsky against Turkey in Palestine.”  This unit was part of the Jewish Brigade that was part of the British Army.  When Mr. Myron passed away in 2000, at the age of 102, he was one of the last surviving members of this force that helped lay the groundwork for the creation of the state of Israel and the I.D.F.

1898:The first conference of Russian Zionists is held secretly in Warsaw. Warsaw, like much of Poland was part of the Russian Empire. During the conference, Achad Ha-Am discussed his differences with Theodor Herzl. Achad Ha-Am was the pen name of Asher Hirsch Ginsberg one of the most famous Jewish intellectuals of the second half of the 19thcentury and the beginning of the 20th century.  Unlike Herzl who believed in a political, semi-assimilationist solution to the creation of Jewish state, Achad Ha-Am saw the Jewish home as being “a national spiritual center.” Ginsberg was area of the practical challenges that the Jewish people faced.  For example at the time of Kishinev Pogroms, he called for Jews to take arms in their own defense.  While Herzl’s dream of a Jewish state has been realized, the Jewish people are still wrestling with the creation of a Jewish homeland that encompasses Jewish values from tradition to the world of the Haskalah.

1898: As of today 715 of the 865 children staying at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum have been taken from the building at 138thStreet and Amsterdam Avenue and moved to the facility at Rockaway as officials deal with the epidemic of dysentery.

1899: Pennsylvania Congressman Marriott Brozzius announced the appointment of Frank Eshelman as a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy following the resignation of Rigmund Albert, a young Jew, from West Point.

1899: Philadelphian George M. Appel began serving as a 1stLt. in the 39th United States Volunteer Infantry

1899: Philadelphian Gustav Schlachter, a veteran of the Spanish-American War, transferred from Company F, 3rd Infantry to the 44th U.S. Infantry with the rank of 2nd Lieutenant.

1899: The Court Martial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus resumed today with his attorney making General Roget “squirm in his seat” as he cross-examined him about the Esterhazy’s letters.

1899: “Shot Down By Anti-Semite” published today described the shooting of a locksmith named Bonnet in Paris by an unknown assailant who called out “He looks like one of those dirty Jews” before firing his weapon.

1899: Philadelphian Gustav F. Schlachter, who rose to the rank of Quarter-Master Sergeant during the Spanish American War and who had re-enlisted in Company F of the 3rd Infantry was promoted to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant today.

1899: “Is A Warm Champion of Dreyfus” published today described Anton Weiss of Pine Bluff, AR admiration for and personal friendship with Captain Dreyfus.  Weis had met Dreyfus one was working for the Transatlantic Steamship Line at Harve France where Dreyfus was serving with an artillery unit. There were only a few Jews in the city and no house of worship.  Dreyfus “who was greatly respected” because “of his extensive knowledge” of Jewish ritual served as “the rabbi’ and led the services.”

1900: During the siege of Peking which ended today and was part of the Boxer Rebellion U.S.M.C. Private William Zion “distinguished himself in the presence of the enemy” with such bravery that he earned the Congressional Medal of Honor.

1903: Birthdate of Abram Chasins “an American composer, pianist, piano teacher, lecturer, musicologist, music broadcaster, radio executive and author.”

1903: Today, while the Sixth Zionist Congress was meeting Jacob de Haas spent the evening touring Paris with Dr. Marmorek and Dr. Nordeau.

1903: In Russia, “Isaac Abramovich Piatigorsky, a frustrated violinist” and his wife Basya Maria Amshislavska gave birth to cellist Gregor Piatigorsky a product of the Imperial Conservatory in Moscow who came to the United States in 1929.


1908: In Galicia, Toybe Padwa and R’Eleazar Wolf Padwa gave birth to “Rabbi Chanoch Dov Padw.”


1908: Birthdate of Felix Eliezer Bergmann the native of Frankfurt and brother of Rabbi Dr. Adolf Rosenzweig who earned his degrees from the University of Berlin 1933 before he made Aliyah where became Chairman of Pharmacology at the Hebrew University.

1911: Birthdate of Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik Jewish Russian International Grandmaster and long-time World Champion of chess.  He passed away in 1995.

1911: In Russia, arrests continue in Kiev in connection with charges of blood libel.

1914: Two days after he had passed away, sixty-year old Russian born Englishman Isaac Benjamin, the husband of Polly Benjamin with whom he had nine children was buried today at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery.

1914: During WW I, as the Germans continued their march through neutral Belgium the government transferred from Brussels to Antwerp which had gained in its Jewish population when the “diamond trade shifted from Amsterdam to Antwerp.”

1915: Birthdate of Chittagong, Bangladesh native Sir Reginald Michael Hadow and British Diplomat who “Ambassador to Israel from 1965 to 1969.”

