April 23
0034: According to Sir Isaac Newton, this is the date of the crucifixion of Jesus.
1185: Birthdate Alfonzo II, the third King of Portugal who was part of a dynasty that who provided a comparatively secure environment for their Jewish subjects. He was the grandson of King Alfonso I and the son of King Sancho I both of whom had recognized the Jewish community, allowing it settle its own legal problems. King Alfonzo set the tone for the dynasty when he appointed Yahia ben Yahi III, the first chief Rabbi of the Portuguese Jewish community to serve as his royal tax collector.
1229: As the Christians fought the Moors, Ferdinand III of Castile re-conquered Caceres. During this period the city had an important Jewish quarter: By the start of 15th century 140 Jewish families lived in city that had a population of 2000 people. As with everything in Sephard the story of the Jews of Caceres ends the same way with the expulsion by Queen Isabella and Ferdinand of Aragon in 1492.
1283: Sixteen Jews were killed in Bruckenhausen
1533: The Church of England annuls the marriage between Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII. This was a major step in the break between Protestant England and Catholic Europe including France, Spain and those under the sway of the Pope. The English would be a valuable ally for the Protestants who were struggling to establish themselves in such places as the Netherlands and the Germanic states. For the Jews, this growing division among European Christians had the short term disadvantage of being caught between two warring parties and abused accordingly. In the long run, it was advantageous. Protestant England (even when the Catholic James II would come to throne) and Holland would provide early and safe havens for European Jews, especially those looking for homes and opportunity after their experience with the Spanish Inquisition.
1564: Birthdate of William Shakespeare. Was Shakespeare an anti-Semite? The question comes up every time there is a revival of “The Merchant of Venice.” The term Shylock, the term “pound of flesh” and the line “oh my ducats oh my daughter” have provided fodder for anti-Semites through the centuries. On the other hand, Shakespeare depicts Shylock as a human with feelings, which was certainly a cut above the normal portrayal during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. According to some critics, “Merchant of Venice” was written as The Bard’s theatrical response to Christopher Marlow’s, “The Jew of Malta.”
1571: In Venice Diana Rachel and Isaac of Modena gave birth to Leon (Judah Areyh) of Modena, famed Italian scholar, rabbi and Poet.
1615: Louis XIII decreed that all Jews must leave the country within one month on pain of death. This decree became the basis for the infamous Code Noir the Black Code which forbade Jews to live in French colonies in the New World including in 1724 the colony of Louisiana. This may explain why there are no Jewish Creoles in New Orleans society.
1615: Christians in France were forbidden, under pain of death, to shelter or converse with Jews, by order of Louis XIII.
1620(20thof Nisan, 5380): Hayyim ben Joseph Vital passed away at Damascus. Born at Calabria in 1543, he was a foremost exponent of Lurianic Kabbalah, recording much of his master's teachings.
1625: Prince Maurice of Orange passed away despite the best efforts of his “Jewish physician” Joseph Bueno
1659(30th of Nisan): Eight Jews were martyred today at Przemysl
1661: Birthdate of Issachar Berend Lehmann, the native of Essen, Westphalia whose many accomplishments led him to become “the Court Jews for Elector Augustus II, the Strong of Saxony.
1661: King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland is crowned in Westminster Abbey. The coronation of Charles II marked the Restoration following the death of Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell had allowed the Jews to quietly re-enter England and develop a community. “Technically, the 1558 Act of Uniformity, which labeled any rites other than those of the Church of England unlawful remained in force.” But while still in the Netherlands, trying to secure his throne, Charles had assured Amsterdam that English Jews had nothing to fear from his kingship. A generous contribution from Jewish bankers and merchants certainly helped the situation. Once in power, the king proved true to his word. When Christian merchants tried to oust their Jewish competition on grounds that they were not members of the Church, Charles stood by his Jewish subjects as long as they obeyed the laws and remained peaceful subjects. In 1673, an anti-Semitic mob demanded that the Jewish leaders be punished for worshipping in public. When a grand jury caved in an indicted some of the leading Jews, the Israelites threatened to leave the kingdom rather than give up their religious liberties. Charles issued orders to halt the proceedings and “not to cause any more anxieties to Jews.”
1702: Margaret Fell, a founder of the Society of Friends (Quakers) who was a passionate advocate for the readmission of Jews to England during the debated in the middle of the 17th century passed away. At the same time, she like many other English Protestants wrote epistles to Jews in mainland Europe to persuade them to convert to true Christianity by which she “meant the Quaker movement which they saw as the spiritual House of Israel.
1720: Birthdate of Elijah (Eliyahu) ben Shlomo Zalman "Kremer" better known as the Vilna Gaon. [Ed. Note: There is not enough room to do justice to this Giant of Judaism. The following website is a good point of departure.]
1744: In Havana, Isaac Mendez, and two other Jews boarded the Fortune, a French merchant sloop bound for Curacao. Mendez, a resident of Kingston, Jamaica, was a Jewish merchant and loyal subject of King George II. In 1743, during a trading voyage, Mendez’s ship was captured by the Spanish and he was imprisoned in Havana. In accord with ancient Jewish tradition, friends learned of his plight. They “arranged for his release” and paid for his passage aboard the French vessel. [Yes, there is more to the story. But you will have to wait for TDIJH for April 24 for the next installment]
1785: In New York, Rachel Heilbron and Chaim Salomon who had died in January gave birth to their son Chaim Moses Salomon, who attempted to collect, some would say through embellishment, moneys owed to his family for his father’s financial assistance during the Revolution.
1791: Birthdate of James Buchanan, 15th President of the United States who in1857 received a committee of Jews led by Isaac Meyer Wise seeking his support in over-turning a treaty with the Swiss Cantons that resulted in American Jews being subjected to the anti-Semitic laws of Switzerland. Buchanan said he would work to correct the situation. But Buchanan was no more effective in helping American Jews than he would be in preserving the Union when Secession came.
1797: Birthdate of Solomon Plessner, the native of Bresalau who defended Orthodox Judaism against the in-roads of the Reform Movement.
1797: In Charleston, SC, Sarah and Abraham Moise gave birth to Penina Moise. “Moïse was the first Jewish American woman to contribute to the worship service, writing 190 hymns for Beth Elohim. The Reform movement’s 1932 Union Hymnal still contained thirteen of her hymns.” (As reported by Jay Eidelman)
1813: Joseph Collins, the son of Hyman Collins and Mary Davis was buried today in the UK.
1818: Birthdate of Christopher Oscanyan, the Armenian-born American author and speaker whose lecture topics included “The Women of Turkey and the Jews of the East.”
1819: In Devon, UK, Robert Frounde, the archdeacon of Totnes and his wife gave birth to English historian and author James Anthony Froude whose works included the 1890 biography of Benjamin Disraeli entitled Lord Beaconsfield and who defeated Disraeli by a vote of fourteen votes for the position of Lord Rector of St. Andrews.
1848: In New York, Congregation B’nai Israel moved from the old Shakespeare Hall at the corner of William and Duane streets” to a building on Pearl Street.
1849: Noah Lodge No 1 of the Independent Order of Free Sons of Israel which had been formed in January of this year, held its eighth meeting today at which Mr. Stern and Mr. Buttenheim to advance the organization the 25 dollars needed to buy “emblems for the grand officers.”
1852: “Le Juif errant” premiered at today at the Salle Le Peletier of the Paris Opera. “Le Juif errant (The Wandering Jew) is a grand opera by Fromental Halévy, with a libretto by Eugène Scribe and Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges.” The opera is based extremely loosely on themes of the novel “Le Juif errant” by Eugène Sue. While the novel is set in 19th century Paris and the Wandering Jew is incidental to the main story-line, the opera begins in Amsterdam in 1190 and the Jew, Ahasvérus, is a leading character. The music was sufficiently popular to generate a Wandering Jew Mazurka, a Wandering Jew Waltz, and a Wandering Jew Polka.”
1854: In New York, Abigail Kursheedt and Asher Kursheedt gave birth Alphonse Hart Kursheedt.
