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This Day, August 1, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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August 1



30 BCE:  Mark Antony died.  Following the victory of Octavian and Antony over those who had murdered Julius Caesar, Antony became ruler of the Eastern half of the Roman Empire.  Antony did name Herod as ruler of Judaea.  But when his lover Cleopatra let it be known that she wished to recreate the Ptolemy rule over the area, Antony partially reversed himself by giving the Queen Jericho and numerous other towns in Judaea.  None of this had anything to do with Antony’s feelings about the Jews but rather reflected his passion for Cleopatra. In the end none of this matter since Octavian defeated Antony and control of the Jews passed to the man who became Caesar Augustus.



10 BCE: Birthdate of Claudius 4th Roman emperor. Claudius reigned from 41 through 54. Regardless of how the PBS television series portrayed, for a Roman Emperor, Claudius was a plus for the Jews of his time. He repealed the anti-Jewish edicts of his predecessors. He held the Samaritans responsible for the attacks on Jews in Judea and befriended the Jewish King, Agrippa. At one time he did exclude Jews from the city of Rome. But this appears to have been a matter of dealing with civil unrest sparked the early Christians living in the imperial city.

388: The synagogue located on the Euphrates in Callinicum was looted and burned by Church officials. St. Ambrose (one of the four Latin doctors of the Catholic Church) defended the action. He reprimanded Theodosius the Great for ordering the local Bishop to pay restitution, even though expropriation was illegal under Roman law. St. Ambrose offered to burn the synagogue in Milan on his own. 

527: Justinian I also known as Justinian the Great becomes the Byzantine Emperor.  For gentiles, Justinian might be considered “Great” but he was an enemy of the Jews.  Justinian’s celebrated code contains the following about his policy towards his Jewish subjects. “They shall enjoy no honors.  Their status shall reflect the baseness which in their souls they have elected and desired.”  “The principle of servitus Judaeorum (‘servitude of the Jews’) was established, and the hitherto uneven pattern of persecution was systemized for a Christian civilization march towards its age of faith.”  Justinian banned the recitation of the Shema because its declaration of the Oness of God was at odds with the Trinity.  In response to demands of his Bishops, Justinian banned the public reading of the Torah.  He also forbad the observance of Passover in the years when it preceded Easter on the calendar.

1098: Fifty-three year old Adhemar of Le Puy, the French bishop who was a leader of the First Crusade which proved so devastating to the Jews of the Rhineland and the Holy Land died today at Antioch.

1137: King Louis VI passed away and is succeed by his Louis VII who will launch the Second Crusade.  Louis VII’s reign was not “Jew friendly.” Following the logic of the time that it made no sense to go to Palestine to fight those holding on to the Christian Holy Sites and leave the defilers of Christianity at home alone, in 1144 Louis VII would expel all the Jews who had converted to Christianity and then returned to Judaism. In 1171 the first Blood Libel in France took place in Blois.

1291: The Swiss Confederation is formed with the signature of the Federal Charter. The original Jews settled in what is now Switzerland during the days of the Roman Empire. Records of the Jewish community officially date back to the 13thcentury, with Jews having settled in Basel in 1213, seventy years before the confederation was formed. Jews from France and Germany settled in Bern by 1259, St. Gall in 1268, Zurich in 1273, Schaffhausen, Diessenhofen, and Luzerne in 1299. But anti-Semitism is almost as old as the confederation itself since in1294 in when many Jews living in Berne of the city were executed and the survivors expelled under the pretext of the murder of a Christian boy.

1298: Although assisted by humane Christian citizens, the Jews of Nuremberg were overpowered and butchered today. Among the victims was Mordecai ben Hillel, a pupil of Jehiel ben Asher, with his wife and children.

1431: “King Sigismund assured the Jews of Worms that all edicts annulling the outstanding debts owed them would be declared invalid upon the payment by each Jew of an indemnity.”

1520: In Cracow, Poland, Sigismund I the Old and Bona Sforza of Milan, the niece of the Holy Roman emperor Maximilian, gave birth to Sigismund II Augustus, the Polish King who allowed “Jews to settle in Vilna without restriction” and who issued “the ‘Magna Cara of Jewish Self-Government’’ “which permitted Jews to elect their own chief rabbi and judges.”

1580: Evard Mercurian, the fourth Superior General of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) passed away.  The first three leaders of the order had been Spanish and there was concern that they might be Coversos or at least have Jewish blood.  So Mercuvian, a native of Luxemburg got the job because Pope Gregory XIII wished to dispel an connotation of a Jewish connection.

1626: In Izmir, Mordecai and Clara Sevi gave birth to Sabbatai Zevi, the most famous the False Messiahs.

1670: As a result of a proclamation by the Emperor, as of today, all the Jews had left Vienna.

1658: Coronation of Leopold I who borrowed large sums of money from banker Samuel Oppenheimer to fight the “Great Turkish War.

1753: The Imperial Court rescinded the order confiscating copies of the prayer book and Talmud because they were found not contain derogatory statements about Christianity.

1776(16thof Av, 5536): Twenty nine year old Francis Salvador, the member of a prominent Sephardic South Carolina family and an ardent Patriot, was killed while fighting the Tory and Indian supporters of the British.


1787: In the UK, Hannah Montefiore, the daughter of Moses Montefiore and Esther Hannah Racah, married Moses Acona with whom she had five children – “Leah, Judah, Moses Montefiore, Esther and Sarah.”

1789(9th of Av): Rabbi Abraham Isaac Castello, the native of Ancona whose works included "A Memorial Sermon on the Death of Francis I. of Germany", written in Spanish, and translated by Castello's son Joseph Castello into Italian passed away in Leghorn, Italy.

1797: Two Jews named Bromet and DeLemon were elected members of the Second National Assembly of Holland today

1798: The British Fleet under Nelson defeats the French Fleet in the Battle of the Nile.  Nelson’s victory left the British in control of the Mediterranean.  Napoleon’s army had already landed before the battle.  Although the French leader would score victories in Egypt and Syria, crossing through Eretz Israel, his victories would mean little since the French army could not be sustained.  Among the lesser known consequences was the end of promises Napoleon had made during the siege at Acre to create a Jewish homeland.

1813: Birthdate of Stockholm native Charles Kann, the husband of Copenhagen native Amalia Monies and the father of Albert, Ellen, Jenny and Ellen Kann.

1819: Birthdate of American novelist Herman Melville who was the special subject of study of Viola Sachs who “conducted research and studies for the decoding of Melville’s master works” and who survived the Holocaust by living in Brazil along with her husband, economist Ignacy Sachs

1820: Hannah Joel, a widow who had died at “Jews Hospital” was buried today at the Brady Jewish Cemetery.

1830: Today Isaac and Hannah Solomon were married at the Western Synagogue.

1833: On a second reading a bill designed to free Jews from all civil disabilities which would open the world of politics to them, was defeated.

1841: Birthdate of Dr. Isidor Cohnstein the native of Gnesen  and gynecologist  who married Ida Cohnstein.

1844: Birthdate of Aaron E. Greenewald, the husband of Sallie Gimbel Greenewald.

1846: Max-Théodore Cerfberr, a colonel in the French Army and president of the Consistoire Central Israelite de France “was reelected to the Chamber of Deputies today.

1852: In Brighton, Dr. Loewe, the Oriental Linguist to the Duke of Sussex and first Principal of Jews’ College London and his wife gave birth to James H. Loewe, the “manager of the East-end branch of the International Bank of London, Ltd., founder and first President of the Finsbury-park Synagogue and of the North London Beth Hamedrash.

1852: This afternoon, the new Jewish Synagogue in Eighth-street, between North First and North Second-streets, was dedicated by appropriate ceremonies of the Jewish religion. There were Hebrew chant and lectures by Rabbi, Max Lilienthal, Rabbi Samuel M. Isaacs and Rabbi Morris Raphall. Dr. Barnard officiated as Rabbi to the congregation. The Synagogue is to be known as the "House of Israel." There were many Gentiles present to view the ceremonies.

1855: Castle Garden opened as the immigrant process center in New York.

1856: Lauritz Weidemann, one of the framers of Norway’s constitution whose opposition to Jewish citizenship was expressed somewhat incoherently when he wrote “"The Jewish nation's history proves, that this people always has been rebellious and deceitful, and their religious teachings, the hope of again arising as a nation, so often they have acquired some remarkable fortune, led them to intrigues and to create a state within a state. It is of vital importance to the security of the state that an absolute exception be made about them" passed away today

1859: The Report of Sir Moses Montefiore to the London Committee of Deputies of the British Jews on the subject of his mission to Rome in the Mortara Case was published today. While Sir Moses was thankful for those who assisted in him arranging meeting with Vatican officials, the Church refused to acknowledge any error in the case.  The conversion stands and the Jewish child stolen from his parents will be raised as a Catholic.

1859: An editorial in the New York Times, expresses disappointment at Rome’s refusal to yield on the issues in the “Mortara Case” while expressing relief “that such an enormity as the abduction of the Mortara child cannot be repeated even by Rome.”  The Times also points out the horrible conditions under which the Jews of Austria, a patron and protector of the Pope, are living. “The case of the Israelites…bad as it is in Rome, is still worse in Austria.”  Jews are restricted in the vocations they may pursue and are banned from “many of the higher vocations of trade.”  They are limited in their right to move to different parts of the empire and they need a special license if they want to leave the country altogether.  In some parts of the empire, there is a limit on the number of Jewish marriages “so that a young man must await the death of his parent before he can enter the state of matrimony. This hideous and demoralizing law is but one of the many horrors which Austrian persecution has designed for the Israelites living in Austria, and who are kept by the brutal system, in a state of ignorance which the condition of Jewish populations in free countries proves to abnormal with that portion of the human family.” [All of this will change with a stroke of a pen after Austria loses its war with Prussia and is forced to reorganize as the Austro-Hungarian Empire.]



1862: In an interlude between the Siege of Corinth and the Second Battle of Corinth, Jacob C. Cohen of the 27th Ohio Infantry wrote to the Jewish Messenger to describe what life was like as they bivouacked at Camp Clear Creek just outside of the Mississippi town.

1864: Birthdate of South Carolina Senator “Cotton Ed” Smith a supporter of the immigration quota system who wanted to exempt Jews from the quota system” because “their thrift, their economy and their love of learning” appealed to him. (As reported by Henry L. Feingold)

1864: Today, following the end of the Schleswig War, Prussia, under the leadership of Bismarck who relied on his banker Gerson Bleichröder for financial advice took possession of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein.

1865(9th of Av, 5625): Tisha B'Av

1865: The New York Times reported that “the Israelites in this city and throughout the world solemnized in sorrow and in sadness, in tears and in lamentation, in fasting and in prayer, the annual fast of Ab, founded on the destruction of the Temple, and the overthrow of the national government. Although nearly 2,300 years have elapsed since the first Temple was destroyed, and eighteen centuries since the construction of the second Temple, both occurrences taking place on the same day of the month, the fast is still continued from Monday evening to Tuesday night, in accordance with the Jewish ritual, and in consonance with Israelitish feeling. The fast is inaugurated with reciting the lamentations of Jeremiah, and, after the morning service, several hours are employed in the synagogues in chanting in plaintive tones the compositions of the saints of antiquity, and imploring the God of Israel to remove the rod of chastisement from Israel, and again to resume the light of other days, by the reestablishment of their Temple and restoration of their government to its original splendor.”

1866: In Moscow, “Andrew and Elizabeth Malkiel” gave birth to NYU trained attorney, the secretary of the Socialist Labor Party and husband of the former Theresa Serber, the socialist advocate for the rights of woman and workers.

1866: Maj. Louis Alexander Gratz and Elisabeth (Lizzie) Trigg Gratz gave birth to Frances Henrietta Gratz who became Frances Henrietta Mann when she married Horace Attlee Mann.

1868: In Montgomery, Alabama, “Jacob and Bella (Mayer) Jonas gave birth to banker Nathan S. Jonas, the husband of Jennie Strauss who pre-deceased him.


1869: Birthdate of Moishe Hillkowitz, the native of Riga, who gained famed as New York labor lawyer and Socialist political leader, Morris Hillquit.

1870: Birthdate of Rabbi Tuvia Geffen who gained fame as “The Coca Cola Rabbi.”

1870: A rumor swept New York today that the  police had apprehended the murder of Benjamin Nathan – a plumber who with a lacerated face who was caught with a stolen watch belong to the deceased.

1870: “The Jews in Romania” published today reported that there were 176 synagogues serving 400,000 Jews in Romania.

1870: Di Post, the first Yiddish periodical to appear in the United States was published for the first time today in New York City

1870: Benjamin Nathan, the prominent Jewish New York businessman who was murdered in his own home, was buried today at the Jewish Cemetery, Shearith Israel at Cypress Hill. His brother-in-law, Rabbi J.J. Lyons had officiated at funeral that was held at the deceased’s resident.

1873: It was reported today that the last person to see ten year old John Henry Lance was “a Jew peddler in Williamsburg.”

1875: In London, Rebecca and Michaelis Hallensein gave birth to Percy Hallenstein, the brother Emile and Henri Hallenstein who changed his named to Halsted, was the husband of Enid Miriam Gotthelf and passed away in New Zealand.

1875: “The Jews of Italy,” an article published today described the conditions of the Jews living in this newly reunited nation.  It focused on the deplorable conditions of many of the Jews living in the old ghetto of Rome along the Tiber, the improved condition of Jews living outside of the capital and the annual ceremony at St. John the Lateran set aside to baptize any Jew who has converted during the past 12 months. However, no Jew has participated in the ceremony in the last twenty years, despite the best efforts of the Church.

1876:  Colorado is admitted as the 38th U.S. state.  The largest number of Jews began arriving in Colorado as part of the gold rush activities in 1859.  Jews helped supply the miners in many of the camps that later became small towns throughout the state.   Hyman and Fred Salomon, two Jewish brothers from Prussia, were leading members of the Denver community by the time statehood was declared.  In addition to their business ventures, they helped organize the Colorado Pioneer Society, the Denver Public Library and the Denver B’nai Brit Lodge.

1876(11th of Av, 5636): Lewis Wormser, the native of Stuttgart who moved to Ireland in 1821 where he became such a successful businessman and leader of the Jewish community that he was waiting to begin serving as Lord Mayor of Dublin when he passed away today.  Had he lived, he would have been the first Jew to hold that position and honor that would fall to Robert Briscoe eighty years later.

1877: Three weeks before her 40th birthday, in the UK, Sarah Ellis, the daughter of Abraham Ellis, married fifty year old Israel Levy.

1878: Birthdate of Alfred W. Fleisher who would be buried in Mount Sinai Cemetery at Philadelphia when he passed away on Christmas Day, 1928.

1878: The Hebrew Orphan Asylum Society of the City of Brooklyn was incorporated today under the leadership of President Ernst Nathan. 

1879: Following the Russo-Turkish War, Czar Alexander II today awarded Joshua be Aaron Zeitlin “ a medal in recognition of his services” as “a contractor for the victorious Russian Army

1879: As reported in the Jewish Messenger, "...About twenty, mostly young men, have formed themselves into a congregation under the name of 'Orach Chaim', Path of Life, their objective being to hold Divine service every day, morning and evening, as well as on Sabbath and holidays on strict orthodox principles, as it has been handed down to them by their fathers."

1880: “A Christian Woman Becomes a Jewess” published today described the conversion ceremony of Mrs. Morse that took place last month in Rochester, NY.

1881: No reason was given today when it was reported that the excursion of Athletic Society of Young Men’s Hebrew Association of Harlem has been postponed until later this month.

1881: Birthdate of Otto Toeplitz, the third generation German mathematician who would seek refuge in Palestine after the rise of the Nazis.

1881: Birthdate of  Fritz Spira, the Viennese actor who played Austrian Emperor Franz Josef in the 1926 film The Third Squadron but whose fame did not keep him from being arrested by the Nazis and dying ignominiously at the Ruma Concentration Camp in 1943.

1882: Henry Robinson married Mary Pillischer today at the Brighton Synagogue.

1882: Birthdate of  Jacob Benjamin Salutsky, the Russian immigrant who gained fame as the J.B.S. Hardman a prominent socialist who serve as Education of Director of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers after having left the Communist movement in apparent disgust.

1882: As the Freight Handler’s strike continued the Russian Jews had been replaced by Germans as workers at Pier Number 39 of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

1883: Birthdate of Amsterdam native Isidore Goudeket the “Dutch gymnast who competed in the 1908 Summer Olympics” was murder at Sobibor in 1943.

1885(20thof Av, 5645): Parashat Eikev

1885: John T. Robeson, the U.S. Consul-General in Beirut sent a telegram to the governor-general of Syria protesting the order expelling Mordecai Yitzhak Lubowsky and his brother.  The two Jews were American citizens and the diplomat pointed out that expelling them was a violation of the treaty between the Porte and the United States since it discriminated based on religion.

1885: A well-attended memorial service in honor of the late Sir Moses Montefiore, who was buried on Friday in Ramsgate, England, was held today at the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids, on the corner of Eighty-fourth-street and Avenue A in New York.

1887(11th of Av, 5647): Issac Margolis, the Russo-Polish rabbi who was a descendant of Yom Tov Lippman Heller of Prague  who came to the United States in 1884 and assumed the leadership of Congregation Anshe-Kalvariya  passed away in New York.

1887: Today, on his 18th birthday, Morris HIllquist joined the Socialist Labor Party of America.

1888: Birthdate of Russian born Yiddish poet Nahum Yud, who wrote under the name Nahum Yersualimchik who came to the United States where he wrote for Yiddish publications until his death in 1966.


1888: Birthdate of Rene Marx Dormoy, the friend of fellow socialist Leon Blum in whose government he served as Minister of the Interior and defeated the attempt of the right-wing La Cagoule to overthrow the Third Republic before WW II.  Dormoy did not turn his back on Blum after the cowardly capitulation of the French and the rise of Vichy – a loyalty that cost him his life.

1889: New York Mayor Hugh Grant received a letter today from Henry M. Leipziger, Director of the Hebrew Technical Institute concerning an exhibit for the upcoming World’s Fair. 

1889: Nine year old Samuel Ehrenstein and five year old Lazarus Ehrenstein were left with Coroner Levy in New York.  A letter said that they were orphans and should be sent to a charitable institution for care

1890(15thof Av, 5650): Tu B’AV

1890: “The British House of Commons” published today describe activities in Parliament including Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Sir James Fergusson’s reassurance that he has no proof that the Russian government plans on enforcing any edicts aimed at reducing the rights of Russian Jews.

1890: “In the House of Lords…the Marquis of Salisbury…said he could not confirm reports…of any anti-Jewish edicts by the Russian government.”

1890: New York Congressman Charles Baker asked the Committee on Foreign Affairs to consider “a resolution protesting ‘in the name of humanity, against such inhuman and barbarous acts as the enforcement by Russia of the edict of 1882, against the Jews, requesting the President to transmit, through our representatives in Russia, this protest to the Russian Government.”

1891: It was reported today that U.S. government believes the fact that nothing has been heard from Dr. J.M. Crawford the United States Consul General in St. Petersburg “for a long time past” is “convincing proof” that the Russian government is not contemplating any action to enforce the edicts aimed at depriving the Jews of their rights.

1891: Simon Wolf and Lewis Abraham of Washington, DC, representing the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury concerning the immigration Russian Jews to the United States.

1891: Secretary of Treasury Charles Foster wrote to Simon Wolf and Lewis Abraham assuring them that the immigration laws would be enforced “efficiently” but “humanely.

1891:  Birthdate of Eliyahu Lulu, who would gain fame as a member of the First Knesset under the name of Eliyahu Hacarmeli.

1891: “The Czar Changes Bankers” published today attributed the Russian government’s decision to move its accounts from the London branch of the House of Rothschild to Messrs. C.J. Hambro & Son to that country’s “attitude toward the Jews.”

1892: Emma Goldman was among those attending the meeting of anarchists held tonight at 193 Bowery.

1892: At a meeting of anarchist of Newark, NJ the speaker praised Alexander Berkman, who had attempted to assassinate Henry Clay Frick during the Homestead Steel Strike, by saying “I trust that in the near future we may all become Berkmanns.”

1892: In Chicago, “Ukrainian Jewish immigrants Annie P. (née Cohn) and Nicholas J. Pritzker” gave birth to Harry Nicholas, partners in the firm of Pritzker and Pritzker along with his brothers Abram and Jack, the father of the former Elna Stone and father of Richard and Joanne Pritzker, whose family members created a real estate empire that included the Hyatt hotel chain.

1893: Birthdate of Rossien, Lithuania native Alexander Sachs who joined his brother Joseph in 1904 in the United States where he was educated at CCNY, Columbia and Harvard and became an influential economist and banker best known for delivering the “Einstein–Szilárd letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt” in October of 1939 which led to the Manhattan Project and the birth of the Atomic/Nuclear Age.


1893(19thof Av, 5653): Joseph Korman, “an educated Russian Jew” who came to the United States about a year ago and who had been “a successful merchant at one time” passed away today after being for six months leaving behind a destitute widow and four children.

1893: Today is the deadline for all the Jews living in Lifland to sell their property and move into the Pale.

1893: It was reported today that Archbishop Dionysius Latas, a prominent Greek prelate, said that if the subject comes up during his visit to Chicago he intends to express his opposition to the persecution of the Jews.

1893: The body of 76 year old Solomon Heyman who passed away yesterday in Long Branch will be brought to New York City today for burial.

1894: “East Side Roof Gardens” published today described the growth of these popular venues including one that  “the young men of the Hebrew Institute” have established at the building on East Broadway and Jefferson Street. From 9 in the morning until 8 in the evening mothers and their “babes in arms” can sit under the big awning on the roof in attempt to stay cool during the summer heat.

1894: The trial of Jeremiah J. Levy a Jewish policeman who has been charged with bribery continued today.

1895: Birthdate of Béla Zsolt, the native of Komárom, Hungary who survived Bergen-Belsen, rode to freedom on the “Kasztner Train” and wrote Nine Suitcases a Holocaust memoir that would later be turned into a one act play.


(For more information about the Kasztner Train see http://www.killingkasztner.com/)

1895: “In The Real Estate Field” published today described the sale of a lot on the southeast corner of Lexington Avenue and 77th Street by the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Society for $87,500.

1895: “The Clothing Industry” published today attributed the success in New York of the “industry  for manufacturing clothing” to “cheap labor.”  This labor “has not been made cheap through any effort or design of the manufactures” but is the result of vast number of Russian and Polish Jews who have “forced down the price” of labor.

1896: It was reported today that the Jewish Colonization Company will pay the expenses of 800 Jews to return to Russia from Argentina because they know nothing about farming and are not able to work on the Hirsch colonies that have been established in that country.

1896: Thirty year old Chaim Silberman, a Hebrew school teacher who arrived in the United States last January told the authorities about his harrowing trip to the United States during which 6 of his fellow passengers died of suffocation in a case of “criminal neglect.”

1896: Colonel Eugene Levy and thirty –six year old Marie Melanie Simikins a former school teacher who converted from Catholicism to Judaism were married today at the mayor’s office.

1898: A case involving that pits the Moses Montifiore Congregation of Hoboken against David Engler who claims to own the lot on which the synagogue sits and who is trying to force the congregation to move its building is scheduled to be hear in The Chancery Court in Jersey City, New Jersey today.

1898: The body 53 year old Elias Jacobs who had passed away at his country home in Forest, PA was brought to New York City where his funeral will be held.

1898(13thof Av, 5658): Ephriam W. Sells, of Sells Brothers Circus, passed away today in Columbus OH.

1899: “The Jews in Babylon” by William Rainey Harpert was published in Volume 14 of The Biblical World.


1899: Mordecai is scheduled to run in the Sixth Race at Brighton Beach. (No word as to Haman or Esther)

1900(6th of Av, 5660): Forty-eight year old “German physiologist” Immanuel Munk, the brother of Hermann Munk, passed away today in Berlin.

1900: Rabbi Simon Isaac Finkelstein, “the son of Judah Tsvi Finkelstein and Feyge Rive Finkelstein” and his wife Hannah Basha Finkelstein gave birth to Herman N. Finkelstein

1903: Birthdate of Helena Nordheim, one of five Jewish members of the Dutch ladies’ gymnastics team, which won the Olympic title in Amsterdam in 1928. Forty years later, Helena Kloot- Nordheim, her husband Abraham and her 10-year old daughter Rebecca were gassed at Sobibor.

1904: Birthdate of Edward Satz, a native of what was then Lwow, Poland, who gained fame as Eli Mintz who made the transition from the Yiddish Theatre to Broadway playing “Uncle David” in “Me and Molly” and was the brother of Ludwig Satz.


1905: In the United Kingdom, the Star published “Jewish Literary Societies” today.

1905(29thof Tammuz, 5665): Less than a month before his 47th birthday Leo Abram Errera a distinguished Belgian botanist who all wrote Les Juifs Russes: Extermination ou Emancipation?" passed away today in Brussels.

1909: In Sycamore, Illinois, “Morris and Rose (Chosid) Gitlitz” gave birth to the character actor known as Lou Gilbert, the product of Cleveland orphanage  whose stage career began in 1925 and whose film credits including “Viva Zapata,” “Marathon Man” and “Raid on Entebbe.”


1910: Birthdate of composer and arranger Walter Scharf, “the son of Yiddish theatre comic Bessie Zwerling” who worked with everybody from George Gershwin, to Rudy Valle, to Al Jolson to Elvis Presley.


1911: Jews in Peoria, Illinois contribute one thousand dollars to Jews in Turkey suffering from the aftermath of major fires in that country.

1912(18thof Av, 5672): Eighty-one year old Abraham Benjamin passed away today at St. Kilda, Melbourne.

1912: The Young Men’s Hebrew Association of Camden, NJ was incorporated today.

1913: A day after she had passed away, Jennie Leuria, the daughter of Bertha and Henry Leuria, was buried today at the “Belfast Jewish Cemetery in Northern Ireland.”

1913: Birthdate of multi-talented composer Jerome Moross whose most famous works may be theme music for the western television series “Wagon Train” and the big screen western “The Big Country.”



1913: In Buffalo, NY, “Berith Israel (Anshe Sfar) was “rededicated” today.

1914: Germany declared war on Russia in WW I. The Jews of German fought valiantly for the Kaiser in defense of the Fatherland. But the Iron Crosses they earned would not save them or their progeny from the "Austrian Corporal’s Final Solution." According to Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers by Bryan Rigg, “About 10,000 volunteered for duty, and over 100,000 out of a total German-Jewish population of 550,000 served during World War One. Some 78% saw front-line duty, 12,000 died in battle, over 30,000 received decorations, and 19,000 were promoted. Approximately 2,000 Jews became military officers and 1,200 became medical officers.”

1914: The British Ambassador to France “was to have dined with at Edmond de Rothschild Boulogne-sur Seine villa tonight but they have to dine in Paris instead because “all of his horses and automobiles have been appropriated” by the government as part of the mobilization for war.

1914: In Saint Petersburg, Russia, Alexander Govorkovski and Ester Goverkovsky gave birth to Ella Govorkovski who became Ella Drori when she married Amnon Drori.

1915: It was reported today that with 25,000 Jews already serving in the military, the British War Office has made serious efforts “to meet all of their religious requirements” including wherever possible making arrangements for them “to return from the firing line for Passover and for the Feast of Weeks.”

1915: Polish-born English tailor Isaac Roman, who, as Victor Jeremy Jerome became a writer and a leader of the CPUSA arrived in New York today aboard the SS St. Louis.


1915: “The Jews were driven out of Brest-Litovsk” today “by order of the Russian High Command.

1915: It was reported today that the officers of the “New Synagogue” the recently formed “liberal Jewish congregation” on New York’s West Side are Morris Rothschild, Chairman; Jerome Wile, Treasurer and J.L. Frankel, Secretary who will be supporting a professional staff consisting of Rabbi Ephraim Frisch and organist Clarence Adler.

1916: In talking to the press today about the impact of Britain’s attempts to limit food supplies coming into Germany, Filed Marshall Von Batocki, “Germany’s food dictator” noted that “Polish Jews…who largely subsisted on fish were suffering intensely as a result of England’s economic pressure on neutrals particularly in the matter of dish exports to and through Germany.”

1917: In Manhattan, Martha Schallek and Joseph S. Wallenstein gave birth to Herbert Joseph Wallenstein, the Republic political leader who served as Assistant State Attorney General for 20 years starting in 1959.

1917: Harvey B. Franklin, of Stockton, CA is scheduled to begin serving as the Rabbi of Temple Sinai, Oakland, CA.

1917: Eighteen year old Lawrence Valenstein “borrowed $100 from his mother” and today “opened a tiny headquarters” of which would become the Grey Advertising Agency, “one of the country[s leading advertising companies.”  (As reported by Suzanne Daley)

1917: Based on information supplied by Ottis A. Glazebook, the U.S. Consul in Jerusalem who left that city for Switzerland after the U.S. entered the war on the side of the Allies, it was reported today that “there are now in Palestine 500 Jewish-American citizens” all of whom had “been given permission to leave” but preferred “to remain” where they were.

1918: Birthdate of Abraham Brauner, the son of timber wholesaler in Łódź, Poland, who gained fame as movie producer Artur “Atze” Brauner, the husband of Theresa Albert with whom he had four children and the kinsman of 49 people who died during the Shoah including 12 murdered at Babi Yar.

1918: During World War I, while serving in France a member of the Overseas Commission of the Jewish Welfare Board, Dr. Hyman Gerson Enelow wrote from Beaune, France today  “that there is work for everybody who wants to be helpful, that the Jewish soldiers “are very happy to see me” because it makes them “feel like they are not forgotten and that in addition to his official duties, he has spent several hours at the hospital trying to help “our doctors and nurse who are terribly overworked” and providing comfort to the wounded, especially those close to death.

1918: Decree issued “securing the title of the Chestnut Street Cemetery” in Cincinnati, Ohio.

1918: Abraham Schrameck, begin serving as Governor-General of Madagascar.

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

1919: As The Hungarian Soviet Republic came to an end, Bela Kun “fled as Romanian troops approached Budapest.”

1919: When the fascist government in Hungary limited the number of Jews in commerce, law, medicine, and banking it defined a Jew as “all those of the Jewish religion and also all who became members of other confession after August 1, 1919.  (This was consistent with an attempt to deny that Jews became Christians when they converted and that, as the Nazis believed, Jews were Jews because of their blood.

1919: “The Jewess of Toledo” “a silent historical drama film directed by Otto Kreisler an adaptation of the 1872 play The Jewess of Toledo by Franz Grillparzer which was based on the relationship between Alfonso VIII of Castile and Rahel la Fermosa in 12th Century Spain” was released in Austria today.

1919(5th of Av, 5679): Seventy-one year old businessman, theater impresario and composer Oscar Hammerstein I, the grandfather of lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II, passed away today.



1920: Birthdate of Israeli politician Michael Dekel, the native of Pinsk who fought with the Soviet and Polish armies during WW II before making Aliyah in 1949.

1920 The Zionist Actions Committee decided “to entrust the Jewish National Fund with the duty of carrying out a plan for a Nordau Garden City in Palestine

1921(26thof Tammuz, 5681): Seventy-three year old “French economist and statistician Alfred Neymarck, the son of Mayes and Henritte Neymark, the husband of Jeanne Neymarck and “vice-president of the International Congress of Societies for Lawsuits and of the International Congress for Landed Property” passed away today.

1922(7thof Av, 5682): Sixty-three year old mechanical engineer Donát Bánki the son of a Hungarian Jewish physician who helped to invent “the carburetor for the stationary engine.”

1924: In Dąbrowica, Poland, Anna (Szapiro) and Maurice Charpak gave birth to Georges Charpak, the French physicist who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1992.

1924: Birthdate of Michael Stuart Rubin who as Michael Stewart was one of stable writers who got their start writing for Sid Caesar and who went on to became the Tony Award winning creator of “Bye Bye Birdies” and “Hello, Dolly!”


1925: The (Turkish) Palestine Citizenship Ordinance went into effect. It said that any "Turkish subject" in Palestine as of August 1, 1925 shall become a Palestinian citizen, unless he opts for Turkish nationality, or nationality of another state.

1926: At Constantinople it was announced that the Jews of Turkey formally renounced their rights as minorities. They would for now on be considered full citizens with equal rights as all citizens have.

1926(21st of Av, 5686): Israel Zangwill passed away. The Russian born, Anglo-Jewish author, Zionist and champion of social justice is best known for two of his works - a novel entitled Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar People a highly successful play entitled The Melting Pot.  Among those who saw and enjoyed this was President Theodore Roosevelt.

1927: Birthdate of German-American Ivy League (Princeton and Harvard) economist, Dr. Otto Eckstein, the co-founder of Data Resources, Inc and the husband of Harriett Mirkin Eckstein with whom he raised three children – Warren, Felecia and June.



1928(15thof Av, 5688): Tu B’Av is celebrated for the last time during the Presidency of Calvin Coolidge.

1929: In Manhattan, Eva and Stanley Garfinkel gave birth to Howard Morris Garfinkel who changed the nature of basketball with his recruiting service and instructional camps. (As reported by Vincent M. Mallozzi)


1930: In Queens, “dress maker” Abraham Frankel and his wife gave birth to University of Illinois graduate and garment manufacturer Jerry Frankel who went on to become a Tony winning producer.


1930(7th of Av, 5690): Forty-eight year old Jack Zuta, an accountant for mobsters in Chicago was shot by unknown gunman while hiding out in Wisconsin.

1930: “The Cabinet of Doctor Larifari,” a comedy with music by Franz Waxman and filmed by cinematographer Otto Heller was released today in German.

1930: “Grumpy” directed by George Cukor, co-starring Paul Lukas and filmed by cinematographer David Abel was released today in the United States.

1931:  “Tabu” a silent film set in the South Seas with music by Hugo Riesenfeld was released today in the Unites States.

1931: Birthdate of Elliott Charles Adnopoz, who became famous as Ramblin' Jack Elliott

1931: Eduard Strauch who would murder over 10,000 Jews from Riga in the Rumbula Forest joined the Nazi Party and the SA.

1932: Birthdate of Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League.

1933: The Deutsche Modeamt, a newly-formed Nazi fashion office, announces that Jewish firms will not be permitted to exhibit in the exhibition of men's and women's wear.


1933: Fritz Rosenfelder, leader and founder of the sports club at Saanstaat, Wurtenberg, commits suicide because he was expelled from the club; in a final letter to his former club colleagues, he wrote: "I am leaving with no hatred. My only wish is that Germany should be restored to reason . . . How more beautifully could I have given my life for my Fatherland."


1933: The Commissariat for Medical Associations issues a decree prohibiting non-Jewish physicians from having any professional contact with Jewish physicians; non-Jewish medical men must not serve as consultants, and must not treat patients recommended to them by Jewish physicians.

1933: The Dutch Society of Sculptors and Artists responds to an appeal on behalf of Jewish refugees from Germany by donating many objects of art which will be used in a lottery sanctioned by the Government.

 1935: In the Bronx, “Joseph Weiss, an accountant and the former Jean Bystock” gave birth to Melvyn Irwin Weiss, the NYU trained attorney and the husband of “the former Barbara Joan Kaplan” who was a leading class action attorney. (As reported by Sam Roberts)


1936: The report of the Peel Commission was discussed today in Geneva, home of the League of Nations. Poland, Romania and other East European countries, debating the Peel Report on the proposed partition of Palestine, demanded that Great Britain continue to fulfill her obligations under the Mandate. The Arab leadership argued that the rights of the people of Palestine could not be contested and that any partition scheme was contrary to Articles 20 and 31 of the Covenant of the League of Nations. In a contradiction of facts the Arabs did not deny the rights of the Jewish minority in Palestine, and were even prepared to furnish guarantees in this respect, but they unanimously opposed the country's partition and demanded immediate, total independence. But part of the rights of the Jewish community under the terms of the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate was to a Jewish Homeland, not citizenship in an Arab country. In South Africa General J.C. Smuts, vice premier and minister of justice, expressed his grave misgivings about the partition scheme in general, and the smallness of the proposed Jewish state in particular. A total rejection of the partition was also the subject of letters written by Colonel J.C. Wedgwood, MP (Member of Parliament), and addressed to the British and world press.

1936: Following the arrival of Rabbi Stephen S. Wise in Geneva, the organizations committee of “The World Jewish Congress” which is opening in Geneva on August 8 announced today that it “will devote one special session to the present situation in Palestine”

1936: In Detroit, “Prosecutor Duncan C. McCrea said tonight that a chemist questioned about a reported Black Legion typhoid epidemic plot” aimed at Jews living in the area “has declared a high ranking legion officer inquired also how to make hand grenades and how to kill people with poison gas and hypodermic needles.”

1936: Birthdate of Leonard Steinberg, Baron Steinberg of Belfast, founder of Stanley Leisure Ltd and found and first President of the Northern Ireland Friends of Israel

1936: The Olympics open in Berlin.



1937: Karl-Otto Koch, who would have the strange misfortune of being executed by the SS for mismanaging a concentration camp, today “was given command of the concentration camp at Buchenwald.”

1937: Among the passengers on board the French line De Grasse which arrived in New York today was scholar and author Dr. Joachim Prinz and his wife who are scheduled to “tour American cities on behalf of the United Palestine appeal which is seeking to raise $4,500,000 for the settle of Jews from Poland, Silesia and Germany in Palestine.”

1938: At the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans which had been purchased by Seymour Weiss in 1934, “the Main Bar” later known as the Sazerac Bar, opened with its famous “mahogany bar, walnut paneled walls and Paul Ninas murals.”

1938(4thof Av, 5698): Eighty-two year old of New York native Albert Arnstein, the graduate of Packards Business College and the holder of an LL.B from St. Lawrence University who settled in St. Louis where he was President of the United Jewish and Charitable Associations passed away today.

1938: In Austria, on “rent day” another of the Nuremberg Laws went into effect under “which it is sufficient for a single ‘Aryan’ in a block of flats to object to Jewish tenants for the Jews to receive notices” ordering them to vacate the premises – a move which is expected to lead to Jews being able to only live in flats where all of the other residents of the building are Jewish.

1938: “Virtually all Jewish-owned cafes on Vienna’s famous Ring Boulevard were ordered today to close their doors” while all other cafes were ordered to post signs saying “Jews Not Wanted.”

1939:  In Prague, “a force of Germans in Stroopers’ brown shirts and top boot entered the popular Manes swimming pool this after and ordered all Jews to leave” but “Jews entered the pool after the Germans’ departure.”

1940: In Tel Aviv, journalist Theodor Loevy and his wife Elisa gave birth to television director and writer Ram Loevy.

1940: Antonio Origo and Iris Cutting Origo an Anglo-Irish writer who helped to save Jewish children through the kindertransport including the painter Frank Helmut Auerbach gave birth to their second child, and first daughter, Donata.

1940: The Nazis begin the expulsion of the Jewish population from Cracow, Poland. One-third would be sent to Warsaw and other Polish towns.1942: The first "reliable report" of the Nazi plan to murder all the Jews reached the West. The U.S. State Department suppressed the report for several weeks, until Jews living in the United States heard about the report from other sources. 

1941: Heydrich informed Himmler, “that in the future there will be no more Jews in the annexed Eastern Territories." Every day in every village and town, Jews would be hunted down, molested, tortured, and executed. 

1941(8th of Av, 5701): Another 1,000 Jews were shot in the city of Kishenev. 

1941: The Nazis established The Bialystok Ghetto.

1942: In Danbury, CT, Annette and Lazarus Heyman gave birth to Abigail Heyman “a photographer whose stark portraits of women at work, at home and at weddings gave a visual concreteness to feminist doctrine of the 1970s about the oppressiveness of traditional female roles.” (As reported by Paul Vitello)

1942 (18th of Av, 5702) Rabbi Shlomo Chanoch Rabinowicz, last Rebbe of the Radomsk dynasty, educator, a director of the Kesser Torah organization, member of the religious council in the Warsaw ghetto was murdered with his family in the Warsaw ghetto

1942: Benjamin Sagalowitz, press secretary of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities phoned Gerhard Riegner with information from an unimpeachable source, a non-Jewish German industrialist, that Hitler had decided to have all European Jews exterminated by means of poison gas by the end of the year.

1943: In Poland the final liquidation of the Bendzin Ghetto began today as the first batch of what would total 8,000 prisoners were deported today.

1943: When the Nazis began their final liquidation of Bendzin Ghetto they are met with unexpected “armed resistance in several bunkers” led by young Jews that “hampered” the Germans forcing them to spend two weeks on this latest venture in murderous cruelty.

1943: Rabbi Louis Werfel, a graduate of Yeshiva College and RIETS “was sent to North Africa, where he served as Chaplain with the 12th Air Force Service Command, where his area of operations included Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Sicily.

1943(29thof Tammuz, 5703): Twenty year old Lydia Litvyak a fighter pilot in the Soviet Air Force during World War II with twelve solo victories, four shared kills over a total of 66 combat missions, over about two years of missions, who was the first female fighter pilot to shoot down an enemy plane, the first of two female fighter pilots who have earned the title of fighter ace, and the holder of the record for the greatest number of kills by a female fighter pilot was shot down near Orel during the Battle of Kursk as she attacked a formation of German planes today.



1943(29thof Tammuz, 5703): Sixty-eight year old Ismar Elbogen the German rabbi and historian who wrote Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History which has been updated many times since its first publication in 1913, passed away in New York City.


1944: Sixty-six year old Manuel L. Quezon, the President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines who willing resettled Jews fleeing the killing grounds of Europe despite local opposition which was part of the theme of the movie “An Open Door” and for which he was posthumously honored by the Raoul Wallenberg Foundation passed away today.


1944: Anne Frank writes the last entry in her diary.

1944: Rose Valland, the French art historian and member of the Resistance “learned that the Germans were planning to ship out a last five boxcars full of art” most of which had been looted from French Jews and notified the Resistance “who prevented the train from leaving Paris.

1944: Future Nobel Prize winner François Jacob who fought with Free French 2ndArmored Division “returned to a liberated Paris.”

1944: Fourteen months after the Warsaw Ghetto, the Polish underground rises against the Nazis in Warsaw. Jewish fighters came of hiding to participate in the fight. However, those who could not come to the aide of the Jews in 1943 would now find out what it felt like. The Soviet Army waited outside the city and did not come to their aid. Instead, they let the Nazis slaughter the Poles and then they entered the city as liberating heroes

1945: Birthdate of Douglas Dean Osheroff, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1996.  His father was Jewish and his mother was Lithuanian.

1945: Former Senator Guy M. Gillette of Iowa today announced his acceptance of the presidency of the American League for a Free Palestine and the post of chief political adviser to the Hebrew Committee of National Liberation.

Declaring that he considers the "so-called Jewish problem not as a Jewish or a Hebrew question, but as an urgent problem of the United Nations and of the decent portion of mankind," Gillette urged that the Allied Control Commission in Europe recognize the "Hebrew national status" and permit "stateless or Axis Jews" to decide their own status as Hebrew nationals, or stateless, or nationals of Germany, Rumania or Hungary. He also recommended:

1. Freeing of all Jews from Axis concentration camps.

2. Extension of UNRRA relief operations to the Balkan countries where, he charged hundreds of thousands of Jews in Rumania and Hungary, particularly, are starving and have not yet received any UNRRA aid.

3. Addition of Jewish representatives to the United Nations War Crimes Commission.

4. Consideration by the Reparations Commission now meeting in Moscow of the "claims and rights" of surviving Jews, and inclusion of compensation for the losses of the Jewish people.

Gillette said that every Jew in Europe should be authorized "to apply to the nearest British consulate and receive his first papers of Palestinian citizenship." He also suggested the creation of an Anglo-American-Russian committee with adequate powers to effect the speediest repatriation of all such applicants to Palestine. These steps, Gillette asserted, are "essential for the commencement of a solution of the entire problem." Annulment by the new British Government of "discriminatory laws against Jews in Palestine" was likewise demanded by Gillette. (As reported by Jewish Telegraph Agency)

1945: The final Little Boy was assembled and ready to be dropped on Japan.

1946(4th of Av, 5706): In Miskol, Hungry industrial workers stage a pogrom. Two Jews are lynched. This is an example of the post-war anti-Semitic violence that led approximately 4,000 Jews to leave Hungary for Palestine during the next two years.

1946: In San Jose Rodolpho Liberman and his wife gave birth to businessman Luis Liberman Ginsburg, who became Second Vice President of his native Costa Rica.

1947(15thof Av, 5707): Tu B’Av

1947: In the United Kingdom, the Daily Express reported the story about two British soldiers hung by the Irgun “prominently displaying a photograph of the bodies which, it promised its readers, would be a “picture that will shock the world”

1948: IAF volunteer pilot Leo Nomi took a 25 minute truck ride to Netanya where he flew patrol in a D-114 with three other pilots including Ezer Weizman.

1948: “Syd Antin and Red Finkel flew a pair of S-199s on patrol today, out of Netanya.

1948: Birthdate of Avi Arad the native of Ramat Gan, son of Holocaust survivors from Poland and veteran of the Six Day War who “became the CEO of the company Toy Biz in the 1990s, and soon afterward became the chief creative officer of Marvel Entertainment, a Marvel director, and the chairman, CEO, and founder of Marvel Studios.”

1948: Birthdate of Aline Goldsmith, Kominsky-Crumb, the Long Beach, NY native who “reshaped” the world of comics.


1949: “Mr. Soft Touch” a crime movie directed by Henry Levin was released today in the United States by Columbia Pictures.

1949: Warner Brothers releases a spoof about the movie industry – “It’s a Great Feeling” with a screenplay by Jack Rose and Melville Shavelson based on a story by I.A.L. Diamond, a score by Jule Styne all of which were brought together by producer Alex Gottlieb.

1952: As part of a major cost reduction program at MGM studios, today is scheduled to be the last day of work for Richard Goldstone who has produced nine pictures for the studio over the last three years.

1952: In Manhattan, Dr. Judith P. Sulzberger and Dr. Matthew Rosenschien, Jr. gave birth to Daniel Hays Cohen, the adopted son of Yale educated insurance broker Richard N. Cohen and “great-grandson of Adolph S. Ochs, the family patriarch who bought The Times in 1896, and a first cousin of Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., the company’s current chairman and publisher, and of Michael Golden, the vice chairman. (As reported by Sam Roberts)


1953: Birthdate of British born Jewish historian Martin David Goodman who specialized in the Roman period and whose works included The Ruling Class of Judaea: The Origins of the Jewish Revolt Against Rome, A.D. 66-70


1954(2ndof Av, 5714): Seventy-three year old Dr. Harry E. Isaacs, “founder of the American Jewish Physicians Committee, an affiliate of the American Friends of the Hebrew University and the former Chief of Surgery at Beth El Hospital passed away today.

1954: A group of ten raiders under the command of Meir Har-Zion returned from a raid conducted near Jenin where they “attacked two policemen and took one of them prisoner.”

1955: “The Kentuckian” co-starring Walter Matthau with music by Bernard Hermann was released in the United States today by United Artists.

1956: The Salk Vaccine, created by Dr. Jonas Salk, becomes available to the American public.

1956(24thof Av, 5716): Seventy-one year old “Mrs. Lily Oppenheimer Pforzheimer, the wife of investment banker Carl H. Pforzheimer,” “one of the original directors of the Metropolitan Opera Guild” and a board member of the Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Association passed away today.

1960: Ella Fitzgerald began recording what would become an album of the songs of Harold Arlen known as “Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Harold Arlen Songbook.”

1957: In Canada, the Israeli Embassy announced that “Arthur Lourie, assistant director-general of the Israel Foreign Ministry…has been appointed Israel’s Ambassador to Canada.” (JTA)

1958: In Jerusalem, Michael and Shulamit Albeck gave birth to biochemist Amnon Albeck, the grandson of Hanoch Albeck, a “professor of Talmud at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who was one of the founders of the scientific approach to the study of the Mishna.”


1959(26thof Tammuz, 5719): Parsashat Matot-Masei

1960: Today, Senator John F. Kennedy, the Democratic Presidential nominee issued a statement “paying tribute to Philip B. Perlman, the former United States Solicitor General who died last night” acknowledging his help in drafting “the national platform of” the recently concluded Democratic convention in which “as in everything in his life, he gave unstintingly of his time and effort.”

1963(11thof Av, 5723): Sixty-six year old “Morton J. Baum” the Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and WW I U.S. Navy veteran who became “president of the Hickey-Freeman Men’s Clothing Company and the husband of Margaret Baum with whom he had two children – Morton, Jr and Helen – died today after suffering a fatal heart attack.


1964(23rdof Av, 5724): Parashat Eikev

1964(23rdof Av, 5724): Seventy-six year old Rufus Learsi (Israel Goldberg) author of History of the Jewish People and The Jews in America: A History who with his wife had three children – David, Arthur and Judith – passed away today.



1965: Birthdate of English stage and film director Sam Mendes whose father was from Trinidad and whose mother was an English Jew.

1969: In Shaker Heights, Ohio, Nina (née Saul) and Norman Wain gave birth to multi-talented David Benjamin Wain best known for directing “feature films.


1970: Nobel Prize winner Otto Heinrich Warburg passed away.  Warburg was part of the famed Warburg clan but he was not Jewish.  His father, Emil, had converted to Christianity.

1970: Ensio P.H. Siilasvuo of Finland assumes the role of Chief of Staff United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO)

1971(10th of Av, 5731): Tish’a B’Av observed

1971: “The Omega Man” a sci-fi film directed by Boris Sagal was released in the United States today.

1971: CBS broadcast the first episode in the series “The Six Wives of Henry VII” co-starring Wolfe Morris as the villainous “Thomas Cromwell.”

1973: After opening on Broadway at the Uris Theatre in March, “Seesaw,” a musical with lyrics by Dorothy Fields, music by Cy Coleman and book re-written by Neil Simon transferred to the Mark Hellinger Theatre.

1975: The “Final Helsinki Act” was signed in Helsinki at the summit of 35 nations of Europe, USA and Canada

1976: Natalia Grigoryevna Kushnir and the Russian volleyball team won a silver medal at the 1976 Olympics which closed at Montreal today.

1977(17th of Av, 5737): Seventy-seven year old psychiatrist Mark Lewis Gerstle, Jr. “the San Franciso born son of Hilda Alice Gerstle and Marcus ‘Mark’ Lewis Gerstle” and father of Martha, Kathryn and Mark Gerstle passed away today in his hometown.

1979: “Melech Epstein Dead at 90” published today provided a brief account of the life of this former Communist and Jewish author.


1979: Alleged violations by Egypt of its peace treaty with Israel were discussed here today by Defense Minister Ezer Weizman and Egypt’s Defense Minister Kamal Hassan Ali who ended his three-day visit to Israel this afternoon. Read more: http://www.jta.org/1979/08/01/archive/israel-complains-to-egypt-about-violations-of-peace-treaty#ixzz2afGP53oc

1979:“Between today and through most of 1985, few merchants were as lavishly praised as Ed Finkelstein,” Isadore Barmash, a former retailing reporter for The New York Times, wrote in his 1989 book, “Macy’s for Sale.”

1979: Following her graduation from rabbinical college in Philadelphia, Linda Joy Holtzman was appointed spiritual leader of the Conservative Beth Israel congregation in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, making her the first female rabbi to head a Jewish congregation in America. 

1979(18th of Av, 5748): Seventy-eight year old Samuel Augie Ratner, the son Benjamin and Rose Ratner and brother of Max and Louis Ratner passed away today after which he was buried at the United Hebrew Brotherhood Cemetery in Richfield, MN.

1980:Jerusalem Storm Just One More in a Tortured History; The Name Itself Is at Issue Easing Way for the Romans Focus of a Power Struggle


 1980: “Raise the Titanic,” an adventure film produced by Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment “and featuring Elya Baskin was released today.

1980: “The Final Countdown” a film that combines the attack on Pearl Harbor with science fiction starring Kirk Douglas and produced by his son Peter was released in the United States today.

1980: Egypt said today that it would not suspend the talks with Israel on autonomy for the occupied areas nor would it recall its Ambassador from Israel in response to the passage of an Israeli law formalizing the annexation of Jerusalem.

1980: Two days after the Knesset passed the Jerusalem Law, an article entitled “Jerusalem Storm Just One More in a Tortured History” which traced the history of the city from ancient times to the period following the Six Days War was published. The article includes the following: “During the war that followed Israel’s independence in 1948, Jordan seized the eastern sector of Jerusalem…and the new state won control of the western sector.  The Jordanians evicted all Jews from the Old City; from 1948 to 1967 was off limits to Jews and most of the old synagogues there were destroyed.”  (Editor’s note – The author, working for The New York Times, writes about an eastern sector and a western sector of Jerusalem as well as the Old City.  The term “East Jerusalem and, its concept as a separate city, is apparently a more recent creation.) 

1981(1st of Av, 5741): Rosh Chodesh Av

1981: Dr. Donald Payne, the husband of Jessica Savitch, passed away today in Washington, DC.

1981: Abu Daoud, a Black September commander who openly claimed to have helped plan the Munich attack, was shot multiple times by a gunman in a Warsaw hotel cafe. Daoud survived the attack

1981(1st of Av, 5741): Paddy Chayefsky passed away. Born in 1923, Sydney "Paddy" Chayefsky began writing scripts for television during its golden age of drama in the 1950’s. He switched to films where he won three Oscar for writing "Marty", "Hospital" and "Network." (As reported by Colin Campbell)


1985: Birthdate of Benjamin Levin, the son of David Robert Levin

1985(14thof Av, 5745): Ninety two year old Jules Salvador Moch, the son of Captain Gaston Moch and the grandson of Colonel Jules Moch who fought with the Free French at Normandy before becoming a political leader passed away in Cabris.

1986: “Howard The Duck” a sci-fi comedy co-produced by Gloria Katz who also wrote the script and featuring Liz Sagal as “Ronette” was released in the United States today.

1987(6thof Av, 5747): Parashat Devarim and Shabbat Chazon

1987(6thof Av, 5747): Harvey Clurman passed away today and was later buried at the New Montefiore Cemetery in Suffolk County.

1988(19thof Elul, 5748): Sixty-seven year old Robert Tandler Mack, Jr. the Chicago born “son of Jeanette and Robert Tandler Mack,” the husband of Doris Mack, the “father of Robert Tandler Mack III” and author of Raising The World’s Standard of Living passed away today in Palo Alto, CA.


1989: Morton Abramowitz began serving as U.S. Ambassador to Turkey

1989(29th of Tammuz, 5749): Fifty-nine year old Hungarian born Canadian director who had survived the Holocuast passed away today.


1991: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir accepted a formula for peace talks in the Middle East. 

1991 Publication of Jewish Life in Germany: Memoirs from Three Centuries, edited by Monika Richarz.


1992: In Montclair, NJ, “Stephen Rosenfield, a teacher of stand-up comedy and the founder of the American Comedy Institute in New York City” and actress Katherine Mathilde "Kate" Redway Rosenfield, gave birth to musician and actor Benjamin “Ben” Rosenfield whose most notable role may be have been in the totally amoral drama series “Boardwalk Empire.”

1992: Thirty-four year old producer Scott Rudin “signed a deal with Tri-Star Pictures.”

1993: Showtime broadcast the first episode of Executive Producer Sydney Pollack’s “Fallen Angels” produced by Steve Golin and with music by Elmer Berstein.

1996(16thof Av, 5766): Eighty-eight year old Frank Glassman, the younger brother of Morris Glassman and lineman who played at Wilmington and Bliss College before spending a year in the NFL with the Buffalo Bisons passed away today.

1998(9thof Av, 5758): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon; Erev Tish’a B’Av

1998(9thof Av, 5758): Eighty-two year old New York City born Soviet spy Joel Barr who was part of the same group that included the Rosenbergs, passed away today.


1998: Based on order by the Assassination Records Review Board (AARB) today was the deadline from transferring the Zapruder film of JFK’s assassination from the NARA’s film collection to the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection.

1999: U.K. premiere of “A Price Above Rubies,” a film about Chasidic Jews directed and written by Boaz Yankin and co-starring Julianna Marguiles.

2000: Moshe Katsav was sworn in as President of Israel making him the first person to be elected to a seven year term and the first person from Likud to be elected President.

2000: “Space Cowboys” a geriatric, galactic buddy-movie co-produced by Andrew Lazar and with a score by Lennie Niehaus was released n he United States today.

2000: James “Jim” Steinberg completed his service as Deputy National Security Advisor under President Clinton.

2001: Rita Levi-Montalcini “was appointed as Senator for Life by the President of Italy.

2002: Premiere of “Yossi & Jagger,” an “Israeli romantic drama film directed by Eytan Fox.

2002: The body Shani Ladani, 27, of Moshav Olash, shot and bound, was found west of Tulkarem, near the Green Line, in the industrial zone where he was employed.

2002: Dalia Rabin-Pelossof, the daughter of Yitzhak Rabin, resigned as Deputy Minister of Defense.

2003: Jill Abramson, the Washington bureau chief of the New York Times was one two people appointed today to serve as managing editor of the Times.  She “will be managing editor for news gathering.”

2004: The New York Times book section features a review of'Jerome Robbins': From Stravinsky to the Sharks by Nicholas Fox Weber.

2004: In Aspen, CO, Bernard Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, Inc. is the headline speaker at United Jewish Communities (UJC) eighth annual Jewish Leadership Forum (JLF)

2004: Lexington, KY native Jeffrey M. Lacker began serving as the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

2004(14th of Av, 5764): Sidney Morgenbesser passed away at the age of 82 from complications of ALS.  Morgenbesser was the Emeritus John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia. He attended JTS and earned a Ph.D. from Penn.  He was known for his erudition and his wit.  David Shatz of Yeshiva University recounted the story of Morgenbesser chastising a faculty member for hiding his Jewishness: “Oh, I see your model is Icognito, ergo sum.”

2005 (25th of Tammuz, 5765): George Forman, a longtime comptroller of the American Civil Liberties Union, who brought fiscal discipline to a ramshackle organization near bankruptcy in the late 1970s and later helped it develop into a powerful civil liberties conglomerate, died today at the age of 88.(As reported by Lily Koppel)


2005: President George W Bush nominated Roland Arnall to become the U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands.

2005: A political essay written by Russian businessman and oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky in his prison cell, titled "Left Turn", was published in Vedomosti, calling for a turn to more social responsible state.

2005 (25th of Tammuz, 5765): Al Aronowitz passed away at the age of 77.  He was a pioneering journalist who covered the Beat literary scene and engineered a meeting between Bob Dylan and the Beatles that has passed into rock 'n' roll legend.

2005 (25th of Tammuz, 5765): George Forman, a longtime comptroller of the American Civil Liberties Union who brought fiscal discipline to a ramshackle organization near bankruptcy in the late 1970's and later helped it develop into a powerful civil liberties conglomerate passed away today at the age of 88.  "During the years of crisis he was more responsible than any other single person for keeping the program afloat," said Ira Glazer, the executive director of the A.C.L.U. from 1978 to 2001. He explained how Mr. Forman juggled the bills and even earned interest on a deficit operational budget, and recalled visits from officials of Chemical Bank who complained that although the organization was moving around millions of dollars, its average balance was $3.79.,"He was the chewing gum and rubber bands that held the organization together and made the high intellectual and strategic law possible," Mr. Glazer said. When Mr. Forman arrived at the A.C.L.U. in 1968, the organization had two lawyers, one part-time press person and no one in charge of administration and finances, fund-raising or development. By the time he retired in the late 1990's, the organization had a $50 million annual income, more than $100 million in assets and staffed offices in every state. Before joining the A.C.L.U., Mr. Forman was the comptroller of the Noma Corporation, a large, diversified holding company; he became unemployed when Noma merged with a predecessor of Gulf and Western. During World War II, he was an Army officer stationed in Washington, where he fell in love with a woman with whom he had his only daughter but felt he could not marry because she was not Jewish. He graduated magna cum laude from New York University in 1939 and earned a graduate degree in business administration there.

2006(7th of Av, 5766): Sixty-two year art historian Arlene Raven passed away today. (As reported by Elaine Woo)


2006: A three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Judge Sweet's decision, holding 2–1 that federal prosecutors could inspect the telephone records of Judith Miller

2006(7th of Av, 5766): Skirmishes with Hezbollah guerrillas in the southern Lebanese village of Ayta al-Shaab left three soldiers, including an officer, of a Paratrooper Brigade unit dead and at least another 25 wounded. The names of the fallen have been released: St.-Sgt. Yehunatan Einhorn, 22, of Moshav Gimzo; First Sergeant Michael Levine, 21, of Jerusalem; and Lieutenant Ilan Gabbai, 22, of Kiryat Tivon.

2006:A number of Jewish-owned stores in Italy had their doors sealed with glue and the shutters nailed down overnight as a response to Israel’s policies in Lebanon

2006: Today, Peter “Gelb became the 16th General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera” following with he “launched…several new productions, including Madame Butterfly, The Barber of Seville, The First Emperor.”

2007: U.S. President George Bush imposed sanctions on Syria today because of the role the Damascus government has played in creating regional instability.

2007: U.S. Secretary of State Condi Rice arrives in Jerusalem.

