JUNE 25
615: On three dates that the revolt began in Jerusalem again Khosrau II, the Persian Shah who was “was the last great king of the Sasanian Empire.”
1080: The Antipope Clement III who “protested strongly when Emperor Henry IV permitted Jews who had become converted to Christianity during the anti-Jewish riots of the First Crusade to revert to Judaism” began his papacy today.
1218: Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester, who expelled the Jews from Leicester, died.
1221 Although the Archbishop of Canterbury forbade anti-Jewish riots in Erfurt, Germany, they continued unabated. A group of religious 'pilgrims' on their way to the Holy Land attacked the Jewish quarter burning two synagogues. Some 26 Jews were killed and others threw themselves into the fire rather than be forcibly converted.
1240: In Paris, a commission that was making an inquiry into the nature of the Talmud with a specific interest in alleged derogatory comments about Jesus began its deliberation.
1240: “A public disputation” opened at the Court of Louis IX in the presence of Queen-Mother Blanche between Parisian Talmudist Rabbi Yechiel and Nicholas Donin, an apostate who wanted all copies of the Talmud to be burned. (He would get his way in 1244 when 24 cartloads of the sacred text were burned)
1477: At Ferrara, Italy, Abraham die Tintori completed printing Tur Yorch De’ah a work of halacha by Jacob ben Asher. Born in Cologne in 1269 he was known as the Ba’al ha-Turim, the Master of the Rows. His works were divided in four turim or rows. The term probably comes from the tur or row of Jewels on the breastplate of the High Priest described in the Torah. According to sketchy information he lived in Chios, Greece before arriving at Toledo where he reportedly passed away in 1343.
1539: Joachim II Hector, Elector of Brandenburg acceded to the request of Josel von Rosheim and allowed the Jews to “settle in Margraviate again.
1608: Today Mattias, who acceded to the wishes of the Dutch and “established religious peace” in their provinces which helped to turn the Netherlands into a place of refuge for the Jews fleeing Spain and Portugal, became Archduke of Austria and King of Hungary and Croatia.
1629: Rabbi Yom Tov Lipman Heller set out for Vienna to face baseless accusations that he had abused his powers as Chief Rabbi of Prague when raising funds demanded by the government to help pay for fighting the Thirty Years War.
1644: Lope de Vera (Judah the Believer) was drawn to Judaism by the outrages of the Inquisition. He converted, and during his confinement in prison, he circumcised himself with a bone. He was then burned for refusing to yield to the Inquisition.
1656: Rabbi Menashe Ben Yisrael applied for official permission to practice Judaism in England. The Council of State granted permission. This took place during the period when Oliver Cromwell was in effect the ruler of England. Cromwell and his followers were devout Christians. The agreed to the readmission of the Jews to England because it was pointed out to them that the Second Coming could not take place until Jews populated all parts of the world.
1756: Provincial Governor Sir Charles Hardy confirms the last will and testament of Abraham Mendes Seixas. The will had been translated from Portuguese into English.
1784: The Jewish Benevolent Society of South Carolina, the oldest Jewish charitable organization in the United States, was founded today.
1788: Virginia ratified the U.S. Constitution making it the tenth state to enter the Union. Virginia was of the states that had purged itself of religious qualifications prior to joining the new republic. In 1784 James Madison led the forces that defeated a move to make Christianity the official religion of Virginia. In 1786, Jefferson and Madison joined forces “to secure passage of a law which removed religious discrimination in Virginia.
1791: In London, Michael and Judith Samson gave birth to Benjamin Samson who would not survive to celebrate his first birthday.
1800: Jacob Hyam Nathan married Polly Isaacs at the Great Synagogue in the UK.
1807: Mr. R.J. Ricardo and Miss Sarah Hyams, both of Charleston, SC, were married this evening.
1827: Protestant theologian Johann Gottfried Eichorn who “has been called ‘the founder of modern Old Testament criticism’” passed away today.
1828: Jones Spyer married Grace Josephs at the Great Synagogue in the UK.
1831(14thof Tammuz, 5591): Parashat Balak
1831(14thof Tammuz, 5591): Eighty-four year old Rebecca Mendes Phillips, the Reading, PA born daughter of David Mendez Machado and Zipporah Nunez and the wife Jonas Phillips who later became “one of the founding members of the Female Association for Relief of Women and Children in Reduced Circumstance” and a “director of the Female Benevolent Society, the first Jewish charity in America unrelated to a synagogue” passed away today.
1834: Frederick Hart married Rebecca Hart at the Great Synagogue in the UK.
1836: Birthdate of German-Jewish poet Friederike Kempner,
1839: Birthdate of William Myers, a resident of the United Kingdom.
1844: The Jews of Mobile, Alabama, who had been meeting in private homes for the last three years formed a congregation that adopted a constitution and by-laws and titled itself "Sha'arai Shomayim U-Maskil El Dol," which is Hebrew for "Congregation of the Gates of Heaven and Society of the Friends of the Needy." Within a year the congregation hired its first rabbi – Benjamin da Silva – and had its first home on St. Emanuel Street.
1846(1stof Tammuz, 5605): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1850: Following the British blockade of the port of Piraeus as part of the response to Greece’s abuse of David Pacifico, Foreign Minister Lord Palmerston who had defended this “man of Jewish persuasion” today “made a celebrated speech (June 25, 1850) which concluded that all British subjects ought to be able to say, as did citizens of ancient Rome, "Civis Romanus sum" ("I am a citizen of Rome"), and thereby receive protection from the British government.”
1851: Adolphus Simeon Solomons who “was a moving force in helping to establish the American Red Cross” “married Rachel Seixas Phillips, a descendant of colonial patriot families. They had eight daughters and a son.”
1852: Three days after he passed away, 26 year old Leo Meyer was buried today at the Lauriston Road Jewish Cemetery.
1856: “The Way they treat the Jew in England” published today reports that “The statesman who undertakes in England to bring forward a measure for the admission of the Jews to the same rights and privileges enjoyed by other citizens of that country, simply dooms himself to the Sisyphean labor of rolling up each year to the House of Lords a measure which is quietly rolled hack again.”
1857: At Berirth Shalom Congregation, Rabbi Jacobs officiated at the wedding of Mr. Iszair and Miss Ann Mintz.
1858: “The Jew Bill in Parliament – Prospect of a Concession” published today spoke approvingly of a compromise proposed by Lord Lucan. His compromise would allow the Lords and the Commons to each adopt their own wording for the Oath of Office to be used by those members who, for religious or other reasons, could not use the current form of the oath. In effect, Lord Lucan’s compromise would permit either the two Houses of Parliament to admit Jews by resolution. Since the Commons favors the admission of Jews and the Lords opposes their right to sit in Parliament, Lucan’s compromise would get the supporters of the “Jew Bill” half way to their destination. The compromise was withdrawn because the members of the Commons objected to it. If they had not, it appears that sufficient numbers of the Lords would have voted for it even though they object to Jews serving in either house of the English legislature.
1861: Thirty-eight year old Abdülmecid I, the 31st Sultan of the Ottoman Empire passed away. The Sultan carried out reforms begun by his fathers which among other things allowed Jews to assume positions of importance as can be seen by the appoint of Dr. Spitzer to serve as the representative at Naples. This progress was marred by “accusations of the blood libel in Syria and Rhodes which were part of the Ottoman Empire.
1862: Joel Solomon married Matilda Hart today in the UK.
1864: Charles I began his reign as the king of Württemberg during which he bought on the wooden models of the Temple Mount created by Conrad Schick, the “German architect, archaeologist and Protestant missionary who settled in Jerusalem in October of 1846. Schick “designed the Mea Shearim neighborhood” and his home, Tabor House “is today considered one of Jerusalem’s most beautiful buildings.” (Moshe Gilad)
1865: Birthdate of Julius Hess the native of Lithuania who served as a rabbi for several Midwestern congregations while living in St. Louis which was his family’s home.
1866: Charles and Johanna Wessolowsky gave birth to Julius M. Wessolowsky.
1870: Birthdate of Helena Rubinstein, one of the creators of the American cosmetics industry.
1871: The Jewish Messenger complained that while there were a number of wealthy Jews in America who were “good men and true” they seemed to be more interested in making money than they were in taking part in projects to promote the civic good. The Messenger compared the behavior of the Americans with that of their European counter-parts who were “prominent in all public matter – whether to relieve the poor or honor the rich; to rect a statue to the living or a monument to the dead.”
1872: In New York Isidor Straus and the former Rosalie Ida Blun gave birth to Jesse I. Straus, the Macy’s executive and husband of Irma Nathan who “served as the American Ambassador to France from 1933 to 1936.”
1873: In St. Louis, MO, Charles Bienenstok and Sarah Davis gave birth to Montefiore Bienenstok, a reporter for the St. Louis Star and editor of The Owl and the author of “short accounts about the Jews of St. Louis” as well as a novel on a Jewish theme who also served as “Assistant Secretary of the Jewish Charitable and Educational Union, Manager of the Free Employment Bureau of the United Jewish Charities and Secretary of the Home for Aged and Infirm Israelites.”
1875: In Gutenberg, Germany, Isidor Straus and Rosalie Ida Blun gave birth to Jesse Isidor Straus, scion of the famous Straus department store family who served as FDR’s first Ambassador to France in 1933.
1875: According to a report published today there are more Jews living in London today than living in Palestine.
1875: The Jewish Messenger lamented the lack of involvement by “Israelite” men in the affairs of the community, especially when it came to better of civic activity and attempts to improve the lot of the less fortunate. The paper feels that Jewish men are “good men and true” who are willing to contribute their money to worthy causes. But they are apparently are too busy amassing wealth to give of themselves and their time. This is the opposite of the case in Europe where wealthy Jews give both their time and money to causes that benefit both the Jewish community and the general society as well.
1876: The Home and Foreign Events column published today reported that "nine Jewish ministers of this City have united to call the attention of their people to the 'growing evil or extravagance and displays at funerals." They suggest a return 'the simplicity by which Jewish funerals were formerly characterized,' and that costly caskets and expensive floral displays be dispensed with.
1876: George Geiger, a Jewish Sergeant from Cincinnati fought with distinction at the Battle of the Little Big Horn today. According to the commendation he received for the Medal of Honor. "With 3 comrades during the entire engagement courageously held a position that secured water for the command"
1876: The Home and Foreign Events column published today reported that "The Jews of Khiva, it is said, observe very strictly the feasts and ceremonies of the Jewish religion." [Khiva is a city in Uzbekistan.]
1876: “Justice in Persia” published today contained examples of the lack of Justice available to the residents of this ancient country including a Jewish silversmith in Isfahan whose house “had been broken into and plundered by servants of the Governor” claiming that they were going to take him “before the Prince to answer a case in which a Persian” claimed he was really owed this money.”
1879: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi David Levy officiated at the wedding of Frances E. Goldsmith and Rabbi E.S. Levy of Augusta, GA. (David Levy and E.S. Levy would serve as visiting rabbis for the congregation in Sumter, SC which could not afford a full time clergyman).
1881: “Paris and Politics” published today described a benefit in the French capital sponsored by Baroness Rothschild to raise funds for the suffering “Israelites of Kiev and Elizabethgrad.” Russia.
1882: During today’s session of the hearing investigating the sanity of Samuel Obrieght, his brother Dr. Max, L. Obreight described half dozen attempts by Samuel to commit suicide including taking strychnine, attempting to jump over Niagara Falls and trying to cut his throat. Obreight’s family did not move to commit him until he jilted his Jewish fiancée and married a young Christian girl whom he had just met.
1882: In Elizabeth, NJ, founding of Congregation B’nai Israel which holds services at nine o’clock on Saturday morning, uses the Nak Lane Cemetery in Clinton Township and is home to both the Young Men’s Hebrew Association and the a ladies auxiliary called the Daughters of Israel.
1883: Mayor Nathan Barnet got into a scuffle with a Republican Alderman at tonight’s meeting of the Aldermanic License Committee in Paterson, NJ. Barnet, a Jew born in Pozen is a Democrat won election in April of 1883.
1884: Birthdate of British novelist of Gilbert Cannan who was a friend and patron of Mark Gertler and the subject of his “Gilbert Cannan at his Mill.”
1884: “Jew-Baiting in Russia” published today described an attack by Christians on the Jews of Nizhnee-Novogrod after reports that a Jew had kidnapped a Christian child and taken it to the local synagogue. An untold number of Jews were injured in this latest version of the blood libel and nine were murdered.
1884: In Germany, “Herman and Rosa Frandenfelder Badman gave birth to Theodore Badman, the Eton educated “real estate and insurance agent’ who was active in the Democratic Party and “President of the Manhattan Washington Lodge of the B’nai B’rith and of the Free Sons of Israel Lodge.”
1886: The Sanitarium for Hebrew Children is collecting funds to provide poor children and their mothers with summer day trips out of New York City. Contributions can be sent to John J. Davis at the office of the Hebrew Journal on East 14th Street.
1888: “Jew and Catholic United” published today described the marriage of Joseph J. Herrmann (Catholic) and Bertha Cahn (Jewish) in New Orleans. Rabbi Emile Hirsch of Chicago performed the ceremony since the rabbis in the Crescent City refused to do so.
1888: It was reported today that Orphan Asylum of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society is caring for 575 youngsters, 400 of whom are boys and 175 are girls. The boys are housed at building on 11thAvenue while the girls are housed at a building on 87th Street near the East River.
1891: “Too Many and Too Mighty” published today takes issue with the list of the reasons given by the Russian government for its treatment of the Jews contending that “cruel restrictive laws…have made the Hebrews in the Czar’s dominions what they are.”
1891: “Wants To Fight Tammany” published today described the decision of New York attorney William A. Gans who had served as the President of the B’nai B’rith to ally himself with Julius Harburger in the fight against the Democratic machine.
1891: Point 14 of the platform of the Iowa Democratic Party published today included an expression for the support of Russian Jews. “We abhor the persecutions of Russia toward the Jewish people and we believe that all civilized nations should protest against such barbarism and inhumanity.
1892: The new sanitarium for Jewish children is scheduled to open today at Rockaway Park.
1892: The Jews of Paris send condolences to the family of Armand Meyer, the Jewish French military officer who was killed in a duel brought on by the Marquis de Mores, a noted anti-Semite. Authorities take extra precaution because they fear violence by the Jews. The reality is that the Jews have been the victims of attacks, something which does not bother these same officials.
1892: “The French Duel” published today described the role of “an anti-Semitic journal in Paris” which deliberately goads Jews into fighting duels with the swashbuckling swordsman the Marquis de Mores who at least on one occasion has killed his Jewish opponent.
1892: The Berlin Board of Alderman passed a resolution “calling upon the police to suppress the sale of indecent pamphlets assailing the Jews.”
1893: All the students at the Jewish Theological Seminary including the members of the senior, junior and preparatory classes underwent final exams today.
1893: “French Views of Russia” published today provided a detailed review of The Empire of the Tsars and The Russians by Anatole Leroy-Beauliue which warns that “Western readers cannot apply to Russia rules and notions which prevail in the West” because Russia belongs “to the Europe of three or four centuries ago.
1894: Governor Flower appointed Edward Jacobs, a New York lawyer who was the brother of the Joseph Jacobs both of whom were active in the Jewish community, to serve as the new Quarantine Commissioner.
1894: Birthdate of Dimitar Peshev “the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of Bulgaria and Minister of Justice before World War II” who “rebelled against the pro-Nazi cabinet and prevented the deportation of Bulgaria's 48,000 Jews and was bestowed the title of "Righteous Among the Nations".
1894(21st of Sivan, 5654): Sixty-eight year old Wilhelm Diamant, the husband of Johanna Theres Diament and the son of Johanna and Hermann Diamant passed away today in Budapest.
1894: The Hog and the Ass” published today described the ancient Roman belief on why Jews do not eat pigs. Even though Pompey and the soldiers of Titus saw that there was no representation of the Divinity when they entered the Temple, Romans still believed that “Jews worshipped clouds, celestial bodies and animals” among them the Hog or Pig. They deduced that since the Jews were forbidden from eating Hogs or even, in the Talmud, from owning them, the Jews must worship this animal and the prohibition about consuming it had do with not consuming their “god.”
1894: “Last of Great Jewish Generals” published today provided a detailed review of Judas Maccabaeus and the Jewish War of Independence by Calude Reignier Conder. This edition is an improvement over the first one published by Major Condor fifteen years ago because the author has been to Moab and Gilead in his role as the head of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
1894: Annie Cohen Kopchovsky’s, known as Annie Londonderry,adventure began with a bet. In 1894, a gentleman in Boston bet another gentleman, $20,000 against $10,000, that no woman could travel around the world by bicycle, a feat that had been completed for the first time by a man in 1885. Although it is not clear why she was chosen, Annie Cohen Kopchovsky set out from Boston, to attempt the journey. Married and a mother of three children under age six; she was an unlikely choice but a good example of the ways that the bicycle was transforming women's lives. Besides providing women with a respectable form of independent transportation, the popularity of the bicycle led to changes in women's dress, for example, as bloomers replaced unwieldy and inconvenient full skirts.
1896: In New York, a body of a young man who would later be identified as 25 year old Simon Mischel an unmarried Jew residing on Delancey Street was found floating in the Clyde River.
1896: A summary of the United Hebrew Charities activity report the month of May published today showed that 3,355 had applied for aid and that over $12,000 had been spent in meeting their needs and the needs of previous applicants. The organization found work for 538 people and provided transportation for an additional 157 people to travel to other parts of the United States.
1897: Rabbi Isaac Ruff wrote Declaration versus Declaration which appeared in today’s issue of Die Welt. This was defense of Herzl who had been attacked by the anti-Zionist “Protest Rabbis.”
1897: In an example of Jew supporting Jew it was reported today that the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Band had provided the musical program at the recent graduating exercises for the students of the Hebrew Technical Institute.
1897: Two days after he passed away, David Jewell was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.
1897: “Jacob Scholle’s Bequests” published today contained a list of the charities that were to receive $2, 500 according to the late bankers will including the Montefiore Home, Mount Sinai Hospital, Hebrew Orphan Asylum, Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews and the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of San Francisco.
1898(5th of Tammuz, 5658): Seventy year old Ferdinand Julius Cohn “one of the founders of modern bacteriology and microbiology” passed away today.