1856: Morris Ehrlich, the President of the Kane Street Synagogue “proferred a complaint against the Shames for creating a disturbance in the Synagogue” which was found to be valid enough to warrant a fine of $4.00 being levied against the worker.
1858: Birthdate of Max Plank, German physicist and Nobel Prize Winner. During World War II, Plank tried to convince Hitler to spare the lives of Jewish scientists. His son was executed for his part in the 1944 plot to kill Hitler. Plank passed away in 1947.
1859: In Ploieşti, Romania,house painter and amateur artist, MoisiŞăineanu and his wife gave birth to Lazăr Șăineanu who gained fame as Lazare Sainéan the French philologist and cultural historian
1860: According “The Extortions of Slavery” published today, Dr. George B. Cheever delivered an anti-slavery speech last night at The Church of the Puritans in which he compared slaveholders to the anti-Semitic King John of England who “who, to extort money from a Jew, pulled a tooth every day from out the Hebrew's head until he complied with his demands.”
1860: The Democratic National Convention which former Congressman Henry Myer Phillips attended as a delegate from Pennsylvania opened today.
1861: Major Alfred Mordecai wrote an angry letter to Colonel Craig complaining that he had not had any response to his request for a transfer. Unbeknownst to Mordecai, Craig had been replaced as his superior. Mordecai was a distinguished officer in the United States Army who was born in the South. He was trying to gain a transfer to a post in the West so he could stay in the army without having to fight family and friends from the South.
1864(17thof Nisan, 5624): Third Day of Pesach; Shabbat Shel Pesach
1864: As Jews celebrate their ancient liberation from bondage, in Louisiana, Union forces defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Monett’s Ferry, an episode in the Red River Campaign, part of Grant’s grand plan to defeat those who sought to destroy the United States so they could continue owning their slaves.
1868: According to today’s “Foreign News by Mail” column, when Ion Bratiano, Minister of State, was asked a question about the present of the National Guard at Jassy (Romania), he that “as long as the violent hatred against the Jews lasted he would not furnish the enemies of the Jews with arms.” Bratino was a Rumanian nationalist who worked to secure the establishment of an independent Romania. He was the leader of the liberal cabinet that would declare Romania’s independence in 1877. The conditions of Romania’s Jews did not improve with independence.
1870: The remains of Dr. George Frick who had passed away while visiting Berlin were interred in the Greenmount Cemetery in Baltimore, MD. Dr. Frick was the younger brother of the late Judge Frick.
1870(22ndof Nisan, 5630): 8th day of Pesach
1871: Franz Joseph I of Austria made Solomon Benedict de Worms the “1stBaron de Worms.”
1871: Derech Emunoh consecrated its new synagogue today in what has been the chapel of New York University. The congregation which has been using a building on Greene Street leased its new facility. The service was led by Rabbi S.M. Isaacs.
1872(15th of Nisan, 5632): On the first day of Pesach, Rabbi Henry Vidaver delivered a sermon “on the celebration of Passover” at B’Nai Jeshrum in New York City. Rabbi Vidaver was one of the contributors to the “Abridged School and Family Bible in Hebrew & English.”
1878: In New Orleans, Rebecca (Kiefer) and Isidore Newman, the namesake of the Isidore Newman School gave birth to Miriam Dorothy Newman who gained fame as multi-talented artist Isadora Newman.
1879(30th of Nisan, 5639): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1879: In Charleston, Rabbi David Levy presided over the wedding of Julian C. Levin and Lulie Bringloe, the eldest daughter of Captain Samuel G. Bringloe.
1880: An article about Benjamin Disraeli published today, that begins with “Lord Beaconsfield steps down and at his advanced age it is not probable that he will ever again hold the reins of power” traces the career of the British statesman that began fifty-four years ago with the publication of “Vivian Gray” and includes such highlights as the maneuvering which brought the Suez Canal under British control.” The article included the following, “Of Semitic origin, his ideas, methods, and sentiments bore an Oriental stamp.” His father may have taken Disraeli to the baptismal font, but he was still “a Jew” to many of his contemporaries.
1881: A large number of Jews have arrived in Cincinnati for the upcoming dedication of a new building at the Hebrew Union College.
1881: Samuel Alatri, the Italian politician who led the Jewish Community of Rome, delivered "Discorso Pronunziato nella Scuola del Tempio” today.
1882: A conference designed to provide aid to the Jews of Russia was held today in Berlin. There were representatives from several different countries including the United States and Great Britain which was represented by Sr. Juilan Goldsmid and Dr. Herrman Adler. In making plans for the future, the conference assigned the Americans the responsibility for finding employment for Russian immigrants going to the United States. The Germans and British were given responsibility for raising additional funds.
1882: It was reported today, that as a result of a report issued by the Minister of Justice, the Czar has ordered that the trials of all those accused “of outrages against the Jews” be dealt with in a speedy manner.
1883: It was reported today the biography of Dr. Barclay, the late Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem will be published shortly. The book will include significant information about the failure to convert Jews and Moslems.
1889(22nd of Nisan, 5649): 8th day of Pesach
1889: Millionaire stock broker, Isidor Wormser, whose daughter is a Seligman by marriage, was so upset with the comments that Rensselaer Bissell had made about him that he challenged him to a fistfight outside of the NYSE after the exchange had closed. In the end, Bissell backed down, much to the disappointment of his fellow brokers.
1890: “A Mighty Power” by Frank Rothschild, Jr. had a pre-Broadway matinee performance at the Fifth Avenue Theatre.
1890: Adolphus Leo Weil and Cassie Ritter Weil gave birth to Princeton alum and University of Pittsburgh trained attorney Ferdinand Theobald Weil, the older brother of Adolphus Leo Weil.
1891(15thof Nisan, 5651): Pesach
1891: Birthdate of Ostrog, Russia native and WW I veteran William Alexander Perlzweig who came to the U.S. In 1906 where he earned all three degrees at Columbia before pursuing a career as a biochemist at Duke University.
1891: An order expelling the Jews from Moscow was published today.
1892: In Brooklyn, Samuel and Pauline Boochever gave birth to Anna Boochever the graduate of New York State College of Teachers who when she married Frederick S. DeBeer became Anna DeBeer, an active member of the National Council of Jewish Women.
1893: Rabbi Raphael Benjamin was reported today as describing the blackballing of Theodore Seligman by the Union League as “unmanly, un-American and un-Christian.” At the same time he took issued with those who “that this is only the beginning of a movement against Jews” in New York City and saw “it only as a small remnant of the ignorant prejudiced with once existed toward” Jews “and which, under the enlightening influence of education is fast disappearing.”
1894: Hyman Blumenthal, a Jewish peddler is being held in jail facing charges of arson for his role in burning a tenement in New York City.
1894: “Lesson from the Passover published today presented Dr. Joseph Silverman’s view of “Judaism as a religion based on freedom” and that “a religion that would seek to subvert American unity and establish a union of Church and State and subsidize itself from the Public Treasury was nothing but organized treason.
1894(17th of Nisan, 5654): American banker and philanthropist Jesse Seligman passed away today at Coronado Beach CA. Born at Baiersdorf, Bavaria, on August 11, 1827, he followed his brothers to the United States in 1841, and established himself at Clinton, Alabama. In 1848 he moved with his brothers to Watertown, N. Y., and then, with his brother Leopold, went to San Francisco in the autumn of 1850, where he became a member of the Vigilance Committee, as well as of the Howard Fire Company. He remained in California until 1857, when he joined his brother in establishing a banking business in New York. With his brother Joseph he helped to found the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in 1859, and was connected with it till his death. At the time of his death he was a trustee of the Baron de Hirsch Fund. He was a member of the Union League Club, of which he was vice-president, and from which he resigned in 1893 when the club for racial reasons refused to admit to membership his son Theodore. He was head of the American Syndicate formed to place in the United States the shares of the Panama Canal. He was also a friend and supporter of President Grant whom he first met when the young army officer was stationed near Watertown. In fact, Grant tried to make him the first American Jew to serve in the Cabinet. (As reported in the Jewish Encyclopedia and Dr. Jonathan Sarna)
1896, Herzl wrote in his diaries of his arrival in Karlsruhe at Reverend William Hechler’s request.