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

2008: Solomon Levy began serving as the Mayor of Gibraltar. 2008: In Falls Church VA (suburban Washington, D.C.), Jewish author Benjamin Rosenbaum reads from and discusses his new collection of SF tales, The Ant King and Other Stories

2009: At Temple Judah, a Triple Header:

  1. Shabbat Nachamu
  2. Rabbi Todd Thalbum officially takes the pulpit at Temple Judah and reads the Torah portion at his first Cedar Rapids Shabbat Morning Service
  3. Raoul Wallenberg Sabbath  Annual  Observance of Raoul Wallenberg Memorial Day (August 4, 2009) which has been proclaimed by the Governor of Iowa for three years in a row. 

2009(11th of Av, 5769): A gunman shot dead two people and wounded at least thirteen others in an attack at a central Tel Aviv gay and lesbian center tonight before fleeing the scene. Israel Police said that the incident at the club on Nahmani Street did not have a terror motive.

2010: The Skirball Cultural Center show "Monsters and Miracles: A Journey through Jewish Picture Books," is scheduled to come to a close today.

2010: Jake Tapper completed his service as the interim anchor of ABC’s “This Week” – a career disappointment that would help take him to CNN.

2010: Modern Art, Sacred Space: Motherwell, Ferber, and Gottlieb is scheduled to have its final showing at the Jewish Museum,in New York.

2010: President Shimon Peres is scheduled to travel to Egypt today for a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The two are expected to meet behind closed doors to discuss advancing diplomatic efforts between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. They are also expected to discuss cooperation between Israel and Egypt.

2010: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Telling Times:Writing and Living, 1954-2008by Nadine Gordimer, Running Commentary:The Contentious Magazine That Transformed the Jewish Left Into the Neoconservative Right by Benjamin Balint, Norman Podhoretz: A Biography by Thomas L. Jeffers, High Financer:The Lives and Time of Siegmund Warburgby Niall Ferguson and Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldman

2010:The Jewish Community Center in Omaha welcomed nearly 1,000 young Jewish athletes for an Olympic-style competition that will run through August 6.  This will be the third time in 19 years that the Maccabi Games have been held at the Jewish Community Center.

2010(21 Av, 5770): Eighty-eight year old Reginald Levy, the airline captain who thwarted the hijacking of his Belgian airliner in 1972, passed away.(As reported by Dennis Hevesi)


2010:“Curious George Saves the Day: The Art of Margret and H. A. Rey” is scheduled to be shown for the last time today at the Jewish Museum


2010: President Shimon Peres is scheduled to travel to Egypt today for a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The two are expected to meet behind closed doors to discuss advancing diplomatic efforts between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. They are also expected to discuss cooperation between Israel and Egypt.

2011: A screening of “Bobby Fischer Against the World,” Liz Garbus’s documentary that takes us on Fischer’s journey from Jewish child prodigy to world chess master to virulent anti-Semite, is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Festival.

2011(1st day of Av, 5771): Rosh Chodesh Av

2011: Today, “just seven months after a gunman’s bullet nearly killed her, Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords returned to the floor of the House of Representatives” to cast her firs vote. (JWA)


2011: Today “on the 5th anniversary ("yarzheit") of Michael Levin's death according to the Gregorian calendar, a flag was flown over the US Capitol in his memory at the request of a man from his local area, Johnson Reynolds, who considered him both an Israeli and American hero. (A native Pennsylvanian, Levin had been killed in action while serving with a Paratroopers Brigaded during the Second Lebanon War.)

2011: Today, for the first time, the IDF unveiled a special guided missile system that has been used successfully in action in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. Called Tamuz, the missile is based on the Spike Long-Range Missile developed by Rafael and is operated by Meitar, an elite unit which operates under the Artillery Corps. The missile was opened to foreign exports last year

2011: “Kmo Kulam” (Like Everyone Else) by Elisha Banai and the Forty Thieves was released today.

2011:"Volunticipate," a weeklong encounter that brings together representatives of Jewish and Roma, or Gypsy, youth groups from eight countries begins today in Hungary. The youth are gathering to discuss how to build partnerships, plan joint initiatives, and exchange experiences about minority identity and grass-roots civil activism.



2011:Leaders of the protest for affordable housing who met with President Shimon Peres today found a champion for the cause. 



2011: Haaretz’s board of directors has appointed Aluf Benn as the paper’s editor in chief, effective today.

2011: “Just seven months after a gunman’s bullet nearly killed her, Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords returned to the floor of the House of Representatives to cast her vote in favor of a bill to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.”



2011: A Kassam rocket was fired at southern Israel from Gaza tonight. A woman in her fifties was moderately injured by shrapnel from the rocket, which landed between in open territory in the Ashkelon Coast Regional Council.

2012: Ninety-two thousand Jews are scheduled to gather in New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium for the 12thSiyum Hashas.




2012:US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is scheduled to arrive in Israel today to gauge Israel’s determination to attack Iran and to try to persuade Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to give sanctions and diplomacy more time. (As reported by Yaakov Katz)



2012: “Best of Tel Aviv,” celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Tel Aviv University film school, is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.



2012: Rabbi Alfredo Borodowski is scheduled to begin teaching “Simply Mordecai M. Kaplan: From Heretic to Prophet of American Judaism” at the Skirball Center.



2012: Yemen Blues, a group organized by Ravid Kahalani and Omer Avital, is scheduled to perform at Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park.



2012: In Houston, TX, brit milhah for Joseph Levy (Yosef Label) Strauss, son of Abbie and Feivel Strauss.



2012: Barbara Berger, whose brother, David, was on the Israeli wrestling team in 1972, wrote in Haaretz today that families of the 11 victims of a Palestinian terrorist attack at the Munich Olympics would continue to advocate for a formal moment of silence at the Olympics, despite the refusal of the International Olympics Committee to allow such a moment this year, the massacre’s 40th anniversary. (As reported by JTA and The Times of Israel)



2012: In some respects, today was a historic turning point for Israel — the day on which ultra-Orthodox Israelis became officially subject to the draft along with the rest of the country’s Jewish citizens.



2012:Yakov Toumarkin today became only the second Israeli swimmer to reach the final of an Olympic event by finishing fifth in the semifinal of the men's 200m backstroke event.



2012(13th of Av, 5772): Eighty-five year old New York Times editor Gerald Gold passed away. (As reported by Douglas Martin)




2012(13th of Av, 5772): Seventy-four year old Esther Kartiganer who played on the undefeated women’s Brandies University basketball team and was a senior producer at “60 Minutes” passed away today. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)




2013: “Soldier on the Roof,” a documentary about the Jews living in Hebron, is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival today.



2013: “Crossing Delancey” is scheduled to be shown this evening at the “Only In New York Summer Film Series.”



2013: A gag order was lifted today on an espionage indictment filed against a 46-year-old Jerusalemite member of the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta Haredi Sect accused of offering to serve as a spy for the Iranian regime. (As reported by Havi Rettig Gur)



2013: The 12th Annual March for Pride and Tolerance took place this evening in Jerusalem



2013(25th of Av, 5773): Sixty-seven year old Igal Brightman the chairman and CEO of the major local accounting firm of Deloitte Brightman Almagor Zohar died when his plane crashed outside of Eilat.




2013: The Los Angeles Time featured a review of Hothouse: The Art of Survival and the Survival of Art at America's Most Celebrated Publishing House, Farrar Straus & Giroux by Boris Kachka



2014: The jury is scheduled to announce the winners in the Sukkah Design contest sponsored by Oregon Jewish Museum at the Mittleman Jewish Community Center.



2014: A weeklong workshop “The Holocaust in Eastern Europe in the Records of the International Tracing Service Digital Archive” at the USHMM is scheduled to come to an end.



2014: Based on announcement by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry a 72-hour unconditional cease-fire between Israel and Hamas is scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. local time today.



2014(5thof Av, 5774): Major Benaya Sarel, 26, from Kiryat Arba and St.-Sgt. Liel Gidoni, 20, from Jerusalem both serving with the Givati Brigade were killed today after the cease fire had begun. At the same time 2nd Lt. Hadar Goldin, 23, from Kfar Saba was kidnapped. On August 2, Hadar was declared to have died in today’s attack as well. (In life they were loved and admired. They were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions.)



2014: Twenty-four year old Lt. Eitan Fund “rushed into a tunnel to try and stop the kidnapping of Hadar Goldin who in fact had already been killed by the terrorist – an act of heroism for which he received the Distinguished Service Medal..



2014: Representative Eric Cantor, the Virginia Republican whose last day as House majority leader yesterday, said today that he would resign his seat effective Aug. 18 in hopes that his successor will be able to participate in the lame-duck session after the November elections. Mr. Cantor’s departure means that they are no Jewish Republicans serving in the House of Representatives.



2014: At Temple Judah’s Friday night services, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Rabbi Todd Thalblum is scheduled to describe his trip to Israel.



2014: Following his defeat in his party’s primary election Eric Cantor gave up his position as House Majority leader.



2014: Michael Bloomberg’s fellowship, the Genesis Generation Challenge is scheduled to “go live” today.

2015(16th of Av, 5775): Parashat Vaetchanan and Shabbat Nachamu

2015: Today “opposition leader Isaac Herzog issued a call to action against Jewish terrorism, and demanded that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon respond to such acts in the same way as Israel responds to Islamist terrorism.”

2015: Lewis Black is scheduled to appear at the Main State Pier in Portland, ME.



2015: Benjamin Levin, son of David Levin, hits the big Three Oh!

2016: “In the wake of the stabbing attack at the Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade in which six people were injured by an ultra-Orthodox man,” “thousands of people attended a number of anti-violence, anti-homophobia rallies across Israel” this evening.

2016: “The Farewell Party” is scheduled to be shown at The Hampton Synagogue Film Series which is now in its 14thyear.



2016: Dani Dayan is scheduled to take office today “Israel’s new consul general in New York.” (As reported by Josef Federer)




2017(9th of Av, 5777): Tish’a B’Av;

(Editor’s Note:  As we read Lamentations, we will lament giving control to modern day Herodians and Zealots?)

2017: As Jews commemorated “the Babylonian capture and conquest of the First Temple” “new finds in the City of David” that “confirm the biblical account” of the event were being made public. (As reported by Amanda Borschel-Dan)


2017: The IDF is scheduled to “conduct a 24-hour exercise” that “will include a brisk movement of security and forces and vehicles” “in the vicinity of Nitzana communities and the area of the city of Eilat starting” today.

2017(9th of Av, 5777): Seventy-four year old Jeff Brotman, “a founder of Costco” and the husband of “the former Susan Thrailkill” with whom he had two children, Justin and Amanda, passed away today.(As reported by Sam Roberts)




2017: Marvin Krislov is scheduled to begin serving as the eighth president of Pace University in New York.

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

2017: Friends and family of Benjamin Levin, the son of David Levin celebrate his natal day.

2018: In Atlanta, MGM is scheduled to host a free screening of “Operation Finale,” a movie “based on the 1960 covert mission of Mossad agent Peter Malkin as he infiltrates Argentina and captures Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi officer who masterminded the transportation logistics that brought millions of innocent Jews to their deaths in concentration camps.”


2018: “The Ancient Law,” a film that tells the story of a rabbi’s son who gains fame as an actor in Vienna, is scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

2018: “Vienna Beef, Chicago's legendary manufacturer of hot dogs, sausage, and other food products,” founded by “Austrian-Hungarian immigrants Emil Reichl and Samuel Ladany” hosted a public celebration for the community today, in honor of its 125th anniversary.

2018: Today Anna “Kaplan became the first candidate for New York State office to be endorsed by former President Barack Obama.

2018: “The WOW festival with super star Jason Derulo” is scheduled to place “at Rishon Lezion

2019: The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host screenings of “The Amazing Johnathan” and “The Humorist.”

2019: Friends and family of Benjamin Levin, the son of David Levin, are scheduled to celebrate the start of the last full month of summer and his natal day.

2019: This evening the Center for Jewish History and the American Jewish Historical Society are scheduled to host the “Ladies Mile Walking Tour with Ephemeral New York’s Esther Crain.”

2019: JW3 is scheduled to host the last two London screenings of “Marianne and Leonard: Words of Love.”

2019: As Israelis awoke this morning, they learned that terrorists had crossed into Israel from Gaza and wounded an IDF officer which led to a proportionate response from the IDF.















This Day, August 2, In Jewish History by Mitchell A.Levin

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August 2 



338 BCE:  A Macedonian army led by Philip II defeated the combined forces of Athens and Thebes in the Battle of Chaeronea, securing Macedonian hegemony in Greece and the Aegean. Phillip was the father of Alexander Great.  His victory paved the way for Alexander’s conquests which had a major impact on the Jewish people of which we are reminded each year when we celebrate Chanukah.

1100: King William Rufus, the second son of William the Conqueror who “managed to prevent in England the massacres of Jews that occurred in Rouen, and across France and the Rhineland, in the bloody frenzy the preceded the departure of the First Crusade in 1096” was fatally struck by an arrow which may have been a hunting accident or part of calculated plot to remove him from the throne.



1222: Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse and Marquis of Provence passed away. “He was so sympathetic to the Jews that Pope Innocent III caused him to take an oath ‘that he would deprive the Jews of their offices and that he would never appoint any Jews or in any way favor them.’”



1389: Catholic Archdeacon and Jew hater Ferran Martinez is denied the right to act as a judge or to preach after refusing to follow an order of the Pope.  The Archbishop of Seville issued this strong punishment because Martinez refused to issue permits for Jews to build new synagogues, in accordance with the wishes of the Pope.



1492: According to some sources this day marked the beginning of the final expulsion of the Jews from Spain.  According to tradition it was Tisha B’Av on the Jewish calendar.



1549: Birthdate of Russian nobleman Mikołaj Krzysztof Radziwiłł author of Podróż do Ziemi Świętej, Syrii i Egiptu 1582-1584 (The trip to Holy Land, Syria and Egypt 1582-1584) provided a first-hand description of life in Palestine at the end of the 16thcentury.



1579(10th of Av): Joseph Nasi, duke of Naxos, passed away.


1589: King Henry III of France passed away. Before he was King of France, as Henry of Anjou he was elected as the first King of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.  He owed this victory to a Jew named Solomon Ashkenazi who was the principle adviser to the Emperor of the Ottoman Empire.

1675: The "Great Synagogue" was inaugurated in Amsterdam on Rapenburgerstraat. This was a Sephardic synagogue, home to K.K. Talmud Torah, which was a union of Congregations Neveh Shalom founded in 1608 and Bet Yisrael found in 1618.



1696:  Birthdate of Mahmud I, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. In 1739, Mahmud signed the Treaty of Belgrade that gave citizenship rights to the Ottoman Jews.  Austrian Jews were so impressed with the grant of rights that many of them applied for citizenship in Mahmud’s empire.

1756: In Poland, as the Sabbatians led by Jacob Frank battled with established Jewish community, “they presented the local bishop with a demand for a public confrtonation with the rabbis in which they would argue that their faith was in in essence compatible with Christianity.”



1784(11th of Av): Rabbi Simcha ben Abraham Calimani poet and linguist, passed away at Venice.



1790: The United States conducts its first census.  Out of a population of four million people, there are approximately 2,000 Jews.



1792: In Charleston, Mrs. Nathan married Abraham Jones, “the clerk to the synagogue.”



1795: Birthdate of Austrian Talmudist Aaron Kornfeld who was a native of Bohemia.



1799(1st of Av, 5559): Rosh Chodesh Av



1799(1st of Av, 5559): Golem Levi Marx, the infant son of Samuel and Eva Marx Levi passed away today in Trier.

1812: Hannah Moses and Abraham Braham were married today at the Great Synagogue after which they had five children – Esther, Eliza Rosa, William and Edwain.


1819: An anti-Semitic riot breaks out in the city of Wurzberg.  It will be the first in string of such violent actions to plague the Jews of Germany. The violence which lasted until October of 1891 was known as The Hep-Hep Riots taken from the rallying cry of the anti-Semitic rioters.  Nobody seems to know the true origin of the term.

1820: Today, Stanisław Staszic, a Catholic priest and government minister, “attempted to subject Polish Jewish books to the severest scrutiny” so that “no Jewish book was to be printed or sold in the land or imported from aboard through sale or subscription without the express permission of the Commission of Religion Denominations and Public Enlightenment.”

1822(15th of Av, 5582): Tu B’Av

1830: As turmoil gripped France, Charles X also known as Charles Phillippe during whose reign Judaism was placed on “an equal footing with other faiths” and the rabbinical college in Metz founded in 1829 “as recognized as state institution and granted a state subsidy” abdicated today.

1841(15th of Av, 5601): Tu B’Av

1846(10th of Av, 5606): Tish’a B’Av observed,

1851: At Hyde Park Square, Kensington, UK, Joseph Mayer Montefiore and Henriietta Francisca Montefiore, the daughter of Salomon and Fanny Sichel, gave birth to Alice Julia Lucas



1853: Samuel Joseph Rubenstein, a Jew who arrived from Russian in 1829, was naturalized as a citizen of the United Kingdom today,

1858: In Mannheim, Germany, Lazarus Morgenthau, the son of Moses and Brunhilda Morgenthau, and Seline Babette Morgenthau gave birth to Julius Caesar Morgenthau



1865: Birthdate of Antoine Targe, the native of Saint-Chamond whose investigation in 1903 during the Dreyfus Affair, “established the fact that several forgeries still existed in the War Ministry's offices, that some documents had clearly been altered, that there were erroneous commentaries, that exonerating documents had been hidden, and that others were "receptacles for every sort of gossip from dismissed servants and malicious concierges." He would ensure that these documents were available to the Court of Cassation when it considered the fate of Dreyfus.

1866:The New York Times quotes the Aroostook Pioneeras saying that a religious movement is forming in Maine with the intent of immigrating to Jerusalem. A ship is being fitted out at Jonesport which should be ready to sail by the middle of next month. Land has already been purchased near Jaffa where the immigrants plan on making their home. [Ed. Note - the article does not mention if any Jews were involved or note.]

1869: George Elliot (Mary Ann Evans), an unlikely “champion of Jews and Zionism” and author of Daniel Deronda, began writing her masterpiece, Middlemarch, today.




1870: The report that police had apprehended the person responsible for the murder of prominent New York businessman Benjamin Nathan has turned out to be nothing more than an unfounded rumor.  The police are continuing to vigorously investigate the murder but will not take any action against any

individual until they are absolutely sure of their facts.

1873: “Life in Bohemia” published today provides an anecdotal account of conditions in this part of central Europe.  The section “The Jews” described the contempt that many of the Bohemians have for the Jews, which the author compares to that which Brian de Bois Guilbert had for Isaac of York and the other Jews of England in the novel Ivanhoe. Conditions are not better for the Jews of the newly created nation of Romania where Jews have been forbidden to take part in the newest commercial ventures.

1874: In Cincinnati, OH, Lewis “Ludwig” Seasongood, the Bavarian born son “of Mendel Emanuel Suessenguth and Hannah Johanna Suessenguth” and his wife Emma Seasongood gave birth to Clara Seasongood  who became Clara Berolzheimer when she married Philip Sheridan Berolzheimer with whom she had two children – Helen and Charles.



1878: Mrs. Josephine Lewinski, the wife Phillip Lewinski, a member of the Lowery gang of counterfeiters applied for alimony and legal fees as part of the divorce proceedings she has brought against her notorious husband.



1878(3rd of Av: Shiye Mordecai Lifshits passed away

1879: In Kensington, UK Leopold (Lippmann) Seligmann, the son of David and Fanny Seligman and Julia Levi gave birth to Edward Seligman



1879: “Caring For The Sick Poor” published today traced the history of medical facilities in New York including the founding of Mount Sinai Hospital by the Jews in 1852.

1879: In New York, Detectives Fogarty and Handy arrested a Jew named Louis Pollard because he had some shoes in his possession that matched the description of shoes stolen last September.  Pollard first claimed that he had bought the shoes at an auction but later said he got the shoes from a woman named Lena Bezona. She was arrested and Pollard was released.



1879: The Medal of Honor was issued to David Orbansky for “his gallantry in action” at the Battle of Shiloh.

1881: In New York, “Max and Caroline Seelig Leo”gave birth to Eva Leo who became Eva Leo Fox in 1899 when she married American motion picture executive” William Fox who “founded the Fox Film corporation in 1915” whose name lives on as the “Fox” in Fox Network News.

1882(17th of Av, 5642): Austrian born author David Podiebrad who specialized in the history of the Jews of Prague passed away today.



1883: Troops were called out to disperse rioters who attacked the Jews living in Ekaterinoslav, Russia.



1884: Twenty three year old Solomon Rintel, a Hungarian born fresco painter living in New York was seen alive for the last time as he retired to his room at boarding house on 6thStreet.

1885: Birthdate of Oskar Blumenthal who in 1941 was transported from Prague to Terezin and from there to Riga in 1942 where he was murdered.



1886(1st of Av, 5646): Rosh Chodesh Av



1887: Birthdate of Nathan David Perlman, the native or Prusice, Poland who came to the United States in 1891 and after having graduated NYU Law School and passed the bar in 1909, pursued a political career that led to him being elected to the House of Representatives as a Republican in 1920.




1887: In Jerusalem journalist Israel Dov Frumkin and his first wife Bielke Frumknn gave birth to Gad Frumkin

1887: Birthdate of Aaron Gedalia Kaletzki, who gained fame as Harry “Fuzzy” Kallet, the All-American End at the University of Syracuse and husband of Kathryn Clifford with whom he “had two sons, Clifford and Richard” who spent 55 years working as “a practicing physician in Syracuse New York.

1888: Poor youngsters and their mothers will have the chance to enjoy a free excursion today sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children

1890(16th of Av, 5650): Shabbat Nachamu

1890: “The Jewish Persecutions” published today described the Marquis of Salisbury, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom speech in the House Of Lords in which he assured those present “that there were no grounds for dreading a wholesale invasion of Great Britain of pauper Jews from Russia.”

1890: It was reported today that New York Congressman Charles S. Baker has expressed his concern for the fate of Russian Jews by asking the Foreign Affairs Committee to report favorably on a resolution calling on the President to intervene on their behalf.

1890: In Galician Poland, Samuel and Annie Teller gave birth to Dr. Morris Teller who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania after which he was ordained at JTS where he also received advanced degrees before serving as rabbi of the South Side Hebrew Congregation and who was the husband of “the former Nellie Ruby and the father of Sheldon Teller

1890: The government in Berlin has sent orders to the frontier customs posts to watch for the threatened migration of Jews from Russia in response to the new edicts promulgated by the Czar’s government.



1891: It was reported today that Hartog Veld who has been serving as a Rabbi in Troy, NY is moving to Montreal to serve another congregation in Canada.

1891: “The Jews In Russia” published today challenges the contention that Russia’s treatment of its Jews has nothing to do with religion and his contention that somehow 4 million Jews are controlling the economic lives of sixty million Russians through their practice of usury

1891: “Jews Who Plow” published today provides Arnold White’s affirmative response to the question “Has a Jew ever been see to plow” in which he includes descriptions of active Jewish agricultural settlements.

1892: In London, Ontario, “Benjamin Warner, a cobbler from Krasnosielc, Poland (then located in the "Russian" part of Poland known as Congress Kingdom), and his wife, the former Pearl Leah Eichelbaum” gave birth to Jacob Warner, who gained fame as Jack L. Warn who, along with his four brothers founded Warner Brothers, which became a giant in the film industry. Among other claims to fame Warner Brothers produced "The Jazz Singer," the first "talking" motion picture. Some of his stars included Bette Davis, James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart. Warner was known for his frugality and was not necessarily that well liked. At one point his son and namesake said of his dad, "At times he gloried in being a no-good sonofabitch. If his brothers hadn't hired him, he'd have been out of work."

1892: “Wild Anarchist Talk” published today described a meeting attended by “300 wild-eyed, unshaven, unclean and foul-mouthed men and about a score of hard-featured cigarette-smoking young women” that was addressed by Emma Goldman who, speaking in German praised the man who had attempted to assassinate Henry Clay Frick.

1892: Birthdate of Norwegian “homemaker” Margot Cohn who was murdered at Auschwitz.

1892: “This Fellow Praised Berkmann” published today described a meeting of anarchist that met in a Newark, NJ neighborhood “populated almost entirely by Russian Jews…and the lower class of Germans.” (This was one of several meetings held to cheer Alexander Bermkimann, the Jewish anarchist who had attempted to assassinate Henry Clay Frick, the business leader whose exploitative behavior led to the infamous Homestead Steel Strike)

1893: In New York, “Barnett and Dora Kriss Feinberg gave birth to Sayde “Saide” Feinberg who became Sadye “Sadie” Fienberg Cohen in 1914 when she married Samuel Cohen.



1893: “Morris and Rachel Kripke Tuschman gave birth to Hannah Tuschman who became Hannah Tuschman Kasle when she married Sam Kasle.

1894: The prosecution completed presenting its case against Jeremiah S. Levy, the Jewish policeman charged with having accepted a bribe from Charles Krumm, “the Chrystie Street concert hall keeper for permitting him to” operate his business “without a license.”



1895: “The Children And The Streets” published today described the visit of Colonel Waring to the Hebrew Institute where he told the immigrant children about the importance of their work in keeping cleaning the streets.



1896: Colonel Eugene H. Levy and his bride Marie have gone to Old Point Comfort for their honeymoon. Levy is a journalist who served with the Confederates during the Civil War.  His wife is a former school teacher who converted to Judaism before the wedding.



1896: It was reported today that Morris Lerner and Levi Milrod have retained Stiefel and Lauer to sue the owners of the SS Herman, the German steamship on which their sons Joseph Lerner and David Milrod who died as a result of their mistreatment while sailing to the United States

1897: Birthdate of Karl Otto Koch, the commander of the concentration camps at Buchenwald and Majdanek who was executed by the Nazis in 1945.

1899: “Boers Remain Intolerant” published today described the Volksraad’s decision to reject President Krueger’s proposal to allow Jews and Catholics to have the franchise. (These are the progenitors of the people who created Apartheid in South Africa)

1902: At a mass meeting in Bradford, PA, forty members formed a Rishon L’Zion a new Zionist society

1903: Redcliffe Nathan Salaman, the son of Myer and Sarah Salaman and his wife Nina Ruth Salaman gave birth to Myer Head Salaman.

1903: Opening of the Bank Leumi’s first branch in Turkish Jaffa.

1906: Birthdate of Chicago native Leo, Arnstein, a graduate of the University of Chicago and partner of Arnstein and Lehr who was admitted to the Illinois Bar in 1928 and served as a director of the Chicago Bar Association for eight years.


1906: Birthdate of Atlantic City native Edwin Harvey Blum the screenwriter whose work includes “Stalag 17.”

1908(2nd of Av, 5668): Forty-six year old Benjamin Kolhman passed away today after which he was buried in the Spring Hill Avenue Temple Cemetery in Mobile, AL.

1909: “The Lincoln Wheat Cent” penny coins designed by Lithuanian born American coin designer and engraver Victor David Brenner “were released to the public for circulation today” and proved to be so popular that the “Philadelphia mint” had to limit the number of coins an individual could purchase.



1909(15th of Av, 5669): Two weeks before his 78th birthday Sir Henry Aaron Isaacs “English businessman and politician” who served as Lord Mayor of London in 1889, passed away today.

1908(5th of 5668): Forty-six year old Benjamin Kohlman passed away today after which he was buried at the Springhill Avenue Temple Cemetery in Mobile, Alabama.

1911( 8th of Av, 5671): Erev Tish’a B’Av

1911: In Great Britain, Alderman Henry Hart completes his jubilee of service on the Canterbury Council.



1912: The Jewish Socialist Federation of America whose purposes included the organization of the Jewish Organization of the Jewish Working Class” was officially formed today with offices in New York City.

1912: The list of the trustees of the newly incorporated Young Men’s Hebrew Association of Camden, NJ published in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer included Benjamin Natal, Joseph F. Kantor, Max Goldich, Philip M. Pinksy, Bertrand Schneeberg, Arnold Weiss, Samuel Heine, Jacob Furer and Israel Heine.

1912(19th of Av, 5672): Arthur Charles Axman, the son of Charles and Sophie Fries Axman and the husband of Elle M. Green Axman passed away today in Dayton, OH after which he was buried in the Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum in Dayton.

1913: SOCIALISTS CAPTURE FIRE PROTEST RALLY; Rose Schneiderman Turns a Fire Prevention Meeting to Their Purposes published today While a number of well-known men, including Amos R. Pinchot, William Jay Schieffelin, Henry Moscowitz, and the Rev. Percy Stickney Grant, were listed as patrons and possible speakers at a fire-prevention mass meeting held at the north end of Union Square yesterday at noon, they were conspicuously absent from the speakers' platform when the meeting was called to order.

1913: It was reported today that Rabbi Isidor Koplowitz has resigned as the rabbi of Tifereth Israel in Des Moines, IA.

1913: It was reported today that “The World’s Congress of Religious meeting in Paris has protested agains the Blood charge against Jews in and the Beilis case in particular.”

1913: Noble prize winning physicist Max Born married Martha E., née Ehrenberg. She had Jewish ancestors on her father’s side but was raised as a Lutheran.  This may help explain why Born converted to Christianity in 1914.

1914: In a move that would help push the Ottoman Empire to became a partner with the Central Powers, with all that that would mean for the future of Eretz Israel (among other places) the British seized two modern battleships that were being built in English shipyards for the Turkish navy

1914: In St. Petersburg, the Twelfth International Ophthalmological Congress which Jewish physicians were promised they could attend without any of the usual restrictions on the “length of sojourn” was scheduled to come to an end today

1914: In WW I, German troops began the bombardment of Kalisz, a Polish city in the Russian Empire which would result in “deliberate destruction” of “150 Jewish homes” the death of thirty three Jews in the center of the city.”

1915: “Jewish Deputy N.M. Friedman” began his speech in the Duma today by saying that “In spite of the oppressed condition, in spite of the status of outlawry, the Jews nevertheless managed to rise to the exalted mood of the civil populate and in the course of the last year to participate in the war in a noteworthy manner.

1915: In Methil, Scotland, Janet Gear and Porteous Gear, “a coal miner” gave birth to William Gear, one of the Monuments Men.



1915: “A call was sent out today for a conference of representatives of Jewish societies, congregations, trades unions, lodges and clubs for the purposed of start a campaign for additional funds to aid Jewish war sufferers in Europe.”



1916(3rd of Av, 5676): Seventy-year old historian Martin Phillipson who taught at the University of Brussels because of anti-Semitism in his native Germany and founded the “Society for the Advancement of Jewish Studies” passed away in Berlin.



1916: Twenty five of the leading producers of motion pictures including Jesse Lasky met at the Hotel Claridge today “to approve the articles of incorporation” for the newly formed Associated Motion Picture Advertisers.



1916: Colonel Harry Cutler of Providence, Rhodes Island and the Chairman of the Conference Committee of Jewish Organizations who has just returned from Chicago “issued a statement” today reporting that “substantial progress” has been made in reconciling the differences that will make it possible to convene an American Jewish Congress.”



1917: Birthdate of Brigadier General Felix Sparks who as a Lt. Col. “led the 3rd Battalion of the 157th Infantry Regiment of the 45th Infantry Division of the United States Army, the first Allied force to enter Dachau concentration camp and liberate its prisoners.”

1917: As of now there are approximately five hundred American Jews in Palestine and an additional 150 Americans in Turkey, most of whom are college teachers or university professors.



1918: Birthdate of Irving Harold Franklin, the native of Brockton, MA, who is credited with creating the modern glove worn by major league baseball players when they are at bat. (As reported by Douglas Martin)

1918: It was reported today that in London, Mrs. Myer Spielman has been appointed president of the Union of Jewish, succeeding the late Mrs. Nathaniel Louis Cohen who had held the job since the founding of the Union.

1918: It was reported today that “strong efforts are being made to organize the Jewish communities in Batavia and Java, in the Dutch East Indies because the Jewish populations have increased to the size where a viable communal life is possible and necessary.

1918: During a debate in the House of Lords, “the subject of Sir Edgar Speyer’s membership on the Privy Council Sir was brought up by Lord Lincolnshire” who condemned his “brutal and insolent German manner.”  [Editor’s Note – Considering what would happen in 30 years, there it is ironic to hear the Jewish Speyer being condemned for being a German.]



1919: Birthdate of Nehmiah Persoff, the Jerusalem native who became famous as an American actor appearing in numerous films and television series.




1919(6th of Av, 5679): Twenty-eight year old Hungarian communist Tibor Szamuely was killed as during the unsuccessful fight to establish the Hungarian Soviet Republic.



1920: Birthdate of Eliyahu Moyal, MK who served as a community leader in his native Sale, Morocco before making Aliyah in 1945.



1922: Birthdate of Eugene Hirsch Kummel,chairman and chief executive of one of the world’s largest advertising agencies, McCann Erickson Worldwide. “Under Mr. Kummel’s leadership, McCann Erickson created memorable television commercials like Coca-Cola’s ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing’ campaign in the 1970s and, several years later, the Miller Lite campaign, ‘Everything you always wanted in a beer, and less,’ with personalities like George Steinbrenner and Billy Martin arguing, ‘Tastes great, Less filling.’”



1922(8th of Av, 5682): Erev Tish'a B'Av



1922(8th of Av, 5682):Emil Ganz, a businessman and three-time mayor of Phoenix, Arizona., passed away.  The son of German Jews, he was a self-professed atheist.



1923:  After falling ill, Warren Harding the 29thPresident of the United States passes away.  During his brief tenure, Harding’s record regarding Jews and Jewish issues was mixed.  He signed an immigration bill that was based on national origin quotas which put greatly limited Jewish immigration to the United States.  On the other hand, he appointed famous Chicago advertising man Albert Lasker as Chairman of the U.S. Shipping Board.  Under his tenure, the U.S. Merchant Marine was reorganized and improved.  In 1922, Harding signed a congressional Joint Resolution “favoring the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people.”



1923 (20 Av, 5683): Birthdate of Shimon Peres.





1924: A group of 12 settlers of Ashkenazi origin who received a plot of land from Yehoshua Hankin found Magdiel which would merge with Ramatayim, Hadar and Ramat Hadar in 1964 to form Hod HaSharon.



1924: The first issue of the Saturday Review of Literature appeared. This famous literary publication was formed by Amy Lovemean and three colleagues who had worked together on The New York Evening Post. Loveman was listed as an associate editor. She remained at the Saturday Review for three decades, becoming the magazine's poetry editor in 1950. In the first two decades alone, she wrote close to 800 items for the Review. These included editorials, reviews, and answers to readers' questions. Born in 1881, Amy Loveman shaped the literary choices of generations of readers through her work with two important institutions: The Saturday Review and the Book-of-the-Month Club. Educated at Barnard College, where she earned a B.A. in 1901, Loveman's first literary work was as an assistant to an uncle who was revising The New International Encyclopedia. From that job, she moved to the New York Evening Post, where she became a book reviewer and then associate editor of the newspaper's literary review. In addition to her work at the Saturday Review, Loveman played an important role in the Book-of-the-Month Club, where she joined the reading committee soon after its founding in 1926. In 1939, she became head of the Club's editorial department, a job she balanced with her ongoing work at the Review. In this role, she helped to select books for the Club as well as writing frequent reviews herself. In 1951, she joined the Club's editorial board. Loveman's compelling writing style and devotion to literature were recognized by several awards. In 1946, she received both the Columbia University Medal for Excellence and the Constance Lindsay Skinner Achievement Award of the Women's National Book Association. Loveman died in 1955.



1926: The American Jewish Congress cabled a message of condolence to Mrs. Israel Zangwill over the death of her husband.  The cablegram was signed by Carl Sherman, Acting Chairman and Bernard G. Richards, Executive Secretary.  Dr. Stephen Wise, the President of the AJC is England and is expected to represent the organization at the funeral.



1926: Birthdate of Betsy Bloomingdale of department store fame.  Her husband was part of President Regan’s kitchen cabinet and she was a close friend of Nancy.

1926: Leipzig, Yosef and Regina Wahrman gave birth to Rabbi Shlomo Wahrman, an eyewitness to Kristallnacht who escaped to the United States with his family in 1939 and eventually became Rosh HaYshiva of the Hebrew Academy of Nassau County and prolific author writing about Torah and Judaica. 




1926: Harry Einstein and his wife gave birth to journalist Charles Einstein the author of  The Bloody Spur who was the older half-brother of Albert Brooks and Jacob Einstein



1927: Birthdate of James Milton Young, known simply as “Jimmy” to several generations of congregants at Adas Israel where he served  as “caretaker and chief custodian” for 56 years.  Rabbis and cantors may come and go, but Jimmy was a rock of reliability who always had a kind word for the kids who were forced to hang around on Sundays when their parents were going to faculty meetings.



1927: “Rhenish Girls and Rhenish Wine” a silent film written by Walter Reisch was released in Germany today.



1929(25th of Tammuz, 5689): Seventy-one year old George W. Seligman, the son of the late Joseph Seligman who was one of the founders of the Seligman banking house, passed away today.



1931: Einstein urges all scientists to refuse military work.



1932: “Lillian Copeland set new world and Olympic records in discus, with a throw of 133 feet, 1 5/8 inches, winning a gold medal. It was not the first time Copeland had set new records; as one of the earliest female athletes to excel in track and field events, she had established a name for herself at several earlier competitions. Born in New York City in 1904, Copeland moved with her mother and stepfather to Los Angeles, where she attended high school. A consummate athlete, she held National Amateur Athletic Union titles in shot put, discus, and javelin by 1926. While a student at the University of Southern California, she won every women's track event that she entered. By the 1928 U.S. Olympic trials, Copeland was a four-time national champion in the shot put. However, shot put was not yet an Olympic event, so she entered the trials in discus, and set a new world record. She was also a member of the world-record-setting 400-meter-relay team at the trials. At the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam, the first at which women were allowed to compete in track and field events, Copeland won a silver medal in discus. Returning to college after the Olympics, Copeland earned a B.A. in political science in 1930, and then entered the U.S.C. Law School. In 1931, she won two more national championships, in shot put and in javelin. At the 1932 Olympics, where shot put was still not among the events, Copeland won her gold medal in discus. It was a crowning achievement for the woman who between 1925 and 1932 had set six world records each in shot put, discus, and javelin. Though she won the discus, shot put, and javelin titles at the 1935 World Maccabiah Games in Tel Aviv, Copeland did not compete in the 1936 Olympics. Like many others, Copeland boycotted that year's Games, held in Berlin, to protest Nazi Germany's exclusion of Jewish athletes from German Olympic teams. She never competed again. In 1936, Copeland joined the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, where she worked until her retirement in 1960. She spent sixteen of those years in the Juvenile Bureau, and the rest at other assignments. Copeland died on July 7, 1964. She was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1980 and the United States Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1994.


1932: Birthdate of composer Marvin David Levy the native of Passaic, NJ who overcame prison to restart his career.


1933: In Vilna,Ministry of Education announces that the Yiddish secondary school and the Hebrew gymnasium have been granted equality with the governmental high schools, and will therefore have the right to issue university admission certificates to their students.



1933. The Ministry of Justice announces that Jewish students engaged in the study of law or economics will not be permitted to take the final examinations in Prussia, if they intend to become lawyers or university teachers.

1933: In Manhattan, Lillian(Shapiro) Poses one of “the first women to graduate from NYU Law School” who also “worked for several New Deal Agencies” and Jack I. Poses, “founder and president of the fragrance manufacturer Parfums D’Orsay, a founder of Brandeis University and a vice chairman of the New York City Board of Higher Education gave birth to Barbara Joan Poses who after marrying Dr. Ernest Kafka became known as Barbara Kafka, the award winning “food columnist and cookbook author.” (As reported by Sam Roberts and Matt Schudel)




1933: In a public address to foreign diplomats and journalists Dr. Anzesoria, Bolivian minister to Germany, indicates that his Government is prepared to open its doors to German emigrants, provided the German Government is ready to negotiate the transfer.



1933: Der Angriff, a newspaper owned by Dr. Paul Josef Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda and Enlightenment carries a story that Jews are organizing themselves into military units to "attack Germany at the first opportunity."

1933 The Breslauer Judengemeindeblatt is closed down by the Nazi state president "in the interest of public security."



1934: Eight-six year old Paul von Hindenburg, the President of Germany passed away. Hindenburg’s death paved the way for Hitler, who was the Chancellor to consolidate power and rule as the Fuhrer.  When it became obvious that Germany had lost the World War in 1918 Hindenburg adroitly shifted the responsibility from the General Staff to the civilians who would become the leaders of the Weimer Republic.  In this way he helped to create the myth that Germany had not been defeated but had been stabbed in the back by traitors at home including the Jews.  This lie help to pave the way for the rise of the Nazis.



1935: “Made Love” a film directed by Karl Fruend, starring Peter Loree, with music by Dimitri Tiomkin was released in the United Kingdom today.



1935: Two months after opening in London, “The 39 Steps” a mystery produced by Michael Balcon, co-starring Lucie Mannheim and with music by Louis Levy was released in the United States today.



1936: In “King Herod Finds a Faintly Sympathetic Biographer” published today, Alfred Kazin provided a review of Herod: A Biography by Jacob S. Minkin.




 1936: “Charging that Harold C. Keyes, a former Secret Service operative and at present a private detective of New York City had sought employment with the German Government with the idea of aligning Christian Americans against Jews, particularly in New York, Representative Samuel Dickstein of New York today made public a letter address to Secretary of State Edward J. Flynn requesting that the license of the detective be revoked.”

1937: In Geneva, “the Mandates Commission of the League of Nations decided today to base its examination of the Palestine problem not on the British partition proposal but on the assumption underlying it – that the mandate is unworkable.”

1938: In Berlin, the Nazi issued a new decree announcing the expiration of Jewish Medical Doctor’s licenses on September 30.

1938(5th of Av, 5698):Yakov Mikhaylovich Yurovsky, an old line Bolshevik best known as the man who organized the execution of Czar Nicholas II.

1939: Eugene Wigner introduced Leó Szilárd to Albert Einstein; a meeting which furthered the cause of getting America to develop the Atomic Bomb ahead of the Axis.



1939: Albert Einstein signed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt urging creation of an atomic weapons research program. Einstein’s support was critical to getting Roosevelt’s support for what would become "The Manhattan Project." (What a difference eight years can make.)

1939: In Manhattan, Phillip Barber, the director of the New York unit of the Federal Theatre Project and script writer Doris Frankel gave birth to Benjamin R. Barber, the founder and president of the Global Parliament Mayors Project, Walt Whitman Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University and author whose most famous work was Jihad vs. McWorld.


1940: Two days after he had passed away funeral services are scheduled to be held at the Free Synagogue under the direction of Rabbi Sydney Goldstein for 57 year old Austrian born, Cornell Medical School trained gynecologist and obstetrician Dr. Maurice O. Magid, the husband of Ray Magid with whom he raised two children.


1941(9th of Av, 5701): Parashat Devarim, Shabbat Chazon, Erev Tish’a B’Av

1941: The Jews were ordered expelled from Hungarian Ruthenia. 1941(9th of Av, 5701): Over 200 Jews were shot in Kovno on Shabbat.

1941: The board of the Union of Jewish Communities “achieved the cancellation of the order that Jews wear the yellow badge and other measures, including the creation of ghettos in the cities and mobilizing women to join men in forced labor.” (Jewish Virtual Library)

1942: Twelve days after the Nazis began transporting Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka, “the first part of the Ringelblum Archive” was hidden tonight.

1942: After twelve days, approximately 75,000 Jews had been deported to the death camp at Treblinka. 



1942: A large group of Jews who were trapped under Spanish and German rule in Morocco sent an eloquent appeal for help to the AJDC in New York. "Gentlemen, please excuse our daring attitude in addressing this pathetical letter to you, in our distressful hour; but it is written in the Talmud, 'when trouble comes upon Israel like a rushing stream, look for someone to help you.'." 



1943: Harpers announced that Geoffrey Bles, Ltd will release the English edition of Bella Fromm’s Blood and Banquets: A Berlin Social Diary which was published last year in the United States.



1943: The last major deportation from the Bendzin Ghetto continued for a second day.

1943(2nd of Av, 5703): Sixty-six year old Viennese born actress died at Theresienstadt today.

1943: Led by a small group of prisoners using primitive weapons and pistols, inmates at Treblinka attacked the guards and burned down the barracks. Between 300 and 500 prisoners escaped although most of them were either captured or turned over by Polish peasants. Though the revolt did not stop all activities, the German government decided to liquidate the camp, which it did in October. [Samuel Willenberg and Kalman Taigman, 87-year-old Israelis, are devoting their final years to trying to preserve the memory of those slaughtered at the camp.]

1943: Samuel Willenberg, “a 20-year old Polish Jew from Warsaw was one of the prisoners who” today “stole weapons, set fire to the Treblinka death camp and fled into the surrounding woods.”


1943: Birthdate of English author Rose Treman, the “former Chancellor of the University of Anglia” whose The Gustav Sonata was her first novel “on a Jewish theme” and won both “Hadassah Magazine’s Harold U. Ribalow Prize for Jewish fiction” and “the 2017 National Jewish Book Award for fiction.”

1943: Birthdate of Uzi Landau, the native of Haifa who served with the IDF, graduated from the Technin and earned a PhD from MIT before entering the Knesset and holding several ministerial positions.

1943: “Young Ideas” a comedy directed by Jules Dassin was released in the United States today by MGM. (This entry may seem incongruous when compared to the ones just above.  It should give readers an idea of the difference between WW II in the United States and WW II in Europe, Asia and North Africa.

1944: A handful of Jewish survivors of the Kovno ghetto - including Rabbi Efrayim Oshri, author of Responsa from the Holocaust - emerged from hiding. Rabbi Oshri was one of several Rabbis who wrote answers to those with troubling ethical dilemmas growing out of life under the Nazis.  To some, such behavior might seem ludicrous when you consider the conditions.  To others, it is a tribute to the vitality of Judaism and even a form of resistance.

1944(13th of Av, 5704):Eleazer Silas Kadoorie, known as Sir Elly Kadoorie part of the Kadoorie family, a “tribe” of Jews who made their way from Baghdad, to Bombay to Shanghai passed away after having been freed from the Stanley Internment Camp in Hong Kong.

1944: Felix Nussbaum, the surrealist painter and his wife arrived at Auschwitz.

1945: Birthdate of Alan F. Segal the Ingeborg Rennert Professor of Jewish Studies at Barnard College and author of Life After Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion.

1945: Birthdate of U.S. Army Colonel Jack Howard Jacobs who earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions during the Viet Nam War.

1945: Commissioning of HMS Springer and S Class Submarined that would be sold to Israel in 1958 where it was recommissioned as the Tanin or Crocodile.

1945: Birthdate of Alan F. Segal, “a leading scholar known for his comparative studies of how religions view the afterlife.”

1945: The Potsdam Conference, the meeting of the leaders of the Big Three – U.S., U.K. and U.S.S.R. – comes to an end.  Among other things the leaders agreed to the complete denazification of Germany and the prosecution of war criminals.

1947(16th of Av, 5707): Shabbat Nachamu

1947: For the second day in a row, the Daily Express printed “more lurid details” about the British soldiers killed by the Irgun.

1947: The Runnymede Park, Ocean Vigour and Empire Rival which were carrying the passengers forced off of the SS Exodus arrived at Port-de-Bouc near Marseilles where “the French Government said it would allow disembarkation…only if it was voluntary on the part of the passengers.”

1948: In New York City, Max Prager and Hilda Prager (née Friedfeld) gave birth radio talk show host Dennis Prager.

1948: “The Israeli Government proclaimed the areas of Jerusalem under Israeli control to be Israeli-occupied territory and appointed Bernard Joseph as Military Governor.

1949: Under a plan of the new Israeli government, part of the old city of Beersheba will be flooded as a 500-acre water reservoir for the projected new Negev city on the heights overlooking Beersheba. The reservoir would be formed by damming the Wadi Saba, rocky watercourse through which 10,000,000 cubic meters of rainwater sweep into the Mediterranean every winter.

1951: “Mr. Belvedere Rings the Bell” a comedy directed by Henry Koster and featuring Zero Mostel as “Emmett” was released in the United States by 20th Century Fox.

1951: “As Young As You Feel” a comedy written by Paddy Chayefsky and featuring Marilyn Monroe in one of her early screen appearances  was released in the United States today by 20thCentury Fox.

1951: Birthdate of Andrew Gold, a musical wizard who played backup with Linda Ronstadt before embarking on career of his own that included recording hits like “Lonely Boy” and “Thank You for Being a Friend.” (As reported by Paul Vitello)

1951: Premiere of “As Young as You Feel,” a comedy written by Paddy Chayefsky.

1956: “Bigger than Life” an early cinematic treatment of drug addiction with a screenplay co-authored by Richard Maibaum, co-starring Walter Matthau and with music by David Raskin was released in the United States today.

1951(29th of Tammuz, 5711): Eighty-two year old Heinrich Loewe a German born journalist, publicist, folklorist, linguist, philosopher, librarian and political figure passed away in Tel Aviv.

1956: “Bigger Than Life” co-starring Walter Matthau, with a screenplay co-authored by Richard Maibaum and music by David Raskin was released in the United States today.

1957:British oil interests were warned today that they might forfeit ownership of their refinery plants in Haifa if they suspended operations in Israel.

1957(5th of Av, 5717): Sixty-six year old Lithuanian born, Brazilian artist Lasar Segal passed away today in São Paulo.




1958: “Badman’s Country” a western film with music by Irving Getz was released in the United States today.

1960: In California, Jane and Gerald Finerman gave birth to Oscar winning movie producer Wendy Finerman.

1960(9th of Av, 5720): Tish’a B’Av

1960: “Young Jesse James” yet another film about the famous outlaw with music by Irving Getz was released today in the United States.

1964: With encouragement from Rudolf Serkin and Alexander Schneider, the second violinist of the Budapest String Quartet, “the new Guarneri Quartet” with Arnold Steinhardt as 1st Violin was launched today “with a concert at Marlboro, VT.

1965(4th of Av, 5725): Seventy-seven year old František Langer a physician who was a general in the Czech Army during WW II who had gained fame as an author and who was the older brother Hebrew author Jiří Langer passed away today.


1967: “In the Heat of the Night” a game-changing film at so many different levels, produced by Walter Mirisch who received the Oscar for Best Picture for this effort, was released in the United States.

1967: Birthdate of professional tennis star Aaron Krickstein

1968(8th of Av, 5728): Sixty-nine year old Rochester, NY, native Jacob Robert Cominsky, the “publisher of the Saturday Reviews and vice president of its part concern McCall Corporation” passed away today.

1970: Birthdate of Colorado native and PGA tour member Jonathan Andrew Kaye

1971: In Brighton, UK, Harry Lawrence and Sylvia Greybourne, both of whom were computer consultants gave birth to Ruth Elke Lawrnece who gained fame as Ruth Elke Lawrence-Naimark, “the child prodigy in mathematics” who is a “British mathematician and an Associate Professor of mathematics at the Einstein Institute of Mathematics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a researcher in knot theory and algebraic topology.”




1972(22nd of Av, 5732): Sixty-year old author Paul Goodman



1972: Catcher Bob Yeager made his major league debut with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

1973: With the “ancient observation” that “the deeds of a man are his tombstone,” Yitzhak Navon. the chairman of the Zionist General Council and Deputy Knesset Speaker, rounded off a eulogy today for Louis A. Pincus at his graveside at the end of the shiva period” in the presence of his son’s Allon and David and “a large contingent of top Zionist leaders” including “Knesset speaker Yisrael Yeshayahu.”

1974: “The Black Windmill,” a “spy-thriller” directed and co-produced by Don Siegel and co-starring Janet Suzman was released today in the United Kingdom.

1976: Max Rayne, the grandson of “a Hebrew scholar and teacher” and the son of Phillip Rayne, a garment manufacturer from London’s East End who had had been knighted in 1969 was “made a life peer as Baron Rayne, of Prince's Meadow in the County of Greater London today.”

1978: “The Magic of Lassie” a musical about the famous collie written by Robert and Richard Sherman who along with Irwin Kostal were also responsible for the music was released in the United States today.

1979(9th of Av, 5739): Tish’a B’Av

1979: “Gilda Radner Live From New York” opens on Broadway.

1980(20th of Av, 5740): Parashat Eikev

1980:Egypt has asked for at least a temporary postponement of the talks with Israel and the United States on autonomy for the occupied areas to give the two countries time to respond to President Anwar el-Sadat's protest...

1980: Eighty-five year old Columbus, Ohio, native Donald Ogden Stewart the Academy Award winning screenwriter who during the 1930’s was Chairman of the Hollywood Ant-Nazi League “the first American anti-Nazi organization that was not overtly linked to American Jews” and that “served as the focal point of the film industry’s anti-Nazism from 1936 through 1939 passed away today.

1981: The funeral of playwright and three-time Academy Award Winner Paddy Chayefsky is scheduled to take place at Riverside Memorial Chapel in Manhattan.

1984: The House of Representatives passed legislation spearheaded by Rabbi Malcolm Stern that would separate the National Archives from the General Services Administration which had already been passed by the Senate and which had the support of the genealogy and historical communities who saw this as a way to protect this valuable research tool from unwarranted cuts by the Republican administration.

1985(15th of Av, 5745): Tu B’Av

1986(26th of Tammuz, 5746):  Roy Cohn passed away. Born in 1927, Cohn gained fame (or notoriety) as the counsel for the McCarthy Hearings. He portrayed himself as a rabid anti-Communist. Ironically, it was his high-jinx with David Schine that helped to lead to McCarthy’s downfall and his loss of power.


1988(19thof Av, 5748): Eighty-eight year old Robert Leon “Bob” Berman the catcher whose major league career consisted of playing two games for the Washington Senators in 1918 during which he was part of the battery with the great southpaw Walter Johnson passed away today.


1989: “Parenthood” a comedy produced by Brian Grazer, with a screenplay by Lowell Ganz, music by Rany Newman and co-starring Rick Moranis was released in the United States today by Universal Pictures. 

1990: Iraq invades Kuwait, eventually leading to conflict with coalition forces in the Gulf War.

1990(11th of Av, 5750): Lucy Goldschmidt Moses, a philanthropist, passed away today at the age of 103. (As reported by Joan Cook)


1991: Robert S. Strauss began serving as U.S. Ambassador to the now non-existent U.S.S.R.

1992: In East Brunswick, NJ, Barry Eisenberg, a college professor and his wife Amy “who worked as a clown at children’s parties gave birth to American actress Hallie Kate Eisenberg “best known for being ‘The Pepsi Girl.’”

1992(3rd of Av, 5752): French singer and songwriter Michel Berger died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 44.


1993(15thof Av, 5753): Tu B’Av

1993: Fifty year old Stuart E. Eizenstat began serving as United States Ambassador to the European Union under President Clinton

1994(25thof Av, 5754): “Yoram Sakuri, 30, of Kiryat Netafim in Samaria, died of stab wounds suffered when a terrorist broke into his home on July 1st.” (Jewish Virtual Library)

1995: Norman Spector completed his services Canada’s Ambassador to Israel – a position some might have felt him uniquely qualified to hold since he was the first Canadian born Jew to hold the post.

1996: Eighty-four year old Michel Debre a member of prominent Jewish who converted to Catholicism who served as the first Prime Minister of the Fifth Republic in France passed away today.

1996: “Emma” a movie version of the 19th century novel starring Gwyneth Paltrow was released today.

1997: “Lady in the Dark,” a musical with music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ira Gershwin and book and direction by Moss Hart, is performed for the last time at the Royal National Theatre in London.

1998(10th of Av, 5758): Tish'a B'Av (The 9th of Av fell on Shabbat)

1998(10th of Av, 5758): Television puppeteer Shari Lewis passed away. Born Shari Hurwitz in 1933, Lewis is best remember for her creations – Hush Puppy, Charlie Horse, and the ever-popular Lamb chop.



1998: The New York Times featured a review of A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey From the Inner City to the Ivy League by Jewish author Ron Suskind

2005: The Jerusalem Post reported that an Israeli financial consortium announced that two Spanish companies were joining the group in preparing a bid for a massive desalinization project.  The need for new supplies of fresh water is critical to the growth of the Israeli economy and the survival of the Jewish state.

2005: Haaretz reported that Tunisia is the new hotspot for Israeli tourists.

2005(26thof Tammuz, 5765): Ninety-four year old Lou Bernstein (born Judah Leon Bernstein) the harmonica player turned photographer passed away today in Boca Raton, FL.



2006(8th of Av, 5766): Some 210 rockets and missiles were launched toward northern communities - the largest number since the beginning of the fighting. Dave Lalchuk, 52, of Kibbutz Sa'ar, was killed and 16 others were wounded, three moderately, in the attacks, as Jews begin to prepare for the observance of Tisha B’Av.

2006: On the same day that over 200 rockets were launched against Israel, Bella Freud “voiced an impassioned denunciation of Israel's "disproportionately violent aggression" in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon Conflict” during “an appearance on the BBC current affairs program Newsnight” today.

2007(18th of Av, 5767): Frank Rosenfelt, a top movie executive at studios including MGM passed away at the age of 85. One of his proudest moments was the acquisition of the movie rights for “Dr. Zhivago.”  One of his biggest disappointments was the failure of the 1976 film “Network” to win the Oscar for Best Picture. (As reported by Douglas Martin)


2008: In Cedar Rapids, at Temple Judah Triple Header Shabbat Morning Service

  1. Rosh Chodesh Av
  2. Completion of Bamidbar
  3. Observance of Raoul Wallenberg Day (actual date is August 4, 2008 by proclamation of the Governor of the State of Iowa

2008: “The Fly, an opera in two acts by Canadian composer Howard Shore was broadcast by Radio France's station France Musique today.”

2008 “Love, Loss and What I Wore” a play by Nora and Delia Ephron co-starring Linda Lavin was performed for the first time at the Bridgehampton Community House.

2009: Cantor Jacob Chomsky of Tifereth Israel sings the National Anthem as part of Jewish Community Day during a Columbus Clippers’ home game.

2009: The Los Angeles Times features books by Jewish authors and/or special interest to Jewish readers including Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector, the Brazilian-Jewish author, by Benjamin Moser

2009: Two Arab families were evicted from Jewish-owned homes in the Shimon HaTzaddik neighborhood of Jerusalem this morning. The evictions took place following a Supreme Court ruling in which the court found in favor of Jewish families who claimed ownership of homes in the area.

2009: The Times of London features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Judasby Susan Gubar.



2009(12thof Av, 5769): Seventy-five year old journalist and author Sidney Zion passed away. (As reported by Robert McFadden)


2009(12thof Av, 5769):Seventy-one year old Michael A. Wiener, broadcasting mogul and patron of the arts passed away.(As reported by Geraldine Fabrikant)


2010: “Ahead of Time,” a documentary about author, journalist and photographer Ruth Gerber is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2010: The “First Jewish Women's Music Festival” is scheduled to begin at Falls Village, CT.

2010: A huge explosion destroyed the home of a senior Hamas commander and injured 24, Palestinians reported today. Palestinians said the blast was caused by an Israeli airstrike, but this has been denied by the IDF.

2010: Palestinian militants fired five rockets into the Israeli port city of Eilat with one of them landing in nearby Jordanian city of Aqaba, flaring up tensions in the Middle East anew. Though there were no immediate reports of casualties from the beach resort of Eilat, five persons were injured; four of them seriously, when one of the rockets strayed off course and hit the Jordanian city of Aqaba.

2011: “Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness,” “a riveting portrait of the man who transformed Yiddish from a vernacular language into a literary one” and “The Hangman,” a fascinating and complex portrait of Shalom Nagar, a Yemeni Jew, who as a young man worked as prison guard and was the execution of Adolf Eichmann.

2011(2nd of Av, 5771): Einat Tavori, an Israeli traveling during a break from medical school in Hungary, passed away today after she fell off a cliff while hiking in the mountainous Parvati Valley region of northern India.

2011(2nd of Av, 5771): Ninety year old Nobel Prize winning immunologist Dr. Baruj Benacerraf, passed away. (As reported by Denise Gellene)


2011: The 2011 Security Briefing for Jewish Institutions is scheduled to take place at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue.  Scheduled presenters included local police commanders and senior FBI security personnel.

2011: The IDF spokesperson confirmed today that the air force attacked several targets in Gaza overnight, including a smuggling tunnel in the southern Strip and a terrorist center in the north.



2011: Today Israel's Supreme Court issued an unprecedented ruling ordering the state to dismantle the largest illegal settlement outpost in the West Bank by April 2012.



2011: A senior officer in the Israeli Navy said today that terrorists groups close to Israel are in possession of missiles capable of hitting all Israeli ports and offshore infrastructure such as oil rigs. Brigadier General Yaron Levi, the Navy's intelligence chief, spoke about the matter on today at a conference in Tel Aviv University that focused on the naval theater



2011: In “Shame on Me, and Your for Taking Pleasure in It,” Dwight Garner reviewed Humiliation by Wayne Koestenbaum.



2012: “The Moon is Jewish” is among the movies scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2012: “Fiddler on the Roof” with Cantor Joel Colman in the title role is scheduled to open in a production sponsored by Tulane University’s Summer Lyric Theatre.