1915: In Philadelphia, Jewish academic Max Leopold Margolis and his wife Evelyn Kate Aronson gave birth to Max Leopold Margolis

1915(7th of Elul, 5675): Leo Frank was lynched after having been wrongfully convicted of raping 12 year old in Georgia. “Frank, the manager of a pencil factory in Atlanta, Georgia, was accused of raping and murdering an employee, thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan. Frank was convicted, despite evidence incriminating a janitor at the factory, Jim Conley. The prosecution claimed that Conley only helped Frank dispose of the body, in return for $200. After the trial, further evidence came to light calling Frank's guilt into question. The governor commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment, but Frank was then lynched. Frank's trial was sensationalized in the media, which promoted fantastic stories about orgies and rape at the factory. Populist politician and publisher Tom Watson skillfully manipulated the story in order to inflame public opinion, and succeeded in using it to build support for the creation of a new Ku Klux Klan, the original organization having been dormant since Reconstruction due to federal action; a second Klan was founded in 1915 by a group calling itself the Knights of Mary Phagan. Frank's lynching turned the spotlight on anti-Semitism in the United States and led to the founding of the Anti-Defamation League.”

1915: “Louis Marshall who argued the Frank case before the United States Supreme Court, said tonight that Tom Watson, editor of The Jeffersonianand at one time candidate for President on the Populist ticket was responsible for the lynching of Leo M. Frank.”

1915: Nathan Straus who was raised in Georgia said tonight that “the lynching” of Leo Frank “has brought disgrace to Georgia and the whole country” and that the only way for the state to redeem itself was to bring the killers to justice.

1915: “On the first page of the Jeffersonian, a weekly paper edited by Thomas E. Watson which was issued tonight appears the following” ‘A Vigilance Committee redeems Georgia and carries out the sentence of the law on the Jew who raped and murdered the little Gentile girl, Mary Phagan.’”

1916: During World War I Julius Mendes Price “was the only foreign correspondent present at the capture of Gorizia by the Italian army” during the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo which ended today.

1916: “Abram I. Elkus, the newly appointed American Ambassador to Turkey,” “his wife, his two daughter Ethel and Katherine Elkus and his son James Hess Elkus,” set sail today on the steamship Oscar II “for Constantinople via Copenhagen and Berlin”

1917: A tremendous fire swept through the Jewish quarter of Salonica leaving 50,000 Jews homeless. Thirty-two synagogues and fifty Jewish schools were destroyed. The Jews suffered 90% damage to everything they owned.

1917: A movement was made today to “establish a Jewish settlement on the Island of Java.”

1917: During WW I, in which the U.S. was now a combatant,“Ira Nelson Morris, the American Minister” in Stockholm said today “that he had received official advices from Turkey that permission had been granted to about 700 American Jews to leave Palestine for the United States.”

1917: Vilmos Vázsonyi completed his term of Minister of Justice of Hungary.

1918: In Moscow, followers of Lenin “proclaim Jews as a danger to the masses.”

1918: In Brooklyn, a block party featuring “music games and dancing” is scheduled to be held on South 9th Street between Roebling and Driggs Avenue to raise funds for the Red Mogen David (the Jewish version of the Red Cross.

1918: In Riga, “local police refuse to interfere in pogrom agitation.

1918: In Petrograd, “in a demonstration against the Jews,” “anti-Semites among the revolutionaries” tore “up the banner of the ‘Bund.’”

1918: Bolshevik revolutionary leader Moisei Uritsky was assassinated by fellow Jew Leonid Kanegeiser.  Uritsky, like many Bolsheviks traveled a tortuous path from his early idealism.  At the time of his death, he was head the Petrograd Cheka.  The Cheka were the secret police and over time became much for efficient and showed greater cruetly that did those who had served the Czar.

1920: Birthdate of photographer Lida Moser.





1921: In Tübingen, Germany, Jewish scholars Victor Ehrenberg and Eva Dorothea Sommer gave birth to Sir Geoffrey Rudolph Elton the British historian “who specialized in the Tudor Period.”

1921: In London, The Times published the second in a series of articles by it “Constantinople Correspondent” that “incontrovertibly demonstrated that ‘The Protocols’ consist in the main of ‘clumsy plagiarisms’ from a French political pamphlet directed against Napoleon III and published in Brussels in 1865 by a French Lawyer named Maurice Joly and entitled ‘Dialogues in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu.’”

1923: In the Bronx Samuel and Sonya Grossberg gave birth to Yitzroch Loiza Grossberg who gained fame as pop-artist Larry Rivers.



1924: In Zholkiew (which was in Poland at that time) Shlomo and Hayyah Gittel Schachter gave birth to Meshullam Zalman Schachter whom some consider to be “the spiritual father of the Jewish Renewal movement.” (As reported by Paul Vitello)


1927: Birthdate of Bernard Cornfield, the Turkish born son of a Romanian-Jewish actor “who became one of the most flamboyant and controversial figures ever to stride through the American mutual fund industry.”  (As reported by Diana B. Henriques)

1928: “The Patriot” a silent film with “some talking sequences” directed and edited by Ernst Lubitsch was released in the United States today.

1929(11th of Av, 5689): Shabbat Nachamu

1929(11th of Av, 5689): Following yesterday’s attack on Jews at the Wailing Wall, Arabs attack Jews in Jerusalem on Shabbat. A young Sephardic Jew named Abraham Mizrachi was mortally wounded when he was stabbed at the Maccabi grounds near Mea Shearim, in the Bukharan Quarter.