“Arrived here at eleven last night. Hechler met me at the station and took me to the Hotel Germania, which had been “recommended by the Grand Duke.” We sat in the dining-room for an hour. I drank Bavarian beer, Hechler milk. He told me what had happened. The Grand Duke had received him immediately upon his arrival, but first wanted to wait for his privy-councilor’s report on my Jewish State. Hechler showed the Grand Duke the “prophetic tables” which seemed to make an impression. When the Kaiser arrived, the Grand Duke immediately informed him of the matter. Hechler was invited to the reception and to the surprise of the court-assembly the Kaiser addressed him with the jocular words: “Hechler, I hear you wanted to become a minister of the Jewish State.”
1896: A memorial honoring the late Jesse Seligman was unveiled this afternoon at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum on 138thStreet and Amsterdam Avenue
1896: The New York Section of the National Council of Jewish Women met in vestry rooms of Temple Beth-El.
1896: The Times of London reported today that Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria cut short his official to Russia and left St. Petersburg for Paris so he could he could attend the funeral “of his friend,” Baron Hirsch.
1898: The Alumni Association of the Hebrew Technical Institute hosted its fifth annual reunion banquet at the Tuxedo
1898: Start of a two day Preliminary conference in Vienna prior to the second Zionist Congress. Representatives from Russia, Austria and Germany all attended. It is decided to send Leo Motzkin to Palestine to prepare a report. The congress will meet again in Basel, Switzerland. As was befitting for liberal movement that would come to be dominated by socialist idealist, the Zionist leaders decided that women would be allowed to attend the Congress as voting delegates. In other words, Zionist women had the vote two decades before women in the United States got the vote.
1898: Spain declared war on the United States, the first half of the official act to officially start the Spanish-American War in which 5,000 Jewish volunteers would serve.
1899: Herzl begins the two day Bank Conference in Köln with Wolffsohn and Heymann as he sought to develop his “top down” concept of creating a Jewish home in Eretz Israel.
1899: The American Hebrew League of Greater New York met in Brooklyn this evening.
1899: Dr. Felix Adler is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “The Metropolitan Greatness of New York and the Vast Moral Problems It Raises” at the Music Hall in New York City.
1899: Thanks to a donation of $25,000 from Abraham Slimmer of Waverly, Iowa a permanent home for the Chicago Home for Jewish Orphans was dedicated on a piece of land donated by Henry Siegel and other members of the Windy City’s Jewish community.
1899: “Hebrew Technical School” published today included a history of the Jewish school that included among its graduates the architect William C. Sommerield and that after being open for only 15 years has become so successful that it had turned away fifty applicants for lack of space
1900: The 27th Convention of the District Grand Lodge No. 7 of B’nai Birth continued for a second day in New Orleans.
1901: The New York branch of the Alliance Israelite Universelle was reorganized under direction of M. Nissim Behar. The meeting was held in English, Yiddish and German. Mr. Louis Marshall was elected President, and Henry Periera Mendes as secretary.
1902(16thof Nisan, 5662): Second Day of Pesach; First Day of the Omer.
1902(16thof Nisan, 5652): In Detroit, “the cornerstone laying ceremony for the new synagogue building of Temple Beth El” took place today.
1903: Herzl is received by Joseph Chamberlain, who just came back from Africa.
The Chamberlain-Herzl negotiations of the "Uganda scheme" are the first recognition of the president of the Zionist Organization as representing the Jewish people.
1903: Herzl is received by Joseph Chamberlain, who just came back from Africa.
The Chamberlain-Herzl negotiations of the "Uganda scheme" are the first recognition of the president of the Zionist Organization as representing the Jewish people.
1903: During the “Melvin Bellis Case” a report from the Kiev District Procurator, based on an autopsy by a medical professor from Kiev University, intimated that Andrei Yustchinski had been the victim of a ritual murder. “Years later, it would be learned that the ministry of justice had slipped the doctor a four thousand ruble bribe.”
1904: In London Gladys Helen Rachel Goldsmid and Louis Montagu, 2nd Baron Swaythling gave birth to Ivor Goldsmid Samuel Montagu “a British filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, film critic, writer, table tennis player and apparent Soviet spy who “received some credit for the development of a vibrant intellectual film culture in Britain during the interwar years.” He passed away in 1984.
1907: Birthdate of Elizabeth “Lee” Miller the fashion model who during WW II became a war correspondent and photographer who covered the “horrors of Buchenwald and Dachau.” (She was not Jewish but the photos were part of the creation of a record of the Horrors of the Holocaust.)
1908: Birthdate of Czech writer and diplomat Egon Hostovsky, a distant relative of Stefan Zweig, most of whose immediate family perished in the Holocaust and who was immortalized by the posthumous creation of the Egon Hostovsky Prize for literature.
1908: In Cologne, Germany, music critic Paul Hiller and his wife Sophie Lion gave birth to Erwin Ottmar Hiller grandson of pianist Ferdinand Hiller, who gained fame as Holocaust survivor and actor Marcel Hillaire, whose most memorable for me was as the French Chef in the marvelous comedy “Sabrina.”
1910: Birthdate of Martin Roman, the German jazz pianist who played with the Marek Weber Band and was shipped to Theresienstadt in 1944.
1910(14th of Nisan, 5670): On Shabbat HaGadol, Rabbi Joseph Silverman delivered a sermon at Temple Emanu-El in which his he praised Mayor Gaynor for this letter to Reverend Chalmers refusing him a license to preach on the street corners of the East Side with the aim of converting Jews to Christianity.
1910(14th of Nisan, 5670): “Passover Begins To-Night” published today states that “"Pesach," the Hebrew festival of the Passover, one of the most important festivals of the Jewish calendar, will begin at sunset this evening, which is the fourteenth day of the month of Nison. This festival was ordained to celebrate the deliverance of the children of Israel from their long captivity in Egypt and their departure from the house of bondage on the way through the wilderness to the promised land of Canaan.”
1910 (14th of Nisan, 5670): A Seder will be held tonight on Ellis Island for the Jewish immigrants who have not been given permission to enter the United States.
1910: Clarence Charles Minzesheimer, head of the banking and brokerage house Charles Minzesheimr & Co had his appendix removed after suffering an attack of appendicitis.
1911: In Marseille, Erma Maria Domenica Giorcelli and “Henri Louis Firmin Champmoynat, a French Jewish engineer, airplane pilot in World War II, who died in a concentration camp” gave birth to French movie star Simone Thérèse Fernande Simon.
1912: In London, Helena Rubenstein and Edward William Titus gave birth to their younger son Horace Titus.
1913(16thof Nisan, 5673): Second Day of Pesach; First Day of the Omer
1913: George Washington Ochs-Oakes, the son of Julius and Bertha Ochs, and his wife Bertie gave birth to John Bertram Oakes, a creative pillar of the New York Times whose accomplishments are beyond the scope of this blog. (As reported by Robert D. McFadden
1914: Birthdate of Harry Kravitsky, the Brooklyn native who as Harry Crane went from Borscht Belt comic to screenwriter for Hollywood films and television for which he created the “Honeymooners.”
1914: Justice Ben Bill of the Georgia State Supreme Court heard the appeal of Leo Frank today.
1915: It was reported today that “Hermann Laundau, a prominent Jewish philanthropist associated with various Jewish charities in London” has said that “seven million Poles, of whom 2,000,000 are Jews are in dire need of food” and that “the Jews are even poorer than the Gentiles, because of the boycott against the Jews in parts of Poland before the beginning of the war, which impoverished thousands who otherwise would have been able to provide for their families.”
1915: Three years after its founding, the second annual convention of the Mizrahi of America opened its second annual convention in New York City.
1915: Rupert Brooke, a young scholar and poet serving as an officer in the British Royal Navy” whom Alexander Aciman called his “Favorite Anti-Semite” “died of blood poisoning on a hospital ship anchored off the Greek island of Skyros, while awaiting deployment in the Allied invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula.