2012: Israel’s Counterterrorism Bureau warned Israeli citizens to leave Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula immediately. “We possess information that Gaza terror groups and others are planning attacks on Israeli tourists in the immediate future,” the government agency said in a statement released today.

2012: Swimmer Yakov Toumarkin provided Israeli sports with a moment of history in an otherwise disappointing day of setbacks at the London Olympics today. The 20-year-old recorded the best ever result for an Israeli swimmer at the Olympics by ending the 200- meter backstroke final in seventh place in a time of 1:57.62 minutes.

2013: “Dancing in Jaffa” is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.



2013: “The Bible in the Iberian World: Fundaments of a Religious Melting Pot” is scheduled to come to an at Leipzig, Germany



2013: “Fill the Void” is scheduled to open at theatres in Rochester, Richmond, Spokane and Madison, Wisconsin



2013: A revival of “Fiddler on the Roof” is scheduled to premiere tonight at the Starlighters Theatre in Anamosa, Iowa.

2013: Alan B. Krueger completed his service as the “27th Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers.”



2013: President Obama has narrowed the field for Chairman of the Federal Reserve to a trio of Members of the Tribe – Lawrence Summers, Janet Yellin and Donald L. Kohn



2013: Bank Hapoalim chief economist Leo Leiderman has turned down the nomination for becoming the next Bank of Israel governor, Israel Radio reported this afternoon. In a major embarrassment for Israel, Leiderman's announcement makes him the second nominee to pull out within less than a week.



2014: The Washington Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to continue with its program of Coen Brothers films.



2014: The traditional minyan at Temple Judah is scheduled to honor the Righteous Gentiles on Raoul Wallenberg Shabbat while mourning the deaths of the IDF who have given their lives to prevent another Holocaust.



2014: St. Sgt. Maj. (res.) Omri (full name withheld for security reasons), from the Duvdevan Unit, who jumped on a fellow soldier after a grenade was thrown at the unit in Gaza today protecting him with his body.



2014: “After 16 days of a ground incursion inside the Gaza Strip, the IDF started moving troops out of urban areas to the border area today, amid military estimates that the mission to destroy the 31 known terror tunnels will be completed within 24 hours.” (As reported by Roi Kais)



2014: Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids is scheduled to host its first movie night with a showing of “Noah” preceded by Havdalah services.



2015: The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to “Family Day at the Museum” complete with a visit from the ice cream truck.



2015: Marisa Scheinfeld whose photographs are on display in “Exhibits from the Borscht Belt” is scheduled to deliver a talk at Yiddish Book Center’s Brechner Gallery.



2015: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Brush Back by Sara Paretsky.



2015: The JCC of Northern Virginia is scheduled to host a screening of “The Age of Love” this afternoon.



2015: The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to host a public memorial tour.



2015: “Richard Avedon: Family Affairs” is scheduled to close today at the National Museum of Jewish History.



2015(17th of Av, 5775): Three days after having been stabbed Yishai Schlissel during the Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade, “16 year old Shira Banki died of her wounds at the Hadassah Medical Center.”



2016: The Historic Sixth & I Synagogue is scheduled to host an “outdoor screening of ‘Back to the Future.’”



2016: The Historic Sixth & I Synagogue is scheduled to a discussion Purity, the fifth novel by Jonathan Franzen.

2017: German prosecutors said today that Oskar Groening “a 96-year-old former Auschwitz death camp guard who was convicted as an accessory to murder is fit to go to prison.”

2017: Today a 19 year old Palestinian stabbed a 47 year old Israeli “at a supermarket in Yavneh.”

2017(10th of Av, 5777): Eighty-seven year old economist and Kremlinologist Marshall I. Goldman, one of the first to predict the downfall of the Soviet Union passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)





2017: In Germany, “Festival Week, a long-time highlight of Yiddish Summer Weimar” is scheduled to begin today.

2017: In Milwaukee, WI, the Jewish Museum is scheduled to host “It Runs In The Family: Art and the Rosenblatts.”


2018: JW3 is scheduled to host the final screening of “Tracking Edith” in London.

2018: “From the East” and “Our New President,” a documentary about the election of Putin, are scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

2018: JW3 is scheduled the first and only London screening of “Indignation,” based on the Philip Roth novel this evening.

2018: Today at “a meeting, held in the IDF headquarters compound in Tel Aviv, Brig. Gen. (res.) Amal As’ad told Netanyahu the Druze weren’t interested in a new benefits package, but in feeling like part of the nation.”

2018: “The Israeli Jazz Spotlight Festival, curated by Nadav Remez” is scheduled to open at the Cornelia Street Café.

2018: “The Interpreter,” a “film starring Academy Award-winning director Jiri Menzel and Peter Simonischek that  brings together an unusual duo: the son of Holocaust victims and the son of the SS officer responsible for their deaths” is scheduled to be shown at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.

2019: Classical Bridge is scheduled to host a concert “featuring Michael Katz on the cello and Shmuel Ashkenazy on the violin.”

2019: The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of the biopic “Carl Laemmle” and “Dolce Fine Giornata.”

2019: In Jerusalem, Beit Avi Chai is scheduled to host “Shabbat on the Roof” – “a musical show for the whole family.”

2019(1st of Av, 5779): Rosh Chodesh Av










This Day, August 3, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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August 3 



8 C.E.: Roman Empire general Tiberius defeats Dalmatians on the river Bathinus. As the stepson of Augustus, Tiberius would become Caesar four years after this victory.  Tiberius did appoint Pontius Pilate as the procurator of Judea.  On the other hand, he did have the good sense to overrule Pilate when the Jews of Jerusalem complained that he had desecrated the city by bringing inscribed shields into the Jewish capital. Tiberius’ inconsistent treatment of the Jews was consistent with the moody behavior of the Roman ruler who would have much preferred to serve as a general.

435: Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II exiled the deposed Patriarch of Constantinople Nestorius, considered the originator of Nestorianism, to a monastery in Egypt.  Nestorianism was a form of Christianity that challenged the orthodoxy of its time and presented a political threat to the Roman Empire. Theodosius, like Constantine used the Christian religion as part of his political power base.  Therefore, it is not surprising to note that this is the same Theodosius II who issued Anti-Judaic laws in 438 that “forbade the Jews to accede to any public task,” made proselytism a capital crime and denied Jews the right to build new synagogues or “to embellish the old ones.”

1108: Coronation of Louis VI during whose reign the monarch gradually ceded control of the Jews and the revenue they represented from the King to the Church.

1399: Thanks to the efforts of an apostate named Pesach-Peter a large number of Jews in Prague are arrested and imprisoned.  Lipmann (Tab-Yomi) of Muhlhaussen, the German scholar versed in Torah, Talmud as well as the New Testament, which he had read in Latin was among the victims. 

1492: Columbus set sail for the New World. There is an entry in Columbus' diary noting the expulsion of Jews from Spain right before he set sail. He was accompanied by Luis de Torres who is considered to be the first Jew to arrive in the “New World.” 

1492: Jews depart Spain under orders of expulsion from the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella and Ferdinand.
1493: Property confiscated from Jews and Conversos was used to finance the construction of the monastery of Santo Tomás de Ávila, which was completed today


1599: During the reign of Sigismund III Vasa, the great synagogue in Grodno was destroyed by fire.

1603: Tamar Barocas and twenty five year old Fra Diogo a Assungao, a Franciscan friar who became attracted to Judaism were burnt at the stake by the Inquisition at Lisbon.

1766: Birthdate Rabbi Aron Chorin, the Hungarian born Rabbi who would become a center of controversy for his non-conformists views about Judaism and support for some of the views connected with the new-born Reform Movement.

1770: Birthdate of King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia, the reactionary monarch who would undo the reforms of the Napoleonic period and repudiate the Edict of 1812 that had elevated the civil status of the kingdom’s Jews.

1792(15thof Av, 5552): Tu B’Av

1797: The emperor of Bohemia ordered that Jews, who volunteered for army service, should be allowed to marry outside the restricted quota of marriage of Jews. 

1797: “The Jewish Law of Franz II” dated today was “a milestone on the road towards equal status for the Jews.”

1803: Birthdate of London native Abigail Liondo, who 1837 published the first “Hebrew-English Dictionary” compiled by a British Jew.

1803: Birthdate of British architect Joseph Paxton who designed Mentmore Towers, the country home of Baron Mayer de Rothschild which “was the first of what was to become a virtual Rothschild enclave in the Vale of Aylesbury, as later, other members of the family built houses at Tring in Hertfordshire, Ascott, Aston Clinton, Waddesdon and Halton.”

1806: Joseph David Sinzheim completed answering the questions that had been laid before the Assembly of Notables to the satisfaction of the French government officials.

1822: Esther and Joseph Davis were married today at the Western Synagogue after which they had six children – Sarah, Hannah, Morris, Emilea, Elizabeth and Mary Ann.

1823: Birthdate of German painter Gustav Richter, the husband of Cornelle Meyerbeer and the son-in-law of composer Giacomo Meyerbeer.

1829: In the Cape Colony, Sir Anthony Oliphant and his wife Maria gave birth to Laurence Oliphant who  supported the building of a railway between Jaffa and Jerusalem, who starting in 1879 began working to “settle large number of Jews” especially those from Eastern Europe in Palestine and who himself lived for a time “in the Germany colony in Haifa.”

1830(14th of Av, 5590): Austrian Rabbi Joseph Moses Spiro, the son of Rabbi Abraham Moses whose works included Mesillah le-Elohenupassed away today at Kanitz, Moravia.

1833: One day after he passed away, 67 year old Godfrey Harris was buried at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery in London.

1836: In Rochester, NY, Alvah Strong and his wife gave birth to August Hopkins Strong, a Baptist minister and theologian whose Systematic Theology: The Doctrine of God “presented another explanation of the alleged inaccuracies in the Hebrew Bible” citing the use of idiom and metaphor by the author of the holy text which means that he was not part of those who believed in the concept of Biblical inerrancy which was so popular at the time.

1836(20th of Av, 5596): Fifty-six year old “Dutch Jurist” Carel Asser, the son of Moses Salomon Asser and husband of Rose Levin who worked for the full emancipation of the Jewish people despite the opposition of Daniel Cohen d'Azevedo, rabbi of the Portuguese, as well as by Jacob Moses b. Saul Löwenstamm, rabbi of the Ashkenazim, who were afraid that political emancipation would result in the disintegration of Judaism

1837: In Bavaria, Germany, Mendel Emanuel Suessenguth and Hannah Johanna Suessenguth gave birth to Lewis Seasongood, “the husband Emma Seasongood” with whom he had two daughters -- Alma Bettman and Clara Berolzheimer.”

1839(23rd of Av, 5599): Seventy-four year old German novelist Dorothea von Schlegel, the oldest daughter of Moses Mendelssohn, passed away today.

1842: Birthdate of Bertha Spiegelberg, the native of Borgholz, Germany who was the wife of Levi Spiegelberg and the mother of New York City native Eugene E. Sperry.

1851: Birthdate of Adolph Greenhut, the native of Bohemia, husband of Eva Greenhut, who came to the United States “around 1866, became a naturalized citizen in 1874” and served as Mayor Pensacola, FL from 1913 to 1915.

1853: Julius Landsberger married Pauline Leo the daughter of Rabbi Simon Leo with whom he had two children one of whom was Richard Landsberger, “the founder of a biological dentistry.”

1856: Birthdate of Alfred Deakin, 2nd Prime Minister of Australia.  In 1905, Deakin appointed Isaac Alfred Isaacs to the position of Attorney General, making him the first Jew to serve in that post. The following year, Deakin scored another “first” for the Jewish people when he named Isaacs as a Justice to the High Court of Australia, 

1857: Today’s “Foreign Correspondence” column reports that the second reading of the Jew Bill has passed by an immense majority.

1857: Lord John Russell’s call for a Select Committee to inquire as to how far a certain act of Parliament that dispensed with the use of the words in the oath which excluded Jews from the House would go was agreed to.

1857: Handbills were posted in Goldsboro ordering all Germans and Jews to leave Goldsboro, NC by August 4, 1857.

1860: Today, in Boston, Louis Goldenberg, a jeweler by trade, informed his neighbors that he was lonely and he was to visit his wife who had gone to the country. Louis Goldenberg aged 55, was a German Jew, born in Russia, who had lived in the United States for the last ten year and had been employed by Currier & Trott as a watch repairer for the last six years. For the last several months Mr. Goldenberg had been engaged in a series of swindles in which at least six prominent jewelers were victimized to the tune of $5,000 in losses..  Mr. Goldenberg’s “visit to his wife in the country” was actually his getaway.

1863: Louis, duc Decazes who while serving as Foreign Minister in 1875 “informed Henri Blowitz, the Bohemian Jew who was the Paris correspondent of The Times of a confidential dispatch from the French ambassador to Berlin, discussing German plans to attack France” which he asked Blowitz to publish as part of an effective plan to prevent the Germans from carrying out their plans married “Séverine-Rosalie von Löwenthal” today.

1861(27thof Av, 5621): Parashat Re’eh

1865: Philadelphian Theodore Jacobs completed his services as the Assistant Surgeon of the 187th Regiment of the Union Army.

1870: The Toledo Blade reported that Bennett Scope has been hung after being convicted of murdering a Jewish peddler named Jacob Goodman.  Goodman had befriended his co-religionist Scope who had only recently arrived in this country, giving him money and employment. Although Scope protested his innocence to the end, the jury believed that the motive for the murder had been greed. Rabbi Mayer of Cleveland had unsuccessfully appealed to the governor of Ohio to spare his life.  Mayer was with Scope at the execution.

1864(1stof Av, 5624): Rosh Chodesh Av

1870: The Toledo (Ohio) Balde reported that Benenet Scop has been hung in Huron Count, Ohio after having been convicted of murder Jacob Goodman, a Jewish peddler for who he had been working.  The motive appeared to be robbery.

1871: Birthdate of Versailles native and graduate of the Sorbonne Felix Weill, who in 1901 began teaching French at CCNY where he served as “Chairman of the Romance Language Department from 1935 to 1939” and who served as Secretary of the Alliance Francaise.

1873: “Death of an Eminent Hebrew” published today memorialized the life of the late Sir David Salomons the Jewish banker who was leader in the fight for Jews to received full rights of citizenship.  It recounted his struggle which finally led to him serving as the Sheriff of London and sitting in the House of Commons. Described as an able and amiable man who was a generous benefactor to a variety of charities, readers were reminded that Prime Minister Gladstone had advised the Queen to “create him as a baronet,” a hereditary title that now passes to his nephew.

1873: It was reported today, that out of the approximately 320 religious “newspapers” listed in Rowell’s American Newspaper Directory, nine are Jewish as compared with the 47 published by the Methodists.

1876: Birthdate of Joseph W. Pincus, the Russian born agricultural expert who worked with Jewish farmers in the United States who was the author of “The Jewish Farmers’ Best Friend.”



1878: Solomon Goldsmith of San Francisco received a cable today from Louis Goldsmith of New York stating that Michael Reese, a successful Jewish businessman and civic benefactor had died suddenly while visiting the Bavarian town of Wallerstein.

1879: In keeping with generally accepted practice, a Jew named Adolph D. Pollack sold cigars and neckties to customers in White Plains, NY.  His action would lead to litigation challenging the violation of so-called “Blue Laws.”

1881: The body “of Samuel Alt, an aged Hebrew…was found in the water at the foot of East Seventy-sixth street… this morning” bearing marks that would later lead authorities to concluded he had been “robbed and murdered.”

1882: As the Tisza-Eszlar affair came to a climax, a Hungarian jury acquitted the Jewish defendants of murder charges touching off anti-Jewish riots in Budapest.

1883: In “Darlinghurst, New South Wales, Australia,” “Rebecca and George Judah Cohen” gave birth to Sefton Louis Cullen, a barrister and husband of Nancy Cullen who during WW I served with the Royal Fusiliers and the Yorkshire Light Infantry after which he returned to Sydney in 1919 and became “a shareholder of David Cohen and Company, Ltd. In 1935

1883: The anti-Semitic riots continued for another day at Ekaterinoslav, Russia.

1883: A woman and her two children burned to death in a cabin belonging to Ivan M. Lotowski at the Jewish Colony in Estillville, NJ.

1884: The body of Solomon Rintel, a 23 year old Hungarian Jew who worked as fresco painter, was found today in the room he was renting at 403 Sixth Street in New York.  It appears the Rinel took his own life.

1884: Birthdate of composer Louis Gruenberg.  Born near Brest Litovsk Poland, Gruenberg immigrated to the United States.  He was one of several Jewish composers, including George and Ira Gershwin, who incorporated African-American themes in their musical works.


1886: Lord Randolph Henry Spencer-Churchill, the father of Winston Churchill became his party’s leader in the House of Commons. Churchill was also the cousin of Colonel Charles Henry Churchill who while serving as British diplomat in the Middle East in the middle of the 19th century “declared his support for Jewish restoration of sovereignty over Palestine.”

1887: In Rugby, Warwickshire, “William Parker Brooke, a Rugby schoolmaster and Ruth Mary Brooke, née Cotterill” gave birth to poet Rupert Brooke whom Alexander Aciman chosen to characterize as his “favorite anti-Semite.”


1888: Four days after she had passed away “in her 82nd year, Sarah Salomons (nee Hurwitz) the daughter of Hyman Hurwitz was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

1889:  In Ulster County, NY, a group of ruffians known as the “Yellowstone Cowboys,” armed with pistols and bowie knives forced their way into a boarding house owned by J. Epstein, Jewish innkeeper in Saugerties, chased out the guests and demanded to be fed dinner.  They departed after about an hour.

1890: The Young People’s Association of Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn required the use of two barges for their excursion today to Washington Park on the Hudson River.

1890: “Hebrew, Israelite and Jew” published today which relies on information first published in the Hebrew Journal described the origins of these three terms which today are used in the following manner: “Hebrew refers to race, Israelite refers to the nation, Jews to the religion.”

1890: “Expected Migration of Jews” published today described the impact of new regulations of the Czar’s government which “will tend to drive vast bodies…of Jews who are settled in the frontier provinces” from the country.  “The dread of wholesale transportation to Siberia for failure to observe the edicts will impel the flight westward of many thousands of Jews.”  Jewish leaders in Berlin, Hamburg, and Frankfort have communicated with Jewish leaders in London “for the purpose of preparing” to provide relief for their “distressed” co-religionist.

1890: “An Empire’s Young Chief” published today provides a description of the young Kaiser’s Germany including the fact “that a very large proportion of  Germany’s present authors are Jews and radicals which gives the contemptuous attitude of the dominant Berlin classes toward literature a decided political twist.”

1891: In Paris, a conference of French Jews approved the plans of Baron Hirsh “for the amelioration of the condition of the destitute” Jews which will require “the cooperation of the Jews in Europe and America” in organizing the emigration of the Jews from Russia.

1891(28th of Tammuz, 5651): Leopold Dukes, the Hungarian born student of Jewish literature who spent :20 years in England doing research that enable him “to completed the work of Leopold Zunz” the founder of what some call modern “Jewish Studies” or “Judaic Studies.”

1891: Birthdate of Nathan “Kid Dropper” Kaplan a petty gangster and labor racketeer in New York.

1893: In Warsaw, a Hebrew newspaper Ha’Tzfira printed a story describing “a festive dinner held in a Warsaw suburb” in honor of Rabbi Abraham Eliyahu Harkavi.(As reported by Vered Guttman)

1894(1st of Av, 5654): Rosh Chodesh Av

1894: The attorney for Jeremiah S. Levy the Jewish police officer accused of taking bribes began presenting testimony “in defense of his client” after the Judge denied his motion for acquittal on the grounds that the prosecution had failed to “prove its case.”

1894(1stof Av, 5654): Twenty-seven year old Adolph Hobart Henriques passed away today. He is the son of Solomon Nunes Henriques who passed away 20 years ago.

1895: “Sponging Houses” published today described the different literary treatment of these temporary quarters for English debtors including that found in Henrietta Temple a love story by the Earl of Beaconsfield, Benjamin Disraeli.

1895: Despite attempts to silence him Aaron Drucker spoke out at a meeting in the Church of the Sea and Land being held to convert Jews to Christianity declaring that such meetings should not be held because they were “an outrage to humanity and “if a man is born a Jew of true Jewish parents he is always a Jew and nothing change him!”

1895: Seventy-three year old Maria Moses, the daughter of Emanuel and Ann Moses, was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

1895: Third base man Samuel Earl “Ike” Samuels makes his major league debut with the St. Louis Browns where he “went 1-for-2 in a 5-0 loss to Chicago.

1896: In Chicago, Ukrainian Jewish immigrants Isidore and Rose (Rabinoff) Horowitz gave birth to Ralph Horwitz who gained fame as Harvard All-American football player Ralph Horween who went to play football in the NFL—mirroring the career of his brother Arnold who also played for Harvard the Cardinals.


1896: Birthdate of New York City and fur merchant Abraham Isador Weinblatt, the son of “a cigar maker who had immigrated from Russia in 1888 and “traveling salesman for the firm of Kruskal and Kruskal” who with Milton Simon Mandel formed Mandel and Weinblatt.

1897: In “Hellenthal, Germany,” Bernhard Rothschild and “Henriette (Jetta) Rothschild gave birth to Hermann Rothschild, the “husband of Gertrude Augusta Rothschild and father of Marion and Ruth Rothschild, who died at the age of 44 in the Minsk Ghetto during the Holocaust.

1897: According to today’s Times of London, Solomon Schechter of Cambridge University said [The Cairo Genizah] “is a battle field of books, and the literary productions of many centuries had their share in the battle.... Some of the belligerents have perished outright, and are literally ground to dust in the terrible struggle for space, whilst others...are squeezed into big, unshapely lumps."


1898(15thof Av, 5658): Tu B’Av

1898: During the Spanish-American War, the USS Scorpion, under the command of Adolph Marix, the first Jewish graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, ended her blockade duties which had begun after the Battle at Manzanillo Harbor, and then headed back to Guantanamo Bay.

1898: The funeral for fifty three year old Elias Jacobs who had been realtor and “engage in the clothing business for 21 years” is scheduled to take place at nine o’clock this morning at his home on East 80th Street.

1899: The funeral for 55 year old Samuel Firuski who has worked in the auctioneering and storage business in Brooklyn for the last 22 years are scheduled to be held today at Temple Israel in Brooklyn

1899: “Topics of the Times” published today described life among the Boers who are fighting the British including the decision of their Parliament to deny Jews and Catholics which shows these rebels to be something other than advocates for “toleration and progress.”

1901: Birthdate of New Orleans native and U. of Cincinnati graduate Rabbi Gustave Ferdinand Falk, who after being ordained at Hebrew Union College went on to post graduate studies at the University of Chicago before graduating from the New York School Social Work and serving as the “Director at the School for Jewish Studies” in New York City.

1902: Birthdate of Regina Jonas who when she ordained by Rabbi Max Dienemann in 1935 became the first female rabbi in Jewish history.


1910(27th of Tammuz, 5670): The former Chief Rabbi of Turkey, Moise Levy, passed away in Constantinople at the age of 89.

1911(9th of Av, 5671):Tish'a B'Av

1911: In Paramaribo, Suriname, Daniel Joseph Harogh, the “son of David Levy Hartogh and Rachel Fernandes” married Estelle Celine Abrahams today.

1912(20th of Av, 5672): Parashat Eikev

1912: Approximately 75 people attended services at the Social Hall of the Forest House in Kennebunkport, Maine, led by Rabbi Bernard. G. Ehrenreich of Montgomery, Alabama.

1913: Birthdate of Shmuel Tolchinsky, the native of shtetl near Odessa who gained fame as Mel Tolkin the head writer of “Your Show of Shows” where he helped to launch the careers of such greats as “Mel Brooks, Neil Simon and Larry Gelbart.

1913: Sixty-eight year old Regina Cohn Watson is scheduled to be interred this afternoon at Rosehill.

1913: In Chicago, funeral services are scheduled to be held for Maurice H. Ellinger, the husband of Sadie Mark Ellinger and the brother of Albert Ellinger.

1914: During WWI, Germany declares war against France, while Turkey declares itself neutral.   During the war, Jews from around the world came to help the French, including 600 Turkish Jews (as well as Jews from other Ottoman territories) signed up with the French Foreign Legion to help in the battle against the Germans.

1915: Congressman Mayer London was reported today to be the chairman of the newly formed People’s Relief Committee which is committed to raise funds to alleviate the suffering of the Jews in the European war zone.

1915: “Russian Allurements” published today described the importance of Riga the port city that was home to “the first Jewish synagogue known in Europe” to the Czar’s war effort.

1915: Edith Cavell a British nurse was arrested in Belgium and charged with harboring Allied soldiers. Sadi Kirschen, the father of Claude-Anne Lopez, would be chosen to serve as her defense attorney.

1916 Birthdate of Detroit, MI native a University of Chicago trained bio-chemist and medical doctor Arnold Lazarow, the husband of the former Jane Sybil Klein, the bio-chemist with whom he had two sons, Drs. Paul B. and Norman H. Lazarow.


1916: During World War I, near the Egyptian town of Romani the Central Powers launched their last offensive to seize the Suez Canal in what would become known as the Battle of Romani.

1916: It was reported today that “a new benefit for the Actors’ Fund of America has been arranged by Daniel Frohman in co-operation with the new theatrical club “The Lights” which will take place at the Amsterdam Theatre.

1917(15th of Av, 5677): Tu B’Av

1917: This afternoon, “two days after declaring war on Russia, Germany declared on France and France responded by declaring war on Germany – moves which among other things would pit French Jews against German Jews since Jews served in the armies of both countries.

1917: The “Red Glove” a “new anti-Jewish league formed at Simferopol” “incited the populace to participate in pogroms.”

1917: At Odessa, today, the “Jews were accused of molesting Christians going to church and desecrating churches.
1917: In Leeds, UK, a mass-meeting held “under the auspices of the Jewish Representative Council” adopted a resolution asking the council “to take the necessary steps to protect the interests of those affective by the convention with the Russian Government affecting Russian subjects of military age” living in the United Kingdom.

1917: In Egypt, a Zionist Organization was “formed to guide all Zionist societies” in the country

1917: In Warsaw the dean of the Polytechnic Institute declares “that Jews are merely guests in Poland and their use of Yiddish evidence of the opposition to Polish nationalism.”

1917: In Warsaw “anti-Semites openly agitate for a boycott” against the Jews, urge the closing of all business on Sundays” and “attacked” priests who trade with Jews.

1917: Samuel Gompers, speaking on behalf of organized labor in America, announced that he and his organization would not be attending the planned conference in Stockholm that is called by some a “peace conference.”  Gompers is praised by Allied leaders for supporting the war against the Kaiser.

1918:  Birthdate of Sidney Gottlieb who was an early and important official with the CIA.

1918: During WW I, British troops landed at Vladivostok in what the Bolsheviks would come to view as an attempt by the West to overturn their Revolution. (For a certain element in the British establishment the term Bolsheivk and Jew were interchangeable.  According to at least on report Churchill supported Zionism as counterweight to the Bolsheviks.

1918:The proposal, made by the American Federation of Labor through its President, Samuel Gompers, to the Mexican labor unions, suggesting that conferences be held on the border between President Wilson and President Carranza, has been favorably accepted here.  Gompers believes that the meetings will help improve relations between the United States and Latin America.

1918: Sixteen year old Yitak Jacov a member of the British Jewish Legion 38th Battalion Royal Fusiliers serving in Palestine wrote in his diary “Now that I placed my life at risk, it is becoming so interesting that I feel that everything must be written down, so that later either I – if I survive – or my friends can re-live these days.”

1919: A wireless dispatch received today in London from Moscow described the shooting of General Gregorieff, “the Russian commander who captured Odessa…and whose troops are reported to have carried out a massacre in the Jewish quarter of Odessa.”

1920: The Convention the Federation of Hebrew Teachers of America, whose purpose “advance the cause of Jewish Education in America came to a close today in Cleveland, OH.

1921: Birthdate of Broadway Composer Richard Adler. One of his most famous hits was Damn Yankees.

1922(9th of Av, 5682):Tish'a B'Av

1923: Birthdate of Hannah Golofski who would grow up to become noted fashion designer Anne Klein. Discovering her gift for design while attending Girl's Commercial High School in Brooklyn, she found work in the garment industry directly out of high school. Within a year, she was working at Varden Petites where she redesigned the firm's line, introducing a new style of ready-to-wear and sophisticated clothing for young (thin) women that would come to be known as Junior Miss. In 1948 she married clothing manufacturer Ben Klein and became principal designer of Junior Sophisticates, a new company established by her husband. In this role, Anne Klein transformed the type of clothing available for petite women like herself. Junior Sophisticates offered elegant styles to shorter women who previously had to make due with more child-like attire. In addition, Klein was the first designer to follow the example of French designer Coco Chanel, adapting men's clothes (suites, jackets, shirts) for women's use. Klein continued to innovate. During the 1950s, she introduced clothing that was sold as "separates," offering women a range of jackets, blouses, skirts, and slacks that could be bought together and then assembled into many different outfits. When the Klein marriage ended in 1960, so did her connection with Junior Sophisticates. In 1963, she remarried and established her own design studio. She specialized in redesigning the failing clothing lines of other companies. In 1968, Anne Klein and Company opened with Klein as director and half-owner. By the early 1970s, more than 800 American department stores and dress shops carried her creations.  Klein won numerous fashion awards. In 1973, she was the only woman invited to participate in a fashion show consisting of five American and five French prominent designers, intended to raise money for renovations at Versailles. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York restaged the American component of this show in 1993. Since the designer's death in 1974, the Anne Klein label has remained a strong presence in retail stores around the world.

1923:  Vice President Calvin Coolidge is sworn in as the 30th President of the United States following the death of President Warren Harding.  Coolidge was not an anti-Semite but some of his actions had a negative impact on Jews. In 1924, he signed the Johnson Act.  This immigration law effectively ended the wave of immigration that had started in 1880.  It contained a National Origins Quota System that favored Western Europeans while barring those from Southern and Eastern Europe.  This quota system would be in place during the Holocaust and would be used to deny Jews entry into the United States.  Silent Cal did speak favorably about the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.  Finally, as Vice President he wrote a letter to a prominent Jewish leader which read in part, “’Teach the ancient landmarks to the youth of the Jewish race…That learning and wisdom which has been a sustaining influence to the Jewish race through all the centuries must be preserved for the benefit of mankind.  The youth of your people can associate themselves for no more patriotic purpose.’”

1924: In New York William and Esther Diamond Kaufman gave birth to Melvyn Kaufman, “a quixotic, unabashedly contentious developer who helped shape Manhattan’s postwar streetscape and is credited with injecting his personal brand of whimsy into the city’s office towers…” (As reported by Margalit Fox)

1924:  Birthdate of author Leon Uris.  The Baltimore native first came to national attention with the publication of Battle Cry, one of a series in what were called “the great American war novels.”  Uris based his on his own experiences as a Marine fighting during World War II.  He gained greater acclaim for his next major work, Exodus.  Exodus is one of those epic works of historic fiction which, in this case depicts the early days of Zionism and the fight to establish the Jewish state despite opposition from the British and the Arabs.  The novel was turned into a cinematic box office hit.  Uris followed this with several more novels on Jewish themes.  Mila 18 recounted the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.  QBVII, was based on a lawsuit actually filed by somebody who felt they had been defamed by a statement in Mila 18.  

1925: In Brooklyn, “Henry A. Rosenthal, who owned a fabric business, and the former Cecile Coles” gave birth Lewis Phillip Rosenthal, who gained fame as Dr. Lewis Rowland, the “leading neurologist” whose name had been in changed while he was a teen because of the Jewish quotas at Ivy League schools. (As reported by Denise Grady)


1925: Birthdate of Chicago native and football coach Marvin Daniel “Marv” Levy, the WW II veteran and Coe College athlete who may have be the only holder of a master’s degree from Harvard to coach multiple NFL teams and who, as of the turn of the century, was the only coach to make it to four Super Bowls with winning the championship game.







1928(17th of Av, 5688): Seventy-seven year old Viennese native Alfred Sach, the son of Babette and Eduard Elkan Sachs and husband of Therese Sachs with whom he had three children – “Betty, Rudolf and Marie” passed away today.

1928: “Under Suspicion,” a “silent crime film” directed by Constantin J. David was released in Germany today.

1929(26th of Tammuz, 5689): Parashat Matot-Masay

1929(26th of Tammuz, 5689):  Inventor and scientist, Emil Berliner, passed away.  Born in German in 1851, Berliner worked in a number of fields.  He developed a microphone for the telephone.  He developed the prototype for the modern phonograph record which replaced Edison’s original recording cylinders.  Until the advent of tape and CDs, his phonograph record was the backbone of the recording and music industries.  He also developed a revolutionary lightweight engine which he then put into a experimental helicopter he developed. 


1930(9th of, 5690): Tish’a B’Av

1930: In Newark, NJ. Melvin Lamb and “the former Minna Feldman” gave birth to feminist playwright Myrna Lila Lamb. (As reported by Neil Genzlinger)


1932: “Doctor X,” a horror film directed by Michael Curtiz was released today in the United States by First National Pictures through Warner Bros.

1933: The Foreign Office agrees to support a complaint submitted by Polish Jews of German Upper Silesia to the arbitration tribunal at Beuthen, against the prohibition of skechita in the plebiscite area.

1933: In Toronto, Mayor Stewart orders police to investigate the Swastika Club, an organization that has been placarding local beaches with swastikas.

1933: The Government approves movement for settlement of fifty Jewish families in the Macedonian part of Yugoslavia.

1933: Der Stuermer, Nuremberg daily, begins the publication of a black list of German young women seen in the company of Jewish men.

1933: In Wurzburg, All the Jewish student homes are occupied by Nazi storm troops to be used for party offices; the Jewish Student Association is ordered to dissolve.

1933: In Breslau, The Free Students Association, at a mass meeting decides to boycott lectures by Jewish instructors, and asks the Ministry of Education to expel the Jewish teachers remaining in the high schools.

1933: According to reports from Jaffa, three Revisionist Zionists are under arrest as suspects in the murder of Dr. Arlosoroff are formally charged with conspiring to assassinate the Zionist leader.

1934: Adolf Hitler becomes the supreme leader of Germany by joining the offices of President and Chancellor into Führer.

1935(4th of Av, 5695): Shabbat Chazon

1935: As Jews observed Shabbat, thousands of people marched through Harlem protesting Italy’s rumored plans to invade Abyssinia, the only independent state in sub-Saharan Africa that was governed by the “indigenous people.”

1936: “A petition designed to bring the German oppression of Jews and non-Aryans formally before the League of Nations as an ‘issue of international concern’ was made public” in New York “and in Paris at the same time” today.

1937: The debate over the Peel Commission report continued at the League of Nations meeting at Geneva. The Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations decided to postpone until September its deliberations of the Royal (Peel) Commission¹s Report on Palestine.

1937: At Zurich, during a meeting of the Zionist Congress the Jewish leaders were also discussing the Peel Commission Report. Dr. Chaim Weizmann said that for the past 2,000 years the Jewish people had not been confronted by the necessity to make such an important decision.  In the meantime, a Jewish water expert warned that the proposed partition border would deprive the Jewish state of all the most important water sources.  Chaim Weizmann and David Ben Gurion led the majority that decided to accept the partition plan in light of the Peel Report. Berl Katznelson, Menachem Ushishkin from Mapai (Labor) as well as the Revisionists and the Orthodox fiercely argued against it.

1937: “In Stepney in the East End of London,” “Pauline (née Hyman), a housewife, and Alfred Berks, a tailor” gave birth to Leslie Steven Berks who gained fame as English playwright and actor Steven Berkoff.

1938: “After having spent fourteen weeks in Palestine the British commission for implementing the partition scheme, head by Sir John Woodhead, has finished it task and its members sailed from Haifa today.

1938: While speaking at a testimonial luncheon being given “to honor him for his work on behalf of Jewish refugees children, comedian Eddie Cantor warned “against a spread of anti-Semitism” in the United States and “bitterly denounced Henry Ford for accepting a decoration from the German government on July 27, 1938.

1939: Less than a month before the start of WW II, “The Spy in Black” a WW I spy movie co-produced by Alexander Korda with a script by Emeric Pressburger was released today in the United Kingdom.

1940(28th of Tammuz, 5700): Parashat Masei

1940: The government at Vichy France passed anti-Jewish racial laws. 

1941(10th of Av, 5701): Tish’a B’Av

1941: One thousand, two hundred Jews arrested in Czenowitz of whom almost seven hundred were executed. 

1941: One thousand, five hundred fifty Jews were removed from the town of Mitau. 

1941: In the East Galician town of Stanislawow, which was the home of Jerzy Feliks Urman which the Russians had occupied in 1939 but was taken by the Nazis in 1941, “nearly 1,000 intellectuals and professionals” including hundreds of doctors “were murdered” by the Germans and their Ukrainian allies.

1942(20th of Av, 5702): Sixty-nine year old German born Nobel Award winning chemist Richard Willstätter who in 1924 he left his post a prominent German university because of the overt anti-Semitism he encountered passed away today in Switzerland after having left his homeland in the 1930’s.


1942: Fifteen year old Inge Fisherova was transported today from Prague to Terezin, the next stop on her ultimate destination – Auschwitz.

1943(3rd of Av, 5703): At Bedzin, a man named Baruch tried to challenge Nazi deportation orders and was shot for his effort. 

1943: “The last major deportation of residents from the Bedzin Ghetto” which sparked an uprising by members of the ZOB ended today.

1944(14th of Av, 5704): At Strassenhof Camp, 2,400 Jews were marched away never to return. They were all under the age of eighteen and gassed in a makeshift crematorium. Three days later the Red Army liberated the 600 surviving camp members

1944:  After a series of delays, Monuments Man Lt. James Rorimer landed at Normandy on what had been Utah Beach on D-Day.

1944: At the Haidari Concentration Camp, having stolen all of the glass from the Jews of Rhodes and extracted the gold from their teeth, the Germans loaded them in animal wagons, sealed the doors and shipped them to Auschwitz.

1944: Fifty-five year old Oslo businessman Ludvig Paul Cohen was deported to Auschwitz today.

1944: The Henry Gibbons arrived in New York carrying a shipload of Jewish refugees bound for the Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter.


1946(6th of Av, 5706): Parshat Devarim and Shabbat Chazon

1946(6th of Av, 5706): Seventy-seven year old Edwin I. Hyneman, the son of the Leon and Grace Marks Hyneman,  varsity football and baseball player for the University of Pennsylvania and “former part owner of the Philadelphia Phillies” passed away today after enduring the after effects of broken hip sustained when he fell on icy pavement. (Editor’s note - http://www.jewsinsports.org/profile.asp?sport=football&ID=40shows him passing away in 1945, but the New York Times obit is dated 1946)


1947: As tensions mounted in Great Britain following the killing of two British sergeants by the Irgun in retaliation for the execution of three of its fighters, violence broke out today in Manchester where “groups of men began breaking the windows of shops in Cheetham Hill…which had home to a Jewish community since the early 19thcentury” while others tore “down the canopy of the Great Synagogue on Cheetham Hill Road” and surrounded “a Jewish wedding party at the Assembly Hall” shouting “abuse at the terrified guests until one in the morning.”

1947: Three British ships - Runnymede Park, Ocean Vigour and Empire Rival – arrived in Marseilles carrying the Jewish immigrants from the SS Exodus whom the French said would only be allowed to leave the vessels if their departure were voluntary and not coerced by the British.

1948(27th of Tammuz, 5708): Sixty year old Beatrice Venetia Stanley Montagu who chose Edwin Samuel Montagu over Prime Minister Asquith and converted to Judaism to marry the Liberal MP – a marriage that was cut short by his death and was unfulfilling for her while it lasted.

1948(27th of Tammuz, 5708): Emanuel Rothstein died today while flying his Auster for the IAF.

1948(27th of Tammuz, 5708): While flying her Auster, twenty-one year old Zahara Levitov an “American education bomber pilot with the IAF died today in an air crash between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv..

1948(27th of Tammuz, 5708): Seventy-year old Hungarian nationalist and international pacifist Rosika "Rózsa" Bédy-Schwimmer  “died of pneumonia today in New York City.”



1948: “In testimony under subpoena before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC),” penitent Communist Party member Whitaker “Chambers identified Lee Pressman” the son of Jewish immigrants, “as a member of the Ware group.”

1949:  Founding of the National Basketball Association.  Jewish players and coaches had played a major role in professional basketball prior to World War II.  Ironically, the establishment of permanent professional league came at a time when Jewish participation had begun to decline.  There were still a few stars like Dolph Schayes and Red Holtzman.  Red Auberbach would prove to be the dominant coach of the fledgling league and Eddie Gottlieb continued his life time of involvement in professional basketball as the owner of the Philadelphia Warriors.

1950: In Chicago, “Shirley Levine (née Magaziner) and Marshall Landis, an interior designer and decorator” gave birth to John David Landis, the director of such comedic classic hits “National Lampoon’s Animal House,” “The Blues Brothers” and “Trading Places.”

1950: “A Lady Without Passport” a film noir directed by Joseph Lewish, produced by Samuel Marx, starring Hedy Lamar, featuring Steve Hill with a score by David Raskin was released in the United States today by MGM.

1951(1st of Av, 5711): Rosh Chodesh Av

1951: “The Secret of Convict Lake,” a western produced by Frank P. Rosenberg, with music by Sol Kaplan and script that Ben Hecht helped to write was released in the United States today.

1952: In Helsinki, the Summer Olympics, during which Holocaust survivor Agnes Keleti and gymnast, won four medals, came to an end today.

1952: The “chairman of the Bronx Independent Democrats announced” today “the formation of the Ideal party, to support M. Maldwin Fertig”  who is a Democrat who has served Governors Roosevelt and Lehaman” “for election as Surrogate of Bronx Country.”

1953: Birthdate of San Pedro, CA native Robert Edwin “Bob” Gross the forward who played college ball at Seattle University and Long Beach St. before pursuing an NBA career with the Portland Trail Blazers and San Diego Clippers.


1954: After having premiered in New York and Los Angeles, “About Mrs. Leslie” directed by Daniel Mann, produced by Hal Wallis and with a script co-authored by Hal Kanter was released throughout the United States today.

1955(15thof Av, 5715): Tu B’Av

1955: Birthdate of Mitchell Shubow Steir the UNC alum and chairman and CEO of Savils Studley who is married to entrepreneur Nancy Ganz with whom he had two children – Max and Rachel.


1958: The oil pipeline from Eilat to Haifa was completed.  Since Israeli ships and ships that stopped at Israeli ports were barred from using the Suez this joining of Israel’s two major seaports was of great economic importance. 

1958: Today the USS Nautilus which “was constructed under the direction of U.S. Navy Captain Hyman G. Rickover, a brilliant Russian-born” Jewish “engineer who joined the U.S. atomic program in 1946” “accomplishes the first undersea voyage to the geographic North Pole.”

1963(13th of Av, 5723): Parashat Vaetchcanan and Shabbat Nachamu

1963(13th of Av, 5723): Seventy-one year old James D. Zellerbach, the California born son of “Isadore Zellerbach and the former Jennie Baruh” who served as Chariman of the Board of the family business Crown Zellerbach before pursuing a career in public service that including being the U.S. Ambassador to Italy.


1963: Allan Sherman releases "Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda" the musical parody on letters campers sent home to their parents.

1963: Philip L. Graham, the chief executive officer of the Washington Post and the husband of Katherine Graham passed away today.


1964: Anthony Newley’s “Feelin’ Good” was performed for the first time in public tonight on the opening night of “The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd at the Theatre Royal” in Nottingham

1965: “You Must Be Joking” a comedy directed by Robert Michael Winner was released today in the United Kingdom.

1965: Sixty year old Murray Webber, the Los Angeles businessman who “served on the City of Hope board of directors for 15 years” passed away today.

1966(17th of Av, 5726): Comic Lenny Bruce passes away from a morphine overdose


1966: “This Property Condemned” a tragic film set in the Deep South directed by Sydney Pollack and produced by John Housman who was the son an Alsatian Jew was released today in the United States by Paramount Pictures.

1966: “Two hundred delegates from conservative synaogues in twenty-one countries are expected to attend “The sixth international convention of the world Council of Synagogues opened” which opened in Geneva today. (JTA)

1966: “The Man Called Flintstone,” an animated film featuring the voices of Mel Blanc, Harvey Korman and Paul Hersh Frees was released in the United States today.

1967: In Paris, a Hungarian Jewish director and writer Peter Kassovitz and his Roman Catholic wife, film editor Chantal Remy gave birth to Mathieu Kassovitz who “has described himself as ‘not Jewish but I was brought up in a world of Jewish humor’”

1970(1st of Av, 5730): Rosh Chodesh Av

1970: “The Adventures of Huckleberry” a film version of the novel directed by Michael Curitz, produced by Samuel Goldwyn, Jr, co-starring Tony Randall and with music by Jerome Moross was released today in the United States.


1970: Igal Shohat and Moshe Goldwasser were taken prisoner when their F4-E Phantom was shot down during the War of Attrition. Tragically, Goldwasswer reportedly died while in captivity and Shohat lost his leg.  [This is entry is a tragic reminder that the brave, unsung heroes have paid the highest price for the Jewish state of Israel.  The least we can do is remember – Zachor – their sacrifice and courage.]

1971(12th of Av, 5731): Sixty-two year old Rutgers law school graduate Philip Jerome Levin, the husband of “the former Janice Hoffman” with whom he had three children “Catherine, Susan and Adam” and “the majority shareholder of MGM” as well as the “head of Madison Square Garden” passed away today.

1973: It was reported today that Shaare Zedek in Jerusalem has announced “that its South African friends” have “decided to endow a ‘Louis Pincus post-operative intensive care project’ in memory of the late Zionist leader Louis A. Pincus.

1975(26th of Av, 5735): Sixty-three old NYU trained “labor lawyer and arbitrator” Irving Robert Feinberg, the husband Lucille Feinberg, and the father of Jean and Richard Feinberg who was active in Jewish communal activities as can be seen his with the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, United Jewish Appeal, National Jewish Welfare Board, Development Corporation for Israel, Montefiore and Maimonides Hospitals, and the Hebrew Home for the Aged” passed away today.

1975: “Prisoner of Zion Vladimir Markman arrived in Israel after serving three years imprisonment in the USSR.”

1976: “Entebbe Raid Leader Moving Up” published described plans for Brigadier General Dan Shamron the 39 year old commander who led the operation to free the hostages at Entebbe and commanded an armored brigade during the Yom Kippur War to assume a more important position in the near future.

1976: The 1976 Summer Paralympics opened in Toronto where Hagai Zamir would win a medal for volleyball.

1977: The United States Senate held hearings on MKULTRA.  MKULTRA was a study of mind control methods begun at the CIA under Allen Dulles.  Sydney Gottleib was the director of the project.

1977: The former chief of US Air Force Intelligence, Maj.-Gen. George Keegan (Ret.) accused the Carter Administration of basing its current Middle Eastern policy on quicksand. Keegan charged that the US was not disclosing its back-door intelligence which indicated that the real intentions of the Arab desire to destroy Israel were still there.  

1978: A Broadway reivival of  “Stop the World – I Want to Get Off Off” a musical “with a book, music, and lyrics” co-authored by Anthony Newley directed by Mel Shapiro with a cast that included Sammy Davis, Jr. opened today “at the New York State Theatre in Lincoln Center.

1978: Ezzedine Kalak, chief of the PLO's Paris bureau, and his deputy Hamad Adnan, were killed at their offices in the Arab League building. Three other members of the Arab League and PLO staff were wounded

1979: “North Dallas Forty,” the movie version of a marvelous little sports novel produced by Frank Yalbans who co-authored the script was released in the United States today.

1980: “Israel Applying The 'Brakesim' To Foreignisms; Begin Favors Updating of Hebrew Old Language for New Needs” published today described what some view as “the plague” of invented, non-Hebraic terms that are rapidly being added to what was once viewed as the holy tongue. “Israelis have injected so many non-Hebrew words into ‘the language of holiness’” such as “autonomiya” for the English word “autonomy” or “pluggim” for spark plugs, that “some ultra-Orthodox Hasidic sects which formerly forbade Hebrew speech because it was the language of prayer, have all their members to witch from Yiddish to Hebrew.”

1981(3rd of Av, 5741): Seventy-year old chess champion Wolfgang Heidenfeld the father of chess champion Mark Heidenfeld, passed away today.


1982(14th of Av, 5742): Ninety-two year old Leopold Philipp passed away after which he was buried at the Adath Jeshurun Cemetery in Philadelphia.

1983(24thAv, 5743): Seventy-two year old year old Walter Landauer, the Viennese native who was part of  a popular piano duo whose career spanned almost 40 years.


1985(15th of Av, 5745): Tu B’Av

1985: “An exhibition of Al Hirschfeld’s caricatures” including “several dozen of his works dating from the 1920’s to the 1980’s” that has been on display “on the second floor of London’s National Theatre” marking the first time such a showing had taken place in the United Kingdom is scheduled to come to an end today.

1986: It was reported today that Beatrice Siegel's latest book for young readers is Sam Ellis's Island.

1991(23rd of Av, 5751): Seventy-six Isador Perlman who worked with radio isotopes and taught archeology at Hebrew University passed away today.


 1992: Los Angeles premiere of the “Unforgiven” a dark western featuring Saul Rubinek as W. W. Beauchamp.

1993: The Senate voted 96-3 to confirm Supreme Court nominee Ruth Bader Ginsburg. 

1993: Yakov Kreizbergmade his debut at The BBC Proms conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra today.

1994: A plane piloted by King Hussein of Jordan flew over Jerusalem.  It was the King’s first aerial view of the city and, at the time, seen as harbinger for better times.

1994: Stephen G. Breyer completed his service as Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

1994: Stephen G. Breyer was sworn in as a Supreme Court justice in a private ceremony at Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist's Vermont summer home. At this time Jews are less than two per cent of the population and make up twenty two percent of the Justices on the Court.  

1994: Hadassah’s 80th Convention, held at the New York Hilton, comes to an end

1997: The Long Island Journal featured a report about Camp Wonderland, part of the Suffolk Y Jewish Community Center in Commack that contains a city-of-Jerusalem-playground which is the newest addition to the Y.

1997: It was reported today that “American Jewry funneled more money into religious education, and less into social activism, as the concern grew about runaway assimilation.”

1997: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including  One Hundred Years of Socialism: The West European Left in the Twentieth Century by Donald Sassoon who describes himself as a middle Eastern Jew despite having lived in England for forty years, Selected Poems, 1960-1990by Jewish born Pulitzer Prize winner Maxine Kumin, Our Guys: The Glen Ridge Rape and the Secret Life of the Perfrect Suburb by Bernard Lefkowitz and Nothing Ever Happens on 90th  Streetby Roni Schotter.

1998: Russian composer Alfred Garyevich Schnittke whose father was Jewish and whose mother was not, passed away. 


1999: Janet Yellin completed her service as Chair of “President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advsioers.”

1999(21st of Av, 5759: Eighty-five year old Yitzhak Rafael passed away today.  Born in Galicia, he made Aliyah in 1935 and eventually became active in Israeli political life as an MK and Minister of Religions.

2000(2nd of Av, 5760): Seventy-nine year old London native Michael Leverson Meyerson the scion of “a timber merchant family of Jewish origin” who “won the 1971 Whitbread Award for Biography” and whose “autobiography Not Prince Hamlet was published in 1989 passed away today.


2001: 98 U.S. senators expressed concern about popular anti-Semitism in Russia by sending a letter to then-President Vladimir Putin. The letter asks Putin to take a stronger stance in publicly condemning anti-Semitism, which gained traction from “ideological...

2002(25th of Av, 5762): Parashat Re’eh

2002: As Jews were observing Shabbat, the Bush administration was working on plans for the invasion of Iraq.

2003: The Sunday New York Times book section features a review of Fabulous Small Jews by Joseph Epstein, a collection of short stories in which “most of the characters are secular Jews who -- like Epstein himself -- are men over 50 who grew up in or around Chicago.”

2003: HBO broadcast the comedy special “Tracey Ullman in the Trailer Tales” which starred Ullman who also wrote the script and directed the show.

2004: The United Jewish Communities (UJC) eighth annual Jewish Leadership Forum (JLF) in Aspen, CO comes to a close.

2005: In a triumph for Israeli scientific and engineering capabilities a “new $250 million desalination plant in Ashkelon began pumping potable water filtered from the Mediterranean Sea” today.

2006(9th of Av, 5766) Tish'a B'Av

2005: Cynthia Aaron Glassman, the holder of a Ph.D. in economics from Penn completed a month-long stint as “acting chair” of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

2006: Jews all over the world observe the Fast Day of Tisha B’Av as the IDF battles against Hezbollah and Hamas. A barrage of Hezbollah rockets slammed into northern Israel today, killing at least eight Israelis. Four people were killed when a rocket crashed directly into a house near the northern town of Ma'alot, and another four were killed when a rocket exploded near their vehicle in Acre. Four people were seriously wounded and two others sustained moderate wounds in rocket strikes in Acre, Hurfeish and Kiryat Shmona. Another 31 people were also lightly wounded in the attacks. Shimon Zaribi, 44, and Albert ben Abu, 41, both of Acre, were killed in the rocket attack on their hometown. Sinati Sinati, Amir Naeem and Mohammed Fouad, all 17-year-old residents of the village of Tarshiha, were killed in the attack near Ma'alot.

2006: In “Hezbollah Missile Threat Assessed” published today, Frank Gardner described the threat still facing Israel after three weeks “of an intensive…air campaign.”


2007: “Hot Rod,” directed by Akiva Schaffer, starring Andy Samberg and with music by Trevor Rabin was released today in the United States.

2007: Israel Defense Forces troops shot and killed Read Abu Ads, the Islamic Jihad commander in Nablus



2008: The Sunday New York Times Editor’s Choice listings included Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists, by Susan Neiman in which the Jewish born author “champions Enlightenment values without any hint of oversimplification, dogmatism or misplaced piety.”



2008: The Washington Postfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Book of Dahlia by Jewish author Elisa Albert Hitler, The Germans and the Final Solution by Ian Kershawand Hitler’s Priests: Catholic Clergy and National SocialismbyKevin P. Spicer

2008: At the Jewish Museum in New York, an exhibition entitled Warhol's Jews: Ten Portraits Reconsidered comes to an end

2009: In Jerusalem,Beit Avi Chai's Music on Monday’s series presents A Groyse Metsie: Jewish music in various styles.

2009:About half of Israelis believe that in order to be a "true Israeli," one has to have been born in Israel, so finds the Israel Democracy Institute in its annual Israeli Democracy Index, published today.

2009:An American-Israeli crime ring conspired to defraud United States tax authorities of tens of millions of dollars for at least five years, according to Israeli and American court documents filed today.

2009(13th of Av, 5769): Rabbi Aharon Zelig Epstein Rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Shaar HaTorah-Grodno, passed away today.

2009:Chabad Lubavitch presented a request today to Yad Vashem to recognize a high-ranking military commander in the Third Reich as a righteous gentile for saving Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef Schneerson, the sixth Chabad rebbe. Admiral Canaris, commander of the Nazi Abwehr, or intelligence, had a central role in securing Schneerson's escape from the Warsaw Ghetto along with members of Schneerson's family and entourage, said Yosef Kaminetzky, a writer who recently completed a book on the escape story.

2010: Tzofim Friendship Caravan Family Concert featuring the Israeli Scouts is scheduled to take place at the Washington DCJCC.

2010(23rd of Av, 5770):Israel Defense Forces analysts believe that the Lebanese sniper fire at the Israel-Lebanon border today , which killed Lt. Col. Dov Harari and seriously wounded Captain Ezra Lakia, was in fact an ambush planned by a Lebanese officer who was encouraged by his commanders.

2010(23rd of Av, 5770):Family and friends of Dov Harari, affectionately called "Barry", who was killed Tuesday in a military confrontation on the Israel-Lebanon border, said that Harari loved his country and the Israel Defense Forces, and that everyone who knew him loved him. Harari was killed by sniper fire on his observation post while he was overseeing a tree pruning operation along the border fence with Lebanon.

2010(23rd of Av, 5770):A Jewish father of three was among the victims of a shooting rampage at a Connecticut beer warehouse. Louis Felder, the director of operations at the Hartford Distributors in Manchester, was one of eight people shot dead by an employee accused of stealing, who then killed himself. Felder was a member of the Young Israel of Stamford. Steve Hollander, the company's head of marketing, and a member of the Hollander family that founded and owns the company, was reported to have been shot, according to the Hartford Courant. “The Hollander family is probably one of the most venerated families in the Hartford area in the Jewish community," U.S. Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) told the Courant. "There isn’t a charity that they haven’t contributed to.”

2010(23rd of Av, 5770):American Rabbi Bruce M. Cohen, who joined with Farhat Agbaria an Israeli Arab in found Interns for Peace passed away today at the age of 65.

2010(23rd of Av, 5770): Ninety-seven Herman L. “Reds” Bassman the native of Philadelphia native, alum of Ursinus College and Army Air Corps Veteran who was the “oldest living former Philadelphia Eagles player” when he passed away today in Petersburg, VA.


2011: Rabbi Alfredo Borodowski is scheduled to give the first in a series of lectures entitled “The Essential Heschel: Teachings of a Modern Day Revolutionary Prophet” at the Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning.

2011: Dr. Regina Stein is scheduled to give the first in a series of lectures entitled “Jewish Holidays for Grownups” at the Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning.

2011: Michael “Fishman appeared on the Passover episode of Roseanne Barr’s reality show “Roseanne’s Nuts.”

2011:The Knesset passed a controversial housing bill today, despite the objections of leaders of the housing protest movement that has been gaining momentum across the country in recent weeks. The bill, which will slash red tape for construction by setting up national committees to approve new housing projects, was passed by a vote of 57 to 45.

2011:MK Benjamin Ben-Eliezer (Labor) told Army Radio today that he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak political asylum several months ago. Ben-Eliezer's statement came on the same day that Mubarak was transported from Sharm el-Sheikh to Cairo to stand trial for conspiring to kill protesters during demonstrations that led to his ouster earlier this year.

2012(15th of Av): Tu B’Av


2012: Fifty-nine year old award winning theatre and television producer Joan Stein passed away today.



2012: The celebration of the Israeli holiday of love, Tu B’Av is scheduled to begin this morning in the open courtyard of the Citadel of the Tower of David Museum with a musical performance of Neapolitan love songs.  

 2012: Sam Kringlen, son of Janice Binder and Jim Kringlen is scheduled to participate in Friday Night Services at Temple Judah as his Bar Mitzvah weekend begins.

2012: Hamas freed a Salafi leader of an al-Qaeda affiliated terror group, it was reported today. His group is believed to have close ties with terror cells currently operating in the Sinai. (As reported by Ron Friedman and Michal Shmulovich)

2012: A bipartisan group of six Congress members is sponsoring a bill that would ensure recognition of the plight of 850,000 Jewish refugees displaced from Arab countries since Israel's War of Independence in 1948. Their bill in the US House of Representatives also would recognize other displaced populations, including Christians from countries in the Middle East, North Africa and the Persian Gulf.

2013: “Lies in the Closet” is among the films scheduled to be shown this evening at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2013: A revival performance of Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and book by Winnie Holzman opened at the Dentsu-Shiki Theatre in Tokyo.

2013: Final performance of “Division Avenue,” a new comedic play by Miki Bone that uses the orthodoxy of the Hasidic culture to explore the challenges facing those trying to find their way in the face of doubt and modern culture´ is scheduled to take place at the June Havoc Theatre.

2013: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the traditional minyan at Temple Judah is scheduled to observe Raoul Wallenberg Shabbat where we Remember the Righteous Among the Nations including Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat who defied his government by issuing transit papers to Lithuanian Jews so they could escape the Holocaust and Aristides de Sousa Mendes who defied his government and issued transit papers to Jews so they could escape

2013(27thof Av, 5773): Eighty-six year old journalist Yehuda Lev the WW II veteran who helped to smuggle Jews into Palestine passed away today.

http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/Yehuda-Lev-US-born-journalist-and-Zionist-dies-in-Rhode-Island-at-86-322390

http://forward.com/articles/181814/yehuda-lev-journalist-and-zionist-dies-at-/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily_Newsletter_Mon_Thurs%202013-08-06&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_term=The%20Forward%20Today%20(Monday-Friday)

2013: Israeli swimmers, Guy Barnea and Jonathan Koplover, finished first and fourth respectively qualifying to swim in the finals at the World Swimming Championships in Barcelona, Spain.

2013: “Betrayed by Braun, Brewers Owner Twists in an Ill Wind” published today described the impact Ryan Braum, “The Hebrew Hammer” has had on fans, friends et al when “he was exposed as serial liar” whose greatness may rest not on his skill but on his use of performance-enhancing drugs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/sports/baseball/betrayed-by-braun-brewers-owner-twists-in-an-ill-wind.html?ref=sports

2014: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reaganby Rick Perlstein, The Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers by Tom Rachman, J.D. Salinger: The Escape Artistby Thomas Beller, The Mantle of Command: FDR at War, 1941-1942 by Nigel Hamilton and Reagan at Reykjavik: Forty-Eight Hours That Ended the Cold Warby Ken Adelman as well as an interview with Amy Bloom.

