JUNE 20
840: Louis the Pious, King of the Franks and the Holy Roman Emperor by virtue of being the son of Charlemagne. When it came to dealing with his Jewish subjects, Louis followed in the footsteps of his father. During his reign charters were issued giving “Jews permission ‘live according to their Law.’ They promised protection of body and property and permitted freedom of movement and trade including…the right to hire Christians to work in their homes. Some Jews were also exempted from the laws of trial by ‘ordeal of fire and water.’”
1214: University of Oxford received its charter. Jews were not always welcome at Oxford. The Oxford University Reform Act passed in 1854 allowed Jews to take degrees at Oxford. Today, Oxford offers degrees in both Hebrew and Jewish Studies.
1239: Pope Gregory IX ordered all copies of the Talmud to Dominican and Franciscan friars who would review the text looking for disparaging references to Jesus and Mary. Any copies that were found to contain such references were to be burned. This is the same Pope who in 1234 had “invested the doctrine of perpetua servitus iudaeorum – perpetual servitude of the Jews – with the force of canonical law. According to this, the followers of the Talmud would have to remain in a condition of political servitude until Judgment Day.”
1338: Duke Otto and Duke Albert issued their “Jews’ Decree.”
1391 (17thof Tammuz): “The Christian population of Toledo rose against the largest Jewish community in Spain.” Four thousand Jews were killed.
1510: Birthdate of Beatrice de Luna who gained fame as Gracia Mendes Nasi one of the richest and most powerful women of her times who was the mother-in-law of Don Joseph Nasi.
1567: Jews were expelled from Brazil by order of Regent Don Henrique
1616: Sir Henry Finch the author of The World's Great Restauration, or Calling of the Jews, and with them of all Nations and Kingdoms of the Earth to the Faith of Christ which called for the “restoration of the Jews to the promised land as a step to the Second Coming was knighted at Whitehall Plalace
1647: In Dresden, John George II and Magdalene Sybille of Brandenburg-Bayreuth gave birth to their only son John George III, Elector of Saxony who in 1682 “issued a new decree, in which the onerous regulations relating to Jews passing through the country were somewhat modified, since those regulations were found to be detrimental to the yearly fairs at Leipsic.”
1652: During the reign of Mehemed IV, Tarhoncu Ahmet Paşa was appointed grand vezir of the Ottoman Empire. During Pasa’s time of service, Mehmemed Jews fleeing the Chmielnitzki Uprising were encouraged to settle on the banks of the Danube in Morea, Kavala, Istanbul and Salonica.
1667: Clement IX began his papacy during which Giovanni Battista Jona, the rabbi who converted to Christianity at Warsaw in 1625, dedicated a translation into Hebrew of The New Testament.
1757: A debate began today at Kamienice in which the Sabbatians sought to prove that there doctrine, unlike Judaism, was compatible with Christianity.
1768: The third of the Haidamack uprisings called Koliyivschyna began. During the uprising an estimated 50,000 Ukrainian Jews were murdered by the Cossacks. “The Haidmamaks were gangs of Cossacks, who along with their peasant allies robbed traveling merchants and plundered the towns and villages in the Ukraine. They saw themselves as heirs to Khmelnitski. The Khmelnitski were the Cossacks who slaughtered Jews and Poles in wholesale lots in the middle of the 17th century. Both of these murderous slaughters were part of the drift into degradation that became the lot of increasing numbers of Eastern European Jews. This drift into degradation brought about numerous responses on the part of the Jews ranging from mysticism and messianicism to the Haskalah and immigration to Western Europe and eventually to the New World.
1757: In Kameiek (Podolia), the Frankists, calling themselves Zoharists, decided to wage war against the Talmud. They contacted the local bishop, Dembovsky, and convinced him to arrange a disputation. Naturally, the Talmud was condemned and thousands of copies were burned. The Frankists then became practicing Christians. The Frankists were Jews who were followers of Jacob Frank who had proclaimed himself the Messiah.
1792(30thof Sivan 5552): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1792: Eighteen month old Heva bat Jacob Levi, who had passed away yesterday, was buried today at “Alderney Road (Globe Rd.) Jewish Cemetery.”
1792: Moses Magnus married Rachel Solomons today at the Great Synagogue.
1792: Birthdate of Samuel Israel Mulder, the Amsterdam native who was the first person to translate TaNaCh into Dutch.
1794: In Brno, Gottlieb Bezalel Jeiteles and Johanna Jeitteles gave birth to Alois Jeitteles the founder of the Jewish weekly Siona and the author of poetic works set to music by Ludwig van Beethoven.
1794: Birthdate of Austrian physician and author Alois Isidor Jeitteles, who founded the Jewish Weekly “Siona” and was the father of suffragette Ottilie Bondy.
1808: Birthdate of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, leading founder of what some call Modern Orthodox Judaism.
1811: Lewis Henry Lazarus married Eliza Aaron today at the Great Synagogue.
1811: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi Emanuel Nunes Carvalho who had been serving as the rabbi for the Jewish community in Bridgetown, Barbados, officiated at the wedding of Mrs. Catherine Jacobs and Solomon Hyams.
1812: In Philadelphia, Ezekiel Jacob Ezekiel and his wife Rebecca, both of whom had come from Amsterdam, gave birth to their second child and first son Jacob Ezekiel, the grandson of Hebrews scribe Eleazer Israel and nephew of Michael E. Cohen who adopted him when his mother died and began his career at the age of 13 as an apprentice book binder.
1815: Lord Rowerth, an agent of Nathan Rothschild who had stayed at Ostend awaiting to hear the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo brought word to the Jewish banker who “immediately transmitted the information to the government” – a fact that runs contrary to the myth that Rothschild made a fortune while keeping the news a secret.
1819: In Herxheim am Berg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, Therese Aron and Simon Kuhn gave brith to Abraham Kuhn.
1819: In Cologne, Isaac Judah (Eberst) Offenbach and Marianne Offenbach to composer Jacques Jacob Offenbach, who created almost 100 operettas in a twenty year period.
1823: In Germany, the government issued a decree “ordaining that Jewish services should be conducted exclusively in the German language and that the reading in Hebrew of sections of the Bible should be followed by their translation into the vernacular.”
1828: Mordecai M. Noah accused Elijah J. Roberts, “a former business associate” of having “violently assaulted” him on the steps of the Park Theatre. (Noah was one of the pre-eminent American Jews in the years between the Revolutionary and Civil Wars)
1832: Ellis Moses married Miriam Judah at the Western Synagogue in the United Kingdom.
1837: King William IV of Great Britain and Ireland who in 1797 while still the Prince of Wales visited Barbados where “he visited the synagogue and was presented with an address and a sword by the Congregation” passed away today.
1837: With the death of her uncle, King William IV, Queen Victoria assumes the throne. Since the British monarch reigns but does not rule, her influence on the progress of Jews of Britain and Europe were primarily tangential. Her treatment of Jews was a mixed bag. During the Damascus Blood Libel, the Queen put a British ship at the disposal of her friend and neighbor Moses Montefiore. But in 1869, the Queen blocked Lionel Rothschild elevation to the House of Lords. However, later she would agree to the elevation of Lionel’s son and would socialize with the French branch of the Rothschild family when she made trips across the channel. The change was brought about by Jewish financial support for the Suez project and her relationship with Benjamin Disraeli.
1839: Birthdate of Jacob Freudenthal, the native of Hanover and graduate of the rabbinical seminary of Breslau whose visit to the Netherlands to research the life of Spinoza produced Die Lebensgeschichte Spinoza's
1841: Mr. G.M. Loewentritt married Miss Betty Goldberg to at Sheyareeth Israel in Charleston, SC.
1843: In Oberlauterbach, Alsace, Isaiah Rosenthal and Rosa Walter gave birth to Jonas Rosenthal the husband of Jeanette Weil who came to the United States in 1860 where he attended school in Alexandria, LA before serving the Confederate Army for three and a half years in the Civil War following which he held several public positions capped off by being appointed U.S. Postmaster of Alexandria by President Grover Cleveland.
1849: Solomon Salamo married Phoebe Levy at the Great Synagogue.
1850: Five days after its application was received, Simon Lodge No. 4 of the Independent Order of Free Sons of Israel was “installed” today.
1854: Lieutenant Colonel Albert Goldsmid, a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars and the son of Benjamin Goldsmid was promoted to the rank of Colonel.
1856: In Bombay, Hannah Moise and Sir Albert Sassoon gave birth to Sir Edward Albert Sassoon.
1858: Rabbi Bernhard Felsenthal, the German born rabbi who had moved to Chicago “and accepted employment in the banking-house of Greenebaum Brothers” helped to found the Jüdische Reformverein today.
1859: In Luzerne County, PA, John and Helen McKeon Curran gave birth “the Very Rev. Mgr. John J. Curran’ the “militant Catholic priest nationally known as a friend of organized labor” who had a an ecumenical view of the world, long before that became fashionable as can be seen by the fact he “he was reputed to have as many friends among Protestants and Jews as among Catholic clergy and layman” and in the best sense of the Gospels “was the good neighbor to all.”
1871: Birthdate of Helmstedt, Germany native Edmund Moser a passenger on the ill-fated SS. St. Louis who survived the war even though his “country of disembarkation” was France which meant he was luckier than fellow family member and shipmate Roaslie Moser who did not survive.
1871: In Warsaw, Indiana, “well-known and respected merchant” Leopold Becker and Caroline (Vogel) Becker gave birth to Illinois attorney Benjamin Vogel Becker who was a partner in Newman, Northrup, Levinson and Becker and the husband of Elizabeth Loeb with whom he has one child John Leonard Becker.
1871: One day after he passed away, mathematician Numa Edward Hartog, the son of Alphonse and Marion Hartog was buried today at West Ham Jewish Cemetery.
1874: In Warsaw, “Israel Isaac and Chasha Peltz Zambrowsky” gave birth to S. Joshua Zambrowsky who served as rabbi “Congregation Tifereth Israel in Warsaw from 1901 to 1923” after which he served as the rabbi of “Congregation Poilez Tzedeck in Syracuse for ten years” and the “chief rabbi of the Buffalo Council of Jewish Congregations, Inc.”
1875: Congregation B'Nai Israel of Galveston voted to become one of the charter members of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
1875: Five days after he passed away, sixty-seven year old Isaac Benjamin was buried today at the “Lauriston Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1877: Meyer Freeman who owns a butcher shop at 38 Ludlow Street was awakened by two men –later identified as David Milstein and Isaac Goldstein – who had broken into his bedroom and were trying to steal the contents of a bureau that contained jewelry and box with $35 in cash. Freeman, clad only in his bed clothes, chased the robbers through the streets and captured Milstein whom he turned over to the policy. Milstein is a well-known criminal having spent 21 of the last 28 years in jail
1877: It was reported today that several other Jews who have been guests for several seasons at the Grand Union Hotel besides Joseph Seligman have been refused service at the Saratoga Springs Hotel. These include Mr. Marcus Goldman, the broker, Mrs. Louis Josephthal, the wholesale manufacturer and Mr. Max Landman, “the well-known tobacconist.” Each of them lives in Manhattan. Each of them wrote asking for rooms as they have done in the past. And each was refused without any explanation. The strangest case of rejection centered around Judge Joseph Koch, the distinguished jurist who had sat on the bench of the Fifth District Court. Judge Koch met with Mr. Calire, one of the managers of the hotel, at A.T. Stewart’s store in Manhattan. At that time Mr. Claire assured the Koch that he could have the same accommodations as he had in previous years. When Koch asked if he could have “a more desirable suite of apartments” Claire said that he would see to it as soon as he arrived at the hotel. However, Judge Koch has heard nothing more from Mr. Claire and assumes that he is as unwelcome as his coreligionists.
1877: It was reported today that the Jews of New York have had a mixed reaction to Mr. Seligman’s being banned from the Grand Union because he was Jewish. Some view this as part of a conflict between Judge Hilton and Mr. Seligman which has more to do with business than with religion. Others say that there is nothing new about such a ban. Other hotel owners have tried it, suffered financially and rescinded the ban. Yet others are bothered by the fact that Jews as a group were banned. They could understand not renting to people who do not pay their bills or who present other problems, but singling out Jews as a group does not make any sense. There seems to be a general consensus that it is best to avoid making this a matter for public demonstrations.
1877: It was reported today that many hotel owners in Boston were surprised to hear about the Judge Hilton’s decision to ban Jews from the Grand Union. Some of them know Mr. Seligman and hold him in the highest esteem. From a business point of view, times are so hard that turning away any guests who can afford to stay at their hotels does not make any sense to these owners. And if there is some grand plan afoot to ban Jews from hotels, they do not want to be a part of it.
1877: “The Position of New York Hotels” published today described the attitude of various hostelries in the Big Apple regarding Jewish guests. The St. James and the Albemarle follow the same exclusionary policies as those practiced by the Grand Union in Saratoga. The Windsor does not have the slightest possible objection to having Jews as guest finding them “as a class the promptest paying customers.” The Grand Central management thought that the Grand Union had made a “great mistake.” The Grand Union in Manhattan, the Hotel Brunswick, the Rossmore Hotel, the Fifth Avenue Hotel and the Sturtevant House all said they had no policy against Jewish guests and several of the hotels reported having some staying there at this very time.
1879: In New York City, The Jewish Messengerreports that "A new congregation has been started on East 57th Street, called Orach Chaim.” Some of the members of the new congregation were disaffected members of Adas Israel, another congregation located on the same street.
1880: Four days after he passed away “in the 76th year of his life” Moritz Moses Maurice was buried at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.
1880: “Puritan Christian Names” published today described how the printing of the Geneva Bible, an affordable English translation of the sacred text led to the adoption of many Old Testament (Jewish) names by English Puritans. Apparently, having finally been able to read the text, the “Puritan spirit led those whom it animated to a strong and very marked preference for the Jewish part of the Bible over the Christian.”
1881: The Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society took two hundred children on an outing aboard the steam boat Bellevue. The boat stopped at Hart’s Island so the children could enjoy themselves. [These outings were part of a program to get slum children out of the city and into the fresh air of the country.]
1882: An assignment for the benefit of creditors by Abraham Samuels to Lester Cohn was filed in the county clerk’s office today.
1883: Anglican Bishop and Biblical scholar John William Colenso the author of The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Critically Examined which he wrote in response to being questioned about the historical accuracy of these books and whether or not they should be taken literally passed away today. (Colenso was one of a series of Jewish and Christian theologians and authors who re-examined the traditional view of these texts as being literal truth or the modernist view that they were just a series of manufactured myths)
1884: It was reported today that a serious outbreak of anti-Semitic violence has broken out in Krivoroge, Russia.
1884: Birthdate of Norwegian businessman Moses Beeker who was arrested in Trondheim 1942 at murdered at Auschwitz in 1943 at the age of 58
1886: “Clubs Without Number” published today described the variety of New York social clubs that cater to various segments of the city’s population including the Jews some of whom frequent the Harmonie Club on 42nd Street while a greater number are found at the Hebrew Association at 317 Third Avenue. Actually Jews can be found at most of the popular clubs except for the Union and Knickerbocker clubs.
1887: Two Jewish peddlers, Simon Kleber and Judah Waser, were abused and driven out of a liquor store by the bartender when they tried to sell him their wares. The two men sought protection from Policeman Frederick Timme who responded by clubbing them and driving them away.
1887: “Jews and Gentiles In London” published today provided a snapshot of Jewish economic conditions in the capital of the UK picturing them as being wealthier than the non-Jewish population. For example, the average annual Jewish income is 82 pounds as compared with 35 ponds for the non-Jews. Jews with an income over 10,000 pounds are 20 times as numerous as the number found in the non-Jewish population. [Editor’s note – This report is totally misleading since it fails to capture the wealth of the gentry which would have reported in the counties and boroughs where there estates were located.]
1888: It was reported today that the executors of the Bernhard Stern’s will have paid out over $25,000 in bequests to variety of Jewish and secular institutions in New York City. The largest bequest was $5,000 given to the United Hebrew Charities.
1890: The Executive Committee of the United Hebrew Charities reported today that during the month it had found employment for 364 applicants during the month of May. The committee had spent $8,756.08 during the month to aid needy Jews including the 1,987 immigrants who had arrived at Castle Garden.
1890: As of today, the managers of the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children have received $4,091.50 which will be used to provide free summer excursions for Jewish children and their mothers.
1890: Police officers arrested Marcus Goldstein, a Polish Jew, when came to the Gill Engraving Company this morning to collect what he thought were the blank plates that would enable him to print (and sell) counterfeit tickets for the Hamburg Lottery.
1891: Birthdate of Zionist leader and native of Prague, Robert Weltsch, who died in Jerusalem a century later.
1892: In Kaunas Count (modern day Lithuania) Joseph and Gertrude Janner gave birth to Anglo-Jewish political and civic leader Barnett Janner who would serve as an MP first from the Liberal Party and then from the Labour Party
1893: Philadelphia lawyer Charles Isaiah Hoffman married Fanny Binswanger in the City of Brotherly love. Seven years later he would enter the JTS, graduated and was ordained in 1904 and spent most of the rest of his life as the spiritual leader of Oheb Shalom in Newark, NJ. [Sort of a modern day version of “Rachel, the wife of Akiva”]
1893: After having viewed the body of Jewish cigar manufacturer Adolph S. Jaeger, Deputy Coroner O’Hare said that the deceased had taken his own life and turned his remains over to the undertaker.