1899: It was reported today that officers of the newly formed Orthodox Hebrew Society are President - Dr. Bernard Drachman, the Rabbi of Congregation Zichron Ephraim and Vice President Max Cohen, a New York attorney. The Society was formed to promote traditional Jewish observance in the face of the growing popularity of the Reform Movement.
1899: In London, Herzl takes part in the Conference of the English Zionist Federation. Herzl says that he wants to obtain a Charter from the Turkish government, in order to colonize Palestine under the sovereignty of the Sultan. The conference ends on July 1st.
1899: “The Jews of Germany” published today described the “continuing Jew-baiting crusade” being conducted by Count Puckler. During his lectures in Berlin he “invited his audience to wage a merciless was on ‘godless, lying, thievish Jews.’”
1899:”Fears that Dreyfus May Be Assassinated” published today described precautions being taken at Rennes where the court-martial of the French officer is taking place including placing “Gendarmes…at every corner” and the testing of all food supplied to him by his jailers before it is eaten.
1899: “France’s New Cabinet and its Peculiar Composition” published today described the difficulty that Gallic politicians are having in forming a new government in the wake of the ongoing crisis surrounding the Dreyfus Affair.
1900: Birthdate of Philip Montagu D’Arcy Hart, the grandson of the 1stBaron Swayting, the husband of gynecologist Ruth Meyer and father of economist Oliver Hart who was a leading researcher in the field of tuberculosis treatment.
1900: In New York City, David Eichler and Anna Strauss gave birth to real estate developer Joseph Eichler.
1900: Birthdate of Moses Hadas, an American teacher, one of the leading classical scholars of the twentieth century, and a translator of numerous works. Raised in Atlanta in a Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jewish household, his early studies included rabbinical training; he graduated from Jewish Theological Seminary of America (1926) and took his doctorate in classics in 1930. He was fluent in Yiddish, German, ancient Hebrew, ancient Greek, Latin, French, and Italian, and well-versed in other languages. His most productive years were spent at Columbia University, where he was a colleague of Jacques Barzun and Lionel Trilling. There, he took his talent for languages, combined it with a popularizing impulse, to buck the prevailing classical methods of the day—textual criticism and grammar—presenting classics, even in translation, as worthy of study as literary works in their own right. This approach may be compared to the New Criticism school: even as the New Critics emphasized close reading, eschewing outside sources and cumbersome apparatus, Hadas, in presenting classical works in translation to an influx of post-war G.I. Bill students, brought forth an appreciation of his domain for those without the specialized training of classicists. His popularizing impulse led him to embrace television as a tool for education, becoming a telelecturer and a pundit on broadcast television. He also recorded classical works on phonograph and tape. His daughter Rachel Hadas is a poet, teacher, essayist, and translator. He passed away in 1966.
1901: Eighty-seven year old Charles Kensington Salaman who passed away two days ago, was described today as “the oldest living English composer” who, in the last years of his life was best “known as the man who alone of living men, knew many of the great masters of composition of the early part of the nineteenth century.” This meant that that the late Jewish composer knew Mendelssohn, Listz, Schumann, Mayerbeer and Wagner (and a whole lot more)
1902(20th of Sivan, 5662) Samuel Edward Shrimski the native of Prussia who moved to London in 1847, then to Melbourne in 1859 before settling in New Zealand in 1861 where he became a Member of Parliament died suddenly today. In addition to supporting many secular institutions he was “vice president of the Otago branch of the Anglo-Jewish Association.
1903: Birthdate of English author and social commentator George Orwell. Orwell is best known for such works as “1984” and “Animal Farm.” A lesser known work is his essay entitled “Anti-Semitism in Britain.” First published in 1945, this short article examines the conditions of the Jewish population in Britain and calls for an examination of the causes of anti-Semitism now that World War II was coming to an end.
1903(30thof Sivan, 5663): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1904: In Denver, CO, the Jewish Consumptive Relief Society which had been founded in January was officially incorporated today.
1904(12thof Tammuz, 5664): In Greenville, MS, sixty year old Edward Storm passed away. Born in Berlin he moved to Mississippi and served in two Confederate cavalry units during the Civil War.
1909: Birthdate of Daniel Fuchs, a writer who was a product of the Lower East Side and Williamsburg which provided the backdrop of “three early novels – Summer in Willamsbrg, Homage to Blenholt and Low Company.
1909: Hebert Louis Samuel, the 1st Viscount Samuel began his term as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the government of Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith.
1910: Congress passed the Mann Act which was intended to curb prostitution, or as its supporters called “white slavery” a term George Kibbe Turner used “in a 1907 article in McClure's Magazine that claimed a "loosely organized association... largely composed of Russian Jews" was the primary source of supply for Chicago brothels.
1911: Birthdate of biochemist William Stein. Stein won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1972. Jews have won 18% of the Nobel Prizes for Chemistry. Stein died at the age of 68 in 1980.
1912: Birthdate of “Arnold Forster, an American Jewish leader, lawyer and writer who was a longtime executive of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.”
1912: The 12th annual meeting of the Alumni Association of the Jewish Theological Seminary whose president was Jacob Kohn opened today in Tannersville, NY.
1913: In Cincinnati, Ohio, officers are elected at the American Zionists’ convention including Harry Friedenwald of Baltimore who is chosen to serve as Honorary President and Louis Lipsky who is chosen to serve as Chairman of the Executive Committee.
1913: In Springfield, Illinois, the annual conference of the American Association of Officials of Charities and Correction which Mortimer L. Schiff and Henry Solomon both of New York were delegates continued for a second day.
1913: In New York City, Harry and Anna Grossman gave birth to photographer and social activist Sid Grossman, the graduate of City College who co-founded the Photo League in 1934.
1914(1stof Tammuz, 5674): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1914: It was reported today that the late Isidor Wormser, a retired banker and automobile racing enthusiast was a member of the New York Stock Exchange up to the day of his death having kept is seat on the NYSE even after he had liquidated his business holdings.
1914: Birthdate of Newburyport, MA native Theresa Hilda Feldman who gained fame as Hilda Terry, one of the first female cartoonist and creator if “Teena” which ran for over almost a quarter of a century starting in 1941.
1915(13th of Tammuz, 5675): Hungarian born American pianist and composer Rafael Joseffy passed away.
1915: “In a long statement seeking to justify the use of asphyxiating gases in war-fare, the semi-official Wolff Telegraph Bureau assert in German newspaper…that the Allies first used such gases against the German.” According to Wolff, the French had authorized use gas in February of 1915. [Like so many other agencies of this type, its ownership had Jewish origins.]
1915: Authorities believe that yesterday’s attack on Benny Snyder at the Tombs just before he was to appear in court was brought on by those who thought that he was going to provide the D.A. with information about criminal activities he had acquired while in jail.
1915: Delegates to the National Convention of Zionists are scheduled to begin registering this morning at the Old City Club building on Beacon Street in Boston while “official activities of the convention will actually begin in the evening at Temple MIshkan Tefila.”
1915: As the state of Georgia reels from the outgoing Governor’s decision to commute the death sentence of Leo Frank to life in prison, two regiments of the state militia are making their way to Atlanta to make sure that the inauguration of Governor-elect Nat Harris goes smoothly.
1916: Supreme Court Just Louis D. Brandeis is among the speakers who will address the “seven hundred delegates scheduled to attend the annual convention of the Federal of American Zionists opening today in the Metropolitan Opera House in Philadelphia, PA.
1916: “Henry Morgenthau delivered an address in the Dickinson High School at Jersey City today to the movement for a Hebrew Orphan Asylum in Hudson County.”
1916: “A military organization” known as the First New York Volunteers “having as its nucleus men who allege they have been excluded from the New York National Guard because they were Jews” was formed at a meeting attended by more than fifty men and held today in the rooms of the Merchants’ Association in the Woolworth Building. The meeting was chaired by Max J. Klein who was assisted by Captain Lewis Landes, the Executive Secretary of the Army and Navy Branch of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.
1916: Today which has been designated as “Flower Day” many florists throughout New York City today “donated their wares to the Joint Distribution Committee for the Relief of Jewish War Suffers: while “more than 1,500 Jewish young men and women sold he flowers on the streets under the committee’s auspices.”
1917: The Italian government publishes a decree assuring that all 10,000 Lire ($2,000) of a bequest from Emilio Treves will be awarded as a prize upon publication of an Italian language manuscript to combat anti-Semitism.
1917: After having lost the Welterweight Championship in 1916, Ted Lewis won it back in a bout at Westwood Field in Dayton, Ohio.
1917: This evening a reception for delegates at the Convention of the Federation of American Zionists is scheduled to be held at the Hotel Belvedere between Charles and Chase streets.
1917: In Cleveland, Ohio, after five years of service, Jacob Klein was unanimously elected to continue serving as the Rabbi of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun.
1918: Tache Ionescu stated today “that ever since August, 1914, it had been decided to settle the Jewish question and place the Jews in Romania on a footing of complete equality with their fellow-subjects.”
1918: The 21st Annual Convention of the Federation of American Zionist continued for a third day in Pittsburgh, PA. where delegated learned that “the Jewish Legion of 8,000 men now fighting with British in Palestine is only the nucleus of a Jewish legion ten times as great that is to become that national standing army of the coming Jewish Republic.”
1918: The Intercollegiate Zionist Association of America whose members included Norman Winestine, Aaron Schaffer and Jonas Friedenwald held it is fourth annual convention today.
1919: The first national conference of the Religious Zionist Organization, Mizrachi, opens.
1919: In Brockton, MA, Rose Rosen “a Communist activist from the East of London” and her husband gave birth to Harold Rosen, the graduate of University College in London, U.S. Army veteran and “academic” at London University’s Institute of Education who was the husband of Connie Isakofsky with whom he had three children – Brian, Alan and Michael.
1920:Tonight,“the residents of the Young Women’s Hebrew Associaton” on 110th Street “attended Synagogue where a special service was held for their bellowed and revered Mrs. A. N. Chen whose loving devotion they shall” remember forever.
1920: The Jewish Chronicle reported on a meeting of the Board of Deputies where they discussed the disposition of the Cemetery at St. Heliers.
1920: In St Anne's-on-Sea, Lancashire, England, Maurice Copisarow “who in 1915 co-authored a paper on Chemistry with Chaim Weizmann” and his wife gave birth to Alcon Charles Copisarow who “held serveral Civil Service and other governmental posts” before being knighted in 1988.
1920: Birthdate of William H. Prusoff, a pharmacologist at the Yale School of Medicine who, with a colleague, developed an effective component in the first generation of drug cocktails used to treat AIDS.
1920: The sixth annual Tennis Tournament sponsored by the Chicago Institute for young men under theage of 17 is scheduled to take place today with the winners receiving “handsome cups and medals.”
1921(19thof Sivan, 5681): Parashat Beha’alotcha
1921: A sermon on “A Thought for Vacation” is scheduled to be delivered this morning at Temple Emanu-El.
1921: Rabbi Harry Halpern is scheduled to deliver the sermon this morning at the Jewish Communal Center of Flatbush in Brooklyn.
1921: Rabbi Samuel J. Levinson is scheduled to deliver the sermon this morning at the Flatbush Temple in Brooklyn
1921: Authorities in Syria do not issue passes to Jews who wish to leave the country.
1921: In Newport News, VA, Mr. and Mrs. Elias Cohen gave birth to Sherman Cohen “a one-time auto dealer who, with his two brothers, built a real estate empire of more than 20 residential and commercial buildings across Manhattan…” (As reported by Charles V. Bagli)
1923: Opening of the Summer Edition of the Ziegfeld Follies featuring songs, sketches written and performed by Eddie Cantor.
1924: In Philadelphia, PA, Polish born actor Baruch Lumet and Mrs. Lumet gave birth to Director Sidney Lumet best known for the film Dog Day Afternoo
1927: Birthdate of Lorain, OH and Northwestern University alum Gerald Alan Freedman, the “Dean of the Drama School at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts” and “the first American ever invited to direct at the Globe Theatre in London>
1928: Birthdate of Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov, Russian born physicist who now also holds American citizenship. He was a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2003.
1928: In New York, Isidore and Bess Junger Cohen gave birth to University of Chicago graduate and award winning novelist and theologian Arthur Allen Cohen
1928: After losing his only bout by a knockout in 1926, today Flyweight Pinky Silverberg lost his second bout in a row, this time by points in a ten round decision “at Laurel Garden in Newark, NJ.”
1929: “President Hoover signed the Boulder Canyon Project Act, authorizing the expenditure of $165 million for the construction of the Boulder Dam” which was designed by architect “Gordon Bernie Kaufmann, whose father was of Jewish origin and whose mother’s maiden name was Isaacs” but may not have been Jewish himself since he was “buried under the sign of a cross at Golden State National Cemetery.” (As reported by Donald H. Harrison)
1929: Birthdate of Thomas Eisner, “a groundbreaking authority on insects whose research revealed the complex chemistry that they use to repel predators, attract mates and protect their young, Thomas Eisner, a groundbreaking authority on insects whose research revealed the complex chemistry that they use to repel predators, attract mates and protect their young,”
1930: Rabbi Stephen S. Wise is scheduled to officiate at the funeral of Rabbi Maurice H. Harris which is being held this morning at the Free Synagogue. (JTA)
1930: Birthdate of Hugo Gabriel Gryn, the Czech born survivor of Auschwitz who served as the Rabbi at West London Synagogue.
1930: The two-day celebration of opening of the Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva founded by Rabbi Meir Shapiro came to an end.
1931: “The Magnificent Lie” a WW I themed movie with a script by Leonard Merrick and Samson Raphaelson was released today in the United States.
1932(21st of Sivan, 5692): Herbert Bentwich passed away in Jerusalem. Born in 1856, at Whitechapel, he was a British Zionist leader and lawyer. “He was an authority on copyright law, and owner/editor of the Law Journal for many years. He was a leading member of the English Hovevei Zion and one of the first followers of Theodor Herzl in England. In 1897 Bentwich he led a group of 21, including the writer Israel Zangwill, on a tour of holy sites and new settlements in Palestine on behalf of the Maccabaeans, and in 1911 he acquired land for settlement at Gezer, near Ramleh on behalf of the Maccabean Land Company. He later succeeded his brother-in-law Solomon J. Solomon as president of the Maccabaeans. Bentwich was a founder of the British Zionist Federation in 1899 and for some time served as its vice-chairman. He was a legal adviser for the Jewish Colonial Trust. From 1916 to 1918 he served on the Zionist political advisory committee under Chaim Weizmann. Bentwich was a regular visitor to Palestine after 1921 and settled in Jerusalem in late 1929. Susannah Bentwich died in London in 1915. He was survived by ten of his eleven children, eight of whom eventually settled permanently in Palestine. His eldest son, Norman Bentwich, a leading barrister, also spent much of his professional life there, and another son, Joseph Bentwich, was awarded the Israel Prize, for education, in 1962.”
1933: Outfielder Milt Galatzer made his major league debut with the Cleveland Indians in doubleheader with the Washington Senators during which he got on base four times in the first game (all by walks) and then got two hits in the second game.
1934: Today, American banker Robert Owen Lehman, Sr. married his second wife, Ruth "Kitty" (Leavitt) Meeker with whom he had one son, Robert Owen Lehman, Jr.
1935: Joe Louis defeats Primo Carnera at Yankee Stadium. Neither of the fighters was Jewish. But Joe Louis’ manager Mike Jacobs was Jewish. It was under his guidance that Louis broke the “color barrier” and got his shot at being Heavy Weight Champion of the World.
1935: In Bridgeport, CT, a Jewish “attorney and a social worker gave birth to playwright and author Larry Kramer who is also an LGBT rights activist.
1936: Sixty-nine year old American diplomate and N.Y. National Guard Brigadier General Charles Hitchcock Sherrill who spoke “glowingly” about Mussolini and Hitler and who failed to convince the German dictator to allow “one token Jew” to take part in the 1936 Olympics, passed away today.
1936: The Palestine Post reported that Haim Golowitzky, one of the founders of Atarot who was on his way to milk cows, was shot dead by Arab snipers, just outside his cowshed. Passengers in a Jewish bus in Haifa had a remarkable escape from death when they succeeded in extinguishing burning fuses in a suitcase left by an Arab passenger who jumped off their bus. British troops continued their searches and confiscated arms in Arab villages throughout the country. It was estimated that no fewer than 100,000 trees had been destroyed and another 12,000 damaged by Arabs since April 19, 1936.
1936: Last broadcast of Camel Caravan a radio show that showcased several talented musicians including Benny Goodman.
1936: “Exemption of Jews from military service ‘in accordance with the highest interpretation of Judaism’ was sought from the United States Government in a resolution adopted tonight by the Central Conference of American Rabbis at the social justice session of the organization’s forty-seventh annual convention” being held at Cape May, NJ.
1936: It was announced today that a testimonial luncheon will be given for Mrs. Herbert H. Lehman at the Hotel Commodore by the Women’s Division of the Greater New York Campaign of the Joint Distribution Committee for the benefit of the campaign whose goal is to raise $1,500,000.
1937: “North of the Rio Grande” a western film featuring Lee J. Cobb as “RR President Wooden” was released today in the United States.
1937: “The Great Gambini” a mystery directed by Charles Vidor, produced by B.P. Schulberg
1937: Birthdate of Baron Wolman Rolling Stone magazine’s first Chief Photographer.
1937: It was reported today that Italian newspaper publisher Generoso Pope has said that “he had received the word of Mussolini that would be no persecution of Jews in Italy ‘as long as they obey the laws’ and that the Premiere had told him the Jews “will be treated just like all other Italians as long as the laws of the country are obeyed.”
1938: As Arab violence flared, “a gain of terrorist entered a hospital in Haifa seeking a wounded Arab ‘traitor’ who was a patient there.” When they could not find him, “they killed another Arab patient. “A manifesto issued today by the Tel Aviv municipality called on Jews to remain calm and not resort to violence.
1938: Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the U.S. adopts a minimum wage which is set at $.40 an hour. Sidney Hillman, head of the “Amalgamated” and advisor to FDR played a key role in drafting and gaining support for this landmark legislation.
1938: German-Jewish doctors are allowed to treat only Jewish patients.