1930(23rd of 5690): Seventy-one year old painter Florence Wolf Gotthold, the daughter of Jewish leader Simon Wolf and the wife of Frederick Gotthold, whose most famous work was “A Venetian Lady” passed away today.


1932(15th of Av, 5692): Tu B’Av

1932(15th of Av, 5692): Forty-five year old Mrs. Louise H. Pollak, the wife of Cincinnati, Ohio, City Councilman, a graduate of Bryn Mawr College who was a former president of the League of Woman Voters and a member of the Council of Jewish Women passed away today

1933: In Tel Aviv,The British High Commissioner and other officials participate in the laying of the cornerstone for the Levant Fair which is to be held here in 1934.

1933: “The Private Life of Henry VII” directed and co-produced by Alexander Korda and featuring Binnie Barnes as “Catherine Howard” was released today in the United Kingdom.

1933:In Saarbrucken, a decision by a court in Berlin stating that a Jew doing business in Germany cannot hold the State responsible for negligence in failing to maintain order and to afford him protection is printed in the Freiheit

1934: Twenty-seven year old pitcher Cyrus Sol “Cy” Malis struck out one batter today in his first and last major league baseball game as a member of the Philadelphia Phillies of the National League.

1935(18th of Av, 5696):  Parashat Eikev

1935(18th of Av, 5696): William Farber, the husband of “Rachel Plocinsky Farber” with whom he had five children – “Nathan, Bluma, Edward, Maurice and Saul – passed away today in Chicago.

1936(29th of Av, 5696): Two Jewish nurses were killed today by Arab snipers in Jaffa.

1936(29th of Av, 5696): “Haya Freud, a lookout on the water tower at Ramath Hakovesh” was killed by
“an Arab during a night raid.”

1936: “Gershon Mosteioff, a student at the Hebrew University” who was acting as a volunteer watchman at Kiryath Anavim was among the thirteen Jews wounded by Arab attackers today.

1936: It was reported today that Louis Lipsky of New York the head of the central council said the completed membership” of the Executive Committee of the World Jewish Congress “would consist of 136 representatives from 32 countries.”

1937: As Japanese troops moved through Shanghai, the Shanghai Volunteer Corps including its Jewish Company under the command of Major Noel S. Jacobs was activated for a three month tour of duty.

1937: In Geneva, Mr. Ormsby-Gore, the British Colonial Secretary, told the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations that Great Britain definitely considered that she should no longer maintain the Mandate of Palestine, if it has to be applied by violence. He insisted that the whole basis of the Palestine Mandate should be changed. Of course these pious sentiments did not keep the British from holding on to Palestine for another ten years, denying the establishment of a Jewish state and enforcing pro-Arab immigration policies that were a death sentence to the Jews of Europe.

1937: Forty-one congressmen requested that Cordell Hull, the US Secretary of State, advise the British that they were not carrying out the intentions and promises of the Balfour Declaration and of the Palestine Mandate.

1937: While the diplomats debated in Geneva, the Arab terror continued. A long list of sporadic shooting incidents, the wounding of a police agent in Ein Kerem, a bomb explosion in Tiberias and many robberies, all within one week, was announced by the Palestine Police.

1937: At the closing session of the historic, 20th Zionist Congress held in Zurich, Dr. Chaim Weizmann was re-elected the President of the World Zionist Organization.

1937: The New York Times reports that “A remarkable document, purporting to give a confidential report by Dr. Chaim Weizmann, Zionist president, of a conversation he had in London with William G. A. Ormsby-Gore, British Colonial Secretary, on a plan for the partition of Palestine, has been published by The Jewish Chronicle here.”

1938(20th of Av, 5698): Eight-nine year old Adolph Lewisohn, the German-born American banker and philanthropist who was known as a “copper king” because of his mining success, passed away.


1938: In Berlin, the Reich Minister of the Interior signed Reichsgesetz Part I, the second decree on the law concerning the change of first and last names that included the requirement that male Jews adopt the middle name of “Israel” and that the female Jews adopt the middle name of “Sara” – the violation of which led to the imprisonment of Lilli Jahn, “a German-Jewish doctor” was killed at Auschwitz.

1938(20th of Av, 5698): Arab violence continued to spread and grow more virulent. Early this morning, the body of Meyer Gutwird a 21 year old rabbinical student “who used to devote virtually of his time to religious studies and was often seen early in the morning at the Wailing Wall reading a holy” was found in Jerusalem.  Gutwird had been stoned to death and then beaten with an iron rod.  A bomb was thrown at a taxicab in Jaffa and Judah Mosseri, a Yemenite Jew, was wounded in both legs when shots were on the border between Jaffa and Tel Aviv.  Arab terrorist did not limit their activities to attacking Jews.  They attacked eight Arab telephone linemen whom they robbed before they released them.

1939: The 85,000 Jews living in Slovakia were terrified of being robbed and pillaged by the non-Jews, who were encouraged by the Germans.

1939(2nd of Elul, 5699): Seventy-four year old New York native, “the Vice President of the Consolidated Cigar Corporation and Vice President of the S. Elkeles Cigar Box Company” who was survived by four siblings – David, Moses, Julia and Mollie -- passed away today “at his home on East 61st Street after a long illness.