1894: Today’s meeting of the Constitutional Convention looking at charitable contributions made by the State of New York, first heard from Myer Sterne, the “former Commissioner of Charities and Correction who appeared in behalf of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of which the late Jesse Seligman was President.”
1895: “Governor William McKinley delivered an address at Ottawa, Kansas in which he referred to an American flag with a biblical inscription on it” which Chicago Republic Abraham Kohn had presented to Abraham Lincoln “one month prior to his assumption of the Presidency.” Kohn was President of Chicago’s KAM Congregation. Actually two biblical verses had been painted on to the flag both of which were from from the first chapter of the book of Joshua verses 5 and 9.including the famous charge “Be strong and of great courage. Be not afraid, neither be dismayed.” After several attempts, McKinley would finally be elected President in 1896 and re-elected in 1900. He would die at the hands of an assassin bringing Teddy Roosevelt to the White House.
1896: A character of sketch of the recently deceased Marquis de Mores published today described him as “eccentric” whose “hatred of England…was almost a mania” and who “was a rabid enemy of the Jews.” (Editor’s note – For those who do not recognize the name his anti-Semitism including fight a duel French Deputy Ferdinand-Camille Dreyfus)
1897: Mrs. Jennie Cohen, formerly of New Haven, CN, and her four children ranging in ages from six years to four months were being cared for at Police Headquarters after having spent the night in rooms provided for by the Hebrew Sheltering House Association on Madison Street.
1897: The Baron Hirsch Free Hebrew School of Chicago was formally incorporated at Springfield, Illinois, the state capital.
1897: “Biblical Titles” published today described the refusal of the Lord Chamberlain’s office to grant a license to a biblical drama entitled “Joseph of Canaan” by George Walters, an Australian clergyman and Rubinstein’s opera “Judas Maccabaeus” Apparently it is Biblical titles that upset the English official and not religion per se since a license, which is necessary for public performance, was granted to “The Sign of the Cross.”
1897: “The Reverend Herman Warszawiak” the Jewish convert to Christianity “whose application to the Presbytery was rejected last week after a trail for unministerial conduct gave vent to his feelings today” comparing himself to St. Paul” and declaring “that he had been hounded because he was of Jewish orgin and the Presbyterians did not want any Jews.
1897: The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that articles of incorporation have been filed by the Sons of Abraham “a Hebrew benevolent society” in Camden, NJ.
1898(30thof Sivan, 5658): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1898(30thof Sivan, 5658): Fifty year old Moses Stein “a well-known resident of Bath Beach” passed away at Mount Sinai Hospital. A retired Manhattan wholesale butcher; he was one of the founders of the Hebrew Congregational Society in Bath Beach.
1898: During the Spanish American War, ships of the U.S Navy (in which 20 Jews served as officers) entered the harbor at Guam. (Whether any those officers were at Guam is not a matter of record.)
1899: Chicago Jews are among those contributing funds to the purchase of memorial items to be presented to Captain Dreyfus, Colonel Picquart and author Emile Zola. The latter two played key roles in exonerating the former when he was falsely convicted of treason and subject to a barrage of anti-Semitism.
1899: In Chicago, 50 boys half of whom were Christians and half of whom were Jewish fought it on Stewart Avenue until the police arrived from the Maxwell Street Station and put an end to the violence.
1899: Jews living on the Lower East Side learned that “Winslow W. Dunlap, the self-appointed missionary” seeking to convert the Jews also makes loans to anybody with a salary between $20 to $200. “It is the custom of Dunlap to advance a man, say $80 and deduct $5 for the expenses of the loan. Besides this $5 he charges $40.80 interest making the borrower pay $70.80 for $25 in “easy” payments of from $2.50 to $5 per week.
1899: “Law and Order” published today decried the attack on a Christian missionary earlier this week who was preaching on the streets of the Lower East Side by a mob and the failure of the police to intervene because in civil society people have a right to express their opinions no matter how distasteful they may be to the public that is forced to hear them.
1899: “Conference of Zionists” published today included a description of a proposal submitted by the English Zionist Federation “proposing the re-establishment of Judea as an independent state, suggesting the purchase of the Maccabean sites in Palestine and the beginning of the work by the establishment of a Jewish colony and a Jewish Agricultural College there.”
1899: “The Jew-Hater in France” published today provided the views of Gustav Gottheil, a leading American Reform Rabbi on the condition of the Jews in France as that nation is convulsed by the Dreyfus affair. As to Dreyfus, he said, “the fact that he was a Jew was the strongest accusation against him.” “Even though “no race has been more patriotic than the French Jews” “the real spirit of malice and persecution will never change and they will never be friendly to the Jewish people.” And in a view that may have been the result of his attendance at the Zionist Congress at Basel “The effect of the triumph in the Zionistic movement stands out in clear and unmistakable character.”
1899(12th of Tammuz, 5659): Fifty-six year old Jacob Baiz, the Venezuelan born son of Abraham and Sarah Naar who after being raised in Elizabethport, NJ, became a successful businessman in Latin America, serving as Consul-General of the Government of Honduras and a member of the Coffee Exchange as well as Vice President of the Hebrew Sheltering and Guardian Society passed away today in New York.
1900: In Jackson, Michigan, on his birthday, Chicago attorney Benjamin Vogel Becker married Elizabeth Loeb, the daughter of Jacob L. and Rachel Loeb, and the mother of their only son John Leonard Becker.
1902: Herzl learns that Turkey accepted the Rouvier Project. Maruice Rouvier was one of those permanent political animals created by the revolving door governments in the days of France’s Third Republic. He was not Jewish. Depending upon who formed the government Rouvier held different cabinet posts including finance and foreign affairs. He was Prime Minister twice himself. At this time, Rouvier was serving as the Minister of Finance. At the same time, like most French politicians, he was always looking for ways to counter German influence. The Turks were in need of financial assistance and Rouvier was willing to do what he could if it would keep the Kaiser out of the Mediterranean.
1903: Maurice Arnold de Forest, one of the two adopted sons of Baroness Clara de Hirsch and Baron Maurice de Hirsch de Gereuth resigned his commission in the Prince of Wales's Own Norfolk Artillery
1905: In New Orleans, Max Bernard Hellman and Julia gave birth to playwright and social activist Lillian Hellman.
1906: Birthdate of director and screenwriter Edmond T. Greville who based “on 23andMe genetic testing of his daughter and grandson in 2017, was in fact Ashkenazim Jewish from the likely area of Odessa, a fact never known to him during his life time.
1907: Frederick Henriques, the son Joseph Gutteres Henriques, was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1910: Fanny Brice debuted at the Ziegfield Follies (As reported by the Jewish Women’s Archive)
1911(24thof Sivan, 5671): Rosenberg, TX native and University of Texas alum Helene Gladys Daily, the Houston lawyer and a leader of the League of Women Voters passed away today.
1913(15th of Sivan, 5673): Eighty-three year old “cantor and journalist” Jacob Tattlebaum passed away today in Patterson, NJ.
1913: Rabbi Israel Klein is scheduled to deliver the Friday night sermon at Zion Temple in Chicago, Illinois.
1914(26thof Sivan, 5674): Sh’lach
1914: In Chicago,, Rabbi Julius Rappaport is scheduled to lead service this morning at Beth El Temple.
1914: Rabbi Aaron L. Weinstein of Davenport, IA is scheduled to occupy this pulpit” on Shabbat at Isaiah Temple in Chicago.
1914: In Chicago, the 1914 Confirmation Class of Isaiah Temple is scheduled to “be formally welcomed into the Isaiah Alumni Association this afternoon.
1915: In Canonsburg, PA, dedication of Tree of Life Synagogue.
1915: At the Astor Hotel, Louis Marshall presided over the meeting of the American Jewish Committee today where it was “decided to convoke a general congress of American Jews to consider methods of assisting their” co-religionists “in the war zones” following “the receipt of the first news of atrocities committed against Jews in the warring countries.”
1915: The Turkish government permitted “expelled Jews” to return to parts of Palestine including Tel Aviv and its “suburbs.”
1915: “Interest in the case of the condemned man” Leo Frank “reached fever heat in Atlanta today” where “it was the one subject of discussion everywhere” as Governor Slaton’s decision was expected by tomorrow.
1916(19th of Sivan, 5676): Eighty-one year old Leopold Adler, the German born husband of Rose Adler passed away today in Chicago.
1916: Birthdate of Zelda Berkowitz who as Zelda Kaplan became as an inimitable fixture on fashion’s front lines and an inveterate clubgoer in Manhattan. (As reported by Ruth La Ferla)
1916: “Max J. Klein, whose charge that he had been excluded from the Second Field Artillery because he was a Jews started the inquiry into discrimination in the National Guard, announced” tonight” that he was organizing a company to serve in the Guard.
1916: Today composer and Conductor Victor Harris, the New York born son of Jacob Harris married Catherine L. Richardson with whom he had four children – Cecilia, Victor, David and Marry Harris.
1917: This evening, at eight o’clock, the Young Men’s Hebrew Association is scheduled to host “an entertainment and dance in the Assembly Hall of the Hebrew Institute to celebrate the installation of its new officers.”
1917: “Jacob H. Schiff, Felix M. Warburg, Louis Marshall and thirty other members of the Joint Distribution Committee” raising “funds for Jewish War sufferers voted” today “to the Morgenthau commission ‘unlimited funds’ for the relief of the Jews in Palestine.”
1917: The Turkish government permitted the Jews who had been expelled to return to Tel Aviv and Jaffa
1917: Birthdate of Franklin Littell, a pioneer in the field of Holocaust scholarship, who was also president of Iowa Wesleyan College and a founding board member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, in Washington. His best-known book, The Crucifixion of the Jews, pressed his view that Christianity is essentially Jewish and that Jesus, Paul and Peter would have been executed at Auschwitz. (As reported by Douglas Martin)
1918: Birthdate of Lillian Sylvia Lukashefsky, the Brooklyn native who gained famed as Yiddish actress, author and singer Lillian Lux who was the wife of Pesach Burnstein and the mother of actor Mike Burstyn.
1918: Two days after he passed away, Michael Abrahams, “the son of David and Eva Abrahams” was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.
1918: United States President Wilson sent Henry Morgenthau and Felix Frankfurter to Egypt to investigate how to best aid Jews in Palestine.
1919: One day after she passed away Martha Friedland, the daughter of Myer Friedland, was buried at the “Belfast Jewish Cemetery” in Northern Ireland.
1919: After having been elected to the Weimar National Assembly, Bernhard Dernberg completed to months of service as Federal Minister of Finance and Vice Chancellor.
1920: Today, “the Men’s Community Club and friends of Providence, RI, traveled by the Steamer Mount Hope to visit the Touro Synagogue, the oldest synagogue in the United States where they met by members of the congregation including the president, Nathan David and “Reverend Brodsky,” the cantor who provided the music for the occasion.
1921: Shortstop Reuben Ewing made his major league debut with the St. Louis Cardinals.
1922: Dr. Lee K. Frankel, Vice President of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, is scheduled to sail for Europe today aboard the SS Beregaria. He is head of a committee appointed by the American Jewish Relief Commission that is visiting Jewish population centers in Austria, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Russia in an effort to determine how best to spend th $18,000,000 that has been collected by American Jews for their coreligionists living in Eastern Europe.
1923: At meeting of the Board of Directors of the National Farm School held today, a memorial was adopted praising the work of the late Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf, the founder and President of the National Farm School.
1924(18th of Sivan, 5684): Eighty-eight year old Nicholas Scharff, the native of Bavaria who was married at Port Gibson, Mississippi in 1870 passed away today in St. Louis.
1925(28thof Sivan, 5685):Dr. Josef Bruer, the Austrian physician who worked with Freud to develop the modern field of psychoanalysis passed away in Vienna.
1926: In Cleveland, Ohio, “Maurice and Rachel (Shapiro) Gelfand gave birth to history professor Lawrence E. “Larry” Gelfand, the husband of Miram Ifland and WW II veteran who joined the Department of History at the University of Iowa in 1962 “after teaching at the Universities of Hawaii, Washington and Wyoming.
1926: Birthdate of Rehavam "Gandhi" Ze'evi the native of Jerusalem who rose to the rank of general and founded the Moledet Party.
1926: In the Czech Republic Pavel Bondy and Franziska Bondy, the daughter of Leopold and Valerie Pick, who was murdered during the Holocaust gave birth to Eduard Bondy who murdered during the Holocaust at the age of 15.
1927: Birthdate of Sherman Bernard Goldberg who gained fame as producer and screenwriter Judd Bernard.
1927: Birthdate of Newark native, Wharton graduate and WW II veteran Milton Perlumutter who became a successful supermarket executive passed away today.
1928: In Brooklyn, “Morris Landau, a machinist and the former Selma Buchman gave birth to Oscar winning actor Martin Landau who may be best remembered for his continuing role in the hit television series “Mission Impossible.”
1928: In the Bronx, Florence and Louis Slobodkin gave birth to “Lawrence B. Slobodkin, a central figure in the development of ecology as a modern science and a co-author of one of its most inspiring inquiries, a paper known informally as “The World Is Green” (As reported by Carol Kaesuk Yoon)
1928: A court in Tel Aviv “imposed short jail terms and sentences of deportation” on three Jews who resisted the police efforts to break up a demonstration protesting the flogging of prisoners in Palestine jails.” The three were additionally accused of being “Communists.” The demonstration was part of a larger protest by Jews against the propensity of the British immigration authorities for deporting Jews on the slightest pretext with little or no evidence of serious wrongdoing.
1929: “The Hollywood Revue of 1929,” a musical film produced by Irving Thalberg and Harry Rapt, with a script co-authored by Al Boasberg and co-starring Jack Benny and Norma Shearer was released today in the United States.
1929: In Montreal, Samuel and Saidye Rosner Bronfman gave birth to Edgar Miles Bronfman, CEO of Seagram’s and President of the World Jewish Congress.
1929: It was reported today that “the concordant signed recently between the Prussian government and the Vatican is not like to have any effect on the statues of the Jewish population in Prussia,” especially since “the question of religious training” which had been such a problem in 1924 during the “negotiations for the Bavarian concordant” had been omitted from this document.
1931: A newspaper in Salonica called the Macedonia ran an article about a resident named Isaac D. Cohen. Cohen was sent as a representative to the meeting of the Maccabiah which was held in Sophia, Bulgaria. However the newspaper stated while away, he also attended a conference held by a revolutionary organization, which had come up with the decision to sue for the independence of Greek and Yugoslav Macedonia. This lie led to attacks on Jews who were said not to be patriotic.
1933(26thof Sivan, 5693): Fifty-three year old Russian-born Jewess Rose Paster Stokes, the first wife a prominent, wealthy Episcopalian, and social activist who was a founder of the American Communist Party passed away today in Berlin where she was being treated for breast cancer.
1933: “The XXXIII Council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations” is scheduled to meet for a third day today in Chicago.
1934: “Abe Goldberg, vice-president of the ZOA and a member of the Jewish Agency for Palestine is scheduled to speak this evening in the 4th in a series of broadcasts sponsored by the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League.
1935(19th of Sivan, 5695): San Luis Obispo, CA, native Marcel Ernest Cert the graduate of Hastings Law School and California Superior Court Judge whose sister Rebecca died tragically in a hotel fire, passed away today.
1936: “Jewish children from the east side of Berlin found themselves unexpectedly barred today from Bad Klingenberg on Lake Rummelsburg” when they were confronted with recently erected signs reading “Jews not wanted.”
1936: “In the Bakaa quarter on the Jerusalem-Bethlehem Road” “a burning rag soaked in kerosene was thrown through a window in the storeroom of a Jewish baby home” which housed “ninety-seven infants and fifty adults including mothers and nurses” in what was “one of the cruelest acts of terrorism perpetrated in the cause of Arab nationalism.”
1936: “Supreme Court Justice William T. Collins criticized Germany’s racial policy in a decision” today permitting Marcel M. Holzer who had been “sent to a concentration camp in 1933 for six months because he was a Jew” and who was a former employee of the Reichsbahn (German State Railroads) “to bring sut here for upward of $50,000 damages because he was discharged as a ‘non-Aryan.’”
1936: “The Palestine Government today extended the death penalty to crimes of sabotage as it fought to end the violence and destruction that in the last nine weeks have resulted in more than eighty deaths of Jews, Arabs and Christians.”
1936:The Palestine Post reported that according to the new Palestine Emergency Regulations a life sentence could be imposed on any person carrying arms, bombs or incendiary material. Arab attacks on Jewish settlements continued unabated. Police patrols were stoned in Arab villages and three British soldiers were injured in various shooting incidents throughout the country.
1937: “The Latest Book Received” column published today included a listing for If I Forget Thee a novel by Josef Dunner that is described as “a story of the reorientation of two German Jews.”