1939: Over one thousand delegates attended the 42nd annual meeting of the ZOA began this afternoon at the Hotel Commodore where they heard a cable from former Prime Minister Lloyd George who “bid them to be of good cheer until the clouds pass.”
1940: As Churchill worked to transfer the eleven battalions of Regular British troops from Palestine back to England so that they can help defend the British Isles against the pending Nazi invasion, he wrote to the Secretary of State for Colonies, Lord Lloyd, asking “what weapons and organization the Jews have for self-defense.” Churchill wants to arm the Jews so they can protect themselves against Arab attackers. Lloyd opposes the arming of the Jews and would rather have the British troops remain.
1941 (30th of Sivan, 5701): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1941: Members of the Lithuanian militia marched Jews to the Seventh Fort in Kovno where they would be murdered after suffering abuse at the hands of the local sadists.
1941: “President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 8802 prohibiting government contractors from engaging in employment discrimination based on race, color or national origin. This order is the first presidential action ever taken to prevent employment discrimination by private employers holding government contracts. The Executive Order applies to all defense contractors, but contains no enforcement authority. President Roosevelt signs the Executive Order primarily to ensure that there are no strikes or demonstrations disrupting the manufacture of military supplies as the country prepares for War.” By the standards of the 21stcentury, this action might seem “weak.” But it gives us an idea of the level of bigotry which was sanctioned in the society. At the time Roosevelt signed this order it was considered a major step in the fight against prejudice.
1941 (30th of Sivan, 5701): Many Jews were killed in a pogrom at Jassy, Romania. The following appears in The Tragedy of Romanian Jewry by Randolph L. Braham."At the outbreak of the war, Jassy had a population of slightly over 100,000 inhabitants, approximately 50,000 of whom were Jews. The city was very close to the frontier with the Soviet Union, and even before launching the anti-Soviet war on June 22, 1941, a number of secret anti-Semitic measures had been initiated in Romania. Between June 20 and 26 the Jews of Jassy were forced to dig two large mass graves in the Pacurari Jewish cemetery. About the same time, the Soviet air force bombed Jassy twice, the second time inflicting serious damage. The rumor spread that Soviet paratroopers were active throughout the city and that these paratroopers were being given shelter by the Jews. On the morning of 29 June, 1941, Jews were formed into columns and marched from Tatarasi, Pacurari, Sararie, and Nicolina Streets to police headquarters. Most of the prisoners were men but among them were also some women with children. Some were dressed, others were in their night clothes many had been beaten and had bruises and open wounds. Civilian onlookers as well as soldiers and gendarmes, Romanian and German spat at them and hit them with stones, broken bottles, clubs, crowbars and rifle butts. Civilians joined the police and the military in dragging Jews out of their homes. All told, thousands of Jews were herded into the courtyard of the Jassy police headquarters. In another report, addressed to the Minister of the Interior, Lieutenant-Colonel Chirlovici, reported 1,000 Jewish prisoners at 9:00 a.m. and 5,000 by nightfall. He stated that at noon there were 3,500 Jews in the courtyard. At about 1:30 PM German soldiers and Romanian gendarmes and soldiers surrounded police headquarters and an area close by. At about 2:00 p.m., the German and Romanian soldiers began to fire directly into the crowds; they were joined by some civilians. They used machine-guns, automatic weapons, or rifles. Crazed with terror some Jews tore down the fence of the courtyard and tried to take refuge near the Sidoli cinema ... They too were mowed down without mercy. The massacre continued intermittently until 6:00 p.m. It is difficult to establish the number of victims of the massacre at police headquarters. Four trucks and 24 carts transported the corpses; it took two whole days to move them. Approximately 2,500 Jews survived the massacre in the police headquarters courtyard. At about 8:00 p.m. the process of getting them to the railroad station began. Two thousand five hundred Jews were herded were herded into freight cars. The train left Jassy on June 30, 1941 between 3:30 and 4:15 a.m. At about 4:00 a.m. the same morning, a second group of approximately 1,900 Jews to be evacuated were rounded up at police headquarters. Two death trains left Jassy between 3:30 and 4:15 a.m. on Monday, June 30, 1941. The first one ... consisted of from 33 to 38 sealed freight cars and contained between 2,430 and 2,530 Jews. When the train was emptied there were 1,076 survivors.]The history of the second car is ... equally horrifying. On June 30, 1941 at about 6:00 A.M., 1,902 Jews were loaded onto a second train comprising 18 cars. Of the 1,902 Jews put on the train, 1,194 died and were buried in the Podul Iloaei cemetery. The total number of victims of the Jassy pogrom cannot be established with certainty. While the number of victims on the trains is known and relatively accurate, it is not known how many Jews in Jassy were buried in communal graves, how many such graves there were, and how many corpses were simply thrown onto garbage heaps or into the Bahlui River. German diplomats estimated at least 4,000 victims... The most reliable source seems to be documents from the archives of the Romanian Ministry of the Interior which ... place the number at over 8,000."
1941: Soviets renew the attacks on Finland that had been part of the earlier “Winter War” with a large air attack on the Fins.
1941 (30th of Sivan, 5701): In the town of Luck, Poland, Dr. Benjamin From aged forty-seven refused to stop operating on a Christian woman, so he was dragged out of operating room, taken to his home and killed with his entire family.
1941(30thof Sivan, 5701): Ninety year old “German mathematician and patron of the arts” Alfred Pringsheim passed away in Zurich where he had been forced to flee by the Nazis.http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/Biographies/Pringsheim.html
1941 (30th of Sivan, 5701): In Jedwabne, Poland, local Polish citizenry begin a pogrom aimed at the Jews living in the town.
1941: Two days after the retreating NKVD had machine gunned 4,000 political prisoners “including Poles, Jews and Ukrainians” the Wehrmacht captured the city of Lutsk following which the Nazis forced the Jews into a Ghetto before murdering approximately 25,000 of them on Gorka Polonka Hill.
1942: London Daily Telegraph reports, "More than 700,000 Polish Jews have been slaughtered by the Germans in the greatest massacres in the world's history."
1943: Crematorium III at Auschwitz begins operation. Also, Otto Ben, from the Foreign Ministry reports that the “100,000th Jews has been removed from Dutch Society.”
1943: “Jitterbugs” a comedy film produced by Sol M. Wurtzel with music by Lew Pollack was released in the United States today.1943: The Germans began the final destruction of the people living in the Czestochowa Ghetto. The Jews put up armed resistance in a series of bunkers. Czestochowa is located in Poland and is famous as the home of the "Black Madonna."
1944: In Brooklyn Anne Goldberg, a bookkeeper and postal worker George Goldberg gave birth to Gary David Goldberg who would gain fame as television producer and writer.
1945: In the Bronx, “Richard L. Simon, the co-founder of Simon & Schuster and a classical pianist who often played Frédéric Chopin and Ludwig van Beethoven at home” and “Andrea Heinemann Simon (née Heinemann), a civil rights activist and singer” gave birth to singer and songwriter Carly Elisabeth Simon.
1945: Today “Baltimorean Rudolf Sonneborn” who would serve as national chairman of the UJA “brought together Jewish industrial leaders in a New York meeting with David Ben-Gurion, then chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive in Palestine.”
1946: “Books Published Today” included Jews in American History: 1654-1865 by Philip S. Foner and The Jewish People: Past and Present, Vol I, Jewish Encyclopedic Handbooks—A series of essays on various aspects of Jewish history and culture.
1947: The Diary of Anne Frank is published.
1947: In Los Angeles, Samuel Kurtzman, a Russian born dentist and the former Roselle Rosencranz gave birth to Joel Allen Kurtzman the “economic Cassandra” who seemed to do a 180 degree change when in 2014 he predicted a “Second American Century of unimaginable prosperity.”
1948: As Israel fought for its survival, as prelude to a full blockade “the Soviets stopped supplying food to the civilian population in the non-Soviet sectors of Berlin” in what was part of a plan to drive the Western Allies from Berlin and eventually from West Germany. (Editor’s note – this serves as a reminder that Jewish history does not take place in a vacuum and to understand it, it is necessary to understand the happenings of the world at large.)
1948: In Brooklyn actor Harvey Lembeck and Caroline Dubs gave birth to actor and television director Michael Lembeck
1948: Warner Bros. released “Romance on the High Seas” a musical comedy written by Julius and Philip G. Epstein with additional dialogue proved by I.A.L. Diamond today.
1949: At their 60th annual convention, “three hundred rabbis, representing Reform congregation throughout the United States” today unanimously approved resolutions calling “for the including of Jerusalem with the boundaries of Israel” and urging “the full adoption of President Truman’s civil rights program.”
1950: Birthdate of Israeli actress Nitza Saul.
1950: The beginning of the Korean War, with the invasion of the South by the North. Jews fought in the Korean War just as they had in every war since the call to arms went out in 1775.
See http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/sugar10.htmlfor a partial list of those who served. In an article entitled “Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in North Korea, 1951, Remembered,” Warren Zundell, MD (Captain, 11th Evacuation Hospital SMBL, 10th Corp. 8th Army, Korea) provides us with a glimpse of what it was like during what some derisively called a “police action.” These evenings occurred years ago, but every Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, they return as vividly as if they happened last year.In May, 1951, my hospital unit was transported from Sasebo, Japan to Pusan, Korea. I was on the Orthopedic Surgery Team. Five months later, on the day before Rosh Hashanah, our hospital Chaplain (a Catholic priest), asked me if I was planning to attend services the next day, being conducted some 40 or 50 miles north of our location, just over the 36th parallel, in North Korea. We were in Wonju, South Korea. I knew the Rabbi who was to conduct the services, as he would visit our hospital from time to time. Knowing this would be a 40 or 50 mile trek through sniper-infested mountains, I answered negatively, even though I knew that the Rabbi might be disappointed. The following conversation then ensued:
Chaplain: You have to go.
Me: Why do I have to go?
Chaplain: There are about 30 Jewish boys around here who want to go.
Me: So let them go.
Chaplain: An Officer has to go to be in charge of the convoy.
Me: Why me? I am a Doctor.
Chaplain: You are the only Jewish Officer in this hospital, so you go. He was a Major, I was a Captain. I think he was giving me a direct order. He then informed me that he would lend me his jeep in which to head the convoy of trucks. It had a big white cross on the front hood, which he implied would protect us from sniper fire. He didn’t say anything about land mines. That afternoon we assembled the convoy and headed North. It may have been the first all-Jewish convoy in the history of Korea. As Jews, we were not fully convinced that the white cross would totally protect us from sniper fire. We were therefore well-armed. A few uneventful hours later we crossed the 38th parallel into North Korea. We were making Jewish history. Soon we checked into 10th Corp. HW. The Rabbi (Major Meir Engle) seemed happy to see us. The next day was Rosh Hashanah. We had a big tent in which to hold services. There were about 300 Jewish boys attending, including my 30. I was proud to be there. After services we reassembled our convoy and returned to our hospital, without incident. When Yom Kippur came, I was called upon by the Chaplain again. I didn’t want to push my luck, with a baby daughter back home whom I had never seen. Nevertheless, I soon found myself in the same Jewish convoy. But between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, there had been heavy fighting on the 10th Corp. Front. Instead of 300 Jewish boys attending Yom Kippur services, there were less than 150. Korea is now referred to as the "Forgotten War". What it really means is that this country has literally forgotten the more than 34,000 Americans who died there, including those Jewish boys who died between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in the year 1951."
Korea also presented the newly independent state of Israel with one of its first great foreign policy challenges not directly related to the Middle East or its own immediate survival. Israel’s shifting policy, as described below, demonstrated how quickly conflict in the Middle East and conflict in the Far East were joined together because of the Cold War. The shift also resulted, in part, from the Soviet Union’s change of policy towards Israel. Stalin’s smile quickly turned sour, while Harry Truman’s never did. “Israel's foreign policy underwent a change during the Korean War. In the first two years after its establishment, Israel maintained a stance of nonalignment. However, it became clear from the anti-Jewish attitude of the Communist bloc and especially Joseph Stalin that strengthening relations with the United States was the only way to safeguard Israel's continued existence and long-term interests. Both Israel's foreign and domestic policy during the Korean War reflected a growing U.S. influence, which has only deepened with time. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion went one step further during the Korean War when he suggested that an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) unit be sent to join the UN forces fighting North Korea and the Chinese volunteers. A debate broke out in Israel over whether it should provide support to U.S. and UN policies given that Washington had made no such request. The leading opponent of sending an IDF unit was the political party Mapam, which was part of the governing coalition and openly favored North Korea. With the Achdut Ha'Avoda party, another member of the coalition, also against the measure, the government decided to limit its assistance to medical aid and food shipments. In addition, Israel lent political support during the UN deliberations on whether its troops should cross the 38th parallel northward. In February 1951, the UN General Assembly condemned China as the aggressor and placed a boycott on certain strategic supplies to China. Here, too, Israel continued to side with the United States, the United Nations, and South Korea, though formal diplomatic ties with the latter were still more than a decade away. From the 1951 ideological debate between the Israeli parties until 1960, there were no initiatives on the question of relations with South Korea.”
1950: Israeli airline El Al began service. Anybody who has ever flown El Al to Israel knows there is flying and then there is flying El Al. As an early target of terrorist, El Al adopted policies that have made it the safest airline in the world. Its anti-terrorist practices have served as a model for other airlines as they have been confronted with similar challenges.
1950: The outbreak of the Korean War delayed the build of a new Jewish Community Center in Salt Lake City Utah delaying its completion until 1959.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that 20 lists of parties were registered for the Second Knesset elections. Israel and Switzerland decided to establish diplomatic relations. The quality of sweets had improved, but the quality of beverages had deteriorated, according to the Quality Control Department of the Ministry of Agriculture.
1952: A government spokesman reported that an Israeli army patrol had shot three Arabs who were trying to enter Israel from Jordan.
1953:Robert and Gérald Finaly, two Jewish children, who were hidden during the Occupation by a Catholic network, were brought back to France from Spain where they had been by Catholics who did want to return to Jewish authorities.
1956: William Goldman started writing The Temple of Gold, his first novel, which was written in less than three weeks and then was almost immediately picked up for publication.
1956: The last Packard automobile was manufactured in the United States. Starting in 1903, Packard automobiles had been manufactured at a start of the plant in Detroit designed by Albert Kahn.
1960(30th of Sivan, 5720): Parashat Koraach; Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1960: In their sermons today, Dr. Julius Mark, the senior rabbi at Temple Emanu-El, Dr. Judah Nadich, the rabbi at the Park Avenue Synagogue and Dr. Zev Zahavy, the rabbi at Congregation Zichron Ephraim each “commend Mayor Wagner for refusing to grant a permit for an America Nazi party rally in Union Square on July 4.”
1960: During a Shabbat morning service at Detroit’s Temple Beth El which marked the end of “the 71st annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis,” “Dr. Nelson Glueck, president of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion” warned the attendees “against permitting the ‘getting and giving of money’ to become the major premise in community life” while taking “issue with every kind of vague humanitarianism and well-fed sentimentality when these tend to supplant the restless search for truth and the realistic implementation of the imperatives of” the Jewish faith.
1961: The Carpetbaggers by Harold Robbins was number 9 on the New York Times bestseller list on the same day that Murray Schumach began his review of the novel with "It was not quite proper to have printed The Carpetbaggers between covers of a book. It should have been inscribed on the walls of a public lavatory."
1962: The U.S. Supreme Court decides that non-denominational prayer allowed in New York States is an unconstitutional violation of the separation of church and state.
1964: U.S. premiere of “Circus World” produced by Samuel Brontson, with a script co-authored by Ben Hecht and music by Dimitri Tiomkin who won a Golden Globe for his effort.
1965: When followed home from a meeting of Canadian Nazis,Henryk Van der Windt tells the Toronto Star that he working under cover for the Canadian Jewish Congress who had hired him to spy on Nazi leader John Beattie. For more on this see “Delayed Impact” by Frank Bialystok.
1966(7th of Tammuz, 5726): Sixty-five year old Columbus, Ohio native Mose “Moe” Solomon whose major league career consisted of two games with the New York Giants passed away today.
1967: After 1,530 performances Neil Simon’s “Barefoot in the Park” finished its first Broadway run today.
1968: Herb Gray began serving as a Member of Parliament for Windsor West.
1968: “The Secret Life of an American Wife” directed, produced and written by George Axelrod and starring Walter Matthau was released today in the United States.
1969(9thof Tammuz, 5729): Seventy-five year old Alene Stern Erlanger, the wife of Erlanger Mills director Milton Erlanger and Barnard College graduate “who was responsible for the formation of the U.S.A.’s canine corps during WW II passed away today.
1969: “The Gladiators” known as “The Peace Game” in Sweden filmed by cinematographer Peter Suschitzky, the son of cinematographer Wolfgang Suschitzky was released today.
1972(13th of Tammuz, 5732): Eighty-four year old boxing expert and founder of Ring Magazine Nat Fleisher passed away today.
http://www.ibhof.com/pages/about/inductees/nonparticipant/fleischer.htmlhttps://bleacherreport.com/articles/126210-why-did-the-boxing-world-ever-listen-to-nat-fleischer
1972: Sir Joshua Abraham Hassan began serving his second term as Chief Minister of Gibraltar.
1973(25thof Sivan, 5733): Eighty-four year old Jessie Danz, the New York born daughter of Annie and Maurice Mordechai Mohr and the wife of John Danz who “served as an “officer of the Jewish Welfare Society” and the National Council of Women in Seattle passed away today.
1974(5th of Tammuz, 5734): Eighty-one year old Hungarian physicist and mathematician Cornellius Lanczos who “served as assistant to Albert Einstein during the period of 1928–29” passed away today.
1974: In Novosibirsk, Yuri and Anna Berkovsky went on trial having been charge with “speculation and unauthorized possession of fire arms.”
1975: “Catholic Vazken, head of the Armenian Church and Metropolitan Philaret, head of the Russian Church in East Berlin and Central Europe” “held separate prayer services at Yad Vashem” in Jerusalem today “in memory of the six million Jews killed by the Nazis.”
1975: “Israel handed over 20 convicted terrorists from Sinai and the Gaza Strip to Egyptian authorities today and received in exchange coffins bearing the remains of Eliyahu Hakim and Eliyahu Ben Tzuri who were hanged in Cairo” in 1945 after having been convicted of murdering Lord Moyne.