2014: The Coen Brother’s double feature is scheduled to be shown for the last time at the Washington Jewish Film Festival.

2014 The IDF spokesman announced early this morning, Israeli time that at 11:25 p.m. yesterday, August 2, the Chief Rabbi of the IDF, Brigadier Gen. Rafi Peretz, declared the death of IDF officer Lt. Hadar Goldin, who fell in the Gaza Strip on August 1, 2014. (In life he was loved and admired. He was swifter than eagles and stronger than lions.)  

2014: “Israeli singer David Broza was at the Yehud military cemetery today to sing his song "Mitahat LaShamayim" ("Under the Sky"), the song that was to be Captain Omri Tal and his girlfriend Liat Zimerman's wedding song. Instead, Broza's words floated through the air of the cemetery, over Omri's grave.”

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4554392,00.html

2014: “Some 12,000 people turned out Sunday in Johannesburg, South Africa at a rally in solidarity with Israel.”

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4554407,00.html

2014: “Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel on Sunday of deliberately killing Palestinian mothers and warned it would "drown in the blood it sheds”

2015: “As Israel sweltered in the grips of a sizzling heat wave, with temperatures in Jerusalem breaking 100º Fahrenheit (40º Celcius), the country broke its electricity use record today for the second day in a row.

2015: In Aspen, CO, Ambassador Dennis Ross is scheduled to speak at the Chabad Jewish Community Center.

2015: “One of the oldest surviving Hebrew manuscripts, a bible dating back more than 1,000 years, will soon be available online in a joint project with The British Library in London, the National Library of Israel said today. Aviad Stollman, the library’s chief of collections, said the Gaster Bible would go online as part of a project to digitize all of the 3,200 rare Hebrew manuscripts at The British Library.” (As reported by Miriam Berger)

2015: Starting today, “the Jewish Museum of Maryland in conjunction with the Baltimore Jewish Council and the Maryland State Department of Education, is scheduled to host a three day workshop on Holocaust education that focuses on giving educators the tools to help their students understand the Holocaust.”

2016: Today, “Hasbara Fellowships Canada filed a formal complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, where it accused the student and faculty associations of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) and Durham College of discriminating against Jewish students and Israel, following the banning of Hasbara Fellowships Canada from participating in a student association-sponsored “Social Justice Week” five months ago.”

2016: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to host a screening of John Frankenheimer’s “The Young Savages.”

2016(28thof Tammuz, 5776): Eighty-six year old Dolphin researcher Louis M. Herman passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/13/science/louis-herman-who-talked-with-dolphins-dies-at-86.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2016: “International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach led a mourning ceremony today for the 11 Israeli athletes and coaches slain by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics — a tribute that a widow of one of the victims said brought “closure” for the families

2016: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to host an exploration of the rebirth of the Lower East Side by a tour of four art galleries conducted by Ronnit Vasserman.

2017: “The Heart and the Wellspring, an Israeli ensemble led by Naor Carmi and clarinetist Chilik Frank” is scheduled to present and evening of “Chassidic Music from Israel at YSW.

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

2017: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host “Carnival, a Summer Soiree” a fun, fundraising activity that includes everything from acrobats to silent auctions.

2017: “In conjunction with the exhibition 500 Years of Treasures from Oxford presented by Corpus Christi College, the Center for Jewish History, and Yeshiva University Museum,” Jan Joosten, Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford is scheduled to lecture on “Hebrew: A Holy Language?”

2018: The Cornelia Street Café is scheduled to host the second night of the Israeli Jazz Spotlight Festival.

2018(22ndof Av, 5778): Eighty-six year old Egyptian born Israeli director Moshe Mizrahi, the winner of the Oscar for Madame Rosa as the Best Foreign Language Film of 1977 passed away today.

(As reported by Richard Sandomir)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/15/obituaries/moshe-mizrahi-dead.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2018: “The Prayer” and “Cellfish,” a film that “explores the life and work of artist Shelly Federman” are scheduled to shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

2018: “The American Sephardi Federation Young Leaders” is scheduled to host a “Sephardic Summer Shabbat Dinner” this evening at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan.

2019: Art Omi is scheduled to host a performance by Gilad Jerusalmy, “an independent dancer and creator for stage and media from Tel Aviv.

2019: The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host screening of “The Tobacconist” and “American Factory.

2019(2ndof Av, 5779): Parashat Matot-Masay; for more see http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/


This Day, August 4, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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August 4

70: According to some record, the date on the secular calendar when the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans.



367: Gratian, son of Roman Emperor Valentinian I, is named co-August by his father and associated to the throne aged eight.  The reign of Valentinan I was a period of religious toleration where all cults, including Judaism, were practiced with little or no interference from the state.  Gratian would reverse his father’s policy of toleration, although most of his actual edicts were aimed against the Pagans.



1060: The reign of King Henry I of France ended today when his most famous Jewish subject, Rashi, was 20 years old. 



1265: During the Baron’s War, Prince Edward (the future King Edward I of England), leading the armies his father, King Henry III defeated the forces of rebellious barons led by Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester at the Battle of Evesham killing de Montfort and many of his allies. “During the Barons Wars, the Jews were seen as instruments of royal oppression and one Jewish community after another was ransacked and many of its inhabitants killed during the fighting” which had begun in 1263.  In 1264, the violence became so bad, that many Jews fled to Normandy.  As bad as things were under King Henry III, life would be worse under the reign of Edward who would order their expulsion in 1290.



1278: Nicholas III issued a Papal Bull ordering Jews to hear sermons on conversion. 



1442: Eugene IV issued “Dudum ad nostrum audientam” a Papal Bull that “forbade Jews to live with Christians or fill public functions.

1558: The first printed edition of the Zohar appeared. This popularized the study of Kabbalah, mysticism and Messianism. 

1578: This date is considered a Moroccan Purim (Purim de Los Christianos); a celebration of a time when Jews there faced near disaster because forces led by King Sebastian of Portugal nearly succeeded in conquering the country. The Portuguese were defeated at al-Qasr al-Kabir. Their defeat meant that the Inquisition would not be coming to Morocco. The Jews of Morocco saw themselves as being delivered from a Portuguese Haman, hence the name of the celebration. 

1598: Seventy-seven year old William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, Queen Elizabeth’s chief advisor who believed that “the state could never be in safety where there as toleration of two religions’ (he was speaking here of Catholic versus Church of England but it would stand to reason that he would not have favored the re-admission of the Jews) but who also looked to the ‘Old Testament” for guidance in such matters a usury believing “that while the judicial laws of Moses were to some uniquely framed for the Jews, their moral equity applies to all nations” passed away today, working until the last moment for his sovereign. (Cecil’s seemingly schizophrenic view of relying on the Jewish book for moral guidance while not wanting to have the Jews around was not unusual then and for that matter now.)

1704: During the War of the Spanish Succession, a joint Anglo-Dutch force attacks and captures Gibraltar.  Under the terms of the treaty ending the war, the British will gain control of Gibraltar but the British are enjoined from allowing Jews to settle on this newly acquired possession.  The British ignore the prohibition and Jews are allowed to live there.

1769: Herz Wesel Gumperz and Abraham Wesel Gumperz gave birth Ruben Samuel Gumperz the husband of Roeschen Gumperz

1776: Colonel William Thomson wrote a letter to William Drayton from the banks of the Keowee River in which he described the death of 29 year old Francis Salvador.  Salvador, a Jewish patriot had been killed in South Carolina on the first of the month.  After having been wounded he was scalped.  He died of his wounds and according to Thomson, was lucid to the end.

1780: In London, Solomon da Silva Solis and Benvenida de Isaac Henriques Valentine gave birth to Jacob da Silva Solis who arrived in the United States in 1803 married Charity Hayes with whom he had seven children and still found time to found “Congregation Shanarai Chasset in New Orleans” and later became active in Congregation Shearith Israel in Mt. Pleasant, NY.

1784: Zipporah Phillips, “daughter of Jonas and Rebecca Mendes ‘Machado’ Phillips” became Zipporah Phillips Noah today when she married Manuel Noah with whom she had two children – “Mordecai Manuel Noah and Judith Noah.”

1785: Joseph de Palacios a Sephardic Jew living in Charleston, SC, married Mrs. Nathan Harris, a widow from the Island of St. Eustatius.

1789: Almost a month after the storming of the Bastille on July 14, today “members of the Constituent Assembly took an oath to end feudalism” – an action that would help move the Jews one step closer to full citizenship in a future French Republic.

1790: A newly passed tariff act creates the Revenue Cutter Service (the forerunner of the United States Coast Guard). Some of the Jews were members of, or associated with this valiant force were: musician and vocalist, Mel Torme,; Arthur Fiedler who “volunteered during the early days of World War II for the Temporary Reserve of the U.S. Coast Guard and was later a member of the Coast Guard Auxiliary” and comedian and television star Sid Caear who joined the Coast Guard in 1939. This proved to be a boon to his career. Assigned to play in military shows, he caught the attention of producer Max Liebman, who was impressed by his ability to make other musicians laugh. Liebman took him out of the orchestra and cast him as a comedian, jump-starting his career upon release from the Coast Guard in 1945. And the rest is show biz history. When Sid Caesar was celebrating his 80th birthday, The Coast Guard presented him with a public service award that read as follows:



"The Commandant of the United Stated Coast Guard takes great pleasure in wishing a joyous 80th birthday to Coast Guard veteran Sid Caesar and presenting to him this Coast Guard Certificate of Appreciation, in recognition of his public support of the Coast Guard, most notably in the early days of his career as an actor, musician and comedian and more recently as public spokesperson for the U.S. Coast Guard. Mr. Caesar joined the Coast Guard in 1939, after studying saxophone at the Julliard School of Music and playing in a number of prominent big bands. In the Coast Guard, he was assigned to play in military revues and shows, such as "Tars and Spars," but he showed a natural penchant for comedy by entertaining other band members with his improvised routines, prompting show producer Max Liebman to move him from the orchestra and cast him as a stand-up comedian to entertain troops, jump-starting his career upon his release from the Coast Guard in 1945. After leaving the Coast Guard, Mr. Caesar went on to perform his "war routine" in both the stage and movie versions of the revue, and continued under Liebman's guidance after the war, in theatrical performances in the Catskills and Florida, but he never forgot the service that launched his career. Mr. Caesar's performance distinguished the Coast Guard as an honorable and valuable service. Friends and acquaintances say he always kept the Coast Guard close to his heart, especially its hardworking enlisted members. Each and every time the Coast Guard asked Mr. Caesar for a favor, he came through for us, whether it was speaking before the Coast Guard Chief Petty Officers Association or recording audio public service announcements for Coast Guard recruiting campaigns. His respect, admiration and fondness for our service shines bright. Mr. Caesar's years of generosity, concern and dedication to the Coast Guard family are deeply appreciated and are in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Coast Guard and public service."



1814: Samuel Marx confirmed with seven other witnesses that his brother Heinrich was born in April 1777 Saarlouis.

1817: Birthdate of Max Ring, the native of Silesia who gained fame as a German poet, author and playwright.

1819: Lewis Emanuel married Rachel Henriks today at the Great Synagogue.

1819: Michael and Catherine Solomon were married today at the New Synagouge..

1821: Birthdate of Louis Vuitton, French designer and founder of the French fashion house that bears his name. According to Louis Vuitton, A French Saga, by French journalist Stephanie Bonvicin the fashion house collaborated with the Nazis during the German occupation of France. Reportedly, “members of the Vuitton family actively aided the puppet government led by Marshal Philippe Pétain and increased their wealth from their business affairs with the Germans. The family set up a factory dedicated to producing artifacts glorifying Pétain, including more than 2,500 busts. Petain's Vichy regime was responsible for the deportation of French Jews to German concentration camps.”

1823: Birthdate of Oliver P. Morton, who as Governor of Indiana during the Civil War gave Frederick Knefler his first “leg up” on a military career that would lead to him becoming a Major General by the end of the war. Morton showed that in America, a man’s patriotism was more important than his religious background.

1827: In Romania, untold numbers of Jews perished when the Jewish quarter of Jassy was swept by fire.

1830: In “Ebenezer Square, Middlesex,” Elizabeth and Jacob Lyons gave birth to Samuel Lyons, the husband of Sarah Lyons with whom he had seven children.

1832: Moses Q. Henriques became an Ensign today.

1835(9th of Av, 5595): Tish’a B’Av

1847: Ralph Levy and Phoebe Abrahams were married today at the Great Synagogue.

1856: The "Literary Items" column reported that a soon to be published 8 volume work about the religious and scholastic learning of the Jews by J.W. Etheridge is to be called Jerusalem and Tiberias, Sora and Cordova.  According to the title page, the book was designed to be “A survey of the religious and scholastic learning of the Jews; designed as an introduction to the study of Hebrew Literature.”

1857:  According to handbills which had been posted today is the deadline for all Germans and all Jews to leave Goldsboro, N.C. The order, from parties unknown, stemmed from a violent outburst that had taken place during a trial that pitted Dr. John W. Davis, a popular local physician, against Falk Odenheimer, a German-Jewish merchant.  During the trial Windal T. Robinson, a nephew of Dr. Davis, struck Odenheimer on the head with a spade, or shovel, breaking his skull. In the ensuing mêlée Charley Spaght, a step-son of Odenheimer shot Dr. Davis, seriously wounding him. Even though Davis’ nephew had started the trouble, a crowd formed that wanted to lynch Odenheimer.  Odenheimer had to be taken jail for his own safety where he was protected by a brave local citizen named T.T. Hollowell. Odenheimer and Davis both recovered from their wounds and many of the Jews who had gradually returned to Goldsboro.

1858: Solomon Harris married Elizabeth Hart today at the Great Synagogue.

1858: A report published today describing the impact of the final passage of the Oaths Bill in Great Britain said that  “Henceforth Jews may sit in Parliament. The Oaths Bill from the House of Lords has passed in the Commons, and is the law of the realm. A Jew may now qualify without swearing to uphold the Christian religion.” The final passage took place on July 21.  Word of the passage was brought by ship from England.

1860: It was reported today that the Times of London no longer has a “special advantage” or “monopoly on information” which would make a sought after journal because Mr. Reuters, “that clever and far-seeing German Jew” has used his control over “telegraphic communication to see to it that all newspapers receive the same domestic and foreign news make The Daily News the equal of the Times or its other high priced rivals. (Reuters actually converted shortly after he arrived in England from Germany, but the impact of his news service is accurately described)

1861: In Bischofstein, Prussia, Rabbi Goldreich and his wife gave birth to Samuel Goldreich, the resident of Nottingham, UK and President of the South Africa Zionist Federation who was “publicly thank by the High Commissioner for South Africa for services rendered to the Government.”

1864: In accordance with the Proclamation issued by President Lincoln, today was observed as a day of fasting and prayer. All business was voluntarily suspended, the public offices, the banks and stores were closed, and citizens flocked to such places of worship as were open for services.  At the Wooster Street Synagogue, Rabbi S.M. Isaacs, “after the usual morning service, read the Prayer for the Government, and delivered a discourse from Jonah, 3d chapter, 8th verse: "Let men and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let man call unto God with might, and let them turn everyone from his evil way, and from the violence which is in his hands." He referred to the proclamation of the President calling upon all loyal and law-abiding people to convene at their usual places of worship and implore the Almighty not to forsake the nation. He alluded to these days of fasting and humiliation recommended to be observed by the Executive authorities as losing their value from the circumstance that fasting and prayer are too often devoid of meaning; that they are unaccompanied by practical amendment. This idea was predicated on the Book of Jonah, where it is recorded that God repented of the evil he intended the Ninevites, because He observed that they forsook their evil ways and became truly penitent. He adverted to the critical condition of the country and the singular appropriateness of our national appeal to the never-ceasing mercy and goodness of Heaven. Israelites, especially, have reason to sincerely pray for the restoration of the Republic to its former greatness, prosperity and harmony. While recognizing the unspeakable happiness they had enjoyed under the protection of the Stars and Stripes, they should gaze hopefully heavenward, and their supplication would not be in vain. He prayerfully invoked Heaven to endow the rulers and the people of the land with the proper spirit -- the spirit of genuine, earnest patriotism -- that the severe trial to which our capacity for self-government and our professed loyalty to the principles of liberty and right may be for our ultimate benefit and regeneration; that the war which is now desolating the land may be speedily terminated by the return of the disaffected to the embrace of the banner whose far-spreading folds yearned to receive them as of old. He concluded his address with a suitable prayer. "

1865: A Jewish cigar peddler, hailing from New-York, was arrested and taken before Recorder Avery, of Hoboken, today, charged with peddling cigars without a license, and for which he was required to pay a fine of $5. The accused, who gave his name as Louis, pleaded and begged to be let off, declaring that he was poor; had only a dollar and a quarter; that he got married only six months since and that his wife had a baby, etc. When Wolfksy realized that the Recorder was unmoved by his plea for mercy, and that he would have to go to jail if he did not pay the fine, he very quickly produced the money and paid the fine.



1872: A group of Jewish immigrants from Alsac and Lorraine met at Mehl’s Assembly Rooms in New York.  They appointed a committee that was to organize a congregation made up of members from these two former French provinces.


1873: “Newport” published today




1878: “Ill-Treating A Faithful Wife” published today described eventful life of Mrs. Josephine Lewinski who is seeking a divorce from Phillip Lewinski “one of the members of the notorious Lowery gang of gang of counterfeiters” who were arrested in Brooklyn.


1878: Mr. Ottinger is President of a new Jewish organization in New York that has been formed to provide free trips up and down the Hudson River for poor and sick children during the summer.  If the group can raise more than the $1,200 it already has, it will provide “seaside” recreation for poor Jewish girls working in local shops and factories.




1878:  The facts surrounding the condition of Jennie Minster which has been described as a “case of insanity” were revealed at Bellevue Hospital tonight.  Miss Minster, an 18 year old Jewess, went to work for Simon Metzger, a prominent Jew living in New Haven, Connecticut. Given her beauty and accomplished nature, Metzger made her the governess for her children.  Last week she was brought back to her parents’ home in New York by Mr. Metzger who said she was “a violent lunatic.”  According to Metzger, Miss Minster had been bathing with the family at the summer resorts called Savin Rock when she sank in the water.  She was rescued and when she regained consciousness, “it was found that her fright had entirely robbed her of her sanity.”  Her parents took her to Bellevue where she was placed in a padded cell due to her violent nature.  Authorities accept Metzger’s version of events but are still puzzled as what to do next.


1878: The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the estate of the Jewish businessman Michael Reese is valued at somewhere between five and ten million dollars. The bequests show the same broad generosity that he had displayed during his lifetime. Among the beneficiaries are the University of California which is to get $650,000 and the Hebrew Orphan Asylum which is to get $25,000.


1878: It was reported that “a number of charitable Hebrew gentlemen” in New York “have formed an association for the purpose of taking” sick and poor Jewish children on excursions on the Hudson River.  So far they have raised $1,200.  If they can raise more money they plan to include “poor shop or factory girls” in the excursions.




1881(9th of Av, 5641): Tish’a B’Av

1881: In what would seem to be a strange choice of date, the Young Men’s Hebrew Association is scheduled to host an outing aboard the SS Long Branch will sail out to and around Staten Island.

1881: After the deputy coroner performed an autopsy on Samuel Alt, an elderly Jewish man found floating in the water at the foot of east 76th Street, the coroner concluded  that “death resulted from concussion of the brain and compression due to serious effusion caused by violence.”  The deceased had probably been knocked down by a “violent blow over the left eye” and after being rendered unconscious was “thrown or pushed into the water.”

1882: Birthdate of Jerusalem native Dr. Nima H. Adlerblum, a promoter of the works of John Dewey as well and active member of the world’s Jewish community as can be seen in her role as “a founder of the national cultural and educational program of Hadassah and her authorship of such works as A Perspective of Jewish Life Through Its Festivals

https://www.nytimes.com/1974/08/02/archives/nima-adlerblum-philosopher-92-interpreter-of-dewey-deadwriter-and.html

https://www.amazon.com/Memoirs-Childhood-Approach-Jewish-Philosophy/dp/0765760126

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/nima-adlerblum

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/adlerblum-nima



1882: In New York State Supreme Court, Judge Donahue granted Fannie Warburg a limited divorced from her husband August Warburg “on the grounds of inhuman conduct toward her…”  The judge awarded her custody of the four children and appointed a Referee to recommend that amount of alimony she should receive.


1883(1st of Av, 5643): Rosh Chodesh Av

1883: It was reported that the ten Hungarian Jews who have been standing trial on charges that they killed a Christian girl so they could her blood “in their Passover bread” have been acquitted. While the prosecution had not case, the defendants would have been found guilty were it not for the fact that the “abundant perjury” prosecution witnesses had been exposed to the world “under the bright light of publicity.”


1883: Charles A.L. Totten, one of those who supported the plan for the Jews to return to “their old homes in Palestine” “through an international conference” began serving as Professor of Military Science and Tactics at the Cathedral School of St. Paul in New York

1884: It was reported today that Solomon Rintel, a Jewish immigrant from Hungary had taken his own life because he was despondent about having lost his job.  In a note found by Max Schack, his brother-in-law, Rintel had tried to commit suicide three years ago while he was living in Gratz. [Adjustment to a new land was tough on immigrants as stories like this remind us.  The streets were not paved with gold.]

1884: Herzl enters his law practice in the service of the state.

1884: Birthdate of Benjamin Antin, the Russian born American lawyer who served in the New York State Assembly and New York State Senate.

1885: It was reported today the Cassell & Co will soon be published a new novel – As It Was Written: A Jewish Musician’s Story by Sidney Luska. “The name Sidney Luska is a pseudonym.  The author is said to be a young man, the son of a noted lawyer” who has spent so much time with the Jews “that he fairly thinks as a” Jew. (For more about this from an non-contemporaneous source see Josh Lambert’s “As It was written: A Jewish Musicians Story” http://mobile.myjewishlearning.com/culture/2/Literature/Jewish_American_Literature/Immigrant_Literature/As_It_Was_Written.shtml

1887: Birthdate of Minneapolis native Louis H. Phillips, the WW I veteran, lawyer and National Commander of the United Veterans of the Republic.

1888: At least 20 people died today when the Stern Building in the Bowery went up in flames. The fire probably began in the stove of a loft occupied by Solomon Cohn. At first the authorities thought that the fire was set intentionally but when they discovered that none of the tenants had insurance they discounted that theory.  Mr. Stern, the owner of the building has asked the United Hebrew Charities to take of the funeral arrangements, which along with any medical expenses, he will pay for out of his own pocket.

1888(27th of Av, 5648): Parashat Re’eh

1888: Rabbi Tabenahus preached his first sermon at the Temple Gates of Hope based on the teachings of Isaiah, “And then thy children shall be taught of the Lord and great peace shall come to thy children.”

1888: “Mistaken Quotations” published today described the repeated attempts to attributed to the Bible stories that are not actually there, including the one that the Hebrews in the Bible were commanded to make bricks without straws. “If men would examine the Bible text more carefully before they assail it or before they attempt it defense, there would fewer blunders made in both directions.” (For those of you living in the United States, you realize that this advice is still very valid in the 21st century.)

1889: In Ulster County, NY, a gang of thugs calling themselves the “Yellowstone Cowboys” were arrested this morning when they returned to a Mr. Epstein’s boarding house with the intent of forcing him to feed them a free breakfast.

1889(7th of Av, 5649): Seventy-seven year old Isaac Phillips, the fifth child of Naphtali Phillips and Rachel Hannah, the husband of Miriam Timble who had converted to Judaism before her marriage, who “served as president of Congregation Shearith Israel” and co-founder of Mount Sinai Hospital passed away today.

1890: In Jerusalem, Rabbi Chaim Hirschenson, originally of Safed, and Eva (Cohen) Hirschenson gave birth to Tamar de Sola Pool.




1891: Twenty-one of the Russian Jews who had been detained at the Barge Office, New York’s entry point for immigrants, were allowed to leave and continue on their respective destinations.

1891: Thirteen Jewish immigrants who arrived at Locust Point, MD aboard a Dutch ship were allowed to land today.

1891(29th of Tammuz, 5651): Seventy-three year old Salvatore de Benedetti, the Italian scholar who took advantage of the news granted to the Jewish people under Victor Emmanuel to pursue an academic career that included becoming a Professor of Hebrew at the University of Pisa where he wrote Vita e Morte di Moses, a compilation of “the legends concerning the great Hebrew legislator.”

1891: “The Russian Jew Exodus” published today described the plans sponsored by Baron Hirsch and supported by Western Jews to deal with wave of immigrants leaving the Czar’s Kingdom.  A delegation will be sent to St. Petersburg to serve as a central committee and will establish provincial committees which will be “charged with regulating the exodus.”  Russian Jews who leave “without the sanction of the Central Committee” will not receive the benefits offered by Baron Hirsch. (Compare the 19th century response to the crisis of Russian Jewry with the 20th century response to the crisis of German Jewry)

1892: “Sanitarium for Hebrew Children” published today provided a summary of the society’s including the fact that from June 28 to July 31, it has provided free excursions for 3,481 mothers and children.

1892(11th of Av, 5652): Eighty two year old Ernestine Louis Rose, the daughter of a Polish rabbi who became a leading feminist, abolitionist and self-declared atheist, passed away.



1893: Abraham Finberg, the President of a small Orthodox congregation at 44 Orchard Street said he is prepared to go to court to retrieve the synagogues records that had been taken Louis Cohen, who had been deposed as the rabbi.

1894: As evidence of the acceptance of Jews at the highest level of British society, Lord Rothschild nominates six horses for the upcoming Derby.

1895: Birthdate of “Brailov, Russia” native Samuel L. Calechaman who came to New Haven, CT in 1897 where he attended Yale, worked as an “insurance agent and chemist” who was an active member of the Jewish Community Center.

1895: Birthdate of New York native Edward Anthony, a reporter for the New York Herald, press director for Herbert Hoover’s 1928 presidential campaign and the publisher of two leading magazines – “Woman’s Home Companion” and “Colliers.

1895: The Jewish citizens of Yonkers, NY, were reported today to have chosen B.H. Shulman to serve as president of their newly formed “religious organization” which hold High Holiday Services at the Odd Fellows Hall this September.

1895: Attorney Meyer J. Stein filed a suit in replevin in Kings County on behalf of a client who had a dispute over a hotel bill from a stay at the Hotel Lowry owned by J.L. Lowery which had sign saying “No Jews” posted.

1895: Aaron Drucker was fined five dollars in the Essex Market Court today  after the Magistrate “told him he had acted wrongly” when he interrupted the services Church of Sea and Land denouncing them as a vehicle for converting Jews to Christianity.

1895: “Jewish Women’s Council” published today provided a history and description of the National Council of Jewish Women which was formed following “the Woman’s Congress held at Chicago in 1893” during the Columbian Exposition. The council was formed in Chicago in 1894 and currently has chapters in 13 cities. Mrs. Rebekah Kohut is President of the New York Council. Miss Rosa Sonneschein is the editor of The American Jewess, the council’s monthly magazine. The next national convention is scheduled to take place at New York in May, 1896.


1896: Rehearsals began today at the Olympia Theatre for Oscar Hammerstein’s “new romantic comic opera ‘Santa Maria.’”

1896(25th of Av, 5656): Bertha Lewis (née Cohen), the daughter of Rabbi Raphael Isaac Cohen, sister of Theresa Otterbourg (née Cohen) and wife of David Lewis with whom she supported many Jewish institutions including “the Seel Street and Princes Road synagogues of the Liverpool Old Hebrew Congregation” passed away today. Her obituary in the Jewish Chronicle states: “She had friends everywhere – in France and Germany as in England. During the last few years, she resided at Devonshire Lodge, Landbroke Terrace, and at her home one was almost sure of meeting somebody interesting – a painter or a sculptor or a professor.”

1897: “The Pan-Anglican or Lambeth Conference issued an encyclical today that, among other things expressed “a wish for an increase in proselytizing among the Jews.” (Ah the 1890’s – the Russian are trying to kill the Jews and the English are trying to convert the Jews)

1898: Joseph Purzin began teaching at a summer school funded by the Baron de Hirsch Fund at Osborn Street and Sutter Avenue in Brownsville.

1898 Birthdate of Russian born American Conservative Rabbi, William S. Malev.



1898: Corporal Moses Blum, 1st Sergeant John F. Wolfson and Private Charles Myer were among those who became part of the United States Military when the 3rdMississippi Volunteer Infantry was mustered into service today at Jackson, Mississippi.

1898: Mrs. Bella Pesin and her husband gave birth to Samuel Pesin a graduate of NYU Law School and New Jersey state legislator who served as the Secretary of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association in Hudson, NJ and was the husband of Libby Pessin with whom he had two children – Edward and Ada.

1899:”Actors Get Engagements” published today provided information about the upcoming theatrical season including the fact that Jacob LItt has hired Sidney Herbert to play a leading part in “The Ghetto” which will open at the Broadway Theatre in October.

1900: Birthdate of George Himmelfarb, the son of a Lodz shoe manufacture and the hold of a Ph.D in Comparative Religion who settled in London in 1937 where he gained fame as George Him the “freelance designer and design consultant” whose clients included El Al and illustrator of children’s books including The Little Red Engine Gets a Name.

1900(9th of Av, 5660): Russian-born artist Isaac Levitan died days before his fortieth birthday. For a look at some of his works see



1901(19th of Av, 5661): “Simon Rice of Scranton, PA,” passed away today “in a hospital in Philadelphia” leaving behind bequests that included “$100 each to the Deborah and Jewish Relief Societies of Scranton” and a provision in his will that “the residue of the estates, amounting to $40,000 or $50,000 to be equally divided – after his wife’s demise – between the Hebrew Union College, the Jewish Hospital for Consumptives in Denver, CO and the Farm School in Doylestown, PA.

1902(1st of Av, 5662): Rosh Chodesh Av

1902: Birthdate of Clara Peller, the Russian born Chicagoan who gained famed in the 1980’s as the “Where’s the Beef” lady in the Wendy’s commercials.


1904: Birthdate of New York City native Dr. Isidor Margolis, a member of the Yeshiva University Faculty and author who “served as executive director of the World Council on Jewish Education and the National council for Torah Education of the Religious Zionists of America” while raising three children with his wife Edna Heffler Margolis.

1909: In São Paulo, Brazil, “Cecilia Burle, an upper class Brazilian Catholic woman whose family came from Pernambuco and France, and Wilhelm Marx, a German Jew, born in Stuttgart and raised in Trier gave birth to landscape artist Roberto Burle Marx.



1910: Birthdate of Hedwig Lindenberg, the Bucharest native who gained fame as “Hedda Sterne, an artist whose association with the Abstract Expressionists became fixed forever when she appeared prominently in a now-famous 1951 Life magazine photograph of the movement’s leading lights”  (As reported by William Grimes)

1910: Birthdate of American composer and educator William Schuman who passed away in 1992 at the age of 81. 

1911(10th of Av, 5671): Seventy year old Heinemann Vogelstein a leader of the Reform Movement who served as the rabbi in Pilsen and then Szczein and expressed his opposition to Zionism in a pamphlet entitled “Zionism, A Threat to the Prosperous Development of Judaism” passed away today in St. Moritz.

1911: Birthdate of Jacob Mortimer Rothschild the son of Pittsburgh, PA residents Lillian and Meyer Rothschild.

1911: In Russia, the St. Petersburg Jewish community opened a Teacher’s Training College and Museum in memory of two deceased Jewish communal leaders, Barons Horace and David de Gunzberg.

1911: The Jewish community of Ekaternioslaff, a Russian city on the Dneiper River, petitioned the government for the right to build a medical school next to the local Jewish hospital.  The government agreed if the Jewish enrollment was limited to fifteen per cent.  By October, the governor of the province would be attempting to ban Jews from the town.

1911: In Great Britain, American Reform Rabbi Israel I. Mattuck was named as the first spiritual leader of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue.  Born in 1883, Mattuck, who passed away in 1954, was an author, commentator and proponent of Classical Reform Judaism

1911: At a conference in New York, the Seventh Day Adventists adopted resolutions condemning the mistreatment of Jews.

1911: Birthdate of Bernardo Segall, the native of Campinas Brazil who became a popular American composer and pianist.


1911: Samuel Oppenheimer was elected professor of Astronomy at the University of Vienna.

1912: Birthdate of Raoul Wallenberg, one of the truly great, brave people of history. A Swede, Wallenberg risked his life by going to Hungary in 1944 and literally yanking thousands of Jews from the jaws of death. He disappeared into the hands of the Red Army when it liberated Budapest. Some claim that he passed away in a Soviet prison in 1947. But nobody really knows what happened to him other than the fact the world did nothing to save him.  

1912: In Donora, PA, founding of Congregation Ohab Sholom

1911: Rabbi Israel I. Mattuck was “elected as the first minster of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue” in London.








1912: Birthdate of historian Daniel Baruch Aaron.




1912: In Trenton, NJ, founding of People of Truth Synagogue

1912:  Birthdate of composer and writer David Raskin who wrote the scores for numerous films, many of which were famous in their day but now are only seen on TCM or other such venues.  Raskin was caught up in the Red Witch Hunt of the late 1940’s and 1950’s.  He was not a victim of the blacklist since he gave the investigators the one thing they wanted, the names of more people they could investigate. He passed away in 2004.

1913: It was reported today that “new synagogue is being erected in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn” at a cost of $30,000 which might explain why the “lower part of the building” will not be used for worship, but will rented for stores instead.

1913(1st of Av, 5673): Rosh Chodesh Av (Unbeknownst to anybody, Europe is starting its last twelve months of peace.  A year from now WW I will have begun. To paraphrase one English statesmen, the lights of the world were about to go out and we do not know when they will come back on again.

1913: Funeral services are scheduled to be this afternoon for 23 year old Lillian (Levy) Gordon, the wife of Louis J. Gordon and the daughter of Joseph and Anna Levy followed by burial at the Waldheim Cemetery.

1914: After Great Britain had declared war on Germany at the start of World War I, Sir Edgar Speyer resigned as a partner in the Frankfort branch of his family’s banking business.   Speyer, the American born son of German parents had become a naturalized British citizen in 1892. Speyer would spend the war defending himself against charges of being disloyal and accusations that he was supporter/spy for Germany.  

1914: “When war was declared” today, “the Jewish Chronicle front page headline proclaimed: “England has been all she could be to Jews; Jews will be all they can be to England” and as proof of that statement “within a year 10,000” Jews had signed up “including Lieutenant Frank De Pass, who was to become the first Jewish soldier awarded the Victoria Cross – and the very first soldier in the Indian Army to be awarded a VC.” (As reported by Lord Sterling, president of the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women (AJEX))

1914: Germany invades Belgium which forces Great Britain to declare war on Germany since the British are guarantors of Belgian independence and neutrality.  It was the invasion of Belgium that “sealed the deal” and turned the nascent European hostilities into World War I.  From the vantage point of the 21stcentury, we can see so many places where this war might have been avoided and all that flowed from it including the Shoah.  In other words, if the Germans had viewed treaties as more than “a scrap of paper” (the way one German leader reportedly described the treaty guaranteeing Belgium’s independence, six million Jews might not have been smoke and ashes.)

1915: “On the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Max Schwartz, “a carpenter who sang in local choirs” and his wife Eva gave birth to Yitzhak Schwartz, the youngest of their six children who gained fame as pianist and band leader Irving Fields who “pioneered the melding of Cuban sound with Jewish rhythm via his Bagels and Bongos series in the 1950's to create a vibe which is equal parts Havana, Harlem, and the Catskills.”




1915: It was reported today that among the ten thousand prisoners being held by the Germans in a camp “near the university town of Giesen in Upper House includes “Russian Jews.”

1916: During the Battle of Romani, the last attempt by the Central Powers to cross the Suez, the Anzac Mounted Division engaged the German Pasha I formation and the Ottoman 3rd Infantry Division slowing their advance and giving other units of the British Army to mount a defense.

1917(16thof Av, 5677): Shabbat Nachamu is observed for the first time after the U.S. began fighting in WW I.

1917: “Late reports from the local exemption boards in all parts of New York tonight indicated that the 30,000 men for the National Army to be supplied by New York City,” a significant number of whom will be Jewish according to Benjamin Swartz, will be met by the end of this week.

1918: Birthdate of Sidney Harman the Montreal native an audio pioneer who built the first high-fidelity stereo receiver, dabbled in education and government, and made a late-in-life splash by acquiring an antiquated Newsweek magazine and wedding it with a sassy young Web site, The Daily Beast…(As reported by Robert McFadden)

1918: “An Allied force landed at Arkhangelsk, Russia, beginning a famous military expedition dubbed Operation Archangel with the professed objective of which was to prevent the German Empire from obtaining Allied military supplies stored in the region” but was really thought to be a way of thwarting the Bolshevik Revolution.

1918: “Mrs. Moses Mielzner, he widow of the late Dr. Moses Mielziner, dean of the faculty of Hebrew Union College…celebrated her 80th birthday anniversary at the home of her son Benjamin Mielziner” where she was joined by “her son Leo Mielziner, the artist from New York City, her daughters Belle and Ernestine, the latter of whom is a Red Cross Nurse at Camp Sherman” but not by her son Rabbi Jacob Mielziner, the 1900 graduate of Hebrew Union College “who is ow living in Copenhagen” with his wife.

1918: Corporal Adolf Hitler was award the Iron Cross, First class, based on the recommendation of his regimental adjutant, Captain Hugo Guttman who was Jewish.

1918: In “East Side’s Patriotic Upheaval” published today, Richard Barry described the change in this predominately Jewish neighborhood from Socialism to American patriotism in the last six months.


1918:


1919: Dr. Joseph Silverman, the rabbi of Temple Emanu-El delivered the eulogy at the funeral of Oscar Hammerstein which was attended a large throng including “men and women of theatrical and operatic prominence.”

1919: Abraham Goodman Jacobs and Sarah Jacobs, the daughter of Abraham Simcha (Simon) Flashtiq and Rebekah Flashtiq, gave birth to David Samuel Jacobs

1919: It was reported today that “Hetman Gregorieff who commanded the troops in the capture of Odessa a month ago” where there was a massacre of those living in the Jewish quarter “has been shot with a revolver by a rival commander of the Ukrainian insurgent forces.”

1920(20thof Av, 5680): Eighty-four year old Morris Grabfelder, a native of Bavaria and a U.S. veteran of the Civil War and a retired distiller from Louisville, KY who served on “the board of the Jewish Hospital for Consumptives” passed tonight in Atlantic City where his brother Samuel had been a realtor for several years.

1921(29thof Tammuz, 5681): Seventy-three year old “Alfred Neymarck,” the son of “Mayes and Henriette Neumark” and the “husband of Jeanne Neymarck” with whom he had one child “Henriette” passed away today in “La Tronche sur Isere, France.”

1922: In the Bronx, David Winick, a house painter and his wife the former Sadie Brussel gave birth to “Charles Winick a professor of anthropology and sociology who wrote a book bemoaning the blurring of lines between the sexes and who challenged prevailing views about the dangers of drug abuse.”




1922: “A young Zionist named Zalker was killed by an Arab in the outskirts of Haifa.” Early in the day, five Jewish porters had been injured in a clash with Arabs over who would carry the luggage of tourists arriving at the port.

1922 (10th of Av): Jewish author David Frischmann passed away today



1924: Birthdate of Alfred Klein who in 1942 was transported from Prague to Ujazdow where he was murdered.

1928: “Warming Up,” a baseball movie produced by Adolph Zukor and Jesse Lasky based on a story by Sam Mintz was released today by Paramount Pictures.

1929: Founding of the Jewish agency for Palestine.

1931: In Brooklyn, Yiddish theatre actress Rose (Zapol) Avrich” and “dress manufacturer Murray Avrich” gave birth today to Cornell and Columbia trained  historian Paul Avrich who specialized in the study of 19th and 20th anarchism while raising two daughters – Jane and Karen – with his wife Ina Avrich



1933:In France, An International Committee for the Protection of Academic Freedom and the Rights of Savants in all countries is formed to help German Jewish scholars and students in jeopardy in Germany.

1933: In Austria,President Miklas appoints four Jews as university professors out of nine new appointments.

1933: In the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Sarah (née Tonkin) and Arthur Adelson gave birth to Sheldon Adelson, who in 2011 “was ranked as the world's 16th-richest man with a net worth of $23.3 billion.”

1933: In Moscow, an official map of Soviet nations and nationalities, shows that the Jewish population is two and a half million or 1.7% of the total.

1936: In Danzig, “the Free City’s Supreme Court in a judgement rendered today” “an anti-Jewish boycott was officially sanctioned.”

1936: “Judge William Allen of General Sessions, following a half-hour argument today reserved decision on a motion to inspect and minutes of the June grand jury that indicted Robert Edward Edmondson, pamphleteer on allegations that he libeled the Jewish religion” among others.

 1937: Zurich was in a holiday mood with thousands of visitors arriving hourly for the 20th Zionist Congress. Hotels and pensions were filled to capacity. Only one Swiss paper, Die Front, a Nazi organ, published a venomous attack on Jews. Dr. Franz Kahn opened the Congress with the same gavel used by Theodor Herzl at the First Congress in 1897. Dr. Chaim Weizmann delivered his 40-minute opening address. He pointed out the need to decide whether to accept or reject the Royal (Peel) Commission¹s Report on Palestine, pointing out to the advantages and disadvantages of the scheme. 

1937: In Geneva, the Permanent Mandate Commission of the League of Nations examined both the Peel and Palestine administration¹s reports and tried to determine whether the Palestine Mandate, drafted in 1922, was indeed no longer workable and whether the necessary fundamental changes, as requested by Great Britain, ought to be carried out. 

1937(27th of Av, 5697): Mrs. Babette Marcus, the wife of User Marcus and one of the founders of the Babette Marcus Aid Society which, among other things, provided non-interest bearing loans to poor people passed away today in Brooklyn



1937: “Artists and Models” a comedy starring Jack Benny, featuring Ben Blue and with music by Victor Young, Leo Robin and Frederick Hollander was released today in the United States.

1938: Birthdate of Judith Smith Kaye, the first woman to serve as Chief Judge of New York, “the State Judiciary’s highest office.”

1938: In Philadelphia, Edwin and Margaret Dannenbaum Wolf gave birth to Ellen Wolf Schrecker the graduate of Radcliffe and Harvard who is “an American professor emerita of American history at Yeshiva University” and considered by some to be “the dean of the anti-anti-Communist historians.”


1938: The New York Round Table of the National Conference of Jews and Christians” at Hunter College sponsored a “mass meeting” where the topics covered were “The Jew In America,” “Catholicism and Fascism “ and “Students and the Interfaith Movement.”

1938(7th of Av, 5698): Seventy-eight year old Austrian native and “clothing merchant” Leon Tuchman, “the treasurer of the Uptown Talmud Torah,” “a member of Congregation Ohab Zedek” and father of Aaron Tuchman and Rebecca Weil who eight years ago “gave $50,000 to the endowment fund of Yeshiva College” passed away today.




1938: Rabbi Benjamin Plotkin spoke at mass rally this evening sponsored by the New York State International Labor Defense.

1938: It was reported by the official news agency in Germany, that “the City Council has expropriated the old synagogue and administrative buildings of the Jews Cultural Society on Hans Sachs Platz” so what Julius Streicher described as “the disgrace of Nuremberg” can be demolished before the Nazi Party’s annual convention in September.

1938: While on a boating trip, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini discussed Adolf Hitler’s new anti-Semitic laws with his mistress, saying “We must give Italians a feeling of race so that they don’t create half-castes, so that they don’t spoil what is beautiful...

1939: As the election campaign for Mexico’s next President gains new candidates, General Juan Almazan gained support among the nation’s railway workers with a platform that promises to oppose “the immigration of Spanish and Jewish refugees.  (Editor’s note -  how does this play with 21stcentury contest  over immigration in the United States)




1939: The inquiry into recent attacks on Jews in Beirut revealed that a cache of arms including machine guns, rifles, pistols, dynamite “and a good deal of ammunition: has been found in “the house of a municipal night watchman whose duty it was to guard the Jewish quarter”

1940(29th of Tammuz, 5700): Just months before his 60thbirthday, Ze'ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky passed away while inspecting a Betar Camp in New York. 



http://www.jabotinsky.org/Site/home/default.asp

http://www.ou.org/chagim/yomhaatzmauth/jabo.html





1940: Margret and Hans Rey arrive in Rio de Jeneiro aboard the Angola.



1940: Hugo Gutmann (aka Henry G. Grant) who during WW I served as an officer in a regiment that included Adolf Hitler and his family reached Lisbon and safety after having fled from Brussels across France ahead of the advancing Nazi forces.

1941: The Jewish community of “Varklan, a small town north of modern-day Daugavpils in Latvia” which had been the home to many of the Jews who began arriving in Tulsa, OK in 1902 “was exterminated today by the Nazis.”

1942: The first train with Jews from Belgium went to Auschwitz. The train contained 998 Jews. Normally the Germans would wait until they had an even thousand before sending a train from Belgium to Auschwitz. (On April 19, 1943, three Jewish resistance fighters would stop the Twentieth Train with Jews bound for Auschwitz. Several hundred Jews would escape, although many were caught in later round-ups and sent to the camps. This episode teaches us many valuable lessons. One of them is about Jewish courage in the face of almost certain death. Another of them is that history is not made up of events, but of the events we know about. The ambush took place on the same day as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Both were events of great courage. But we only celebrate the events at Warsaw because that is the one that most people know about.)

1942: One thousand Jews were deported from Theresienstadt. 

1942: In Warsaw, Chaim Kaplan wrote the last entry in his diary before he was murdered: “If my life ends - what will become of my diary?”  Saul Friedlander would see to it that the material covered in the diary would survive the killers and the victims when he would he use it as resource material for The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945

1942(21st of Av, 5702): In Radom, Poland, 10,000 Jews were assembled for deportation to Treblinka. The Germans began shooting them as they gathered.  

1942: An additional 13,000 Jews were rounded up in Warsaw as Operation Reinhard continued into its second month.  

1942: “My Sister Eileen,” a comedy written by Joseph A. Field and Jerome Chodorov and produced by George S. Kaufman which had opened on Broadway at the Biltmore Theatre, transferred to the Martin Beck Theatre where it opened tonight.

1943: Fifty-seven year old Dr. Ernst Eylenburg was deported from Berlin to Terezin, which was the first leg on the trip to Auschwitz where he was murdered.

1943: “The Man from Down Under” a movie set in post WW I Australia directed and produced by Robert Z. Leonard was released in the Unites States today.

1944: A limited number of Jewish war refugees arrived in New York Harbor.  They then moved to a decommissioned army camp in Oswego New York. Ruth Gerber, an American journalist was selected“to go on a secret mission to escort the refugees to the United States. This journey became ‘the defining Jewish moment’ of Gruber's life.  In her role as a spokesperson for the refugees, Gruber presented the refugees' journey as a human interest story for the press. She told the New York Times that the refugees represented "a cross-section of every refugee now pouring into Italy," including Jews, Catholics and Protestants for whom religious services were held onboard the ship. In a touching moment in Haven, her book recounting the voyage, Gruber recalls a rabbi conducting a service as the boat passed the Statue of Liberty, and her pride in telling the Jewish refugees of the Holocaust that the poem on the base was written by Emma Lazarus, an American Jew.The story of these European refugees stands out as a momentary relaxation of America's restrictive immigration policy. President Roosevelt's decision provided the refugees with a safe haven as "guests" in the United States during the war, with the assumption that "they were destined to be sent back to their homelands when the peace comes." While Roosevelt planned to allow the nearly 1000 refugees to reside in the United States only until the end of hostilities, when the end of the war came, Gruber lobbied the President and Congress—with the help of Catholic, Jewish and Protestant clergy—and convinced the officials to let the refugees stay. While the story ended happily for these refugees, sadly it came at the expense of others waiting in displaced persons camps in Europe. Since the overall immigration laws and quotas remained unchanged, the close to 1000 refugees were just subtracted form that year's quota.

1944(15th of Av, 5704): Tu B’Av – Editor’s note: there are times when the calendar seems to be mocking us.

1944(15, of Av, 5704: “On only the fourth day of the Warsaw Uprising, the 23 year old poet Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński was killed by a German sniper in the city’s Old Town.” (As reported by Benjamin Paloff)






1944: Anne Frank was arrested with her parents and sister. Anne, 15 years old, was sent to Bergen-Belsen where she died in March 1945. 

1944: Victor Kugler, one of the people who helped to hide Anne Frank was arrested by Karl Silberbauer and taken to Gestapo headquarters where he was interrogated and ten transferred “to a prison for Jews and 'political prisoners' awaiting deportation on the Amstelveenseweg.”

1945(25th of Av, 5705): Fifty-five year old Eugene E. Sperry, a native of New York and the son of Levi and Bertha Spiegelberg passed away today in Deal, N.J.

1945: In Haifa Miriam and Shmuel gave birth to Benjamin Zeev Kol-Kari who lost his life when the Dakar, an Israeli submarine sank with all hands on board.

1945: British movie producer Sydney Bernstein received a memo from the British Foreign Office which put an end to the documentary he was making “German Concentration Camps Factual Survey” although the footage he had gathered was used in the war crime trials at Nuremberg.

1945: Birthdate of actor and comedian Richard Belzer 

1947: In the wake of yesterday’s anti-Jewish violence Walter Lever, a working-class Jewish resident of Manchester said that “today, “all premises belonging to Jews for the length of a mile down” Cheetham Hill Road “had gaping windows and he pavements were littered with glass.”

1947: “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” a movies based on the short story character of the same name produced by Samuel Goldwyn, starring Danny Kaye and featuring songs by Sylvia Fine and a score by David Raskin, premiered in Chicago today.

1948: Today, Lee Pressman, a labor lawyer and son of Jewish immigrants, “characterized” the testimony of former Communist Party member Whittaker Chambers as “smering me with the stale and lurid mouthinings of a Republican exhibitionist who was bought by” Time/Life publisher Henry Luce.

1948: “Regulations of the activities of the recognized religions, including Judaism, were set down in the today’s order of the presidium of the Grand National Assembly (which also served as the presidency of the state)

1949(9th of Av, 5709): Tish’a B’Av  (Does one still mourn for the destruction of Jerusalem now that the Jewish state is a reality?)

1950: Sixty-four year old Norihiro Yasue “an Imperial Japanese Army colonel who played a crucial role in the so-called Fugu Plan, in which Jews were rescued from Europe and brought to Japanese-occupied territories during World War II” passed away today in Soviet labor camp.




1950: In Rehovot, Daniel and Tzipora Gov gave birth to Israeli entertainer Gidi Gov who “was married to playwright Anat Gov with whom he has three children.”

1951(2nd of Av, 5711): Parashat Matot-Masei

1951: Birthdate of Yona Metzger, the native of Haifa and IDF veteran who served as Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel.

1952: In Malibu, CA, movie director Don Siegel and actress Viveca Lindfors gave birth to Christopher Donald Siegel who gained fame as actor and director Kristoffer Tabori

1952: Rishon Lezion or First for Israel celebrated its 70th anniversary. Rishon is approximately seven miles southeast of Tel Aviv.  By the time of its 70th century, several well-known Israelis had worked or lived on the Moshav.  Two future prime ministers of Israel, David Ben Gurion and Levi Eshkol worked in the winery at Rishon Lezion. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the father of the Modern Hebrew language taught at Rishon LeZion.

1956(27thof Av, 5716): Parashat Re’eh

1956: “The Indian Fighter” starring Kirk Douglas and Walter Matthau with a script by Ben Hecht and music by Franz Waxman was released in the United States today by United Artists.

1958: In Gabès, Tunisia, Shimon Shalom gave birth to Silvan Shalom, who came to Israel a year later where his political career has included in several ministerial positions including Vice Prime Minister.

1959: “Some five months after its Broadway opening, a Philip Rose production of “Raisin in the Sun” opened at the Adelphi Theatre in London’s West End.

1959: “The Big Fisherman” a Biblical biopic co-starring Susan Kohner and Herbert Lom was released in the United States today.

1960(11thof Av, 5720): Seventy-one year old Henry J. Hassenfeld , the Galician born son of Chaya and Shaya Hassenfeld and husband of Marian Hassenfeld who was a founder and board chairman of Hasenfeld Brothers, a pencil and toy manufacturer” and “a founder of the Rhode Island Bureau of Jewish Education” passed away today.



https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1960/08/05/105451572.pdf

1961: Birthdate of Highland Park, Illinois native and television producer Michael Gelman, the husband of Laurie Hibberd and the father of Jamie and Misha Gelman.

1961: Birthdate of Barak Obama whose Presidential campaigns were run by David Axelroad; whose first chief of staff was Rahm Emanuel; whose use of Jack Lew, a Sabbath Observant Jew, has filled many positions including Secretary of Treasury. He was willing to triple down on Jewish Justices when he nominated Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court.  While he has been criticized by some for his failure to visit Israel until his second term in office, Obama has fully funded Iron Dome during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.  He has so many Jews on his staff that he has been hosting a Seder since 2009 making him the first President to recline and dine while hoping not leave a stain from the chrain. Of course, it will be up to history and the historians to evaluate his ultimate impact on the Jews as well as everything.

1962: Birthdate of television executive Michael Gelman

1963: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today for Lee J. Spiegel, the husband Ruth Spiegel and father of Enid, Bert and Matthew Spiegel, whose business interests included J.H. Spiegel, Inc. and the Spiegel Tanning Company and who was a member of the board of directors of Congregationation Neses Israel of Sea Gate followed by burial at Mt. Hebron Cemetery.

1963: At Cazenovia College, Edward Rosenthal of Rochester, NY and Joseph Rosenstein of Ithaca, NY were two of the players who part of “a four-way for the place in the New York State chess championship’ that came to a close tonight.” 

1964: Civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney were found buried inside an earthen dam in Mississippi. Schwerner and Goodman were two Jewish youngsters who had come to Mississippi to work in a drive to register Black voters. Chaney was an African-American from Mississippi. Their deaths helped to galvanize support for what would become the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

1966(18th of Av, 5726): Sixty-four year old Helen Tamaris, “the dancer and choreographer” who “put a stress on social responsibility” in a career that spanned forty years and was the wife of her “dancing partner, Daniel Nagrin” lost her fight with cancer and passed at the Jewish Memorial Hospital.


1966: “CARE Starts Sending Kosher Frozen Meat Packages to Israel” published today described how the Cooperative for American Relief Everywhere (CARE) plans, for the first time, to send “kosher Frozen meats to Israel” in time to be used for upcoming High Holidays.

1972: “Alfredo, Alfredo” an Italian language comedy starring Dustin Hoffman was released today in Italy.

1973(6th of Av, 5733): Parahsat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon

1973(6th of Av, 5733): Sam Katzman an American film producer and director passed away Born  in 1907,into a poor Jewish family, Katzman went to work as a stage laborer at the age of 13 in the fledgling East Coast film industry. He would learn all aspects of filmmaking and become a highly successful Hollywood producer for more than forty years.

1975: One day after he passed away, funeral are scheduled to be held this afternoon at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue for sixty-three old NYU trained “labor lawyer and arbitrator” Irving Robert Feinberg, the husband Lucille Feinberg, and the father of Jean and Richard Feinberg who was active in Jewish communal activities as can be seen his with the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, United Jewish Appeal, National Jewish Welfare Board, Development Corporation for Israel, Montefiore and Maimonides Hospitals, and the Hebrew Home for the Aged”

1977: US President Jimmy Carter signs legislation creating the United States Department of Energy. Dr. James Schlesinger, the son of Russian and Austrian Jews, was named the first secretary of the Department.  Unlike another famous Harvard PhD. named Henry Kissinger, Schlesinger converted to Christianity, when, according to some sources, he discovered that the “faith of his father’s was an impediment to his budding academic career.

1977: "Nobody Does It Better"“a song composed by Marvin Hamlisch with lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager. It was recorded by Carly Simon as the theme song for the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me” was released today.

 1977: Three terrorists who were on their way to Kibbutz Ashdod Ya'acov were killed and two captured after they crossed the Jordanian border. 

1977: Syria rejected the American initiative to hold a Middle Eastern mini-summit in the US and asked for the reconvening of the Geneva Peace Conference instead. 

1978(1st of Av, 5738): Rosh Chodesh Av

1978(1st of Av, 5738): Lilya Yuryevna Brik, the so-called "muse of Russian avant-garde" died at the age of 87.

1981: Birthdate of Ariel Glaser


1981(4th of Av, 5741):  Famed American actor Melvin Douglas passed away. Born Melvyn Edouard Hesselberg in Macon, Georgia, Douglas began his film career in 1931.  Some of his more memorable films include “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House” and the “Americanization of Emily.”  He won two Oscars, including one for best supporting actor as the crotchety old rancher in “Hud.”  He has an additional claim to fame as the husband of Congresswoman Helen Cahagan Douglas.  Rep. Douglas ran against Richard Nixon for the Senate in 1950.  She was an early victim of Nixon and the right-wing Republicans smear tactics in which all liberals were equated with Communists.



1982: By a vote of fourteen to zero, the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire and a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops without calling for a complete withdrawal of the PLO from Lebanon, despite the fact that it was their presence and terrorism that triggered Israeli military action.

1986: Roz Chast’s first cover for The New Yorkerappeared today “showing a lecturer in a white coat pointing to a family tree of ice cream.”



1989: After five years, NBC broadcast the final episode of “Highway to Heaven,” a dramatic series created by Michael Landon who also directed and starred in the seires.

1990 (5750): Shabbat Nachamu

1992: Ran Cohen began serving as Deputy Minister of Housing and Construction.

1992: Eli Ben-Menachem was appointed Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s office.

1992: Mordechai Gur began serving as Deputy Minister of Defense.

1993: Harvey Weinstein, a formalwear manufacturer and chairman of Lord West Formal Wear was kidnapped in New York.

1994: Playwright Arthur Miller’s “Broken Glass” was performed for the first time in Great Britain at “the Royal National Theatre's Lyttelton Theatre.”

1994(27thof Av, 5754): Two days before his 86th birthday Solomon Adler, a U.S. Treasury Employee who served in China during World War II and was later accused of being “a Soviet intelligence source” passed away today.

1994: Actor Richard Lewis has been sober from this date forward.

1996: The Los Angeles Times featured a review of Rich Little Poor Boy: A Ghost of a Chance by Peter Duchin with Charles Michener. Duchin was the son of socialite Marjorie Oelrichs and musical genius Eddy Duchin, the son of Jewish immigrants. When Oerlichs was kicked out of the Social Register for marrying the Jewish Duchin she reportedly said, "Who cares?""It's only a telephone book." [“The Eddie Duchin Story” with Kim Novak and Tyronne Power left the Jewish part.]

2000: David Levy completed his term as Foreign Minister.

2000: “Running on the Sun: The Badwater 135,” a documentary film directed by Mel Stuart (born Stuart Solomon) was released today.

2001(15thof Av, 5761): A triple header – Parashat Vaetchanan, Sabbat Nachamu and Tu B’Av

2002: On the 110th anniversary of the death of Ernestine Rose, the Ernestine Rose society “held a memorial service at London’s Highgate Cemetery to dedicate the restored headstone of Ernestine and William Rose, fulfilling the group’s mandate to ensure that this “courageous and pioneering woman… would no longer rest in an unmarked grave.”




2002(26th of Av, 5762): Mordechai Yehuda Friedman, 24, of Ramat Beit Shemesh, Sari Goldstein, 21, of Karmiel, Maysoun Amin Hassan, 19, of Sajur, Marlene Miriam Menahem, 22, of moshav Safsufa, Sgt.-Maj. Roni Ghanem, 28, of Maghar, Sgt. Yifat Gavrieli, 19, of Mitzpe Adi, Sgt. Omri Goldin, 20, of Mitzpe Aviv, Adelina Kononen, 37, of the Philippines and Rebecca Roga, 40, of the Philippines were killed and 38 others were injured during a suicide bombing aboard Egged Bus 361 at the Meron Junction for which Hamas took credit.



2002: The New York Times book section featured a review of Stravinsky and Balanchine: A Journey of Invention about the relationship between the gentile and his Jewish apprentice by Charles M. Joseph, I’ll Be Short: Essentials for a Decent Working Society by Robert B. Reich, Bill Clinton’s first and Jewish, Secretary of Labor and Elvis In Jerusalem: Post-Zionism and the Americanization of Israel by Tom Segev.

2005(28th of Tammuz, 5765): Eden Natan Zada, age 19, who was absent without leave from the Israeli army opened fire on a public bus traveling to an Arab town in northern Israel, killing at least four people and wounding 10. In the immediate aftermath, passengers swarmed the gunman, killing him before he could leave the bus.

2005: Eliat Mazar announced she had discovered in Jerusalem what may have been the palace of King David,

2005:  The Jerusalem Post reported that for the second year in a row, Canadian hockey Jean Perron legend is conducting camp at the Canada Centre, in the town of Metulla near the border with the Lebanon. Perron has brought Israel’s hockey program along way in a short time.  The Israeli team is ready to move up to division one, the highest level of international competition.  One of the camp’s attendees is a fourteen year old from China.  Born in Israel, his father was transferred by his Israeli employer to China.  While in China, the youngster learned to play hockey and now is returning home to try and play on the national squad.  Sounds like a Disney movie (The Mighty Kosher Ducks) but everything about Jewish history has a slight whiff of the unbelievable except that it is always true.