1916(20thof Nisan, 5676): Sixth Day of Pesach
1916: “Nathan Straus greeted thousands of Jewish children” in New York this morning “at the Passover gatherings of Young Judea” where “he urged them to remain true to the traditions of their people and said they might well be proud of being young Zionists.”
1916: “Henry Morgenthau, the U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, was the guest of honor this afternoon at the Fifth Annual Convention of the Federation of Oriental Jews in American” at P.S. No. 91 where he said “that his career had been started in a public school and that a similar chance in life could be the reward for anyone who was willing to make the effort.”
1917: It was reported today that Louis Marshall has described the formation of The League of Jewish Youth of America as “the protest of the young Jews and Jewesses against the deadly tendency to drift hopelessly on arctic sea” and as “the expression of their desire to affect a stable and dignified adjustment of ancient Jewish idealism to perfect American citizenship.”
1917: A cable received from the Petrograd correspondent of the Jewish Daily Forward in New York today described “how the Jews of Russia are aiding the new Government in its effort to bring order out of chaos and successfully prosecute the war against Germany.”
1917: Zangwill Back To Zionism” published today described the return of Israel Zangwill to the Zionist Movement from which he has been estranged since 1905 when he others sought to find other places for a Jewish Home” including land in Africa which was part of the British Empire.
1917: “A stormy controversy over the question of woman suffrage sprang up at the assembly of the Eastern Council of Reform Rabbis at Temple Emanu-El” today with “Dr. Stephen S. Wise threatening to resign from the council because of the in which the President, Dr. Joseph Silverman, opposed any attempt to present the suffrage issue to consideration of the assembled rabbis.”
1918: Dr. Alexander Dushkin announced today that 3,700 new members have joined “the Jewish Community” which has its headquarters on Second Avenue and has been conducting a membership drive that has “included Jews of all classes” in New York City.
1918: In New York, Regina and Nisim Yeuda Levy gave birth to World War II veteran Louis N. Levy, the husband of Rena Dweck and a leader in the Sephardic community in the United States.
1918: In Paris, “Lazare Kessel, a promising actor of Jewish Russian descent whom committed suicide” and his wife gave birth to author Maurice Druon who along with his Uncle Joseph Kessel wrote the lyrics “to the unofficial anthem of the French Resistance” in 1943.”
1919: The funeral for one year old Pearl Gerber, the daughter of Edward and Rose E. Gerber was held today in Chicago.
1920: Political change comes to the Ottoman Empire as the national council denounces Sultan Mehmed VI and The Grand National Assembly of Turkey is formed. These events are steps down the road to the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of modern day Turkey. The end of the Ottoman Empire was a critical factor in the creation of a Jewish Homeland that led to the state of Israel. But this dismemberment has been a critical factor that haunts the Middle East to this day.
1920(5th of Iyar, 5680): Isaac Gause passed away. Born in 1843 in Ohio, he was a corporal in the 2nd OhioCavalry (USA) Army who won the Medal of Honor for valor displayed at Berryville, VA, in September of 1864.
1921(15thof Nisan, 5681): First Day of Pesach
1921(15thof Nisan, 5681): Seventy-three year old Israel Zeitoun, “the chief rabbi and president of the Rabbinical Court in Tunis” passed away today.
1921: Gambler Nick Arenstein and comedic actress Fannie Brice gave birth abstract painter William Brice.
1923: Birthdate of Shlomo Hillel an Iraqi-born Israeli diplomat and politician who served as Speaker of the Knesset, Minister of Police and Minister of Internal Affairs. He was also an ambassador to several countries in Africa.
1923: Birthdate of dancer Melissa Hayden
1923: Birthdate of Avram Davidson. Born in Yonkers, NY, educated at NYU, Yeshiva U and Pierce College, he spent a year in the Israeli Amy during the Arab-Israeli War of 1948-49. His first sale was to Orthodox Jewish Life Magazine eight years before he broke into the genre. Originally an observant Orthodox Jew. Converted to Tenrikyo in 1970, after which he spent time in Japan, studied the religion intensely, and translated some texts into English.He was a writer of fantasy fiction, science fiction, and crime fiction, as well as the author of many unclassifiable but unforgettable stories that do not fit into a genre niche. He won a Hugo Award and was three time winner of the World Fantasy Award in the science fiction and fantasy genre, and a Queen's Award and an Edgar Award in the mystery genre. Davidson edited The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction from 1962 to 1964. He passed away in 1993.
1924: In Columbia, South Carolina dress shop manager Mordecai Moses Donen and Helen Cohen, the daughter of a jewelry salesman gave birth to director and choreographer best known for “Singing’ In the Rain” and “On the Town.”
1926: Sixty-eight year old Joseph Pennell, the artist and author whose works include The Jew at Home: Impressions of a Summer and Autumn Spent With Him.
1928: “The Plastic Age” produced by B.P. Schulberg which would gain the attention of Adolph Zukor, the CEO of Paramount, was released today in Finland.
1929: In Pairs, Frederick Steiner, a senior lawyer in the Austrian Central Bank and Else Steiner, “a Viennese Grande Dame” gave birth to Francis George Steiner “French-born American literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist, and educator” whose works include Portage to San Cristobal of A.H., in which Jewish Nazi hunters find Adolf Hitler (the "A.H." of the novella's title) alive in the Amazon jungle thirty years after the end of World War II
1930: In New York City, stockbroker Louis E. Oppenheimer and his wife Irene (née Rothschild) Oppenheimer gave birth to Alan Oppenheimer who had a long list of movie and television credits to his name including the role of Dr. Rudy Wells in the “Six Million Dollar Man.”
1930: In Brooklyn, attorney Louis Cohen and his wife gave birth to Arthur George Cohen “who began a roller-coaster real estate career with a $25,000 investment in tract housing on Long Island before creating the nation’s largest publicly held real estate company, teaming up with tycoons like Aristotle Onassis to build trophy Manhattan skyscrapers…” (As reported by Douglas Martin)
1933: “A conference of executive directors of Y.M.H.A.’s, Y.W H.A’s and Jewish Community Centers” is which is considering “an evaluation of present membership policies, news systems of membership and other measures that will build up memberships in Jewish centers scheduled to continue for a second day at the 92ndStreet Y.
1934: Abraham Stavsky, Zvi Rosenblatt and Abba Achimeyer went on trial for the murder of Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff today in Jerusalem.
1935: According to an announcement made today by Dr. Gross, the head “of the Nazi party’s race bureau” “the exclusion of Jewish children from public schools in Germany and their transfer to special Jewish schools is the next point in the government’s program for dealing with German Jews.”
1936(1st of Iyar, 5696): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1936: Isaac Ben Zvi, representing Vaad Leumi (the Palestine Jewish National council) and Rabbi Moses Blau of Agudath Israel call on Jon Hall, Chief Secretary of the Palestine Government and asked him to prevent Arabs living in surrounding villages from coming to Jerusalem tomorrow. The villagers are coming in response to a call from the Mufit of Jerusalem. The fears of the Jewish leaders are based on the current climate of violence in Palestine and the fact that the current conditions remind one of conditions that resulted in the violent Arab riots in August of 1929. As if to underscore their concerns, reports have surfaced in Jerusalem that the “private offices of the May of Tel Aviv…were plundered in Jaffa this afternoon.”
1936: John Hathorn Hall, Chief Secretary of the Palestine Government refused the request of Isaac Ben Zvi of the Vaad Leumi (the Palestine Jewish National Council) and Rabbi Moses Blau of Agudath Israel to prevents villages from coming into Jerusalem tomorrow because “they were coming for religious purposes.” Blau responded, “That is the same reply I received from the High Commissioner Luke in 1929 just before the big massacre of Jews began.”
1936: In Massachusetts, “Alexander Lincoln, president of the Sentinels of the Republic, whose recently voiced belief that ‘the Jewish threat is a real one,’ cause a storm of protest, resigned from the State Board of Tax appeals today” at the same time that Governor Curley was trying to oust from the postion.