1976: “Notes on People” published today described the release of Morton Sobell “who served part of a 30-year sentence to commit espionage in the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg treason case” “from having to report periodically to a probation as condition of his parole.
1976: It was reported today Dr. Saul Lieberman and Dr. Herman F. Marks “are this year’s recipients of the Israel Institute of Technology’s annual $35,000 Harvey Prize. Seventy-eight year old Lieberman, the rector of JTS, was recognized for his “research on Palestine in the Greek and Roman eras and his two books on Jewish life in the Hellenistic period. Eighty-one year old Marks, the dean emeritus of the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn “was honored for his pioneering research in synthetic fibers.”
1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that Foreign Minister Yigal Allon and his West German counterpart, Hans Genscher, signed in Bonn an agreement which could secure and encourage large German investment in Israel.
1976: Three weeks after opening in the United Kingdom, “The Omen” a horror film directed by Richard Donner, produced by Henry Bernhard, written by David Seltzer and with music by Jerry Goldsmith was released in the United Sates today.
1977(9thof Tammuz, 5737): Parashat Chukat
1977(9th of Tammuz, 5737): Fifty year old Sue Kaufman the novelist best known for The Diary of a Mad Housewife passed away today.
1979(30thof Sivan, 5739): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1979(30thof Sivan, 5739): Eighty-four year old David “Dave” Fleisher the creator of several iconic cartoon characters and co-owner of Fleischer Studios passed away
1979(30thof Sivan, 5739): Seventy-three year old portrait photographer Philippe Halsman passed away.
1980(11thof Tammuz, 5740): Chaya Ehrenerich, the President of the Pioneer Women and associate of Golda Meir passed away today in Brooklyn.
1981: In the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, the former Jean Hively, now known as Ariella Lehrer and civil rights lawyer David Lehrer gave birth to Jonah Lehrer, the Columbia University graduate and Rhodes Scholar who parlayed his knowledge of neuroscience into a successful career that included the publishing Proust Was a Neuroscientist, How We Decide and Imagine: How Creativity Works
1982: WJC President Edgar Bronfman became the first leader ever of a Jewish organization to address the United Nations General Assembly
1982: Two days after he passed away, funeral services are scheduled to be held today for Nathan Peskin, “the executive director at the Workmen’s Circle.”
1987: Pope John Paul II received Austrian President Kurt Waldheim at the Vatican. Apparently the Pope was able to overlook Waldheim's Nazi past. But then he was not alone. The United Nations also could overlook it when he was chosen Secretary-General. "Never forget" - ah what short memories.
1988(10thof Tammuz, 5748): Twenty-six year old Israeli-born, American musician Hillel Slovak, the original guitarist with Red Hot Chili Peppers, passed away.
1990: Geula Cohen began service as Deputy Science and Technology Minister.
1990: A disagreement appeared to break out today among the leaders of Israel's new Government over whether Soviet Jewish immigrants would be settled in the occupied territories. The dispute adds further confusion to Housing Minister Ariel Sharon's statement that the migrants would not be settled in occupied land.
1991(13thof Tammuz, 5751): Award winning pathologist Michael Heidelberger passed away today at the age of 103.
1993(6th of Tammuz, 5753): Eighty-nine year Wilma Shannon Warburg, the wife of Frederick Marcus Warburg, passed away today in Middleburg, VA after which she was buried at Salem Fields Cemetery in Brooklyn.
1993: “Sleepless in Seattle” directed by Nora Ephron who also co-authored the script, featuring Rob Reiner, with music by Marc Shaiman was released in the United States today.
1996: The Landmarks Preservation Commission adds the Aguilar Branch of the New York Library to its list.
1998: Pitcher Mike Saipe made his major league debut with the Colorado Rockies.
1999: NBC broadcast the last episode of “Another World” a daily soap opera in which Doris Belack played three different roles “during the shows 35-year run.”
1999(11th of Tammuz, 5759): Dr. Samuel Bloom, the Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology at Mt. Sinai Hospital and winner of the Bronze Start for his service during WW II in the U.S. Medical Corps who was the husband of Zita Bloom and father of Betty and Lloyd Bloom passed away today.
2000: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including A Little Too Close to God:The Thrills and Panic of a Life in Israel by David Horovitz and Life So Far by Betty Friedan.
2001: Today, Alan David Schwartz became Co-President and Co-COO of Bear Stearns.
2003: Former head the Shin Bet and Commander-in-Chief Ami “Ayalon launched, together with Palestinian professor Sari Nusseibeh, a peace initiative called "The People's Voice" the goal of which is to collect as many signatures of Israelis and Palestinians as possible for the peace plan guidelines supporting a two-state solution without the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
2006: “Inheritance,” “a documentary film about Monika Hertwig a.k.a. Monika Christiane Knauss, the daughter of Ruth Irene Kalder and Amon Goeth, Commandant of Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp” “produced for PBS by James Moll, film director, documentary producer and the Founding Executive Director of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute focusing on testimonies of the Holocaust survivors” was released in the United States today.
2006: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Bronfamns: The Rise and Fall of the House of Seagram by Nicholas Faith and Failed States by Noah Chomsky.
2006: In The Killing after the Killing” published today Elie Weisel reviewed of Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz by Jan T. Gross.
2006: Members of the Popular Resistance Committee, another Palestinian terrorist organization, kidnapped 18 year old high school Eliyahu Ashrei whom they would then murder.
2006: IDF Corporal Galid Shalit is kidnapped by Hamas terrorists. An armed squad of Palestinians terrorists from the Gaza Strip crossed the border into Israel via a 300-meter-long underground tunnel they dug near the Kerem Shalom border crossing. One group of militants blasted the rear door of a Merkava III tank open with a rocket-propelled grenade shell. The tank commander and the driver were killed when they evacuated the burning tank. The tank’s gunner, Gilad Shalit, was only lightly wounded and taken prisoner by the militants. A fourth member on the tank crew was injured in the incident and escaped.
2007: Inthe newly minted Israel Baseball League, four teams debut with Netanya Tigers vs. Bet Shemesh Blue Sox at Kibbutz Gezer Field and Ra'anana Express vs. Tel Aviv Lightning at Sportek in Tel Aviv.
2007: Kevin Youkilis played in his 120th consecutive game at first base without an error, breaking the prior Red Sox record set in 1921 by Stuffy McInnis
2007: The Israel Museum in Jerusalem presents the first of five lectures by painter Meir Appelfeld and painter and art critic Dror Burstein entitled “Five Comments on the Language of Painting.”
2008: The Jerusalem Kabbala Museum opens in the city's Nahlaot neighborhood.
2008: In “Genes and Identities,” published today Jerome Groopman reviews Jacobs’s Legacy: A Genetic View of Jewish History by David Goldstein.
2008: In Kensington, Maryland, Poet Gretchen Primack, who “lives in the delightfully Jewish feminist-rich Hudson Valley” reads from her new work The Slow Creaking of Planets as part of the poetry series at the Kensington Row Bookshop.
2008: In Jerusalem, at 8 p.m., the Bridge of Strings, popularly known as the Calatrava Bridge, will be inaugurated at a dazzling celebration complete with performances by David De'or, Dudu Fisher, the Jerusalem Dance Troupe and hundreds of dancers - at a cost of NIS 2 million.
2009: In Des Moines, Iowa, AIPAC hosts The 2009 Iowa Annual Event featuring Aharon Barnea Anchorman and Senior Correspondent in the USA, Channel 2 TV News, Israel with a Special Address by Krista Allen AIPAC Campus Liaison at Louisiana State University who will describe her recent maiden visit to Israel and how a Catholic student from Louisiana became engaged as a pro-Israel political activist
2009:The Montreal International Yiddish Theater Festival comes to a close.
2009:The opening day of G'day Shalom Salaam Israel, presented by the Australia Israel Cultural Exchange, floods the Jewish state with the flavor of Australia.
2009:New York City police arrested two youth who vandalized two Lower East Side synagogues on Thursday with eggs, smoke bombs, and swastikas
2009 (3rd Tammuz): Third of Tammuz marks the Rebbe’s Yahrzeit. “The day of passing of a holy tzadik is an auspicious day to reflect and bond with the tzadik’s soul by studying from his teachings as well as to ask the soul to intercede on High on our behalf, especially as it ascends even higher on his Yahrzeit.” click here to read more about the anniversary of the Rebbe's passing . Rabbi Pinchas Ciment will join tens of thousands of other people from around the world to pray at the Rebbe’s resting place, The Ohel . 2009: Some 2,000 Israelis gathered in front of the Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv today to mark three years to the day in which Israel Defense Forces Gilad Shalit fell into captivity in a cross-border raid by Gaza-based Palestinian gunmen.
2010: Mark Ethan is scheduled to lead a discussion at the 92nd St Y following a screening of “A Man For All Seasons.”
2010: Ronit Elkabetz, an Israeli actress from Beersheba married architect Avner Yasharon
2011: Fifth anniversary of the kidnapping of Galid Shalit.
2011: Jewish comedian and actress Sarah Silverman is scheduled to perform a night of stand-up comedy in Tel Aviv
2011: The National Yiddish Theatre is scheduled to present a performance of “The Adventures of Hershele Ostropoyler.”
2011: For the second time in two day, oil spills tainted the waters off of Eilat.
2011: France's ambassador to Israel Christophe Bigot met this afternoon with the parents of captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit and presented them with a letter in which French President Nicolas Sarkozy directly addressed Shalit. "Since your kidnapping, I have taken it on myself to do everything to return you to your family," Sarkozy wrote. "I repeated this commitment when I met with your father at the Elysee Palace on June 10 and I repeat it now: France will not abandon you to your fate and will continue to act, along with other bodies, including those in the Arab world, so that this unjustified suffering comes to an end." Shalit holds dual Israel and French citizenship.
2011: Steve Sobroff resigned his management position with the Los Angeles Dodger after Major League Baseball seized control of the club.
2011:Acclaimed British writer Howard Jacobson who won the prestigious Man Booker Prize last year for his novel, “The Finkler Question,” which tackled themes relating to anti-Semitism, Jewish identity and Israel, criticized fellow novelist Alice Walker for her planned participation in the upcoming flotilla to Gaza. [Editor’s note: A year later Walker would announce that she would not let The Color Purple be translated into Hebrew.]
2011(23rd of Tammuz, 5771): Seventy year old college professor and anthologist Martin Harry Greenberg passed away today.
2011(23rd of Tammuz, 5771): Eighty-year old Eugene H. Kummel, who had led McCann Erikson Worlwide during a period of creativity that saw the appearance of signature commercials for Coke and Miller Lite, passed away today. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
2011(23rd of Tammuz, 5771): Ninety-four year old Gilbert Sedbon, a longtime correspondent for Reuters who scooped the world on the 1952 “Free Officers” Egyptian army coup against King Farouk with the help of Anwar Sadat passed away today. (As reported by the Eulogizer in JTA)
2012: At the Wiener Library in London, Dr. Iris Groscheck is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “The Murder of the Children of the Bullenhuser Damm: How a challenging history of the Shoah can be told to young people” during which she will and discuss the challenges of engaging school-age audiences with violent and disturbing historical events. The Bullenhuser Damm Memorial is dedicated to the memory of 20 Jewish children and at least 28 adults who were hanged and who were subjected to medical experiments in the Neuengamme concentration camp before being murdered, to the 4 prisoners who cared for them, and to 24 unidentified Soviet prisoners.
2012:Center for Jewish History and Society for the History of the Czechoslovak Jews are scheduled to present “Bratislava/Pressburg Returns to the Map of Jewish Europe” alecture by Dr. Maroš Borský, Director of the Slovak Jewish Heritage Center in Bratislava
2012: The Boston Red Sox traded Kevin Youkilis to the Chicago White Sox.
2012:At a ceremony in Netanya alongside visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin, Israel’s President Shimon Peres today honored Russian soldiers who were killed while fighting the Nazis, saying the “Red Army prevented the world from being brought to its knees.” (As reported by Aaron Kalman)
2012: Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews participated in a mass rally this morning in Jerusalem’s Shabbat Square. In a display of mourning, protesters donned burial sacks and smeared ash on their heads to show their disapproval of anticipated changes to IDF deferment and exemption practices. The Knesset’s Plesner committee, which has been charged with proposing an alternative to the now-defunct Tal Law — struck down by the Supreme Court earlier this year — is nearing the end of its deliberations. (As reported by Yoel Goodman)
2013: The Israel Museum is scheduled to host a symposium beginning today entitled “In a Strange Land: The Photographic and Artistic Interpretation of Unfamiliar Environments.”
2013(17th of Tammuz, 5773): Shiva Asar Be-Tammuz (Seventeenth of Tammuz), a minor fast day that commemorates the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E. by the Babylonians and again in 70 C.E. by the Romans. According to some sages, the Second Temple fell because of the lack of love and community spirit. In America, whether it is bullying or the coarsening of our public discourse, we are painfully aware of the harm that speech can do. Since most American Jews do not refrain from food and drink on the 17th of Tammuz maybe it has been proposed that we refrain from Lashon Hara (i.e. Speaking Evil) on this minor fast day. To paraphrase the old Chasidic tale, we will show as much concern for what comes out of our mouths as we show for what we put in our mouths for one day, it might become a habit.
2013(17th of Tammuz, 5773): On the Jewish calendar, observance of American Independence Day. In 1776, the 4thof July fell on the 17th of Tammuz. So for those of you who want to get a head start on celebrating American Independence, here is your chance.
2013: Archaeological excavation prior to the installation of a drainage pipe has exposed for “the first time…such a finely preserved section of the road in Jerusalem,” the Israel Antiquities Authority announced today.
2013: “Charlies and the Chocolate Factory” a musical version of the children’s novel directed by Sam Mendes with lyrics by Marc Shaiman “had its world premiere at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London” today.
2014: In London The Wiener Library is scheduled to be hosting a special networking evening for the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors
2014: “Hanna’s Journey” is scheduled to be shown at the Portland Jewish Film Festival.2014: The Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to meet in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
2014: “The United States will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, and will continue to remain steadfast on topics central to Israel’s security in the nuclear negotiations, US President Barack Obama assured Israeli President Shimon Peres during a meeting this afternoon at the White House.”
2014: Responding to a plea from the mothers of the three kidnap victims - Naftali Frenkel (16), Gilad Sha'ar (16), and Eyal Yifrah (19) – the Security Cabinet said tonight that “Operation Brother's Keeper will continue at full force.”
2015: In Coralville, Iowa, Congregation Agudas Achim is scheduled to host its annual congregational meeting.
2015: “A plan to link the cities of Amsterdam and Tel Aviv as twin towns was canceled today after pro-Palestinian groups pressured the Dutch capital’s mayor into backtracking on his proposal.”
2015: “The U.N.’s Gaza Report Is Flawed and Dangerous” published today provided Richard Kemp’s analysis of Judge Mary Davis’ report on the fighting in Gaza.
2015: An exhibition of creations by the Judaica design brand Mi Polin (the Hebrew words for “From Poland” which created the “Mezuzah from This Home” project is scheduled to come to an end at the PJCC Foster City, California.
2015: In London, Anthony Grafton is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “How Jesus celebrated Passover: Early Modern Views of the Last Supper” sponsored by the Jewish Historical Society of England.
2016: In Nashville, TN, the Oz Art Festival featuring the work of “Israeli-American street artist Adam Yekutieli (aka KNOW HOPE)'s” is scheduled to come to an end today.
2016: In Oregon, “Fever at Dawn” a movie about Hungarian who survived the death camps is scheduled to be shown at the 24thannual Portland Jewish Festival.
2016: “During this morning’s aufruf, a synagogue event to honor her upcoming marriage” to Shoshana Dembitz, Abigail “Grafton spoke about the pain of the recent mass murder at a gay nightclub in Orlando.” (As reported by Alix Wall)
2016: Steen Metz, a concentration camp survivor who had been born at Odense, Denmark is 1935 is scheduled to be the featured speaker in the “In Our Voices” program at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.
2016(19th of Sivan, 5776): Shabbat Beha’alotekha;
2017: The cabinet today suspended a government-approved plan to establish a pluralistic prayer pavilion at Jerusalem’s Western Wall, following calls by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox coalition allies to scrap the deal.”
2017: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including More Alive and Less Lonely: On Books and Writers by Jonathan Lethem, The Global Novel: Writing the World in the 21st Century by Adam Kirsch and The Heirs by Susan Rieger.
2017: Alon Day is scheduled to “become the first Israeli to compete in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series — the sport’s highest league of competition — when he races the No. 23 car for the BK Racing team at the Sonoma Raceway in Southern California” today.
2017: Am event “organized to mark 100 years since a historic 67-word letter was sent from the then-foreign secretary Lord Balfour to the second Lord Rothschild, signaling British support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine” is scheduled to take place today in London.
2017: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host a book launch of “The Children's Tree of Terezin, written by children's author Dede Harris and illustrated by Sara Akerlund that tells the true story about how children in the Terezin concentration camp overcame unimaginable obstacles to give life to a small tree sapling.”
2017: “The Ride For the Living” which starts at the gates of Auschwitz and ends at the JCC in Krakow is scheduled to take place today.
2017(1st of Tammuz, 5777): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz;
2018: “Kulna Jerusalem” and the Tower of David Museum are scheduled to host the of three events marking the opening of the 2018 FIFA World Cup games
2018(12th of Tammuz, 5778): Eight-seven year old South African photographer David Goldblatt, the son of Eli and Olga Goldblatt passed away today.
2018: Jason Kander announced he would run for mayor of Kansas City, MO today.
2018: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “The Boy Downstairs” starring Zosia Mamet and Matthew Shear.
2018: “The Center for Jewish History and Instituto Cervantes are scheduled to a host a Sephardic music concert (“Juderias”) by Lara Bellow” tonight.
2019: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of the documentary “Inside the Mossad.”
2019: The Chevra Kadisha in Edmonton is scheduled to hold a “special meeting” this evening.
2019: As part of his series on “The Ten Lost Tribes” Rabbi Dr. Raphael Zarum, the Dean of the London School of Jewish Studies is scheduled to lecture on “The Failed Siege of Jerusalem.”