2005: Israeli archaeologist Eliat Mazar announced the discovery the site of Palace of David, a 10th Century BCE building in the Old City of Jerusalem.  The site is widely recognized as a major find but there is dispute over the identification of the building as being David’s Palace which is described in the Bible.

2006: Marissa Carson leads Friday Night Services at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as part of the rituals marking her Bat Mitzvah.

2006: “Three rockets fired by Hezbollah hit Hadera.”

2006: Over 200 rockets were fired at northern Israel, killing three people. At least 86 more were wounded, one critically and five seriously. A barrage of rockets landed near Karmiel just before 6 p.m., killing two people in the villages of Majdal Krum and Dir el-Assad.


2006(18thof Shevat, 5766): Seventy-four year old Brooklyn born and Cornell and Columbia trained  historian Paul Avrich, the son “Yiddish theatre actress Rose (Zapol) Avrich” and “dress manufacturer Murray Avrich” and the husband of Ina Avrich with whom he had two daughters – Jane and Karen – passed away today

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/24/nyregion/paul-avrich-74-a-historian-of-anarchism-is-dead.html




2007(20th of Av, 5767): Eight-one year old Raul Hilberg, one of the historians who created the field of Holocaust Studies passed away today (As reported by Douglas Martin)






2007: To his everlasting credit, Chet Culver, Governor of the state of Iowa, officially proclaims this day as Raoul Wallenberg in honor of the Swedish Diplomats work in saving thousands of Hungarian Jews and as an example of a great humanitarian who provided living proof that one person’s efforts can make a difference in the fight against evil.

2007: The Indianapolis Colts place Mike Seidman on the inured reserved list.

2008: Taking time from dealing with aftermath of the floods and tornadoes that have struck Iowa, Chet Culver, Governor of the state of Iowa, officially proclaims this day as Raoul Wallenberg Day in honor of the Swedish Diplomats work in saving thousands of Hungarian Jews and as an example of a great humanitarian who provided living proof that one person’s efforts can make a difference in the fight against evil.

2008: In a testament to the involvement of Jews in diverse strata of American life, U.S. News & World Report discloses that Henry Kissinger, the first Jewish U.S. Secretary of State has agreed to lend his name to a foreign policy think tank (at the Woodrow Wilson Center) while Sports Illustrated reports on the recent death of legendary baseball writer Jerome Holtzman and marvels at re-emergence of basketball great Nancy Lieberman, who at the age of fifty had two assists in playing nine minutes for the Detroit Shock

2009: During the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to show “Rachel” at the Berkeley Repertory’s Roda Theater.

2009: Despite being forced to deal with worst economic downturns since the Great Depression, Iowa Governor Chet Culver still finds the time to proclaim today Raoul Wallenberg Memorial Day on the 97th anniversary of the great Swede’s birth.  This is the third year in a row that the Governor of Iowa has issued such a proclamation.

2009: Rashi’s Daughters: Book III – Rachel by Maggie Anton goes on sale today.  This is the third and final volume in a fictional trilogy based on the lives of the daughters of the great sage.

2009: Israeli police have broken up an Israeli-American crime ring specializing in tax fraud and money-laundering in an operation codenamed "American Pie." Seven people were arrested today on suspicion of involvement in massive tax fraud in the United States following a joint investigation by Israeli and American law enforcement authorities. The suspects, six Israelis and one American, were remanded by the Tel Aviv Magistrates Court today, on charges of money laundering, fraud and forgery. Further arrests are likely, Israeli police sources say. The ringleader is allegedly a 62-year-old American named Marvin Berkowitz, an expert on tax, who holds dual Israeli and U.S. citizenship. The suspects defrauded the U.S. internal revenue of tens of millions of dollars and deposited the money in Israeli bank accounts, according to the police statement. Police say Berkowitz obtained personal details of inmates in U.S. prisons and then used the data to falsify claims for income tax refunds in their names for the period before their arrests. While residing in Israel, he is believed to have pocketed around $12 million. Police believe that he fled the United States and settled in Israel in 2003. The investigation was launched at the request of legal authorities in the United States a few months ago. Several people were also arrested last month on suspicion of defrauding elderly persons in the United States, following a 'sting' operation in September of last year. In this case the suspects, who operated out of offices located at the Ramat Gan Diamond Exchange district, are believed to have extracted money from dozens of elderly persons all over the States - telling them they needed to pay fake 'fees' in order to claim supposed lottery winnings. The first nine suspects in the affair were arrested about six months ago, and the extradition applications filed by the American authorities are currently being deliberated in the Jerusalem District Court. A hearing on the request to temporarily remand 13 others for extradition, filed by the U.S. authorities, is scheduled for this Thursday.

2009(14th of Av, 5769: Eighty-two year old Israeli author and gadfly, Amos Kenan passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)




2009: Two years after the death of novelist Sidney Sheldon, the author of Master of the Game, William Morrow and Company released a sequel entitled Sidney Sheldon's Mistress of the Game

2009: The Russian gentile who saved former chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau during the Holocaust was posthumously honored at Yad Vashem with the prestigious Righteous Among the Nations award today. As a young adult, Feodor Mikhailichenko risked his life to feed, clothe and protect the young Lolek Lau, who was 10 years his junior, in the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. Last year, Lau, chairman of the Yad Vashem Council, finally succeeded in identifying Mikhailichenko after decades of searching. The deceased Mikhailichenko's two daughters accepted the award, which honors non-Jews who helped Jews during the Holocaust, on their father's behalf. More than 22,700 gentiles have been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations. Mikhailichenko is the 164th Russian gentile to receive this honor. About 200 people, including Lau's family and Israeli and Russian officials, gathered at the Jerusalem museum's Hall of Remembrance, synagogue and Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations for a memorial service and ceremony and to view Mikhailichenko's name on the wall listing the honored gentiles. "I don't know if you can understand the feeling of a child all alone, and here is a man who owes him nothing," Lau told those at the ceremony about Mikhailichenko's heroic deeds. "There are angels of death, but also angels of life, no matter how few, and one of the most prominent among them is this Feodor," said Lau. Mikhailichenko, a Russian prisoner-of-war, and Lau, who had been separated from his brother in Buchenwald, were in the same barracks in the camp. Mikhailichenko used to steal potatoes, collect small rocks in the courtyard near their barracks and cook Lau soup. He also once took a beige sweater from a corpse, unraveled the thread and used it to sew Lau flesh-colored earmuffs so that when Lau removed his hat as per the Nazis' command, his ears wouldn't freeze. When Buchenwald was liberated in April 1945, Mikhailichenko covered Lau's body with his own, acting as a shield to protect him from the gunfire. After the war ended, Mikhailichenko wanted to take Lau back with him to Rostov-on-Don, his hometown in Russia. But Lau, who was eight years old when Buchenwald was liberated, had promised his brother Naftali that he would go to Israel, so he and Mikhailichenko separated. "I must not forget there is a place in the world Israel. He made me repeat the word 'Israel,'" Lau remembered, describing what Naftali had told him. "Tell people to take you there." Over the years, Lau tried to locate his savior. Unfortunately, he had neither a picture nor a last name. Lau asked various people for help, and at one point a notice was printed in a local paper, but to no avail. One Russian dignitary told him point-blank, "There are more Feodors in Rostov than Danis in Tel Aviv," but Lau still hoped that one day he would succeed. "He always spoke about him," Lau's son Rabbi David Lau told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. "We always heard about the fact that he wanted to see him." In fact, at one family birthday party, the children put on a play, and one of them played the part of Mikhailichenko.Then in June of last year, 63 years after the end of the Holocaust, someone contacted Lau with the news: An American researcher studying Gestapo documents about Buchenwald had identified his rescuer. For the first time, Lau said, he had known Feodor's last name. He got in touch with the Chabad emissary in Rostov, who found a lifelong friend of Mikhailichenko. The friend told him Mikhailichenko had died of illness in 1993 at age 66. The friend knew of the little Jewish boy Mikhailichenko had saved and told the Chabad emissary that Mikhailichenko used to tell his daughters, "If he had not gone to Israel, you would have had a brother." Soon after, Mikhailichenko's two daughters, Yulia Selutina and Yelena Belayaeva, came to Israel to meet the person about whom their father had spoken so fondly. "Lolek, who father was so attached to - the child who he loved so much," Selutina told the crowd on Tuesday. Selutina said her father had also tried looking for Lau, but had not been successful. Lau spoke of the debt he owed Mikhailichenko for his selfless deeds, a debt of gratitude he could not quantify. Even though the gates of Buchenwald were inscribed with the words "Jedem das Seine," or "to each his own," Mikhailichenko had not lived like that, Lau said. Pointing first to Mikhailichenko's two daughters, and then to his own son David and his nine-month-old granddaughter, Lau told a group of attendees outside the hall, "If not for their father, both this one and this one would not be here."

2009: Raoul Wallenberg Day

2010: “Surviving Hitler: A Love Story,” a documentary about a young Jewess named Jutta who joined the Resistance and plotted to kill Hitler, is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival

2010: The United Nations peacekeeping force in South Lebanon, Unifil, said today that it had concluded that Israeli forces were cutting trees that lay within their own territory before a lethal exchange of fire with Lebanese Army troops yesterday, largely vindicating Israel’s account of how the fighting started.  A Lebanese Army spokesman had said yesterday that the skirmishes started after Israeli soldiers crossed into Lebanese territory to cut down a tree. Israel said that its forces were clearing brush, as part of routine maintenance work, in a gap between the so-called Blue Line, the internationally recognized border, and its security fence, and that it had coordinated its actions in advance with Unifil. Lebanon said at least four Lebanese were killed, while Israel reported that a battalion commander was killed and a platoon commander was critically wounded. The clash was the fiercest in the area since Israel’s monthlong war against the Lebanese militia Hezbollah in the summer of 2006.  In a statement issued today, Unifil said its investigators were still on the ground and that inquiries were continuing. “Unifil established, however, that the trees being cut by the Israeli Army are located south of the Blue Line on the Israeli side,” it said.  Unifil added that in the area in question, the Lebanese government had “some reservations concerning the Blue Line,” which was demarcated by the United Nations when Israel withdrew its forces from Lebanon in 2000, “as did the Israeli government at some other locations.” But both sides committed themselves to respecting the line as identified, Unifil added, saying the United Nations believed “that the Blue Line must be respected in its entirety by all parties.” Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli government, said the announcement “clearly corroborates the Israeli version — that our routine activity was conducted in its entirety south of the frontier, and that the Lebanese Army opened fire without provocation and without any justification whatsoever.” In the hours after the incident on Tuesday each side had blamed the other, trading accusations of violating the United Nations Security Council resolution that underpins the four-year-old cease-fire. A senior American official in Washington said that, based on what had been learned so far, the Lebanese military appeared to have been responsible for starting the gunfire. “We fired in the air, and they responded by firing artillery shells,” the Lebanese Army spokesman said, speaking on departmental conditions of anonymity.  The Israeli military said its soldiers were fired on just west of the Israeli village of Misgav Am. Israel said it believed that the Lebanese attack had been planned. Before gunfire broke out, Lebanese soldiers shouted at the Israeli troops to move back, Israeli military officials said, and the Israelis shouted that they were in Israeli territory.  Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, a military spokeswoman, said that Lebanese Army snipers opened fire and that they “targeted our commanders,” who were observing the maintenance work.  The Israeli military said its forces returned fire with light arms and used artillery fire. Several minutes later, the military said in a statement, an Israeli Air Force helicopter fired at the Lebanese Army Forces Battalion Command Center in Al Taybeh, damaging several armored combat vehicles.  After the first Israeli response, Colonel Leibovich said, the Israelis were asked to hold their fire so that the Lebanese could evacuate their wounded. She said that Israel acquiesced, but that 30 minutes later, a rocket-propelled grenade was fired toward an Israeli tank.  The Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, said in a statement: “Israel desires peace, and proved that when it withdrew its forces in 2000 to the international border. But Israel will absolutely not tolerate attacks on its soldiers or its civilians in its sovereign territory.”  Israel said its foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, had instructed the Israeli diplomatic delegation to the United Nations to file a protest with the secretary general and the Security Council, calling the clash “one of many violations” of the United Nations resolution on the border, No. 1701. “Israel holds the Lebanese government responsible for the grave incident, and warns of the consequences should these continue,” the Israeli government’s statement said.

2011: The Jewish community of Cedar Rapids, proudly awaits today’s opening of “13: The Musical” starring one of its youthful and talented members, Bentlee Birchansky.

2011: The 2011 Security Briefing For Jewish Institutions in Northern Virginia is scheduled to place at Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation.

2011: “Next Year in Bombay,” film that “profiles the surprising diversity of India’s Jewish communities, some of which have existed for over 2,500 years” is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2011: IDF aircraft struck targets in the Gaza Strip in the early hours this morning, Palestinians said, a day after Palestinians fired at least two Grad rockets, striking deep into Israel. There were no reports of injuries in the attacks. The IDF confirmed that several strikes were carried out in Gaza in response to earlier rocket attacks and that direct hits on multiple targets were recorded. A long-range Grad rocket fired from Gaza landed in open territory in Lachish, near Kiryat Gat late last night. Later that night, a Grad rocket fell near Ashkelon. Police said the rocket landed within Ashkelon city boundaries and damaged a road. A police response team was on the scene. The attacks represents an escalation in the firing of longer-range rockets. The last time such rockets were fired at Israel was in March, when a number of projectiles landed in the Ashdod and Lachish area, and schools in the area were closed. Air raid sirens were heard in several towns and villages in the south, including the Yoav Regional Council, the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council, and the Ashkelon coast Regional Council. Residents in areas in which sirens were heard rushed into safe areas and shelters to take cover. Five people were lightly injured while running for shelter after sirens went off signaling the Grad rocket attack on Ashkelon .The injured were evacuated to Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon.

2011: Israel Medical Association chairman Dr. Leonid Eidelman said today that although progress has been made in negotiations with the Treasury on the doctors' work dispute, sanctions would continue in hospitals and clinics until a final agreement is reached. "We have many more issues on the agenda," Eidelman said in an interview with Army Radio.  After 137 days of a bitter labor dispute between the Treasury and the Israel Medical Association and a 10-day hunger strike by Eidelman, a breakthrough was reached in negotiations on Wednesday night that enabled the hungry physician to eat again. For the first time, the two sides issued a terse joint statement with the outline of a negotiated agreement. The statement disclosed that 1,000 extra job slots for physicians would be allocated to the public hospitals. In addition, the number of night and weekend shifts of 26 hours in a row would be reduced to six per month. This process would “begin immediately and be spread over the next two years,” it said. The joint statement also reported that funds would be allocated “immediately” to make grants of “up to NIS 300,000” per physician who agrees to work in the periphery of the country and in medical professions in which manpower is scarce. There was no mention of whether doctors who are already living and working in hospitals and clinics in the periphery would be compensated as well. The statement did not include an explanation of where the extra 1,000 hospital physicians would come from; there is a serious physician shortage in the country that threatens to get worse in the coming years. There was also no mention of the Treasury’s demand that hospital doctors punch time clocks to prove they are on the job when they are supposed to be – a demand the IMA had rejected outright. The statement said the 1,000 job slots would be anchored in a new collective agreement and come in addition to allocations to expand the number of hospital beds (including equipment and hospital staff to treat patients) by hundreds within a few years. The Treasury and the IMA said they would now enter “speeded-up and intensive negotiations” to deal with the remaining issues. The doctors have been demanding the spending of NIS 2.5 billion to NIS 3b. over several years to meet their demands. Dr. Yoram Blachar, the previous chairman of the IMA, told The Jerusalem Post that he was very happy and relieved the labor dispute seems about to end soon. He could not say how the 1,000 job slots would be filled, adding “the quality of Israeli doctors cannot be lowered.” He was overjoyed that Eidelman, a 59-year-old anesthesiologist at the Rabin Medical Center, was halting his hunger strike. “He will have to do it slowly, starting only with things to drink,” he said, as eating after such a long fast is dangerous. Although he had been worried by his successor’s hunger strike, Blachar said, apparently, that drastic act was what put pressure on the government to make concessions. Asked if he would have held a hunger strike if he were IMA chairman today, Blachar said: “Leonid is a very strong individual.” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was also satisfied that Eidelman ended his hunger strike, and phoned him last night to congratulate him. Netanyahu, in a statement released by his office, said he was pleased with the progress made toward an agreement with the doctors, and that “we are now on the right track. We need to narrow the gap and end the strike.” 

2011: Tomer Rotem, a Chabad rabbi working in Quito, Ecuador, who was kidnapped on August 1 and held for four days, was released tonight.

2011: Hundreds of Wikipedia activists from around the world will descend upon Haifa today for the seventh annual Wikimania conference, to discuss debate and deliberate all things Wiki.

2011: Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak approved the appointment of Ram Rothberg as the next head of the Israel Navy, after being nominated by IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz

2011: Under the leadership of Irene Rosenfeld Kraft Foods said it plans to split into two publicly traded companies, with one focusing on its international snack brands like Trident gum and Oreo cookies and the other on its North American groceries business that includes Maxwell House coffee and Oscar Mayer meats.

2012: Raoul Wallenberg Shabbat

2012: Actress Roseanne Barr won the 2012 presidential nomination of the Peace and Freedom Party.

2012: Sam Kringlen is scheduled to be called to the Torah this morning as a Bar Mitzvah at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

2012: Yemen Blues, a group that originated in Tel Aviv, is scheduled to perform at the City Winery in New York City.

2012: In Auburn, ME, Temple Shalom Synagogue is scheduled to celebrate the 100thanniversary of the birthday of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg with a special Saturday morning service and screening of a film later in the evening about his rescue work.

2012:Israeli windsurfer Lee Kurzits finished first in race eight of the women’s RS-X competition this afternoon at the Olympic Games, and was in second place overall at the end of the day with strong prospects of a medal.


2012: Bearing banners, shouting slogans and calling for a better Israel and a brighter tomorrow, thousands gathered in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening for a major protest organized by the social justice movements, which put aside their differences to join forces for the event.


2012: IDF forces shot a Syrian man who crossed into Israel through its northern border today. The infiltrator, who was carrying a pair of wire cutters, was identified during a routine patrol and asked to stop; when he didn’t, the troops on patrol opened fire on him, injuring him in the leg.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-troops-shoot-injure-syrian-who-tries-to-cross-border/



2013(28thof Av): Yarhrzeit for Larry Rosenstein, of blessed memory, husband of Judy Levin Rosenstein, of blessed memory.  Gone to soon but always remembered! 



2013(28thof Av, 5773): Centenarian Yitzhak Berman, Israeli political leader passed away today.

https://www.knesset.gov.il/mk/eng/mk_eng.asp?mk_individual_id_t=317





2013: “50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr. & Mrs. Kraus” a documentary about Gilbert and Eleanor Karus’ successful effort to save 50 Jewish children from Austria.



2013: The Alexandria Kleztet is scheduled to perform at the Washington DC Jewish Community Center.



2013: A group of 36 Democratic members of the House are expected to arrive in Israel for a one week visit to the Jewish state.  A group of 26 Republicans are expected to visit next week. (As reported by Herb Keinon)



2013: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including a novel by Louis Begley, Memories of a Marriage  and Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish by David Rakoff of blessed memory.

2013: Generall Martin Dempsy, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrives in Israel as the guest of Major General Benny Gantz, Israel’s Chief of Staff who will host meeting meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ya’alon.

2013: Igal Brightman, the chairman and CEO of the major local accounting firm of Deloitte Brightman who died in light plane crash is scheduled to be buried today in Tel Aviv.

2013: At Bloomfield Stadium in Jaffa 12,000 youngsters joined President Shimon Peres, Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai and Education Minister Shai Piron enjoyed an evening with soccer superstran Lionel Messi and his Barcelona Football Club.

2013: Jack Markell, the Governor of Delaware completed his services as Chair of the National Governors Association.

2013: American journalist Steven Sotloff was kidnapped by terrorists near Aleppo.

2014: “Aftermath Poland” is scheduled to be shown at the Berkshire Jewish Film Festival.

2014(8thof Av, 5774): “Rabbi Abraham Wallis, a 29-year-old resident of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, was killed in what has been described as  terrorist attack earlier today while working at a construction site for Atra Kadisha, an organization which assures graves are not disturbed during building.”  (In life he was loved and admired. He was swifter than eagles and stronger than lions.)  

2014(8thof Av, 5774): Eighty-six year old physician and Holocaust survivor Emanuel Emek Tanay lost his battle with prostate cancer today.



2014: “An Israeli man was shot in the stomach at the entrance to the Har Hatzofim (Mount Scopus) tunnel in Jerusalem, in what looks to be the capital's second terror attack in a matter of hours.” (As reported by Gil Ronen)

2014: President Barack Obama signed a bill today granting an additional $225 million in US taxpayer dollars for Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system.


2014(8thof Av): In the evening fast of Tisha B’av begins

2015(19thof Av, 5775): Seventy-three year old Hungarian-born  American Jewish historian Yosef Goldman, the son of Rabbi Lipa Goldman who came to the U.S. in 1950 and who was the co-author of Hebrew Printing in America 1735-1926: A History and Annotated Bibliography passed away today.

2015(19thof Av, 5775): Ninety-nine year old “pop art furniture designer” Irving Harper, born Irving Hoffzimer, passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)


2015: Election Time! – The Jewish Public Library Archives in Montreal shared its collection of campaign memorabilia today during Canada’s “longest-ever federal campaign period.”




  

2015: Steve Gimbel, author of Einstein: His Space and Times” is scheduled to speak at the Washington DC JCC as part of its Brilliant Minds, Great Thinkers program.

2015: YIVO and the Yiddish League are scheduled to present the New York Premiere of “Chava Rosenfarb: That Bubble of Being”

http://yivo.org/events/index.php?tid=205&aid=1395&utm_source=forward&utm_medium=banner



2016: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to present “The Power of Habit” in which Uri Galimidi will help attendees “learn simple yet highly effective interventions to help you conquer undesired habits and adopt new healthier ones.”

2016: “Australia said it was suspending funding for major charity World Vision late today, hours after Israeli officials accused the group’s manager in Gaza of funneling tens of millions of dollars in aid money to terror group Hamas.”

2016:“Muhammad Halabi, a Hamas member and manager of operations for World Vision in Gaza, was indicted in a Beersheba court today on a number of security-related charges for his alleged role in the scheme to divert “tens of millions dollars to fund the Hamas war machine in Gaza.”

2016: One hundred sixth anniversary of the birth of Raoul Wallenberg

2016: Noam Banai, son of Meir and cousin to Ehud, Yuval and Elisha continued his tour of Israel tonight a performance at the HaArbaim Pub at Kibbutz Talilim.

2016: Anniversary of Iowa Governor Chet Culver proclaiming today Raoul WallenbergDay, in response to the efforts spearheaded by members of Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids , IA.

2017: This evening, a Shabbat Nachamu Shidduch is scheduled to take begin Kew Garden Hills, Queens, NY.

2017: A Shabbat Nachamu weekend sponsored by the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists is scheduled to open this evening at the Crowne Plaza in Stamford, CT.

2017: Yiddish comedians, Mendy Cahan and Yuri Vedenyapin are scheduled to host a “late-night open stage at the OMA café at the Yiddish Summer Weimar in Germany.

2017: “Left-handed reliever Craig Brewslow was signed “to a minor league deal” today.

2018: “Hitler’ Hollywood” and “The Price of Everything” are scheduled to be shown today at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

2018: “Classical Bridge, an international musical festival, academy and conference designed to build bridges through music” featuring “Israeli musicians Pinchas Zuckerman and Alexander Fiterstein” is scheduled to open today.

2018: “Aziz Asbar, one of Syria’s most important rockets scientists” was killed by car bomb today, allegedly by Mossad.

2018: Lior Milliger, the Israeli Saxphonist is scheduled to bring his Lior Milliger Trio to New York for their first ever appearance at The Shrine.

2018: “The Israeli Jazz Spotlight festival, curated by Nadav Remez” and “featuring some of the best NYC based Israeli Jazz acts” at the Cornelia Street is scheduled to come to an end this evening.

2018(23rdof Av, 5778): Parashat Ekev;

2019: The New York Times features books by Jewish author and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback editions of Flash: The Making of Weegee the Famous by Christopher Bonanos and Reporter: A Memoir by Seymour Hersh.

2019: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of the biopic “Ask Dr. Ruth.”

2019: The Kennedy Center is scheduled to host a performance of Tony award winning “The Band’s Visit.”

2019: In Jerusalem, the Bible Lands Museum is scheduled to host the first of its Magical Mystery Tours.

This Day, August 5, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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August 5 

135: Betar fell to the Romans



1100: Henry I is crowned King of England at Westminster Abby. During Henry’s reign the first attempts were made to introduce the continental principle - that all Jews were the king's property.  Under King Henry, a clause to that effect was inserted in some manuscripts of the so-called "Laws of Edward the Confessor."

1199: Birthdate of Ferdinand III of Castile.  Catholics remember as the monarch who was canonized as Saint Ferdinand III.  Jews remember him as the King who refused the Pope’s demand that Jews be forced to wear special badge and clothing. Apparently he was afraid that if the Jews mistreated they would flee to Muslim Granada, which would be disastrous for the revenues of the kingdom

1264: Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Arnstadt Germany

1381: Rabbis and communal leaders from Speyer, Worms and Mayence met at Mayence to review and reinforce laws pertaining to marriage and the rights of widows in the wake of the Black Death.  One of the rules enacted was Tekanoth Shum which allowed a childless widow to receive a definite portion of her late husband’s property even though she had refused to marry her brother-in-law.

1391: More than 400 Jews were killed in attacks in Barcelona. Attempts by the city Fathers and Artisans to protect them were of no use. The attacks were instigated for the most part by Castilians, who had taken part in the massacres in Seville and Valencia.

1529: Francis I, King of France and Charles V, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire who was also King of Spain appear to settle their differences by signing the Treaty of Cambrai in which Francis agrees to give up his claim to Italy and Charles gives up his claim to Burgundy (a part of modern day France.) The Jews had been expelled from France in 1394, so officially there were no Jews for Francis to mistreat or exploit. Charles treatment of his Jewish subjects depended upon where they lived.  As King of Spain, Charles followed the line established by his forbearers starting with the Spanish Inquisition. As Emperor he took a much more benign attitude towards his Jewish subjects living in central Europe. Pope Clement VII, whose support of the Jews earned him the “accolade of ‘favorer of Israel’ and a price gracious to Israel,” made the mistake of siding with Francis over Charles in their dispute.  Once in control of Italy, Charles allowed his troops to sack Clement’s Rome, safe in the knowledge that no French troops would come to the Pope’s assistance. Dona Gracia, the famous Marrano businesswomen who reasserted her Jewish identity, lent money to both monarchs and her nephew was well known to both of these competing rulers. 

1540: In Agen, France, Italian scholar Julius Caesar Scaliger and Andiette de Roques Lobejac gave birth to their tenth child and third son Joseph Justus Scaliger, “the Hugenot scholar and professor at the University of Leiden” who “argued that it was only possible to establish the true text and meaning of Scripture gaining an understanding of rabbinic sources” and who “maintained Jews should be permitted to return to western Europe simply because of their economic importance but because of their learning.”

1718: Barent Gompertz married Rachel Isaac today in Amsterdam.

1748: Empress Maria Theresa revoked the edict of expulsion directed at the Jews of Bohemia

1769: In a move that set him apart from many of his predecessors and successors, Pope Clement XIV elevated the conditions of the Jews when he declared that they were “no longer under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition and are instead subject to the authority of Rome's cardinal vicar (Vicariato di Roma). Jews were furthermore given permission to work as artisans and even to own small factories.” (As reported by Austin Cline)

1769: Herz Wesel Gumperz and Abraham Wesel Gumperz gave birth Ruben Samuel Gumperz the husband of Roeschen Gumperz

1769: The day after she had passed away, the sixty-five year old wife of Meir Reboya was buried today at the “Alderney Road (Globe Rd) Jewish Cemetery.”

1772: First of the three partitions of Poland begins.  The Jews of what had been Poland and Lithuania will end up in the Prussian, Austrian and/or Russian Empires.  Ironically, the bulk of them will end up living under Russian monarchs who had committed themselves to keeping Jews out of Russia. 

1788(2nd of Av, 5548): In Trier Rabbi Moses Lwów, the son of Joshua Heschel Lwow and Marie Merlé Lwow and husband of Bella Eger passed away today.

1802: Birthdate of Eliakim Carmoly, a French born Jewish scholar and rabbi who would eventually resign from the rabbinate, move to Frankfurt and devote himself to Jewish literature and to the collection of Hebrew books and manuscripts.

1812: Moss Jewell married Eleanor Joseph today at the Great Synagogue.

1814: In New York City, “American Revolutionary War veteran Sampson Means and Catherine (Cohen) Isaaks gave birth to Rebecca Cohen Isaaks Hart, who was an active member of “Synagogue Mickveh Israel” in Philadelphia where she served for thirty years as “President of the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society” and helped to managed the Jewish Foster Home and was the wife of Abraham Hart.

1816: Two days after she had passed away, Maria Hart, the daughter of Stephen and Esther Hart was buried in the United Kingdom today.

1820: In Frankfurt, Adelheid (née Herz) and Carl Mayer von Rothschild gave birth to Mayer Carol Freiherr von Rothschild who became the first Jewish member of the House of Lords of Prussia.

1842(29th of Av, 5602): Fifty-three year old German educator and theologian Michael Creizenach, author of the 4 volume work “Shulḥan 'Aruk, oder Encyklopädische Darstellung des Mosaischen Gesetzes," passed away today.

1834(29th of Tammuz, 5594): Forty-three year old Sarah Nathan , the wife of Isaac Mendez Seixas Nathan and the mother of Grace Nathan passed away in New York City.

1843(9th of Av, 5603): Parashat Devarim and Shabbat Chazon

1843: Birthdate of Jacob Ezekiel Hyneman, the son of Isaac Hyneman who was born in Richmond, Virginia but moved to Philadelphia, PA.  When the Civil War broke out, the southern born Hyneman cast his lot with the Union, serving with the U.S. Army from 1862 to 1865.

1845(2nd of Av, 5605): Captain Henry B. Nones passed away today after which he was buried at the Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetery in Delaware.

1846: Two days after she had passed, 72 year old Sarah (Moss) Barnett, the widow of the late Joel Barnett, was buried today at the “Brompton Jewish Cemetery.”

1848: Birthdate of Adolph M. Radin, the Polish born, German trained American rabbi who has served congregations in Elmira and New York City including the Congregation Gates of Hope and the People’s Synagogue.

1854: Julius Goldschmidt and Caroline Marie Hansen gave birth to Karl Julius Isak Goldschmidt today.

1854: John Griffins, a native of Poland, was arrested today for swindling Reverend Stephen Wilkins, the pastor of a Baptist church in New York.  Wilkins gave money to Griffins because the latter claimed to be collecting funds for a society for "aiding and better the conditions the Jews."  Griffin’s claims were false.

1860: The consecration of the new synagogue to be used by congregation B'nai Israel, located on the corner of Stanton and Forsyth streets, took place this afternoon. The building, which is capable of holding about 800 people, was formerly a Baptist Church, but has recently been purchased, and converted into a synagogue by the above congregation, most of whom are natives of Holland. The interior transformations required to convert it into a synagogue were not extensive or costly -- the only change being a shifting of the position of the pews, so as to leave a space for the "reading desk" in the centre of the church, and the erection of a semicircular ark in the place of the pulpit. The reading desk is the same as that used in the old synagogue of this congregation, in Christie-street, made of rosewood, and surrounded by an enclosure, or railing, about ten feet square, and of elegant workmanship. On the four corners of the enclosure are gas fixtures, in imitation of candies, and over head depends a magnificent bronze chandelier, with numerous jets, all of which were kept burning during the consecration service. The "Ark" is also made of rosewood, with sliding doors, and, when closed, is screened from public view by rich damask curtains, which were presented by the ladies of the congregation. The synagogue was filled to its utmost capacity, yesterday, by an audience composed about equally of ladies and gentlemen. As the congregation B'nai Israel is among the strictest of the "orthodox" party of the Jews, and opposed to the modern "improvements" and "reforms" that have been introduced into some other synagogues, the old customs, seating the sexes apart, was adhered to, and the ladies occupied the gallery, while the gentlemen sat in the body of the church. Among the Jewish clergy of other congregations present were Rabbi Morris Jerome Raphall, of the Greene-street Synagogue; Rabbi Samuel Myer Isaacs, of the Wooster-street Synagogue and Rabbi J.J. Lyons, of the Portuguese Synagogue. The ceremonies of the consecration were arranged and conducted by Rabbi M.R. de Leeuw, of the congregation B'nai Israel. The consecration service opened with a chant from the choir, which occupied the enclosure surrounding the reading-desk, and was led by the minister of the congregation. The trustees of the synagogue then entered bearing the "sacred scrolls," and proceeded by twenty-four young girls, dressed in white, with blue scarves, and each one carrying in her band a basket of flowers. The trustees took their position in the open space, between the reading-desk and the ark, and were flanked on either side by a column of the young girls, who commenced picking flowers from their baskets and throwing them at their feet, while the choir chanted a dedication psalm. The bearers of the sacred scrolls, accompanied by the honorary officers of the church, men marched in procession seven times around the synagogue, each circuit being accompanied by an appropriate chant from the choir. On each return of the procession to the open space fronting the ark they were pelted with roses from the fair hands of the young misses until the ground was literally covered with these fragrant floral offerings. The seventh circuit having been completed, the ark was opened, the sacred scrolls were deposited therein, the doors were closed, the damask curtains were drawn close around it, and the perpetual lamp which depends from the ceiling in front was ignited, never to expire. After another chant from the choir, Rev. Dr. RAPHALL ascended the platform on which rests the ark, and addressed the congregation in a few remarks befitting the occasion, taking for his text the passage of Scripture commencing, "How beautiful are thy Tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts." He alluded to the persecutions which the children of Israel had suffered under the Roman Empire, and all through the Middle Ages, even to the time when they crossed the ocean and landed in this home of freedom and equality. He spoke of the progress of the congregation B'nai Israel, from the time when he first addressed them in their Synagogue in Pell-street until now, and exhorted them to renewed devotion and praise to the Lord for the prosperity that had attended them. Rabbi Isaacs alluded in disparaging terms to the innovations of the "reform party" among the Israelites, which he attributed to religious pride. He thanked God that the congregation B'nai Israel remained uncontaminated by these pretended reforms, and adhered strictly to the ceremonials of their fathers. A consecration prayer was then delivered by Rabbi de Leeuw, and the ceremonies closed with a Hallelujah by the choir.

1860: The London correspondent for the New York Times reported that the Times of London no longer enjoys any special advantage over its competitors because it has lost its monopoly on information.  The accumulated wealth of the Times had given it access to the telegraph providing it with an advantage over its poorer competitors.   “But since the monopoly of telegraphic communication has been secured by that clever and far-seeing German Jew, Mr. Reuters, all the journals are supplied, share and share alike, at the same time, and at the same tariff. In many specialties, such as "City Intelligence" and "Foreign Correspondence," the Daily Newsis nearly equal to the Times. The leading articles of the Telegraphare generally on the same subjects as those of its high-priced rival, and the Post, Herald and Star each appeal to their own peculiar class of readers.”

1861: At the meeting of the Board of Alderman in New York City this evening the report of the Committee donating $30,000 to the Hebrew Benevolent Society was adopted, but was subsequently reconsidered and laid over, on the motion of Alderman Tuomey.

1861: At a time when President Lincoln had called for “90 day volunteers” Herman Stern began his 3 month service with Company of the 83rd Regiment.

1861: Twenty-eight year old Jefferson Medical College trained laryngologist Dr. Morris Joseph Asch joined the United States Army today at which time he was assigned to the surgeon-general’s office after which he would become “surgeon-in-chief to the Artillery Reserve of the Army of the Potomac, medical inspector Army of the Potomac, medical director of the 24th Army Corps, medical inspector of the Army of the James, staff surgeon of General P. H. Sheridan from 1865 to 1873.”

1865: A correspondent for the Levant Herald wrote from Smyrna today describing the mortifying effects of the Cholera epidemic that has struck the city. Among other things he reported that Hyde Clark, the English engineer, has informed Sir Moses Montefiore of the suffering among the Jewish people. In response, the Jewish philanthropist has begun raising funds from the Jewish communities in London and France and it is thought that he and his associate, Dr. Hodgkins might personally come to the city with the necessary aid.

1865(13th of Av, 5625): Shabbat Nachamu

1865: Birthdate of Leopold Bloch, the resident of Pilsen who was transported to Terezin where he was murdered in 1942.

1865(13th of Ave, 5625): Thirty-one year old author Naphtali Keller whose works include to stores - "Sullam ha-Haẓlaḥah" and "Debek lo Tob", a tale of Galician Jewish life passed away today.

1867: Birthdate of “eastern Prussia” native Hermann Wronker, the founder of S. Wronker and Company, the German department store chain he operated with his brother Simon which he was forced to sell when the “company was aryanized” before being killed at Auschwitz in 1942.

1871: Less than a month after his birth, author Marcel Proust, the son of Jeanne Clémence (Weil) Proust, “the daughter of a wealthy Jewish family from Alsace,” was baptized in the Catholic faith of his father Adrien Proust “at the church of Saint-Louis d’Antin” today.

1872: In Baltimore, MD, Moses and Jane (Alborn) Friedenwald gave birth to Racie Friedenwald who became Racie Adler when she married Cyrus Adler.


1872: In London Sir Philip and Lady Magnus gave birth to Laurie Magnus the husband of Dora Spielmann, “the eldest daughter of Sir Isidore and Lady Spielman” and “editor of John Murray’s Educational Publications” who was active in the Anglo-Jewish community as can be seen by his membership on the Jewish Board of Deputies and service as Warden at the West London Synagogue.

1873: “ From A Traveler” published today provides the views of an American merchant in Switzerland on the treatment of religious groups in Europe as opposed to the United States concluding that “in the end tolerated must be secured to all.  I am led to this course of reflection from observing the wrong done the Jews than those inflicted on dissenting Christians.  If the great Rothschild does not devote his accumulated wealth to the assertion and maintenance of the rights of his people then he will deserve the execration of mankind.  That family, with a few others, have it within their power to say to the Governments of southern and eastern Europe ‘this far and no father.’”  (Editor’s note – This view of the all -powerful Jewish families is one of those myths that went up in smoke with the Shoah.)

1876: Leopold Wintner who had assumed the position of the eight rabbi of Temple Beth El in Detroit gave his farewell sermon today. When Wintner delivered a sermon at the Church of Our Father in May of 1876, he became “the first Detroit rabbi to preach in a local Christian church.”

1877: Birthdate of Hermann Ludwig Mass, a Protestant minister from Badem and one of the Righteous Among the Nations who attended the Six Zionists Congress and was imprisoned by the Nazis for helping Jews to escape from Europe.

1877: Birthdate of Ludwig Hollaender, who studied law at the University of Munich and practiced law there before returning to his hometown of Berlin where he fought growing anti-Semitism as the founder and director of the Central Union of Jews in Germany.

1878: It was reported today Peace Society had sent a delegation headed by Professor Leone Levi to the Congress of Berlin that was supposed to present a petition to the leaders of Europe calling for the use of arbitration as a method of settling international disputes.  Britain’s Lord Salisbury expressed his sympathy with the effort but held out little hope for any action.  Levi was an Italian born Jew who moved to Great Britain where he converted and became a lawyer and author.

1879: “Tracing Some Stolen Goods,” an article published today described how a Jew named Louis Pollard was arrested and falsely accused of stealing shoes worth five hundred dollars from a shoe factory on West Broadway last September.  The police finally realized their error and release him.

1881: It was reported today that mobs have started to attack the synagogues and shops owned by Jews in Pomerania.  The police had to be called to disperse the mobs.

1881: The views of “M. de Bacourt, Talleyrand’s friend, secretary and literary executor” on Americans published today included the following description of the New England Yankee whom others saw as a flinty Protestant as being “the type of the Englishman combined with the subtlety and cleverness of the Jews.  He is a mixture of British pride, coldness and stiffness with Hebrew cunning.” (Editor’s note – One can only imagine how those New Englanders who put stumbling blocks in front of the Jews would have felt about this description.)

1881: Based on information that first appeared in the London Standard, “Beaconsfield’s Manuscripts” published today descried the high prices that these works by Benjamin Disraeli brought at auction citing in particular the original copies of the novels The Young Duke and Contarini Fleming which were written in his own hand.

1882: The Standard Oil of New Jersey is established. During the 1930’s “Standard of New Jersey…forged a synthetic oil and rubber cartel with the Nazi-controlled I.G. Farben.”  This “helped the Third Reich to make significant gains “in the development of synthetic rubber and gasoline”; gains which would prove to be of invaluable assistance to the Nazis during WW II.  During the 1930’s Farben’s holding in Standard of New Jersey “were second only to those of John D., Jr., himself.” (For more about Standard Oil and the Jewish people, see The Secret War Against the Jews by John Loftus and Mark Aarons.)

1883: It was reported today that there was an anti-Semitic riot at Presburg in protest over the not guilty verdicts rendered in the case of Esther Solymosi.

1883: “The Scientific Gossip” column published today explained earlier comments by M.G. Lagneau about the differences in birthrates between Catholics, Protestants and Jews. Although Jews have a lower birthrate than the other two religions, there mortality rate “is remarkably low” a condition  attributed to their religious dietetic and hygienic regulations, early marriages, the fact that most Jewish women do not work out of the home and “general sobriety.”

1885: In Kovno, Lithuania, “Rachel and Hyman Jehuda Osinsky” gave birth to Moshe Osinsky, who came to England in 1900 where as Montague Maurice Burton he became a successful maker and seller of men’s clothing, and married  Sophia Amelia Marks with whom he had four children – Barbara, Stanley, Raymond and Arnold.

1885: Herzl withdrew from the court service in order to become a writer.

1888: It was reported today that plans have been to provide the youngsters at the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children with an extra summer excursion.

1888: According to a review of Quince Culture by W.W. Meech published today, the fruit is so mild that In Palestine it is eaten as soon as it is picked from the tree.  According to Jewish tradition, the quince was “the apple” that Eve used to tempt Adam.

1888: “Hearing the New Rabbi” published today described the views of the recently elected spiritual leader of The Temple of Gates of Hope on the use of the pulpit and “the duties of the one who occupies it” which included the idea that just ‘as the statue in our harbor proclaims light and peace to all nations os the pulpit must proclaim light and peace to all mankind.” (Temple of Gates of Prayer was the forerunner of today’s Park Avenue Synagogue)

1889: Salvatore Levy was arrested on charges of obtaining credit under false pretenses.  A  Greek Jew, Levy claimed to be the son of Elie Levy, who had a seat on the Bourse in Paris and had sent him to America.

1889: Assemblyman Charles “Silver Dollar Smith got into an altercation with Samuel Roberts at the Golden Rule Hotel during a meeting of Republicans of the 8thAssembly District.  [Smith was a Jewish political leader named Solomon who, among other things, passed out free Matzot at his saloon each year before Pesach. 

1889(8th of Av, 5649): Erev Tish’a B’Av

1889(8th of Av, 5649): Seventy-seven year old Isaac Phillips passed away this morning in New York City.  A successful businessman, he worked in the cutlery industry in Philadelphia and New York before pursuing a life of public service including work as a Customs Examiner and Surveyor of the Port.  He also edited the Courier Enquirer.  A life-long Democrat, he attended the convention that nominated James K. Polk to serve as President of the United States.. An active member of the Sephardic community, he was one of the founders of Mount Sinai Hospital.  In 1834, he married Sophia Phillips and after she died in 1855, he married Miriam Trimble, a gentile woman who had converted to Judaism. He was the son of Naphtali Phillips who held a position of responsibility at the Custom House and was editor of the National Advocate

1889: The members of gang called the Yellowstone Cowboys were sentenced to the Albany Penitentiary for their role in terrorizing a boarding house owned by Jew in Ulster County. (Compare this to what was going on in Russia at this time)

1889: Seventy-eight year old author and German “feminist” Fanny Lewald who converted to Christianity at the age of 17 passed away today.


1890: When asked about the order to enforce the Russian edicts of 1882 against the Jews, Sir James Fergusson, the Under Foreign Secretary told the House of Commons “that the British Government could interfere with the Czar’s treatment of the Jews.” (Sort of reminds you of the British not being able to “interfere” with Hitler’s “treatment of the Jews.”)

1890: The U.S. State Department cabled the American Legation at St. Petersburg asking if there was “any foundation” to reports of wholesale Jewish expulsion.

1890: A man described as a slender 5’ 8” German Hebrew attempted to obtain three copies of a recently issued book using a forged purchase order from H.C. Squires, a gun dealer on Broadway.

1890: “Dancing At Saratoga” published today provided a summary of activities and events at the New York resort including the fact “that Judge Hilton no longer holds a controlling interest in…the Grand Union Hotel” and there the “Hebrews are once more welcomed there.”

1890: Rabbi Freudntahl, the superintendent of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of Baltimore married “Miss Addie Sutto” at the New York home of her parents.

1890: In New York founding of the “Russian-American Hebrew Association, Educational Alliance” an organization seeking “to exercise a civilizing and elevating influence upon the immigrants, to Americanize them” which defending “the Russian immigrants against unjust attacks” whose President since its founding was Adolph M. Radin.

1891: “Russian Jews Released” published today describe the decision to let a group of Jews from Russia enter Baltimore now that the Maryland State Board of Immigration has been “given satisfactory assurances that the immigrants would not become public charges.

1892: A letter printed in an English publication, the Jewish Chronicle, “confirmed the failure of Baron de Hirsch’s colony in Argentina.” According to the writer, the conditions at Moiseville, the Jewish colony, “baffled description.  The land selected for the settlement was ill chosen and an enormous number of the families are huddled together in tents and sheds, where they have been living for months in idleness and intrigue.” After failing to improve conditions, Colonel Goldsmid disbanded the colony and made arrangements for eight hundred of the colonists to sail back to Europe.

1892: Birthdate of Hartford, CT native Emanuel Cohen, the “newsreel editor for Pattie News,” the vice president in charge of productions for Paramount” and the husband of “the former Madeline Bender.”

1893: “Rabbi Cohen Has The Records” published today described the dismissal of Rabbi Louis Cohen by the congregation at 44 Orchard Street led by President Abraham Finberg and Secretary Samuel Finkelstein and the problems they have encountered in obtaining the congregation’s records from the former rabbi.

1894: “Masquerade Ball at Deal Beach” published today described this social event that included Bryan Kennelly and Lou Rolston dressed as “a Hebrew merchant and his wife.” (Is it Shylock or Rothschild?)

1894: Two days after she had passed away, 45 year old Betsy (Levy) Defries, the daughter of Moses and Esther Levy and the wife of I.L. Defries was buried today at West Ham Jewish Cemetery.

1894: “Remains of the Eight Cities” published today provided a detailed review of A Mound of Many City: Tell-el-Hesy Excavated by Fredrick Bliss the American archaeologist who worked at the site under the auspices of the Palestine Exploration Society and under the direction of the famed British archaeologist Flinders Petrie

1895: “Objects To Having Jews Converted” published today described “Aaron Drucker’s indignation” that “has been aroused” by the Saturday afternoon meetings in the Church of Sea and Land “for the purpose of converting his co-religionist to Christianity.” He broke up one such meeting when shouted “Such meetings as this should not be held!  It is an outrage to humanity.  If a man is born a Jew… nothing can change him!” Efforts to convert the Jews of the Lower East Side continued despite his objections.

1895: Louis Stern, a New York dry goods merchant, went on trial today in Kissingen, Germany on charges that he had insulted Baron von Thuengen, the Deputy Commissioner of the city’s Spa much to the delight of “the Jew-baiters” and “the anti-Semitic press.”

1895: Birthdate of Newark, NJ native William Sawelson, the WW I Doughboy who was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for service at Grand-Pre, France. Sawelson served as a Sergeant, United States Army, Company M, 312th Infantry, 78th Division. His citation reads: “Hearing a wounded man in a shell hole some distance away calling for water, Sgt. Sawelson, upon his own initiative, left shelter and crawled through heavy machinegun fire to where the man lay, giving him what water he had in his canteen. He then went back to his own shell hole, obtained more water, and was returning to the wounded man when he was killed by a machinegun bullet.”

1895: “The Aldemanic Law Committee met this afternoon and decide to recommend that the Hebrew Benevolent Orphan Asylum Society be allowed to sell the property from 76thto 77th Street, Third to Lexington Avenue.”

1895: It was reported today that Meyer J. Stein, a lawyer in New York has expressed his outrage along with that of several of his co-religionist over the letterhead of the Hotel Lowry that says in red ink “3$ per day. No Jews.”

1896 “Free Trade In Money” published today provides the view of Edward Atkinson that the attempt to switch  United States currency from a gold standard to a bi-metal standard is a plot spearheaded by William Jennings Bryan, the silver miners and “the Jews bankers.”

1896: “Notes of Stage People” published today provided a preview of the fall season in New York including Oscar Hammerstein’s production of the romantic comic opera “Santa Maria” which will open at the Olympia.

1897: The roof garden on the Hebrew Institute Building opened for its second season this evening. The delay in re-opening this facility which provides relief from the heat for thousands on the Lower East Side was brought by the need to finish “extensive repairs…to the building” that will make it nicer for those seeking some semblance of “coolness.”

1897: The Straus sterilized milk booth (so named because they are funded by Nathan Straus) which was located at the roof garden of the Hebrew Institute  last year opened today “for the first time this year.”

1898: “A Riot In East New York” published today described a spontaneous outbursts of violence when Jewish immigrant mothers thought that attempts to vaccinate their daughters were an attempt to put the mark of the cross on their bodies and convert them to Christianity.

1898(17th of Av, 5658): Seventy-six year old Isidor Bush the native of Prague whose “maternal great-grandfather was Israel Hönig, Edler von Hönigsberg, the first Jew raised to nobility in Austria” passed away in St. Louis MO. He moved to the United States after the failed Revolutions of 1848 where he enjoyed an exciting life that included a career in banking, service in the Union Army and helping to develop the Jewish community in St. Louis and the wine growing industry in Missouri; an effort that was felt all the way back to France.

1899(29th of Av, 5659): Seventy-five year old Myer Stern passed away today at Bath Beach while staying at the Hotel Argyle. A native of Bavaria, at the age of 16 he went to work for a banking house owned by the father of Baron Hirsch before coming to the United States where he became a successful banker and merchant.  An active philanthropist, he served as President of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum, first President of the Institute of Deaf Mutes and was a founder of Temple Emanu-El.

1899: Israel Zangwill, the author of “The Children of the Ghetto” was one of the first passengers to come down the gangplank of the SS Campania when “she docked at the Cunard pier” today.

1899: Israel Zangwill left New York this evening to visit Judge Meyer Sulzberger in Philadelphia, PA

1899: The United Hebrew Charities acknowledged that it had raised an additional $200.50 for an impoverished family that sought to move to the country since both of the parents had become chronic invalids as result of overwork in the city. The contributions ranged from as much as $20 from A.A. Levy to fifty cents from Philip Domich.



1902: Herzl’s trip to the Ottoman Empire begun on July 22, 1902 ends.  Of the trip, Herzl writes, "The negotiations have again led to no results." Herzl comes to the conclusion that the direct road to Palestine was for the time being blocked. He hopes to advance the indirect road of El Arish.
Herzl offers to liquidate the entire Ottoman national debt in return for a concession to "Haifa and its environs."


1903: Herzl begins his journey to visit the Jews of Russia.  The trip will end on the 18th day of the month.

1904: In Hungary, Jacob and Sarah Mandell gave birth to Carl Mandell the ex-husband of Tennessee native Sylvia Mandell.

1906: Today, eleven English-speaking Jews held a formal meeting in Havana with the intention of founding a congregation and cemetery. The venue was the home of Manuel Hadida at Pasaje Arcado No. 9. Hadida was a Sephardic Jew originally from Algeria, who apparently had migrated from North Africa to Paris, and then to the United States. Evidently it was from the United States that he moved to Havana. Typical of the period, most of the others were Ashkenazi "Americans," although some had been born in Europe. At the first meeting Louis Jurick was elected chairman of the Hebrew Congregation of Cuba, and Manuel Hadida was chosen as general secretary.

1906: Birthdate of Nobel Prize-winning economist, Wassily Leontif. Born in St. Petersburg, the son of an economist, Leontif received his Ph.D. from Berlin University. He began teaching at Harvard in 1932. He won the Nobel Prize "for the development of the input-output method and for its application to important economic problems." Later in life he developed an interest in environmental issues. He passed away in 1999 at the age of 92.

1908(8th of Av, 5668): Erev Tish’a B’Av

1908: In Ashton, England, UK Charles Rothschild and Rozsika Edle Rothschild (née von Wertheimstein) gave birth to “Miriam Rothschild, the heiress who discovered how fleas jump, brought Chaucerian wildflowers back to modern England and was acknowledged as one of the world's most distinguished naturalists.’

1908: In Charenton-le-pont, Meir Pines and his wife gave birth to Sholomo Pines the Israeli scholar who made Aliyah in 1940 and is best known for his English translation of Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed.  The Shlomo Pines Society, founded in 1990 is dedicated to advancing his work a preserving his memory http://www.shlomopines.org.il/len/

1910: In Brooklyn, Jennie (Marrow) Green and “Hyman Levy Green, a garment manufacturer” gave birth to biochemist David Ezra Green.


1911(11thof Av, 5671): Shabbat Nachamu

1911: Millard Cantor is scheduled to serve as Cantor at Shabbat Morning services at Isaiah Temple.

1911: Dr. Gerson B. Levi is scheduled to deliver the sermon this morning at Congregation B’nai Sholom-Temple Israel.

1911: Max von Oppenheim, the son of a member of the Jewish banking family who had converted to Catholicism so he could marry Max’s mother and a team of 5 archaeologist began “a digging campaign” at Tell-Halaf.

1912: In Brooklyn, NY, attorney Samuel Chugerman and his wife Helen gave birth to Daniel Chugerman who gained fame as director Daniel Mann. (A reported by William Honan)


1913: Funeral services are scheduled to be held this morning for 19 year old Donald Milton Malkan, the son of Phillip and Bertha (Burgheim) Malkan followed burial at Rosehill Cemetery.

1913: In Mt. Vernon, NY, Abraham and Lena Federman Levy gave birth to Bernard G. Levy, the youngest of their six children who worked as a jewelry salesman for several companies before opening “his own store, ‘Bernie Levy, Jeweler’ in Tuckahoe, NY.”

1914: As Europe stumbles into what will become a World War Montenegro declared war on Austria-Hungary


1915: The German Army occupied Warsaw during WW I

1915: Three thousand mostly young Jewish workingmen and workingwomen attended a mass meeting tonight in Cooper Union “for the purpose of takings steps toward the organization of a Jewish congress” which would to “ameliorate the conditions of Jews all over the world.”

1915: It was reported today that among the ten thousand prisoners being held by the Germans in a camp “near the university town of Giesen in Upper House includes “Russian Jews.”

1916: “The Day’s New Editors” published today described the change in leadership at the “New York national Jewish daily newspaper which is now under the control of a board of three Jewish scholars, Professor Isaac Hurowitz, William Edlin and Dr. A. Coralnick.

1916: “Movie Ad Men In Association” published today described the first meeting of the Associated Motion Picture Advertisers whose Executive Counsel includes Jesse Lasky, Paul Gulick and Harry Reichenbach.

1916: Tickets are scheduled to go on sale today for a benefit arranged by Daniel Frohman to raise money for the Actor’s Fund of America to be held at the New Amsterdam Theatre.

1916:  Having been able to concentrate 50,000 troops at Romani in response the attack by the Germans and Turks, the British Imperial forces went on the offensive putting an end to the last attempt by the Central Powers to take the Suez Canal and opening the way for the British to begin to seriously considera campaign that liberate Palestine and take them all the way to Damascus by war’s end.

1917: In New York, Benjamin Swartz, the Chairman of Draft Board 151 explained the failure of his board to make public its number of recruits because “as a matter of fact, we were going so fast and things were coming in our way in such fine shape that we decided it would be better to wait until we got our quote and then let the good news out and that is what we did.”

1918: It was reported today that the Hebrew University has received a gift of five thousand shares of the Jewish Colonial Trust valued at $25,000 from Jacob Schiff.

1918: In Poland, Rabbi Mordechai Dov Eidelberg and his wife gave birth to Shlomo Eidelberg, WW II resistance fighter and Professor Emeritus of Jewish History at Yeshiva University in New York.

https://biblio.co.uk/the-jews-and-the-crusaders-by-eidelberg-shlomo/work/2165583


1918: “Twenty-four new welfare workers were graduated from the training school of the Jewish Welfare Board of the United States Army and Navy” this evening in New York.

1918(27thof Av, 5678): Seventy eight year old Moritz Guedemann, the chief rabbi of Vienna passed away today.


1919: It was reported today that “as a tribute to the memory of Oscar Hammerstein, Hugo Riesenfeld, Director of the Rioli and the Rialto, ordered the flag on the Rialto to be flown at half-mast” during the funeral of Oscar Hammerstein while a bugler played “Taps” from the roof of the theatre.

1919(9th of Av, 5679): As the Minsk Offensive continues and the Jews of that city wonder if they will be living under Polish or Soviet rule, Tish'a B'Av is observed.

1920: Representatives “of the Hungarian University Club, Hungarian Self-Culture Society and the Hungarian-American Federation addressed today addressed an appeal to Berthold Singer, the Spanish Consul in Chicago whose country “is looking after American interests in the former dual monarchy” asking that Charles Huszar, the former Premier of Hungary not be allowed to visit Chicago because “many Hungarians hold him responsible for pogroms and oppression of Jews in Hungary.”

1922: Birthdate of Tel Aviv native and Columbia educated psychologist Hiam Ginott best known for the work Between Child and Parent.


1925(5th of Av, 5685): Tu B’Av

1925: In Brooklyn, Phillip and Minnie Shainmark Bloom gave birth to Joel Nachum Bloom “who in his 21 years as director of the science museum and planetarium at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia transformed a lackluster exhibition space into a bright and appealing one with hands-on experiments and walk-through exhibits, including a giant, pulsing human cell…” (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)

1925 Birthdate of Richard Heffner who conducted some two dozen interviews with Elie Wiesel for his public television productions "The Open Mind" and "Dialogues: A Series of Conversations on the Crucial Issues of Our Times” which were published as Conversations with Elie Wiesel




1926: Houdini stays in a coffin under water for more than one hour

1933: Archaeologists working for the Palestine Exploration Fund discovered an ancient synagogue, dating from the sixth century C. E near Nahalal.

1933: “The Big Brain” based on story by Sy Bartlett who also wrote the script was distributed today in the United States by R.K.O. Pictures

1933: In Montreal, The arrival of Sir Herbert Samuel in Montreal, as leader of British delegation to the fifth biennial conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations, is made the occasion of attack by anti-Semitic newspaper, Le Patriot, which charges him with being the emissary of the "Elders of Zion" to open Canada to Jewish refugees from Germany.

1933: The Nazi Lawyers' Association addresses a formal letter to business establishments threatening them with a boycott if they continue to employ Jewish lawyers.

1933: In Frankfort, Court imposes a two months' imprisonment sentence upon a Jewish journalist for wearing a swastika, even though he contends that he renounced Judaism in 1922 and had applied for membership in the National Socialist Party.

1933: In Hamburg, The Heinrich Heine monument is removed from the city park.

1933: The Nazi Rhine officials issue an order prohibiting the employment of Jews as non-qualified labor in the entire Rhine district. Employers are warned of penalties if they employ Jews who do not produce a special card entitling them to employment.

1934: “Good Morning, Eve!” a comedy short starring Leon Errol was released today in the United States.

1934(24th of Av, 5694): One hundred Jews are killed in an anti-Semitic pogrom at Constantine, Algeria.

1936:  Arab disturbances and on the division of responsibilities between the Palestine and the British governments.

1936(17th of Av, 5696): Fifty-six year old Irvin Frank Lehman, the Pittsburgh born son of Moses and Franny Frank Lehman and husband of Franny Fanny Klein Lehman who was “one of the original trustees of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies” passed away today.

1936: “A letter from President Roosevelt, made public” today “by the United Palestine Appeal in connection with its forthcoming publication, the United Palestine Appeal Year Book for 1936 which is designed to raise $3,500,000, declares that the Jews have a right to settle in Palestine.”

1936: “A group of residents of North Bergen, NJ, filed a petition with the township commission” today “asking for the removal of a Talmud Torah, a Jewish religious center and school at 1,154 Fourth Avenue, a residential street of semi-detached houses.”

1937: In Tel Aviv, Amnon Drori and Ella Drori, the daughter of Alexander and Ester Govorkovski  gave birth to Amir Drori

1937: The British Palestinian policy gained its first ground today when Dr. Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Congress, made an eloquent though guarded plea in favor of the partition principle to the biennial congress.