1936: Governor James Michael Curley announced today that he would appoint Abraham Webber, a leader in the Jewish community to serve as a Public Utility Commissioner.
1936: “Travelers returning from Poland” brought “reports of pogroms and persecution in the larger cities” and described the “state of affairs” under which the Jews are living as “pitiable.”
1936: The Jewish Telegraph Agency “said that thirty persons had been killed in the four days of Arab-Jewish clashes” and approximately 190 more had been wounded.
1936: “David Ben Gurion, Chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency for Palestine spoke by telephone from Jerusalem with American Jewish leaders today and said that the Jewish community in Palestine would not be dissuaded from their “work of rebuilding the country” because of the current violence.
1937(12thof Iyar, 5697): Sixty-six year old Austrian obstetrician and gynecologist, Josef van Halban, the son of Philipp and Anna Sara Hinda Halban and the husband of opera singer Selma von Halban passed away today in Vienna.
1938(22ndof Nisan, 5698): Eighth Day of Pesach and Shabbat
1938: Rabbi Samuel H. Goldenson is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Jews by Birth and Jews by Belief” at Temple Emanu-El.
1938: Rabbi William F. Rosenblum is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “One Third of the Nation and the Other Two Thirds” at Temple Israel.
1938: Rabbi Alexander Segel is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Four Parties in Israel at the Red Sea” today at the Fort Washington Synagogue.
1938: In Carrigrohane, René Dreyfus took ahead of his number one pole position to win the Cork Crand Prix in which he posted the fastest lap as well.
1938 Jews in Vienna, Austria, were rounded up on the Sabbath by Nazis and forced to eat grass at the Prater, a local amusement park. Many of the victimized Jews suffered heart attacks and a few died.
1939: The police arrested 218 more illegal immigrants near Jaffa early this morning. The group that included fifty women and ten children had been put ashore by a Greek ship near Ashkelon. The British forces found them wandering in the dunes. They were taken to holding camps in Jaffa. Along the way, the convoy passed several Jewish settlements where the residents cheered these latest escapees from Hitler’s Europe.
1940(15thof Nisan, 5700): Pesach
1940: The Chief of Naval Operations “publicly stated that Admiral Joseph Taussig’s views” on the inevitably of war between Japan and the United States if present trends continue “were contrary to the Navy Department’s and today issued a reprimand that was placed in Taussig’s file.”
1940: The Nazis ordered the Jews to jump in cesspool at the Stutthof Labor Camp. The short ones drown.
1941: Eighty year old Davenport, IA native Charles Edward Russell the author of Haym Salomon and the Revolution and a leading supporter of the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine passed away today in Washington, D.C.
1943(18thof Nisan, 5703): Saartje Polak de Beer and Wed. E. Polake de Levie, two sixty year olds from Goor were murdered at Sobibor today.
1943(18thof Nisan, 5703): Seventy-seven year old Alexander Gotthold Ephraim Freud passed
1943: “Clancy Street Boys” a Bowery Boys comedy produced by Sam Katzman and Jack Dietz was released in the United States today.
1943: Much to everybody's surprise, the Warsaw Uprising continues even though supplies and weapons are at the bare minimum. By now the Poles know what is going on. They watch, but they offer no aid. The Polish underground will suffer a similar fate in 1945. Then they will rise up against the Nazis, but the Soviet troops wait outside the city giving the Germans to wipe the predominately non-Communist part of the resistance movement. As somebody once said, as you treat your Jews, so shall you be treated.
1944: “Following the German occupation of Germany” today, the Portuguese ruler António de Oliveira Salazar decided to order his ambassador to return to Lisbon and leave Teixeira Branquinho, as the chargé d'affaires, in his place – a move which made it possible for the courageous Branquinho to save at least a thousand Jews from the Nazis and their Hungarian allies.
1944: Otto Armster, a German military intelligence officer who was part of the plot to kill Hitler was arrested by the Gestapo today where he was taken Berlin and placed in solitary confinement.
1944: Senator Guy Gillette of Iowa was among those scheduled to at tonight’s dinner in Boston where a “colony bearing the name of Commonwealth Massachusetts” which is in fact a“tract of about 1,320 acres that has been acquired in Palestine by the Jewish National Fund of New England for the settlement of 600 Jewish families” facing death in Hungary and Rumania” was dedicated.
1945: Units from the U.S Army’s 2nd Cavalry Group, Mechanized, the 90th Infantry Division and the 97th Infantry Division liberated Flossenburg Concentration Camp today where they found 1,600 survivors including Czech journalist Josef Taussig in a place where at one time the Nazis had murdered 30,000 inmates.
1945: As Nazi power crumbled Deutsche Luft Hansa last flight departed from Berlin’s Tempelhoff bound for Madrid which it would never reach because the Allies shot it down.
1946: Forces of the Irgun including Dov Bel Gruner attacked the police station in Ramat Gan. Two policemen were killed and Gruner, who was wounded in the attack, was taken prisoner.1947: The trial of Hans Biebow “the chief of German Nazi administration of the Łódź Ghetto in occupied Poland” began today.
1948(14th of Nisan, 5708): Erev Pesach the rations given out in Jerusalem for the observance of Passover included 2 lbs. of potatoes, ½ lb of fish, 4 lb. of matzo, 1 ½ oz. dried fruit, ½ lb. meat, and ½ lb. of matzo flour. As one who was there later wrote, “For the trapped citizens of Jerusalem, who had become accustomed to privation, the Passover provisions seemed like a banquet. However, for the citizens of Jerusalem, it was not a particularly merry affair. On the verge of their national freedom, the inhabitants of Jerusalem sat somberly around their tables. This was the first time since the nightly shellings that the city's citizens had come together in assembly in the various homes throughout the city that had been the dream of two thousand years' Seders. Tonight is a holiday, but tomorrow the struggle will go on. As they sat to begin the Seder, they heard the beginning of the snipers bullets looking for a straggler in the streets. But tonight was different. As they opened the door, as they had done for scores of generations, to welcome in Elijah, there was no fear. Tonight is a night of divine protection. As the Holy One protected the Jews in Egypt, so shall he protect us here in the war torn city of Jerusalem. "Once we were slaves, but today we are free men" recited in the Haggadah, took on new meaning. The British are leaving, the Arabs are attacking, and we are beginning our new national lives as free men in our own country. "Next year in Jerusalem" had a meaning that we never before understood. We meant it; we would not relinquish our dream to return to our homeland, to the city that has been in our hearts throughout the two thousand year exile. Now we are free men, tomorrow we must continue the fight to remain free.
1948: Corporal David Hyman Rubenstein the 19th Milford, Massachusetts man to lose his life in World War IIwas buried at Beth Israel Cemetery in Everett, with full military honors. “Milford’s Fallen Family” of that war would come to total 55. Rubenstein was killed in action, in France, on July 4, 1944. Weeks after his death, his last letter arrived home. Written on June 28 from a fox hole, it described the “carnage about him ... as a slaughterhouse.”
1948: The port of Haifa was captured by elements of the Israeli Carmeli Brigade. On April 21, the general commanding British forces in Haifa announced that he was withdrawing his forces in 24 hours. This announcement resulted in an outbreak of fighting between Jewish and Arab forces. Unfortunately for the Arabs, their three to leaders fled at the outbreak of the fighting, demoralizing the population. The British general lost his bet that neither side would win as the outnumbered members of the Haganah took control. Despite efforts of the Jewish leaders to convince them to remain, most of the city’s Arab population left for Lebanon or Nazareth. . Today, Haifa is a thriving and diverse cultural and ethnic center, home to Jews, Arabs, and Druze, and marked for its high level of coexistence. It is this level of harmony that has made Haifa a target for terrorist bombings in the latest wave of Arab violence.
1950: St. Louis Browns pitcher Sid Schacht made his major league baseball debut.