1939: The New York City premiere of “The Wizard of Oz” produced by Mervyn LeRoy with Oscar winning music by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg was held at Lowe’s Capitol Theatre

1940: “The Prefecture of Haute-Garonne issued Leon Blum a new identification card, which indicated that his hair and mustache were grey, his nose “straight,” and his complexion “clear.”

1941(24th of Av, 5701): Three men in Khmelnik, Ukraine, were gathered together and shot dead. The deaths were justified by Einsatzkommando as retaliation for Jewish resistance. Considering how the SS death squads worked, it is surprising that they felt the need to offer an excuse for killing more Jews.

1942(24th of Av, 5701): The Nazis gassed 341 French-Jewish children from the ages of two to ten, as well as 323 girls up to the age of 16, at Auschwitz. Two of the victims are Suzanne Perl, seven, and her sister Micheline, three.

1942: Over the next 48 hours the Nazis murdered 2500 Jews from Drogobych, Ukraine, at the Belzec death camp.

1942: Birthdate of barrister and campaigner for children’s rights Allan Edward Levy.


1943: “A survivor from Sabinov in Slovakia, who has remained anonymous, wrote a report in which he described his selection in Sobibór, together with approximately one hundred men and fifty women, upon arrival.”

1943: The latest deportation continued at Bialystok; The Nazis selection 1,200 children for transport to Theresienstadt. Four weeks later, those children still alive were sent to Birkenau where all of them met the fate of death. Fifty-three adults volunteered to join them.

1943: Some 1200 children are taken from the Jewish ghetto at Bialystok, Poland, to Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, and later to Auschwitz, where they will be killed.

1944: Nicholas Winton, the Englishman who rescued almost 700 Jewish children from Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia was promoted to the rank of pilot officer in the RAF.

1944: Premiere of “Cry of the Werewolf” directed by Henry Levin.

1944: Birthdate of Larry Ellison, the co-founder and CEO of Oracle.

1944: The last deportation from Drancy, France, leaves for Buchenwald bearing 51 Jews. Once again we have a reminder of how critical the Final Solution was to the Germans and their allies.  This deportation took place as the Allies were liberating Paris.  While the Germans were preparing to pull out and leave the French capital to the liberators, they had to ship one more load of Jews to their death. 

1945: Animal Farm by George Orwell is first published by Fredric Warburg both of whose parents were Jewish.

1945: It was reported today that the meeting between representatives of the World Zionist Conference and British Colonial Secretary George Hall was “the first known official contact between the Zionists and the new Labor Government.”  In the past the Laborites have pledged their support for the creation of a Jewish homeland so “the Zionists are eagerly awaiting the British Governments action on the request for 100,000 more immigration certificates…”

1946: Birthdate of Drake Maxwell Levin, the Chicago native “who played lead guitar for the teen-idol rock band Paul Revere & the Raiders during their biggest hit-making years in the mid-1960s.” (As reported by Bruce Weber)

1948: Mitchell Flint “took up D-108 for an hour of formation flying, part of an exhibition for Prime Minister Ben-Gurion's visit to Netanya.”

1948: “During today's visit by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to Netanya, Modi Alon scrambled Syd Cohen and four of his B flight pilots, if only for show in front of the prime minister.”

1948: Mordechai Weingarten, a Jewish civilian leader in Old Jerusalem “appeared before a commission investigating events” that had led up to the surrender of the Old City to the Jordanians.

1949: In New York, Ambassador Eliabu Elath and the chief Israeli delegate to the U.N., Aubrey Eban, “addressed a meeting of officials of the Consulate and of various Israeli missions in the United States” as part of the celebration marking the transfer of the remains of Theodore Herzl to Jerusalem. (As reported by JTA)

1949: In New York Norman Bertram Coleman, Sr., and his wife, Beverly (Behrman) gave birth to Norman Bertram "Norm" Coleman, Jr the future Mayor of St. Paul and U.S. Senator from Minnesota.

1949: Premiere of “Jolson Sings Again” the sequel of “The Jolson Story,” biopics about Al Jolson directed by Henry Levin

1950: Premier of “The Petty Girl” a musical comedy directed by Henry Levin.

1951: U.S. Premiere of “The Lost Continent” a science fiction thriller co-starring Sid Melton, the son of Yiddish comedian Isidor Meltzer.

1951: The conflict in the World Zionist Congress on the aims of Zionism now that Israel has been established as a state remained sharp as the delegates adjourned this afternoon for the Sabbath recess.

1952: John Blanford of UNRWA and the government of Jordan signed an agreement that provided eleven million dollars for the resettling of Arab refugees in Jordan. The Arab governments, including Jordan, did all that they could to keep the Palestinian refugees penned up in camps and keep them out of their respective countries.  

1952: Two Jews were sentenced to death for economic crimes in Poland. It was thought that the Polish Communist regime was exploiting anti-Semitism to distract attention for its own, ever-growing economic difficulties.