JUNE 25
615: On three dates that the revolt began in Jerusalem again Khosrau II, the Persian Shah who was “was the last great king of the Sasanian Empire.”
1080: The Antipope Clement III who “protested strongly when Emperor Henry IV permitted Jews who had become converted to Christianity during the anti-Jewish riots of the First Crusade to revert to Judaism” began his papacy today.
1218: Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester, who expelled the Jews from Leicester, died.
1221 Although the Archbishop of Canterbury forbade anti-Jewish riots in Erfurt, Germany, they continued unabated. A group of religious 'pilgrims' on their way to the Holy Land attacked the Jewish quarter burning two synagogues. Some 26 Jews were killed and others threw themselves into the fire rather than be forcibly converted.
1240: In Paris, a commission that was making an inquiry into the nature of the Talmud with a specific interest in alleged derogatory comments about Jesus began its deliberation.
1240: “A public disputation” opened at the Court of Louis IX in the presence of Queen-Mother Blanche between Parisian Talmudist Rabbi Yechiel and Nicholas Donin, an apostate who wanted all copies of the Talmud to be burned. (He would get his way in 1244 when 24 cartloads of the sacred text were burned)
1477: At Ferrara, Italy, Abraham die Tintori completed printing Tur Yorch De’ah a work of halacha by Jacob ben Asher. Born in Cologne in 1269 he was known as the Ba’al ha-Turim, the Master of the Rows. His works were divided in four turim or rows. The term probably comes from the tur or row of Jewels on the breastplate of the High Priest described in the Torah. According to sketchy information he lived in Chios, Greece before arriving at Toledo where he reportedly passed away in 1343.
1539: Joachim II Hector, Elector of Brandenburg acceded to the request of Josel von Rosheim and allowed the Jews to “settle in Margraviate again.
1608: Today Mattias, who acceded to the wishes of the Dutch and “established religious peace” in their provinces which helped to turn the Netherlands into a place of refuge for the Jews fleeing Spain and Portugal, became Archduke of Austria and King of Hungary and Croatia.
1629: Rabbi Yom Tov Lipman Heller set out for Vienna to face baseless accusations that he had abused his powers as Chief Rabbi of Prague when raising funds demanded by the government to help pay for fighting the Thirty Years War.
1644: Lope de Vera (Judah the Believer) was drawn to Judaism by the outrages of the Inquisition. He converted, and during his confinement in prison, he circumcised himself with a bone. He was then burned for refusing to yield to the Inquisition.
1656: Rabbi Menashe Ben Yisrael applied for official permission to practice Judaism in England. The Council of State granted permission. This took place during the period when Oliver Cromwell was in effect the ruler of England. Cromwell and his followers were devout Christians. The agreed to the readmission of the Jews to England because it was pointed out to them that the Second Coming could not take place until Jews populated all parts of the world.
1756: Provincial Governor Sir Charles Hardy confirms the last will and testament of Abraham Mendes Seixas. The will had been translated from Portuguese into English.
1784: The Jewish Benevolent Society of South Carolina, the oldest Jewish charitable organization in the United States, was founded today.
1788: Virginia ratified the U.S. Constitution making it the tenth state to enter the Union. Virginia was of the states that had purged itself of religious qualifications prior to joining the new republic. In 1784 James Madison led the forces that defeated a move to make Christianity the official religion of Virginia. In 1786, Jefferson and Madison joined forces “to secure passage of a law which removed religious discrimination in Virginia.
1791: In London, Michael and Judith Samson gave birth to Benjamin Samson who would not survive to celebrate his first birthday.
1800: Jacob Hyam Nathan married Polly Isaacs at the Great Synagogue in the UK.
1807: Mr. R.J. Ricardo and Miss Sarah Hyams, both of Charleston, SC, were married this evening.
1827: Protestant theologian Johann Gottfried Eichorn who “has been called ‘the founder of modern Old Testament criticism’” passed away today.
1828: Jones Spyer married Grace Josephs at the Great Synagogue in the UK.
1831(14thof Tammuz, 5591): Parashat Balak
1831(14thof Tammuz, 5591): Eighty-four year old Rebecca Mendes Phillips, the Reading, PA born daughter of David Mendez Machado and Zipporah Nunez and the wife Jonas Phillips who later became “one of the founding members of the Female Association for Relief of Women and Children in Reduced Circumstance” and a “director of the Female Benevolent Society, the first Jewish charity in America unrelated to a synagogue” passed away today.
1834: Frederick Hart married Rebecca Hart at the Great Synagogue in the UK.
1836: Birthdate of German-Jewish poet Friederike Kempner,
1839: Birthdate of William Myers, a resident of the United Kingdom.
1844: The Jews of Mobile, Alabama, who had been meeting in private homes for the last three years formed a congregation that adopted a constitution and by-laws and titled itself "Sha'arai Shomayim U-Maskil El Dol," which is Hebrew for "Congregation of the Gates of Heaven and Society of the Friends of the Needy." Within a year the congregation hired its first rabbi – Benjamin da Silva – and had its first home on St. Emanuel Street.
1846(1stof Tammuz, 5605): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1850: Following the British blockade of the port of Piraeus as part of the response to Greece’s abuse of David Pacifico, Foreign Minister Lord Palmerston who had defended this “man of Jewish persuasion” today “made a celebrated speech (June 25, 1850) which concluded that all British subjects ought to be able to say, as did citizens of ancient Rome, "Civis Romanus sum" ("I am a citizen of Rome"), and thereby receive protection from the British government.”
1851: Adolphus Simeon Solomons who “was a moving force in helping to establish the American Red Cross” “married Rachel Seixas Phillips, a descendant of colonial patriot families. They had eight daughters and a son.”
1852: Three days after he passed away, 26 year old Leo Meyer was buried today at the Lauriston Road Jewish Cemetery.
1856: “The Way they treat the Jew in England” published today reports that “The statesman who undertakes in England to bring forward a measure for the admission of the Jews to the same rights and privileges enjoyed by other citizens of that country, simply dooms himself to the Sisyphean labor of rolling up each year to the House of Lords a measure which is quietly rolled hack again.”
1857: At Berirth Shalom Congregation, Rabbi Jacobs officiated at the wedding of Mr. Iszair and Miss Ann Mintz.
1858: “The Jew Bill in Parliament – Prospect of a Concession” published today spoke approvingly of a compromise proposed by Lord Lucan. His compromise would allow the Lords and the Commons to each adopt their own wording for the Oath of Office to be used by those members who, for religious or other reasons, could not use the current form of the oath. In effect, Lord Lucan’s compromise would permit either the two Houses of Parliament to admit Jews by resolution. Since the Commons favors the admission of Jews and the Lords opposes their right to sit in Parliament, Lucan’s compromise would get the supporters of the “Jew Bill” half way to their destination. The compromise was withdrawn because the members of the Commons objected to it. If they had not, it appears that sufficient numbers of the Lords would have voted for it even though they object to Jews serving in either house of the English legislature.
1861: Thirty-eight year old Abdülmecid I, the 31st Sultan of the Ottoman Empire passed away. The Sultan carried out reforms begun by his fathers which among other things allowed Jews to assume positions of importance as can be seen by the appoint of Dr. Spitzer to serve as the representative at Naples. This progress was marred by “accusations of the blood libel in Syria and Rhodes which were part of the Ottoman Empire.
1862: Joel Solomon married Matilda Hart today in the UK.
1864: Charles I began his reign as the king of Württemberg during which he bought on the wooden models of the Temple Mount created by Conrad Schick, the “German architect, archaeologist and Protestant missionary who settled in Jerusalem in October of 1846. Schick “designed the Mea Shearim neighborhood” and his home, Tabor House “is today considered one of Jerusalem’s most beautiful buildings.” (Moshe Gilad)
1865: Birthdate of Julius Hess the native of Lithuania who served as a rabbi for several Midwestern congregations while living in St. Louis which was his family’s home.
1866: Charles and Johanna Wessolowsky gave birth to Julius M. Wessolowsky.
1870: Birthdate of Helena Rubinstein, one of the creators of the American cosmetics industry.
1871: The Jewish Messenger complained that while there were a number of wealthy Jews in America who were “good men and true” they seemed to be more interested in making money than they were in taking part in projects to promote the civic good. The Messenger compared the behavior of the Americans with that of their European counter-parts who were “prominent in all public matter – whether to relieve the poor or honor the rich; to rect a statue to the living or a monument to the dead.”
1872: In New York Isidor Straus and the former Rosalie Ida Blun gave birth to Jesse I. Straus, the Macy’s executive and husband of Irma Nathan who “served as the American Ambassador to France from 1933 to 1936.”
1873: In St. Louis, MO, Charles Bienenstok and Sarah Davis gave birth to Montefiore Bienenstok, a reporter for the St. Louis Star and editor of The Owl and the author of “short accounts about the Jews of St. Louis” as well as a novel on a Jewish theme who also served as “Assistant Secretary of the Jewish Charitable and Educational Union, Manager of the Free Employment Bureau of the United Jewish Charities and Secretary of the Home for Aged and Infirm Israelites.”
1875: In Gutenberg, Germany, Isidor Straus and Rosalie Ida Blun gave birth to Jesse Isidor Straus, scion of the famous Straus department store family who served as FDR’s first Ambassador to France in 1933.
1875: According to a report published today there are more Jews living in London today than living in Palestine.
1875: The Jewish Messenger lamented the lack of involvement by “Israelite” men in the affairs of the community, especially when it came to better of civic activity and attempts to improve the lot of the less fortunate. The paper feels that Jewish men are “good men and true” who are willing to contribute their money to worthy causes. But they are apparently are too busy amassing wealth to give of themselves and their time. This is the opposite of the case in Europe where wealthy Jews give both their time and money to causes that benefit both the Jewish community and the general society as well.
1876: The Home and Foreign Events column published today reported that "nine Jewish ministers of this City have united to call the attention of their people to the 'growing evil or extravagance and displays at funerals." They suggest a return 'the simplicity by which Jewish funerals were formerly characterized,' and that costly caskets and expensive floral displays be dispensed with.
1876: George Geiger, a Jewish Sergeant from Cincinnati fought with distinction at the Battle of the Little Big Horn today. According to the commendation he received for the Medal of Honor. "With 3 comrades during the entire engagement courageously held a position that secured water for the command"
1876: The Home and Foreign Events column published today reported that "The Jews of Khiva, it is said, observe very strictly the feasts and ceremonies of the Jewish religion." [Khiva is a city in Uzbekistan.]
1876: “Justice in Persia” published today contained examples of the lack of Justice available to the residents of this ancient country including a Jewish silversmith in Isfahan whose house “had been broken into and plundered by servants of the Governor” claiming that they were going to take him “before the Prince to answer a case in which a Persian” claimed he was really owed this money.”
1879: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi David Levy officiated at the wedding of Frances E. Goldsmith and Rabbi E.S. Levy of Augusta, GA. (David Levy and E.S. Levy would serve as visiting rabbis for the congregation in Sumter, SC which could not afford a full time clergyman).
1881: “Paris and Politics” published today described a benefit in the French capital sponsored by Baroness Rothschild to raise funds for the suffering “Israelites of Kiev and Elizabethgrad.” Russia.
1882: During today’s session of the hearing investigating the sanity of Samuel Obrieght, his brother Dr. Max, L. Obreight described half dozen attempts by Samuel to commit suicide including taking strychnine, attempting to jump over Niagara Falls and trying to cut his throat. Obreight’s family did not move to commit him until he jilted his Jewish fiancée and married a young Christian girl whom he had just met.
1882: In Elizabeth, NJ, founding of Congregation B’nai Israel which holds services at nine o’clock on Saturday morning, uses the Nak Lane Cemetery in Clinton Township and is home to both the Young Men’s Hebrew Association and the a ladies auxiliary called the Daughters of Israel.
1883: Mayor Nathan Barnet got into a scuffle with a Republican Alderman at tonight’s meeting of the Aldermanic License Committee in Paterson, NJ. Barnet, a Jew born in Pozen is a Democrat won election in April of 1883.
1884: Birthdate of British novelist of Gilbert Cannan who was a friend and patron of Mark Gertler and the subject of his “Gilbert Cannan at his Mill.”
1884: “Jew-Baiting in Russia” published today described an attack by Christians on the Jews of Nizhnee-Novogrod after reports that a Jew had kidnapped a Christian child and taken it to the local synagogue. An untold number of Jews were injured in this latest version of the blood libel and nine were murdered.
1884: In Germany, “Herman and Rosa Frandenfelder Badman gave birth to Theodore Badman, the Eton educated “real estate and insurance agent’ who was active in the Democratic Party and “President of the Manhattan Washington Lodge of the B’nai B’rith and of the Free Sons of Israel Lodge.”
1886: The Sanitarium for Hebrew Children is collecting funds to provide poor children and their mothers with summer day trips out of New York City. Contributions can be sent to John J. Davis at the office of the Hebrew Journal on East 14th Street.
1888: “Jew and Catholic United” published today described the marriage of Joseph J. Herrmann (Catholic) and Bertha Cahn (Jewish) in New Orleans. Rabbi Emile Hirsch of Chicago performed the ceremony since the rabbis in the Crescent City refused to do so.
1888: It was reported today that Orphan Asylum of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society is caring for 575 youngsters, 400 of whom are boys and 175 are girls. The boys are housed at building on 11thAvenue while the girls are housed at a building on 87th Street near the East River.
1891: “Too Many and Too Mighty” published today takes issue with the list of the reasons given by the Russian government for its treatment of the Jews contending that “cruel restrictive laws…have made the Hebrews in the Czar’s dominions what they are.”
1891: “Wants To Fight Tammany” published today described the decision of New York attorney William A. Gans who had served as the President of the B’nai B’rith to ally himself with Julius Harburger in the fight against the Democratic machine.
1891: Point 14 of the platform of the Iowa Democratic Party published today included an expression for the support of Russian Jews. “We abhor the persecutions of Russia toward the Jewish people and we believe that all civilized nations should protest against such barbarism and inhumanity.
1892: The new sanitarium for Jewish children is scheduled to open today at Rockaway Park.
1892: The Jews of Paris send condolences to the family of Armand Meyer, the Jewish French military officer who was killed in a duel brought on by the Marquis de Mores, a noted anti-Semite. Authorities take extra precaution because they fear violence by the Jews. The reality is that the Jews have been the victims of attacks, something which does not bother these same officials.
1892: “The French Duel” published today described the role of “an anti-Semitic journal in Paris” which deliberately goads Jews into fighting duels with the swashbuckling swordsman the Marquis de Mores who at least on one occasion has killed his Jewish opponent.
1892: The Berlin Board of Alderman passed a resolution “calling upon the police to suppress the sale of indecent pamphlets assailing the Jews.”
1893: All the students at the Jewish Theological Seminary including the members of the senior, junior and preparatory classes underwent final exams today.
1893: “French Views of Russia” published today provided a detailed review of The Empire of the Tsars and The Russians by Anatole Leroy-Beauliue which warns that “Western readers cannot apply to Russia rules and notions which prevail in the West” because Russia belongs “to the Europe of three or four centuries ago.
1894: Governor Flower appointed Edward Jacobs, a New York lawyer who was the brother of the Joseph Jacobs both of whom were active in the Jewish community, to serve as the new Quarantine Commissioner.
1894: Birthdate of Dimitar Peshev “the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of Bulgaria and Minister of Justice before World War II” who “rebelled against the pro-Nazi cabinet and prevented the deportation of Bulgaria's 48,000 Jews and was bestowed the title of "Righteous Among the Nations".
1894(21st of Sivan, 5654): Sixty-eight year old Wilhelm Diamant, the husband of Johanna Theres Diament and the son of Johanna and Hermann Diamant passed away today in Budapest.
1894: The Hog and the Ass” published today described the ancient Roman belief on why Jews do not eat pigs. Even though Pompey and the soldiers of Titus saw that there was no representation of the Divinity when they entered the Temple, Romans still believed that “Jews worshipped clouds, celestial bodies and animals” among them the Hog or Pig. They deduced that since the Jews were forbidden from eating Hogs or even, in the Talmud, from owning them, the Jews must worship this animal and the prohibition about consuming it had do with not consuming their “god.”
1894: “Last of Great Jewish Generals” published today provided a detailed review of Judas Maccabaeus and the Jewish War of Independence by Calude Reignier Conder. This edition is an improvement over the first one published by Major Condor fifteen years ago because the author has been to Moab and Gilead in his role as the head of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
1894: Annie Cohen Kopchovsky’s, known as Annie Londonderry,adventure began with a bet. In 1894, a gentleman in Boston bet another gentleman, $20,000 against $10,000, that no woman could travel around the world by bicycle, a feat that had been completed for the first time by a man in 1885. Although it is not clear why she was chosen, Annie Cohen Kopchovsky set out from Boston, to attempt the journey. Married and a mother of three children under age six; she was an unlikely choice but a good example of the ways that the bicycle was transforming women's lives. Besides providing women with a respectable form of independent transportation, the popularity of the bicycle led to changes in women's dress, for example, as bloomers replaced unwieldy and inconvenient full skirts.
1896: In New York, a body of a young man who would later be identified as 25 year old Simon Mischel an unmarried Jew residing on Delancey Street was found floating in the Clyde River.
1896: A summary of the United Hebrew Charities activity report the month of May published today showed that 3,355 had applied for aid and that over $12,000 had been spent in meeting their needs and the needs of previous applicants. The organization found work for 538 people and provided transportation for an additional 157 people to travel to other parts of the United States.
1897: Rabbi Isaac Ruff wrote Declaration versus Declaration which appeared in today’s issue of Die Welt. This was defense of Herzl who had been attacked by the anti-Zionist “Protest Rabbis.”
1897: In an example of Jew supporting Jew it was reported today that the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Band had provided the musical program at the recent graduating exercises for the students of the Hebrew Technical Institute.
1897: Two days after he passed away, David Jewell was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.
1897: “Jacob Scholle’s Bequests” published today contained a list of the charities that were to receive $2, 500 according to the late bankers will including the Montefiore Home, Mount Sinai Hospital, Hebrew Orphan Asylum, Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews and the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of San Francisco.
1898(5th of Tammuz, 5658): Seventy year old Ferdinand Julius Cohn “one of the founders of modern bacteriology and microbiology” passed away today.