1950: Correspondent Gene Currivan evaluates Israel’s chances for survival and offers an explanations for her success against her more powerful Arab neighbors in an article published today entitled “Mid-East Peace Nearer Despite Arab Gestures.” He points out that the Arab League’s failure to provide a common front was but one of the many problems facing the Arabs. “At the outset of the Israel-Arab war, when the Arabs spoke of 40,000,000 Arabs banding together against Israel, the were thinking in terms of Moslems, but the Moslems of Saudi Arabia, Iran and Afghanistan could not have cared less…When those who did enter the war sat back and licked their wounds, they probably wonder what all the shouting had been about. The war was started by the Arabs in defiance of the United Nations’ partition plan which they had refused to accept…The Arabs made a grave mistake…but they are reluctant to forgive and forget.”
1950: Israel continued to celebrate its second year of independence as Dr. Weizmann receives congratulatory visits by foreign dignitaries lead by U.S. Ambassador James G MacDonald.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the "past seven days was the bloodiest week along Israeli borders for a long time." Two Israelis were murdered at Mevuot Betar, the marauders were active in the South, in Galilee and Jerusalem. There was a general outcry when General Bennet L. de Ridder, the U.N. Chairman of the Israel-Jordan Mixed Armistice Commission refused to comply with the Israeli request to call an emergency meeting of the Commission to discuss the latest developments and, in particular, the murder of Zvi Genauer and his niece, Dvora, in Jerusalem. This incomprehensible U.N. decision was taken despite the fact that the tracks of the three marauders, responsible for this murder, were discovered by an U.N. observer and an Israeli officer who noted that they led to the Jordanian-occupied village of Beit Iksa. The General claimed that it was not the duty of his Commission to deal with incidents "of this type."
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel's three-years-long land survey, conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture, was almost completed.
1954: Jockey William Harmatz rode six consecutive winners “at Bay Meadows Racetrack.”
1954: Cincinnati pitcher Moe Savransky made his major league baseball debut.
1955: In New York, Robert and Patricia Mozer gave birth to Paul William Mozer, the Salomon Brothers employee who “played a pivotal role in a bond scandal.”
1955(1st of Iyar, 5715): Parashat Tazria-Metzora; Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1955(1st of Iyar, 5715): Three days before her 51st birthday, Marion Elkus Kohlman passed away after which she buried at the Springhill Avenue Temple Cemetery in Mobile, Alabama.
1955: Final performance of “The Dark Is Light Enough” featuring as Marian Winters “Gelda.”
1956: For the third time, Sigmund Freud is featured on the cover of Timemagazine.
1957(22nd of Nisan, 5717): 8th day of Pesach
1957(22nd of Nisan, 5717): Lucille Frank, the widow of Leo Frank, passed away, a victim of heart disease.
1958(3rd of Iyar, 5718): Yom HaZikaron
1958: Birthdate of Radu Mihăileanu, the native of Bucharest who moved to Paris in 1989 where he gained fame as a film director and screenwriter.
1958: The first production of “J.B.” a play written in free verse which is a modern retelling of the story of the biblical figure Job opened today at Yale University.
1958: “Expresso Bongo,” a musical with a book co-authored by Wolf Mankowitz and music by Monty Norman opened for the first time at the Saville Theatre in London today.
1958: San Francisco Giants outfielder Don Taussig appeared in his first major league baseball game.
1959(15th of Nisan, 5719): Pesach
1960(26th of Nisan, 5720): Parashat Shmini
1960(26th of Nisan, 5720): Sixty-five year old Abraham Samuel Samuels, the native of Woltzin, Poland who came to the United States in 1922 where he served as Rabbi in Elmira, NY and was active in a number of Jewish organizations including the United Charities for Palestine passed away today.
1960: In Shaker Heights, Raphael Silver and Joan Micklin Silver, both of whom were directors, gave birth to Marisa Silver, an American author, screenwriter and film director. She is a second generation film director.
1961: Judy Garland, two of whose five husbands were Jewish and who was re-interred at Beth Olam Cemetery performed at Carnegie Hall today.
1963(29th of Nisan, 5723):Seventy-eight year old Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, third President of Israel passed away.
1963: Kadish Luz was named interim President of Israel.
1966(3rd of Iyar, 5726): Parashat Tazria-Metzora
1966(3rd of Iyar, 5726): Eighty-one year old Gertrude D.H. Perlman “a lawyer for more than fifty years and an attorney with the New York State Mortgage Commission” who was the widow of Max Perlman passed away today.
1969(4th of Iyar, 5729): Yom HaZikaron
1969(4th of Iyar, 5729): Eighty-three year old San Francisco architect Albert Gustave Landsburg the son of Rebecca and Simon Lazarus Landsburg passed away today.
1969: Sirhan Sirhan was sentenced to death for killing Bobby Kennedy. Sirhan Sirhan's sentence was commuted to life in prison. He still is serving his sentence. The young Palestinian claimed that he shot Kenney because he was a supporter of Israel. Yes, the terror and the violence are an old story.
1975: At Tulane University, U.S. President Gerald Ford stated that the war is over as far as the United States was concerned. According to at least one Jewish Tulane alum, this was an appropriate place to make such an announcement since the primarily poitically apathetic campus had missed the start of the war.
1969: Birthdate of novelist Arthur Phillips, the native of Minneapolis whose works include Prague, The Egyptologist,Angelica, The Song Is You and The Tragedy of Arthur
1972: At an “academic convocation held under the auspices of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America” a thousand people saw “His Excellency the Right Honourable Roland Michener, governor general of Canada, accepted the honorary degree of doctor of laws from Rabbi Louis Finkelstein, chancellor of the seminary. In his acceptance speech, Michener “made special reference to the125thanniversary of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim.”
1972(9th of Iyar, 5732): Fifty year old University of Chicago trained attorney Lester Robert Uretz , “the chief counsel of the IRS and husband of Miriam Uretz with whom he raised “two sons and two daughters” passed away today.
1972(9th of Iyar, 5732): Seventy-five year old British racecar driver Albert Moss who was the father of the more famous racecar driver Sterling Moss passed away today.
1973(21st of Nisan, 5733): Seventh Day of Pesach
1973(21st of Nisan, 5755): Eighty-five year old Leonard Jacques Stein, the barrister and MP who served as President of the Anglo-Jewish Association and Jewish Historical Society of England passed away today.
1974(1st of Iyar, 5734): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1974(1st of Iyar, 5734): Fifty year old Barnard College graduate and former Martha Graham dancer Mrs. Natanya Neumann, “the wife of Harold P. Manson, director of the office of academic affairs of the American Friends of the Hebrew University” passed away today.
1974: Senator Ted Kennedy arrived in Moscow today where he planned to discuss issues related to the Middle East and emigration.
1977(5th of Iyar, 5737): Parashat Tazria-Metzora
1977(5th of Iyar, 5737): Eighty-six year old Vienna native William Popper, the son of Johanna and Herman Joseph Popper and the husband of Annie Popper passed away today in San Francisco.
1984(21st of Nisan, 5744): Seventh Day of Pesach
1984(21st of Nisan, 5744): Seventy-six year old boxer Ruby Goldstein, who was one of the most referees of his time passed away today.
1984: During an attempt at reconciliation, at “family dinner at the Carlyle Hotel” Lillian Goldman, the estranged wife of millionaire Sol Godman agreed to return to her husband and the reconciliation agreement which was written on the spot by Raoul Felder, Mr. Goldman’s lawyer included a stipulation that she would receive one million dollars in cash “within a week and additional five million dollars by April, 1989.
1986(14th of Nisan, 5746): Fast of the First Born
1986(14th of Nisan, 5746): Composer Harold Arlen passed away. Born Hyman Arluck in 1905, in Buffalo, New York, Arlen's father was a cantor. Arlen inherited his father's voice and the family hoped he would become a cantor, or at least a doctor or a lawyer. However, Arlen showed a propensity for the piano. He moved to New York City in the 1920's where he flourished as composer of a variety of hits. Some of his most famous music is heard every time the Wizard of Oz is shown on television. Arlene was murdered in 1981 at the age of 81
1986(14th of Nisan, 5746): Director and actor, Otto Preminger passed away. Born on December 5, 1905, in Vienna, Preminger began as a director and producer in the theatre. He came to the United States in 1935 as a film director. Later he left to work in the theatre in New York. He returned to Hollywood as actor where he played the Nazi or German officer in several films, most notably Stalag 17, the product of another Jew, Billy Wilder. Preminger and others were struck by the success a Jew from Austria had playing Nazi soldiers. Preminger returned to directing movies, one of which, Anatomy of A Murder is considered to be one of the finest legal/mystery movies ever made. He passed away after suffering from Alzheimer's Disease for many years.