1937: While preaching his “last sermon of the season” today at Congregation Ohab Zadek in New York, Rabbi William Margolis said today, “Current happenings in Europe are finally convincing the world that the enemies of democracy are the foes of all men”
1938: Twenty-eight year old Liselotte Herrman, the mother of a four year old son whose husband Fritz died in Gestapo custody was guillotined after having been convicted for opposing the Nazi regime. (She was not Jewish, but it is important to remember those who sacrificed to hold back the Night)
1939: In commenting on wave of violence gripping Palestine including yesterday’s bombing in Haifa, Davar wrote, “”Who throws bombs? Is it the same hand that is sowing blood and ruin in the Arab market in the Jewish suburb? These are not the ways of the Jewish population in Palestine in their struggle…Ruin and paralysis of economic life will only hurt the Jews in Palestine. Sacrifices may be necessary for our political struggle but every act paralyzing our life unnecessarily weakens the Jews here more than its sabotages the Palestine Government’s new policy and it only causes failure of Palestine Jewry’s struggle against the policy.” In a separate column, David Ben Gurion condemned the violence saying “The Jews must sacrifice everything for immigration, colonization, self-defense and independence but we must not sully our struggle with despicable acts of madness such as have been recently committed at Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa. The murder of innocent Arabs and Jews and stupid sabotage are act that are only helping our most bitter enemies. Such criminal acts soil our just struggle, undermine the efficiency of our work and play the game of our foes.”
1939: Final broadcast of Song School, a radio show featuring Jewish Jazzman Benny Goodman
1940: Jewish prisoners began arriving at Ferramonti, one of the 15 concentration camps established by Mussolini during the summer of 1940. In the next three years, 3,800 Jews would be imprisoned in all of the camps.
1940: “Blueberry Hill” a song with lyrics by Al Stock and Al Lewis, which Fats Dominon would make famous in the 1950 was recorded by Mary Small with the Nat Brandwynne’s orchestersa. (Editor’s note – Stock and Lewis were Jewish)
1940: On the day when France surrendered to Germany Propper de Callejón was First Secretary of the Spanish Embassy in Paris. In order to prevent the German army from plundering the art collection that his wife's family kept at the Chateau de Royaumont, he declared this castle to be his main residence, so it would be treated in the same privileged way as the accommodation of any other diplomat. Among the art works thus saved are a triptych of Van Eyck (one of Adolf Hitler´s favorite painters). In July 1940, , in co-operation with the Portuguese Consul Arístedes de Sousa Menendes, he would issue from the Spanish Consulate in Bordeaux more than thirty thousand transit visas to Jews, so that they could cross Spain to reach Portugal. When Spain's Foreign Minister Ramón Serrano Suñer learned that Propper de Callejón was issuing visas without the previous authorization of his Ministry, he had him transferred to the Consulate of Larache in the Spanish protectorate in Morocco. Afterwards, he would be posted to Rabat, Zurich Washington, Ottawa and Oslo. Propper de Callejón's father, Max Propper, was a Bohemian Jew, and his mother, Juana Callejón, was a Spanish Catholic; they raised Eduardo and his brothers in the Catholic faith His wife, Hélène Fould-Springer was a socialite and painter. She was from a notable Jewish Austrian-French banking family, though she converted to Catholicism upon their marriage and is a sister of prominent Paris art patron and philanthropist Liliane de Rothschild (Baroness Élie de Rothschild,) 1916—2003). He never gained public recognition for his heroic acts before his death in 1972 in London.
1940: As they continued their dangerous trek to avoid capture by the Nazis, Hans and Margaret Reys arrived in Bayonne, France where they received visas that had been signed by Portuguese Vice-Consul Manuel Vierira Braga which enabled them to cross the border into Spain, the next step on an odyssey that took them to Lisbon, Rio and finally New York. Hans Reys is the creator of Curious George. Like so many others, he owes his life to the Portuguese diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes.
1941: In Leicester, UK, Russell E. Frears, a general practitioner and accountant, and Ruth M. (née Danziger) who did not tell her son that she Jewish “until he was in his late twenties” gave birth to Stephen Arthur Frears
1941(25thof Sivan, 5701): Seventy-five year old Harold Nathan, the son of : “Robert W. Nathan and Annie Florence Nathan whose ancestor were among the early settlers of New York City” and graduate of Columbia University Law School who was a “partner in the law firm of Cook, Nathan, Lehman and Greenman,” a member of Temple Emanuel and the husband of Sallie Gruntal Nathan with whom he had two children – Marian and Robert, “the novelist and poet” passed away today.
1941: As of today, “more than 2,000,000 Jews live in New York City” but “about 35 percent of the employable 365,000 Jewish young men and women have been unable to find jobs”
1941: As of today, “among the three largest banks” in New York City “with a payroll of 20,000 only about 200 Jews are on the salary list.
1942: Sixteen month old Tomas Abraham was deported today from Prague to Terezin, the first step on his trip to Auschwitz where he would be murdered two years later. (Editor’s note - The Nazis were such mighty warriors)
1942: Grace Goodside married cinematographer Jess Paley meaning that she would gain fame as Grace Paley.
1942: Mass killings of Jews by the Nazis began at Auschwitz.
1942: Thirty-three year old Hynek Abraham was transported from Prague to Terezin, the first stop on his trip to Auschwitz where he was murdered two years later.
1942: After breaking into a warehouse at Auschwitz, Ukrainian Eugeniusz Bendera and three Poles, Kazimierz Piechowski, Stanisław Gustaw Jaster, and Józef Lempart dressed as members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände (the SS units responsible for concentration camps), armed themselves, and stole an SS staff car, which they then drove unchallenged through the main gate
1942: From now until October 9th, 13,776 Jews would be deported from Vienna to Theresienstadt
1943: Rabbi Harold I. Saperstein responded to tributes paid at a gathering this evening celebrating ten ears of rabbinical service to Temple Emanu-El and provided a sendoff for the leave of absence he was taking to begin serving as a chaplain in the U.S. Army that ended with his hope that just as the first decade of his service was marked by the “accession of Hitler to power” so this next decade “shall be inaugurated with the triumph of democracy.”
1943: Five thousand Jews from Amsterdam are deported to Auschwitz.
1943: The Ternopol (Ukraine) Ghetto is liquidated.
1943: Himmler sent 100 Jews to a concentration camp in Alsace called Natzweiler. They were killed there and their skeletons were sent to the Anatomical Museum in Strasbourg.
1943: Five thousand, five hundred Jews were rounded up in Amsterdam and deported.
1944: Max and Frieda Löwy Sipser applied to be sent to the refugee shelter that had just been established at Fort Ontario, NY on the same day that the Displaced Persons Sub-Commission of the Allied Control Commission posted the notice for applicants.
1945(9th of Tammuz, 5705): Fifty-eight year old German born author and playwright Bruno Frank who left Germany with his wife Liesl after the Reichstag Fire and eventually made his way to the United States where he wrote scripts for such films as “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”
1945: Aware that “British hostility to the Zionist enterprise was often a mask for anti-Semitism,” Churchill cautioned his colleague Lord Croft to “not be drawn into any campaign that might be represented as anti-Semitism.”
1946: In Moscow, Alexander Kazhdan and his wife gave birth to Dmitry Aleksandrovich Kazhdan who emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1975 at which time he changed his name David Kazhdan, became an Orthodox Jew who made Aliyah in 2002 where he became a professor of Mathematics at Hebrew University.
1947: Following his announcement that he was leaving Beth El in Camden for a new position At Beth Abraham in Oakland, CA, Camden Mayor Brunner wrote a letter published in today’s “Voice” expression his admiration for Rabbi Philip Lipis saying “that Camden was privileged to enjoy his presence and leadership for twelve years.”
1947(2nd of Tammuz, 5707): Ben "Bugsy" Siegel was gunned down by fellow mobsters over financial irregularities surrounding the building of the Flamingo in Las Vegas.
1947: “Twenty minutes after Bugsy Siegel was murder, Meyer “Lansky's associates, including Gus Greenbaum and Moe Sedway, walked into the Flamingo Hotel and took control of the property.”
1948: During the Israeli War for Independence, the Etzel (Irgun) ship Altelena reached the coast of Tel Aviv carrying 800 new immigrants and weapons. The Etzel claimed they had an agreement that 20% of the arms on board would be used by its members in defending Jerusalem. David Ben Gurion, head of the new state of Israel, saw this as threat to the power of the new government. He believed that there could only be one army and that it had to be under the control of the national government. If the Irgun wanted to fight, then its members had to become part of the army just as the members of the Palmach and the Haganah had done. Ben Gurion refused to accept any compromise on this point. He ordered the ship to be fired upon. The incident almost caused a civil war and was only averted by an impassioned and at times incoherent speech made by Menachem Begin to his followers over the radio that night not to take up arms against fellow Jews. One only has to look at multiplicity of armed groups operating today on the West Bank and Gaza to see what would have happened if Ben Gurion had not reluctantly taken such bold action which was necessary if the new state of Israel was going to be a coherent nation.
Because of the controversy that still revolves around this event I have published a second version
1948: Just over a month after the State of Israel was established and shortly after the first cease fire in the War of Independence, Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, gave one of the country's most controversial orders ever - to take the Altalena by force.Prior to the establishment of the state, several armed Jewish militias protected early Jewish settlers and fought against the British and hostile Arab forces. The largest of these groups were the Hagana and the Irgun Zva’I Leumi (Irgun or IZL). The Hagana, led by Ben-Gurion, became the Israeli Defense Forces once the state was declared in May 1948 and the Irgun was under the command of Menahem Begin.In mid-May 1948, during the War of Independence, Ben-Gurion ordered the various militias disbanded and integrated into the IDF in order to create one army under a unified command. While some of the militias willingly sent their fighters and weaponry to the IDF, others were unwilling to relinquish the established paramilitary organizations they had built. Notably, the Irgun, for both ideological and political reasons, was unwilling to put itself under Ben-Gurion’s command.Begin and other Irgun commanders were still attempting to ship significant amounts of weaponry and fresh immigrant fighters into Israel in the last days of the British Mandate. The Irgun organized a large ship carrying weaponry and fighters from France, scheduled to arrive on Israel’s shores in mid-May. Due to logistical and operational factors, however, the departure of the Altalena was delayed.By the time the ship was ready to sail, loaded with nearly 1,000 immigrant fighters and thousands of tons of materiel, the first ceasefire in the War of Independence had already been reached and importing weaponry would have constituted a violation of it. The Jewish state, however, was in need of weaponry and ammunition, so when Begin approached Ben-Gurion to inform him of the shipment, the two attempted to negotiate a deal that would see the ship’s cargo safely unloaded.In order to evade detection by United Nations observers overseeing the ceasefire, the Irgun and the newly anointed leaders of the state and its army decided that the Altalena should be offloaded at Kfar Vitkin, near Netanya.Negotiations between the Irgun and Ben-Gurion were complicated by Begin’s insistence on transferring most of the ship’s cargo to Irgun units operating within the newly established IDF, a condition to which Ben-Gurion could not agree. The new leader of Israel was already wary of having non-state controlled armed forces operating independently of the army and believed that directing the weaponry to IDF units from the Irgun would lead to an “army within an army.”As the ship began its final approach to Kfar Vitkin, IDF forces were ordered to surround the area in order to seize the payload. Following failed negotiations, the government decided to issue an ultimatum. The military commander on scene sent Begin a clear message: “I shall use all the means at my disposal in order to implement the order and to requisition the weapons which have reached shore and transfer them from private possession into the possession of the Israel government… You have ten minutes to give me your answer.” Small-scale fighting between the two sides broke out at Kfar Vitkin, but Begin and the Irgun, aware of their numerical and tactical disadvantage, decided to send the Altalena south to Tel Aviv where more fighters could be assembled and the army was not yet situated to intercept the ship. Irgun fighters who had already joined the IDF began defecting from their commands and headed to Tel Aviv to fight for their weaponry. As the two forces descended on Tel Aviv, fighting erupted along the shore and throughout the city, “mainly in the center and the south,” The Palestine Post reported in the aftermath of the clashes. The Israeli navy and artillery pieces on shore fired warning shots at the ship in a last-ditched attempt to force a surrender, but eventually hit the ship, setting it ablaze. Ultimately, over 20 Irgun fighters and more than a handful of IDF soldiers were killed in the fighting between the two Jewish forces. The Altalena was eventually brought out to sea and sunk.Ben-Gurion has been both praised and disdained for his decision to take the Altalena by force. Fearing a civil war and a lack of government legitimacy based on the concept of a monopoly of force, Ben-Gurion ultimately decided that he could not tolerate Begin’s brazen refusal to put himself, his fighters and weaponry under the state’s command. Following the Altalena incident, however, Irgun and other militia forces were integrated into the IDF and the non-democratic challenges to the state’s legitimacy came to an end. Nonetheless, the decision to order Jewish soldiers to act against fellow Jews – who too were fighting for the infant state’s survival – has never been forgiven by some who view it as a betrayal of the very purpose of a Jewish army. Until this day, the Altalena is invoked at times when state security forces are pitted against Jews, albeit not with the deadly consequences of June 1948.
1948(13th of Sivan, 5708): Twenty Jews were killed in a bombing in the Jewish Quarter of Cairo.
1948: In Cincinnati, Ohio, Carl and Edith Henry gave birth to photojournalist Diana Mara Henry whose subjects have included Elizabeth Holtzman and Bella Abzug, “her most enduring friend and client who since 1985 “has been writing, translating from the French, publishing and speaking] about the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp and its Nacht und Nebel political prisoners, including the Jewish spy Andre Scheinmann.”
1950(5th of Tammuz, 5710): Sixty-two year old Georgia businessman Sam Lazarus, the husband of Annie Stein Lazarus with whom he had five children, drowned t today in Neptune Beach, FL where he was entertaining friends at his summer house.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that legislation empowered the minister of finance to underwrite up to 50 percent of mortgage loans for the construction of low-cost housing.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that Britain had promised to press Egypt to open the Suez Canal for oil tankers bound for the Haifa refineries. Contrary to earlier news, General William Riley, chief UN representative in the Middle East, reported to the UN Security Council on June 13 that Egyptian interference with Israel-bound shipping in the Suez Canal was an "aggressive, hostile action, undertaken in the spirit of blockade and having partial effects of a blockade."
1951: “Kind Lady” a re-make of the 1935 film produced by Armand Deutsch with music by David Raksin and filmed by Cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg was released in the United States today.
1952: In address to the Commercial and Industrial Club, Schmuel Elyashiv, Israel’s Ambassador in Moscow “said there were prospects of expanding Israel’s trade relations with Russia. This year Israel shipped oranges and bananas to Russia.” The Soviets would have bought more if the Israelis had produced a larger crop.
1954: In Ramat Gan, Louis (Lutz) Eliezer Wolfermann and Tonya Krepel gave birth to Ilan Ramon, Israel’s first astronaut.
1956: Birthdate of Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Tom Weiner, the author of One Man Against the World” The Tragedy of Richard Nixon.
1960: Birthdate of Shachiv Shnaan the Druze Israeli who served in the Herev Battalion before starting a career in politics that included two stints as an MK.
1962: In Brooklyn, funeral services were held for Brooklyn native Grace Baer Bachrach, the school teacher and wife of attorney Clarence G. Bachrach with whom she had two children who was so active in various civic and cultural organizations including the “Brooklyn division of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies” that was honored as “Brooklyn’s First Lady of Philanthropy in 1956.
1963: In London, world premiere of “The Great Escape” a must see movie with a memorable score by Elmer Bernstein.
1964: “Nobody Loves an Albatross” a comedy produced by Philip Rose and directed by Gene Saks with Marian Winters in the role of “Marge Weber” came to a close today.
1965(20th of Sivan, 5725): Ninety-four year old financier and presidential advisor Bernard Baruch passed away.
1965(29th of Sivan, 5725): Eighty year old Oscar A. Berman, the Cincinnati born son of Adolph Aria Berman and Mary Agnes Jacob” passed away today in New York City.
1965:The New York Times reports on the challenge facing Jack Benny as he faces the first summer in 33 years when he “does not find himself in the midst of hectic preparations for a new season on radio or television.”a
1969(3rd of Tammuz, 5729): Terrorists set off three bombings near the Kotel killing one and injuring five.
1970: Birthdate of Jason Robert Brown who wrote the music and lyrics for “Parade” the Tony and Drama Desk award winning musical based on the life and lynching of Leo Frank.
1972: Birthdate of Yuval Semo, the Haifa native who a popular Israeli actor and comedian.
1973: “A Touch of Class” starring George Segal, directed and produced by Melvin Frank and with a script by Frank and Jack Rose was released in the United States today
1973: At Yale University in New Haven, CT, Bessie Margolin was awarded her Doctor of Science of Law degree today.
1973: Birthdate of Kansas City, MO native Joshua David Shapiro, the Georgetown University trained lawyer and Democratic Party leader who began serving as the 50th Attorney General of Pennsylvania in 2017.
1976: Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Davidooff announced the engagement of their daughter Norma, a producer reporter with Newsweek Broadcasting to Konrad J. Perlman the son of Mr. and Mrs. Alexander K. Perlman who used his master’s degree in city planning from Yale to become the chief of planning for the District of Columbia Department of Housing and Community Development.
1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that the US administration informed Israel that it would receive $200m. in transitional aid, much less than it was expected. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin told the Labor Party symposium "Israeli Arab citizens are entitled to full and equal rights, but with the knowledge that not all the duties of equal citizens are demanded of them, nor can all rights be granted to them as long as the enmity of the surrounding Arab world to Israel persists."