1956: In Paris, Gaby and Raymond Aghion gave birth to Philippe Mario Aghion the “Robert C. Waggoner Professor of Economics at Harvard University and the co-developer of “Schumpeterian Paradigm.”

1956(10th of Elul, 5716): Sixty-five year old Russian born Yiddish poet Moishe Broderzon passed away today.


1957(20th of Av, 5717): Sixty-six year old English painter and “Whitechapel Boy” David Bomberg passed away.


1960:  Birthdate of actor Sean Penn.  Penn’s father was Jewish.  His mother was not.  Penn’s father was director Leo Penn who was a victim to the infamous Blacklist.

1960: ITV broadcast the final episode of “The Four Just Men” a television series overseen by Executive Producer Hannah Fisher, with music Francis Chagrin.

1961(5th of Elul, 5721): Seventy-six year old Carlos Salezdo, the scion of two Sephardi families and a leading “French harpist, pianist, composer and conductor” passed away today.


1962: In a rare loss of control, reliever Larry Sherry hit Red’s lead-off batter Gordie Coleman in the seventh inning.  The Dodgers go on to defeat Cincinnati.

1963: Three days after his death, a friend disclosed the fact that Clifford Odets’ “The Flowering Peach” “had been the Pulitzer Prize jury’s 1955 drama choice” but that it had been overruled by Pulitzer Advisory Board.

1966(1st of Elul, 5726): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1966 (1st of Elul, 5726): Eighty-two year old Des Moines, IA native Ira M. Younker, the husband of Rose Marie Younker with whom he had two children – Herman and Janet – who was the “President of the Jewish Family Service and a trustee of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropics of New York” passed away today.

1966(1st of Elul, 5726): 1967:Yonatan Netanyahu married Tuti today.

1966: Ninety year old, John Spargo, the author of The Jews and American Ideals in which he “attacked the problems of anti-Semitism and exposes the un-American nature and its positive danger to American ideals and institutions” passed away today.

1967: Tuti and Yonatan “Yoni” Netanyahu were married today after which they moved to the U.S. so he could enroll at Harvard.

1967: “The Stranger Returns” a “spaghetti Western film produced by Allen Klein was released in Italy today.

1968(23rd of Av, 5728): Parashat Eikev

1968(23rd of Av, 5728): Sixty-seven year old Joseph Platzker, a life-long resident of New York City and “Commissioner of Housing and Buildings” under Mayor La Guardia who was the husband of Bess Ratner Platzker with whom he had two children – Harold and Doris – passed away today “at the Albert Einstein Hospital.”

1969(3rd of Elul, 5729):  German born physicist Otto Stern who worked with Einstein before World War I and came to the United States in 1933 where he taught and won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1943 passed away today.


1974: Leonard Bernstein conducted the premiere of Dybbuk Variations with NYP in Auckland, New Zealand.

1975(10th of Elul, 5735): Seventy-nine year old painter and actor Sig Arno, the native of Hamburg, who left Germany in 1933 for Hollywood where ‘he appeared in over fifty films” over the next twenty years and also found time two appear in three different shows on Broadway including “Time Remembered’ “for which he was nominated for a Tony Award…in 1958.

1976: Hadassah continues its national convention for a third day in Washington, DC.

1977: A memorial is scheduled to be held this evening at Riverside Chapel for art dealer Hugo Perls who passed away yesterday at the age of 91.


1979: Premiere of “The Seduction of Joe Tynan” a cinematic commentary on the state of American politics directed by Jerry Schatzberg, produced by Bregman co-starring Melvyn Douglas.

1979: “The Concorde ... Airport '79” with a screenplay by Eric Roth, music by Lalo Schifrin and featuring performances by Avery Schreiber and Harry Shearer was released in the United States today by Universal Pictures.

1980(5th of Elul, 5740): Eighty-eight year old Morris Murray Peshkin, the graduate of Fordham Medical School and allergist who was on the faculty of Columbia and an officer of the American Jewish Congress passed away today.


1980(5th of Elul, 5740): In Jaffa, one person was killed and eight were injured during a terrorist car bombing.

1981(17th of Av, 5741): Ninety one year old Jewish historian, author and academic Selma Stern Taebuler passed away.


1982(28th of Av, 5742): Fifty-seven anti-apartheid activist Ruth First, the daughter of Latvian Jews who had moved to South Africa in 1906 and the wife of Joe Slovo passed away today.

1983(8th of Elul, 5743): Lyricist Ira Gershwin, brother of the famous George Gershwin, passed away at the age of 86. (As reported by John S. Wilson)


1986(12th of Av, 5746)Moses Hadas an American teacher, who was one of the leading classical scholars of the twentieth century, and a translator of numerous works, passed away today. 



 1986: Birthdate of Deborah Feldman, the author who rebelled against her upbringing by “the Hasidic Satmar group in Williamsburg” and wrote her autobiography, Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots.


1987:  Rudolf Hess, the last of Hitler’s inner circle died in a Berlin hospital at the age of 93. He apparently attempted to commit suicide by hanging himself with an electrical cord.  Hess had parachuted into England in 1941 for reasons that to this day are unclear.  Convicted as a war criminal at Nuremberg, he spent the rest of his life at Spandau Prison.