1986:An Israeli Defense Ministry official said today that Avraham Bar-Am, a retired Israeli general who is among those accused in a smuggling case involving attempts by Iran to buy American-made weapons through illegal channels, was licensed to deal in weapons, but not in a manner that violated the law.
1986: CBS broadcast the final episode of “Fast Times” a television miniseries based on the movies of the same name both of which were directed by Amy Heckerling.
1987: Birthdate of Israeli singer and songwriter Boaz Mauda.
1990(28th of Nisan, 5750): Actress Paulette Goddard passed away
1991(9th of Iyar, 5751): Seventy-nine year old attorney and advocate for the rights of women Harriet Fleischel Pilpel, the Bronx born daughter of Julius and Ethel Flieshl, passed away today in New York City.
1993: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum opened on the Mall in Washington, DC under the chairmanship of Miles Lerman. Born Shmuel Milek Lerman in 1920 in Tomaszov-Lubelski, Poland was a Holocaust survivor. He was appointed to the chairmanship by Jimmy Carter and given responsibility for creating this American memorial to the Shoah. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
1994: In a letter to the New York Times historian Ronald N. Stromberg wrote, “"The Italian government did not turn a single Jew over to the Germans despite great pressure…"
1995(23rd of Nisan, 5755): Howard Cosell passed away. Born Howard Cohen in Winston Salem, North Carolina in 1918, Cosell was educated in New York. Ah yes, grits and gefilte fish. Trained as a lawyer, Cosell gained fame as a sports broadcaster. He helped revolutionize television football coverage and changed American social mores with his participation in Monday Night Football on ABC. Cosell was a controversial figure with as many supporters as detractors. But when he passed away, all that was remembered was the man who was "the first to tell it like it is" in the world of sport.
1996(4thof Iyar, 5756): Yom HaZikaron
1997(16thof Nisan, 5757): Second Day of Pesach
1997(16thof Nisan, 5757): One hundred year old Esther Schiff Goldfrank passed away in New York.
1998(27th of Nisan, 5758): Yom HaShoah.
1999:After months of testing, today McDonald's officially unveiled -- in 6,000 stores across the Midwest and Northeast, including New York and New Jersey -- three new ''bagel breakfast sandwiches.'' Ana Madan-Russo, president of McDonald's New York Tri-State Owners and Operators association, says franchise owners are excited about selling bagel sandwiches ''in the bagel capital of the world.'' Not so fast, says Mr. Zabar, dissecting a McDonald's steak, egg and cheese bagel in Eli's, his market on the Upper East Side.
1999: The Times of London reviews Weathered by Mircacles: A history of Palestine from Bonaparte and Muhammad Ali to Ben-Gurion and the Mufti by Thomas A Idinopulos.
2000: An exhibit entitled “Berlin Metropolis: Jews and the New Culture, 1890 – 1918” comes to an end at the Jewish Museum in New York City. “’Berlin Metropolis’ focused on a number of Jewish modernists in Berlin. None of them solitary artists, they gathered together at galleries, cafés, theaters, and around avant-garde journals—Jews and Gentiles, Germans and non-Germans—furthering what was innovative in the arts and bringing it to a wider public. They opened up Berlin to international movements: French Impressionism, the Symbolism of the Norwegian Edvard Munch, French Cubism, and Italian Futurism. Jews and non-Jews were partners in this project, forming close professional and personal relationships. Together they helped define the agenda for twentieth-century culture.”
2000: The New York Times included reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Ravelstein by Saul Bellow and No Logo: Taking Aim at the Bullies by Naomi Klein.
2001: Eight people were injured when during a bombing at Or Yehuda near Ben Gurion Airport for which Hamas took credit.
2002: Mast of the Senate, the third volume in Joseph Caro’s biographical series about Lyndon B. John which was won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography was released today.2002: “Only a Woman Like You” an album by Michael Bolton was released today.
2003(21st of Nisan, 5763): Professor Bernard Katz, German-born biophysicist passed away at the age of 92. Born and educated in Germany, Katz fled to Britain during the 1930’s. He shared the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1970 with Julius Axelrod and Ulf von Euler. He was knighted in 1970. (As reported by Sandra Blaeslee)
2005(14th of Nisan, 5765): As Jews sit down to celebrate the first night of Pesach they can enjoy what the New York Times describes as two zippy kosher whites from California and a pretty Israeli red from the Judean Hills: Baron Herzog's citric 2003 chenin blanc, Baron Herzog's herbal 2003 sauvignon blanc and Carmel's juicy 2002 cabernet.” In this post-Manischewitz era, with dry trumping sweet, they can be sipped all night.”
2005: At the Nottingham Playhouse, final performance of Arnold Wesker’s “Chicken Soup with Barley.’
http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/chickensoup-rev
2006: Aharon Friedman of Brooklyn married Tamar Epstein, seven years his junior, of suburban Philadelphia. Years later, their messy divorce would rock some in the Orthodox world over his refusal to grant her a get.
2006: The Washington Post reviewed books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “In Search of Memory:The Emergence of a New ScienceMind”by Nobel Prize Laureate Eric R. Kandel.
2006: The New York Times reviewed books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life” by Erica Jong and “Elements of Style” by Wendy Wasserstein who died of lymphoma at the age of 55 in January of 2006.
2007: Yom Ha'atzma'ut – Israel Independence Day begins at sundown as Israel celebrates her 59th birthday.
2007: “Shulamit ‘Shula’ Cohen-Kishik, a spy Mossad who worked undercover in Lebanon for 14 years” and was faced the possibility of death by hanging when she captured “was chosen to light a torch this year’s Independence Day ceremony.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-spy-shulamit-cohen-kishik-dies-at-100/
2007: The Center for Jewish History in New York presents “An Evening with Acclaimed International PEN Author and Essayist George Konrad.” The Hungarian born Konrad discusses his recently published autobiography, A Guest In My Own Country.
2007: Judy and Larry Rosenstein Memorial Lecture at Tulane University features ProfessorDavid Stern, University of Pennsylvania speaking on "Through the Pages of the Past: The Jewish Book in Its Historical Context.”
2008: The Jerusalem Cinematheque features a screening of “Lonely Man of Faith: The Life and Legacy of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik”
2008(18th of Nisan, 5768): Esta Saltzman, a veteran of the Yiddish Theatre passed away today.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E02E5DD113AF93BA15757C0A96E9C8B63
2009: In New York, a screening of “The Forgotten Refugees” the award-winning film documenting the 20th Century exodus of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa.
2009: In Chevy Chase, Maryland,Aaron David Miller, a State Department veteran and most recently a senior adviser for Arab-Israeli negotiations discusses his recent book, “The Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace.”
2009: Holocaust Survivor Irene Furst speaks to the students of Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
2010(9th of Iyar, 5770): “One Israeli worshiper was killed and five were wounded in Nablus early this morning after their vehicle was shot at by Palestinian security forces as they were exiting the city from prayer services held at Joseph's Tomb.”
2010: In “Emma Freud: My Father, Clement Freud, Remembered” a daughter describes her feeling a year after her famous father’s death.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/apr/24/clement-freud-funeral-emma-freud
2010: “American chess player, martial arts competitor and author” Joshua Waitzkin “married Desiree Cifre, a screenwriter and former contestant on The Amazing Race.”
2010: Robyn Helzner, one of the leading interpreters of world Jewish music, and Cantor Larry Paul are scheduled to lead a Carlebach-inspired service at the Historic Sixth & I Synagogue in Washington, D.C.