1977: Time magazine “revealed” the marriage of 58 year old Alan Jay Lerner to 27 year old Nina Bushkin, the daughter of jazz pianist Joey Bushkin. It is her first marriage and his sixth.
1977:Yitzhak Moda'I began serving as Minster of Energy and Water.
1977: Ezer Weizman succeeds Shimon Peres as Defense Minister.
1977:Gideon Patt succeeds Shlomo Rosen as Minister of Housing and Construction
1977:Aharon Abuhatzira succeeds Haim Yosef Zadok as Minister of Religious Services
1977: Meir Amit succeeds Aharon Uzan as Communications Minister.
1977:Yosef Burg succeeds Shlomo Hillel as Interior Minister
1977: Moshe Dayan began serving as Israel’s 5thMinister of Foreign Affairs.
1977: Shlomo Hillel completed his service as Minister of Public Security after which the ministry was abolished Prime Minister Menachem Begin a situation that would change in 1984 when the position was resurrected.
1978(15th of Sivan, 5738): Sixty-four year old Canadian born award-winning director Mark Robson passed away today.
1979(25th of Sivan, 5739):Yisrael Yeshayahu Sharabi passed away. Born in Yemen in 1908, he made Aliyah in 1929. He served as an MK, cabinet minister and fifth Speaker of the Knesset
1980(6th of Tammuz, 5740): David Feuerwerker, French born Canadian Rabbi and Historian, passed away.
1980: “Can’t Stop the Music,” a musical comedy with a script co-authored by producer Allan Carr and co-starring Steve Guttenberg was released today in the United States.
1980: U.S. premiere of “The Blues Brothers” directed by John Landis featuring Steve Lawrence, Frank Oz, Paul Reubens and Steven Spielberg.
1982: Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin arrived in Washington.
1985(1stof Tammuz, 5745): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1985: In Dublin, the Irish Jewish Museum is opened bythe Irish born former President of Israel Dr. Chaim Herzog during his State visit to Ireland.
1989: Birthdate of Christopher Charles Mintz-Plasse “an American actor known for starring in films such as Superbad, Role Models, Year One, and Kick-Ass.”
1990(27th of Sivan, 5750): Actress Ina Balin died at the age of 52 from pulmonary hypertension.
1990(27thof Sivan, 5750: Ninety-five year old Clifton Fadiman, the Brooklyn born son of Isidore Michael and Grace Elizabeth Fadiman who gained fame as the super-intellectual during the golden age of radio passed away today.
1990: “Rabbi With Tefillin” by Jan Styka goes on sale at Christie’s Auction House. The painting completed in 1892 was the product of a Polish artist. Can such a painting be described as Jewish Art? Look at the canvas and you decide.
1991(8th of Tammuz, 5751): Ninety-three year old British philanthropist and businessman Sir Isaac Wolfson passed away today. (As reported by Eric Pace)
1993: The first of four scheduled tours sponsored by the American Jewish Congress which include an opportunity to be a bar or bat Mitzvah at the Kotel or the in Masada begins today.
1995: “Little Women” starring Winona Ruder with music by Thomas Newman “had its initial North America video release on VHS” today.
1996: As he was laid to rest, “Mel Allen was recalled today as a devoted brother and uncle, a man who once left a hospital bed for Yom Kippur services, and a gentle voice who elevated "broadcasting to a prayer with three words: 'How about that?'“during services at Temple Beth-El led by Rabbi Joshua Hammerman.
1996(3rd of Tammuz, 5756): Ninety-one year old Louis J. Lefkowitz, the longest serving state attorney general passed away today. (As reported by Nick Ravo)
1997: “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” a romantic comedy produced by Jerry Zucker was released today in the United States.
1999(6th of Tammuz, 5759): Ninety-five year old “super-intellectual Clifton Fadiman, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants who gained fame during the gold age of radio.” (As reported by Richard Severo)
1999: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Noah's Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries About the Event That Changed Historyby William Ryan and Walter Pitman.
2000(17thof Sivan, 5760): Seventy-seven year old “Jay Grayson, the versatile WBAL radio and television personality who for nearly 40 years closed his show with the admonition, "If you liked my show, buy my jams and jellies” who was born Jerome Bernard Goldberg passed away today.
2001(29th of Sivan, 5761): Ilya Krivitz, 62, of Homesh in Samaria was shot and killed at close range in an ambush late Wednesday afternoon in the nearby Palestinian town of Silat a-Dahar.
2002: Jean-François Copé completed his first term as Mayor Meaux.
2002: Following its showing at the Skirball, “Myer Myers: Jewish Silversmith in Colonial New York is scheduled to open today at the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum in Delaware
2002(10th of Tammuz, 5762): Rachel Shabo, 40, and three of her sons - Neria, 16, Zvika, 12, and Avishai, 5 - as well as a neighbor, Yosef Twito, 31, who came to their aid, were murdered when a terrorist entered their home in Itamar, south of Nablus, and opened fire. Two other children were injured, as well as two soldiers. The terrorist was killed by IDF forces. The PFLP and the Fatah Al Aqsa Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.
2003(20th of Sivan, 5763): Zvi Goldstein, 47, of Eli, was killed when his car was fired upon in an ambush by Palestinian terrorists near Ofra, north of Ramallah. His parents, Eugene and Lorraine Goldstein, from New York, were seriously wounded and his wife lightly injured. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. (Jewish Virtual Library)
2003: “Hulk” a film based on the comic superhero created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, produced by Avi Arad and James Schamus who provided the story and co-author the script and with music by Danny Elfman was released in the United States today.
2003: “Dr. Judith Rodin, Penn president since 1994, announced today that she intends to step down from the office when she completes her 10-year term in June 2004. The announcement came following a regularly scheduled meeting of the Board of Trustees on Penn's campus.”
2003: Richard Nathan Haas completed his two year plus service as Director of Policy Planning under President Bush.
2004(1st of Tammuz, 5764): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
2004: In an article styled “Remembering Anne Frank, now 75,” The Cedar Rapids Gazette notes events around the world intended to celebrate the life and writings of one of the most famous victims of the Shoah.
2004:The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including War, Evil, and the End of History by Bernard-Henri Lévy; translated by Charlotte Mandell.
2006: Haaretz reported that Israel's ambassador to Germany presented medals of honor to relatives of five members of the first "European Union" - an anti-Nazi resistance group whose members hid and fed Jews during World War Two. This European Union, which had the same name but nothing to do with the modern 25-nation bloc of European countries, was an underground, Marxist-oriented group with around 50 to 60 German members, according to a protocol prepared by Yad Vashem Holocaust museum.
2007: In Jerusalem “legendary Israeli composer/singer Shlomo Gronich presents his newest compositions of biblical sources on a wide spectrum of themes: justice, righteousness, integrity, man and his identity, love songs & prayers. The performance includes Gronich on piano & shofar, the Jerusalem String Quartet and percussion.”
2007: “Salon.com posted an online three-page excerpt from” A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency by Glenn Greenwald.
2007(4th of Tammuz, 5767): Eighty-five year old Jerome “Jerry” Fleishman who played college basketball for NYU and professional basketball for the Philadelphia Warriors passed away today.
2007: The Jerusalem Post carried a page one report stating that Shin Bet had foiled a bombing of the synagogue in Modin known as the “pizza shul” or Zichron L’Avraham.
2008: Colonel Jack Weinstein was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General in the United States Air Force.
2008: Australian businessman Richard J. Pratt was charged with lying about his knowledge of a price-fixing scandal.
2008: “For My Father,” an Israeli film directed by Droro Zahavi, premiered today at the Moscow International Film Festival.
2008: In Washington, D.C. Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, the former president of George Washington University, discusses and signs Big Man on Campus: A University President Speaks Out on Higher Education at Politics and Prose Bookstore.
2008: The Spertus Museum announced that it was shutting down an exhibition entitled “Imaginary Coordinates” in the wake of an outcry from Chicago –area Jews that it expressed an anti-Israel basis.
2008: In Sarajevo, at The Jewish Film Festival of Croatia, a member of the Jewish community speaks about filming the documentary “Sarayevo Mi Seudad de Oro,” (“Sarajevo My God City”) which tells the story of the Jewish community’s role in helping people escape the last war in Bosnia.
2009: At Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa Sarah Maikon, daughter of Renee Maikon and Marc Maikon, and granddaughter of Sandy and Sol Maikon, is called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah.
2009: G'day Shalom Salaam Israel, presented by the Australia Israel Cultural Exchange opens in Israel. As part of the G'day Shalom Salaam Israel event Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard will participate in the first Australian Israel Leadership Forum organized by the Australia Israel Cultural Exchange (AICE).
2010:The Los Angeles Times features a “Sunday Conversation With Daniel Handler” who is perhaps better known for his pen name, Lemony Snicket, and his bestselling volumes of children's books, A Series of Unfortunate Eventsand The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming: A Christmas Story.
2010: Memorabilia and Memory: Hitler's Hat and other shorts by local filmmaker Jeff Krulik is scheduled to be shown as part of the Jewish Study Center Film Festival in Washington, D.C.
2010: Bowing to worldwide pressure and condemnation, Israel formally announced an eased blockade of Gaza that could significantly expand the flow of goods overland into the impoverished coastal Palestinian enclave, isolated by the Israelis for three years. The White House said it “welcomes the new policy towards Gaza announced by the government of Israel, which responds to the calls of many in the international community.”
2010: In “General Franco Gave List of Spanish Jews to Nazis” Giles Tremlett described this little known tale of how the Spanish dictator provided “fodder” for the German Murder Machine.
2011: Bob Dylan performed at Ramat Gan Stadium tonight.
2011: The Hillel Annual Milwaukee Meeting is scheduled to take place this evening in Wisconsin’s largest city.
2011: The funeral for Morris Pollard, 95, a prominent U.S. researcher on viral diseases who died June 18 of complications from a bladder infection was held today.
2011: Israel has returned nuclear waste from its Sorek nuclear reactor to the U.S., the head of Israel's Nuclear Energy Commission Dr Shaul Horev revealed today.
2012: Jewish Social Service Agency (JSSA) Employment and Career Services is scheduled to present “Smart is Not Enough! Hidden Key to Career Success” featuring JSSA Life and Career Coach Phyllis Levinson.
2012: Mandolin virtuoso Avi Avital is scheduled to perform Le Poisson Rouge in NYC
2012: In a novel attempt to bring Judaism to the people, Rabbi Dan Ain is scheduled to be available to answering about God or whatever at Tribeca Café in NYC.
2012:A Gaza rocket has directly hit a home in the Sdot Negev Regional council on today, as more than 30 rockets were fired into southern Israel since the morning. (As reported by Yanir Yagna, Gili Cohen and Avi Issacharoff)
2012:The military wing of Hamas published a report today morning on its website, in which it states that “the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades continues to attack the enemy with rockets for the second straight day, and has launched 9 rockets at the Sofa military base.”
2012(30thof Sivan, 5772): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
2012: Albert Sachs an opponent apartheid and Judge on the Constitution Court of South Africa received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Dundee
2012:Ultra-Orthodox residents of Beit Shemesh attacked a woman driving through the city on today. Police were investigating the incident. Police said the attackers threw stones at the car because they believed the driver was dressed in an inappropriate and immodest manner. (As reported by Aaron Kalman)
2012: The body of Aaron Joseph Zindani, who was stabbed to death outside the US Embassy in Sana’a, Yemen, in May, was transported to Israel today. The arrival of the body marked the end of a long and complex operation by the Jewish Agency and the Foreign Ministry that also saw Zindani’s family, including his widow and the couple’s five children, brought to Israel. Zindani was a Jewish community leader in Yemen. He was 48 years old at the time of his murder.
2012: Israeli Air Force jets bombed terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip for a second time Wednesday evening, following an unremitting rocket and mortar barrage on southern Israeli towns throughout the day. (As reported by Gabe Fisher)
2012: Pierre Lellouche began serving as the Deputy for Paris’ 1st Constituency.
2013: The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide is scheduled to co-host a Refugee Week writing workshop entitled “I’m Not Going Back.”
2013: Barbra Streisand is scheduled to sing at Bloomfield Stadium in Jaffa.
2013: After having strained his back again, New York Yankees third baseman Kevin Youkilis “underwent season ending surgery to repair a herniated disk in his back” today.
2013: A rebel group that operates on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights stated today that it would not fight Israel if Israel sends forces into Syria. A spokesman for the rebel group, which is based in Quneitra, made the comments to Al-Jazeera. (As reported by Yoel Goldman)
2013:
Italian Praised for Saving Jews Is Now Seen as Nazi Collaborator (As reported by Patricia Cohen) tells the story of Giovanni Palatuccie, “the Italian Schindler” credited with saving 5,000 Jews during the Holocaust which may have been a giant fraud.
2014: Masses will be said in Luxemburg and Portugal today in remembrance of the June 17th“Day of Conscience” which honors the member of Aristides de Sousa, the Portuguese diplomat who defied Dictator Salazar and issued life-saving visas to thousands of refugees enough of whom were Jewish to earn him recognition by Yad Vashem.
2014: At the 92nd Street Y, A.J. Baime is scheduled to sign copies of The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War after his presentation on how the American automobile industry re-tooled itself in response to President Roosevelt’s call to make America “the Arsenal of Democracy."
2014: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met today with the families of kidnapped Israeli teens Naftali Frankel, Gil-ad Shaar, and Eyal Yifrach, who were abducted June 12 in Gush Etzion.”
2014: Today “marked the last day of the 5774 school year for 673,000 Israeli high school students.”
2014: Curator Zachary Paul Levine was interviewed on WAMU's Metro Connection about the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington’s efforts to save D.C.'s only known synagogue mural.
2014: In Coralville, Iowa, Agudas Achim hosts Musical Shabbat with Rebecca Kushner.
2015(3rd of Tammuz, 5775): Parashat Korach
2015(3rd of Tammuz, 5775): Eighty-four year old photographer Harold Feinstein passed away today.
2015: In a reminder that bigotry knows no boundaries “a website apparently created by Dylann Roof emerged today in which the accused Charleston church shooter rails against African Americans, “Jewish agitation of the black race,” and appears in photographs with guns and burning the US flag.”
2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host a “Brahms Fest.”
2015: A tour that includes visits to Krakow and Auschwitz/Birkenau sponsored by CANDLES (Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors) is scheduled to depart from Chicago today.(As reported by William Grimes.)
2015: An Unknown Country the new film by Ecuadorian-born Jewish filmmaker Eva Zelig that describes the history of this little known Jewish community is scheduled to be shown today as part of New York’s Ecuadorian Film Festival.
2016: Migdalei haYam haTichon is scheduled to host "Classical & Romantic Beads" a unique piano solo recital featuring concert pianist Eliah Zabaly,
2016: “Censored Voices” a film based on interviews conducted by Avraham Shapira and Amos Oz with Israeli soldiers following The Six Day War is scheduled to be shown at the Portland, Oregon Jewish Film Festival.
2016: The second annual “Towards a New Law of Conference” sponsored by Shurat HaDin is scheduled to open today in Jerusalem.
2017(26th of Sivan, 5777): Eighty-four year old “folklorist” Roger D. Abrahams passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)
2017: Voters in Georgia’s 6thCongressional District take part in a runoff election featuring Jewish Democrat Jon Ossoff’s long-shot attempt to turn a very Red House Seat to Blue.
2017: Roger Cohen of the NYT is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Liberty and Facts: Isaiah Berlin in the Age of Trump” sponsored by the Center for Jewish History.
2017: “Letters written by Albert Einstein about God, Israel and physics fetched nearly $210,000 at a Jerusalem auction today, with the highest bid going to a missive about God’s creation of the world.”
2018: In New York City, the Rizzoli Bookstore is scheduled to host Eliezer Armon as he talks about his new book If Architecture Is A Language Then A Building Is A Story which was inspired, in part “by images from Israel and its landscape.
2018: “Israel is on the verge of laying out a framework for a “state level defense shield” to raise the level of readiness against threats, Yigal Unna, the nation’s cybersecurity chief said today, warning that the world hasn’t yet seen the worst of the damage hackers can wreak and that “winter is still coming.” (As reported by Shoshannah Solomon)
2018:” Rocket sirens blared in the south throughout the early morning hours today, as barrages totaling some 45 rockets and mortar shells were fired toward Israeli towns, prompting rounds of Israeli airstrikes on Hamas military sites in the Gaza Strip.” (As reported by Judah Ari Gross)
2018: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host an event as part of World Refugees which will include an address by “refugee protection specialist Katie Tobin of UNHCR.
2019: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to host David Serero’s adaption of Romeo and Juliet “featuring Ladino and Yiddish songs.”
2019: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host two screenings of “93Queen”
2019: At a ceremony today in Israel, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft who is still facing charges in Florida of soliciting a prostitute, is scheduled to receive “the Genesis Prize, a prestigious award commonly known as the ‘Jewish Nobel Prize.’”
2019: The Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines is scheduled to hold its annual meeting this evening in the capital city of Iowa.2019: It was reported today that Israel has completed “its largest military drill in years” which was a simulation of war with Hezbollah.