1988:According to an article in the Cedar Rapids Gazetteentitled, “A Tale of Two Piggies.” Concrete pigs had replaced pink flamingos as yard ornaments for Temple Judah congregants Terri and Brian Cohen. The 1,100-pound concrete porker showed up in the couple’s front yard at 1290 35th St. NE after a mysterious phone call invited Terri to leave her home. Brian recalled a friend asking what kind of lawn ornament he wanted and when he responded, “no pink flamingos and no Virgin Mary grottoes,” he neglected to mention swine
1992: Woody Allen admitted to being romantically involved with Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of Allen’s longtime companion, actress Mia Farrow.

1994: Elias Canetti, a novelist, playwright and cultural historian who had won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981 was buried today in Zurich next to James Joyce. 

1995(21st of Av, 5755): Ninety-three year old screenwriter Howard Koch, who won an Oscar for his work on “Casablanca”, passed away. (As reported by Mel Gussow)


1997: Guy Hever disappeared after finishing his stint on guard duty while serving with an artillery unit based in the Golan Heights.

1997: In the Gaza Strip a two day celebration was held to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Gush Katif settlement bloc

1997: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition of Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics by Ruth Lewin

1998: US President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony that he had an "improper physical relationship" with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

2001: “Rat Race,” a comedy directed by Jerry Zucker, co-produced by Jerry Zucker and Janet Zucer, written by Andy Breckman and co-starring Jon Lovit was released in the United States and Canada today.

2001(28th of Av, 5761): Eighty year old Penn State track star Herman Goffberg who competed in the 1948 Olympics passed away today.


2002: “Israeli security forces arrested the Hamas terrorists known as the ‘Silwan Cell’ who were responsible for the attack on the Café Moment coffee shop in Jerusalem that killed 11 Israeli civilians and wounded another 54.”

2002: The end of the two-day dedication ceremony of the Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial in Boise, Idaho.

2003: Ariel Sharon completed his term in office as Communications Minister of Israel.

2003: The Sunday New York Times includes reviews of Einstein’s Clocks, Poincare’s Maps: Empires of Time by Peter Galison,Kate Remembered, a biography of Kathryn Hepburn by the Jewish author A. Scott Bergand What Was She Thinking?:Notes on a Scandal, a novel by Jewish author Zoe Holler.004(30th of Av, 5764): Rosh Chodesh Ave


2005: In a tribute to the vitality of the Jewish people Hutzot Hayotzer Jerusalem’s largest summer festival celebrating art and various crafts returns to its original location at the Sultan’s Pool when it opened today.  Hutzot Havotzer is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary and is a cultural happening in the truest sense of the word.  With the world fixated on Gaza and terror, this is another reminder of the vitality of Jewish culture even in times of unbelievable stress and hostility.

2005: Sixteen families of “Morag, a moshav in the southwest edge of the Gaza Strip” “were evicted today by the IDF and Israeli police.”

2005: Today, “as the Vikings' morning training camp session ended at Minnesota State University about half a dozen fans approached Zygmunt Wilf -- a New Jersey real estate developer and the new principal owner of the Minnesota Vikings for autographs as he walked off the field.”

2005: In an example of the demise of another Jewish founded department store chain Coles announced that it would decide the fate of Myer, an Australian retail group founded Sidney Myer a Jewish immigrant from Russia.

2006: IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz refused to resign over charges that he had sold off his portfolio because, unlike most Israelis, he knew that his country was faced with the prospect of going to war after two Israelis soldiers had been captured by Hezbollah.

2006: I Was a Child of Holocuast Survivors by Bernice Eisenstein went on sale today.

2006:Israel's Attorney General Menachem Mazuz decided to indict Haim Ramon for indecent assault. Ramon responded by saying: "I am certain of my innocence. The court will prove it."

2007(2nd Elul, 5676): Ninety-one year old Carolyn Goodman, the psychologist turned “civil rights advocate” and mother of murdered Civil Rights worker Andrew Goodman passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)


2007: “Superbad” produced by Judd Apaow, written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg and starring Jonah Hill opens in movie theatres throughout the United States. Jonah Hill, who plays the socially inept teen, says he's really a nice Jewish boy. "I am not a super lecherous guy. I usually enjoy having a girlfriend as opposed to dating a variety of women. I'm a nice Jewish boy."

2008: In St. Paul, Minnesota,Bais Chana Jewish Women's Weekend Retreat comes to a close.

2008: Services were held at Tifereth Israel Synagogue in Des Moines for Marvin Pomerantz, 78, a friend and adviser of Republican governors and presidents for four decades who twice served as president of the Iowa Board of Regents

2008: The Washington Post book section reported that The D.C. Jewish Community Center is seeking submissions for its third annual writing contest -- short essays or stories that illuminate how humor has been helpful in difficult times. The winning entries will be part of "Laughing for God's Sake: Humor in Jewish Literature," the opening event in the upcoming Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival to be held in September.