1937: Birthdate of Dan Shomron the Sabra who would play a key role in the 1976 Raid on Entebbe and served as the 13th Chief of Staff of the IDF.

1937: The 20th Zionist Congress, held in Zurich, decided by a vote of 285 against 115, to hold the political debate behind closed doors. 

 1937: In Geneva, the Permanent Mandates Commission reminded the British Colonial Secretary, Mr. Ormsby-Gore, that Britain administered Palestine on its behalf.

1938: As they attempted to halt Arab instigated violence, British troops clashed with a band of armed men, killing three and wounding four.

1938: “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” a musical with a script co-authored by Irving Berlin who along with Alfred Newman wrote the score was released in the United States today.

1938: “Algiers’ produced by Walter Wagner (born Walter Feuchtwanger) and starring Hedy Lamar was released in the United States today by United Artists.

1938: “The Crowd Roars” produced by Sam Zimbalist and featuring Lionel Stander as "Happy" Lane was released in the United States today by Loew’s, Inc.

1939: “Indianapolis Speedway” a drama with a script by Sig Herzig and music by Adolph Deutsch was released in the United States today.

1940(1st of Av, 5700): Rosh Chodesh Av

1941(12th of Av, 5701): Sixty-five year old  Yaakov Ben Zion Mendelson, the rabbi of the Bergen Street Shul  and a leading member of the Assembly of Hebrew Orthodox Rabbis of America and Canada passed away today.

 1941(12th of Av, 5701): The Holocaust continued to gain momentum. In Rasaininai, 213 men and 66 Jewish women were murdered.

1941: A three day long slaughter of Jews begins in Pinsk that results in the death of eleven thousand Jews. 

1942: “Tales of Manhattan” an “American anthology film” produced by Sam Spiegel, with music by Sol Kaplan, with a script co-authored by Ben Hecht and co-starring Edward G. Robinson was released in the United States today by 20th Century Fox.

1942: In the Warsaw Ghetto German soldiers came to collect the 192 (there is some debate about the actual number and it may have been 196) orphans and about one dozen staff members to take them to Treblinka extermination camp. The children were under the care of Janusz Korczak, the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit a Polish-Jewish children's author, pediatrician, and child pedagogue, known as Pan Doktor (Mr Doctor). Korczak had been offered sanctuary on the “Aryan side” of Warsaw but turned it down repeatedly, saying that he could not abandon his children. Now too, he refused offers of sanctuary, insisting that he would go with the children. The children were dressed in their best clothes, and each carried a blue knapsack and a favorite book or toy. Joshua Perle, an eyewitness, described the procession of Korczak and the children through the ghetto to the Umschlagplatz (deportation point to the death camps):

... A miracle occurred. Two hundred children did not cry out. Two hundred pure souls, condemned to death, did not weep. Not one of them ran away. None tried to hide. Like stricken swallows they clung to their teacher and mentor, to their father and brother, Janusz Korczak, so that he might protect and preserve them. Janusz Korczak was marching, his head bent forward, holding the hand of a child, without a hat, a leather belt around his waist, and wearing high boots. A few nurses were followed by two hundred children, dressed in clean and meticulously cared for clothes, as they were being carried to the altar. (...) On all sides the children were surrounded by Germans, Ukrainians, and this time also Jewish policemen. They whipped and fired shots at them. The very stones of the street wept at the sight of the procession.

According to a popular legend, when the group of orphans finally reached the Umschlagplatz, an SS officer recognized Korczak as the author of one of his favorite children's books and offered to help him escape, but once again, Korczak refused. He boarded the trains with the children and was never heard from again.

Korczak's evacuation from the Ghetto is also mentioned in Władysław Szpilman's book The Pianist

"One day, around 5th August when I had to take a brief rest from work and was walking down Gesia Street, I happened to see Janusz Korczak and his orphans leaving the ghetto. The evacuation of the Jewish orphanage run by Janusz Korczak had been ordered for that morning. The children were to have been taken away alone. He had the chance to save himself, and it was only with difficulty that he persuaded the Germans to take him too. He had spent long years of his life with children and now, on this last journey he could not leave them alone. He wanted to ease things for them. He told the orphans they were going out in to the country, so they ought to be cheerful. At last they would be able exchange the horrible suffocating city walls for meadows of flowers, streams where they could bathe, woods full of berries and mushrooms. He told them to wear their best clothes, and so they came out into the yard, two by two nicely dressed and in a happy mood. The little column was lead by an SS man who loved children, as Germans do, even those he was about to see on their way into the next world. He took a special liking to a boy of twelve, a violinist who had his instrument under his arm. The SS man told him to go to the head of the precession of children and play – and so they set off. When I met them in Gesia Street the smiling children were singing in chorus, the little violinist was playing for them and Korczak was carrying two of the smallest infants, who were beaming too, and telling them some amusing story. I am sure that even in the gas chamber, as the Zyklon B gas was stifling childish throats and striking terror instead of hope into the orphans hearts, the Old Doctor must have whispered with one last effort, ‘it's all right, children, it will be all right’. So that at least he could spare his little charges the fear of passing from life to death."The Pianist - Page 96

Sometime after, there were rumors that the trains had been diverted and that Korczak and the children had survived. There was, however, no basis to these stories. Most likely, Korczak was killed with most of his children in a gas chamber upon their arrival at Treblinka. There is a memorial grave for him at the Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw.

1943: Along with 11 other women Liane Berkowitz was executed Plötzensee Prison for their part in the German Resistance Movement.

1943: In “Rockaway, Queens, NY, pharmacist Hyman Pearlman and his wife gave birth to “music man” Samuel Clarke "Sandy" Pearlman.


1943: Harold Alfond, the founder of Dexter Shoes, married Dorothy Levine of Waterford, Maine.

1943: Eva-Marie Buch a member of the Red Orchestra who had been arrested “for passing message to French slave workers in factories” was hanged today “in Plötzensee Prison, Berlin”

 1944:  Polish fighters liberated the Gesoiowaka Labor Camp from the Germans. Among those freed were 384 Jewish prisoners.  

1944: The Mekfure carrying 394 Romanian Jews seeking refuge in Palestine sank today

1945: On the day before the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the bombing of Hangkew, the cite a “strategically placed radio transmitter” and home to large number of Jewish refugees, which had begun in July, came to an end.

1947: Birthdate of Rabbi David Nathan Saperstein, an alum of Cornell, Hebrew Union College and American University, who was “the director and chief legal counsel at the Union for Reform Judaism’s Religious Action Center” and “the first non-Christian to held the post of United States Ambassador-at-Lary for International Religious Freedom”

1947: Today, as the British returned to work from the three-day bank holiday weekend, they dealt with the reality that anti-Jewish riots and “disturbances had “taken place in Glasgow, Bristol, Hull, London, Warrington. Salfrod where “a crowd of several thousand had thrown stones at shop windows, West Derby “where arsonists set fire to a wooden synagogue,” Liverpool where “workers at Canada Dock found ‘death to all Jews’ painted above the entrance” and Ecles where John Regan, “a former sergeant major” told a crowd of 700 that Hitler was right – exterminate every Jew.”

1947: Israel Rokach, the future Mayor of Tel Aviv was imprisoned in the prison at Latrun

1947(19th of Av, 5707): Lucian Kahn, the son of Ohio businessman Lazard Kahn and the former Coralie Alice Lemann of Donaldsonville, LA and the brother of Marie, Milton, Bertram and Jerome Kahn passed away today “while visiting his daughter in San Francisco” after which during a community salute, it was said that “it is doubtful if a more civic and community-minded person ever lived in Hamilton, OH.”

1948: Today Austrian banker Sonja Kohn was born to Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe in Vienna. “She grew up in Vienna in a small Jewish community. In the 1970s, with her husband Erwin Kohn, she started an import-export business and moved to Milan, Italy. In 1984 she founded the Bank Medici in Vienna. One year later, she moved to New York. They lived in Monsey, a large, ultraorthodox Jewish community. Increasingly orthodox, she covered her hair as is customary for traditionally orthodox women. The Kohns founded a small brokerage firm, the Eurovaleur Inc. In New York City she became known as “Austria’s woman on Wall Street.” In 1990s, they moved back to Vienna. There, she cooperated with Gerhard Randa of Bank Austria. The Bank Medici was relaunched in 2003 as an Aktiengesellschaft. Sonja is shareholder of 75 percent and is head of the bank's supervising board. She also became consultant of the Vienna Stock Exchange and was member of the supervisory board of Italian Finlombardia bank.

1948: In light of the realities of the military situation and the failure of the UN to act, the Israeli government explicitly rejected the proposal for an internationalized Jerusalem.

1950: The Saturday Review published “The Squaw Man Rides Again,” Robert Gessner’s reviews of the western film “The Broken Arrow”

1951: Funeral services are scheduled to be held this morning of Isidor Freedman, the wife of Selma Freedman one of the founders and leaders of the Hebrew Teachers Training School for Girls.

1953: Premiere of “From Here to Eternity” for which Fred Zinnemann won an Oscar as Best Director.

1955: The task of marking the border between Israel and Egypt “in the Nitzana/Auja vicinity” was completed today.

1957(8th of Av, 5717): Nobel Prize winning chemist Heinrich Otto Wieland passed away.  Wieland was not Jewish. According to one source, Wieland provided educational opportunities for Jewish students who were expelled under the terms of the Nuremberg Laws. Wieland was also an associate of members of the White Rose, a secret anti-Nazi organization whose membership was, for the most part, killed off by the Gestapo during the last years of the war.

1958: Birthdate of  Israeli  political leader Silvan Shalom, the native of Tunisia who made Aliyah in 1959 and served in a number of ministerial positions including Vice Prime Minister

1959(1st of Av, 5719): Rosh Chodesh Av

1960: The Metropolitan Synagogue of New York is scheduled to hold Shabbat Eve services at its temporary home” – Community Church.

1960: Funeral services are scheduled to be held this morning in Forest Hills for David Goldman, the husband of Ina Goldman and father of Patricia and Mark Goldman

1962(5th of Av, 5722): Actress Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her Los Angeles home. She was 36. Her death was ruled a probable suicide from an overdose of sleeping pills. Monroe had converted to Judaism when she married playwright Arthur Miller.

1963(15th of Av, 5723): Tu B’Av

1963(15th of Av, 5723): Ninety-one year old bantamweight champion Sigmund “Sig” Hart passed away today.

1964:  Mel Brooks marries Anne Bancroft.

1964: “Bande à part,” which would later be released in the United States as “Band of Outsiders” starring Sami Frey was released today in France.

1964: Birthdate of Adam Nathaniel Yauch, the son of a Catholic father and a Jewish mother, the American rapper “best known as a founding member of the hip hop group Beastie Boys” who “sometimes worked under the pseudonym Nathanial Hörnblowér.”

1964: David Hurst appeared in the role of “Paedagogus” when “Electra” opened at the Delacorte Theatre during the New York Shakespeare Festival.

1965: Sandy Socolow produced a report on the CBS Evening News that showed “U.S. Marines torching dozens of thatched huts” at the village of Cam Ne which “defied the upbeat assessment of the war” being presented by the Department of Defense.

1966: Birthdate of actor Jonathan Silverman the son of Rabbi Emanuel Silverman and the grandson of Rabbi Morris Silverman.

1968(11th of Av, 5728): Sixty-eight year old New York born and Columbia Law School educated attorney Herbert. W. Aldenstein, the husband of “the former Mrs. Jennie L. Whitehall” with whom he raised a daughter and a son, John K. Haldenstein who “was associate chairman of the board of rustees of the Jewish Home and Hospital for the Aged” and “former President of the Central Bureau for the Jewish Aged” passed away today after suffering “an aneurism.”

1973(7th of Av, 5733): Seventy-three year old Dr. Ernst Papanek, the native of Vienna who came to the United States in 1940 where he eventual became “a professor of educational psychology at Queens College passed away today.


1973:  In Athens, five people were murdered and another fifty-five were wounded when 2 Palestinian terrorists machine gunned the passenger lounge at the airport.

1975: Birthdate of Iddo Goldberg, the Israeli actor who played Yitzchak Shulman, in the film version of Defiance, the book and film that told the story of the Bielski partisans, a group led by three Jewish brothers who saved and recruited Jews in Belarus during the Second World War.

1976(9th of Av, 5736): Tish’a B’Av is observed for the last during the Presidency of Gerald Ford.

1976: ABC broadcast the first episode of “What’s Happening!!” a sitcom produced by Bernie Orenstein, Saul Turtletaub and Bud Yorkin.

1976: Leonard Bernstein conducted the German-language premiere of Candide, at Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna.

1978: Birthdate of Israeli tennis player Harel Levy.

1979(12th of Av, 5739): Eight-four year old “Jacob S. Potofsky, former president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America” whom President Jimmy Carter described as “one of the giants of the American labor movement” passed away today.


1980(23rd of Av, 5740): The former Kitty Rovine, the widow of Ukrainian-American Herman Brodsky to whom she had been married for more than fifty-seven years, passed away today in Philadelphia.

1981: After more than 4 years, the 18th government under Prime Minister Menachem Begin came to an end.

1981: Ariel Sharon replaced Menachem Begin as Minister of Defense.

1981: Yitzhak Berman succeeded Yitzhak Moda’i as Minister of Energy and Water Resources.

1981: Mordechai Tzipori, succeeded Yoram Aridor as Communications Minister

1982: Prime Minister Begin and his Cabinet met this evening in Jerusalem to consider the situation in Lebanon in light of the American expression of the to re-establish and maintain a cease-fire.

1983(26th of Av, 5743): Eight year old Trenton native Rabbi Saul Habas, the husband of “Ruth Janette Zerkowsky Habas” passed away today after which he was buried in the Natchez City Cemetery in Adams County, Mississippi.

1983: “The Star Chamber” a judicial thriller directed by Peter Hyams, produced by Frank Yablans and co-starring Yaphet Kotto was released in the United States today.

1983(26th of Av, 5743): Seventy-nine year old I. J. (Israel James) Kapstein, the boyhood friend of S. J. Perlman who became a successful novelist and English professor while raising a daughter Judith an a son, Jonathan with his wife Stella passed away today.


1985(18th of Av, 5745): Eighty-seven year old Arnold “Arnie” Horween who was the first Jewish captain of the Harvard football team and then went on to a career in the NFL and coaching passed away today.

1986(29th of Tammuz, 5746): Ninety year old New York native John Alexander, the WW I veteran who was guided during his career at Rutgers by theatrical legend Paul Robeson and who made football history in 1922 when as a member of the Milwaukee Badgers played the position of “outside linebacker” much to the surprise of the Chicago Cardinals passed away today.

1987: Mathew Broderick was in a car accident in Northern Ireland in which he was seriously injured and the passenger in the other was killed for which he was eventually found guilty of “careless driving and fined $175.

1988: “Track 29” co-starring Sandra Bernhard as “Nurse Stein” was released today in the United Kingdom.

1989(4th of Av, 5749): Shabbat Chazon

1993: A soldier was kidnapped and killed north of Jerusalem

1995(9th of Av, 5755): Because today is Shabbat, this evening is Erev Tisha B’Av

1995(9th of Av, 5755): Eighty-six year old New York native Bertram Harris who “played guard on the Rutgers University football team from 1928 to 1930: passed away today.

1995(9th of Av, 5755): Israeli composer Menachem Avidom passed away at the age of 87.

1996: “Shylock” a one act play that “focuses on a Jewish actor named Jon Davies, who is featured as Shylock in a production of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice” opened at Bard on the Beach in Canada today.

1998(13thof Av, 5758): Ninety-eight year Jacques Landesberg, the husband of Isabelle Goldberg Landesberg, passed away today after which he was buried at Mount Hebron Cemetery in Flushing, NY.

1998(13th of Av, 5758): Harel Bin-Nun, 18, and Shlomo Liebman, 24, were shot and killed in an ambush by terrorists while on patrol at the Yizhar settlement in Samaria. (Jewish Virtual Library)

1998: Two soldiers were killed during an ambush at Yizhar.

1999: Matan Vilnai succeeded Ehud Barak as Minister of Culture and Sport

1999: Yithak Vaknin began serving as Deputy Minister of Communications.

1999: Efraim Sneh began serving as Deputy Minister of Defense.

1990: Yeshiva University and The Lincoln Square Synagogue are in a state of mourning over the deather of Helen Newman Greenwald, the wife of Herbert Greenwald and the mother of Rose (Mrs. Morton L.) Landowne.

2001: The New York Times book section featured a review of Francine du Plessix Gray’s biography of Simon Weil, the ‘atheist Jew’ entitled Simon Weil

2001: U.S. Premiere of “Wild Iris” co-starring Emile Hirsch.

2001: “Israeli helicopters fire a pair of laser-guided rockets at a carrying the Hamas terrorist Amer Hassan Madiri

2001: For the first time TNT broadcast the made-for-television film “James Dean” written by Israel Horovitz and directed by Mark Rydell.

2001(16th of Av, 5761):Tehiya Bloomberg, 40, of Karnei Shomron, mother of five and 5 months pregnant, was killed when Palestinian gunmen opened fire on the family vehicle between Alfei Menashe and Karnei Shomron. Three people were seriously wounded, including her husband, Shimon, and daughter, Tzippi, 14.

2002: At the Umm al-Fahm junction a terrorists set off a bomb killing himself and wounding his Israeli-Arab taxi driver.

2002(27th of Av, 5762): Twenty-nine year old Avi Wolanski and his wife 27 year old Avital Wolanski were murdered “when terrorists” from “The Martyrs of the Palestinian Popular Army” “opened fire on their car.”

2002: “A heavily armed Palestinian in a wet suit was shot and killed by Israeli police as he swam ashore near an Israeli settlement.”

2004: “The rapid growth” of the Casah Bahia chain of department stores “and Samuel Klein’s role in building it into a regional economic force were the subject of one of the case studies in The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid which was pubished today.

2005: In Los Angeles, actress Rena Sofer, the daughter of Rabbi Martin Sofer and Sanford Bookstaver gave birth to their first child Avalon Leone.

2005: Nicole Sarah Mackey, daughter of Mark and Karen Mackey, granddaughter of Harvey and Elaine Luber, and an all-around great person, becomes a Bat Mitzvah in Little Rock, Arkansas.

2006: Marissa Carson, daughter of Laura and Bill Carson is called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah in Cedar Rapids, IA.  As the Israelis are battling those who would destroy the Jewish state, there is additional drama and poignancy to the opening words of her haftarah, “Comfort, ye, comfort my people – Nachamu, Nachamu ami.”

2006(11th of Av, 5766): Fadiya Juma'a, 60, and her daughters Sultana, 31, and Samira, 33 were killed by Hezbollah rockets.

2006: Jerry “Reinsdorf was inducted into the Appleton, Wisconsin Baseball Hall of Fame today in a ceremony at Fox Cities Stadium prior to that evening's game between the Midwest League Wisconsin Timber Rattlers and Beloit Snappers.”

2006(11thof Av, 5766): Ninety-nine year old “producer, direct and actor” the brother of Jack, Jules and Ben White and husband of Claretta Ellis whose career including everything from making musical comedies to WW II armed forces training films.

2007: An exhibition entitled “Dateline Israel: New Photography and Video Art” comes to a close at the Jewish Museum in New York City.

2007(21st of Av, 5767): Eighty-nine year old Amos Manor, the survivor of Auschwitz who was Director of Shin Bet for ten years passed away today.


2007: Tevi David Troy, the holder of a Ph.D. from the University of Texas, a “member of the Kemp Mill Synagogue in Silver Spring, Maryland, where he lives with his wife, Kami (née Pliskow) and their four children” began serving as United States Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services today.

2007: The Sunday New York Times Book Section reviewed Dalia Sofer’s first novel, The September of Shiraz, a “richly evocative, powerfully affecting depiction of a prosperous Jewish family in Tehran shortly after the revolution” and 15 Stars: Eisenhower, MacArthur, Marshall: Three Generals Who Saved the American Century by the Jewish author Stanley Weintraub.

2007: The Sunday Washington Post book section reviewed Girls Gone Mild by Jewish author Wendy Shalit andFateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940-1941 by Ian Keshaw. “The last decision Kershaw explores -- moving to the industrial-scale murder of Europe's Jews -- wasn't so much a decision as the endpoint of a long trajectory of anti-Semitism that found its ultimate exponent in Hitler and its impetus in the speed of his victories in 1940 and 1941. This final chapter is a horrifying chronicle of the "spiral of radicalization" in Nazi thinking that led from Mein Kampf to Auschwitz-Birkenau. It is a fitting coda to Kershaw's thoughtful, far-reaching examination of events that echo down to today.”



2007: The Cedar Rapids Gazette featured an article about In Tolerance a precision contractor manufacturing company owned by Jewish community leader Robert Becker describing it as “a Cedar Rapids company leading the way in family-friendly policies.”



2007: Eighty-year old Jean-Marie Lustiger, the French Cardinal who was a born Jewish in Poland and whose mother died in a Nazi Concentration Camp, passed away today. (As reported by Tagliabue)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/world/europe/06lustiger.html?pagewanted=all





2008: In Little Rock, AR, opening session of From Ruins to Glory, a course of study based on a virtual tour of the Temple.



2008: In St. Paul, MN, the Modern Marvels series, “Jewish Adventures in the Graphic Novel” examines The Quitter by Harvey Pekar..



2008: Shaul Mofaz officially entered the race to be leader of Kadima and received a blessing by Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef



2008: Yakov Kreizberg conducted his final symphony at the BBC Proms.

2009: The Pittsburgh City Council President declared to to be "Evelyn Kozak Day" in Pittsburgh in 2009 in honor of her 110th birthday, saying that” this daughter of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants “was the oldest living Pittsburgher.





2009(15th of Av, 5769): Tu B’Av - “According to the Talmud (tractate Ta'anit, 30b-31a), Tu B'Av was a joyous holiday in the days of the Temple in Jerusalem: Unmarried girls would dress in simple white clothing (so that rich could not be distinguished from poor) and go out to sing and dance in the vineyards surrounding Jerusalem. One of the happier holidays on the Jewish calendar, the Fifteenth of Av is today considered the Israeli equivalent of Valentine's Day. Yet another holiday with agricultural origins, Tu B'Av is said to be the day that the members of the twelve tribes were first allowed to marry each other. While often forgotten elsewhere, Tu B'Av is a fairly big deal in Israel. People send cards and give flowers to their loved ones, and hold special "Holiday of Love" parties. http://www.sfjcf.org/resources/jholidays/

2009: The Times of London reported today that the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah has stockpiled 40,000 rockets near the border with Israel and is training its guerillas to use missiles capable of striking Tel Aviv,. According to the report, militants are now being trained in the use of both long-range ground-to-ground missiles as well as anti-aircraft missiles to use against Israel. Israel, the United Nations and Hezbollah itself have all said that the milita is stronger today than it was during the Second Lebanon War. While the northern front has been relatively quiet since the 2006 conflict, Deputy GOC Northern Command Alon Friedman told The Times that the peace could "explode at any minute." Last month, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah predicted that Israel would attack Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon sometime before next spring. Nasrallah told Lebanese media his organization would launch missiles at Tel Aviv if Israel attacks the Shi'ite group's positions in Lebanon. He warned that "the equation had changed" in its method of resistance against Israel and threatened to attack Tel Aviv should the IDF bomb the southern suburbs of Beirut, as it did during the 2006 war. Senior Israel Defense Forces staff and defense establishment personnel have expressed extreme concern over the possibility of a serious incident on the Lebanese border in the near future. Tensions with Hezbollah have risen lately, especially since one of the organization's warehouses of Katyusha rockets in southern Lebanon blew up last month. In response, defense officials have held several high-level consultations on the situation. The explosion revealed that Hezbollah was still stockpiling rockets south of the Litani River, in violation of Lebanon's obligations under UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which marked the end of the Second Lebanon War. The Timesobtained surveillance footage showing Hezbollah guerillas trying to extract rockets and munitions from the site of the explosion. UN peacekeeping forces were subsequently blocked from entering the site for investigation. Israel, meanwhile, has said that UNIFIL had precise information about the cache and a number of other installations where Hezbollah is storing rockets, but that peacekeeping force had done nothing. Senior IDF officers believe that Hezbollah has completely rebuilt its network of bunkers and arms stockpiles in south Lebanon, but has located them almost entirely inside Shi'ite villages rather than in open areas, as it did sometimes in the past. The warehouse explosion revealed this fact, and has prompted Hezbollah to worry that Israeli intelligence may know where its new bases are located.

2009: In case of Jews replace Jews, it was announced today that A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips “would take over hosting duties on ‘At the Movies’ from Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz.”

2009(15th of Av, 5769): Budd Schulberg, an American screenwriter, television producer, novelist and sports writer passed away.  He was known for his 1941 novel, What Makes Sammy Run?, his 1947 novel The Harder They Fall, his 1954 Academy-award-winning screenplay for “On the Waterfront,” and his 1957 screenplay for “A Face in the Crowd.”

2009: The New York Times reviewed Wrestling With Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took On New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City by Anthony Flint

2010: A screening of "Azi Ayima", a documentary that explores the roots of the Moroccan Jewish community, is scheduled to be shown at the Leavantine Cultural Center in Los Angeles, CA.

2010: Bankito, sometimes referred to as "Jewstock" -- a youth-oriented Jewish culture festival is scheduled to begin on the shore of Bank Lake, north of Budapest.

2010: The Senate confirmed Elena Kagan to a seat on the Supreme Court today, giving President Obama his second appointment to the high court in a year, and a political victory as the Senate neared the end of its business for the summer. Ms. Kagan, a former dean of the Harvard Law School and a legal adviser in both the Clinton and Obama administrations, was approved by a vote of 63 to 37 after hearings and floor debate that showcased competing views of Democrats and Republicans about the court, but exposed no significant stumbling blocks to her confirmation. She becomes the fourth woman ever named to the court, and will join two other woman currently serving, including Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Obama administration nominee, who was confirmed almost exactly one year ago.

2010: Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) has been easily re-nominated in his Democratic primary tonight, beating back former Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton's effort to make race an issue against the white progressive Congressman from a majority-black district. With 59% of precincts reporting, Cohen leads by a whopping 79%-20%. This result so far seems identical to last cycle's Dem primary, in which the incumbent Cohen faced a challenge that not only centered around race, but also featured seemingly anti-Semitic attacks against him.

2010: Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, lost out on his bid to buy the Texas Rangers baseball team.

2010(25thof Av, 5770): Ninety-three year old Stanley Simon, the former Vice President of Bulova Watch Company who assisted veterans following World War II passed away today (As reported by Maraglit Fox)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/nyregion/16simon.html

2011: Roseanne Barr appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and announced her candidacy for president in the 2012 presidential election, running on the "Green Tea Party" ticket

2011: In Israel, the JCC Maccabi Games are scheduled to come to a close.

2011: Jewish Rock Artist Sheldon Low is scheduled to perform at a musical family Shabbat service at Temple B'nai Shalom, in Fairfax, VA.

2011: Bellamy, the daughter of Debbie and Michael Beecher will be the center of attention at her baby-naming ceremony that is scheduled to take place at Temple Judah, in Cedar Rapids, IA

2011: This morning, the Air Force struck five targets in the Gaza Strip following several strikes earlier yesterday coming in response to increased rocket fire emanating from the Strip in recent days, including one rocket which reportedly landed in the Lachish area but caused no damages or injuries.

2011: Due to escalation in rocket fire from Gaza Strip, Defense Minister Ehud Barak decided today to deploy a battery from the Iron Dome anti-rocket defense system outside the southern city of Ashkelon.

Barak's decision came after close to thirty rockets have been fired into Israel since the beginning of July.

2011: Ten dairy farmers staged a small protest rally today near Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Shalom Simhon's home in Moshav Even Menachem in northern Israel.  The farmers protested Simhon's support of the government's dairy market reform, which is likely to cut their profit margin.

2012: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Price of Inequality by Joseph Stiglitz, Einstein’s Jewish Science by Steve Gimbel, Uncanny Valley and other Adventures in the Narrative by Lawrence Weschler and What in God’s Name by Simon Rich

2012: A revival of “Fiddler on the Roof” sponsored by the Tulane Summer Lyric Theatre, featuring Cantor Joel Colman, is scheduled to have its final performance.

2012:Dozens of mortars were fired at Kerem Shalom from the Gaza Strip Sunday night, hours after an IAF airstrike killed a terrorist in Rafah. Authorities urged residents to remain in fortified shelters and lock their doors.

2012:  Lex Shatilov failed to win an Olympic medal today, finishing the men’s floor exercise in sixth place

2012(17thof Av, 5772): Ninety-six year old Martin Segal head of the Segal Company and “the elder statesman of Lincoln Center” passed away today. (As reported by Robin Pogrebin)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/06/arts/martin-segal-leading-new-york-cultural-figure-dies-at-96.html?_r=1&hpw

2012: In an ambitious and sophisticated attack, global jihad terrorists infiltrated Israel tonight after breaking into an Egyptian military base and stealing two armored jeeps. One of the vehicles, likely boobytrapped, exploded as it rammed through the Kerem Shalom crossing, which is shared by Israel, Egypt and the Gaza Strip. A number of terrorists succeeded in exiting the second vehicle before it was destroyed by an air strike. They crossed into Israel and engaged in a firefight with IDF troops.

2012(17th of Av, 5772): Ninety-eight year old Ben Heineman, the successful businessman who wrote speeches for Adlai Stevenson and advised Lyndon Johnson during his presidency, passed away today. (As reported by Denise Grady)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/10/business/ben-heineman-railroad-executive-and-johnson-adviser-dies-at-98.html?pagewanted=print&_r=0

http://blog.glassquarterly.com/2012/08/10/in-memoriam-ben-heineman-1914-2012/

2012(17thof Av, 5773): Eighty-six year old Sami Rohr passed away today. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/11/books/sami-rohr-jewish-philanthropist-remembered-by-a-writing-prize-dies-at-86.html

http://forward.com/articles/160793/sami-rohr-philanthropist-who-invested-millions-in/?p=all

2013: “The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich” a documentary about “the controversial Jewish psychoanalyst and experimental scientist Wilhelm Reich” is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2013: “Fill the Void” a film that tells the story of an Orthodox Hassidic family from Tel Aviv is scheduled to open at the Bear Tooth Theatre in Anchorage, Alaska which is in an interesting choice of venues for such a film.

2013(29thof Av): Yarhrzeit of Abraham Cahan, the editor of The Jewish Daily Forward who passed away on the 29th of Av, 5711 (August 31, 1951)

2013(29thof Av: Yarhrzeit of Rabbi Samuel Salant

http://matzav.com/rav-shmuel-salant-ztl-chief-rabbi-of-yerushalayim-on-his-101st-yahrtzeit-today-29-av

2013(29thof Av: Yarhrzeit of Moshe Leib Halpern, the modern Yiddish poet.

2013: Jeff Bezos announced his purchase of The Washington Post from the family of Katherine Graham, the daughter of Eugene Isaac Meyer the Los Angeles born Jew who bought the bankrupt paper in 1933.

2013: A massive operation to inoculate some 150,000 children in the south of the country against polio began this morning as part of a Health Ministry effort to stamp out the virus before it can infect anyone. (As reported by Haviv Rettig Gur)

2014(9thof Av, 5774): Tisha B’Av2014(9th of Av, 5774): Eighty-seven year old Dr. Jesse L. Steinfeld, Nixon’s Surgeon-General passed away today.  (As reported by William Yardley)


2014: A 72 hour cease-fire is scheduled to begin today at 8 a.m. local time

2014: This evening, The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide is scheduled to host an Online Resource User-Testing Focus Group which is part of the growing interest in the digitization of historical collections.

2014 Israeli security forces announced the arrest of Hussam Kawasme, a native of Hebron thought to be the ringleader of the terror cell responsible for the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens in mid-June.” (As reported by Avi Issacharoff)

2014: The Israel Antiquities Authority announced today the discovery of “a hoard of coins from the fourth year of the Jewish Revolt against Rome — minted months before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE —“just outside of the Jewish capital city. (As reported by Ilan Ben Zion)

2014: “As the 72-hour truce between Israel and Hamas appeared to be holding, Israel was preparing to send a delegation to Cairo to participate in negotiations. (As reported by Raphael Ahren)

2014: In Jerusalem,  a Palestinian stabbed a security guard “near the police station in Ma'aleh Adumim, close to Jerusalem”  making this third such attack in the last twenty four hours and comes on the same day that Moslem worshippers threw rocks and Molotov cocktails from the Temple Mount.

2014(9thof Av, 5774): Eighty-six year old physician and Holocaust survivor Emanuel Emek Tanay lost his battle with prostate cancer today.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?pid=172345664

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_oi.php?ModuleId=10005059&MediaId=1128

2015: The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to host a screening of “Paper Moon.”

2015: In Baltimore, MD a three day workshop on Holocaust education that focuses on giving educators the tools to help their students understand the Holocaust sponsored by the Jewish Museum of Maryland in conjunction with the Baltimore Jewish Council and the Maryland State Department of Education is scheduled to come to an end.

2015: In Berlin, the 14th European Maccabi Games are scheduled to come to an end today.

2016: As the 2016 Olympics are scheduled to open in Rio, Gabe Friedman writes that the seven Jewish Americans to watch are Aly Raisman (Gymnastics), Nate Ebner (Rugby), Anthony Ervin (Swimming), Merrill Moses (Water Polo), Eli Dershwitz (Fencing), Monic Rokhman (Women’s rhythmic gymnastics) and Zack Test (Rugby).

2016: Israel plans on fielding “its largest-ever Olympic delegation at the 2016 Olympics” which are scheduled to officially open today. (As reported by Luke Tress)

2016: Mathew A. Reimer is scheduled to “ascend the bimah at Temple Sinai” this evening “for the first Shabbat service over which he will officiate as the congregation’s new Senior Rabbi.” (As reported by the Crescent City Jewish News, the source for everything Jewish in the Cajun heartland)

2016(1stof Av, 5776): Rosh Chodesh Av

2016: “The Baghdad municipality announced today it would demolish and then give to a developer the 100-year-old home of Iraq’s first finance minister, Sir Sassoon Eskell,” “who was born into an aristocratic Baghdadi Jewish family in 1860 and who was instrumental in founding the Iraqi government’s laws and financial infrastructure”  “while an official in Iraq’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities slammed the decision as a “violation” of the law.”

https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2016/08/Sir_Sasson.jpg

2016: Claudio Bonadio, “a federal judge in Argentina” decided today to reopen “a criminal complaint against former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in which she had been accused of conspiring to derail an investigation into the bombing of a Jewish center here in 1994 in which 85 people were killed.”

2017(13thof Av, 5777): Shabbat Nacahamu

2017: “Emergency services evacuate five buildings in the center of Jerusalem” today “as a large brush fire broke out in one of the city’s central parks.” (TOI Staff)

2017:“Cleveland Partnership Minyan: Bridging Divides” partnership minyan is scheduled to take place at Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple in Beachwood, Ohio

2017: “Gershon Leizerson and The Yiddish Blues Drifters” a “new folk outfit from Jerusalem” is scheduled to perform at Yiddish Summer Weimar this evening.

2017: Lip Schmeltzer who “sang at the annual White House Chanukah Party” in 2015 is scheduled to perform this evening on the second day of the Shabbat Nachamu Weekend sponsored by the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientist (AOJS)

2018: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback editions of An Odyssey: A Father, A Son and an Epic by Daniel Mendelsohn and Class Mom by Laurie Gelman

2018: “The Oslo Diaries” and “My War Hero Uncle” are scheduled to be shown today, on the closing day of the Jerusalem Film Festival.

2018(24thof Av, 5778):Sixty-four year old Alan Robert Rabinowitz, the Brooklyn born son of Frank Rabinowitz, “a high school P.E. teacher” and “Shirley (Felman) Rabinowitz, the University of Tennessee Ph.D. conservationist best known for his work with saving the Jaguars from extinction passed away today. (As reported by Richard Sandomir)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/08/obituaries/alan-rabinowitz-conservationist-of-wild-cats-dies-at-64.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/08/alan-rabinowitz-big-cat-champion-news/

2018(24thof Av, 5778): Ninety-two veteran comedic actress Charlotte Rae, the Milwaukee born daughter “Meyer and Esther )Ottenstien) Lubotsky,” “Jewish immigrants from Russia” passed away today.https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/06/obituaries/charlotte-rae-dead.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2019: In Atlanta, GA, the Breman Museum is scheduled to host the last of its “Magical Mondays.”

2019: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Ask Dr. Ruth,” a biopic about the world’s most unlikely sex therapist.

2019: In the wake of yesterday’s seizure of another tanker by Iran, citizens in Israel and the United States are left to ponder today if this is another move that will lead to armed conflict that is bound to include asymmetrical warfare.






This Day, August 6, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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August 6 

412: Roman emperors Honorius and Theodosius II command that Jews should not be persecuted because of their religion or have their property confiscated without cause but Jews are warned not “to disrespect Christianity. (As reported by Austin Cline)

425: Among the edicts issued by Emperors Theodosius II and Valentinian III is one banning Jews from owning Christian slaves. (As reported by Austin Cline)

1187: As Christians and Moslems vie for control the Middle East, including Palestine, Saladin captured the city of Beirut.

1223: Coronation of Louis VIII, the French monarch “who issued an ordinance that prohibited his officials from recording debts owed to Jews” which deprived the Jews of income and set him at odds with Theobald IV, the powerful Count who ruled Champagne.

1243: After a ritual murder accusation in Kitzingen, Bavaria (Germany), fifteen Jews were tortured to death. Their corpses lay in the street for a fortnight before they were allowed to be buried. 

1284: Genoa defeated Pisa at the Battle of Meloria. This battle took place when Genoa was at the height of period “mercantile expansion.”  According to Cecil Roth, “Genoa was one of the least hospitable and tolerant of Italian states as far as the Jews were concerned.”  Not only did the Genoese not encourage the settlement of Jews, they may have actually actively discouraged them from settling so as to avoid introducing business competitors.  There was no organized Jewish community in Genoa at this time and in fact, there may have only been two Jews living there.  By the 13th century evidence exists that Pisa did have an organized Jewish community of at least 20 families. There are Jewish tombstones embedded in the town walls that date back to the middle of the 13th century.  And a synagogue may have been located on the “Alley of the Jews” during this time.

1301(23rd of Av, 5061): Rabbi David ben Avraham Maimuni HaNagid passed away. Known variously as David Maimuni or Rabbi David Hanagid, this Rabbi was the grandson of the Rambam He was born in 1233 and followed in the footsteps of his grandfather and father as Nagid or "Prince" over the Jewish congregations in Egypt. He was an ally of the powerful Rabbi of Barcelona, Solomon ben Abraham Ben Adret known as Rashba. In 1285, when those who opposed Rabbi Hanagid sought to depose him, Ben Adret supported his declarations of excommunications. An interesting legend has grown up around the Hanagid concerning these attacks. According to the legend the embattled Rabbi prayed at the cave of Meron in Eretz Yisrael. This cave was also known as the cave of Rabbi Hillel and Shammai. Supposedly its waters had magical powers. When cold water issued forth from the cave in response to the Rabbi’s prayers, he excommunicated five hundred of his opponents. On that day the five hundred who had slandered him in Egypt died. Surely a legend like that would have greatly troubled his rational and compassionate grandfather. Hanagid was scholar. For those of you have read Pirke Avot, you might remember Hillel’s comments about a floating skull. Maimonides' grandson, Rabbi David Hanagid, cited a tradition handed down by "the early ones" that the floating skull belonged to none other than Pharaoh himself. Hillel therefore told him: "Because you commanded that Jewish children be drowned in the Nile, you were drowned." It was specifically Hillel who confronted Pharaoh's skull, since as a reincarnation of Moses he was fit to confront Pharaoh.  

1414: Ladsilas, the King of Naples who offered the Jews a charter which would have given them economic equality, passed away.

1492: Following the issuance of the order expelling the Jews from Spain, today, “Infante Henry ordered the Catalonian officials to transfer to him the property of the Jews expelled from Jaca.´(Jewish Virtual Library)

1527: R. Samuel Margolioth of Posen was confirmed as chief rabbi of Great Poland, and was vested with important powers over all the Jews of that district by a document issued by Sigismund I bearing today’s date.

1623: Urban VII who ended the custom according to which a Jew, upon entering the pontiff’s presence was expected to kiss the Holy Father’s foot” and replaced it with a requirement that Jew kiss the spot on the floor where the Pope’s foot had stood began his papacy today.

1698: Birthdate of Nāder Shāh Afshār, the founder of the Afsharid dynasty, who reversed the anti-Jewish policies and practices that had been put in place by the Safawid’s dynasty which had ruled during the previous century.

1718: Barent Gompertz married Rachel Benjamin Isaac in Amsterdam today.

1724(17th of Av, 5484): Sixty-six year old Samson Wertheimer, the husband of Frumet Brulle and father of Sara Wertheimer who was chief rabbi of Hungary and Moravia, and rabbi of Eisenstadt as well as an Austrian financier, court Jew and Shtadlan to Austrian Emperor Leopold I passed away in Vienna.

1762: Myth meets myth.  According to the non-Jewish world the sandwich was born today when the Earl of Sandwich has a servant bring him a piece of meat between two slices of bread so that he can eat without leaving the gambling tables.  As anybody who has ever attended a Seder, the Earl was a Johnny-come-lately since Hillel began eating his sandwich – bitter herbs between two pieces of Matzah – during the days of the Second Temple.

1775: Birthdate of Irish reformer Daniel O’Connell known for fighting for Catholic Emancipation but who also supported the rights of Irish Jews and in 1846 insisted on the repeal of “De Judaismo” which “prescribed a special dress for Jewish. He claimed that Ireland was “the only country unsullied by any one act of persecution of the Jews.”

1781(15th of Av, 5541): As the American and French Armies led respectively by Washington and Rochambeau prepare to being their fateful march from Newport, RI to Yorktown, VA during the American Revolution, Jews celebrate Tu B’Av

1789: Birthdate of Solomon Ludwig (Levy) Steinheim whose poems included Sinai and Obadjah Sohn Amos Lieder aus der Verbannung and whose contribution to philosophy is memorialized by the creation of The Salomon Ludwig Steinheim Institute of the University of Duisburg-Essen in Duisburg Germany

1793: Samuel Marks married Sophia Collan today at the Great Synagogue.

1798: In Lorraine, France, Mayer Lippman, the Alsace born son of Raphaël Isaac Lippmann and Jutelé Lippmann and his wife Madelleine Lippmann gave birth to David Lippmann

1799(5th of Av, 5559): Marcus Elieser Bloch the German physician who was one of the leading ichthyologists of the 18th century “whose collection of 1500 specimens is preserved at the Museum for Natural History at Humboldt University in Berlin passed away today.

1800(15th of Av, 5560): Tu B’Av  (As can be seen from the next two entries, some people took the love holiday seriously)

1800: Samuel Moses married Hannah Emanuel at the Great Synagogue today.

1800: William Simmons married Eve Jacobs at the Great Synagogue today.

1806: Francis II, the last Holy Roman Emperor, abdicates, thus ending the Holy Roman Empire. But this was not a great loss to this European monarch since he had already declared himself Francis I, Emperor of the Austrian Empire in 1804.  It was in this more powerful role that he would have an effect on the life of European Jews, For example, in 1820, Francis I of Austria required rabbis to study sciences and use the language of the country in prayers and sermons. As a result, a rabbinical seminary opened in Padua in 1829. While moves such as this were supported by followers of the Haskalah, they were viewed with suspicion, if not outright dread, by those opposed to the modernists.

1806: Joseph Nathan married Elizabeth Jacobs at the Great Synagogue.

1810: Rabbi Issachar Dov Baer of Zloczow, author of Mevas-ser Zedek passed away

1811: Two days after she had passed away, 47 year old Ann Levy, the wife of Jonas Levy was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.

1812: Moss Jewell married Eleanor Joseph at the Great Synagogue today.

1817(24th of Av, 5577): Sixty-nine year old Benjamin Mendes Seixas, the Newport, RI born son of Isaac Menes Siexas and Rachel Franks Levy, passed away today in New York City.

1813: In Middlesex, Zipporah Isaacs and Hymen Cohen gave birth to Adelaide Cohen, the wife of Aaron Salomons and mother of Adelaide, Alfred, Gertrude and Alice Salomons.

1819:  Norwich University founded in Vermont. Rabbi Ken Spiro, the Jewish historian, has a Master’s Degree in History from The Vermont College of Norwich University.



1825: Bolivia gains its independence from Spain.  During the colonial period, the Jewish presence would have been made up of Marranos or Conversos some of whom worked in the silver mines and helped establish the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra.  Evidence of Jewish presence may be seen in reports of settlers following “Jewish customs” including “lighting candles on Friday nights and sitting on the ground in mourning when a close relative dies.” A truly recognizable Jewish community appeared in the country in the early 1900’s with the arrival of Russian Jews.

1828: Wolf Cohen married Ann Prins today at the Great Synagogue.

1838(15thof Av, 5598): Tu B’Av

1839: Reuben Phillips married Ellen Hymen at the New Synagogue.

1839: Birthdate of Edmund H. Abrahams, the son of Alexander H. Abrahams and Hannah Moses Abrahams, the husband of Cecilia Solomons Abrahams and father of Edmund H. Abrahams.

1840: As Europeans – Jews and non-Jews – attempted to deal with the Blood Libel in Damascus, Moses Montefiore sought an interview with Mehmet Ali in Cairo.  When the two met Montefiore “handed him a petition in the name of the Jewish community rerrqauestion permission to go to Damasacus” so he could investigate the charges that had been.  The Jewish leaders need a guarantee of safe conduct so that they could meet with prisoners.

1840: In England, Daniel Levy and Amelia Jacobs gave birth to Angelina Levy.

1842(30th of Av, 5602): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1843(10th of Av, 5603): Tish’a B’Av observed.

1847(24th of Av, 5607): Baltimore communal leaders Samuel Etting passed away at the age of 83. “Maryland had a ban on non-Christians holding office or practicing law, and from 1797, Etting campaigned persistently to have this barrier removed. He finally succeeded in 1826 and was immediately elected to the Baltimore City Council. By the time of his election the American Jewish population numbered 6,000.”

1855: Birthdate of Sir Isaac Alfred Isaacs.  The son of a Polish Jew named Alfred Isaacs, Sir Isaac “was an Australian judge and politician, was the third Chief Justice of Australia, ninth Governor-General of Australia and the first born in Australia to occupy that post.”

1856 Birthdate Jacob Koppel Sandler failed Russian businessman Jacob Koppel Sander who came to the United States where pursued a successful career as a “musical director” and “composer whose works included “The Hero and Bracha or the Jewish King of Poland for a Night.”



1857: The New York Times reported that Baron Rothschild had resigned his seat in the House of Commons and a noticed had been posted for the election of a replacement.  A public meeting of electors in London pledged to return Rothschild to his seat in Parliament and called upon Lord Russell to resolve the matter that was keeping Jews from serving in Parliament.



1858: After a five-and-twenty years' wrangling the admissibility of the Jews to Parliament has been conceded.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C07E0D71331EE34BC4E53DFBE668383649FDE&scp=2&sq=Hebrew&st=p

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9C07E0D71331EE34BC4E53DFBE668383649FDE



1861: During the Civil War, 24 year old Philadelphia native Lyon Levy Emanuel, the “brother of Louis Manly Emanuel” began his three year enlistment in the Union Army today as a 2nd Lt. in Company F of the 82ndRegiment.

1863: As part of the day of National Thanksgiving which was celebrated today Rabbi Samuel Isaacs of B’nai Jeshurun addressed his congregation in New York City.

1864: Henry Simmons married Hannah Harris in Dublin, Ireland today.

1865: Jacob Schiff came to the United States arriving today in New York City.

1865: As he made good his escape from Union forces, Judah P. Benjamin left Havana for Britain.

1866: Birthdate Cleveland native Salmon Portland Halle, the businessman who supported the work of the American Joint Distribution Committee for “more than a quarter of a century.”

1867: Isaac and Julia Elkus gave birth to Abram I. Elkus, the New York lawyer and politician who served as U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during World War I. “In 1902, Elkus' firm James, Schell & Elkus, merged with a firm headed by Joseph M. Proskauer, creating the firm of Elkus, Gleason & Proskauer, a predecessor of the law firm of Proskauer Rose.”

1867: Solomon and Betty Loeb gave birth to their second son, James Loeb who joined Kuhn, Loeb & Co in 1888 and became a partner in 1894 before retiring because of health problems in 1904. A patron of the arts, he endowed the Loeb Classical Library founded the Institute of Musical Art, which later became part of the Juilliard School of Music

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loeb_Classical_Library

1871: It was reported today that The Jewish Messenger has proposed a national conference aimed a promoting “the unity and welfare of the Hebrews” living in the United States.  Among the proposals that the Messenger feels should be considered are that delegates from the various congregations from across the country should meet regularly to discuss measures that would “bring order from chaos, union from discord” as regards the differences between different Jewish groups and that efforts should be started to provide trained rabbis who can meet the needs of the American Jewish community,

1873: Approximately 700 Jewish youngsters including students who attend the six New York schools that make up the Free Hebrew Association and the children living at the Jewish Orphan Asylum and Industrial School went on an excursion up the Hudson River to Excelsior Park.  Among those traveling with this well behaved group were Abraham Oetlinger, President of the Hebrew Free School Associations and several Jewish philanthropists who had raised the funds for the trip.

1875: Therese Cowvan and Jacques Lang gave birth to James Lang.

1877: In Mobile, Alabama, Alfred and Rebecca Proskauer gave birth to Joseph M. Proskauer, the graduate of Columbia Law School, judge on the New York State Supreme Court and husband of Alice Naumburg with whom he had three children – Frances, Ruth and Richard Proskauer.

1878: The case of Lewinski v Lewinski is scheduled to be held in Brooklyn, New York. Mrs. Josephine Lewinski is suing her husband Philip Lewinski for divorce.  As part of the divorce decree she is seeking alimony and the payment of her legal fees. The Lewinski’s are both Jewish.  Six years ago, when Lewinski was a successful businessman he met Josephine Schauffer at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, where she was a ward.  The trustees gave them permission to marry after Lewinski told them that he loved her and she had happily consented to the marriage.  However, Lewinski’s business affairs went sour and he became a counterfeiter.  He was caught and imprisoned.  Mrs. Lewinski stood by him and went to various officials seeking his release.  After he got out of prison, he began spending time with his old associates which is why she is seeking a divorce.

1879: The Congressional Medal of Honor was issued to David Orbansky who had served with 58th Ohio Infantry during the Civil War was it fought its way down the Mississippi River starting with the Battle of Shiloh in 1862.

1880: Sixty-three year old Bavarian native Fanny Heilbronner who married Isaac Samuel in Paris was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

1881: It was reported today that the excursion sponsored by the Athletic Society of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association of Harlem which had been scheduled to take place on August 4 has been re-scheduled for later this month. (August 4 was Tish’a B’Av which probably accounted for the scheduling change)

1881: In Freeport, Illinois, Joshua Oettinger, a German-Jew and his wife non-Jewish wife Helen Stine gave birth to Louella Rose Oettinger, who gained fame as gossip columnist Louella Parsons, an eventual convert to Roman Catholicism.

1881: The government of Argentina appointed a special agent to attract Jewish immigrants from Russia.

1881: It was reported today that Englishmen have developed a more positive attitude towards beef imported from the United States.  Part of that improvement is attributed to the fact that between April and October of 1880, English Jews bought cattle from 15 different shipments without any complaint.  Not one of the animals was rendered not Kosher or “unsound.”  Apparently, the strict observance of Jewish laws concerning the inspecting and slaughter of meat is well enough known among the general populace for this fact to have had a positive impact on the sale of American cattle in the United Kingdom

1882: “Mohammed’s Success” published today includes in its description of the rise of Islam the reminder that “it must not be forgotten that the Arabs and Jews were kindred races, speaking kindred customs, practices and prejudices” and that many Jews, having been “driven out of their own land during successive epochs settled in Arabia.

1883: It was reported today that the Town Council of Ekaterinoslva, Russia has voted to give the Jews 5,000 rubles to compensate them for the losses suffered during a recent attack by an ant-Semitic mob.

1883: “The Nyireghyhaza Tiral” published today described the feelings and treatment of Jews in Europe in the wake of the “blood libel” trial recently held in Hungary.

1884: General Sir William John Codrington passed away.  Codrington served as the Governor General of Gibraltar in 1859 when he provided food and shelter for Jews who had taken refuge in the colony because of the war between Spain and Morocco.

1884: “Hotel Rent By Religious War” published today described the conflicts between Jewish and Gentile society matrons at one of the leading resort hotels in Long Branch, NJ

1884: Rabbi Henry S. Jacobs delivered the principle address this afternoon at the cornerstone laying ceremony for the new synagogue to be used by Congregation B’Nai Jeshurun. The building is located at Madison Avenue, between 64thand 65th Streets in Manhattan. The Chairman of the Building Committee, Newman Cohen, deposited a variety of items including newspapers, coins and a scroll containing the history of the congregation into the cornerstone before it was put in place. Unlike many of the other Jewish congregations in the area, B’Nai Jeshrun will follow Orthodox ritual.

1885: In St. Louis, Caroline and Joseph Lazarus Kranson gave birth to Jake Kranson

1886: Superintendent Jackson, the chief immigration officer at Castle Garden received a cable today from Hamburg informing him that a large number of Romanian and Polish Jews were waiting for a ship at the German port that would take them to America.  According to the message, most of them were paupers.

1886: A major fire in Phoenix, Arizona, finally convinced the city council to accept the proposal of Mayor Emil Ganz to establish a waterworks and fire department.

1887: Today’s “Short Cuts” column contained an excerpt from the American Hebrew about the quality of meals served at the various resort “the mountains.” While patrons complain about the food, they come back year and year out.  The paper concluded that the vacationers except too much for the small amount of money they pay. (The mountains refers to the Catskills which will later be known as The Borscht Belt)

1888: Stern Brothers of West 23rd Street in New York,have promised to provide the fund for today’s excursion sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children.

1889(9th of Av, 5649): Tish’a B’Av

1889: Birthdate of Kamenitz-Podolks, (western Ukraine) native Morris Quasha  who came to the United States in 1894 and after graduating NYU Law School and passing the bar exam was denied admission to the bar by the “character committee” which was forced to change its ruling thanks to Judge Samuel Seabury who demanded that the committee either producer evidence for its ruing or admit him immediately.

1889: Two days after he had passed away, “22 year old Edward Stephen Schloss,” the son of Joseph and Adel Schloss was buried at the Balls Pond Jewish Cemetery.

1890: Coroner Ferdinand Levy is one of the speakers scheduled to address those attending Shoen & Lowenthal’s German American Institute and Kingdergartern, a summer festival at the foot of East 69th Street.

1890: Paul Ohleshaus whose skull was fractured by Timothy Abbot after he stopped him from “tormenting an inoffensive Jew” is “lying unconscious in the Chambers Street Hospital”

1890: At its meeting in Berlin, the International Medical Congress “rejected a proposal to meet in St. Petersburg” because “of the repression of the Jews in Russia.”

1890: As of today, the managers of the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children have $7,118.47 which can be used for their free summer excursions.

1890: The Jews of Edinburgh met today and resolved to raise funds which would be sent to the Jewish Society for the Colonization of Palestine to provide assistance for “Jews expelled from Russia.”

1891: The Executive Board of the Jewish Alliance of America met in Philadelphia, PA, this evening where they adopted “an excellent plan” for meeting the needs of the “friendless and often penniless” Jewish immigrants arriving in the United States.

1891: “The grand annual afternoon and evening picnic of the Daughters of Israel Benefit Society” most of whose members are from Congregation Beth Israel “took place at Bay View Park” today.

1891: “The Russian Jews” published today described the attack on the Jewish quarter of Elisabethgrad by a mob crying “Kill the Jews!”  The authorities did nothing to stop the mobs or put an end to the looting.

1892: “Religious Statistics” published today provided a summary of the Unite States cenus report prepared by Charles E Bull Chief of the Division of Religious Statistics that showed of the 20,347,346 people counted 150,000 of them are Jewish.

1892(13th of Av, 5652): Shabbat Nachamu

1892(13th of Av, 5652): Forty-eight year old Danish economist Ernst Immanuel Cohen Brandes who was a critic of the theories of Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo and Karl Marx passed away today.


1892: Harper’s Weekly published a drawing of Alexander Berkman, the Jewish anarchist who attempted to Henry Clay Frick, the steel magnate who played a key role in the Homestead Steel Strike.


1893: It was reported today that a Jewish organization in London took care of the Russo-German family named Kaiser who had been expelled as Protestants by the government in Kiev along with a stream of Jews.  The English Jews raised $250 to send them on to Winnipeg. 

1894: “A Standard German Life of Heine” published today provides a detailed review of Heinrich Heine’s Life In His Own Words edited by Gustav Karpleles and translated from the German by Arthur Dexter.  According to the review, the refusal of the city of Dusseldorf to erect a statute to the “Hebrew poet” and the attempts to build one for him in the United States has done more to keep him before the public than publication of successive editions of his works would do.

1894: “Swearing Oaths on Books” published today contained the reminder that in English courts “Christians are sworn on the New Testament, Jews on the Old Testament and Mohammedans on the Koran and persons of other religions according to the form prescribed for that purpose by the religion they profess.”  (In the 21st century an American Jewish radio host would come unglued when a newly elected Moslem member of the House of Representatives asked to take the oath of office using a Koran)

1895: The late I.S. Goldberg of San Francisco was reported to have divided his estate equally among the city’s Jewish, Protestant and Catholic Orphan Asylums.

1895: “Jewish Liberality” published today, relying on information that first appeared in The Jewish Messenger, described the decision of the late Abraham Levy of Richmond, VA, to divide his estate among Protestants, Catholics and Jews.”

1895: Louis Stern, the New York dry good merchant is prepared to serve a fortnight in a German jail and pay 600 marks after having been found guilty of insulting Baron von Thuengen who objected to Mr. Stern’s son being in the dance hall at Kur Garden in Kissingen.

1895: In the U.K., Alfred Mond the son of chemist Ludwig Mond and his wife Violet gave birth to Lady Eva Violet Mond Isaacs, née Melchett, Marchioness of Reading who served “as Vice President of the World Jewish Congress and President of its British section” where she was a “vocal supporter of the Zionist cause.”

1896: “Died Too Far Uptown” published today described a case being hearing in New York’s Fourth Civil District Court in which it will be decided if the member of a “downtown Hebrew benefit society” “should die above a certain street” in New York is still entitled to the benefits for which he has been paying dues.

1897: “East Side Roof Garden” published today provided the rules for the facility on top of the Hebrew Institute Building which will allow children to visit along between 8 A.M. and 5:30 P.M. but require them to be accompanied by their parents or guardians from 7:30 P.M. to 11:00 P.M.

1895: It was reported today that Hebrew Institute under the direction of Superintendent of Isaac Spectorsky will be offering concerts five times a week now that remodeling has been completed.

1898(18th of Av, 5658): Parashat Eikev

1898: Dr. Adolph M Radin, the rabbi of the People’s Synagogue celebrated his 50thbirthday today.

1898: Anti-Juif Marseillais et de la Région du Midi, a short lived anti-Semitic published appeared at Marseilles for the first time today.

1899: In an interview published today Israel Zangwill said his “soul purpose in visiting America is to supervise the staging of ‘The Children of the Ghetto’” Since “the Hebrew character has never been faithfully portrayed on the stage” and “the Jew has been caricatured” his “aim is to give a true a picture of the Hebrew as he is both as regards characteristics and religion” which is important because many of the characters in his play are Jewish.

1899: “Dreyfus Case Clearly Reviewed published today provides a summary of Joseph Reinach’s explanation of how Dreyfus was wrongly convicted including the fact that the French Army attributed Esterhazy’s treachery to French Jewish officer.

1901(21st of Av, 5661): Thirty year old Hungarian poet and author Emil Makai passed away today.



1901: Birthdate of Arthur Flegenheimer, who gained fame as gangster Dutch Schultz who made his money as a violent bootlegger during the dry days of the Roaring 20’s. Even his fellow gangsters saw him as being out of control and they gunned him down in 1935. Actually, the Jews dodged the bullet on this one. Schultz converted to Catholicism before he died and is buried in a Catholic Cemetery in the state of New York. 

1903: In Charleston, Rabbi Simenhoff officiated at the wedding of Levy Cohen and Lena Berger.

1904:Today, thirty-one year old Yiddish author Solomon Blumgarten, who used the nom de plume “Yehoash” and had come to the United States in 1891, married Flora Smirnow in Denver, CO.

1906(15th of Av, 5666): Tu B’Av

1906: In Jersey, UK, Sarah Blank and Alfred Krischefski gave birth to Bernard David Krischefski.

1908(9th of Av, 5668): Tish’a B’Av

1908: Birthdate of Lawrence Wnuk, the Polish Roman Catholic priest who survived Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Dachau and then “bore witness” against his captors. (Ironically he died on his 98th birthday in 2006)


1909: “The Dollar Princess,” a musical with “additional numbers by Jerome Kern” and a book by Fritz Grünbaum who would die at Dachau, opened on Broadway today.