1899: It was reported today that officers of the newly formed Orthodox Hebrew Society are President - Dr. Bernard Drachman, the Rabbi of Congregation Zichron Ephraim and Vice President Max Cohen, a New York attorney. The Society was formed to promote traditional Jewish observance in the face of the growing popularity of the Reform Movement.
1899: In London, Herzl takes part in the Conference of the English Zionist Federation. Herzl says that he wants to obtain a Charter from the Turkish government, in order to colonize Palestine under the sovereignty of the Sultan. The conference ends on July 1st.
1899: “The Jews of Germany” published today described the “continuing Jew-baiting crusade” being conducted by Count Puckler. During his lectures in Berlin he “invited his audience to wage a merciless was on ‘godless, lying, thievish Jews.’”
1899:”Fears that Dreyfus May Be Assassinated” published today described precautions being taken at Rennes where the court-martial of the French officer is taking place including placing “Gendarmes…at every corner” and the testing of all food supplied to him by his jailers before it is eaten.
1899: “France’s New Cabinet and its Peculiar Composition” published today described the difficulty that Gallic politicians are having in forming a new government in the wake of the ongoing crisis surrounding the Dreyfus Affair.
1900: Birthdate of Philip Montagu D’Arcy Hart, the grandson of the 1stBaron Swayting, the husband of gynecologist Ruth Meyer and father of economist Oliver Hart who was a leading researcher in the field of tuberculosis treatment.
1900: In New York City, David Eichler and Anna Strauss gave birth to real estate developer Joseph Eichler.
1900: Birthdate of Moses Hadas, an American teacher, one of the leading classical scholars of the twentieth century, and a translator of numerous works. Raised in Atlanta in a Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jewish household, his early studies included rabbinical training; he graduated from Jewish Theological Seminary of America (1926) and took his doctorate in classics in 1930. He was fluent in Yiddish, German, ancient Hebrew, ancient Greek, Latin, French, and Italian, and well-versed in other languages. His most productive years were spent at Columbia University, where he was a colleague of Jacques Barzun and Lionel Trilling. There, he took his talent for languages, combined it with a popularizing impulse, to buck the prevailing classical methods of the day—textual criticism and grammar—presenting classics, even in translation, as worthy of study as literary works in their own right. This approach may be compared to the New Criticism school: even as the New Critics emphasized close reading, eschewing outside sources and cumbersome apparatus, Hadas, in presenting classical works in translation to an influx of post-war G.I. Bill students, brought forth an appreciation of his domain for those without the specialized training of classicists. His popularizing impulse led him to embrace television as a tool for education, becoming a telelecturer and a pundit on broadcast television. He also recorded classical works on phonograph and tape. His daughter Rachel Hadas is a poet, teacher, essayist, and translator. He passed away in 1966.
1901: Eighty-seven year old Charles Kensington Salaman who passed away two days ago, was described today as “the oldest living English composer” who, in the last years of his life was best “known as the man who alone of living men, knew many of the great masters of composition of the early part of the nineteenth century.” This meant that that the late Jewish composer knew Mendelssohn, Listz, Schumann, Mayerbeer and Wagner (and a whole lot more)
1902(20th of Sivan, 5662) Samuel Edward Shrimski the native of Prussia who moved to London in 1847, then to Melbourne in 1859 before settling in New Zealand in 1861 where he became a Member of Parliament died suddenly today. In addition to supporting many secular institutions he was “vice president of the Otago branch of the Anglo-Jewish Association.
1903: Birthdate of English author and social commentator George Orwell. Orwell is best known for such works as “1984” and “Animal Farm.” A lesser known work is his essay entitled “Anti-Semitism in Britain.” First published in 1945, this short article examines the conditions of the Jewish population in Britain and calls for an examination of the causes of anti-Semitism now that World War II was coming to an end.
1903(30thof Sivan, 5663): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1904: In Denver, CO, the Jewish Consumptive Relief Society which had been founded in January was officially incorporated today.
1904(12thof Tammuz, 5664): In Greenville, MS, sixty year old Edward Storm passed away. Born in Berlin he moved to Mississippi and served in two Confederate cavalry units during the Civil War.
1909: Birthdate of Daniel Fuchs, a writer who was a product of the Lower East Side and Williamsburg which provided the backdrop of “three early novels – Summer in Willamsbrg, Homage to Blenholt and Low Company.
1909: Hebert Louis Samuel, the 1st Viscount Samuel began his term as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the government of Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith.
1910: Congress passed the Mann Act which was intended to curb prostitution, or as its supporters called “white slavery” a term George Kibbe Turner used “in a 1907 article in McClure's Magazine that claimed a "loosely organized association... largely composed of Russian Jews" was the primary source of supply for Chicago brothels.
1911: Birthdate of biochemist William Stein. Stein won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1972. Jews have won 18% of the Nobel Prizes for Chemistry. Stein died at the age of 68 in 1980.
1912: Birthdate of “Arnold Forster, an American Jewish leader, lawyer and writer who was a longtime executive of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.”
1912: The 12th annual meeting of the Alumni Association of the Jewish Theological Seminary whose president was Jacob Kohn opened today in Tannersville, NY.
1913: In Cincinnati, Ohio, officers are elected at the American Zionists’ convention including Harry Friedenwald of Baltimore who is chosen to serve as Honorary President and Louis Lipsky who is chosen to serve as Chairman of the Executive Committee.
1913: In Springfield, Illinois, the annual conference of the American Association of Officials of Charities and Correction which Mortimer L. Schiff and Henry Solomon both of New York were delegates continued for a second day.
1913: In New York City, Harry and Anna Grossman gave birth to photographer and social activist Sid Grossman, the graduate of City College who co-founded the Photo League in 1934.
1914(1stof Tammuz, 5674): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1914: It was reported today that the late Isidor Wormser, a retired banker and automobile racing enthusiast was a member of the New York Stock Exchange up to the day of his death having kept is seat on the NYSE even after he had liquidated his business holdings.
1914: Birthdate of Newburyport, MA native Theresa Hilda Feldman who gained fame as Hilda Terry, one of the first female cartoonist and creator if “Teena” which ran for over almost a quarter of a century starting in 1941.
1915(13th of Tammuz, 5675): Hungarian born American pianist and composer Rafael Joseffy passed away.
1915: “In a long statement seeking to justify the use of asphyxiating gases in war-fare, the semi-official Wolff Telegraph Bureau assert in German newspaper…that the Allies first used such gases against the German.” According to Wolff, the French had authorized use gas in February of 1915. [Like so many other agencies of this type, its ownership had Jewish origins.]
1915: Authorities believe that yesterday’s attack on Benny Snyder at the Tombs just before he was to appear in court was brought on by those who thought that he was going to provide the D.A. with information about criminal activities he had acquired while in jail.
1915: Delegates to the National Convention of Zionists are scheduled to begin registering this morning at the Old City Club building on Beacon Street in Boston while “official activities of the convention will actually begin in the evening at Temple MIshkan Tefila.”
1915: As the state of Georgia reels from the outgoing Governor’s decision to commute the death sentence of Leo Frank to life in prison, two regiments of the state militia are making their way to Atlanta to make sure that the inauguration of Governor-elect Nat Harris goes smoothly.
1916: Supreme Court Just Louis D. Brandeis is among the speakers who will address the “seven hundred delegates scheduled to attend the annual convention of the Federal of American Zionists opening today in the Metropolitan Opera House in Philadelphia, PA.
1916: “Henry Morgenthau delivered an address in the Dickinson High School at Jersey City today to the movement for a Hebrew Orphan Asylum in Hudson County.”
1916: “A military organization” known as the First New York Volunteers “having as its nucleus men who allege they have been excluded from the New York National Guard because they were Jews” was formed at a meeting attended by more than fifty men and held today in the rooms of the Merchants’ Association in the Woolworth Building. The meeting was chaired by Max J. Klein who was assisted by Captain Lewis Landes, the Executive Secretary of the Army and Navy Branch of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.
1916: Today which has been designated as “Flower Day” many florists throughout New York City today “donated their wares to the Joint Distribution Committee for the Relief of Jewish War Suffers: while “more than 1,500 Jewish young men and women sold he flowers on the streets under the committee’s auspices.”
1917: The Italian government publishes a decree assuring that all 10,000 Lire ($2,000) of a bequest from Emilio Treves will be awarded as a prize upon publication of an Italian language manuscript to combat anti-Semitism.
1917: After having lost the Welterweight Championship in 1916, Ted Lewis won it back in a bout at Westwood Field in Dayton, Ohio.
1917: This evening a reception for delegates at the Convention of the Federation of American Zionists is scheduled to be held at the Hotel Belvedere between Charles and Chase streets.
1917: In Cleveland, Ohio, after five years of service, Jacob Klein was unanimously elected to continue serving as the Rabbi of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun.
1918: Tache Ionescu stated today “that ever since August, 1914, it had been decided to settle the Jewish question and place the Jews in Romania on a footing of complete equality with their fellow-subjects.”
1918: The 21st Annual Convention of the Federation of American Zionist continued for a third day in Pittsburgh, PA. where delegated learned that “the Jewish Legion of 8,000 men now fighting with British in Palestine is only the nucleus of a Jewish legion ten times as great that is to become that national standing army of the coming Jewish Republic.”
1918: The Intercollegiate Zionist Association of America whose members included Norman Winestine, Aaron Schaffer and Jonas Friedenwald held it is fourth annual convention today.
1919: The first national conference of the Religious Zionist Organization, Mizrachi, opens.
1919: In Brockton, MA, Rose Rosen “a Communist activist from the East of London” and her husband gave birth to Harold Rosen, the graduate of University College in London, U.S. Army veteran and “academic” at London University’s Institute of Education who was the husband of Connie Isakofsky with whom he had three children – Brian, Alan and Michael.
1920:Tonight,“the residents of the Young Women’s Hebrew Associaton” on 110th Street “attended Synagogue where a special service was held for their bellowed and revered Mrs. A. N. Chen whose loving devotion they shall” remember forever.
1920: The Jewish Chronicle reported on a meeting of the Board of Deputies where they discussed the disposition of the Cemetery at St. Heliers.
1920: In St Anne's-on-Sea, Lancashire, England, Maurice Copisarow “who in 1915 co-authored a paper on Chemistry with Chaim Weizmann” and his wife gave birth to Alcon Charles Copisarow who “held serveral Civil Service and other governmental posts” before being knighted in 1988.
1920: Birthdate of William H. Prusoff, a pharmacologist at the Yale School of Medicine who, with a colleague, developed an effective component in the first generation of drug cocktails used to treat AIDS.
1920: The sixth annual Tennis Tournament sponsored by the Chicago Institute for young men under theage of 17 is scheduled to take place today with the winners receiving “handsome cups and medals.”
1921(19thof Sivan, 5681): Parashat Beha’alotcha
1921: A sermon on “A Thought for Vacation” is scheduled to be delivered this morning at Temple Emanu-El.
1921: Rabbi Harry Halpern is scheduled to deliver the sermon this morning at the Jewish Communal Center of Flatbush in Brooklyn.
1921: Rabbi Samuel J. Levinson is scheduled to deliver the sermon this morning at the Flatbush Temple in Brooklyn
1921: Authorities in Syria do not issue passes to Jews who wish to leave the country.
1921: In Newport News, VA, Mr. and Mrs. Elias Cohen gave birth to Sherman Cohen “a one-time auto dealer who, with his two brothers, built a real estate empire of more than 20 residential and commercial buildings across Manhattan…” (As reported by Charles V. Bagli)
1923: Opening of the Summer Edition of the Ziegfeld Follies featuring songs, sketches written and performed by Eddie Cantor.
1924: In Philadelphia, PA, Polish born actor Baruch Lumet and Mrs. Lumet gave birth to Director Sidney Lumet best known for the film Dog Day Afternoo
1927: Birthdate of Lorain, OH and Northwestern University alum Gerald Alan Freedman, the “Dean of the Drama School at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts” and “the first American ever invited to direct at the Globe Theatre in London>
1928: Birthdate of Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov, Russian born physicist who now also holds American citizenship. He was a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2003.
1928: In New York, Isidore and Bess Junger Cohen gave birth to University of Chicago graduate and award winning novelist and theologian Arthur Allen Cohen
1928: After losing his only bout by a knockout in 1926, today Flyweight Pinky Silverberg lost his second bout in a row, this time by points in a ten round decision “at Laurel Garden in Newark, NJ.”
1929: “President Hoover signed the Boulder Canyon Project Act, authorizing the expenditure of $165 million for the construction of the Boulder Dam” which was designed by architect “Gordon Bernie Kaufmann, whose father was of Jewish origin and whose mother’s maiden name was Isaacs” but may not have been Jewish himself since he was “buried under the sign of a cross at Golden State National Cemetery.” (As reported by Donald H. Harrison)
1929: Birthdate of Thomas Eisner, “a groundbreaking authority on insects whose research revealed the complex chemistry that they use to repel predators, attract mates and protect their young, Thomas Eisner, a groundbreaking authority on insects whose research revealed the complex chemistry that they use to repel predators, attract mates and protect their young,”
1930: Rabbi Stephen S. Wise is scheduled to officiate at the funeral of Rabbi Maurice H. Harris which is being held this morning at the Free Synagogue. (JTA)
1930: Birthdate of Hugo Gabriel Gryn, the Czech born survivor of Auschwitz who served as the Rabbi at West London Synagogue.
1930: The two-day celebration of opening of the Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva founded by Rabbi Meir Shapiro came to an end.
1931: “The Magnificent Lie” a WW I themed movie with a script by Leonard Merrick and Samson Raphaelson was released today in the United States.
1932(21st of Sivan, 5692): Herbert Bentwich passed away in Jerusalem. Born in 1856, at Whitechapel, he was a British Zionist leader and lawyer. “He was an authority on copyright law, and owner/editor of the Law Journal for many years. He was a leading member of the English Hovevei Zion and one of the first followers of Theodor Herzl in England. In 1897 Bentwich he led a group of 21, including the writer Israel Zangwill, on a tour of holy sites and new settlements in Palestine on behalf of the Maccabaeans, and in 1911 he acquired land for settlement at Gezer, near Ramleh on behalf of the Maccabean Land Company. He later succeeded his brother-in-law Solomon J. Solomon as president of the Maccabaeans. Bentwich was a founder of the British Zionist Federation in 1899 and for some time served as its vice-chairman. He was a legal adviser for the Jewish Colonial Trust. From 1916 to 1918 he served on the Zionist political advisory committee under Chaim Weizmann. Bentwich was a regular visitor to Palestine after 1921 and settled in Jerusalem in late 1929. Susannah Bentwich died in London in 1915. He was survived by ten of his eleven children, eight of whom eventually settled permanently in Palestine. His eldest son, Norman Bentwich, a leading barrister, also spent much of his professional life there, and another son, Joseph Bentwich, was awarded the Israel Prize, for education, in 1962.”
1933: Outfielder Milt Galatzer made his major league debut with the Cleveland Indians in doubleheader with the Washington Senators during which he got on base four times in the first game (all by walks) and then got two hits in the second game.
1934: Today, American banker Robert Owen Lehman, Sr. married his second wife, Ruth "Kitty" (Leavitt) Meeker with whom he had one son, Robert Owen Lehman, Jr.
1935: Joe Louis defeats Primo Carnera at Yankee Stadium. Neither of the fighters was Jewish. But Joe Louis’ manager Mike Jacobs was Jewish. It was under his guidance that Louis broke the “color barrier” and got his shot at being Heavy Weight Champion of the World.
1935: In Bridgeport, CT, a Jewish “attorney and a social worker gave birth to playwright and author Larry Kramer who is also an LGBT rights activist.
1936: Sixty-nine year old American diplomate and N.Y. National Guard Brigadier General Charles Hitchcock Sherrill who spoke “glowingly” about Mussolini and Hitler and who failed to convince the German dictator to allow “one token Jew” to take part in the 1936 Olympics, passed away today.
1936: The Palestine Post reported that Haim Golowitzky, one of the founders of Atarot who was on his way to milk cows, was shot dead by Arab snipers, just outside his cowshed. Passengers in a Jewish bus in Haifa had a remarkable escape from death when they succeeded in extinguishing burning fuses in a suitcase left by an Arab passenger who jumped off their bus. British troops continued their searches and confiscated arms in Arab villages throughout the country. It was estimated that no fewer than 100,000 trees had been destroyed and another 12,000 damaged by Arabs since April 19, 1936.
1936: Last broadcast of Camel Caravan a radio show that showcased several talented musicians including Benny Goodman.
1936: “Exemption of Jews from military service ‘in accordance with the highest interpretation of Judaism’ was sought from the United States Government in a resolution adopted tonight by the Central Conference of American Rabbis at the social justice session of the organization’s forty-seventh annual convention” being held at Cape May, NJ.
1936: It was announced today that a testimonial luncheon will be given for Mrs. Herbert H. Lehman at the Hotel Commodore by the Women’s Division of the Greater New York Campaign of the Joint Distribution Committee for the benefit of the campaign whose goal is to raise $1,500,000.
1937: “North of the Rio Grande” a western film featuring Lee J. Cobb as “RR President Wooden” was released today in the United States.
1937: “The Great Gambini” a mystery directed by Charles Vidor, produced by B.P. Schulberg
1937: Birthdate of Baron Wolman Rolling Stone magazine’s first Chief Photographer.
1937: It was reported today that Italian newspaper publisher Generoso Pope has said that “he had received the word of Mussolini that would be no persecution of Jews in Italy ‘as long as they obey the laws’ and that the Premiere had told him the Jews “will be treated just like all other Italians as long as the laws of the country are obeyed.”
1938: As Arab violence flared, “a gain of terrorist entered a hospital in Haifa seeking a wounded Arab ‘traitor’ who was a patient there.” When they could not find him, “they killed another Arab patient. “A manifesto issued today by the Tel Aviv municipality called on Jews to remain calm and not resort to violence.
1938: Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the U.S. adopts a minimum wage which is set at $.40 an hour. Sidney Hillman, head of the “Amalgamated” and advisor to FDR played a key role in drafting and gaining support for this landmark legislation.
1938: German-Jewish doctors are allowed to treat only Jewish patients.