2008:The cabinet voted this morning to release some 200 security prisoners as a goodwill gesture to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

2008: Anna Gostamelsky shattered Israel’s national swimming record the 100-meter freestyle this evening at the Beijing Olympics.   But after six years, Ms. Gostamelsky, one of thousands of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, has not been able to convince the rabbinate that she is Jewish according to halacha.

2008: “The tribute concert Lyrics by Don Black was held at the London Palladium, featuring performances of Black's songs by a selection of guest artists
 
2008: Opening of the12thAnnual Jewish Arts Fest of Dallasfeaturing the deeply Texan and Jewish story of The Immigrant in a musical concert production by Fort Worth's Stage West.

2009: Time magazine features reviews of three books about Bernie Madoff “who hawked his investment fund to a largely Jewish clientele” including Too Good to be True by Erin Arvedlund, Madoff with Money by Jerry Oppenheimer and Betrayal; The Life and Lies of Bernie Madoff by Andrew Kirtzman.

2009: In Washington, D.C. Community organizer Michael Rosen discusses and signs What Else But Home: Seven Boys and an American Journey Between the Projects and the Penthouse at Politics and Prose Bookstore

2009(27th of Av, 5769):Two more Israelis died on today due to complications from the swine flu, becoming the eighth and ninth people in Israel to succumb to the pandemic. The two men, age 76 and 67, died at the Sharon Hospital and Beilinson Hospital, both in Petah Tikva.

2009(27th of Av, 5769): Eighty-four year old Israel Adler founder of the National Sound Archives of the National Library of Israel, founder and former director of the Jewish Music Research Centre of the Hebrew Uniersity of Jerusalem, and one of the co-founders of IASA died today after a prolonged illness.


2009: “New Doubts Raised Over Famous War Photo” published today described challenges to the authenticity of one of the iconic combat photographs Robert Capa’s “Falling Soldier.”



2010: The National Jewish Retreat is scheduled to begin at Reston, VA.

2010: Clashes between the IDF and Palestinian terrorists along the Gaza border intensified today, when two IDF soldiers were slightly injured by mortar fire near the security fence in southern Gaza.

2010(7th of Elul, 5770):Harold Shpeen, 87, of Marlton, a longtime dentist and former president of the Jewish Federation of South Jersey, passed away today. 

2010: LAJFF in cooperation with the Anti-Defamation League and Second Generation host an exclusive pre-release screening of “A Film Unfinished” in Encino.

2010: Ryan “Kalish hit his first career grand slam in game against the Angeles in Fenway Park.”

2011: Les Bergen, a JHSGW Board Member, is scheduled to facilitate “a virtual tour of Arlington National Cemetery, where more than 5,200 Jews are buried.  We'll discuss the Confederate Memorial by sculptor Moses Ezekiel and talk about the first Hadassah nurse, a Supreme Court justice, astronauts, four-star admirals, and more.

2011: “Smiley - How about some emotional pornography?” written by Eyal Weiser and directed by Allon Cohen is scheduled to open in New York City.

2011: “The California Supreme Court declined to review the Court of Appeal's decision to affirm Phil Spector’s conviction” for the murder of Lana Clarkson.

2011:  Fighting bad lighting and a spotty internet connection, activists at the Rothschild tent city held a live chat tonight with leaders of the “May 15” anti-government protests that brought hundreds of thousands into the streets across Spain since they began over three months ago.

2011: It was reported today that “The Hebrew University in Jerusalem has been ranked the 57th best university in the world, in a list of the top 500 universities worldwide. The list, which is published annually by Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, placed Harvard, Stanford and MIT in the first three spots

2011: Peter Shumlin became the first sitting governor in the United States to preside over a same-sex wedding ceremony

2012: Among the many choices Washington Metropolitan Areas Jews have for welcoming the Sabbath are the Pre-service wine and cheese social at Beth El Hebrew Congregation in Alexandria and the Shabbat BBQ at Congregation Beth Emeth in Herndon, VA

2012: A final vote is scheduled to take place today when the United Church of Canada's General Council can choose to accept or reject an overall motion that includes recommendations to approve a boycott of products made in Israeli settlements. (As reported by JTA)

2012: The leader of the Lebanese Shiite terrorist Hezbollah said his group will transform the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israelis to “hell” if Israel attacks Lebanon. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said today that the group has a list of Israeli targets that it can hit with few rockets.

2012:South Africa’s chief rabbi has called on the country’s deputy minister of international relations to resign, saying he is unfit to hold public office. Earlier this week, South African politician Ebrahim Ebrahim issued a statement saying that South Africans would be discouraged from visiting Israel unless they were involved in peace efforts. In an open letter published today in Business Day and The Jerusalem Post, Rabbi Warren Goldstein wrote, “As a citizen and as a national religious leader of South Africa, I object to the way in which you are abusing your high office to promote your own personal agenda. You obviously have a ‘blind spot’ when it comes to Israel; you lose your sense of objectivity and rationality when dealing with the Jewish state

2012(29th of Av,5772): Seventy-seven year old “Samuel H. Lindenbaum, who was widely considered New York City’s top zoning lawyer and who was credited with doing as much as any of the powerful developers among his clients to shape the modern skyline of Manhattan” passed away today.  (As reported by David W. Dunlap)


2013: In Monticello, NY, second and final day of the Bagel Festival attendees can participate in the Best Bagels Contest and the Bagel Triathalon  that includes seeing how far you can roll a bagel, how far you can shot put a bagel and how high you can stack bagels without have them fall.