JUNE 20
840: Louis the Pious, King of the Franks and the Holy Roman Emperor by virtue of being the son of Charlemagne. When it came to dealing with his Jewish subjects, Louis followed in the footsteps of his father. During his reign charters were issued giving “Jews permission ‘live according to their Law.’ They promised protection of body and property and permitted freedom of movement and trade including…the right to hire Christians to work in their homes. Some Jews were also exempted from the laws of trial by ‘ordeal of fire and water.’”
1214: University of Oxford received its charter. Jews were not always welcome at Oxford. The Oxford University Reform Act passed in 1854 allowed Jews to take degrees at Oxford. Today, Oxford offers degrees in both Hebrew and Jewish Studies.
1239: Pope Gregory IX ordered all copies of the Talmud to Dominican and Franciscan friars who would review the text looking for disparaging references to Jesus and Mary. Any copies that were found to contain such references were to be burned. This is the same Pope who in 1234 had “invested the doctrine of perpetua servitus iudaeorum – perpetual servitude of the Jews – with the force of canonical law. According to this, the followers of the Talmud would have to remain in a condition of political servitude until Judgment Day.”
1338: Duke Otto and Duke Albert issued their “Jews’ Decree.”
1391 (17thof Tammuz): “The Christian population of Toledo rose against the largest Jewish community in Spain.” Four thousand Jews were killed.
1510: Birthdate of Beatrice de Luna who gained fame as Gracia Mendes Nasi one of the richest and most powerful women of her times who was the mother-in-law of Don Joseph Nasi.
1567: Jews were expelled from Brazil by order of Regent Don Henrique
1616: Sir Henry Finch the author of The World's Great Restauration, or Calling of the Jews, and with them of all Nations and Kingdoms of the Earth to the Faith of Christ which called for the “restoration of the Jews to the promised land as a step to the Second Coming was knighted at Whitehall Plalace
1647: In Dresden, John George II and Magdalene Sybille of Brandenburg-Bayreuth gave birth to their only son John George III, Elector of Saxony who in 1682 “issued a new decree, in which the onerous regulations relating to Jews passing through the country were somewhat modified, since those regulations were found to be detrimental to the yearly fairs at Leipsic.”
1652: During the reign of Mehemed IV, Tarhoncu Ahmet Paşa was appointed grand vezir of the Ottoman Empire. During Pasa’s time of service, Mehmemed Jews fleeing the Chmielnitzki Uprising were encouraged to settle on the banks of the Danube in Morea, Kavala, Istanbul and Salonica.
1667: Clement IX began his papacy during which Giovanni Battista Jona, the rabbi who converted to Christianity at Warsaw in 1625, dedicated a translation into Hebrew of The New Testament.
1757: A debate began today at Kamienice in which the Sabbatians sought to prove that there doctrine, unlike Judaism, was compatible with Christianity.
1768: The third of the Haidamack uprisings called Koliyivschyna began. During the uprising an estimated 50,000 Ukrainian Jews were murdered by the Cossacks. “The Haidmamaks were gangs of Cossacks, who along with their peasant allies robbed traveling merchants and plundered the towns and villages in the Ukraine. They saw themselves as heirs to Khmelnitski. The Khmelnitski were the Cossacks who slaughtered Jews and Poles in wholesale lots in the middle of the 17th century. Both of these murderous slaughters were part of the drift into degradation that became the lot of increasing numbers of Eastern European Jews. This drift into degradation brought about numerous responses on the part of the Jews ranging from mysticism and messianicism to the Haskalah and immigration to Western Europe and eventually to the New World.
1757: In Kameiek (Podolia), the Frankists, calling themselves Zoharists, decided to wage war against the Talmud. They contacted the local bishop, Dembovsky, and convinced him to arrange a disputation. Naturally, the Talmud was condemned and thousands of copies were burned. The Frankists then became practicing Christians. The Frankists were Jews who were followers of Jacob Frank who had proclaimed himself the Messiah.
1792(30thof Sivan 5552): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1792: Eighteen month old Heva bat Jacob Levi, who had passed away yesterday, was buried today at “Alderney Road (Globe Rd.) Jewish Cemetery.”
1792: Moses Magnus married Rachel Solomons today at the Great Synagogue.
1792: Birthdate of Samuel Israel Mulder, the Amsterdam native who was the first person to translate TaNaCh into Dutch.
1794: In Brno, Gottlieb Bezalel Jeiteles and Johanna Jeitteles gave birth to Alois Jeitteles the founder of the Jewish weekly Siona and the author of poetic works set to music by Ludwig van Beethoven.
1794: Birthdate of Austrian physician and author Alois Isidor Jeitteles, who founded the Jewish Weekly “Siona” and was the father of suffragette Ottilie Bondy.
1808: Birthdate of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, leading founder of what some call Modern Orthodox Judaism.
1811: Lewis Henry Lazarus married Eliza Aaron today at the Great Synagogue.
1811: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi Emanuel Nunes Carvalho who had been serving as the rabbi for the Jewish community in Bridgetown, Barbados, officiated at the wedding of Mrs. Catherine Jacobs and Solomon Hyams.
1812: In Philadelphia, Ezekiel Jacob Ezekiel and his wife Rebecca, both of whom had come from Amsterdam, gave birth to their second child and first son Jacob Ezekiel, the grandson of Hebrews scribe Eleazer Israel and nephew of Michael E. Cohen who adopted him when his mother died and began his career at the age of 13 as an apprentice book binder.
1815: Lord Rowerth, an agent of Nathan Rothschild who had stayed at Ostend awaiting to hear the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo brought word to the Jewish banker who “immediately transmitted the information to the government” – a fact that runs contrary to the myth that Rothschild made a fortune while keeping the news a secret.
1819: In Herxheim am Berg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, Therese Aron and Simon Kuhn gave brith to Abraham Kuhn.
1819: In Cologne, Isaac Judah (Eberst) Offenbach and Marianne Offenbach to composer Jacques Jacob Offenbach, who created almost 100 operettas in a twenty year period.
1823: In Germany, the government issued a decree “ordaining that Jewish services should be conducted exclusively in the German language and that the reading in Hebrew of sections of the Bible should be followed by their translation into the vernacular.”
1828: Mordecai M. Noah accused Elijah J. Roberts, “a former business associate” of having “violently assaulted” him on the steps of the Park Theatre. (Noah was one of the pre-eminent American Jews in the years between the Revolutionary and Civil Wars)
1832: Ellis Moses married Miriam Judah at the Western Synagogue in the United Kingdom.
1837: King William IV of Great Britain and Ireland who in 1797 while still the Prince of Wales visited Barbados where “he visited the synagogue and was presented with an address and a sword by the Congregation” passed away today.
1837: With the death of her uncle, King William IV, Queen Victoria assumes the throne. Since the British monarch reigns but does not rule, her influence on the progress of Jews of Britain and Europe were primarily tangential. Her treatment of Jews was a mixed bag. During the Damascus Blood Libel, the Queen put a British ship at the disposal of her friend and neighbor Moses Montefiore. But in 1869, the Queen blocked Lionel Rothschild elevation to the House of Lords. However, later she would agree to the elevation of Lionel’s son and would socialize with the French branch of the Rothschild family when she made trips across the channel. The change was brought about by Jewish financial support for the Suez project and her relationship with Benjamin Disraeli.
1839: Birthdate of Jacob Freudenthal, the native of Hanover and graduate of the rabbinical seminary of Breslau whose visit to the Netherlands to research the life of Spinoza produced Die Lebensgeschichte Spinoza's
1841: Mr. G.M. Loewentritt married Miss Betty Goldberg to at Sheyareeth Israel in Charleston, SC.
1843: In Oberlauterbach, Alsace, Isaiah Rosenthal and Rosa Walter gave birth to Jonas Rosenthal the husband of Jeanette Weil who came to the United States in 1860 where he attended school in Alexandria, LA before serving the Confederate Army for three and a half years in the Civil War following which he held several public positions capped off by being appointed U.S. Postmaster of Alexandria by President Grover Cleveland.
1849: Solomon Salamo married Phoebe Levy at the Great Synagogue.
1850: Five days after its application was received, Simon Lodge No. 4 of the Independent Order of Free Sons of Israel was “installed” today.
1854: Lieutenant Colonel Albert Goldsmid, a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars and the son of Benjamin Goldsmid was promoted to the rank of Colonel.
1856: In Bombay, Hannah Moise and Sir Albert Sassoon gave birth to Sir Edward Albert Sassoon.
1858: Rabbi Bernhard Felsenthal, the German born rabbi who had moved to Chicago “and accepted employment in the banking-house of Greenebaum Brothers” helped to found the Jüdische Reformverein today.
1859: In Luzerne County, PA, John and Helen McKeon Curran gave birth “the Very Rev. Mgr. John J. Curran’ the “militant Catholic priest nationally known as a friend of organized labor” who had a an ecumenical view of the world, long before that became fashionable as can be seen by the fact he “he was reputed to have as many friends among Protestants and Jews as among Catholic clergy and layman” and in the best sense of the Gospels “was the good neighbor to all.”
1871: Birthdate of Helmstedt, Germany native Edmund Moser a passenger on the ill-fated SS. St. Louis who survived the war even though his “country of disembarkation” was France which meant he was luckier than fellow family member and shipmate Roaslie Moser who did not survive.
1871: In Warsaw, Indiana, “well-known and respected merchant” Leopold Becker and Caroline (Vogel) Becker gave birth to Illinois attorney Benjamin Vogel Becker who was a partner in Newman, Northrup, Levinson and Becker and the husband of Elizabeth Loeb with whom he has one child John Leonard Becker.
1871: One day after he passed away, mathematician Numa Edward Hartog, the son of Alphonse and Marion Hartog was buried today at West Ham Jewish Cemetery.
1874: In Warsaw, “Israel Isaac and Chasha Peltz Zambrowsky” gave birth to S. Joshua Zambrowsky who served as rabbi “Congregation Tifereth Israel in Warsaw from 1901 to 1923” after which he served as the rabbi of “Congregation Poilez Tzedeck in Syracuse for ten years” and the “chief rabbi of the Buffalo Council of Jewish Congregations, Inc.”
1875: Congregation B'Nai Israel of Galveston voted to become one of the charter members of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
1875: Five days after he passed away, sixty-seven year old Isaac Benjamin was buried today at the “Lauriston Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1877: Meyer Freeman who owns a butcher shop at 38 Ludlow Street was awakened by two men –later identified as David Milstein and Isaac Goldstein – who had broken into his bedroom and were trying to steal the contents of a bureau that contained jewelry and box with $35 in cash. Freeman, clad only in his bed clothes, chased the robbers through the streets and captured Milstein whom he turned over to the policy. Milstein is a well-known criminal having spent 21 of the last 28 years in jail
1877: It was reported today that several other Jews who have been guests for several seasons at the Grand Union Hotel besides Joseph Seligman have been refused service at the Saratoga Springs Hotel. These include Mr. Marcus Goldman, the broker, Mrs. Louis Josephthal, the wholesale manufacturer and Mr. Max Landman, “the well-known tobacconist.” Each of them lives in Manhattan. Each of them wrote asking for rooms as they have done in the past. And each was refused without any explanation. The strangest case of rejection centered around Judge Joseph Koch, the distinguished jurist who had sat on the bench of the Fifth District Court. Judge Koch met with Mr. Calire, one of the managers of the hotel, at A.T. Stewart’s store in Manhattan. At that time Mr. Claire assured the Koch that he could have the same accommodations as he had in previous years. When Koch asked if he could have “a more desirable suite of apartments” Claire said that he would see to it as soon as he arrived at the hotel. However, Judge Koch has heard nothing more from Mr. Claire and assumes that he is as unwelcome as his coreligionists.
1877: It was reported today that the Jews of New York have had a mixed reaction to Mr. Seligman’s being banned from the Grand Union because he was Jewish. Some view this as part of a conflict between Judge Hilton and Mr. Seligman which has more to do with business than with religion. Others say that there is nothing new about such a ban. Other hotel owners have tried it, suffered financially and rescinded the ban. Yet others are bothered by the fact that Jews as a group were banned. They could understand not renting to people who do not pay their bills or who present other problems, but singling out Jews as a group does not make any sense. There seems to be a general consensus that it is best to avoid making this a matter for public demonstrations.
1877: It was reported today that many hotel owners in Boston were surprised to hear about the Judge Hilton’s decision to ban Jews from the Grand Union. Some of them know Mr. Seligman and hold him in the highest esteem. From a business point of view, times are so hard that turning away any guests who can afford to stay at their hotels does not make any sense to these owners. And if there is some grand plan afoot to ban Jews from hotels, they do not want to be a part of it.
1877: “The Position of New York Hotels” published today described the attitude of various hostelries in the Big Apple regarding Jewish guests. The St. James and the Albemarle follow the same exclusionary policies as those practiced by the Grand Union in Saratoga. The Windsor does not have the slightest possible objection to having Jews as guest finding them “as a class the promptest paying customers.” The Grand Central management thought that the Grand Union had made a “great mistake.” The Grand Union in Manhattan, the Hotel Brunswick, the Rossmore Hotel, the Fifth Avenue Hotel and the Sturtevant House all said they had no policy against Jewish guests and several of the hotels reported having some staying there at this very time.
1879: In New York City, The Jewish Messengerreports that "A new congregation has been started on East 57th Street, called Orach Chaim.” Some of the members of the new congregation were disaffected members of Adas Israel, another congregation located on the same street.
1880: Four days after he passed away “in the 76th year of his life” Moritz Moses Maurice was buried at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.
1880: “Puritan Christian Names” published today described how the printing of the Geneva Bible, an affordable English translation of the sacred text led to the adoption of many Old Testament (Jewish) names by English Puritans. Apparently, having finally been able to read the text, the “Puritan spirit led those whom it animated to a strong and very marked preference for the Jewish part of the Bible over the Christian.”
1881: The Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society took two hundred children on an outing aboard the steam boat Bellevue. The boat stopped at Hart’s Island so the children could enjoy themselves. [These outings were part of a program to get slum children out of the city and into the fresh air of the country.]
1882: An assignment for the benefit of creditors by Abraham Samuels to Lester Cohn was filed in the county clerk’s office today.
1883: Anglican Bishop and Biblical scholar John William Colenso the author of The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Critically Examined which he wrote in response to being questioned about the historical accuracy of these books and whether or not they should be taken literally passed away today. (Colenso was one of a series of Jewish and Christian theologians and authors who re-examined the traditional view of these texts as being literal truth or the modernist view that they were just a series of manufactured myths)
1884: It was reported today that a serious outbreak of anti-Semitic violence has broken out in Krivoroge, Russia.
1884: Birthdate of Norwegian businessman Moses Beeker who was arrested in Trondheim 1942 at murdered at Auschwitz in 1943 at the age of 58
1886: “Clubs Without Number” published today described the variety of New York social clubs that cater to various segments of the city’s population including the Jews some of whom frequent the Harmonie Club on 42nd Street while a greater number are found at the Hebrew Association at 317 Third Avenue. Actually Jews can be found at most of the popular clubs except for the Union and Knickerbocker clubs.
1887: Two Jewish peddlers, Simon Kleber and Judah Waser, were abused and driven out of a liquor store by the bartender when they tried to sell him their wares. The two men sought protection from Policeman Frederick Timme who responded by clubbing them and driving them away.
1887: “Jews and Gentiles In London” published today provided a snapshot of Jewish economic conditions in the capital of the UK picturing them as being wealthier than the non-Jewish population. For example, the average annual Jewish income is 82 pounds as compared with 35 ponds for the non-Jews. Jews with an income over 10,000 pounds are 20 times as numerous as the number found in the non-Jewish population. [Editor’s note – This report is totally misleading since it fails to capture the wealth of the gentry which would have reported in the counties and boroughs where there estates were located.]
1888: It was reported today that the executors of the Bernhard Stern’s will have paid out over $25,000 in bequests to variety of Jewish and secular institutions in New York City. The largest bequest was $5,000 given to the United Hebrew Charities.
1890: The Executive Committee of the United Hebrew Charities reported today that during the month it had found employment for 364 applicants during the month of May. The committee had spent $8,756.08 during the month to aid needy Jews including the 1,987 immigrants who had arrived at Castle Garden.
1890: As of today, the managers of the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children have received $4,091.50 which will be used to provide free summer excursions for Jewish children and their mothers.
1890: Police officers arrested Marcus Goldstein, a Polish Jew, when came to the Gill Engraving Company this morning to collect what he thought were the blank plates that would enable him to print (and sell) counterfeit tickets for the Hamburg Lottery.
1891: Birthdate of Zionist leader and native of Prague, Robert Weltsch, who died in Jerusalem a century later.
1892: In Kaunas Count (modern day Lithuania) Joseph and Gertrude Janner gave birth to Anglo-Jewish political and civic leader Barnett Janner who would serve as an MP first from the Liberal Party and then from the Labour Party
1893: Philadelphia lawyer Charles Isaiah Hoffman married Fanny Binswanger in the City of Brotherly love. Seven years later he would enter the JTS, graduated and was ordained in 1904 and spent most of the rest of his life as the spiritual leader of Oheb Shalom in Newark, NJ. [Sort of a modern day version of “Rachel, the wife of Akiva”]
1893: After having viewed the body of Jewish cigar manufacturer Adolph S. Jaeger, Deputy Coroner O’Hare said that the deceased had taken his own life and turned his remains over to the undertaker.