1909: Birthdate of U.S. economist Solomon Adler, the native of Leeds who was the brother of Israeli Doctor Saul Adler

1911: Birthdate of Norman Gordon a “South African cricketer who played in 5 Tests from 1938 to 1939.”

1912: The Bull Moose Party meets at the Chicago Coliseum. The Bull Moose Party was formed by Teddy Roosevelt after he lost the Republican nomination to Taft.  The formation of the party would lead to a three way race for the Presidency in 1912 between Taft, Roosevelt and Wilson. Roosevelt had enjoyed strong support among Jewish leaders going back to his days as Chief of Police in New York and his two terms in the White House where appointed a Jew to the cabinet and championed the rights of Russian Jews.  So strong was his support among the Jewish reform leaders that Oscar Straus “led the New York delegation down the aisles at Roosevelt’s breakaway Progressive convention in Chicago and then agreed to run for governor of New York on the Progressive ticket.”  Jewish reformers were obviously in this election as can be seen by the support of Brandies for Wilson.  In the end T.R. lost, but he never lost the good will of a significant part of the Jewish community. According to one source, a Jewish police officer, Otto Raphael, said Kaddish over Roosevelt's body the night before he was buried.

1913: Dr. Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Republic of China, who held admiration for the Jewish people and Zionism, and who saw parallels between the persecution of Jews and the domination of China by the Western powers, stating that “Though their country was destroyed, the Jewish nation has existed to this day... [Zionism] is one of the greatest movements of the present time, fled from the mainland to Taiwan today after his life had been threatened.

1914: As Europe continued its seemingly unstoppable spiral into war, Austria-Hungary declared war on Russia.

1915: Pincus Rutenberg, one of the leaders of the 1906 Russian Revolution who has been living in Italy was reported today to have been one of the speakers at the recent mass meeting at Cooper Union where the Jewish attendees called for the creation of an organization designed to ameliorate the suffering of their co-religionists around the world.

1915: As the Germans took control of Warsaw from the retreating Russians “a major revival of Jewish political and cultural life began that included the reappearance of previously banned newspaper and the “creation of a Jewish private school system that came to form the basis of the Zionist, Bundist and Orthodox school networks in interwar Poland.”

1915: As part of the Gallipoli Campaign, the Allies mount a diversionary attack timed to coincide with a major Allied landing of reinforcements at Suvla Bay. Despite the courage of the troops, the landings were botched due to the ineptitude of the generals in charge.  The campaign ultimately failed with the hopes of knocking the Ottoman Empire out of the war and breaking the stalemate on the Western Front.  The Zion Mule Corps, an all Jewish supply unit gained the respect of the British during the campaign and this helped lay the groundwork for the creation of all Jewish Battalions in the British Army that would distinguish themselves while fighting with Allenby.

1916: Having stopped the attack of the Central Powers at Romani, the mounted ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand) forces begin driving the Turks back on Oghratina in fighting that would permanently secure the Suez and England bases in Egypt and the Sinai from which they would eventually launch their attack on Palestine and Syria.

1916:  Birthdate of historian Richard Hofstadter.  Hofstadter’s father was Jewish.  His mother was not.  Hofstadter was a professor at Columbia University where he had earned his Ph.D.  Hofstadter came of age during the Great Depression.  He embraced communism because it was the enemy of capitalism, a system that Hofstadter had failed the working men and women of America.  As the thirties wore on, he became equally disenchanted with the Party and the Soviet Union.  The final break came, as did with so many others, over Stalin’s pact with Hitler in 1939.  Hofstadter’s writings were quite influential during the mid-20thcenturies.  Two of his works, The Age of Reform and Anti-Intellectualism in American Life won Pulitzer Prizes and were on the required reading list in many of the history and political science departments at American colleges and universities.  His influence would have been greater had he lived longer.  He died at tragically at the age of 54.

1916: During World War I Julius Mendes Price “was the only foreign correspondent present at the capture of Gorizia by the Italian army” during the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo which began today.

1916: It was reported today that in Palestine, “Syria and Egypt the heat has been excessive with sandstorms at intervals which have been so violent on two or three occasions in June that the traffic in the Suez Canal” which would have included ships carrying Imperial troops coming from India and Australia “had to be suspended for several hours.”

1916: A benefit to raise money for the Actors’ Fund of America arranged by Daniel Frohman is scheduled to take place at the New Amsterdam Theatre in New York.

1916: In “German Not Seeking Conquest, Says German” published today Professor of Economics Julius Bonn denied that Germany “would impose her culture on other nations by the doctrine of “Might Makes Right!’” (Editor’s Note- Bonn, whose family had lived in Germany for centuries, was forced to take refuge in the United States when the Nazis came to power.)

1916: It was reported today that when Abram I. Elkus the new U.S. Ambassador to Turkey was asked if he hoped “for better treatment of the Jews by Russia in view of their good work in the war” he replied that “I can only hope that because of the very valiant service which the Jews have given in the army of the Czar he will accord to them the civil rights which every other subject enjoys.”

1916: Among the contributions listed today by the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews suffering through the War were $30 from the Mercantile Company of Mound City, South Dakota, $749 from the Federation of Jewish Charities in Cleveland, Ohio and $20 from the H.O.R Society of Shreveport, Louisiana.

1917: During the Summer after which the Czar had been deposed but before Lenin took control Alexander Kerensky solidified his position as Prime Minister after having thwarted General Kornilov’s attempted coup.  

1918: Birthdate of Norman Granz, American jazz musician and record producer.

1918: It was reported today that Hebrew University “is one of the first projects for the reconstruction of Jewish Palestine” that has been “proposed by the Zionist Administrative Commission.

1919(10th of Av, 5679): Seventy-eight year old John Moss, the son of Mary Levy and Eleazer Moss, passed away today in his native Philadelphia.

1920: 1920: Birthdate of Selma Diamond. Born in London, Ontario this comedienne with the gravelly voice gained lasting fame as Selma on the television hit, Night Court.



1920: In Bucharest, the government of Romania decides to consider Turkish Jews as enemy aliens. The Romanians intern the Jews, sequester their property and threaten to expel them. The Union of Native Jews of Romania intervenes to help their co-religionist.

1922(12th of Av, 5682): Isaiah Woolf Jacobs passed away today in Milwaukee, WI.

1923: American delegates to the "World Zionist Congress, as well as hundreds of other American Jews who have come to Carlsbad for the gathering took part in a memorial service to President Harding held here yesterday, to which all Americans were invited.

1924: In the Bronx Morris and Shirley Haber gave birth to Herbert Lawrence Haber “, the chief labor negotiator for the City of New York from 1966 to 1973.” (As reported by Paul Vitello)

1924: The Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor made public the text of a letter sent with its approval by Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor to former Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson, who had asked the council not to make a decision on Presidential endorsements until it had the acceptance speech of John W. Davis before it, a request which was refused

1925(15th of Av, 5685): Tu B’Av

1925: In New York City, Herbert Abraham, the son of Rosalie and Samuel Abraham and his wife Dorothy Abraham gave birth to Jane Abraham who became Jane Bowie when she married Oscar Bowie.

1925(15th of Av, 5685): Izaak Naftali Botwin, a member of the Polish Communist Party who had been convicted of killing “an agent of the Polish secret police” whose last words were ″Down with bourgeoisie! Long live the social revolution!″ was executed today a firing squad – a “martyrdom” that would lead to his name being used a battalion of Jewish volunteers who fought against Franco’s fascists in the Spanish Civil War in 1937.


1926: In New York, the Warner Brothers’ Vitaphone system premieres with the movie Don Juanstarring John Barrymore

1926: Harry Houdini performs his greatest feat, spending 91 minutes underwater in a sealed tank before escaping.

1926: Birthdate of Oscar-nominated screenwriter Norman Wexler.


1927(8th of Av, 5687): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon; Erev Tish’a B’Av

1929: A month before his death, Louis Marshall wrote a letter to Julius Rosenwald in which traced the history of the Jewish Theological Seminary, praised its many accomplishment and expressed his fear that adequate funding would not be available to ensure the growth of this unique educational institution. (This letter would inspire Rosenwald to contribute a half million dollars to JTS after Marshall passed away in September of 1929)

1930: The photo of two young black being lynched today provided the inspiration for the Abel Meerpol to compose “Strange Fruit, one of the most haunting jazz ballads of the past century.”


 1930: Birthdate of historian and author Martin Baumi Duberman.


1930: Birthdate of Marvin Pomerantz, the Des Moines, Iowa native who would become a successful businessman, public benefactor, a friend and adviser to Republican governors and presidents for four decades,  who twice served as president of the Iowa Board of Regents. He was the eighth of nine children of Jewish immigrants who came to Iowa from Poland in 1912. In 2006, he published his autobiography entitled The Best I Can Do.

1931: After the death of Lady Reading, today seventy-one year old Rufus Isaacs, 1st Earl of Reading married thirty-seven Stella Charnaud, who as Stella Isaacs, “Marchioness of Reading, Baroness Swanborough” devoted her life to philanthropy and public service including the found of the Women’s Voluntary Service.

1932: In Beirut, Jacob Safra, “the Lebanese Sephardi Jewish Banker” and his wife Esther gave birth to “Lebanese Brazilian banker” Edmond J. Safra.

1933(14thof Av, 5693): Sixty-four year old David William Edelman, the native of Los Angeles and NYU trained physician who became the “chief of staff of the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital” and “a member of the national committee of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations” passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1933/08/07/99837292.pdf

1933: In Springfield, New Jersey, an unidentified plane flies over an open-air meeting of United Singers Society and scatters German language pamphlets protesting against the decision of the Society to prohibit representatives of the Friends of New Germany from attending its meetings. The Friends of the New Germany was a pro-Nazi organization formed at the behest of Berlin that would morph into the German-American Bund. The United Singers Society was a German organization made up conservatives who are not sympathetic to the Friends of New Germany.  Attendees complained that the noise of the plane interrupted the community sing-along taking place below.

1934: “One More River” a drama that was a supplement to the saga about the Forsyth family, directed by Carl Laemmle was released in the United States today.

1934: “The Admiral’s Secret,” a comedy featuring Abraham Sofaer as “Don Pablo y Gonzales” was released today in the United Kingdom.

1935: “The mayor of the German spa town of Bad Tölz ordered all Jews to leave within 24 hours” while the police closed “a Jewish owned hotel to protect it.”

1936: “Former New York Governor Alfred E. Smith, Lillian D. Wald and Norman Thomas” today “endorsed a movement to petition the League of Nations to intercede in behalf of the oppressed minorities in Germany, according to Sol M. Stroock, chairman of the American Jewish Committee, who spoke” tonight “over radio station WMCA on ‘German Persecution Before the League.’”

1936: “Mass emigration as the solution of Poland’s Jewish problem was advocated by the Foreign Ministry in a statement issued today by the official Political Information Agency.

1937(29th of Av, 5697): Miss Eleanor Septima Cohen, prominent for many years in Jewish and non-sectarian benevolent activities, died today at a Baltimore hospital at the age of 79. Her grandfather, Benjamin I. Cohen, was one of the founders and president of the Baltimore Stock Exchange. A philanthropist who supported numerous Jewish and non-Jewish causes and institutions, Miss Cohen was a descendant of Solomon Etting (her great-grandfather) and Jacob I. Cohen (her great-uncle) who were instrumental in the fight for Jews to obtain religious rights in Maryland.

1937: Dr. Chaim Weizmann’s Palestine partition policy gained so much support today at the Zionist Congress meeting at Zurich that many of its supporters and opponents believe it has already gained enough votes to ensure that it will be adopted when voted on this Monday, August 9.

1938: Near Hedaria, several Jewish laborers were wounded when they were fired on by and a band of Arabs.

1938: “The Nazi regime expatriated” (banished) Manfred George the German-Jewish author who had fled his homeland in 1933 living in various countries as an exile until he finally came to the  United states where he the Aufbau “into an important journalistic voice for the Jewish exile community.”

1938: In Danzig, “the Gestapo raided a number of hotels, restaurants and cafes and frequented by Hews and demanded that all present establish their identity and explain their presence in the Free City.”  This was the first of two nights of what were described as “harsh anti-Jewish measures.

1939: “The Dinah Shore Show” starring the singer of the same name debuted on NBC Radio.  Dinah Shore was the stage name of France Rose Stein, the Jewish lass from Tennessee who was a graduate of Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

1940: As more than 12,000 persons stood out in the street, a funeral service was held today for Vladimir Jabotinsky, author, soldier and world leader of the New Zionist Organization, at the Gramercy Park Memorial Chapel in New York.

1942: The 5,500 Jews imprisoned at Gurs whom the French turned over to the Nazis were shipped to Drancy from where most of them would be sent to their death at Auschwitz.

1942(23rd of Av, 5702): Sixty-eight year old Cincinnati native Millard William Mack, the son of William and Rebecca Mack, the husband of Lydia Mack and the father of William Jacob Mack passed away today in Traverse City, Michigan.

1942(23rd of Av, 5702): Three thousand Jews were slaughtered in the streets of Minsk. One hundred would escape and form a partisan unit 

1942: The Palestine Regiment consisting of, three Palestinian Jewish battalions and one Palestinian Arab battalion was officially formed as part of the British military armed forces. Despite the efforts by the British to enlist an equal number of Jews and Arabs into the Palestine Regiment, three times more Jews volunteered than Arabs. Arab reluctance and Jewish enthusiasms accounts for the numerical disparity. At the time of its formation, the Regiment was principally involved in guard duties in Egypt and North Africa. The British also wanted to undermine efforts of Hajj Amin al-Husayni who successfully drummed up Arab support for the Axis Powers against the Allies.

1943: In Vilna, over a dozen Jews were shot as they attempted to resist deportation orders.

1945: The Atomic Bomb named Little Boy is dropped on Hiroshima.  The “Jewish Bomb” as some call it hastened the end of the war and save the lives of untold numbers of Allied soldiers and sailors who would have died during an invasion of Japan as well as the millions of lives of Japanese who would have also died.  Without the work of Oppenheimer, et al, the war would have lasted anywhere from three to five years longer. (It was August 5 in the United States.

1946(9th of Av, 5706): Tish'a B'Av

1946: Leonard Bernstein conducted American premiere of Britten's Peter Grimes, BMC.

1946: In New York City Professor Irene Golden Dash and greeting card published Martin Dash gave birth to historian Deborah Dash Moore whose “GI Jews: How World War II Changed a Generation was “awarded the Saul Viener Prize for Best Book in American Jewish History.”

http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/moore-debra-dash

1946: Gabriel Charitos is elected First Mayor of a free Rhodes, after 600 years of occupation.

1948(1stof Av, 5708): Rosh Chodesh Av

1948(1stof Av, 5708): Russian born author Dr. Ben M. Edidin, the hold of a Doctor of Education degree from the University of Buffalo who “worked for the Tel Aviv Board of Education from 1935 to 1937” and was the husband of “former Dorothy Edelman with whom he had a daughter, Judith” passed away today while serve as the “assistant director of the Jewish Education Committee of New York.”

1949(11thof Av, 5709): Shabbat Nachamu (A theme of comfort seems appropriate as Israel begins its second year and the DP camps are still filled five years after the war had ended)

1951: Funeral services are scheduled to be held this afternoon for Thomas Goldstein, “the brother of Edith Wolff.”

1952: Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett denied that Israel was constructing air bases for atomic bombs on its soil and that it had agreed in the past, or will agree in the future, to serve a foreign power for such purposes.

1952: Over 500 members of the World Assembly of Jewish Choirs turned Jerusalem into a city of song.

1952: The first English draft of the text of the agreement between Israel and West Germany was drawn up and agreed to at The Hague. Israel announced that a special German Goods Purchasing Commission would be appointed as soon as the Jewish negotiating team returned from The Hague. The issues of reparations from the Germans and diplomatic relations between the two governments were two of the most contentious items confronting Israeli and Jewish society.

1957(9th of Av, 5717): Tish’a B’Av

1959(2nd of Av, 5719): Salman Schocken passed away at Pontresina, Switzerland. Born in 1877 in Margonin, Province of Posen, German Empire (today Poland) , he was a German Jewish publisher and businessman. Salman Schocken was the son of Jewish shopkeeper in Posen. In 1901, he went to Zwickau, a German town in southwest Saxony, to help run a department store owned by his brother, Simon. Together they built up the business and established a chain of stores all over Germany. In Chemnitz and Stuttgart, Schocken commissioned the German Jewish architect Erich Mendelsohn to build branches of the Kaufhaus Schocken. In 1915 Schocken was co-founder of the Zionist journal Der Jude (with Martin Buber). After Simon's death in 1929 Salman Schocken became sole owner of the firm. The same year, in which Schocken's friend Franz Rosenzweig also died, 1929 he established the Schocken Institute for Research on Jewish Poetry. In 1931, he founded the publishing company Schocken Verlag, which reprinted the recently completed Buber-Rosenzweig translation of the Bible.In 1934, after the rise of Nazism, Schocken left Germany for Palestine. In 1940, he settled in the United States. In Jerusalem, he built the Schocken Library, also designed by Erich Mendelsohn. He was a board member of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and bought the newspaper Haaretz, which is still owned by his family. He also founded Schocken Publishing House Ltd. and opened another branch in New York (Schocken Books). The Nazis forced him to sell his German enterprises to Merkur AG but he managed to recover some of his property after the war. Schocken became the patron of Shmuel Yosef Agnon when he was a struggling writer in Palestine. Recognizing Agnon's literary talent, Schocken paid him a stipend that relieved him of financial worries and allowed him to devote himself to writing (Agnon went on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature).

1960:  Shabbat Nachamu: Bar Mitzvah of David Levin at Adas Israel in Washington, D.C. – the words of Isaiah never sounded so sweet! This was the first time that a large group of adults got a chance to be dazzled by his voice and skill.  Fifty-nine years later, he is still dazzling us.  This also marked the first Bar Mitzvah at Adas Israel that was officiated by Rabbi Stanley Rabinowitz.

1964: Yves-Andre Istel, the Paris born son of Andre and Yvonne (Cremieux) Istel and Princeton educated economist Yves-Andre Istel, who worked with Kuhn Loeb and Company, Lehman Brothers and Rothschild, Inc. married the former Nancy Lazarus today.

1965: President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1965 Voting Rights Act.  The passage of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Right Act of 1964 marked one of the high water marks in the battle for equal rights for all Americans regardless of race, religion, national origin and sex.  Both of these landmark laws were supported by Jewish voters, communal leaders and elected officials.

1967: Birthdate of sportscaster David Greenberg

1968(12thof Av, 5728): Eighty-three year old Columbia law school graduate Leonard Wallstein, the holder of several governmental positions that required the utmost integrity including Commissioner of Accounts under Mayor Mitchell, “special assistant corporation counsel under Mayor Walker and head of the legal staff under Robert Moses and the husband of Olive Rose Wallstein with whom he had “three sons, Leonard M. Jr, Robert R. and William C.” passed away today in New York City.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/08/07/76959862.pdf

1968: Four days after he had passed away memorial services are scheduled to be held this afternoon “at the Forum Theatre in Lincoln Center” for sixty-nine year old Rochester, NY, native Jacob Robert Cominsky, the “publisher of the Saturday Reviews and vice president of its part concern McCall Corporation.”

1969: “Eighteen Soviet Georgian Jewish families” made an appeal to the United Nations calling “for their right to leave the Soviet Union.”

1969(22nd of Av, 5729): A month before his 66th birthday, Theodor W. Adorno, passed away.

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

1970: Elimelekh Rimalt completed his service as the Minister of Postal Services in Israel.

1971(15thof Av, 5731): In one of those ironies of the calendar Tu B’av, the holiday about love, was celebrated on the day before Shabbat Nachamu – the Sabbath of Comfort.

1972: Woody Allen’s comedic film “Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex But Were Afraid to Ask” based on a book by David Ruben was released today in the United States.

1973(8thof Av, 5733): Erev Tish’a B’Av

1973: Birthdate of Bronx native Max Kellerman, boxing commentator and sports talk radio host who is the husband of the former Erin Manning with whom he had three daughters - “Esther, Sam and Mira.”

1974(18th of Av, 5734): Memphis native Henry Jacques Gaisman who made part of his fortune from his inventions related to the safety razor passed away today at the age of 104 after which he was buried at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, NY.



1976(10th of Av, 5736): Seventy-three year old Russian born American cellist Gregor Piatigorsky passed away today.


1976: Kenya and Uganda “formally agreed…to end their state of belligerency and resume normal relations.”  The strained relations came following Israel’s rescue mission at Entebbe in which the Ugandans claimed the Kenyans had played an active role.

1977: The United States officially disclosed that the nuclear facilities in the US were unable to trace more than 3,000 kilograms of highly enriched uranium and plutonium. A number of American newspapers speculated that the minerals might have found their way to Israel.

1977: Today, while attending Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute, Franklin and Marshall College graduate Lance Jonathan Sussman, the son of WW II war hero Charles Sussman and German refugee Freda Sacki Sussman, married “Elizabeth “Liz” Zeller” in Rye, NY.

1978: Eighty year old Pope Paul VI who visited Israel in 1964 and who is remembered for “the impetus he gave to a continuation of the Catholic Church’s rapprochement with Judaism initiated by the late Pope John, and his personal encouragement and support of the Guidelines for the implementation of Nostra Aetate No. 4, a document that holds promise of a new era in Catholic-Jewish relations” passed away today.


1985: Thomas R. Pickering presented his credentials as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.

1986: In London, at the Almeida Theatre, the curtain came down on a revival of the Kurt Weill musical “Johnny Johnson.”



1986:Bernard Lewis publisheg his seminal work Semites and Anti-Semites, which explores modern anti-Semitism in the Arab world.



1986(1st of Av, 5746): Rosh Chodesh Av

1986: Birthdate of Lod native Natan Goshen, the Israeli musician whose first “Kol Ma Sheyesh Li” was released in 2011/



1986: The Israeli Supreme Court upheld the pardon given to Shin Bet chief Avraham Shalom, in connection with the “300 Bus Affair.”



1990: The funeral for philanthropist Lucy Goldschmidt Moses who passed away at the age of 103 is scheduled to take place this afternoon at Temple Emanu-El.



1991(26th of Av, 5751): Eighty-five year old violinist and viola player Max Rostal passed away today.

http://www.mtv.com/artists/max-rostal/biography/



http://pronetoviolins.blogspot.com/2011/06/max-rostal.html



1995(10th of Av, 5755): Tish’a B’Av

1998(14th of Av, 5758): Ninety-two year old mathematician André Abraham Weil, the French born son of Salomea Reinherz and Dr. Bernard Bernhard Weil passed away today.

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Weil.html

1998: On the day before Tu B’Av, former White House intern Monica Lewinsky spent 8 1/2 hours testifying before a grand jury about her relationship with President Bill Clinton.

1998: Robert D. Sack, “the son of Eugene Sack, who served as rabbi of Congregation Beth Elohim for 35 years” began serving as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit today.

1990: Funeral services are held at Temple Emanu-El for philanthropist Lucy Goldschmidt Moses 

1991(26th of Av, 5751): Eighty-five year old Austrian born British violinist whose pupils included Yifrah Neaman and Edith Peinemann and who” played in a piano trio with Heinz Schröter and Gaspar Cassadó passed away today.

1995(10th of Av, 5755): Since the 9th of Av fell on Shabbat today Tish'a B'Av is observed.

1998: Castle Hill, which included a mansion designed by Chicago architect David Adler was designated today as a National Historic Landmark.

1998: “Tango” an Argentine-Spanish film with music by Lalo Schifrin was released in Argentina today.

1999: “The Iron Giant” an animated science fiction film starring Eli Marienthal and with music by Michael Kamen was released today in the United States.

2000: The New York Times book section featured reviews of In Search of Deep Throat: The Greatest Political Mystery of Our Time by Leonard Garment, one of a handful of Jews who worked for Richard Nixon, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering by Norman G. Finkelstein, Benjamin Zucker's first novel, Blue which is at once a spiritual challenge and a gorgeous typographical object. Echoing the style of the Talmud, the book presents a continuing narrative in the center of each right-hand page, where a passage from the Mishna -- ancient commentary on the Torah -- would ordinarily be placed.

2001: President George W. Bush receives President's Daily Briefing entitled Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US and does nothing in response.  It will be left to future historians to determine if a response might have avoided the first successful attack on Washington, D.C. since the British burned the city in 1814.  To paraphrase Elie Weisel, the only thing we know for sure is that now the world knows what it feels like to be Jewish in the worst sense of that term.

2001(17th of Av, 5761): Eighty one year old Harry Abramson, the Berlin, NH, born son of Hyman and Ida Abramson passed away today.

2001(17th of Av, 5761): Yitzhak Snir, 51, of Ra'anana, an Israeli diamond merchant, was shot dead in Amman, in the yard of the building where he kept a flat. His body was found the following morning

2004: FOX broadcast the final episode of the “The Jury” produced by Barry Levinson who also played the role of “Judge Horatio Hawthorne/.”

2005(1st of Av, 5765): Rosh Chodesh Av

2005: In Cedar Rapids, despite summer vacations and myriad of other distractions, the small Jewish community at Temple Judah mustered more than a minyan for the Traditional Shabbat morning services.

2006(12th of Av, 5766): Ninety year old Esther Abraham, who was the first Miss India when she won the crown in 1947 and whose cinema fans knew her as Pramila passed away today.


2006 12th of Av, 5766): Fifteen Israelis are killed by Hezbollah rocket attacks. Among them were the following twelve soldiers:

Sgt. Gregory Aharonov, 34, of Or Akiva, moved to Israel from the Ukraine in 1991. Despite concerns about serving, Aharanov obliged when he was called up. Aharanov was named after his grandfather who died, also at the age of 34, in World War One. Aharanov was the manager of a cosmetics factory and is survived by his wife, two children, parents and older sisters. He was laid to rest at 4 p.m. on Monday.

Sgt.-Maj. Marian Berkowitz, of Ashdod, was called up Wednesday and has a younger brother who is currently serving in Lebanon. Friends described him as fun loving and that he "loved challenges." Berkowitz is survived by his parents and two brothers. He was laid to rest at 4 p.m. on Monday in the Ashdod military cemetery.

CWO Yosef Karkash, 41, of Afula, met with Shlomo Buchris, his cousin and fellow reservist, early Sunday. Later that day, both cousins were killed by the Katyusha. Relatives are devastated, and were quoted as saying that they "don't know which family to visit and console first." Karkash is survived by his wife and two daughters. He was laid to rest at 5 p.m. in the Afula military cemetery.

Sgt.-Maj. Ro'i Yaish, 27, of Herzliya got his call up order last week. "He loved his motorcycle," friends said. "You couldn't touch his bike or his helmet. Whenever we heard his bike, we knew he was coming and everyone would get excited." Ro'i is survived by his parents and three brothers. Ro'i was laid to rest at 5 p.m. in his hometown.

Despite being recently hurt in a field trip to the Judean Desert, St.-Sgt. Yehuda Greenfeld, 27, of Maale Michmas, was called to duty. Greenfeld leaves behind a two and a half year old daughter and a four month old son. Greenfled is survived by his wife and two kids, along with his parents and five brothers. He was laid to rest at 5 p.m. in the Herzliya cemetery.

St.-Sgt. Shaul Shai Michlowitz, 21, of Netanya, had finished his army service three months ago, and was waiting for his request to serve additional time as a career soldier to be authorized. Instead, he received an emergency call-up order last week. Shaul is survived by his parents and two sisters. He was buried at 5 p.m. in the Netanya military cemetery.

St.-Sgt.Maj. Daniel Ben-David, 38, of Moshav Ahituv, volunteered to join fellow paratroopers in Lebanon, despite his family's objections. Ben-David was described by a neighbor as "always laughing and hugging" and as someone who "loved to help people." Ben-David is survived by his wife and three children. He was buried at 5:30 p.m. in the Ahitub cemetery.

Warr.Ofc. Shmuel Halfon, 41, of Bat Yam, was called up two weeks ago, only to be told that he could return home last week. One day after he went home, Halfon was called up again. Family members said that Halfon loved the army and liked serving reserve duty. Halfon left behind three sons, one of whom is 11 months old. Halfon is survived by his wife and three sons. He was laid to rest at 7 p.m. in the military section of the Holon cemetery.

Sgt.-Maj. Ziv Balali, 28, of Kfar Sava, was about to celebrate his 29th birthday next month. Ziv recently completed a degreee in Middle East Studies. He is survived by his parents and sister. He was laid to rest at 7 p.m.in the military cemetery in his hometown.

St.-Sgt.Maj. Shlomo Buchris, 36, of Moshav Sde Yitzchak, reassured his brother that while other troops had gone into Lebanon, he had not yet entered and was fine. Just a short time later, Buchris was killed. Buchris was named after his father, who fell in the Six Day war.
He was buried at 7:15 p.m.in the Sde Yitzhak cemetery.

F.-Sgt. Mordechai Abutbul, 28, of Shlomi who was buried at 10 p.m. in the military section of the Shlomi cemetery.

Captain Eliyahu Elkariaf, 34, of Moshav Granot. He will be laid to rest on Tuesday at 5 p.m. in the military section of the Kfar Ata cemetery.

2006: Surprisingly, the Chicago Tribune published an op-ed article by David Memet entitled, “Bigotry Pins Blame on Jews.”

2006: The Sunday New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including  Spoiling For A Fight: The Rise of Eliot Spitzer by Brooke A. Masters and Richard Hofstadter: An Intellectual Biography by David S. Brown. (Hofstadter’s father was Jewish.)

2006: Anglo-Jewish author Michael Rosen was the subject of the BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs program.

2006: The WorldPride which was scheduled to be held today in Jerusalem did not take place due to the conflict being fought in response to attacks on Israel by Hezbollah.

2007:  In “Climates” which appeared in The New Republic, Leon Wieseltier, takes issue with the behavior and media treatment of the “super-rich” citing specifically Sanford Weill and “the obscene Stephen Schwarzman, who is very bad for the Jews.”

2007: The New Republic published a review of Jesus in the Talmud by Peter Schafer.

2007(22nd of Av, 5767): Mose Fishman, who as a 21 year-old from New York fought Fascists in Spain with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, passed away at the age of 91.

2007: At a meeting in the synagogue of the Novominsker Rebbe, more than a dozen religious heavyweights – including Rabbi Aryeh Kotle and Rabbi David Zwiebel – consider evidence that that chickens may have been mistreated in past Kapparot ceremonies and acknowledged that the problem rose to a level that could violate rabbinic law.  After the conference, the rabbis collectively issued a call for members of the community to clean up the process during this year’s holiday season.

2008: “Pineapple Express” co-produced by Judd Apatow, with a screenplay by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen, one of the film’s stars and featuring Connie Sawyer was released today in the United States.

2008: After a meeting today between Prime Minister Ehud Omert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, officials from both sides announced that Israel will release about 150 Palestinian prisoners at the end of the month as a gesture to President Abbas.

2008: “Pineapple Express,” a comedy produced by Judd Apatow and written by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen who also starred in the film was released today in the United States.

2009(16th of Av, 5769): Ninety-three year old Dutch real estate tycoon whose parents and brothers were murdered in a Nazi concentration camp passed away today.




2009: In Jerusalem Beit Avi Chai presents Part 4 of “Symbolically Speaking": Visual images of Israel, Hebrew culture, Zionism, and Judaism in which art scholar Dr. Gideon Ofrat traces the course of five icons of Jewish art until they reached Israeli galleries, thereby telling the story of modern Hebrew culture with its hopes and disappointments, highs and lows.

2009: Final night of the Israeli Wine Tasting Festival at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

2009: Funeral is held for Amos Kenan at a Kibbutz in central Israel.

2009: Voting closes for the selection of those who will appear in the Only In America Gallery of the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, PA.

2009: Robert David Sack, the son of Rabbi Eugene Sack took senior status as Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.


2009: Israel's largest political party, Kadima, shut down its official Web site today, claiming it had been infiltrated by Palestinian hackers.

2009: A Cobb, GA rabbi is seeking to declare Georgia’s Kosher Food Labeling Act unconstitutional, saying it de-legitimizes interpretations of “kosher” by different Jewish communities. Shalom Lewis, rabbi of Congregation Etz Chaim, filed suit today in Fulton County Superior Court. He is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Georgia and Atlanta law firm King and Spalding. The Kosher Food Labeling Act, enacted in 1980, mandates that any food sold as kosher must meet “orthodox Hebrew religious rules and requirements.” Lewis, a conservative Jew, said he cannot fulfill his rabbinical duties because his theological interpretation of the state’s kosher laws differs from that of Orthodox Judaism

2010: In Omaha, Nebraska, the JCC Maccabi Games are scheduled to come to an end.

2010: In Springfield, VA, a Wine and Cheese Reception is scheduled to take place at Adat Reim prior to Friday night Shabbat services.

2010: According to a report by London-based Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) head Yuval Diskin met with Egyptian officials today to discuss the Grad rockets fired at Eilat and Aqaba earlier this week. Cairo officials have been searching for two trucks that were used in the firing of the Grad rockets. The newspaper hinted that head of Egyptian Intelligence, Omar Suleiman, was present at the meeting.

2010: CNN host Fareed Zakaria has returned an award to the Anti-Defamation League over the group's opposition to building a mosque near Ground Zero.

2010(26th Av, 5770): Sixty-two year old Tony Judt, a highly praised and controversial historian who wrote with sharp persistence about the changing world at large and the tragic world within - the fatal disease that paralyzed him - died today at his home in New York City. (As reported by William Grimes)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/books/08judt.html?pagewanted=all

2011: “In Heaven Underground: The Weissensee Jewish Cemetery a film that provides “A lush, surprising and utterly absorbing journey into the lively stories hidden among the tombstones, pathways and woodlands of the Weissensee Jewish Cemetery, which has been in continuous operation in Berlin for 130 years,” is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2011(6th of Av): At Shabbat Chazon services in Cedar Rapids, congregants celebrated the second anniversary of Todd Thalblum, as Rabbi at Temple Judah with a special Kiddush.

2011:More than 250,000 people took part in demonstrations across Israel tonight to protest the high cost of living.

2012: Athletic competition is scheduled to begin today at the Maccabi Games in Memphis, TN after opening ceremonies were held yesterday.

2012:AACI - Association of Americans & Canadians in Israel- is scheduled to present a program commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Raoul Wallenberg at the Dr. Max and Gianna Glassman Family Center in Jerusalem featuring a special message from Raoul Wallenberg's niece Louise von Dardel

2012:Two Kassam rockets hit the Hof Ashkelon region today. The rockets exploded in an open area and there were no reports of injury or damage.

2012(18th of Av, 5772): Sixty-eight year old Pulitzer Prize winning composer Marvin Hamlisch passed away today. (As reported by Rob Hoerburger)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/08/arts/music/marvin-hamlisch-composer-dies-at-68.html?_r=1&hp

http://www.marvinhamlisch.com/

2012(18th of Av, 5772): Eighty-nine year old R. Peter Straus, the son of Nathan Straus Jr. and Helen Sachs Straus, “who took over WMCA in New York in the late 1950s and turned it into one of the nation’s most innovative radio stations, broadcasting what are regarded as the first radio editorials and political endorsements and helping to popularize rock ’n’ roll” passed away today (As reported by Robert McFadden)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/09/business/r-peter-straus-wmca-radio-pioneer-dies-at-89.html?_r=2&hpw&

2012:Representatives of the families of 11 Israeli athletes murdered at the 1972 Olympics attacked International Israeli Olympic Committee Chairman Dr. Jacques Rogge at a memorial event in London.

2012:The Tel Aviv City Council rejected a proposal to include Arabic on the city's official emblem

2013: “Closed Season,” a film about a young German student who visits a holocaust survivor in Israel is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2013: The fans of Faye Kellerman are filled with excitement and anticipation as The Beast, the latest in the Decker/Lazarus novels arrives at book stores across the country.

2013(30thof Av, 5773): Rosh Chodesh Elul

2013: “The Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece by Ted Koppel entitle ‘America’s Chronic Overreaction to Terrorism’”

2013(30thof Av, 5773): Eighty six year old Jerry Wolman the former owner of the Philadelphia Eagles football team and the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team passed away today. (As reported by Richard Goldstein)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/08/sports/football/jerry-wolman-former-eagles-owner-dies-at-86.html?hpw&_r=1&

http://www.jewishexponent.com/jerry-wolman-86-former-eagles-owner

2013: Zygi “Wilf, along with his brother and cousin, were found liable by a New Jersey court for breaking civil state racketeering laws and keeping separate accounting books to fleece former business partners of shared revenue” leading the judge award “the two business partner plaintiffs Ada Reichmann and Josef Halpern $84.5 million in compensatory damages, punitive damages and interest that the Wilfs must pay.:

2013: Beginning this morning, passengers traveling on Dan’s #5 bus line in Tel Aviv may suddenly encounter a much quieter and cleaner ride, aboard the country’s first fully electric – and vibrantly orange – bus. (As reported by Sharon Udasin)

2013: A poll released today “by the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University, found that 63 percent of Jews in Israel oppose a withdrawal to the 1967 lines with land swaps as part of any peace arrangement with the Palestinian Authority, even if it meant Israel would hold onto the Etzion Bloc, directly south of Jerusalem; Ma’aleh Adumim, east of the capital; and Ariel in the central West Bank about 34 kilometers (21 miles) east of Tel Aviv. (As reported by Asher Zeiger)

2013: “Rabbi Artur Ovadia Isakov, the Chabad rabbi shot in a likely terrorist attack in southern Russia has been discharged from an Israeli hospital after recovering from surgery to repair his live. One or more terrorists shot him in the chest as he was getting out of his car near his home.” (As reported by Jewish Press)

2014: Annual commemoration of the role the Jews of Corfu played in defending the island against the Turks during the invasion in 1716.

2014: Dr. Diane M. Sharon is scheduled to begin teaching a four week course, “Biblical Temptress: Sacred or Scandalous?”

2014: Tomasz Jankowski a freelance genealogist specializing in Jewish genealogy and founder of Jewish Family Search is scheduled to present “Legal and Practical Aspects of Genealogical Research in Galicia (Poland and Ukraine)” at the Center for Jewish History.

2014: “Israel has reportedly agreed to extend the current ceasefire in Gaza Strip today as indirect Israel-Palestinian negotiations over extending a truce in Gaza got underway in Cairo. However, Hamas was quick to deny the reports, saying it will renew fire at Israel as soon as the current lull has ended.” (As reported by Roy Kais)

2014: According to a poll published today, more Israelis believe Hamas emerged victorious in Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip than think that Israel did” (As reported by Gil Hoffman)

2014: A school bus driving children home from three Jewish private schools in Sydney, Australia today was boarded by eight drunk men who proceeded to yell “Heil Hitler” and “Kill the Jews,” threatening to cut the children’s throats before disembarking (As reported by Stephanie Butnick)

2015: The Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia is scheduled to host the Camp Omanoot Performance: "Fiddler on the Roof"

2015: The stolen Stradivarius violin was returned to Roman Totenberg’s daughters today, after which Nina Totenberg said "we’re going to make sure that it’s in the hands of another great artist who will play it in concert halls all over the world.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/on-a-stormy-night-roman-totenbergs-stolen-stradivarius-is-reborn-in-public/2017/03/13/80c9b0c0-0821-11e7-a15f-a58d4a988474_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_violin-2am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.019f8821f1ca

2015: “The Train,” a “short film in which Eli Wallach made his final cinema appearance playing the role of “a holocaust survivor who in a meeting teaches a self-consume and pre-occupied young man that life can change in a moment” premiered today at the Rhode Island International Film Festival.

2015: Larry and Mindy are scheduled to sing “Simon & Garfunkel” tonight at Café Yaffo.

2015: The Historic 6th& I Synagogue is scheduled to host “An Evening with Delta Spirit & Friends.”

2016: “From a Dacha Wall, a Clue to Raoul Wallenberg’s Cold War Fate” published today described how “newly published diaries” hidden in the wall of a Russian estate provide evidence the Swedish diplomat was murdered by the Soviets.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/07/world/europe/from-a-dacha-wall-a-clue-to-raoul-wallenbergs-cold-war-fate.html?mabReward=CTM&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&region=CColumn&module=Recommendation&src=rechp&WT.nav=RecEngine&_r=0

2016: “The Writer” and “Baba Joon” are scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2016(2ndof Av, 5776): Parashat Matot-Masei – Completion of Bamidbar

 http://www.jtsa.edu/jts-torah-online?parashah=2060&parashah=2061or http://www.chabad.org/parshah/default_cdo/aid/52599/jewish/Matot-Massei.htm

2017: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Best Minds of My Generation: A Literary History of the Beats by Allen Ginsberg and recently published paperback editions of I’m Supposed to Protect You From All This: A Memoir by Nadja Spiegelman, East West Street: On the Origins of “Genocide” and “Crimes Against Humanity” by Philippe Sands and Hot Milk by Deborah Levy.

2017(14thof Av, 5777): Eight-seven year old Canadian “commercial real estate” mogul Jack Rabinovitch who is best known for creating the Giller Prize, Canada’s pre-eminent English language award, which was his way of honoring the memory of his “second wife Doris Giller” passed away today. (As reported by Ian Austen)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/06/world/canada/jack-rabinovitch-dead-giller-prize.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2017: “After Auschwitz: The Stories of Six Women,” the documentary that opens with the word “You’re free. Go home” is scheduled to be shown at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.

2017: “Charlemagne Palestine’s Bear Mitzvah in Meshugahland” is scheduled to come to an end at the Jewish Museum.

http://thejewishmuseum.org/exhibitions/charlemagne-palestine-bear-mitzvah-in-meshugahland

2017: The exhibition “500 Years of Treasures From Oxford” is scheduled to come to a close at the Yeshiva University Museum.

http://cjh.org/oxford/

2017: “The Arcades: Contemp”orary Art and Walter Benjamin” is scheduled to come to a close at the Jewish Museum.

http://thejewishmuseum.org/exhibitions/the-arcades-contemporary-art-and-walter-benjamin

2017: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to host a Tu B’Av celebration this evening at the Center for Jewish History

2018: “Classical Bridge, an international musical festival, academy and conference designed to build bridges through music” featuring “Israeli musicians Pinchas Zuckerman and Alexander Fiterstein” is scheduled to continue for a third day.

2018: JW3 is scheduled to host a screening this evening in London of “Generation of Wealth.”

2018: Prime Minister Netanyahu will not be traveling to Columbia today so that he can be in Israel in case his support is needed for a cease fire in Gaza that is reportedly being negotiated by the United Nations. (As reported by Maayan Lubell)

2019: The 1961 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II Drophead Coupe, a convertible which Elizabeth Taylor got as part of the settlement when she divorced Eddie Fisher (Jew v Jew) is scheduled to be auctioned off in New York today.

2019: The citizens of Dayton, OH a city with a Jewish population of 5,000 that dates back to the 1840’s and which boast a Jewish Community Complex, struggle to deal with the latest “mass shooting.”

2019: As the number of fatalities of the El Paso mass shooting continues to grow, Rabbi Stephen Leon expressed his sympathy and support for the victims and the Hispanic population which was the target of the shooter.

https://jewishelpaso.org/el-paso

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/el-paso


This Day, August 8, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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August 8 



117 C.E.:  Hadrian named Emperor of the Roman Empire.  He is remembered as the man who accepted the limits of the Roman empire, as can be seen by the construction of Hadrian’s Wall in what is today Great Britain.  It was designed to keep the barbarians out of the empire and was viewed as the greatest engineering feat of the Roman legions.  Hadrian was also seen as a man of culture who a devotee of Greek learning.  Jews remember him as the man who brought on Bar Kochba’s Rebellion.  At the end of this extended but ultimately failed clash of arms. Hadrian made war on Judaism itself.  He sought to build a temple to Jupiter on the Temple Mount.  He hunted down the Jewish sages and created the list of martyrs some of whom we invoke by name each year on the High Holidays.  In Jewish writings he is referred to as “the Wicked or the Evil One.”



 1356: The King of Aragon sent his Jewish physician to tend to the wounds of a Muslim who was fighting in the king’s army.  

1385: In Rome, the Senate made good on Boniface IX’s promise “to the Jewish physicians Angelo di Manuele and Solomone de Sabalduchio of Perugia” by according the Jewish community of Rome a yearly reduction of 30 florins for the taxes of the two doctors because of the services they had rendered to the city’s poor.

1391: In Barcelona, the citadel where many of the Jews had gone for protection was stormed, by the mob and more than 300 Jews were murdered, among the slain being the only son of Hasdai Crescas.



1488: Makre Dardeke  (Teach of Young Children)was published for the first time in Naples Italy, by Joseph Ashkenazi.  This Judaic glossary was trilingual: Hebrew, Arabic and Italian.  [For more see “A history and guide to Judaic dictionaries and concordances, Volume 3, Part 1” by Shimeon Brisman]



 1524: Giles of Viterbo who studied Hebrew with “grammarian Elias Levita” and provided him with sanctuary when war drove him for Padua to Rome today became Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.



1541: The Jews of Great Poland were authorized by King Sigismund to elect a chief Rabbi



1588: In the war between England and Spain, the Battle of Gravelines comes to an end.  Conventional commentators see it as turning point in history because it marked the end of the Spanish Armada's attempt to invade England. Any defeat suffered by Spain, the land of the Inquisition had to be seen as a plus from the Jewish point of view.  More specifically, the end of the Battle of Gravelines meant that the Spanish Armada could not support the landing of Spanish troops in the Netherlands.  Part of the mission of the Armada was to provide support for Spanish forces fighting to impose Catholic rule on the Protestant Dutch.  The Spanish were determined to bring the Inquisition to the Netherlands to punish the heresy of the Protestants and would of course have doomed the future for the Sephardic Jews who had already settled in Holland or would be settling there.  If the Spanish had been successful at Gravelines, the 23 Jews who would sail into New Amsterdam would have found a Catholic government that would have not provided them aid, shelter and a New World in which to settle.  It is not too great a stretch to say that a line can be drawn from Drake’s victory over the Armada at Gravelines to the founding of the Jewish Community in America.  As we have said many times in our studies in Cedar Rapids, you must understand history to understand Jewish history and seeing history through the Jewish prism is not the same as seeing history in its general form.

1641(2ndof Elul, 5401): Joseph Bueno, the Bordeaux trained doctor of medicine described as “this new Jewish physician” by the French Ambassador E’Presses who was unable to save the life of Prince Maurice of Orange and was the father of Ephraim Bueno passed away today.

1653: Birthdate of Normandy native Jacques Basnage de Deauval, the Protestant minister and author whose works included L'Histoire des Juifs (History of the Jews) which the author said is "a survey of all that pertains to the religion and the history of the Jews since Herod the Great.”



1654: Jacob Barsimson sailed for New Amsterdam from Holland aboard the Peartree and landed on August 22. Some consider him to be the the first Jewish immigrant to travel to what is now New York City. Other dates have been giving for this sailing. Regardless, the official date of the start of the Jewish community comes later in 1654 when 23 Portuguese Jews landed in New Amsterdam.



1648: Mehmed IV began his reign as Sultan of the Ottoman Empire during which Safed, the home to numerous Jewish mystics and sages “was destroyed by Arabs” and the Jews of Yemen were banished to Mawza Desert.



1655: The Russians captured Vilna. As part of the peace settlement between Chmielnicki and Czar Alexis, the east bank of the Dnieper became part of the kingdom of Moscow. Jews were once again subject to expulsion and murder.



1670: After Leopold I evicted the Jews from Vienna; he sold the Jewish quarter for 100,000 florins. The Jewish quarter was then renamed Leopoldstadt in his honor. The Synagogue and the Bet Midrash (study hall) were turned into St. Margaret's Church.



1765(21st of Av, 5525): Elkalah Myers Cohen, the first wife of Myer Myers died at the age of thirty, leaving him three sons and two daughters.

1797: In Lorraine, France, Mayer Lippman, the Alsace born son of Raphaël Isaac Lippmann and Jutelé Lippmann and his wife Madelleine Lippmann gave birth to Isaac Lippmann

1804: Birthdate of Dr. Gedelia Daniel Rudolph Warburg.



1805: Today Hungarian Rabbi Moses Münz “declared that” Aaron Chorin, the author of "'Emeḳ ha-Shaweh"“was to blamed for certain statements in the first part entitled ‘Rosh Amanah’ which were apt to mislead the public” but “reaffirmed that the book contained no heresies.”

1808: In London, Moses Alexander and his wife gave birth to Rose Alexander, the wife of Isaac Abraham Boss.

1809: A group of 70 people led by the followers of the Vilna Gaon arrived in Eretz Yisrael.          

1816: Today “the Austrian Beobachter, a semi-official government newspaper, vigorously attacked Lubeck for having expelled the Jews, without waiting for the action on the Jewish question by the Diet.”(Max J. Kohler)

1817: Frederick VI granted Hartvig Philip Ree “the right to build a sugar refinery at Aarhus.”

1820: Birthdate of composer and conductor Jules Stern the native of Breslau “who established his reputation” when he conducted the first performance of Mendelssohn’s oratorio “Elijah” in 1847.

1821: Herman Hendricks married Abigial Rose Levein at the Great Synagogue today.

1827: Moses ben Abraham HaCohen married Beila bat Menahem Mendel at the Western Synagogue today.

1827: Ralph Solomon married Blumah Simmons today at the Great Synagogue

1829: In Paris, Lucinde Paradol and Léon Halévy the son of the writer and chazzan Élie Halévy gave birth to journalist Lucien-Anatole Prévost-Paradol

1838: In Barbados, a letter was read today from J.W. Lyon of Edinburgh requesting aid to rebuild their synagogue – a request which had to be declined due to lack of funds.

1838: In London, Frances Cohen and Joel Benjamin gave birth to Julia Benjamin, the wife of Abraham Ornstien with whom she had nine children.

1841: In Paris, Fanny Heilbronner and Isaac Samuel gave birth to Albert Samuel.

1846: Second and concluding day dedicatory services for the Eagle Street Synagogue in Cleveland, Ohio.

1847: In Cracow, “Gittel Beer” and “Simmel Horowitz” gave birth to Maximilian Horowitz.

1849: Birthdate of Henri Cordier, the native of New Orleans who grew up in France and eventually became President of the Société de Géographie

1850(30th of Av, 5610): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1854: The New York Times reported that all of the people of Jamaica, regardless of religious persuasion, have responded sympathetically to the plight of the Jews living in Jerusalem and other parts of Palestine.  They have raised $2,000 to help alleviate their suffering which includes the effects of a famine brought on by an outbreak of “pestilence” and skyrocketing food prices.  The suffering of the Jewish communities is blamed on Czar Nicholas who has prevented the Jews from receiving financial aid usually sent from Russia.

1857: In Fairfield, CT, “railroad tycoon William Henry Osborn and his wife, Virginia Reed Osborn gave birth to Dr. Henry Fairfield Osbron proponent of “biological determination” that was being used to keep Jewish immigrants from entering the United States as could be seen during “the hearings for the emergency immigration law o 1921.

1862: Philadelphia native Henry Arnold began his service with Company F of the 123rd Regiment, a unit that would see action four months later at the Battle of Fredericksburg.

1862: During the Civil War, Philadelphian Michael Baer began serving as a First Lieutenant in Company F of the 123rdRegiment.



1868: Baron James Mayer Rothschild purchased a Chateau for 4.4 million francs. The estate became Château Lafite Rothschild. However, Baron James, died just three months after purchasing Lafite and the estate became the joint property of his three sons: Alphonse, Gustave, and Edmond.



1871: The Court of Special Sessions in New York, Judge Shandley presiding heard an unusual case today.   Mr. Robert Thomas, a member of the Alanson Methodist Episcopal Church complained that a Jew named Nathan Koyofski was disturbing their Sabbath (Sunday) Services with noise made by his sewing machine. Koyofski lives in a tenement adjoining the building housing the church.  Requests from church members that he stop his work had proven fruitless so they were forced to take legal action.  Koyofski ‘s lawyer contended that any attempt by the state to dictate which days were for work and which were for worship “would be an infringement of fundamental American principles…”  Shandley found Koyofski guilty of violating the law that stated “explicitly that no one should willfully disturb religious worship, of whatever nature it might be…” If anybody disrobed the Jews on Saturday, they would have an equal righ to complain.  The Judge suspended the sentence. But he warned Koyofski that if he were brought before him again on a similar charge, he would have to go to jail.

1873: Louis and Lillian (Wolff) Seligsberg gave birth to Alice Lillie Seligsberg a social worker and Zionist who helped to found Hadassah.

http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/seligsberg-alice-lillie

1873: Birthdate of Marguerite R. Falks, the wife of Gustave Falk.



1878(9th of Av, 5638):Tish'a B'Av

1878:Abraham Moses Jacobson (Yankelewitz) and Sarah Leah Jacobson (Yankelewitz) gave birth to Rebecca Jacobson who in 83 years of life never married.



1879: A major fire has destroyed much of Sarajevo today including the city’s Jewish quarter.



1881(13th of Av, 5641): Just 6 days before his 52nd birthday Jules Moch a Colonel of the 130th Regiment in the French Army, the father of Gaston Moch and the grandfather of Jules S. Moch passed away.

1881: Birthdate of Prussian native Gus Edwards, the American song writer and “talent scout” whose discoveries included Eddie Cantor and George Jessel and who was married to his wife, the former Lilian Boulanger for almost forty years.

1882: “Discontented Russian Jews” published today provided the reasons for the angry outbursts that had taken place yesterday at the offices of the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society. After having been subject to indignities in various European cities as they made their way to the United States, several of the Jews felt betrayed when they found out that they would not be receiving 160 acres and enough financial support to begin life as farmers.  At the same time, their lack of language skills has made them feel they will never be able to earn a living and some are so frustrated that they want to return to Russia.



1882: The Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society was reported to be sending groups of Russian immigrants to agricultural communities near Hartford, CT and Vineland, CO on a daily basis.  The society is planning on sending 25 men to South Orange, NJ next week so that they can start a new colony.(The unprecedented mass migration of Eastern European Jews was already overwhelming available resources in the first of its four decades)



1883: It was reported today that the dinner provided at the recently held conference of Jewish congregations in Cincinnati was a violation of Jewish dietary laws since included Little Neck clams, soft shell crabs and shrimp salad. In response to reports that some “of the conservative congregations would withdraw from the union,” Rabbi Wise disavowed responsibility for the menu since it was paid for by private individuals who could spend their money as they please.  Besides, the rabbi said that “the American Hebrews’ religion does not center in the kitchen or the stomach.”

1883: Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Budapest following the acquittal of Jews charged with the ritual murder of Esther Solymose



1884: It was reported today that “The Woskhod, the Hebrew journal, has received a warning from the authorities for violating the press laws.”  (This must be a reference to Voskhod, a monthly founded by Adolph Landau in 1881. http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Voskhod

1885(27thof Av, 5645): Parashat Re’eh

1885: “The Four Great Moses” published today identifies the leading Jews with that name – Moses of Biblical fame, Moses Ben Maimon (Maimonides), Moses Mendelssohn and Moses Montefiore, who “put into practice the teachings of his three great predecessors…”

1886(7th of Av, 5646): Gedaliah Tiktin the son Solomon Tiktin whom he succeeded as the rabbi in Breslau and who received the Order of the Red Eagle for his services rendered during the Franco-Prussian War passed away today.

1887 A payment of $1, 097.23 was made to Leopold Feiss today by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

1887: A payment of $157.57 was made to A.J. Friedlander to by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

1888(1stof Elul, 5648): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1888: In Harrisburg, PA, “ Julius Kantor, a German orthodox rabbi, and Mary, a Lithuanian, who immigrated to Pennsylvania some years earlier” gave birth to J.R. (Jacob Robert) Kantor , the American psychologist who, while at the University of Chicago married Helen rich with he had one child, “Helen J. Kantor, “the professor at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.”

https://kantor.weebly.com/

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/kantor-jacob-robert

1888: Birthdate of Austrian native Maurice Moses Maisel, who came to the United States in 1897 after which he moved to Albuquerque, NM where he operated a store.

1889: The funeral of Isaac Phillips is scheduled to take place today at his home in New York City.

1889: The United States Deputy Marshall said that “Simon Baruch, a Spanish Jews accused of stealing approximately $150,000 while in Austria arrived at New York aboard the SS Hammonia.



1890:N.J. Arbeely was appointed to serve as an interpreter at the Barge Office (the major entry point for immigrants in New York) based on his fluency in several foreign languages which includes Hebrew.



1890: A squad of police moved through an a area bounded by Hester, Essex, Division, Orchard  and Norfolk streets arresting fifty immigrants, including a number of Jews for violating city ordinances concerning pushcarts, stands and other commercial conveyances that blocked the streets.



1890: The will of the late Alexander Bach was filed for probate today.



1890: Mendel Feldstein saw two men, one of whom was Jacob Rohnewitch bury$90 worth of jewelry that they had stolen from Israel Simovitch.



1891: Birthdate of German violinist Adolf Busch.  Busch was not Jewish.  But early on, he saw the dangers of the rise of Hitler and moved to Switzerland. When WW II he moved to the United States where he continued his career until his death in 1952.



1891: “No Swindle Like This One” published today described commercial machinations engineered by Steve Ryan of Atlanta, GA  which victimized nearly 400 people most of whom were Jewish merchants from several locations in the United States.

1892: Birthdate of Solomon Bennett Freehof “a prominent Reform rabbi, posek, and scholar. A native of London, he moved to the U.S. in 1903, received a degree from the University of Cincinnati in 1914 and was ordained by Hebrew Union College in 1915.  He was a World War I army chaplain, a liturgy professor at HUC, and a rabbi at Chicago's Congregation Kehillath Anshe Maarav before moving to Pittsburgh.”

Rabbi Freehof served as president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the World Union for Progressive Judaism. Beginning in 1955, he led the CCAR's work on Jewish law through its responsa committee. He also spearheaded changes to Reform liturgy with revisions to the Union Prayer Book. For many years, he served as the pulpit rabbi at Rodef Shalom in Pittsburgh, PA.”  According to the congregation, "For more than 35 years, Dr. Freehof's weekly book review series attracted audiences of more than 1,500 Christians and Jews." He retired in 1966 and passed away in 1990. He was a descendant of the Alter Rebbe.

1893: Reverend Herman P. Faust of the Hebrew Christian Mission accused the United Hebrew Charities of refusing to give needy Jews.  He specifically cited the case of Joseph Korman, a Russian Jew whom he said had been denied aid and when he died it was left to his group to pay for the burial and provided for his widow and orphans (more to come tomorrow)

1895: Birthdate of New Jersey Law School graduate and “vice dean of the University of Newark” Aaron Lasser, “an organizer and former President of the Newark Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Association” and husband of Hazel Lasser with whom he had two children – Lawrence and John,

https://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/13/archives/aaron-lasser-75-lawyereducator.html

1895: Birthdate of Annie Stein Lazarus, the wife of Sam Lazarus with whom she had

five children – Jacob, Leon, Frances, Ralph and Irwin – before passing away in 1970 and being buried in the Valdosta, Georgia.

1897: “From Cactus Aristocracy” published today described society in Los Angeles where “the big fortunes are held …by three classes:  “the native ranch interest;”  “the lumber dealers;” and “the Jews.” “The Jews…are socially conspicuous but less obtrusive than either of the other two.”

1897: It was reported today that Herr von Diest’s pamphlet that accuses Bismarck of “gaining wealth by questionable methods” will delight the anti-Semites because of its attacks on the Rothschilds and Gerson von Bleichröder, the Jewish banker who handled financial matters for the Chancellor and Prussia.

1898(20th of Av, 5658) Sixty-seven year old Adolph Sutro, the first Jewish mayor of San Francisco who made his fortune in the Comstock Lode passed away today.

1899 Israel Zangwill is scheduled to return to New York today after visiting with Judge Meyer Sulzberger in Philadelphia.

1899: Three days after she had passed away, Anna Hendelah Waley, the daughter of Phillip Joseph Salomons and Cecilia Salomons and the wife of Simon Waley was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery today.

1899: Funeral services for Myer Stern were held in the Temple Emanu-El today forenoon, and many men prominent in business and fraternal circles were present. Rabbi Gustav Gottheil and his assistant, Dr. Joseph Silverman, officiated. In an earnest eulogy Rabbi Gottheil spoke of Mr. Stern's philanthropic character, and of his activities in various organizations. In his brief eulogy Rabbi Silverman said “Myer Stern made the world better for being here. He catered neither to the great nor the strong but follolowed where the principles of truth, right and justice led.”  Mr. Stern was the author of The Rise and Progress of Reform Judaism : Embracing a History Made from the Offical Records of Temple Emanu-El of New York, with a Description of Salem.

1900: In Dresden, Rosa Philippine (née Blum) and Ignatz Siodmak gave birth to German American director Robert Siodmak.

http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/robert-siodmak-7661.php

1900: Today “Moses Lehman hosted a 20th birthday party for his daughter Lillian Lehman at the Chalybeate Springs Hotel in Bedford, PA

1900: Birthdate of composer and conductor Victor Young, the native of Chicago who has “received 22 Academy Award nominations.”