2013: “Arthur Fields: the man on O'Connell bridge” published today described the “career” Irish photographer Arthur Fields, the Dublin native Abraham Feldman who was the son of Jews from Ukraine.



2013(11th of Elul, 5773): Eight-nine year old historian David Landes author of Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)


 

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2013: The Tamarod ("Rebellion") movement in Egypt has joined a campaign calling to stop US aid to Egypt, and to cancel the 1979 Camp David peace treaty with Israel, Daily News Egypt reported today.


2013:The IDF fired a Tammuz surface-to-surface missile at a Syrian army post today, after several Syrian mortar shells exploded in the Golan Heights. (As reported by Yaakov Lappin)

2014: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Kill My Mother: A Graphic Novel written and illustrated by Jules Feifer, Timeless: Love, Morgenthau and Me by Lucinda Franks and “Andrew Lewis Conn’s new novel, O, Africa!, which explores the fictional exploits of two Jewish brothers whose commercial partnership propels them to the forefront of the silent film industry in the years between the World Wars.”

2014(21st of Av, 5774): Ninety-six year old Sophie Masloff, “the first woman and the first Jew to serve as mayor of Pittsburgh” passed away today. (As reported by Robert D. McFadden)


2014: This evening, the PBS premiere of “Before The Revolution - The Untold Story of the Israeli Paradise in Iran.”

2014: The Baton Rouge (LA) Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “Fiddler on the Roof” complete with a sing-along.

2014: “Israel will not agree under any circumstances to a ceasefire deal that doesn’t meet the country’s security demands, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today, as an Israeli delegation landed in Cairo to discuss an Egyptian proposal aimed at ending hostilities in the Gaza Strip and across the Israeli border.” (As reported by Adiv Sterman)

2014: Israeli security forces are preparing to examine “three openings in the ground…inside communities in the Gaza border area” near homes, kindergartens and playing fields” which are thought to “tunnel entrances dug by Hamas under the border from Gaza into Israel.” (As reported by Stuart Winer)

2014: Elena Kats-Chernin is scheduled to perform “Remembering Bialystok,” “her new work for piano and cello” at “A Concert to Remember Bialystok” at the Melbourne Recital Center.

2014: After yesterday’s violent protests at a Tesco supermarket by pro-Hamas demonstrators and the decisions of the grocery chain which was founded by Jewish businessman Jack Cohen to knuckle under to the Bobycott Divestment and Sanctions movement, today another UK grocery chain removed kosher items from their shelves out of fear of violence from pro-Palestinian demonstrators.

2015: The “Seeking Justice: The Leo Frank Case Revisited” is scheduled to open to the public today at the Southern Museum in Kennesaw, GA.


2015: As part of program sponsored by the Southern Museum, the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum and the Museum of History and Holocaust Education at Kennesaw State University Congregation Neir Tamid is scheduled to lead a centennial remembrance of Leo Frank’s lynching including the recitation of Kaddish led by Rabbi Tom Liebschutz.

2016(13th of Av, 5776): Ninety-two year old Arthur Hiller, the director who may be best known for the tear-jerker “Love Story” passed away today.


2016: “At 8 p.m., violinist Gil Shaham is scheduled tol perform Bach's complete Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin in single recital at Tanglewood.

2016: Rabbi Deborah Silver and Deborah Mintz are scheduled to lead the Summer Learning Series at Shir Chadish, the Conservative synagogue which gave the author of this blog his first teaching job.

2017: The 2017 Daniel Pearl Fellows, Nichals Chang and Samuel Yousafazi are scheduled to participate in “an open discussion” moderated by Rob Eshman at the Steve Allen Theatre in Los Angeles.

2017: “Brig. Gen. Dr. Tarif Bader was sworn in today as the Israel Defense Forces chief medical officer, marking the first time in the country's history that the position is manned by a Druze officer.” (Editor’s note: Does anybody see any sense of irony in this entry given the events of the Summer of 2018?)


2017: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host an evening with photographer Baron Wolman who “became the first chief photographer of the legendary publication, Rolling Stone magazine.”

2017: “Pawn Sacrifice,” a film about American chess prodigy Bobby Fisher and co-starring Live Schreiber is scheduled to be shown for the last time in London and Manchester.

2017: The Cleveland Jewish News is scheduled to present an evening of comedy featuring Sarge Pickman, “The Black Jew with the Chai IQ” at Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple in Beachwood.

2018: Due to the presence of “high levels of fecal E. coli bacteria” the Health Ministry is not allowing the public to “several streams” including “Zaki, Yehudiya, Meshushim, Zavitan, Jilabun, and Daliyot (at the Majrassa Nature Reserve), as well as the Jordan River (only in the Jordan Park area).” (As reported by Rotem Elizera and Gilad Carmeli)

2018: The Bezalel Art Fair is scheduled to begin at ten this morning in Jerusalem.


 

 

 

 

 
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