1894: Today’s meeting of the Constitutional Convention looking at charitable contributions made by the State of New York, first heard from Myer Sterne, the “former Commissioner of Charities and Correction who appeared in behalf of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of which the late Jesse Seligman was President.”
1895: “Governor William McKinley delivered an address at Ottawa, Kansas in which he referred to an American flag with a biblical inscription on it” which Chicago Republic Abraham Kohn had presented to Abraham Lincoln “one month prior to his assumption of the Presidency.” Kohn was President of Chicago’s KAM Congregation. Actually two biblical verses had been painted on to the flag both of which were from from the first chapter of the book of Joshua verses 5 and 9.including the famous charge “Be strong and of great courage. Be not afraid, neither be dismayed.” After several attempts, McKinley would finally be elected President in 1896 and re-elected in 1900. He would die at the hands of an assassin bringing Teddy Roosevelt to the White House.
1896: A character of sketch of the recently deceased Marquis de Mores published today described him as “eccentric” whose “hatred of England…was almost a mania” and who “was a rabid enemy of the Jews.” (Editor’s note – For those who do not recognize the name his anti-Semitism including fight a duel French Deputy Ferdinand-Camille Dreyfus)
1897: Mrs. Jennie Cohen, formerly of New Haven, CN, and her four children ranging in ages from six years to four months were being cared for at Police Headquarters after having spent the night in rooms provided for by the Hebrew Sheltering House Association on Madison Street.
1897: The Baron Hirsch Free Hebrew School of Chicago was formally incorporated at Springfield, Illinois, the state capital.
1897: “Biblical Titles” published today described the refusal of the Lord Chamberlain’s office to grant a license to a biblical drama entitled “Joseph of Canaan” by George Walters, an Australian clergyman and Rubinstein’s opera “Judas Maccabaeus” Apparently it is Biblical titles that upset the English official and not religion per se since a license, which is necessary for public performance, was granted to “The Sign of the Cross.”
1897: “The Reverend Herman Warszawiak” the Jewish convert to Christianity “whose application to the Presbytery was rejected last week after a trail for unministerial conduct gave vent to his feelings today” comparing himself to St. Paul” and declaring “that he had been hounded because he was of Jewish orgin and the Presbyterians did not want any Jews.
1897: The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that articles of incorporation have been filed by the Sons of Abraham “a Hebrew benevolent society” in Camden, NJ.
1898(30thof Sivan, 5658): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1898(30thof Sivan, 5658): Fifty year old Moses Stein “a well-known resident of Bath Beach” passed away at Mount Sinai Hospital. A retired Manhattan wholesale butcher; he was one of the founders of the Hebrew Congregational Society in Bath Beach.
1898: During the Spanish American War, ships of the U.S Navy (in which 20 Jews served as officers) entered the harbor at Guam. (Whether any those officers were at Guam is not a matter of record.)
1899: Chicago Jews are among those contributing funds to the purchase of memorial items to be presented to Captain Dreyfus, Colonel Picquart and author Emile Zola. The latter two played key roles in exonerating the former when he was falsely convicted of treason and subject to a barrage of anti-Semitism.
1899: In Chicago, 50 boys half of whom were Christians and half of whom were Jewish fought it on Stewart Avenue until the police arrived from the Maxwell Street Station and put an end to the violence.
1899: Jews living on the Lower East Side learned that “Winslow W. Dunlap, the self-appointed missionary” seeking to convert the Jews also makes loans to anybody with a salary between $20 to $200. “It is the custom of Dunlap to advance a man, say $80 and deduct $5 for the expenses of the loan. Besides this $5 he charges $40.80 interest making the borrower pay $70.80 for $25 in “easy” payments of from $2.50 to $5 per week.
1899: “Law and Order” published today decried the attack on a Christian missionary earlier this week who was preaching on the streets of the Lower East Side by a mob and the failure of the police to intervene because in civil society people have a right to express their opinions no matter how distasteful they may be to the public that is forced to hear them.
1899: “Conference of Zionists” published today included a description of a proposal submitted by the English Zionist Federation “proposing the re-establishment of Judea as an independent state, suggesting the purchase of the Maccabean sites in Palestine and the beginning of the work by the establishment of a Jewish colony and a Jewish Agricultural College there.”
1899: “The Jew-Hater in France” published today provided the views of Gustav Gottheil, a leading American Reform Rabbi on the condition of the Jews in France as that nation is convulsed by the Dreyfus affair. As to Dreyfus, he said, “the fact that he was a Jew was the strongest accusation against him.” “Even though “no race has been more patriotic than the French Jews” “the real spirit of malice and persecution will never change and they will never be friendly to the Jewish people.” And in a view that may have been the result of his attendance at the Zionist Congress at Basel “The effect of the triumph in the Zionistic movement stands out in clear and unmistakable character.”
1899(12th of Tammuz, 5659): Fifty-six year old Jacob Baiz, the Venezuelan born son of Abraham and Sarah Naar who after being raised in Elizabethport, NJ, became a successful businessman in Latin America, serving as Consul-General of the Government of Honduras and a member of the Coffee Exchange as well as Vice President of the Hebrew Sheltering and Guardian Society passed away today in New York.
1900: In Jackson, Michigan, on his birthday, Chicago attorney Benjamin Vogel Becker married Elizabeth Loeb, the daughter of Jacob L. and Rachel Loeb, and the mother of their only son John Leonard Becker.
1902: Herzl learns that Turkey accepted the Rouvier Project. Maruice Rouvier was one of those permanent political animals created by the revolving door governments in the days of France’s Third Republic. He was not Jewish. Depending upon who formed the government Rouvier held different cabinet posts including finance and foreign affairs. He was Prime Minister twice himself. At this time, Rouvier was serving as the Minister of Finance. At the same time, like most French politicians, he was always looking for ways to counter German influence. The Turks were in need of financial assistance and Rouvier was willing to do what he could if it would keep the Kaiser out of the Mediterranean.
1903: Maurice Arnold de Forest, one of the two adopted sons of Baroness Clara de Hirsch and Baron Maurice de Hirsch de Gereuth resigned his commission in the Prince of Wales's Own Norfolk Artillery
1905: In New Orleans, Max Bernard Hellman and Julia gave birth to playwright and social activist Lillian Hellman.
1906: Birthdate of director and screenwriter Edmond T. Greville who based “on 23andMe genetic testing of his daughter and grandson in 2017, was in fact Ashkenazim Jewish from the likely area of Odessa, a fact never known to him during his life time.
1907: Frederick Henriques, the son Joseph Gutteres Henriques, was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1910: Fanny Brice debuted at the Ziegfield Follies (As reported by the Jewish Women’s Archive)
1911(24thof Sivan, 5671): Rosenberg, TX native and University of Texas alum Helene Gladys Daily, the Houston lawyer and a leader of the League of Women Voters passed away today.
1913(15th of Sivan, 5673): Eighty-three year old “cantor and journalist” Jacob Tattlebaum passed away today in Patterson, NJ.
1913: Rabbi Israel Klein is scheduled to deliver the Friday night sermon at Zion Temple in Chicago, Illinois.
1914(26thof Sivan, 5674): Sh’lach
1914: In Chicago,, Rabbi Julius Rappaport is scheduled to lead service this morning at Beth El Temple.
1914: Rabbi Aaron L. Weinstein of Davenport, IA is scheduled to occupy this pulpit” on Shabbat at Isaiah Temple in Chicago.
1914: In Chicago, the 1914 Confirmation Class of Isaiah Temple is scheduled to “be formally welcomed into the Isaiah Alumni Association this afternoon.
1915: In Canonsburg, PA, dedication of Tree of Life Synagogue.
1915: At the Astor Hotel, Louis Marshall presided over the meeting of the American Jewish Committee today where it was “decided to convoke a general congress of American Jews to consider methods of assisting their” co-religionists “in the war zones” following “the receipt of the first news of atrocities committed against Jews in the warring countries.”
1915: The Turkish government permitted “expelled Jews” to return to parts of Palestine including Tel Aviv and its “suburbs.”
1915: “Interest in the case of the condemned man” Leo Frank “reached fever heat in Atlanta today” where “it was the one subject of discussion everywhere” as Governor Slaton’s decision was expected by tomorrow.
1916(19th of Sivan, 5676): Eighty-one year old Leopold Adler, the German born husband of Rose Adler passed away today in Chicago.
1916: Birthdate of Zelda Berkowitz who as Zelda Kaplan became as an inimitable fixture on fashion’s front lines and an inveterate clubgoer in Manhattan. (As reported by Ruth La Ferla)
1916: “Max J. Klein, whose charge that he had been excluded from the Second Field Artillery because he was a Jews started the inquiry into discrimination in the National Guard, announced” tonight” that he was organizing a company to serve in the Guard.
1916: Today composer and Conductor Victor Harris, the New York born son of Jacob Harris married Catherine L. Richardson with whom he had four children – Cecilia, Victor, David and Marry Harris.
1917: This evening, at eight o’clock, the Young Men’s Hebrew Association is scheduled to host “an entertainment and dance in the Assembly Hall of the Hebrew Institute to celebrate the installation of its new officers.”
1917: “Jacob H. Schiff, Felix M. Warburg, Louis Marshall and thirty other members of the Joint Distribution Committee” raising “funds for Jewish War sufferers voted” today “to the Morgenthau commission ‘unlimited funds’ for the relief of the Jews in Palestine.”
1917: The Turkish government permitted the Jews who had been expelled to return to Tel Aviv and Jaffa
1917: Birthdate of Franklin Littell, a pioneer in the field of Holocaust scholarship, who was also president of Iowa Wesleyan College and a founding board member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, in Washington. His best-known book, The Crucifixion of the Jews, pressed his view that Christianity is essentially Jewish and that Jesus, Paul and Peter would have been executed at Auschwitz. (As reported by Douglas Martin)
1918: Birthdate of Lillian Sylvia Lukashefsky, the Brooklyn native who gained famed as Yiddish actress, author and singer Lillian Lux who was the wife of Pesach Burnstein and the mother of actor Mike Burstyn.
1918: Two days after he passed away, Michael Abrahams, “the son of David and Eva Abrahams” was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.
1918: United States President Wilson sent Henry Morgenthau and Felix Frankfurter to Egypt to investigate how to best aid Jews in Palestine.
1919: One day after she passed away Martha Friedland, the daughter of Myer Friedland, was buried at the “Belfast Jewish Cemetery” in Northern Ireland.
1919: After having been elected to the Weimar National Assembly, Bernhard Dernberg completed to months of service as Federal Minister of Finance and Vice Chancellor.
1920: Today, “the Men’s Community Club and friends of Providence, RI, traveled by the Steamer Mount Hope to visit the Touro Synagogue, the oldest synagogue in the United States where they met by members of the congregation including the president, Nathan David and “Reverend Brodsky,” the cantor who provided the music for the occasion.
1921: Shortstop Reuben Ewing made his major league debut with the St. Louis Cardinals.
1922: Dr. Lee K. Frankel, Vice President of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, is scheduled to sail for Europe today aboard the SS Beregaria. He is head of a committee appointed by the American Jewish Relief Commission that is visiting Jewish population centers in Austria, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Russia in an effort to determine how best to spend th $18,000,000 that has been collected by American Jews for their coreligionists living in Eastern Europe.
1923: At meeting of the Board of Directors of the National Farm School held today, a memorial was adopted praising the work of the late Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf, the founder and President of the National Farm School.
1924(18th of Sivan, 5684): Eighty-eight year old Nicholas Scharff, the native of Bavaria who was married at Port Gibson, Mississippi in 1870 passed away today in St. Louis.
1925(28thof Sivan, 5685):Dr. Josef Bruer, the Austrian physician who worked with Freud to develop the modern field of psychoanalysis passed away in Vienna.
1926: In Cleveland, Ohio, “Maurice and Rachel (Shapiro) Gelfand gave birth to history professor Lawrence E. “Larry” Gelfand, the husband of Miram Ifland and WW II veteran who joined the Department of History at the University of Iowa in 1962 “after teaching at the Universities of Hawaii, Washington and Wyoming.
1926: Birthdate of Rehavam "Gandhi" Ze'evi the native of Jerusalem who rose to the rank of general and founded the Moledet Party.
1926: In the Czech Republic Pavel Bondy and Franziska Bondy, the daughter of Leopold and Valerie Pick, who was murdered during the Holocaust gave birth to Eduard Bondy who murdered during the Holocaust at the age of 15.
1927: Birthdate of Sherman Bernard Goldberg who gained fame as producer and screenwriter Judd Bernard.
1927: Birthdate of Newark native, Wharton graduate and WW II veteran Milton Perlumutter who became a successful supermarket executive passed away today.
1928: In Brooklyn, “Morris Landau, a machinist and the former Selma Buchman gave birth to Oscar winning actor Martin Landau who may be best remembered for his continuing role in the hit television series “Mission Impossible.”
1928: In the Bronx, Florence and Louis Slobodkin gave birth to “Lawrence B. Slobodkin, a central figure in the development of ecology as a modern science and a co-author of one of its most inspiring inquiries, a paper known informally as “The World Is Green” (As reported by Carol Kaesuk Yoon)
1928: A court in Tel Aviv “imposed short jail terms and sentences of deportation” on three Jews who resisted the police efforts to break up a demonstration protesting the flogging of prisoners in Palestine jails.” The three were additionally accused of being “Communists.” The demonstration was part of a larger protest by Jews against the propensity of the British immigration authorities for deporting Jews on the slightest pretext with little or no evidence of serious wrongdoing.
1929: “The Hollywood Revue of 1929,” a musical film produced by Irving Thalberg and Harry Rapt, with a script co-authored by Al Boasberg and co-starring Jack Benny and Norma Shearer was released today in the United States.
1929: In Montreal, Samuel and Saidye Rosner Bronfman gave birth to Edgar Miles Bronfman, CEO of Seagram’s and President of the World Jewish Congress.
1929: It was reported today that “the concordant signed recently between the Prussian government and the Vatican is not like to have any effect on the statues of the Jewish population in Prussia,” especially since “the question of religious training” which had been such a problem in 1924 during the “negotiations for the Bavarian concordant” had been omitted from this document.
1931: A newspaper in Salonica called the Macedonia ran an article about a resident named Isaac D. Cohen. Cohen was sent as a representative to the meeting of the Maccabiah which was held in Sophia, Bulgaria. However the newspaper stated while away, he also attended a conference held by a revolutionary organization, which had come up with the decision to sue for the independence of Greek and Yugoslav Macedonia. This lie led to attacks on Jews who were said not to be patriotic.
1933(26thof Sivan, 5693): Fifty-three year old Russian-born Jewess Rose Paster Stokes, the first wife a prominent, wealthy Episcopalian, and social activist who was a founder of the American Communist Party passed away today in Berlin where she was being treated for breast cancer.
1933: “The XXXIII Council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations” is scheduled to meet for a third day today in Chicago.
1934: “Abe Goldberg, vice-president of the ZOA and a member of the Jewish Agency for Palestine is scheduled to speak this evening in the 4th in a series of broadcasts sponsored by the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League.
1935(19th of Sivan, 5695): San Luis Obispo, CA, native Marcel Ernest Cert the graduate of Hastings Law School and California Superior Court Judge whose sister Rebecca died tragically in a hotel fire, passed away today.
1936: “Jewish children from the east side of Berlin found themselves unexpectedly barred today from Bad Klingenberg on Lake Rummelsburg” when they were confronted with recently erected signs reading “Jews not wanted.”
1936: “In the Bakaa quarter on the Jerusalem-Bethlehem Road” “a burning rag soaked in kerosene was thrown through a window in the storeroom of a Jewish baby home” which housed “ninety-seven infants and fifty adults including mothers and nurses” in what was “one of the cruelest acts of terrorism perpetrated in the cause of Arab nationalism.”
1936: “Supreme Court Justice William T. Collins criticized Germany’s racial policy in a decision” today permitting Marcel M. Holzer who had been “sent to a concentration camp in 1933 for six months because he was a Jew” and who was a former employee of the Reichsbahn (German State Railroads) “to bring sut here for upward of $50,000 damages because he was discharged as a ‘non-Aryan.’”
1936: “The Palestine Government today extended the death penalty to crimes of sabotage as it fought to end the violence and destruction that in the last nine weeks have resulted in more than eighty deaths of Jews, Arabs and Christians.”
1936:The Palestine Post reported that according to the new Palestine Emergency Regulations a life sentence could be imposed on any person carrying arms, bombs or incendiary material. Arab attacks on Jewish settlements continued unabated. Police patrols were stoned in Arab villages and three British soldiers were injured in various shooting incidents throughout the country.
1937: “The Latest Book Received” column published today included a listing for If I Forget Thee a novel by Josef Dunner that is described as “a story of the reorientation of two German Jews.”