1939: Over one thousand delegates attended the 42nd annual meeting of the ZOA began this afternoon at the Hotel Commodore where they heard a cable from former Prime Minister Lloyd George who “bid them to be of good cheer until the clouds pass.”
1940: As Churchill worked to transfer the eleven battalions of Regular British troops from Palestine back to England so that they can help defend the British Isles against the pending Nazi invasion, he wrote to the Secretary of State for Colonies, Lord Lloyd, asking “what weapons and organization the Jews have for self-defense.” Churchill wants to arm the Jews so they can protect themselves against Arab attackers. Lloyd opposes the arming of the Jews and would rather have the British troops remain.
1941 (30th of Sivan, 5701): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1941: Members of the Lithuanian militia marched Jews to the Seventh Fort in Kovno where they would be murdered after suffering abuse at the hands of the local sadists.
1941: “President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 8802 prohibiting government contractors from engaging in employment discrimination based on race, color or national origin. This order is the first presidential action ever taken to prevent employment discrimination by private employers holding government contracts. The Executive Order applies to all defense contractors, but contains no enforcement authority. President Roosevelt signs the Executive Order primarily to ensure that there are no strikes or demonstrations disrupting the manufacture of military supplies as the country prepares for War.” By the standards of the 21stcentury, this action might seem “weak.” But it gives us an idea of the level of bigotry which was sanctioned in the society. At the time Roosevelt signed this order it was considered a major step in the fight against prejudice.
1941 (30th of Sivan, 5701): Many Jews were killed in a pogrom at Jassy, Romania. The following appears in The Tragedy of Romanian Jewry by Randolph L. Braham."At the outbreak of the war, Jassy had a population of slightly over 100,000 inhabitants, approximately 50,000 of whom were Jews. The city was very close to the frontier with the Soviet Union, and even before launching the anti-Soviet war on June 22, 1941, a number of secret anti-Semitic measures had been initiated in Romania. Between June 20 and 26 the Jews of Jassy were forced to dig two large mass graves in the Pacurari Jewish cemetery. About the same time, the Soviet air force bombed Jassy twice, the second time inflicting serious damage. The rumor spread that Soviet paratroopers were active throughout the city and that these paratroopers were being given shelter by the Jews. On the morning of 29 June, 1941, Jews were formed into columns and marched from Tatarasi, Pacurari, Sararie, and Nicolina Streets to police headquarters. Most of the prisoners were men but among them were also some women with children. Some were dressed, others were in their night clothes many had been beaten and had bruises and open wounds. Civilian onlookers as well as soldiers and gendarmes, Romanian and German spat at them and hit them with stones, broken bottles, clubs, crowbars and rifle butts. Civilians joined the police and the military in dragging Jews out of their homes. All told, thousands of Jews were herded into the courtyard of the Jassy police headquarters. In another report, addressed to the Minister of the Interior, Lieutenant-Colonel Chirlovici, reported 1,000 Jewish prisoners at 9:00 a.m. and 5,000 by nightfall. He stated that at noon there were 3,500 Jews in the courtyard. At about 1:30 PM German soldiers and Romanian gendarmes and soldiers surrounded police headquarters and an area close by. At about 2:00 p.m., the German and Romanian soldiers began to fire directly into the crowds; they were joined by some civilians. They used machine-guns, automatic weapons, or rifles. Crazed with terror some Jews tore down the fence of the courtyard and tried to take refuge near the Sidoli cinema ... They too were mowed down without mercy. The massacre continued intermittently until 6:00 p.m. It is difficult to establish the number of victims of the massacre at police headquarters. Four trucks and 24 carts transported the corpses; it took two whole days to move them. Approximately 2,500 Jews survived the massacre in the police headquarters courtyard. At about 8:00 p.m. the process of getting them to the railroad station began. Two thousand five hundred Jews were herded were herded into freight cars. The train left Jassy on June 30, 1941 between 3:30 and 4:15 a.m. At about 4:00 a.m. the same morning, a second group of approximately 1,900 Jews to be evacuated were rounded up at police headquarters. Two death trains left Jassy between 3:30 and 4:15 a.m. on Monday, June 30, 1941. The first one ... consisted of from 33 to 38 sealed freight cars and contained between 2,430 and 2,530 Jews. When the train was emptied there were 1,076 survivors.]The history of the second car is ... equally horrifying. On June 30, 1941 at about 6:00 A.M., 1,902 Jews were loaded onto a second train comprising 18 cars. Of the 1,902 Jews put on the train, 1,194 died and were buried in the Podul Iloaei cemetery. The total number of victims of the Jassy pogrom cannot be established with certainty. While the number of victims on the trains is known and relatively accurate, it is not known how many Jews in Jassy were buried in communal graves, how many such graves there were, and how many corpses were simply thrown onto garbage heaps or into the Bahlui River. German diplomats estimated at least 4,000 victims... The most reliable source seems to be documents from the archives of the Romanian Ministry of the Interior which ... place the number at over 8,000."
1941: Soviets renew the attacks on Finland that had been part of the earlier “Winter War” with a large air attack on the Fins.
1941 (30th of Sivan, 5701): In the town of Luck, Poland, Dr. Benjamin From aged forty-seven refused to stop operating on a Christian woman, so he was dragged out of operating room, taken to his home and killed with his entire family.
1941(30thof Sivan, 5701): Ninety year old “German mathematician and patron of the arts” Alfred Pringsheim passed away in Zurich where he had been forced to flee by the Nazis.http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/Biographies/Pringsheim.html
1941 (30th of Sivan, 5701): In Jedwabne, Poland, local Polish citizenry begin a pogrom aimed at the Jews living in the town.
1941: Two days after the retreating NKVD had machine gunned 4,000 political prisoners “including Poles, Jews and Ukrainians” the Wehrmacht captured the city of Lutsk following which the Nazis forced the Jews into a Ghetto before murdering approximately 25,000 of them on Gorka Polonka Hill.
1942: London Daily Telegraph reports, "More than 700,000 Polish Jews have been slaughtered by the Germans in the greatest massacres in the world's history."
1943: Crematorium III at Auschwitz begins operation. Also, Otto Ben, from the Foreign Ministry reports that the “100,000th Jews has been removed from Dutch Society.”
1943: “Jitterbugs” a comedy film produced by Sol M. Wurtzel with music by Lew Pollack was released in the United States today.1943: The Germans began the final destruction of the people living in the Czestochowa Ghetto. The Jews put up armed resistance in a series of bunkers. Czestochowa is located in Poland and is famous as the home of the "Black Madonna."
1944: In Brooklyn Anne Goldberg, a bookkeeper and postal worker George Goldberg gave birth to Gary David Goldberg who would gain fame as television producer and writer.
1945: In the Bronx, “Richard L. Simon, the co-founder of Simon & Schuster and a classical pianist who often played Frédéric Chopin and Ludwig van Beethoven at home” and “Andrea Heinemann Simon (née Heinemann), a civil rights activist and singer” gave birth to singer and songwriter Carly Elisabeth Simon.
1945: Today “Baltimorean Rudolf Sonneborn” who would serve as national chairman of the UJA “brought together Jewish industrial leaders in a New York meeting with David Ben-Gurion, then chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive in Palestine.”
1946: “Books Published Today” included Jews in American History: 1654-1865 by Philip S. Foner and The Jewish People: Past and Present, Vol I, Jewish Encyclopedic Handbooks—A series of essays on various aspects of Jewish history and culture.
1947: The Diary of Anne Frank is published.
1947: In Los Angeles, Samuel Kurtzman, a Russian born dentist and the former Roselle Rosencranz gave birth to Joel Allen Kurtzman the “economic Cassandra” who seemed to do a 180 degree change when in 2014 he predicted a “Second American Century of unimaginable prosperity.”
1948: As Israel fought for its survival, as prelude to a full blockade “the Soviets stopped supplying food to the civilian population in the non-Soviet sectors of Berlin” in what was part of a plan to drive the Western Allies from Berlin and eventually from West Germany. (Editor’s note – this serves as a reminder that Jewish history does not take place in a vacuum and to understand it, it is necessary to understand the happenings of the world at large.)
1948: In Brooklyn actor Harvey Lembeck and Caroline Dubs gave birth to actor and television director Michael Lembeck
1948: Warner Bros. released “Romance on the High Seas” a musical comedy written by Julius and Philip G. Epstein with additional dialogue proved by I.A.L. Diamond today.
1949: At their 60th annual convention, “three hundred rabbis, representing Reform congregation throughout the United States” today unanimously approved resolutions calling “for the including of Jerusalem with the boundaries of Israel” and urging “the full adoption of President Truman’s civil rights program.”
1950: Birthdate of Israeli actress Nitza Saul.
1950: The beginning of the Korean War, with the invasion of the South by the North. Jews fought in the Korean War just as they had in every war since the call to arms went out in 1775.
See http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/sugar10.htmlfor a partial list of those who served. In an article entitled “Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in North Korea, 1951, Remembered,” Warren Zundell, MD (Captain, 11th Evacuation Hospital SMBL, 10th Corp. 8th Army, Korea) provides us with a glimpse of what it was like during what some derisively called a “police action.” These evenings occurred years ago, but every Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, they return as vividly as if they happened last year.In May, 1951, my hospital unit was transported from Sasebo, Japan to Pusan, Korea. I was on the Orthopedic Surgery Team. Five months later, on the day before Rosh Hashanah, our hospital Chaplain (a Catholic priest), asked me if I was planning to attend services the next day, being conducted some 40 or 50 miles north of our location, just over the 36th parallel, in North Korea. We were in Wonju, South Korea. I knew the Rabbi who was to conduct the services, as he would visit our hospital from time to time. Knowing this would be a 40 or 50 mile trek through sniper-infested mountains, I answered negatively, even though I knew that the Rabbi might be disappointed. The following conversation then ensued:
Chaplain: You have to go.
Me: Why do I have to go?
Chaplain: There are about 30 Jewish boys around here who want to go.
Me: So let them go.
Chaplain: An Officer has to go to be in charge of the convoy.
Me: Why me? I am a Doctor.
Chaplain: You are the only Jewish Officer in this hospital, so you go. He was a Major, I was a Captain. I think he was giving me a direct order. He then informed me that he would lend me his jeep in which to head the convoy of trucks. It had a big white cross on the front hood, which he implied would protect us from sniper fire. He didn’t say anything about land mines. That afternoon we assembled the convoy and headed North. It may have been the first all-Jewish convoy in the history of Korea. As Jews, we were not fully convinced that the white cross would totally protect us from sniper fire. We were therefore well-armed. A few uneventful hours later we crossed the 38th parallel into North Korea. We were making Jewish history. Soon we checked into 10th Corp. HW. The Rabbi (Major Meir Engle) seemed happy to see us. The next day was Rosh Hashanah. We had a big tent in which to hold services. There were about 300 Jewish boys attending, including my 30. I was proud to be there. After services we reassembled our convoy and returned to our hospital, without incident. When Yom Kippur came, I was called upon by the Chaplain again. I didn’t want to push my luck, with a baby daughter back home whom I had never seen. Nevertheless, I soon found myself in the same Jewish convoy. But between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, there had been heavy fighting on the 10th Corp. Front. Instead of 300 Jewish boys attending Yom Kippur services, there were less than 150. Korea is now referred to as the "Forgotten War". What it really means is that this country has literally forgotten the more than 34,000 Americans who died there, including those Jewish boys who died between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in the year 1951."
Korea also presented the newly independent state of Israel with one of its first great foreign policy challenges not directly related to the Middle East or its own immediate survival. Israel’s shifting policy, as described below, demonstrated how quickly conflict in the Middle East and conflict in the Far East were joined together because of the Cold War. The shift also resulted, in part, from the Soviet Union’s change of policy towards Israel. Stalin’s smile quickly turned sour, while Harry Truman’s never did. “Israel's foreign policy underwent a change during the Korean War. In the first two years after its establishment, Israel maintained a stance of nonalignment. However, it became clear from the anti-Jewish attitude of the Communist bloc and especially Joseph Stalin that strengthening relations with the United States was the only way to safeguard Israel's continued existence and long-term interests. Both Israel's foreign and domestic policy during the Korean War reflected a growing U.S. influence, which has only deepened with time. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion went one step further during the Korean War when he suggested that an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) unit be sent to join the UN forces fighting North Korea and the Chinese volunteers. A debate broke out in Israel over whether it should provide support to U.S. and UN policies given that Washington had made no such request. The leading opponent of sending an IDF unit was the political party Mapam, which was part of the governing coalition and openly favored North Korea. With the Achdut Ha'Avoda party, another member of the coalition, also against the measure, the government decided to limit its assistance to medical aid and food shipments. In addition, Israel lent political support during the UN deliberations on whether its troops should cross the 38th parallel northward. In February 1951, the UN General Assembly condemned China as the aggressor and placed a boycott on certain strategic supplies to China. Here, too, Israel continued to side with the United States, the United Nations, and South Korea, though formal diplomatic ties with the latter were still more than a decade away. From the 1951 ideological debate between the Israeli parties until 1960, there were no initiatives on the question of relations with South Korea.”
1950: Israeli airline El Al began service. Anybody who has ever flown El Al to Israel knows there is flying and then there is flying El Al. As an early target of terrorist, El Al adopted policies that have made it the safest airline in the world. Its anti-terrorist practices have served as a model for other airlines as they have been confronted with similar challenges.
1950: The outbreak of the Korean War delayed the build of a new Jewish Community Center in Salt Lake City Utah delaying its completion until 1959.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that 20 lists of parties were registered for the Second Knesset elections. Israel and Switzerland decided to establish diplomatic relations. The quality of sweets had improved, but the quality of beverages had deteriorated, according to the Quality Control Department of the Ministry of Agriculture.
1952: A government spokesman reported that an Israeli army patrol had shot three Arabs who were trying to enter Israel from Jordan.
1953:Robert and Gérald Finaly, two Jewish children, who were hidden during the Occupation by a Catholic network, were brought back to France from Spain where they had been by Catholics who did want to return to Jewish authorities.
1956: William Goldman started writing The Temple of Gold, his first novel, which was written in less than three weeks and then was almost immediately picked up for publication.
1956: The last Packard automobile was manufactured in the United States. Starting in 1903, Packard automobiles had been manufactured at a start of the plant in Detroit designed by Albert Kahn.
1960(30th of Sivan, 5720): Parashat Koraach; Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1960: In their sermons today, Dr. Julius Mark, the senior rabbi at Temple Emanu-El, Dr. Judah Nadich, the rabbi at the Park Avenue Synagogue and Dr. Zev Zahavy, the rabbi at Congregation Zichron Ephraim each “commend Mayor Wagner for refusing to grant a permit for an America Nazi party rally in Union Square on July 4.”
1960: During a Shabbat morning service at Detroit’s Temple Beth El which marked the end of “the 71st annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis,” “Dr. Nelson Glueck, president of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion” warned the attendees “against permitting the ‘getting and giving of money’ to become the major premise in community life” while taking “issue with every kind of vague humanitarianism and well-fed sentimentality when these tend to supplant the restless search for truth and the realistic implementation of the imperatives of” the Jewish faith.
1961: The Carpetbaggers by Harold Robbins was number 9 on the New York Times bestseller list on the same day that Murray Schumach began his review of the novel with "It was not quite proper to have printed The Carpetbaggers between covers of a book. It should have been inscribed on the walls of a public lavatory."
1962: The U.S. Supreme Court decides that non-denominational prayer allowed in New York States is an unconstitutional violation of the separation of church and state.
1964: U.S. premiere of “Circus World” produced by Samuel Brontson, with a script co-authored by Ben Hecht and music by Dimitri Tiomkin who won a Golden Globe for his effort.
1965: When followed home from a meeting of Canadian Nazis,Henryk Van der Windt tells the Toronto Star that he working under cover for the Canadian Jewish Congress who had hired him to spy on Nazi leader John Beattie. For more on this see “Delayed Impact” by Frank Bialystok.
1966(7th of Tammuz, 5726): Sixty-five year old Columbus, Ohio native Mose “Moe” Solomon whose major league career consisted of two games with the New York Giants passed away today.
1967: After 1,530 performances Neil Simon’s “Barefoot in the Park” finished its first Broadway run today.
1968: Herb Gray began serving as a Member of Parliament for Windsor West.
1968: “The Secret Life of an American Wife” directed, produced and written by George Axelrod and starring Walter Matthau was released today in the United States.
1969(9thof Tammuz, 5729): Seventy-five year old Alene Stern Erlanger, the wife of Erlanger Mills director Milton Erlanger and Barnard College graduate “who was responsible for the formation of the U.S.A.’s canine corps during WW II passed away today.
1969: “The Gladiators” known as “The Peace Game” in Sweden filmed by cinematographer Peter Suschitzky, the son of cinematographer Wolfgang Suschitzky was released today.
1972(13th of Tammuz, 5732): Eighty-four year old boxing expert and founder of Ring Magazine Nat Fleisher passed away today.
http://www.ibhof.com/pages/about/inductees/nonparticipant/fleischer.htmlhttps://bleacherreport.com/articles/126210-why-did-the-boxing-world-ever-listen-to-nat-fleischer
1972: Sir Joshua Abraham Hassan began serving his second term as Chief Minister of Gibraltar.
1973(25thof Sivan, 5733): Eighty-four year old Jessie Danz, the New York born daughter of Annie and Maurice Mordechai Mohr and the wife of John Danz who “served as an “officer of the Jewish Welfare Society” and the National Council of Women in Seattle passed away today.
1974(5th of Tammuz, 5734): Eighty-one year old Hungarian physicist and mathematician Cornellius Lanczos who “served as assistant to Albert Einstein during the period of 1928–29” passed away today.
1974: In Novosibirsk, Yuri and Anna Berkovsky went on trial having been charge with “speculation and unauthorized possession of fire arms.”
1975: “Catholic Vazken, head of the Armenian Church and Metropolitan Philaret, head of the Russian Church in East Berlin and Central Europe” “held separate prayer services at Yad Vashem” in Jerusalem today “in memory of the six million Jews killed by the Nazis.”
1975: “Israel handed over 20 convicted terrorists from Sinai and the Gaza Strip to Egyptian authorities today and received in exchange coffins bearing the remains of Eliyahu Hakim and Eliyahu Ben Tzuri who were hanged in Cairo” in 1945 after having been convicted of murdering Lord Moyne.