2010:Wendy Becker & Rik Howard are scheduled to lead a special Musical Shabbat Service at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
2010: “The Chameleon” starring Ellen Barken as “Kimberly Miller” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.
2011(19th of Nisan, 5771): Shabbat Chol Hamoed Pesach
2011: Today’s tours at the Skirball Cultural Center are scheduled to focus on Passover.
2011: The Los Angeles Times featured a review of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including 'Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life Without Losing Its Soul' by Howard Schultz.
2012: The Broadway revival production of “Ghost the Musical” starring Cassie Shira Levy as “Molly Jensen” a role she created in the original Broadway production opened at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre.
2012:Library of Congress, LCPA Hebrew Language Table is scheduled to present an address by Canadian/Israeli journalist Judie Oron based on “Cry of the Giraffe, “an award-winning book based on the story of an Ethiopian Jewish teenager named Wuditu who, together with her younger sister, Lewteh, was separated from her family in a violent incident in a refugee camp in Sudan.”
2012: Ambassador Peter Rosenblatt is scheduled to take part in a Q&A following a screening of “Turkish Passport” at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival. Turkish Passport tells “the little-known story of the righteous Turkish diplomats posted in several European countries who saved the lives of many Jews during World War II by enabling them to find safety in Istanbul. (Considering current conditions between Israel and Turkey, this film is well-worth seeing.)
2012: A weeklong program designed to highlight the role of the Jews in the life of Wurzburg is scheduled to come to an end today in this northern German city.
2012(1st of Iyar, 5772): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
2012: Egyptian engineer Hani Dahi, executive director of the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation, said today that the military council and the government had no part in the decision to terminate Egypt's agreement to provide natural gas to Israel
2012:Anti-Zionist graffiti was found this morning sprayed at various locations at the Ammunition Hill memorial site in Jerusalem. The graffiti included slogans slamming President Shimon Peres, as well as praise for German poet Gunter Grass. The slogans that were found included: “The evil Zionist regime will fall,” and “Gunter Grass – be strong and brave.”
2012: U.S. President Barack Obama announced that Jan Karski would receive the country's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of the bravery he showed in informing the Polish Government-In-Exile and the Allies about the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Nazi death camps.
2013: Trudy Peterson is scheduled to deliver a talk entitled "The French Railroad, the Records, the Holocaust, and the State of Maryland" in Iowa City.
2013: The Algemeiner 40th Anniversary Jewish 100 Gala featuring Elie Wiesel is scheduled to take place at Guastavino’s in New York.
2013: The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to present a lecture by Efraim Sicher that examines the work of Isaak Babel entitled “Babel in Yiddish/Yiddish in Babel.
2013: Shia LaBeouf joined the cast of the upcoming WW II, “Fury.”
2013: “The Young Salinger, Mordant Yet Hopeful” published today
2013: The weeklong Holocaust Memorial Program came to an end in Wurzburg, Germany.
2013: Iran has essentially crossed the “red line” set by Israel for its nuclear activity, and the coming few months will be a crucial period, Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin, a former head of IDF Military Intelligence, said today.
2013: Israel’s senior military intelligence analyst said today there was evidence the Syrian government had repeatedly used chemical weapons in the last month, and he criticized the international community for failing to respond, intensifying pressure on the Obama administration to intervene.
2014: The Spring Semester of The Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning at Temple Emanu-El is scheduled to begin.
2014: “There Was Once…” which “documents the contemporary struggles of a Hungarian high school teacher who sparks controversy by uncovering the Jewish past of her small town, Kalocsa” is scheduled to be shown at The Center for Jewish History
2014: “Plot for Peace” is scheduled to be shown at the UK Jewish Film Festival in London.
2014:Three cartoonists Liana Fink (A Bintel Brief), Miriam Katin (Letting it Go), and Eli Valley (artist in residence, The Forward) are scheduled to “discuss how their surroundings, family, history, and backgrounds have inspired their representations of Jewish life in pen and ink” at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.
2015 (4th of Iyar): Yom HaAtsmaut – Israel Independence Day observed
2015: Rabbi Deborah Waxman, President of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and Susan Herbst, President of the University of Connecticut are scheduled to discuss “What is Zionism’s Role in North American Jewish Life Today?” as part of the celebration of the 67th anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel.
2015: Vice President Joe Biden is scheduled to attend Israel’s Independence Day event today in Washington, D.C.
2015: “Deli Man” and “Woman in Gold” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.
2015: “FotoMacher Frank Barnett: Examining Lives with Jewish Eyes” is scheduled to open at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education.
2015: IDF tanks struck targets in the northern Gaza Strip just before midnight toay, after a rocket was fired from the Strip into the area of the Shaar Hanegev regional council late tonight.
2015: U.S. officials revealed today that American aid worker Warren Weinstein who was being held captive by al Qaeda had been killed accidently by an U.S. drone attack last January.
2015:"Ordinary Matters": Animations and Paintings by Shelley Jordon is scheduled to open at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education.
2016(15thof Nisan, 5776): First Day of Pesach; in the evening second Seder and counting of the Omer
2016: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Temple Judah, under the leadership of its President Nancy Margulis hosts its annual Community Seder.
2017: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including You Say to Brick: The Life of Louis Kahn by Wendy Lesser and The Soul of the First Amendment by Floyd Abrams.
2017: Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a Yom HaShoah Film Night “preceded by a special ma’ariv service.
2017: “Four people were wounded in a terror attack that “began in the lobby of the Leonardo Beach Hotel” in Tel Aviv.
2017: In Atlanta, Eternal-Life Hemshech, the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum, and the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta are scheduled to host the 52ndAnnual Yom HaShoah Community-Wide Holocaust Commemoration at the Greenwood Cemetery.
2017: “In honor of Yom HaShoah” scheduled to host “Family Reunion After War” presented by University of Iowa History Professor Elizabeth Heinemann.
2017: The University of Iowa Hillel is scheduled to host its Spring Concert featuring the Saul Lubaroff Quarter.
2017: “Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a blistering assault on Allied policy during World War II, saying world powers’ failure to bomb the Nazi concentration camps from 1942 cost the lives of four million Jews and millions of others.” (Editor’s note – In the case of the United States this statement shows an ignorance of history since “the first Army Air Forces bomber mission over Western Europe was by US crews of the 15th Bomb Squadron” flying the British version of the A-20, a twin engine aircraft that hardly had the range to fly from England to Poland and back and lacked a pray of getting to the target since there were no fighters to cover the mission for this lightly armored aircraft.)
2017: “The annual Holocaust Remembrance Day event in Jerusalem began tonight at the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum’s Warsaw Ghetto Square.”
2017: A Community Service of Remembrance For the Victims of the Holocaust featuring Holocaust survivor Jacob Eisenbach organized by The Thaler Holocaust Memorial Fund is scheduled to be held in Cedar Rapids, IA.
2018: “On the Spectrum” directed by Yuval Shafferman is scheduled to be shown at the Tribeca Film Festival today.
2018: The Streicker Center at Temple Emanu-El is scheduled to a presentation by Cecile Richards, author of Make Trouble and the president of Planned Parenthood.
2018: The Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players which was bounded by Jens Nygaard who directed the Washington Heights YW-YMHA concerts for 25 years, and which includes violinist Itamar Zorman is scheduled to perform “Touched by Mozart” today.
2018: NA’AMAT USA Cleveland Council is scheduled to honor Judge Francine Goldberg this evening.
2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host an evening with JSoc friend at Duke of Cambridge on Little Clarendon Street.
2018: Funeral services are scheduled to held today the Plaza Jewish Community Chapel for 88 year old Theodore R. Ginsberg, the husband of Cora Ginsberg followed by Burail at the Old Montefiore Cemetery in Queen.s
2019: The Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to present “Passover Objects Up and Close Personal” during which “Curator Bonni-Dara Michaels handles and sheds light on unique Passover objects from the Museum’s collection, which are currently not on view to the public including traditional and modern Seder plates, Miriam cups, beautiful fabric items, and whimsical artworks.”
2019(18thof Nissan, 5779): Fourth Day of Pesach; Third Day of the Omer; for more see http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/