1937: While preaching his “last sermon of the season” today at Congregation Ohab Zadek in New York, Rabbi William Margolis said today, “Current happenings in Europe are finally convincing the world that the enemies of democracy are the foes of all men”
1938: Twenty-eight year old Liselotte Herrman, the mother of a four year old son whose husband Fritz died in Gestapo custody was guillotined after having been convicted for opposing the Nazi regime. (She was not Jewish, but it is important to remember those who sacrificed to hold back the Night)
1939: In commenting on wave of violence gripping Palestine including yesterday’s bombing in Haifa, Davar wrote, “”Who throws bombs? Is it the same hand that is sowing blood and ruin in the Arab market in the Jewish suburb? These are not the ways of the Jewish population in Palestine in their struggle…Ruin and paralysis of economic life will only hurt the Jews in Palestine. Sacrifices may be necessary for our political struggle but every act paralyzing our life unnecessarily weakens the Jews here more than its sabotages the Palestine Government’s new policy and it only causes failure of Palestine Jewry’s struggle against the policy.” In a separate column, David Ben Gurion condemned the violence saying “The Jews must sacrifice everything for immigration, colonization, self-defense and independence but we must not sully our struggle with despicable acts of madness such as have been recently committed at Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa. The murder of innocent Arabs and Jews and stupid sabotage are act that are only helping our most bitter enemies. Such criminal acts soil our just struggle, undermine the efficiency of our work and play the game of our foes.”
1939: Final broadcast of Song School, a radio show featuring Jewish Jazzman Benny Goodman
1940: Jewish prisoners began arriving at Ferramonti, one of the 15 concentration camps established by Mussolini during the summer of 1940. In the next three years, 3,800 Jews would be imprisoned in all of the camps.
1940: “Blueberry Hill” a song with lyrics by Al Stock and Al Lewis, which Fats Dominon would make famous in the 1950 was recorded by Mary Small with the Nat Brandwynne’s orchestersa. (Editor’s note – Stock and Lewis were Jewish)
1940: On the day when France surrendered to Germany Propper de Callejón was First Secretary of the Spanish Embassy in Paris. In order to prevent the German army from plundering the art collection that his wife's family kept at the Chateau de Royaumont, he declared this castle to be his main residence, so it would be treated in the same privileged way as the accommodation of any other diplomat. Among the art works thus saved are a triptych of Van Eyck (one of Adolf Hitler´s favorite painters). In July 1940, , in co-operation with the Portuguese Consul Arístedes de Sousa Menendes, he would issue from the Spanish Consulate in Bordeaux more than thirty thousand transit visas to Jews, so that they could cross Spain to reach Portugal. When Spain's Foreign Minister Ramón Serrano Suñer learned that Propper de Callejón was issuing visas without the previous authorization of his Ministry, he had him transferred to the Consulate of Larache in the Spanish protectorate in Morocco. Afterwards, he would be posted to Rabat, Zurich Washington, Ottawa and Oslo. Propper de Callejón's father, Max Propper, was a Bohemian Jew, and his mother, Juana Callejón, was a Spanish Catholic; they raised Eduardo and his brothers in the Catholic faith His wife, Hélène Fould-Springer was a socialite and painter. She was from a notable Jewish Austrian-French banking family, though she converted to Catholicism upon their marriage and is a sister of prominent Paris art patron and philanthropist Liliane de Rothschild (Baroness Élie de Rothschild,) 1916—2003). He never gained public recognition for his heroic acts before his death in 1972 in London.
1940: As they continued their dangerous trek to avoid capture by the Nazis, Hans and Margaret Reys arrived in Bayonne, France where they received visas that had been signed by Portuguese Vice-Consul Manuel Vierira Braga which enabled them to cross the border into Spain, the next step on an odyssey that took them to Lisbon, Rio and finally New York. Hans Reys is the creator of Curious George. Like so many others, he owes his life to the Portuguese diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes.
1941: In Leicester, UK, Russell E. Frears, a general practitioner and accountant, and Ruth M. (née Danziger) who did not tell her son that she Jewish “until he was in his late twenties” gave birth to Stephen Arthur Frears
1941(25thof Sivan, 5701): Seventy-five year old Harold Nathan, the son of : “Robert W. Nathan and Annie Florence Nathan whose ancestor were among the early settlers of New York City” and graduate of Columbia University Law School who was a “partner in the law firm of Cook, Nathan, Lehman and Greenman,” a member of Temple Emanuel and the husband of Sallie Gruntal Nathan with whom he had two children – Marian and Robert, “the novelist and poet” passed away today.
1941: As of today, “more than 2,000,000 Jews live in New York City” but “about 35 percent of the employable 365,000 Jewish young men and women have been unable to find jobs”
1941: As of today, “among the three largest banks” in New York City “with a payroll of 20,000 only about 200 Jews are on the salary list.
1942: Sixteen month old Tomas Abraham was deported today from Prague to Terezin, the first step on his trip to Auschwitz where he would be murdered two years later. (Editor’s note - The Nazis were such mighty warriors)
1942: Grace Goodside married cinematographer Jess Paley meaning that she would gain fame as Grace Paley.
1942: Mass killings of Jews by the Nazis began at Auschwitz.
1942: Thirty-three year old Hynek Abraham was transported from Prague to Terezin, the first stop on his trip to Auschwitz where he was murdered two years later.
1942: After breaking into a warehouse at Auschwitz, Ukrainian Eugeniusz Bendera and three Poles, Kazimierz Piechowski, Stanisław Gustaw Jaster, and Józef Lempart dressed as members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände (the SS units responsible for concentration camps), armed themselves, and stole an SS staff car, which they then drove unchallenged through the main gate
1942: From now until October 9th, 13,776 Jews would be deported from Vienna to Theresienstadt
1943: Rabbi Harold I. Saperstein responded to tributes paid at a gathering this evening celebrating ten ears of rabbinical service to Temple Emanu-El and provided a sendoff for the leave of absence he was taking to begin serving as a chaplain in the U.S. Army that ended with his hope that just as the first decade of his service was marked by the “accession of Hitler to power” so this next decade “shall be inaugurated with the triumph of democracy.”
1943: Five thousand Jews from Amsterdam are deported to Auschwitz.
1943: The Ternopol (Ukraine) Ghetto is liquidated.
1943: Himmler sent 100 Jews to a concentration camp in Alsace called Natzweiler. They were killed there and their skeletons were sent to the Anatomical Museum in Strasbourg.
1943: Five thousand, five hundred Jews were rounded up in Amsterdam and deported.
1944: Max and Frieda Löwy Sipser applied to be sent to the refugee shelter that had just been established at Fort Ontario, NY on the same day that the Displaced Persons Sub-Commission of the Allied Control Commission posted the notice for applicants.
1945(9th of Tammuz, 5705): Fifty-eight year old German born author and playwright Bruno Frank who left Germany with his wife Liesl after the Reichstag Fire and eventually made his way to the United States where he wrote scripts for such films as “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”
1945: Aware that “British hostility to the Zionist enterprise was often a mask for anti-Semitism,” Churchill cautioned his colleague Lord Croft to “not be drawn into any campaign that might be represented as anti-Semitism.”
1946: In Moscow, Alexander Kazhdan and his wife gave birth to Dmitry Aleksandrovich Kazhdan who emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1975 at which time he changed his name David Kazhdan, became an Orthodox Jew who made Aliyah in 2002 where he became a professor of Mathematics at Hebrew University.
1947: Following his announcement that he was leaving Beth El in Camden for a new position At Beth Abraham in Oakland, CA, Camden Mayor Brunner wrote a letter published in today’s “Voice” expression his admiration for Rabbi Philip Lipis saying “that Camden was privileged to enjoy his presence and leadership for twelve years.”
1947(2nd of Tammuz, 5707): Ben "Bugsy" Siegel was gunned down by fellow mobsters over financial irregularities surrounding the building of the Flamingo in Las Vegas.
1947: “Twenty minutes after Bugsy Siegel was murder, Meyer “Lansky's associates, including Gus Greenbaum and Moe Sedway, walked into the Flamingo Hotel and took control of the property.”
1948: During the Israeli War for Independence, the Etzel (Irgun) ship Altelena reached the coast of Tel Aviv carrying 800 new immigrants and weapons. The Etzel claimed they had an agreement that 20% of the arms on board would be used by its members in defending Jerusalem. David Ben Gurion, head of the new state of Israel, saw this as threat to the power of the new government. He believed that there could only be one army and that it had to be under the control of the national government. If the Irgun wanted to fight, then its members had to become part of the army just as the members of the Palmach and the Haganah had done. Ben Gurion refused to accept any compromise on this point. He ordered the ship to be fired upon. The incident almost caused a civil war and was only averted by an impassioned and at times incoherent speech made by Menachem Begin to his followers over the radio that night not to take up arms against fellow Jews. One only has to look at multiplicity of armed groups operating today on the West Bank and Gaza to see what would have happened if Ben Gurion had not reluctantly taken such bold action which was necessary if the new state of Israel was going to be a coherent nation.
Because of the controversy that still revolves around this event I have published a second version
1948: Just over a month after the State of Israel was established and shortly after the first cease fire in the War of Independence, Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, gave one of the country's most controversial orders ever - to take the Altalena by force.Prior to the establishment of the state, several armed Jewish militias protected early Jewish settlers and fought against the British and hostile Arab forces. The largest of these groups were the Hagana and the Irgun Zva’I Leumi (Irgun or IZL). The Hagana, led by Ben-Gurion, became the Israeli Defense Forces once the state was declared in May 1948 and the Irgun was under the command of Menahem Begin.In mid-May 1948, during the War of Independence, Ben-Gurion ordered the various militias disbanded and integrated into the IDF in order to create one army under a unified command. While some of the militias willingly sent their fighters and weaponry to the IDF, others were unwilling to relinquish the established paramilitary organizations they had built. Notably, the Irgun, for both ideological and political reasons, was unwilling to put itself under Ben-Gurion’s command.Begin and other Irgun commanders were still attempting to ship significant amounts of weaponry and fresh immigrant fighters into Israel in the last days of the British Mandate. The Irgun organized a large ship carrying weaponry and fighters from France, scheduled to arrive on Israel’s shores in mid-May. Due to logistical and operational factors, however, the departure of the Altalena was delayed.By the time the ship was ready to sail, loaded with nearly 1,000 immigrant fighters and thousands of tons of materiel, the first ceasefire in the War of Independence had already been reached and importing weaponry would have constituted a violation of it. The Jewish state, however, was in need of weaponry and ammunition, so when Begin approached Ben-Gurion to inform him of the shipment, the two attempted to negotiate a deal that would see the ship’s cargo safely unloaded.In order to evade detection by United Nations observers overseeing the ceasefire, the Irgun and the newly anointed leaders of the state and its army decided that the Altalena should be offloaded at Kfar Vitkin, near Netanya.Negotiations between the Irgun and Ben-Gurion were complicated by Begin’s insistence on transferring most of the ship’s cargo to Irgun units operating within the newly established IDF, a condition to which Ben-Gurion could not agree. The new leader of Israel was already wary of having non-state controlled armed forces operating independently of the army and believed that directing the weaponry to IDF units from the Irgun would lead to an “army within an army.”As the ship began its final approach to Kfar Vitkin, IDF forces were ordered to surround the area in order to seize the payload. Following failed negotiations, the government decided to issue an ultimatum. The military commander on scene sent Begin a clear message: “I shall use all the means at my disposal in order to implement the order and to requisition the weapons which have reached shore and transfer them from private possession into the possession of the Israel government… You have ten minutes to give me your answer.” Small-scale fighting between the two sides broke out at Kfar Vitkin, but Begin and the Irgun, aware of their numerical and tactical disadvantage, decided to send the Altalena south to Tel Aviv where more fighters could be assembled and the army was not yet situated to intercept the ship. Irgun fighters who had already joined the IDF began defecting from their commands and headed to Tel Aviv to fight for their weaponry. As the two forces descended on Tel Aviv, fighting erupted along the shore and throughout the city, “mainly in the center and the south,” The Palestine Post reported in the aftermath of the clashes. The Israeli navy and artillery pieces on shore fired warning shots at the ship in a last-ditched attempt to force a surrender, but eventually hit the ship, setting it ablaze. Ultimately, over 20 Irgun fighters and more than a handful of IDF soldiers were killed in the fighting between the two Jewish forces. The Altalena was eventually brought out to sea and sunk.Ben-Gurion has been both praised and disdained for his decision to take the Altalena by force. Fearing a civil war and a lack of government legitimacy based on the concept of a monopoly of force, Ben-Gurion ultimately decided that he could not tolerate Begin’s brazen refusal to put himself, his fighters and weaponry under the state’s command. Following the Altalena incident, however, Irgun and other militia forces were integrated into the IDF and the non-democratic challenges to the state’s legitimacy came to an end. Nonetheless, the decision to order Jewish soldiers to act against fellow Jews – who too were fighting for the infant state’s survival – has never been forgiven by some who view it as a betrayal of the very purpose of a Jewish army. Until this day, the Altalena is invoked at times when state security forces are pitted against Jews, albeit not with the deadly consequences of June 1948.
1948(13th of Sivan, 5708): Twenty Jews were killed in a bombing in the Jewish Quarter of Cairo.
1948: In Cincinnati, Ohio, Carl and Edith Henry gave birth to photojournalist Diana Mara Henry whose subjects have included Elizabeth Holtzman and Bella Abzug, “her most enduring friend and client who since 1985 “has been writing, translating from the French, publishing and speaking] about the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp and its Nacht und Nebel political prisoners, including the Jewish spy Andre Scheinmann.”
1950(5th of Tammuz, 5710): Sixty-two year old Georgia businessman Sam Lazarus, the husband of Annie Stein Lazarus with whom he had five children, drowned t today in Neptune Beach, FL where he was entertaining friends at his summer house.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that legislation empowered the minister of finance to underwrite up to 50 percent of mortgage loans for the construction of low-cost housing.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that Britain had promised to press Egypt to open the Suez Canal for oil tankers bound for the Haifa refineries. Contrary to earlier news, General William Riley, chief UN representative in the Middle East, reported to the UN Security Council on June 13 that Egyptian interference with Israel-bound shipping in the Suez Canal was an "aggressive, hostile action, undertaken in the spirit of blockade and having partial effects of a blockade."
1951: “Kind Lady” a re-make of the 1935 film produced by Armand Deutsch with music by David Raksin and filmed by Cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg was released in the United States today.
1952: In address to the Commercial and Industrial Club, Schmuel Elyashiv, Israel’s Ambassador in Moscow “said there were prospects of expanding Israel’s trade relations with Russia. This year Israel shipped oranges and bananas to Russia.” The Soviets would have bought more if the Israelis had produced a larger crop.
1954: In Ramat Gan, Louis (Lutz) Eliezer Wolfermann and Tonya Krepel gave birth to Ilan Ramon, Israel’s first astronaut.
1956: Birthdate of Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Tom Weiner, the author of One Man Against the World” The Tragedy of Richard Nixon.
1960: Birthdate of Shachiv Shnaan the Druze Israeli who served in the Herev Battalion before starting a career in politics that included two stints as an MK.
1962: In Brooklyn, funeral services were held for Brooklyn native Grace Baer Bachrach, the school teacher and wife of attorney Clarence G. Bachrach with whom she had two children who was so active in various civic and cultural organizations including the “Brooklyn division of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies” that was honored as “Brooklyn’s First Lady of Philanthropy in 1956.
1963: In London, world premiere of “The Great Escape” a must see movie with a memorable score by Elmer Bernstein.
1964: “Nobody Loves an Albatross” a comedy produced by Philip Rose and directed by Gene Saks with Marian Winters in the role of “Marge Weber” came to a close today.
1965(20th of Sivan, 5725): Ninety-four year old financier and presidential advisor Bernard Baruch passed away.
1965(29th of Sivan, 5725): Eighty year old Oscar A. Berman, the Cincinnati born son of Adolph Aria Berman and Mary Agnes Jacob” passed away today in New York City.
1965:The New York Times reports on the challenge facing Jack Benny as he faces the first summer in 33 years when he “does not find himself in the midst of hectic preparations for a new season on radio or television.”a
1969(3rd of Tammuz, 5729): Terrorists set off three bombings near the Kotel killing one and injuring five.
1970: Birthdate of Jason Robert Brown who wrote the music and lyrics for “Parade” the Tony and Drama Desk award winning musical based on the life and lynching of Leo Frank.
1972: Birthdate of Yuval Semo, the Haifa native who a popular Israeli actor and comedian.
1973: “A Touch of Class” starring George Segal, directed and produced by Melvin Frank and with a script by Frank and Jack Rose was released in the United States today
1973: At Yale University in New Haven, CT, Bessie Margolin was awarded her Doctor of Science of Law degree today.
1973: Birthdate of Kansas City, MO native Joshua David Shapiro, the Georgetown University trained lawyer and Democratic Party leader who began serving as the 50th Attorney General of Pennsylvania in 2017.
1976: Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Davidooff announced the engagement of their daughter Norma, a producer reporter with Newsweek Broadcasting to Konrad J. Perlman the son of Mr. and Mrs. Alexander K. Perlman who used his master’s degree in city planning from Yale to become the chief of planning for the District of Columbia Department of Housing and Community Development.
1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that the US administration informed Israel that it would receive $200m. in transitional aid, much less than it was expected. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin told the Labor Party symposium "Israeli Arab citizens are entitled to full and equal rights, but with the knowledge that not all the duties of equal citizens are demanded of them, nor can all rights be granted to them as long as the enmity of the surrounding Arab world to Israel persists."