1976: “Notes on People” published today described the release of Morton Sobell “who served part of a 30-year sentence to commit espionage in the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg treason case” “from having to report periodically to a probation as condition of his parole.
1976: It was reported today Dr. Saul Lieberman and Dr. Herman F. Marks “are this year’s recipients of the Israel Institute of Technology’s annual $35,000 Harvey Prize. Seventy-eight year old Lieberman, the rector of JTS, was recognized for his “research on Palestine in the Greek and Roman eras and his two books on Jewish life in the Hellenistic period. Eighty-one year old Marks, the dean emeritus of the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn “was honored for his pioneering research in synthetic fibers.”
1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that Foreign Minister Yigal Allon and his West German counterpart, Hans Genscher, signed in Bonn an agreement which could secure and encourage large German investment in Israel.
1976: Three weeks after opening in the United Kingdom, “The Omen” a horror film directed by Richard Donner, produced by Henry Bernhard, written by David Seltzer and with music by Jerry Goldsmith was released in the United Sates today.
1977(9thof Tammuz, 5737): Parashat Chukat
1977(9th of Tammuz, 5737): Fifty year old Sue Kaufman the novelist best known for The Diary of a Mad Housewife passed away today.
1979(30thof Sivan, 5739): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1979(30thof Sivan, 5739): Eighty-four year old David “Dave” Fleisher the creator of several iconic cartoon characters and co-owner of Fleischer Studios passed away
1979(30thof Sivan, 5739): Seventy-three year old portrait photographer Philippe Halsman passed away.
1980(11thof Tammuz, 5740): Chaya Ehrenerich, the President of the Pioneer Women and associate of Golda Meir passed away today in Brooklyn.
1981: In the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, the former Jean Hively, now known as Ariella Lehrer and civil rights lawyer David Lehrer gave birth to Jonah Lehrer, the Columbia University graduate and Rhodes Scholar who parlayed his knowledge of neuroscience into a successful career that included the publishing Proust Was a Neuroscientist, How We Decide and Imagine: How Creativity Works
1982: WJC President Edgar Bronfman became the first leader ever of a Jewish organization to address the United Nations General Assembly
1982: Two days after he passed away, funeral services are scheduled to be held today for Nathan Peskin, “the executive director at the Workmen’s Circle.”
1987: Pope John Paul II received Austrian President Kurt Waldheim at the Vatican. Apparently the Pope was able to overlook Waldheim's Nazi past. But then he was not alone. The United Nations also could overlook it when he was chosen Secretary-General. "Never forget" - ah what short memories.
1988(10thof Tammuz, 5748): Twenty-six year old Israeli-born, American musician Hillel Slovak, the original guitarist with Red Hot Chili Peppers, passed away.
1990: Geula Cohen began service as Deputy Science and Technology Minister.
1990: A disagreement appeared to break out today among the leaders of Israel's new Government over whether Soviet Jewish immigrants would be settled in the occupied territories. The dispute adds further confusion to Housing Minister Ariel Sharon's statement that the migrants would not be settled in occupied land.
1991(13thof Tammuz, 5751): Award winning pathologist Michael Heidelberger passed away today at the age of 103.
1993(6th of Tammuz, 5753): Eighty-nine year Wilma Shannon Warburg, the wife of Frederick Marcus Warburg, passed away today in Middleburg, VA after which she was buried at Salem Fields Cemetery in Brooklyn.
1993: “Sleepless in Seattle” directed by Nora Ephron who also co-authored the script, featuring Rob Reiner, with music by Marc Shaiman was released in the United States today.
1996: The Landmarks Preservation Commission adds the Aguilar Branch of the New York Library to its list.
1998: Pitcher Mike Saipe made his major league debut with the Colorado Rockies.
1999: NBC broadcast the last episode of “Another World” a daily soap opera in which Doris Belack played three different roles “during the shows 35-year run.”
1999(11th of Tammuz, 5759): Dr. Samuel Bloom, the Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology at Mt. Sinai Hospital and winner of the Bronze Start for his service during WW II in the U.S. Medical Corps who was the husband of Zita Bloom and father of Betty and Lloyd Bloom passed away today.
2000: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including A Little Too Close to God:The Thrills and Panic of a Life in Israel by David Horovitz and Life So Far by Betty Friedan.
2001: Today, Alan David Schwartz became Co-President and Co-COO of Bear Stearns.
2003: Former head the Shin Bet and Commander-in-Chief Ami “Ayalon launched, together with Palestinian professor Sari Nusseibeh, a peace initiative called "The People's Voice" the goal of which is to collect as many signatures of Israelis and Palestinians as possible for the peace plan guidelines supporting a two-state solution without the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
2006: “Inheritance,” “a documentary film about Monika Hertwig a.k.a. Monika Christiane Knauss, the daughter of Ruth Irene Kalder and Amon Goeth, Commandant of Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp” “produced for PBS by James Moll, film director, documentary producer and the Founding Executive Director of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute focusing on testimonies of the Holocaust survivors” was released in the United States today.
2006: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Bronfamns: The Rise and Fall of the House of Seagram by Nicholas Faith and Failed States by Noah Chomsky.
2006: In The Killing after the Killing” published today Elie Weisel reviewed of Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz by Jan T. Gross.
2006: Members of the Popular Resistance Committee, another Palestinian terrorist organization, kidnapped 18 year old high school Eliyahu Ashrei whom they would then murder.
2006: IDF Corporal Galid Shalit is kidnapped by Hamas terrorists. An armed squad of Palestinians terrorists from the Gaza Strip crossed the border into Israel via a 300-meter-long underground tunnel they dug near the Kerem Shalom border crossing. One group of militants blasted the rear door of a Merkava III tank open with a rocket-propelled grenade shell. The tank commander and the driver were killed when they evacuated the burning tank. The tank’s gunner, Gilad Shalit, was only lightly wounded and taken prisoner by the militants. A fourth member on the tank crew was injured in the incident and escaped.
2007: Inthe newly minted Israel Baseball League, four teams debut with Netanya Tigers vs. Bet Shemesh Blue Sox at Kibbutz Gezer Field and Ra'anana Express vs. Tel Aviv Lightning at Sportek in Tel Aviv.
2007: Kevin Youkilis played in his 120th consecutive game at first base without an error, breaking the prior Red Sox record set in 1921 by Stuffy McInnis
2007: The Israel Museum in Jerusalem presents the first of five lectures by painter Meir Appelfeld and painter and art critic Dror Burstein entitled “Five Comments on the Language of Painting.”
2008: The Jerusalem Kabbala Museum opens in the city's Nahlaot neighborhood.
2008: In “Genes and Identities,” published today Jerome Groopman reviews Jacobs’s Legacy: A Genetic View of Jewish History by David Goldstein.
2008: In Kensington, Maryland, Poet Gretchen Primack, who “lives in the delightfully Jewish feminist-rich Hudson Valley” reads from her new work The Slow Creaking of Planets as part of the poetry series at the Kensington Row Bookshop.
2008: In Jerusalem, at 8 p.m., the Bridge of Strings, popularly known as the Calatrava Bridge, will be inaugurated at a dazzling celebration complete with performances by David De'or, Dudu Fisher, the Jerusalem Dance Troupe and hundreds of dancers - at a cost of NIS 2 million.
2009: In Des Moines, Iowa, AIPAC hosts The 2009 Iowa Annual Event featuring Aharon Barnea Anchorman and Senior Correspondent in the USA, Channel 2 TV News, Israel with a Special Address by Krista Allen AIPAC Campus Liaison at Louisiana State University who will describe her recent maiden visit to Israel and how a Catholic student from Louisiana became engaged as a pro-Israel political activist
2009:The Montreal International Yiddish Theater Festival comes to a close.
2009:The opening day of G'day Shalom Salaam Israel, presented by the Australia Israel Cultural Exchange, floods the Jewish state with the flavor of Australia.
2009:New York City police arrested two youth who vandalized two Lower East Side synagogues on Thursday with eggs, smoke bombs, and swastikas
2009 (3rd Tammuz): Third of Tammuz marks the Rebbe’s Yahrzeit. “The day of passing of a holy tzadik is an auspicious day to reflect and bond with the tzadik’s soul by studying from his teachings as well as to ask the soul to intercede on High on our behalf, especially as it ascends even higher on his Yahrzeit.” click here to read more about the anniversary of the Rebbe's passing . Rabbi Pinchas Ciment will join tens of thousands of other people from around the world to pray at the Rebbe’s resting place, The Ohel . 2009: Some 2,000 Israelis gathered in front of the Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv today to mark three years to the day in which Israel Defense Forces Gilad Shalit fell into captivity in a cross-border raid by Gaza-based Palestinian gunmen.
2010: Mark Ethan is scheduled to lead a discussion at the 92nd St Y following a screening of “A Man For All Seasons.”
2010: Ronit Elkabetz, an Israeli actress from Beersheba married architect Avner Yasharon
2011: Fifth anniversary of the kidnapping of Galid Shalit.
2011: Jewish comedian and actress Sarah Silverman is scheduled to perform a night of stand-up comedy in Tel Aviv
2011: The National Yiddish Theatre is scheduled to present a performance of “The Adventures of Hershele Ostropoyler.”
2011: For the second time in two day, oil spills tainted the waters off of Eilat.
2011: France's ambassador to Israel Christophe Bigot met this afternoon with the parents of captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit and presented them with a letter in which French President Nicolas Sarkozy directly addressed Shalit. "Since your kidnapping, I have taken it on myself to do everything to return you to your family," Sarkozy wrote. "I repeated this commitment when I met with your father at the Elysee Palace on June 10 and I repeat it now: France will not abandon you to your fate and will continue to act, along with other bodies, including those in the Arab world, so that this unjustified suffering comes to an end." Shalit holds dual Israel and French citizenship.
2011: Steve Sobroff resigned his management position with the Los Angeles Dodger after Major League Baseball seized control of the club.
2011:Acclaimed British writer Howard Jacobson who won the prestigious Man Booker Prize last year for his novel, “The Finkler Question,” which tackled themes relating to anti-Semitism, Jewish identity and Israel, criticized fellow novelist Alice Walker for her planned participation in the upcoming flotilla to Gaza. [Editor’s note: A year later Walker would announce that she would not let The Color Purple be translated into Hebrew.]
2011(23rd of Tammuz, 5771): Seventy year old college professor and anthologist Martin Harry Greenberg passed away today.
2011(23rd of Tammuz, 5771): Eighty-year old Eugene H. Kummel, who had led McCann Erikson Worlwide during a period of creativity that saw the appearance of signature commercials for Coke and Miller Lite, passed away today. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
2011(23rd of Tammuz, 5771): Ninety-four year old Gilbert Sedbon, a longtime correspondent for Reuters who scooped the world on the 1952 “Free Officers” Egyptian army coup against King Farouk with the help of Anwar Sadat passed away today. (As reported by the Eulogizer in JTA)
2012: At the Wiener Library in London, Dr. Iris Groscheck is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “The Murder of the Children of the Bullenhuser Damm: How a challenging history of the Shoah can be told to young people” during which she will and discuss the challenges of engaging school-age audiences with violent and disturbing historical events. The Bullenhuser Damm Memorial is dedicated to the memory of 20 Jewish children and at least 28 adults who were hanged and who were subjected to medical experiments in the Neuengamme concentration camp before being murdered, to the 4 prisoners who cared for them, and to 24 unidentified Soviet prisoners.
2012:Center for Jewish History and Society for the History of the Czechoslovak Jews are scheduled to present “Bratislava/Pressburg Returns to the Map of Jewish Europe” alecture by Dr. Maroš Borský, Director of the Slovak Jewish Heritage Center in Bratislava
2012: The Boston Red Sox traded Kevin Youkilis to the Chicago White Sox.
2012:At a ceremony in Netanya alongside visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin, Israel’s President Shimon Peres today honored Russian soldiers who were killed while fighting the Nazis, saying the “Red Army prevented the world from being brought to its knees.” (As reported by Aaron Kalman)
2012: Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews participated in a mass rally this morning in Jerusalem’s Shabbat Square. In a display of mourning, protesters donned burial sacks and smeared ash on their heads to show their disapproval of anticipated changes to IDF deferment and exemption practices. The Knesset’s Plesner committee, which has been charged with proposing an alternative to the now-defunct Tal Law — struck down by the Supreme Court earlier this year — is nearing the end of its deliberations. (As reported by Yoel Goodman)
2013: The Israel Museum is scheduled to host a symposium beginning today entitled “In a Strange Land: The Photographic and Artistic Interpretation of Unfamiliar Environments.”
2013(17th of Tammuz, 5773): Shiva Asar Be-Tammuz (Seventeenth of Tammuz), a minor fast day that commemorates the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E. by the Babylonians and again in 70 C.E. by the Romans. According to some sages, the Second Temple fell because of the lack of love and community spirit. In America, whether it is bullying or the coarsening of our public discourse, we are painfully aware of the harm that speech can do. Since most American Jews do not refrain from food and drink on the 17th of Tammuz maybe it has been proposed that we refrain from Lashon Hara (i.e. Speaking Evil) on this minor fast day. To paraphrase the old Chasidic tale, we will show as much concern for what comes out of our mouths as we show for what we put in our mouths for one day, it might become a habit.
2013(17th of Tammuz, 5773): On the Jewish calendar, observance of American Independence Day. In 1776, the 4thof July fell on the 17th of Tammuz. So for those of you who want to get a head start on celebrating American Independence, here is your chance.
2013: Archaeological excavation prior to the installation of a drainage pipe has exposed for “the first time…such a finely preserved section of the road in Jerusalem,” the Israel Antiquities Authority announced today.
2013: “Charlies and the Chocolate Factory” a musical version of the children’s novel directed by Sam Mendes with lyrics by Marc Shaiman “had its world premiere at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London” today.
2014: In London The Wiener Library is scheduled to be hosting a special networking evening for the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors
2014: “Hanna’s Journey” is scheduled to be shown at the Portland Jewish Film Festival.2014: The Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to meet in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
2014: “The United States will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, and will continue to remain steadfast on topics central to Israel’s security in the nuclear negotiations, US President Barack Obama assured Israeli President Shimon Peres during a meeting this afternoon at the White House.”
2014: Responding to a plea from the mothers of the three kidnap victims - Naftali Frenkel (16), Gilad Sha'ar (16), and Eyal Yifrah (19) – the Security Cabinet said tonight that “Operation Brother's Keeper will continue at full force.”
2015: In Coralville, Iowa, Congregation Agudas Achim is scheduled to host its annual congregational meeting.
2015: “A plan to link the cities of Amsterdam and Tel Aviv as twin towns was canceled today after pro-Palestinian groups pressured the Dutch capital’s mayor into backtracking on his proposal.”
2015: “The U.N.’s Gaza Report Is Flawed and Dangerous” published today provided Richard Kemp’s analysis of Judge Mary Davis’ report on the fighting in Gaza.
2015: An exhibition of creations by the Judaica design brand Mi Polin (the Hebrew words for “From Poland” which created the “Mezuzah from This Home” project is scheduled to come to an end at the PJCC Foster City, California.
2015: In London, Anthony Grafton is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “How Jesus celebrated Passover: Early Modern Views of the Last Supper” sponsored by the Jewish Historical Society of England.
2016: In Nashville, TN, the Oz Art Festival featuring the work of “Israeli-American street artist Adam Yekutieli (aka KNOW HOPE)'s” is scheduled to come to an end today.
2016: In Oregon, “Fever at Dawn” a movie about Hungarian who survived the death camps is scheduled to be shown at the 24thannual Portland Jewish Festival.
2016: “During this morning’s aufruf, a synagogue event to honor her upcoming marriage” to Shoshana Dembitz, Abigail “Grafton spoke about the pain of the recent mass murder at a gay nightclub in Orlando.” (As reported by Alix Wall)
2016: Steen Metz, a concentration camp survivor who had been born at Odense, Denmark is 1935 is scheduled to be the featured speaker in the “In Our Voices” program at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.
2016(19th of Sivan, 5776): Shabbat Beha’alotekha;
2017: The cabinet today suspended a government-approved plan to establish a pluralistic prayer pavilion at Jerusalem’s Western Wall, following calls by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox coalition allies to scrap the deal.”
2017: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including More Alive and Less Lonely: On Books and Writers by Jonathan Lethem, The Global Novel: Writing the World in the 21st Century by Adam Kirsch and The Heirs by Susan Rieger.
2017: Alon Day is scheduled to “become the first Israeli to compete in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series — the sport’s highest league of competition — when he races the No. 23 car for the BK Racing team at the Sonoma Raceway in Southern California” today.
2017: Am event “organized to mark 100 years since a historic 67-word letter was sent from the then-foreign secretary Lord Balfour to the second Lord Rothschild, signaling British support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine” is scheduled to take place today in London.
2017: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host a book launch of “The Children's Tree of Terezin, written by children's author Dede Harris and illustrated by Sara Akerlund that tells the true story about how children in the Terezin concentration camp overcame unimaginable obstacles to give life to a small tree sapling.”
2017: “The Ride For the Living” which starts at the gates of Auschwitz and ends at the JCC in Krakow is scheduled to take place today.
2017(1st of Tammuz, 5777): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz;
2018: “Kulna Jerusalem” and the Tower of David Museum are scheduled to host the of three events marking the opening of the 2018 FIFA World Cup games
2018(12th of Tammuz, 5778): Eight-seven year old South African photographer David Goldblatt, the son of Eli and Olga Goldblatt passed away today.
2018: Jason Kander announced he would run for mayor of Kansas City, MO today.
2018: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “The Boy Downstairs” starring Zosia Mamet and Matthew Shear.
2018: “The Center for Jewish History and Instituto Cervantes are scheduled to a host a Sephardic music concert (“Juderias”) by Lara Bellow” tonight.
2019: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of the documentary “Inside the Mossad.”
2019: The Chevra Kadisha in Edmonton is scheduled to hold a “special meeting” this evening.
2019: As part of his series on “The Ten Lost Tribes” Rabbi Dr. Raphael Zarum, the Dean of the London School of Jewish Studies is scheduled to lecture on “The Failed Siege of Jerusalem.”