1977: Time magazine “revealed” the marriage of 58 year old Alan Jay Lerner to 27 year old Nina Bushkin, the daughter of jazz pianist Joey Bushkin. It is her first marriage and his sixth.
1977:Yitzhak Moda'I began serving as Minster of Energy and Water.
1977: Ezer Weizman succeeds Shimon Peres as Defense Minister.
1977:Gideon Patt succeeds Shlomo Rosen as Minister of Housing and Construction
1977:Aharon Abuhatzira succeeds Haim Yosef Zadok as Minister of Religious Services
1977: Meir Amit succeeds Aharon Uzan as Communications Minister.
1977:Yosef Burg succeeds Shlomo Hillel as Interior Minister
1977: Moshe Dayan began serving as Israel’s 5thMinister of Foreign Affairs.
1977: Shlomo Hillel completed his service as Minister of Public Security after which the ministry was abolished Prime Minister Menachem Begin a situation that would change in 1984 when the position was resurrected.
1978(15th of Sivan, 5738): Sixty-four year old Canadian born award-winning director Mark Robson passed away today.
1979(25th of Sivan, 5739):Yisrael Yeshayahu Sharabi passed away. Born in Yemen in 1908, he made Aliyah in 1929. He served as an MK, cabinet minister and fifth Speaker of the Knesset
1980(6th of Tammuz, 5740): David Feuerwerker, French born Canadian Rabbi and Historian, passed away.
1980: “Can’t Stop the Music,” a musical comedy with a script co-authored by producer Allan Carr and co-starring Steve Guttenberg was released today in the United States.
1980: U.S. premiere of “The Blues Brothers” directed by John Landis featuring Steve Lawrence, Frank Oz, Paul Reubens and Steven Spielberg.
1982: Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin arrived in Washington.
1985(1stof Tammuz, 5745): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1985: In Dublin, the Irish Jewish Museum is opened bythe Irish born former President of Israel Dr. Chaim Herzog during his State visit to Ireland.
1989: Birthdate of Christopher Charles Mintz-Plasse “an American actor known for starring in films such as Superbad, Role Models, Year One, and Kick-Ass.”
1990(27th of Sivan, 5750): Actress Ina Balin died at the age of 52 from pulmonary hypertension.
1990(27thof Sivan, 5750: Ninety-five year old Clifton Fadiman, the Brooklyn born son of Isidore Michael and Grace Elizabeth Fadiman who gained fame as the super-intellectual during the golden age of radio passed away today.
1990: “Rabbi With Tefillin” by Jan Styka goes on sale at Christie’s Auction House. The painting completed in 1892 was the product of a Polish artist. Can such a painting be described as Jewish Art? Look at the canvas and you decide.
1991(8th of Tammuz, 5751): Ninety-three year old British philanthropist and businessman Sir Isaac Wolfson passed away today. (As reported by Eric Pace)
1993: The first of four scheduled tours sponsored by the American Jewish Congress which include an opportunity to be a bar or bat Mitzvah at the Kotel or the in Masada begins today.
1995: “Little Women” starring Winona Ruder with music by Thomas Newman “had its initial North America video release on VHS” today.
1996: As he was laid to rest, “Mel Allen was recalled today as a devoted brother and uncle, a man who once left a hospital bed for Yom Kippur services, and a gentle voice who elevated "broadcasting to a prayer with three words: 'How about that?'“during services at Temple Beth-El led by Rabbi Joshua Hammerman.
1996(3rd of Tammuz, 5756): Ninety-one year old Louis J. Lefkowitz, the longest serving state attorney general passed away today. (As reported by Nick Ravo)
1997: “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” a romantic comedy produced by Jerry Zucker was released today in the United States.
1999(6th of Tammuz, 5759): Ninety-five year old “super-intellectual Clifton Fadiman, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants who gained fame during the gold age of radio.” (As reported by Richard Severo)
1999: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Noah's Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries About the Event That Changed Historyby William Ryan and Walter Pitman.
2000(17thof Sivan, 5760): Seventy-seven year old “Jay Grayson, the versatile WBAL radio and television personality who for nearly 40 years closed his show with the admonition, "If you liked my show, buy my jams and jellies” who was born Jerome Bernard Goldberg passed away today.
2001(29th of Sivan, 5761): Ilya Krivitz, 62, of Homesh in Samaria was shot and killed at close range in an ambush late Wednesday afternoon in the nearby Palestinian town of Silat a-Dahar.
2002: Jean-François Copé completed his first term as Mayor Meaux.
2002: Following its showing at the Skirball, “Myer Myers: Jewish Silversmith in Colonial New York is scheduled to open today at the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum in Delaware
2002(10th of Tammuz, 5762): Rachel Shabo, 40, and three of her sons - Neria, 16, Zvika, 12, and Avishai, 5 - as well as a neighbor, Yosef Twito, 31, who came to their aid, were murdered when a terrorist entered their home in Itamar, south of Nablus, and opened fire. Two other children were injured, as well as two soldiers. The terrorist was killed by IDF forces. The PFLP and the Fatah Al Aqsa Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.
2003(20th of Sivan, 5763): Zvi Goldstein, 47, of Eli, was killed when his car was fired upon in an ambush by Palestinian terrorists near Ofra, north of Ramallah. His parents, Eugene and Lorraine Goldstein, from New York, were seriously wounded and his wife lightly injured. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. (Jewish Virtual Library)
2003: “Hulk” a film based on the comic superhero created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, produced by Avi Arad and James Schamus who provided the story and co-author the script and with music by Danny Elfman was released in the United States today.
2003: “Dr. Judith Rodin, Penn president since 1994, announced today that she intends to step down from the office when she completes her 10-year term in June 2004. The announcement came following a regularly scheduled meeting of the Board of Trustees on Penn's campus.”
2003: Richard Nathan Haas completed his two year plus service as Director of Policy Planning under President Bush.
2004(1st of Tammuz, 5764): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
2004: In an article styled “Remembering Anne Frank, now 75,” The Cedar Rapids Gazette notes events around the world intended to celebrate the life and writings of one of the most famous victims of the Shoah.
2004:The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including War, Evil, and the End of History by Bernard-Henri Lévy; translated by Charlotte Mandell.
2006: Haaretz reported that Israel's ambassador to Germany presented medals of honor to relatives of five members of the first "European Union" - an anti-Nazi resistance group whose members hid and fed Jews during World War Two. This European Union, which had the same name but nothing to do with the modern 25-nation bloc of European countries, was an underground, Marxist-oriented group with around 50 to 60 German members, according to a protocol prepared by Yad Vashem Holocaust museum.
2007: In Jerusalem “legendary Israeli composer/singer Shlomo Gronich presents his newest compositions of biblical sources on a wide spectrum of themes: justice, righteousness, integrity, man and his identity, love songs & prayers. The performance includes Gronich on piano & shofar, the Jerusalem String Quartet and percussion.”
2007: “Salon.com posted an online three-page excerpt from” A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency by Glenn Greenwald.
2007(4th of Tammuz, 5767): Eighty-five year old Jerome “Jerry” Fleishman who played college basketball for NYU and professional basketball for the Philadelphia Warriors passed away today.
2007: The Jerusalem Post carried a page one report stating that Shin Bet had foiled a bombing of the synagogue in Modin known as the “pizza shul” or Zichron L’Avraham.
2008: Colonel Jack Weinstein was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General in the United States Air Force.
2008: Australian businessman Richard J. Pratt was charged with lying about his knowledge of a price-fixing scandal.
2008: “For My Father,” an Israeli film directed by Droro Zahavi, premiered today at the Moscow International Film Festival.
2008: In Washington, D.C. Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, the former president of George Washington University, discusses and signs Big Man on Campus: A University President Speaks Out on Higher Education at Politics and Prose Bookstore.
2008: The Spertus Museum announced that it was shutting down an exhibition entitled “Imaginary Coordinates” in the wake of an outcry from Chicago –area Jews that it expressed an anti-Israel basis.
2008: In Sarajevo, at The Jewish Film Festival of Croatia, a member of the Jewish community speaks about filming the documentary “Sarayevo Mi Seudad de Oro,” (“Sarajevo My God City”) which tells the story of the Jewish community’s role in helping people escape the last war in Bosnia.
2009: At Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa Sarah Maikon, daughter of Renee Maikon and Marc Maikon, and granddaughter of Sandy and Sol Maikon, is called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah.
2009: G'day Shalom Salaam Israel, presented by the Australia Israel Cultural Exchange opens in Israel. As part of the G'day Shalom Salaam Israel event Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard will participate in the first Australian Israel Leadership Forum organized by the Australia Israel Cultural Exchange (AICE).
2010:The Los Angeles Times features a “Sunday Conversation With Daniel Handler” who is perhaps better known for his pen name, Lemony Snicket, and his bestselling volumes of children's books, A Series of Unfortunate Eventsand The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming: A Christmas Story.
2010: Memorabilia and Memory: Hitler's Hat and other shorts by local filmmaker Jeff Krulik is scheduled to be shown as part of the Jewish Study Center Film Festival in Washington, D.C.
2010: Bowing to worldwide pressure and condemnation, Israel formally announced an eased blockade of Gaza that could significantly expand the flow of goods overland into the impoverished coastal Palestinian enclave, isolated by the Israelis for three years. The White House said it “welcomes the new policy towards Gaza announced by the government of Israel, which responds to the calls of many in the international community.”
2010: In “General Franco Gave List of Spanish Jews to Nazis” Giles Tremlett described this little known tale of how the Spanish dictator provided “fodder” for the German Murder Machine.
2011: Bob Dylan performed at Ramat Gan Stadium tonight.
2011: The Hillel Annual Milwaukee Meeting is scheduled to take place this evening in Wisconsin’s largest city.
2011: The funeral for Morris Pollard, 95, a prominent U.S. researcher on viral diseases who died June 18 of complications from a bladder infection was held today.
2011: Israel has returned nuclear waste from its Sorek nuclear reactor to the U.S., the head of Israel's Nuclear Energy Commission Dr Shaul Horev revealed today.
2012: Jewish Social Service Agency (JSSA) Employment and Career Services is scheduled to present “Smart is Not Enough! Hidden Key to Career Success” featuring JSSA Life and Career Coach Phyllis Levinson.
2012: Mandolin virtuoso Avi Avital is scheduled to perform Le Poisson Rouge in NYC
2012: In a novel attempt to bring Judaism to the people, Rabbi Dan Ain is scheduled to be available to answering about God or whatever at Tribeca Café in NYC.
2012:A Gaza rocket has directly hit a home in the Sdot Negev Regional council on today, as more than 30 rockets were fired into southern Israel since the morning. (As reported by Yanir Yagna, Gili Cohen and Avi Issacharoff)
2012:The military wing of Hamas published a report today morning on its website, in which it states that “the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades continues to attack the enemy with rockets for the second straight day, and has launched 9 rockets at the Sofa military base.”
2012(30thof Sivan, 5772): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
2012: Albert Sachs an opponent apartheid and Judge on the Constitution Court of South Africa received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Dundee
2012:Ultra-Orthodox residents of Beit Shemesh attacked a woman driving through the city on today. Police were investigating the incident. Police said the attackers threw stones at the car because they believed the driver was dressed in an inappropriate and immodest manner. (As reported by Aaron Kalman)
2012: The body of Aaron Joseph Zindani, who was stabbed to death outside the US Embassy in Sana’a, Yemen, in May, was transported to Israel today. The arrival of the body marked the end of a long and complex operation by the Jewish Agency and the Foreign Ministry that also saw Zindani’s family, including his widow and the couple’s five children, brought to Israel. Zindani was a Jewish community leader in Yemen. He was 48 years old at the time of his murder.
2012: Israeli Air Force jets bombed terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip for a second time Wednesday evening, following an unremitting rocket and mortar barrage on southern Israeli towns throughout the day. (As reported by Gabe Fisher)
2012: Pierre Lellouche began serving as the Deputy for Paris’ 1st Constituency.
2013: The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide is scheduled to co-host a Refugee Week writing workshop entitled “I’m Not Going Back.”
2013: Barbra Streisand is scheduled to sing at Bloomfield Stadium in Jaffa.
2013: After having strained his back again, New York Yankees third baseman Kevin Youkilis “underwent season ending surgery to repair a herniated disk in his back” today.
2013: A rebel group that operates on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights stated today that it would not fight Israel if Israel sends forces into Syria. A spokesman for the rebel group, which is based in Quneitra, made the comments to Al-Jazeera. (As reported by Yoel Goldman)
2013:
Italian Praised for Saving Jews Is Now Seen as Nazi Collaborator (As reported by Patricia Cohen) tells the story of Giovanni Palatuccie, “the Italian Schindler” credited with saving 5,000 Jews during the Holocaust which may have been a giant fraud.
2014: Masses will be said in Luxemburg and Portugal today in remembrance of the June 17th“Day of Conscience” which honors the member of Aristides de Sousa, the Portuguese diplomat who defied Dictator Salazar and issued life-saving visas to thousands of refugees enough of whom were Jewish to earn him recognition by Yad Vashem.
2014: At the 92nd Street Y, A.J. Baime is scheduled to sign copies of The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War after his presentation on how the American automobile industry re-tooled itself in response to President Roosevelt’s call to make America “the Arsenal of Democracy."
2014: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met today with the families of kidnapped Israeli teens Naftali Frankel, Gil-ad Shaar, and Eyal Yifrach, who were abducted June 12 in Gush Etzion.”
2014: Today “marked the last day of the 5774 school year for 673,000 Israeli high school students.”
2014: Curator Zachary Paul Levine was interviewed on WAMU's Metro Connection about the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington’s efforts to save D.C.'s only known synagogue mural.
2014: In Coralville, Iowa, Agudas Achim hosts Musical Shabbat with Rebecca Kushner.
2015(3rd of Tammuz, 5775): Parashat Korach
2015(3rd of Tammuz, 5775): Eighty-four year old photographer Harold Feinstein passed away today.
2015: In a reminder that bigotry knows no boundaries “a website apparently created by Dylann Roof emerged today in which the accused Charleston church shooter rails against African Americans, “Jewish agitation of the black race,” and appears in photographs with guns and burning the US flag.”
2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host a “Brahms Fest.”
2015: A tour that includes visits to Krakow and Auschwitz/Birkenau sponsored by CANDLES (Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors) is scheduled to depart from Chicago today.(As reported by William Grimes.)
2015: An Unknown Country the new film by Ecuadorian-born Jewish filmmaker Eva Zelig that describes the history of this little known Jewish community is scheduled to be shown today as part of New York’s Ecuadorian Film Festival.
2016: Migdalei haYam haTichon is scheduled to host "Classical & Romantic Beads" a unique piano solo recital featuring concert pianist Eliah Zabaly,
2016: “Censored Voices” a film based on interviews conducted by Avraham Shapira and Amos Oz with Israeli soldiers following The Six Day War is scheduled to be shown at the Portland, Oregon Jewish Film Festival.
2016: The second annual “Towards a New Law of Conference” sponsored by Shurat HaDin is scheduled to open today in Jerusalem.
2017(26th of Sivan, 5777): Eighty-four year old “folklorist” Roger D. Abrahams passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)
2017: Voters in Georgia’s 6thCongressional District take part in a runoff election featuring Jewish Democrat Jon Ossoff’s long-shot attempt to turn a very Red House Seat to Blue.
2017: Roger Cohen of the NYT is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Liberty and Facts: Isaiah Berlin in the Age of Trump” sponsored by the Center for Jewish History.
2017: “Letters written by Albert Einstein about God, Israel and physics fetched nearly $210,000 at a Jerusalem auction today, with the highest bid going to a missive about God’s creation of the world.”
2018: In New York City, the Rizzoli Bookstore is scheduled to host Eliezer Armon as he talks about his new book If Architecture Is A Language Then A Building Is A Story which was inspired, in part “by images from Israel and its landscape.
2018: “Israel is on the verge of laying out a framework for a “state level defense shield” to raise the level of readiness against threats, Yigal Unna, the nation’s cybersecurity chief said today, warning that the world hasn’t yet seen the worst of the damage hackers can wreak and that “winter is still coming.” (As reported by Shoshannah Solomon)
2018:” Rocket sirens blared in the south throughout the early morning hours today, as barrages totaling some 45 rockets and mortar shells were fired toward Israeli towns, prompting rounds of Israeli airstrikes on Hamas military sites in the Gaza Strip.” (As reported by Judah Ari Gross)
2018: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host an event as part of World Refugees which will include an address by “refugee protection specialist Katie Tobin of UNHCR.
2019: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to host David Serero’s adaption of Romeo and Juliet “featuring Ladino and Yiddish songs.”
2019: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host two screenings of “93Queen”
2019: At a ceremony today in Israel, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft who is still facing charges in Florida of soliciting a prostitute, is scheduled to receive “the Genesis Prize, a prestigious award commonly known as the ‘Jewish Nobel Prize.’”
2019: The Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines is scheduled to hold its annual meeting this evening in the capital city of Iowa.2019: It was reported today that Israel has completed “its largest military drill in years” which was a simulation of war with Hezbollah.