1902: In Yelisavetgrad, Russian Empire, “Max Corash, a Jewish doctor facing conscription into the Russian Army” and his wife gave birth to Goldie Corash who married American real estate developer David Michelson and gained fame as supercentenarian Goldie Michelson

http://www.clarku.edu/blog/goldie-michelson-110-clarks-marquee-name

http://www.jta.org/2016/05/18/life-religion/7-fun-facts-about-113-year-old-goldie-michelson-the-oldest-person-in-the-us



1903(15thof Av, 5663): Shabbat Nachamu and Tu B’Av

1903: Dorothy Levitt drove the Napier motor-boat at Cowes and won the race.

1903: Morris Rosenfeld recited an original poem and A.D. Savage spoke about “Zionism from the Christian point of at today’s celebration of the 25thanniversary of the founding of Peta Tikva hosted by the CCNY Students’ Zionist Society.

1905: In Ashland, VA, Martha and William E. Dodd, FDR’s first Ambassador to Nazi Germany gave birth to William Dodd, Jr.  The younger Dodd accompanied his father to the posting in Berlin and became an ardent anti-Fascist at a time when famous Americans like Lindbergh were cozying up to Hitler.  Unfortunately, like many of his political persuasion he became a victim of the Right Wing Ant-Communist this college professor with a PhD ended his days as a clerk at Macy’s.  Whatever their views before they came to Berlin Ambassador Dodd and both of his children saw the danger of the Nazis and tried to warn America about it.

1908(11thof Av, 5668): Shabbat Nachamu

1908: Birthdate of Arthur J. Goldberg. Son of Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine, Goldberg became a labor lawyer who championed the rights of the workers. President Kennedy appointed him as Secretary of Labor in 1961. In 1962, Kennedy named him as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court to succeed Felix Frankfurter. Goldberg resigned to service as Ambassador to the United Nations under President Johnson. Johnson named Abe Fortas to replace Goldberg on the High Court. Goldberg passed away in 1990.

1909: First Jewish community organization is founded in Santiago, Chile – Sociedad Unon Israelita de Chile.  At the same in Argentinia, a group of Jewish students founded Juventud Israelita Argentina which produce a journal entitled Juventud, which became a favorite among Argentinian Jewish intellectuals.

1910:  In the Bronx, “Rebecca (née Saperstein), a Romanian Jew, and Victor Kosow, a Russian Jewish immigrant who worked as a clothing salesman” gave birth to Sylvia Kosow who as the actress Sylvia Sidney Sydney arrived in Hollywood after playing leading roles on Broadway just as the talkie era began. She quickly became one of Paramount's top women stars along with Marlene Dietrich, Miriam Hopkins and Claudette Colbert. In the 1950’s her career seemed to come to an end.  However, she gained fame toward the end of her life playing in the television comedy “WKRP” and the film Bettlejuice. She passed away at the age of 88.

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/02/movies/sylvia-sidney-30-s-film-heroine-dies-at-88.html

1910: Birthdate of Harry A. Pearson, a graduate of Cooper Union and NYU who went on to become director of research at Sonotone Corporation.

1911: During the 62nd Congress Public Law 62-5 sets the number of representatives in the United States House of Representatives at 435. There were 5 Jews serving in the House during the 62nd Congress including, Jefferson Levy, Julius Kahn, Victor Berg, Henry Goldfogle, Adolph Sabath. By contrast, the 111th Congress (the session meeting in 2010) there were 31 Jews serving in the House of Representatives; 30 Democrats and one Republican.



1911: Moses Gaster, the Romanian born Jewish scholar who was Chief Rabbi of the Sephardic communities in England, wrote a letter to the Board of Deputies (the governing body of the British Jewish Community) protesting the wording of an amendment introduced into the Slaughter of Animals Bill before Parliament at the insistence of the Board.



1912: In Brooklyn, Helen Chugerman and attorney Samuel Chugerman gave birth to Daniel Chugerman who gained fame as award winner director Daniel Mann, whose works ranged from comedies like “The Teahouse of the August Moon” to weighty dramas like “The Last Angry Man” and who was the father-in-law of Harold Ramis of “Ghostbusters” fame.

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/23/theater/daniel-mann-79-the-director-of-successful-plays-and-films.html

1912: Whitman College English Professor Ralph Boas and Louise Schultz gave birth to mathematician Ralph Boas, Jr., the grandson of “Herman and Sarah (Eisenberg) Boas.

1913(5thof Av, 5673): Fifty year old Solomon H. Bauer, the Polish born rabbi who moved to Jerusalem in 1885 with “his son-in-law, Rabbi Chaim Eliezer Waks” where he “turned private homes in a residential religious college” and “cultivated Etrog orchards near Tibeiras” before finally settling in the United States where he led three Chicago Congregations ‘--Agudas Achim North Shore Congregation, Moses Montefiore Congregation and Anshe Emet – passed away today.

1914(16thof Av, 5674): Parashat Vaetchanan and Shabbat Nachamu

1914(16thof Av, 5674): Seventy-six year old George Joseph Emanuel, the London born son of Jane and Joseph Emanuel and the husband of Elizabeth Emanuel with whom he had had seven children passed away today in Birmingham, UK.

1914: During WW I, the Germans returned to Kalisz, a city which during the inter-war period had a population that was almost thirty per cent Jewish, and took and shot 100 hostages.

1914: German industrialist Walter Rathenau went to see the Head of the General War Department in Berlin to offer his support to the war effort.  “Rathenau proposed to ‘save Germany from strangulation’, and with a few days was put in charge of a specially created War Raw Materials Department.”  His job was to keep Germany in the war.  But because he was a civilian and a Jew he was faced with constant hostility from the German General Staff.



1915: According to reports published today German correspondents describe German troops as being welcomed to Warsaw as liberators by crowds in the streets “filled with Poles, Jews, Germans and Russians.”

1915: After having failed in the attack on Hill 970 during the Gallipoli Campaign, troops under the command of Sir John Monash unsuccessfully attacked Hill 60 after which they were withdrawn to Lemnos.



1915: A Conference of Jewish representatives from 110 organizations took place today at the Educational Alliance Building in New York where plans were made to raise additional funds for Jews trapped on the Eastern Front which includes 600,000 of their co-religionists.

1915: “A group of secular, Yiddish-speaking socialists formed a third committee, the People's Relief Committee (PRC), whose officers were Meyer London, chairman, and Isaac Goldberg, treasurer. The Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) accepted the PRC as its third constituent member and limited the organization's activities to house to house collections from the non-Orthodox Jewish community.



1916(9thof Av, 5676): Tish’a B’Av



1916: It was reported today that in his sermon marking the start of the Tish’a B’Av observance Rabbi Mendes told the congregants at Shearith Israel that “it was particularly sorrowful to the Jews at this time to know that their co-religionists were fighting against one another under every banner in Europe” and that “in the heart of every Jew there was the hope that after the struggle (WW I) justice would be done to his race.”

1916: After The Battle of Romani “the last ground attack of the Central Powers on the Suez Canal at the beginning of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign during the First World War” which was an Allied victory, the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade and the 3rd Light Horse Brigade reached Debais, while “the Bikanir Camel Corps and a squadron of aircraft continued searching the desert sands for missing men.” (Editor’s note – this was a strategic victory for the British since it meant the Suez Canal would remain open.  It was also the first part of journey that would end with Allenby in Jerusalem.)



1917: Birthdate of scriptwriter Malvin Wald who was responsible for the gritty film noir “The Naked City” starring Kirk Douglas

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2008-03-09-wald-obit_N.htm



1917: During WW I, “representatives of several national Jewish organization met in Washington today and formed the Jewish Board for Welfare Relief Work in the United States Army and Navy” which will provide services “for the benefit of the 50,000 or more Jewish youths who will be among the first American fighting forces sent to war’ similar to those provided by the YMCA for non-Jewish military personnel.



1918(30thof Av, 5678): Rosh Chodesh Elul



1918: Australian troops under General John Monash spear headed the successful attack of the British army at the Battle of Amiens.  Amiens was the opening round in the great allied offensive that would force the surrender of the German Army.  Monash’s key role would be recognized when he was Knight Commandeer of the Order of the Bath by King George V.



1919: Birthdate of Murrey Marder, the crusading journalist who was the first to expose the tissues of lies created by Joe McCarthy during the Anti-Communist witch hunt – a smear campaign that the Right continues to in the second decade of the 21st century.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/greenberg060613.php3#.UgGD4Z0o6po



1920: Birthdate of Bernard Schoenbaum, the son of Jewish immigrants, “who in hundreds of cartoons in The New Yorker needled the relatively affluent, the media-conscious, the irony-besotted and the socially competitive.”



1920: Establishment of Gdud HaAvoda VeHaHaganah al shem Yosef Trumpeldor a “socialist Zionist work group also known as Gdud Ha’Avoda that its name from Joseph Trumpeldor, the one-armed Russian soldier who died defend Tel Hai from attacks from the Arabs.



1921: In Manhattan actress Lillian Bonner and movie producer Ephraim Asher gave birth to “William Asher, a producer, director and screenwriter in the early days of television who directed some two dozen shows — most notably “Bewitched,” which starred his wife, Elizabeth Montgomery, and more than 100 episodes of “I Love Lucy” (As reported by Denise Grady)



1922: Birthdate of Gertrude Himmelfarb, the native of Brooklyn who gained fame as Bea Kristol, the husband of Irving Kristol and mother of William Kristol who has made her career as an intellectual historian and has perhaps made her larger mark on the world as a conservative public intellectual.

http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/bic1/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?displayGroupName=Reference&disableHighlighting=false&prodId=BIC2&action=e&windowstate=normal&catId=&documentId=GALE%7CH1000045749&mode=view&userGroupName=fairfax_main&jsid=e48b20adaa47e2f15504a8c5aa2bca27.

1922: In Vienna, Siegmund Gernreich and Elisabeth (née Müller) Gernreich gave birth to Rudi Gernreich, a designer of American fashions for women who created and/or popularized such then daring items as the miniskirt and the topless bathing suit.

http://articles.latimes.com/1985-04-22/news/mn-21986_1_fashion-industry



1922: Birthdate of Dr. Leon Eisenberg, who “conducted some of the first rigorous studies of autism, attention deficit disorder and learning delays and became a prominent advocate for children struggling with disabilities.” (As reported by Benedict Carey)



1923: Samuel J. Bloomingdale, the President of Bloomingdale Bros. hosted a luncheon at his office today during which Francis Leffler announced the completion of plans to raise funds from the manufacturers in the house furnishing trades that will help erase the $500,000 deficit in the budget of the New York Federation that supports the Jewish Philanthropic Societies. (As reported by JTA)



1924: In Bălți, Simon Greenberg and his wife gave birth to Lia Greenberg whose parents sent her to Palestine in 1940 where gained famed as Lia van Leer “the founder of the Haifa Cinematheque, the Jerusalem Cinematheque, the Israel Film Archive and the Jerusalem Film Festival.”

1924



1924: Plutario Elias Calles, President-elect of Mexico, spent a few hours in Atlantic City today for the so he could meet with Jewish labor leader Samuel Gompers and the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor, which is in session here at the Ambassador Hotel.



1925:  In one of their largest rallies ever, 40,000 Ku Klux Klansmen marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.  The Klansmen marched in full hooded regalia and were watched by adoring throngs.  The Klan was not just a Southern organization.  Large groups could be found in such Mid-Western states as Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.  The Klan was anti-Semitic as well as anti-Catholic and opposed to all non-Caucasian races including African-Americans.  Memories of this march help to explain the timidity of the Jews in the 1930’s when it came to pressing the case for opening the doors to refugees from Nazi Europe.

1925: In Manhattan, Michael Goldman, “a native of Dublin” and “the former Rebecca Perlman” both of whom were lawyers gave birth to Arnold Perlman Gold, the Texas Longhorn undergrad and “pediatric neurologist who, along with his wife Sandra was a leading proponent of “an empathetic bedside manner.” (As reported by Richard Sandomir)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/obituaries/dr-arnold-gold-92-dies-made-compassionate-care-a-cause.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

1926: Hundreds of residents of the Jewish quarter of Paris assembled at the Garenord station at 11 o'clock tonight to greet the poet Chaim Nachman Bialiak with shouts of "Heidad!", and the singing of Hatikvah on his visit to the French capital after “the conclusion of the Zionist Actions Committee in London.” (JTA)

1928: Birthdate of Toronto of Oscar nominated scriptwriter Stanley Mann whose the father of London born British broadcaster Daniel Richler.

1929: Heinrich Himmler and his wife gave birth Gudrun Margarete Elfriede Emma Anna Himmler, their only biological child” who was loyal to her father up until the moment of her death in 2018.

1928(22ndof Av, 5688): Seventy-four year old Alfred S. Brandeis, the son of Adolph and Fredericka Brandeis, the husband of Jennie Brandeis and the brother of Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court passed away today.

1929: “On the ground that Alfred Dreyfus, a writer and sculptor, has been committed to a sanitarium as insane although he is of sound mind, an application was made” today “to Supreme Court Justice Frankenthaler for an order directing that the question of his sanity be determined by a jury.  Dreyfus had been committed to a mental institution more than a year ago by his brother Walter Ludwig Drefyus.

1931: Birthdate of Joshua Matza Israeli political figure and “president and CEO of State of Israel Bonds, a global enterprise that generates more than $1 billion in annual sales. Israel utilizes the funds for economic development projects. Matza was recommended for the post in 2002 by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and then-Finance Minister Silvan Shalom. Matza served 18 years in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, as a member of the Likud party. He was a cabinet minister in the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, holding the portfolio of minister of health. Matza also served 20 years on the Jerusalem City Council, 10 of which were in the capacity of deputy mayor.”



1931: The Arab National Association adopts a resolution indicating that the Arabs do not intend to obey the government's orders to cease agitation against sealed armories and will continue to defy the British government in Palestine.



1933: Dr. Daniel Mulvihill, a New Yorker visiting Berlin “was assaulted by a German citizen…apparently because he had failed ‘to salute a Nazi detachment.’”



1933: The police and the Aeronautics Board of the Department Commerce began an investigation today into reports that a an unidentified plane had, for the last two days, been dropping German language pamphlets on a meeting of the United Singers Society protesting the exclusion of the Friends of the New German from its activities.  The Friends of Germany is pro-Nazi while the United Singers Society is a conservative German organization that does not support the Nazis.  The investigation was begun at the behest of Albert F. Frosh, president of the United Singers Society.



1933: In Czernowitz, Romania, the Maccabee sports organization submits a claim for 100,000 lei as compensation for cancelling the Maccabiade, international meet of Jewish athletes, forbidden by Rumanian Government, owing to fears that Lord Melchett, head of Maccabee World Union, would be molested by anti-Semites. Lord Melchett was Sir Alfred Moritz Mond, the son of Ludwig Mond.  He was a leading British businessman, politician and supporter of Zionism.



1933: The German Government announced that those East European Jews who will be deprived of their citizenship in accordance with a recent decree will be given the status of Staatenlose (men without citizenship in any country); this explanation is accompanied by estimates that 10,300 East-European Jews had been naturalized in Prussia alone since 1922.



1933: The All-German Richard Wagner Association, meeting at Beiruth to arrange for the Wagner Festival, decides to amend its by-laws so as to exclude all "non-Aryans," and to instruct its branches throughout Germany to expel Jewish members. It was actions like this that created the myth that Wagner, who was dead by now, was an anti-Semite.



1933:  In Regina, the Jewish Colonization Association prepares statistics for the World's Grain Exhibition and Conference which show that 557,000 Jews in eight countries engage in agriculture and cultivate 5,410,750 acres of land, and that the Jewish farmers in Canada raise 500,000 bushels of wheat annually. The family of Ekiel Bronfman was one of those Jewish families who did not succeed in its agricultural endeavors.  Thanks to Ekiel’s son Sam, they found another way to make money from grain besides growing it



1933: In Germany, The Ministry of Labor issues an ordinance which provides that no Jewish physician is to remain associated with any sick benefit association, with the exception of front-line war veterans, and establishes an official list of sick fund doctors, from which all Jews are excluded.

1934: Station WBNX is scheduled to broadcast the “Jewish Woman’s Hour” at 1:30 this afternoon.

1935(9thof Av, 5695): Tish’a B’Av



1935 (9th of Av, 5695): Yiddish poetess Rivka Galin passed away



1935: “Following complaints from Dr. Schacht plus reports on the public disagreement with the wave of anti-Semitic violence, Hitler ordered a stop to "individual actions" against German Jews today.”



1936: The World Jewish Congress was convened in Geneva. Stephen Wise and Nahum Goldman founded the Congress. Although they organized a boycott of German goods, they felt that a more direct approach would prompt the Nazis "to even harsher policies."



1936: “Girls’ Dormitory” starring French born actress Simone Simon whose Jewish father would die in a WW II concentration camp was distributed in the United States today by 20th Century Fox.



1937(1stof Elul, 5697): Rosh Chodesh Elul



1937(1stof Elul, 5697): Sixty-four year old Theodore A. Peyser the native of Charleston, West Virginia, passed away today while representing New York’s 17thcongressional district.

http://www.jta.org/1937/08/11/archive/congressman-peyser-dead-at-64

http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=P000281

1937: As the debate over the Peel Commission Report continued Rabbi Dr. Stephen Wise, president of the Zionist Organization of America, assailed the partition plan as abandonment of trust, but his rejection did not oppose the very idea of the creation of a Jewish state. He said that Great Britain cannot say that it failed as a trustee. It failed to try and, if the whole truth be told, it has tried to fail. David Ben-Gurion refused even to consider the notion that Jews might ever remain a minority in their homeland. He wanted Eretz Yisrael to provide the solution to the entire Jewish problem. Ben-Gurion held that the Jewish state should be proclaimed immediately, as an alternative to the Peel Commission's partition. This will accelerate the country's development and Jews will become a powerful factor in Palestine. He firmly believed that Jews and Arabs can live in peace. A decade later Ben-Gurion would take an opposite stance and embrace partition with Jerusalem as an international city.  Ben-Gurion was a Zionist.  He was also a realist and statesman.



1937: In Los Angeles, Lillian (née Gold) and prop supervisor Harry Hoffman gave birth to their second son Dustin Hoffman, the younger brother of attorney and economist Ronald Hoffman.



1938: Sir Harold Alfred MacMichael, the High Commissioner of Trans-Jordan and Commander in Chief of Palestine issued an appeal for an end to the “ruinous campaign of murder and sabotage.



1938: An Italian newspaper, the Tevere, printed an attack on the Jewish historian Emil Ludwig.  The attack on Ludwig was triggered by comments about  “the race problem” made by Mussolini “in 1932 that are included in his book, Conversations With Mussolini that are in sharp contrast with the views now expressed by the Fascist dictator who has allied himself with Hitler.



1938: Hadassah headquarters in the United States received a cable from the Youth Aliyah offices in Berlin stating that fifty seven Jewish boys and girls fleeing Germany and Austria had arrived in Palestine and that another 110 young Jewish refugees embarked today for the trip to Palestine. 



1938: The Nazis opened the Mauthausen-Gusen Concentration camp.

1940:  Today, when Hermann Goering instructed the German Air Force to commence Operation Adler “he informed his subordinates that ‘within a short period you will wipe the British Air Force from the sky.”

(Editor’s Note – if he been correct, the Holocaust would have come to the British Isles and who knows where else.  And all of the “smart people:” including Lindbergh and Joe Kennedy, the American Ambassador to the Court of St. James” thought Goering would have his airborne victory.)



1941: Neilma Myer, the daughter of Australian businessman and philanthropist Sidney Myer, became Neilma Gantner when she married Vallejo Gantner in Melbourne.



1941: In Hungary, enactment of The "Third Jewish Law" which prohibited intermarriage and penalized sexual intercourse between Jews and non-Jews.



1941: Georges Mandel, the Franco-Jewish journalist who became a leader of the Resistance and whom Winston Churchill “was believed to have preferred as a leader of the Free French” instead of DeGaulle was arrested “on the orders of Pierre Laval the Prime Minister of the fascist, anti-Semitic Vichy government.



1941: Corporal Hank Greenberg, the all-star baseball player now serving with the U.S. Army is placed in charge of a five man anti-tank crew.



1942: Gerhart Mortiz Riegner sent the “Riegner Telegram” describing plans for the Final Solution to Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, the President of the World Jewish Congress. “Have received through foreign office following message from Riegner Geneva STOP Received alarming report that in Fuhrers headquarters plan discussed and under consideration all Jews in countries occupied or controlled Germany number 3½ to 4 million should after deportation and concentration in East at one blow exterminated to resolve once and for all Jewish question in Europe.”

http://americanjewisharchives.org/aja/aje/details.php?id=550

1942: “During World War II, six German saboteurs who secretly entered the United States on a mission to attack its civil infrastructure were executed by the United States for spying” today.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/06/23/six-nazi-spies-were-executed-in-d-c-white-supremacists-gave-them-a-memorial-on-federal-land/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_nazimemorial-925pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.bfb5624b4c08

1942(25thof Av, 5702): Parashat Re’eh

1942(25thof Av, 5702): Eighty-two year old Samuel Ach, the Dayton, OH born son of Jacob Ach, the husband of the former Esther Ruth Kahn and the head of the Samuel Ach Company of Cincinnati, OH which a “tailor made hat department.”

https://digital.cincinnatilibrary.org/digital/collection/p16998coll6/id/3457/



1942: All 2,000 Jews of Szczebrzeszyn refused to gather for a deportation round up. The Germans commenced a search for them. Only 400 were found. They were all killed.



1944: The Frank family and all those who had been hiding with them in attic were taken from their prison cells and sent to the Westerbork Concentration Camp.



1944: After a kangaroo trial in Berlin that was overseen by Goebbels, Hitler hung several of the German officers and other conspirators who tried to kill him. They are hung on meat hooks with chicken wire around their necks. The butchery is filmed and sent to Hitler for review. Over the next several months many more conspirators would be sent to trial.

1944: Seventy-seven year old Gustav Fruend who had been living in Prague before being deported to Terezin was murdered there today.

1944(19th of Av, 5704): Famed expressionist painter Chaim Soutine passed away. Born in Belarus in 1894, Soutine moved to Paris in 1911 where he developed his unique style. He flourished in the inter-war years. However, his good times were not to last after the invasion of France by German troops at the start of World War II. As a Jew, Soutine had to escape from the French capital and hide in order to avoid arrest by the Gestapo. He constantly moved from one place to another and was sometimes forced to seek shelter in forests, sleeping outdoors. Suffering from a stomach ulcer and bleeding badly he had to leave his safe hiding place for Paris in order to undergo emergency surgery, which failed to save his life. Chaim Soutine died of a perforated ulcer just two weeks before the French capital was freed by Allied forces. After his death his vivid colors and passionate handling of paint gained him recognition as one of the foremost Expressionist painters. If Soutine had merely been an Expressionist Painter and not a Jewish Expressionist Painter, he would have probably lived to a ripe old age covered with glory and honors.



1944: Wireless operator Denise Bloch, a French born Jewish secret agent working with the SOE (the British version of the American OSS) was shackled to one of her fellow agents today after having captured by the Nazis and was placed on a train – the first leg of a trip that would end with her execution at Ravensbruck.

1945: 2nd Lt. Stanley H. Levine, a flight engineer attached to the “20thAir Force” a unit of the USAAF in the Pacific was reportedly captured today and became a POW.

1945: First baseman Mike Schemer made his major league debut with the New York Giants.

1947: The Empire Lifeguard which had suffered a hold blown its hole at Haifa while transporting Jewish DPs was “refloated today and towed to Port Said” for repairts.

1948(3rd of Av, 5708): Seventy-eight year old Leo Morris Franklin, a leading Reform rabbi who served Temple Beth El in Detroit from 1899 to 1941, passed away today.

1948: As the Arab states divided the pieces of Palestine they had seized an order was issued today “vested an Egyptian Administrator-General with the powers of the High Commissioner.”

1949: Today, the death toll from the bombing of a Synagogue in Damascus erev Shabbat rose to twelve while another eighteen victims are still in the hospital

1950: Today, one of the guests who attended Lillian Lehman’s 20th birthday party hosted a party at the same hotel to celebrate the 70thbirthday of Lillian Lehman Strassburger  the wife of Harvey Strassburger.

1951: Birthdate of Bronx native Martin Brest the NYU grad who went on to a career as a director, screenwriter and producer that got its biggest start with “Going in Style” and “Beverly Hills Cop.”



1953:  Birthdate of Donny Most who played Ralph in the sitcom “Happy Days.”



1953: Birthdate of Alexander Pinkhosovich Podrabinek the Russian born human rights activist and “refusnik”

https://upclosed.com/people/alexandr-podrabinek/

1958: In North Woodmere, NY, Morris S. Friedman, the rabbi at “Temple Hillel, a Conservative Congregation” and his wife, “a high school English teacher” gave birth to NYU trained attorney and the United States Ambassador to Israel.

https://il.usembassy.gov/our-relationship/our-ambassador/

1959(4thof Av, 5719): Shabbat Chazon

1959: Kaddish is said today for Salman Schocken, “the book publisher and former head of a deparmtnet-store chain in Germany who passed away two days ago in Switzerland.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1959/08/08/80542680.html?pageNumber=17



1960 (15th of Av, 5720): Tu B’Av

1960(15thof Av, 5720): Seventy-one year old Harvard trained attorney and former special justice of the Dorchester Municipal Court, Jacob J. Kaplan who for “nearly 50 years was a leader of the Greater Boston Jewish Community and who raised three sons with his wife Anne passed away today.

http://digifindingaids.cjh.org/?pID=349858



1962: “Valley Jewish Center Dedication Scheduled” published today in the Los Angeles Times



1963: In New York, “comedy writer Saul Turtletaub” and his wife gave birth to director and producer Jonathan Charles “Jon” Turtletaub who is responsible for some forgettable films such as “3 Ninjas.”



1964: French music man Serge Gainsbourg and his second wife Françoise-Antoinette "Béatrice" Pancrazzi gave birth to their daughter Natacha.

1964: “Della” a dramatic film with music by Fred Steiner was released today in the United States.



1964: It was reported that Alaska Democrat Ernest Gruening was one of only two Senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.  The two senators saw the resolution as “unconstitutional because it was ‘a pre-dated declaration of war power’ reserved to Congress. This vote cost him his seat in the Senate; a fate that many of the johnny-come-lately opponents such as the anti-Semite J. William Fulbright were spared.

1965(10thof Av, 5725): Tish’a B’Av

1965(10thof Av, 5725): Eighty-seven year old Edith Jacobi Baerwald passed away today.

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/baerwald-edith-jacobi

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/archival/collections/ldpd_4078513/

1965(10thof Av, 5725: Seventy-one year old Minks native Sidney Davidson, the founder of “Davidson Brothers” a New York “underwear company, a founder, in 1939 “of the United Jewish Appeal of Greater New York” and the husband of “the former Sarah Machilis” with whom he had two children – Jean and Morton – passed away today after suffering a heart attack.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1965/08/10/101560339.pdf

1966: Three months after having been released in the United Kingdom and Australia, “It Happened Here,” a film that looks at what might have happened if the Nazis had won WW II filmed by cinematographer Peter Suschitzky, was released in the United States today.

1967: Birthdate of Cleveland, OH native and USC educated Oscar winner Lee Edward Unkrich the husband of “Laura Century” and the father of “Hannah, Alice and Max” Unkrich.

1972(28thof Av, 5732): Seventy-two year old University of Virginia trained attorney Michael Benjamin Wagenheim, the Norfolk, VA born son “Herman and Sophie (Sheffield) Waggenheim) who practiced law in his home town for fifty years while also serving with a number of civic organizations including Goodwill Industries and the Hampton Roads Sanitation Commission passed away today.

1973: “The Stone Killer” a film about murdering Italian and Jewish mobsters” directed and produced by Michael Winner starring Martin Balsam, Stuart Margolin and Norman Fell was released today in the United States.

1973: In a move that will have profound repercussions for the United States, the rest of the World (and of course the Jews, Richard Nixon delivered an address to the nation tonight saying this his Presidency would officially end tomorrow at noon.

1975: Jacob “Jack” Austin was appointed to the Upper House of the Canadian Parliament today to serve as a Senator from Vancouver.



1975: “Farewell My Lovely” the murder mystery produced by Elliot Kastner and Jerry Bruckheimer, with a screenplay by David Zelag Goodman and music by David Shire was released in the United States today.

1976(12thof Av, 5736): Sixty-six year old Berlin born Eddie Rosner, the jazz musician known as “The White Louis Armstrong,” passed away today,

http://thejewniverse.com/2016/the-jewish-louis-armstrong-died-in-obscurity-40-years-ago-today/?utm_source=Jewniverse+Newsletter&utm_campaign=727854ab29-Jewniverse+RSS+Eletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b48fb1c44e-727854ab29-27129561



1976: Three Israelis were injured when a bus was fired on near Hebron.



1977: Officials in Washington agreed that there was no evidence that more than 8,000 pounds of the lost American enriched uranium and plutonium had ever reached Israel.



1977: The Jerusalem YMCA, one of the most beautiful in the world and the only one to have a membership 98 per cent Jewish, celebrated its centenary.



1979(15thof Av, 5739): Tu B’Av



1980: Today, the National Park Service determined that Dewey House which had been designed by David Adler was eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.”



1980: As part of the on-going Soviet campaign to punish Jewish refusniks, Grigorii Geishis was put on trial at Leningrad.

1981(8thof Av, 5741): Parshat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon; Erev Tish’a B’Av

1981(8thof Av, 5741): Eighty-three year old City College trained business executive and philanthropist Jerome Ira Udell the New York born son of Max and Jane Wallcott Udell   who was the CEO of Max Udell Sons and Company, a manufacturer of men’s clothing and a long time “member of the Board of Directors of Beth Israel Medical Center” passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/10/obituaries/jerome-i-udell.html



1982: Just two weeks before her 84th birthdate Rosie Goldschmidt Waldeck, the author whose works include Athene Palace passed away.  Born a German Jew in 1898, she converted to Catholicism and became a U.S. citizen in 1939

1982:Where are the Arab ‘brothers' now?” by Daniel Pipes appears in the Chicago Tribune.


1984: Funeral services were held today in Jerusalem for “Rabbi Louis Rabinowitz, former Chief Rabbi of the Orange Free State in South Africa and more recently a Herut Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem.” (As reported by JTA)

http://www.jta.org/1984/08/09/archive/rabbi-louis-rabinowitz-dead-at-78





1984: Based on an order from the Israeli Supreme Court, financer Shmuel Flatto-Sharon is scheduled to report to jail today where he is “to start a three- month sentence for bribery during his campaign for the Israeli Parliament in 1977, which was successful.”



1986: “The Transformer: The Movie” an animated feature film featuring the voices of Judd Nelson, Lionel Stander and Leonard Nimoy was released in the United States today by the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group.



1986: Warner Bros. released “One Crazy Summer,” a romantic comedy produced by Michael Jaffe and featuring Jeremy Piven in the role of “Ty.”



1987: Mary Travers, the folk singer, plays Emma Lazarus, as one of a series of radio spots for a program entitled “Voices of Freedom.”  Ms Travers said her character also had such contemporary relevance. ''She doesn't talk about history as if it's frozen in time,'' Ms. Travers said of Lazarus. ''Her words are valuable not as the words of a woman willing to struggle with inequity in 1883, but as the words of an American willing to struggle with inequity in 1987.''



1987:  ''Yiddish Theater in London, 1880-1987 an exhibition included in this summer's Jewish East End Celebration is scheduled to come to an end.



1987: ''Daughters of the Pale,'' an exhibition that in words and photographs documents the experiences of daughters of Jewish immigrants, is scheduled to come to an end in London



1988: Israeli Ambassador Moshe Arad met with Rev. Jesse Jackson. The two men and their advisers said they discussed a wide range of issues, including the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians; the plight of black Israelis; Israel's relationship with South Africa, and recent friction between blacks and Jews in this country, particularly in Chicago and New York.

1988: Israeli Ambassador Moshe Arad met with Rev. Jesse Jackson. The two men and their advisers said they discussed a wide range of issues, including the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians; the plight of black Israelis; Israel's relationship with South Africa, and recent friction between blacks and Jews in this country, particularly in Chicago and New York.

1989: A Broadway revival of the musical “Shenandoah” with a “book” co-authored by producer Philip Rose opened today.

1990: Oil prices fell and the stock markets in the New York and Tokyo steadied today after the United States decision to send troops to Saudi Arabia and reports that the oil-rich kingdom would increase its production in what would be part of the start of Gulf War I, the first conflict in which Israel would stand down and trust the United States to defend its airspace from Arab attack.



1990: “I’m Dangerous Tonight” a horror film featuring Natalie Schafer debuted on USA Network tonight.



1993: The third in a series of family tours to Israel sponsored by the American Jewish Congress is schedule to begin today.



1993: The Bosnian family sponsored by Temple Beth Am arrived in Seattle, Washington.





1995: Eighty-nine year old SS officer Kurt Becher who was involved in deals to trade money and goods for sparing the lives of Hungarian Jews that included dealings with Rudolf Kastner passed away.

http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/microsoft%20word%20-%205978.pdf



(For more about Rudolf Kastner see Gaylen Ross’s award winning documentary “Killing Kasztner: The Jew Who Dealt With Nazis” and Kastner’s Train by Anna Porter and http://www.killingkasztner.com/



1996: Mel Torme, an icon of the American Jazz scene, suffered a stroke which effectively ended his career.

1996: “Haifa” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.

1998: “Shakespeare’s Villains,” “a one man-man player created and performed by Steven Berkoff” came to a close “at London’s Royal Theatre in Haymarket.”



1998: Christiane Amanpour, the chief international correspondent for CNN, was married twice today to James Phillip Rubin, the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, first in a Roman Catholic ceremony performed The Rev. Ambrose O'Farrell, a Roman Catholic priest, at the Church of Santo Stefano in Bracciano, Italy and then “later in the day, in a Jewish ceremony performed by Rabbi Guy D. Hall.

1999: PGA golfer Bruce Fleisher won the Lightpath Long Island Classic.



1999: The New York Times includes reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War, 1941-1945 by Leo Marks, Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings: Volume 2, 1927-1934and Broke Heart Blues by Joyce Carol Oates, the author who discovered late in life her own family's Jewish history: Her grandmother, who immigrated to the United States in the 1890s, kept her religion hidden for fear of persecution.



1999: Avery Corman, the novelist, who has just completed working on a new musical with Cy Coleman, discusses ''The Musical: The American Jewish Theater in Its Heyday'' at Temple Adas Israel on Elizabeth Street in Sag Harbor



2001: Hamas claimed credit for today’s bombing at Moshav Beka’ot



2002: “Queen’s Opens J.B. Salsberg Papers to the Public” published today included a brief description of the life of the Polish born Canadian Labor Zionist.

http://web.archive.org/web/20050925022858/http:/www.cjnews.com/pastissues/02/aug8-02/front3.asp





2003(10th of Av, 5763):Third Petty Officer Roi Oren, 20, an Israel Navy commando, was shot in the head and killed in an assault on a Hamas bomb factory in Nablus.



2004: Second and final performance  by the Royal English Opera Company of Rockford, Illinois of “The Nautch Girl,” a comic opera composed by Edward Solomon.  These are the only times the opera has been performed in North America.



2004: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace by Dennis Ross


2005:  Legislation is introduced in Congress that would make it illegal to deny life insurance to people based on their travel habits.  Those traveling to Israel, including at least one Jewish member of the House of Representatives have been denied life insurance.  While those pushing the legislation have not accused the life insurance industry of an anti-Jewish bias, one of the non-Jewish supporters of the bill noted that he had never been denied insurance even though he had taken repeated trips to his ancestral homeland, Ireland.




2005: Today “Haaretz quoted a top Palestinian Authority religious cleric, Sheikh Jamal al-Bawatna, the mufti of the Ramallah district, in a fatwa (a religious edict) banning shooting attacks against Israeli security forces and settlements, out of concern they might lead to a postponement of the pullout. According to Haaretz, this is the first time that a Muslim cleric has forbidden shooting at Israeli forces.”



2005: “Kevin Youkilis took the field in the 9th inning along with Adam Stern and Gabe Kapler, setting a "record" for the most Jewish players on the field at one time in American League history and the most in Major League Baseball history since four Jewish players took the field for the New York Giants in 1941. (Jewish Virtual Library) 



2005: Wolf Blitzer began hosting The Situation Room, a two-hour afternoon/early evening program on CNN

2005(3rdof Av, 5765): Eighty-seven year Nathan “Fred” Asher, the Naval Academy Graduate, who took command of the destroyer U.S.S. Blue during the bombing of Pearl Harbor and was the husband of Slema Straus with whom he had three children – Dennis, Karen and Jeffrey – passed away today in California.



2006: Five ambulances donated to Magen David Adom by Canadian Jewry were flown to Israel from New York by CAL Cargo Airlines.



2006 (14th of Av, 5766): Staff Sergeant Oren Lifschitz, 21, of Kibbutz Gazit and Staff Sergeant Moran Cohen, 21, of Kibbutz Ashdot Yaakov were killed  in battles in the south Lebanon village of Bint Jbail. St.-Sgt. Yesmao Yallao 26, from Or Yehuda and Cap. (res.) and Gilad Balahsan, 28, of Karmiel were killed in clashes with Hezbollah near Leboneh.


2007: The last two concerts The Zimriya - The World Assembly of Choirs are held at 8 P.M., at Einav Cultural Center in Tel Aviv and at Independence Hall on Mt. Scopus. The Zimriya has been held every three years since 1952.




2007: Donald Fisher the founder of GAP “announced plans to build a 100,000-square-foot (9,300 m2) museum in the San Francisco Presidio, tentatively named the Contemporary Art Museum of the Presidio, to house his art collection” – plans which would be abandoned in 2009 when Fisher and his wife “decided to enter into a partnership with SFMOMA to display the world famous collection.”





2007(24th of Av, 5767): Melville “Mel” Shavelson, writer, director and producer passed away at the age of 90.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/11/obituaries/11shavelson.html





2008: Israeli President Shimon Peres attended the Olympic Games' opening ceremony at the invitation of the Chinese government.  Since the games open on Friday, the Chinese government has agreed as a goodwill gesture to house him in a hotel within the Olympic complex so he will not desecrate the Sabbath.  While Beijing and Jerusalem seem to be worried about the rituals of Shabbat, they do not seem to have the same concern about the Biblical strictures about caring for the widow, the orphan and the stranger in your midst as can be seen in Darfur and Tibet.



2008: In “Jewish Roots in India,” published today the Washington Post reviews The Girl From Foreign by Sadia Shephard in which the American born author traces the Jewish roots of her Indian grandmother who lived as a Moslem.



2008: In Virginia, Jody Wagner resigns her position as Secretary of Finance.



2008(7th of Av, 5768): Ted Solotaroff passes away at the age of 80



http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/books/12solotaroff.html?_r=0

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2008-08-12/news/36916168_1_new-american-review-paul-solotaroff-critic





2009: In Jerusalem, Beit Avi Chai's Saturday night music line, directed by Shaanan Street, presents "Eve’s Women": Four musicians create a magical, diverse musical world, with fresh, new arrangements of familiar melodies and songs from Jewish tradition, klezmer tunes, and Hasidic songs. A fascinating musical journey including improvisations created in each concert.



2010: A documentary entitled “Einsatzgruppen: The Death Brigades” is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.



2010: Bankito, sometimes referred to as "Jewstock" -- a youth-oriented Jewish culture festival on the shore of Bank Lake, north of Budapest is scheduled to come to an end.



2010: In Norfolk, VA, Rabbi Arthur Ruberg is scheduled to officiate at the wedding of Rachael Anne Wagner and Samuel Jeremy Abrams at the Chrysler Museum of Art.



2010: First Jewish Women's Music Festival at Falls Village, CT is scheduled to come to an end.



2010: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including two novels set in Nazi-occupied Holland by Dutch author Hans Keilson – The Death of the Adversary and Comedy in a Minor Key, Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart, As Husbands Go by Susan Isaacs, 97 Orchard by Jane Ziegelman and Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg; The Letters Edited by Bill Morgan and David Stanford



2011: The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to come to an end.



2011(8thof Av): Erev Tisha B’Av – fast starts at sundown



2011: This evening, a delegation of 18 Washington-based ambassadors from four continents and one other senior diplomat who have embarked on a fact-finding mission to Israel and the West Bank organized by The Israel Project (TIP) will go to the Old City of Jerusalem to observe the commemoration of Tisha B’Av



2011: Three mortar shells fell overnight in Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council, causing damage to a fence.

.



2011: Today, the High Court of Justice rejected a petition asking that the government be ordered to deploy the Iron Dome rocket defense system in Gaza border communities

2011: During a discussion on the subject, the High Court criticized the Israel Medical Association's (IMA) conduct during negotiations with the finance and health ministries. Supreme Court President Judge Dorit Beinisch said "the IMA's behavior does not arouse faith, this is no way to negotiate."



2012: The Summer Learning Institute is scheduled to begin at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio.



2012: “Hope Springs” a comedy directed by David Frankel was released today in the United States by Columbia Pictures and MGM.



2012: “Photographer David Rubinger, who immortalized paratroopers reaching the Wall in the 1967 war, recreated his iconic image with a female trio holding a Torah scroll (As reported by Aaron Kalman)

http://www.timesofisrael.com/womens-group-liberates-the-western-wall/





2012: Lincoln Center Out of Doors, the annual free festival of music and dance, is scheduled to present the U.S. debut of The Alaev Family, a Bukharin groove band from Israel with deep roots in the music of Tajikistan and Jewish Bukhara.



2012: Citing disappointing results for Israeli athletes in the 2012 Olympic games, Minister of Culture and Sports Limor Livnat announced today that she will establish a committee of experts to look into this year’s failures in order to bring about better results in the next Olympics, set to take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in the summer of 2016

2012: The British Guardian newspaper today acknowledged it was wrong to call Tel Aviv Israel’s capital, but reiterated its stance that Jerusalem is not the capital either, since it is not recognized as such by the international community.



2012: A series of Hezbollah terror attacks inside Israel were foiled recently by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) after a group of Israeli-Arabs helped smuggle 20 kilograms of high-grade explosives into Israel. Today, eight residents of Nazareth and the town of Ghajar - half of which is in Israel and the other half in Lebanon - were charged in the Nazareth District Court with assisting in the infiltration of the explosives.



2013: “Esther Broner - A Weave Of Women,” a documentary about the pioneering feminist and scholar is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.



2013: At Zefat, the three day International Klexmer Festival “the biggest festival of Jewish soul music in the world” is scheduled to come to an end.



2013: Nobel Prize Winner Daniel Kahneman, a Princeton psychologist known for his application of psychology to economic analysis who “escaped Nazi Europe and served in the Israeli army” was one of the people President Obama named as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.



2013: In response to a “security concerns” no planes were allowed to land at or leave the Eilat airport when the IDF closed the facility for two hours today. (As reported by Asher Zeiger)



2013(2ndof Elul, 5773): Ninety-two year old Jack Zomlefer, a brilliant chemist, successful business and educated Jew who shared his last years enhancing the quality of  the Jewish community in Cedar Rapids ,passed away today.



2013*2ndof Elul, 5773): Ninety-year old opera star Regina Resnik passed away today. (As reported by William Yardley)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/10/arts/music/regina-resnik-metropolitan-opera-star-dies-at-90.html?hpw



2013(2ndof Elul, 5773): Actress Karen Black passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/09/movies/karen-black-versatile-character-actress-dies-at-74.html?hpw

2014: Israel’s Dimona Theatre/Cultural Lab and the Classical Theatre of Harlem are scheduled to “present a succinct journey into Shakespeare’s Macbeth in Sugar Hill.



2014: “High-profile Toronto Jewish delicatessen owner Zane Caplansky is scheduled to send his food truck to the outdoor screening ‘Laila’s Birthday’ a dark comedy by Palestinian director by Rashid Masharawi.” (As reported by Renee Ghert-Zand)



2014: In Milwaukee, Congregation Shalom is scheduled to host its final concert of the summer featuring Becky Spice and Jack Forbes in “an original cabaret show.”



2014: True to its word Hamas ended the cease fire by firing rockets into Israel today including one that scored a direct hit on a house “in the embattled city of Sderot.”



2014: “United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the renewed rocket fire on Israel and also called for a return to a truce in Gaza. (As reported by Yitzhak Benhorin)



2014(12thof Av, 5774): Eighty-five year old director/producer Menahem Golan passed away today.

https://www.yahoo.com/movies/s/menahem-golan-producer-1980s-action-movies-dies-85-210106837.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/11/arts/menahem-golan-passionate-auteur-of-the-b-movie-is-dead-at-85.html?hpw&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHedThumbWell&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well



2015(23rdof Av, 5775): Parsha Ekev

2015(23rdof Av, 5755):  Eighty-seven year old Columbus, OH born, Yale educated philosopher, physicist and mathematician Abner Shimoy, the husband of Annemarie Anrod, passed away today.

https://www.bu.edu/cphs/about/abner-shimony/

2015(23rdof Av): Yahrzeit of Rabbi Benjamin Arron of Cracow

2015: In New York, “a live performance of chamber ensemble led by the Music Director, Israeli Cellist Elad Kabilio” is scheduled to be part of this evening’s Ballet Festival.



2015: The 92nd St is scheduled to host “Le Roc USA Party”

2016: Judge Claudio Bonadio’s decision to reopen a criminal complaint against former President Kirchner in which had been accuse of conspiring to derail an investigation into the bombing of Jewish community center in 1994 which took the lives of 85, was made public today.

2016:  “Jerusalem Boxing Club is scheduled to be shown as part of The Hampton Synagogue Film Series now in its 14thyear.

2016: Noam Banai, son of Meir and cousin to Ehud, Yuval and Elisha continued his tour of Israel tonight with a performance at 26 Bialik, Beersheba.

2016: Gary Gans is scheduled to speak on “What Mourning Customs Did Our Immigrant Families Bring with Them” and Avraham Groll is scheduled to speak on “Jewish Life In Poland (10th-18th centuries) at the 36thIAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy today in Seattle.

2017: This evening in Weimar, Germany YSM is scheduled to host a series of jam session featuring Yiddish songs and klezmer music.

2017: “An ensemble of four male dancers combining hip hop with ballet, choreographed by Roderick George, a former soloist of American Dance Company Cedar Lake is scheduled to perform part of this year’s “Tel Aviv Dance.”

2018: Diarna, The Geo-Museum of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Life is scheduled to present “Beyond Tunis: A Comprehensive Mission to Tunisia” featuring photographer Chrystie Sherman as part of the Passport to Jewish History series.

2018: “Zionist Union activists waved copies of Israel’s Declaration of Independence in the Knesset plenum today during a special debate on the nation-state law.” (TOI)
2018:”Operation Wedding,” a documentary that tells the story of “young Soviet Jews seeking to escape the Soviet Union: is scheduled to be shown at the Kew Gardens Festival of Cinema.


https://www.operation-wedding-documentary.com/

2019: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to co-host the last program connected with the Purchased Lives exhibition during which the “panel will discuss implications of this history on contemporary American society, including issues of mass incarceration, community disinvestment, poverty, and trauma.”

2019: The Green Bay Packers, who owe their survival back in the 1920’s, at least in part to Nate Abrams, who had played one game for the Packers in 1919 and who gave “Curly” Lambeau three thousand dollars in 1922 to keep the team afloat, are scheduled to play the Texans in a pre-season opener.






















This Day, August 9, In Jewish History by Mitchell A.Levin

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August 9

48 B.C.E.: Julius Caesar defeated Pompey at the battle of Parsalus. This victory helped to cement Caesar’s position and put an end to Pompey. Considering Pompey’s behavior towards the Jews, including his desecration of the Temple, Caesar’s victory was the preferred outcome.

378: Roman Emperor Valens who began his reign in 364, was killed by the Visigoths as he led his large to defeat at the Battle of Adrianople.   During his reign Valens followed the course of his predecessors and issued an edict strengthening the Patriarchate.  He issued an edict that exempted “officers of communities subject to the ‘illustrious Patriarch (Nasi)’ from service on municipal councils.  In 368 he issued an edict forbidding the billeting of troops in Synagogues.  Such minor sounding positive notes, makes him better than his imperial peers when it came to treatment of the Jewish people.

681: Founding of the first Bulgarian Empire. Archaeologists have found traces of Jewish communities in the area that pre-dated the formation of Bulgaria.  The first major movement of Jews into Bulgaria took place early in the 8th century when Jews fled persecution in the Byzantine Empire.

1471: The Papacy of Sixtus IV began. “In Italy the reign of Sixtus IV marks a high point of tolerance. The pope used Jewish physicians, and perhaps employed Jews for the collection, copying, and translation of Hebrew works. He refused to canonize Simon of Trent, allegedly a victim of Jewish ritual murder. It is clear, however, that the pope's tolerance was offset, outside his own domains, by local hostility. A generous bull of 1479 concerning the Jews of Avignon was questioned and subsequently withdrawn. In November 1478 the pope issued a bull investing Ferdinand and Isabella with extraordinary powers to appoint inquisitors in all parts of Castile.” (Jewish Virtual Library)  This was the first step in what would lead to the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.

1506: Prince Yaroslavitch established the community of Pinsk. At the same time, he reconfirmed the rights given to the Jews by King Alexander Jagello, King of Lithuania.

1612: Thirty-five year old Count Philip Ludwig II who invited Jews to settle in Hanau, “permitted them to build a synagogue and gave them legal status” in spite of opposition from the Christian clergy passed away today.

1732(18th of Av, 5492): Rabbi Yaakov Culi the Talmudist and Biblical commentator who was the grandson of Moses ibn Habib, passed away in Constantinople.

1753(9th of Av, 5513): Tish’a B’Av

1773: Adoption of the "General-Juden-Reglement" which provided the rules used to govern the newly acquired Jewish subjects that Frederick the Great acquired from the partition of Poland.

1793(1st of Elul, 5553): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1793(1st of Elul, 5553): Jacob Aaron passed away today ervev Shabbat which meant he would not be buried in the Alderney Road Jewish Cemetery until Sunday.

1807(5th of Av): Rabbi Ze’ev Lesh, author of Kedushat Yisrael, passed away

1819: With the mobs crying “Hep, hep!” an anti-Semitic riot broke out in Frankfort.

1821: Birthdate of Austrian poet Heinrich Landesmann.

1826(6th of Av, 5586): Meir Ben Moses Kurnik, “the German rabbi and calendar maker from Glogau” passed away today at Hamburg.

1827: Birthdate of William Morris Stewart, the Senator from Nevada who defended the Jews of Romania from an attack by Senator Sprague.  Sprague said the Jews were to blame for their suffering because of the economic success. “Mr. Stewart said he hoped Mr. Sprague did not mean to imply that when a man gets rich he ought to be killed.” Senator Sprague gave a faint smile but made no reply.

1828: At Kent Road, London, Daniel Levy and Amelia Jacobs gave birth to Charlotte Levy.

1828: Birthdate of Joseph Eduard Konrad Bischoff who gained fame as Conrad von Bolanden the author of Judas Makkabaeus, a novella which appeared in Der Gefangene von Kuestrinin 1885

1832: The seconds for James Jones Stark, who refused to apologize for calling Phillip Minis a “damned Jew” and the seconds for Minis met in Savannah to discuss the terms for the duel between the two men.

1836: Birthdate of Hamburg, Germany native August Hamberg, the husband of Mathilda Hamberg.

1836: In New York City, Jacob and Belvidere del Mar, gave birth to their “oldest son Alexander del Mar” “an American political economist, historian, numismatist and author” who “was the first director of the Bureau of Statistics at the U.S. Treasury Department.”



1839: Today “Rabbis Samuel Aba and Pinchas Shapiro, two brothers in charge of a large Chasidic printing plant in Slavuta, Poland, received 1,500 lashes each and were imprisoned for life in a Moscow jail.” (As reported by Abraham Bloch)

1850(1st of Elul, 5610): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1850(1st of Elul, 5610): Miss Rachel Myers Cohen of Philadelphia passed away at the age of 70.

1851: In Mitau, Courland, Russia, Selig Braude and his wife gave birth to Abraham Samuel Braude who served as the rabbi at Mitau before coming to the United States in 1891 where he became the Rabbi of Congregation Ohave Sholem Mariampol at 1347 South Canal in Chicago, Illinois.

1854: John Zachariah Laurence married Miriam Solomon at the Western Synagogue today.

1854: Isaac Mozes Pereira Mendoza married Sara Isaac Monis at the Portuguese Jewish Synagogue in Amsterdam.

1855: As further proof of the existence of a Jewish community from the earliest days of the Lone Star State, The San Antonio Texan reported today on the excitement that has gripped this city during its recent election. "In fact the excitement reached every class of our citizens, old and young, rich and poor, male and female, Protestant, Catholic and Jew..."

1855: Birthdate of author Dorothea Gerard, the native of New Monkland, Scotland near Glasgow whose works include Orthodox, One Year and The Austrian Officer.

1858: In London, birthdate of musician Isidore Lara

1858: Birthdate of Levenworth native Henry Wollman, a senior partner in Wollman and Wollman and a member of Temple Emanu-El on 5th Avenue.

1858: It was reported today that the in Great Britain, the House of Lords, has taken action on two of the pressing issues of the day related to religion. Based apparently on its view of Biblical law, the Lords has expressed its opposition to allowing a widower to marry the sister of his deceased spouse. The Lords has agreed to allow Jews to sit in the House of Commons if they are elected to that chamber.  The Lords has opposed this measure for decades, but as in so many other matters including the repeal of the Corn Laws and the Divorce Bill, the “upper house” has given way to the popular will.  This latest capitulation in the matter of the Jews is seen as further evidence of the erosion of the power of the Lords. [This issue of the Jews sitting in Parliament was, in some respects, part of a much larger battle that was fought throughout most of the 19th century, between the landed gentry and the rising trading, industrial and professional classes.]

1860: It wasreported today that Baron Alphonse De Rothschild has been appointed Consul-General of Prussia. He is the first Jew who has exercised such functions for that Kingdom.

1861: During the Civil War, Philadelphian Jacob Trautman began 4 years of serving in Company E of the 5th Cavalry.

1861: During the Civil War, Philadelphian Henry Schlosss began 4 years of serving in Company E of the 5th Cavalry during which he would be wounded in fighting a Richmond in 1864.

1862: During the Civil War, Philadelphian Jacob Canter began his service with Company C of the 126thRegiment.

1862: Birthdate of David Phillipson, the native of Wabash, Indiana who became one of the leading Reform Rabbis of the late 19th and 20th centuries.

1864: Birthdate of Roman Dmowski the Polish political leader who, during the inter-war years led a political party that was both anti-Semitic and anti- ethnic Germans.  Among other things, he believed the “wealth of the Jews and the Germans” should confiscated and given to Polish Catholics.

1868: In Chicago, a hospital on La Salle Avenue sponsored by the United Hebrew Relief Association opened its doors to patients for the first time.

1871: “France and Algeria” published today described the pitiful conditions of the Jews living in Algeria prior to its colonization by the French.  Among the Moslem “races…hatred of the Jew is a tradition and almost a religious duty.”  During the Moslem “rule in Algeria, the Jews suffered every kind of torment.  They could not walk in the streets after 6 o’clock at night without obtaining a special authorization from the police.  If the night was dark, instead of carrying a lantern, like the Turks and Moors, they had a lighted candle, which the wind blew out continually.  They were obliged to take off their shoes in passing before a Mosque and to kneel before the Kasba.   Jews could only address a” Moslem “with deference and submission.”   The Jews “moved off the pavement to allow” the Moslems “to pass and any infraction of these customs was punished with basonado and fines.”  The Jews “could not ride on horseback and could not enter the town on a donkey.  Any insult toward a “Moslem” was punished by sudden death, inflicted arbitrarily, and often according to the offended Moor’s caprices…” [The idea that all the lands of Islam were hospitable to Jews until the creation of the state of Israel, is obviously not an accurate one.]

1872: Birthdate of Julius Gareché Lay the American diplomat who in 1915, as the American Consul General in Berlin worked with Isidore Hershfield to relieve the suffering of the Jews caught in the war zone of Poland and Galicia.



1874: It was reported today that the London School Board had appointed “Mr. Levy, a Jew…as head master of a school in Whitechapel, in a district where the majority of the inhabitants are Jews.”

1877: In London, Elim Henry d'Avigdor and Henrietta Matilda d'Avigdor gave birth to Elim Henry d'Avigdor and Henrietta Matilda d'Avigdor, the Cambridge educated “Justice of the Peace for Kent and Sussex,” a “member of the Jewish Board of Guardians and Presient of the Jewish Working Lads’ Club who was the “husband of Alice Rose Anne d'Avigdor-Goldsmid” with whom he had four children.

1878: Birthdate of Borsborn, Germany native Abraham Wili.

1878: In Baltimore, MD, “Nathan and Dina (Oppenheim) Ulman gave birth to Johns Hopkins and Columbia University alum Joseph N. Ullman, the lawyer, Baltimore Judge and member of the University of Maryland Law School faculty who was President of the Hebrew Benevolent Society of Baltimore, director of the Associated Jewish Charities of Baltimore and husband of the former Ella Guggenheimer.

http://www.mdhs.org/findingaid/ulman-joseph-nathan-collection-1887-1960s-ms-1914

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1943/04/19/88525222.pdf

1879: It was reported today that much of Sarajevo, the multi-ethnic capital of the Turkish province of Bosnia has been consumed by fire.  Amongst those who have suffered great loss are those living in the Jewish district the home of many of those who dominate the commercial activities of the region.

1880: Samuel Untermyer married Minnie Carl, daughter of Mairelius Carl of New York City today. “They had three children, Alvin, who served in the 305th Field Artillery in France during the Great War; Irwin, a justice of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court, and Irene, a philanthropist who married Louis Putnam Myers and, after his death, became the wife of Stanley Richter.”

1881: In Vienna, banker Moritz Bauer and Jeannette Bauer née Honig gave birth to Adele Bloch-Bauer.

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/bloch-bauer-adele

1883: “Moritz Scharf, the boy who was the principal witness for the prosecution in the recent trial of a number of Jews at Nyireghyhaza, charged with murdering a girl in order to procure her blood for ritual purposes and who swore he saw the murder committed, has confessed…that his testimony was false.”



1885: In Detroit, Louis Grossman, the tenth person to serve as Rabbi at Temple Beth El organized the Emerson Circle, “a society for the promotion of general culture.”



1885: “Strolling Bands” published today described the various wandering musicians found on the Lower East Side and Coney Island.  Membership in the strolling string bands is confined to Polish and Italian Jews.

1886: “The New Books” column described Court Royal: A Story of Cross Currents, the latest novel by S. Baring Gould.  The novel which is “conspicuous” for its “exceeding bad taste, features Emanuel Lazarus, a Plymouth pawnbroker who is a Jew “of the most repulsive type” and misses no opportunity to ridicule the customs of the Jewish religion.

1886(8thof Av, 5646): Rabbi Mendes led the Tish’a B’Av services tonight at the 19thstreet Synagogue. The well attended services began with a reading of the 137thPsalm followed by the chanting of Lamentations.

1886: “Solomon At Long Branch” described various reactions to the large number of Jews who spend their summer at this popular New Jersey resort – ranging from the ugliest ant-Semitism to the most enlightened views of the 19thcentury.

1888: During today’s meeting of the House of Representative’s Committee on Immigration which was holding hearings in New York, Henry Zeltner described the manner in which many Polish Jews reach the United States.  There are several operatives on Canal Street who “sell steamship tickets to Poles in this country on the installment plan.”  “By paying $3 down, they can have a ticket to America sent to a relative in Poland.  “The relative then comes” to the United States and “works out the price of the ticket.”

1890(23rdof Av, 5650): Parashat Eikev

1890: “City and Suburban News” published today listed upcoming events in the New York Metropolitan area including a lecture by Dr. Cyrus Adler at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

1890: As of today, the leaders of London’s Jewish community have not been able to “discover the exact truth about the…anti-Jewish crusade in Russia.”

1890: In Pittsburg, Mrs. William Schmidt, Mrs. Sarah Vabelinsky and their two children, all of whom are Polish Jews experienced convulsions and fainting spells which might have been caused by food poisoning.

1890: Mendel Feldstein told his landlord this morning at breakfast that he had seen two men hide a bag of jewels last night and that they had threatened him when they realized he was aware that he had seen them1890: A list of those charities receiving bequests of a thousand dollars from the late Alexander Bach was published today included: Mount Sinai Hospital, Montefiore Home for Incurables, Hebrew Benevolent and orphan Asylum Society, United Hebrew Charities, Temple Gates of Hope, Hebrew Free School Association, Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews and Temple Israel of Harlem.  The Deborah Nursery was on the list but only for $500.1891: It was reported today that “Steve” Ryan of Atlanta, GA “has vowed vengeance upon the whole Jewish race” after he failed to pay the debts he owed to Schloss Brothers & Co according to the attorneys Horowitz and Hirschfield.

1892: “Extradition proceedings in the case of Harris Blank and Charles Roseneigh,” who have been accused of murdering a Jewish peddler, Jacob Marks came to a close today in Toronto, Canada.

1893: Following claims by Reverend Herman P. Faust of the Hebrew Christian Mission that the United Hebrew Charities “often refuses to give aid where it is plainly needed” as exemplified by the case of the late Joseph Korman whose family was left destitute by the Jewish agency, “a reporter for the New York Times found” the family “living in rooms that are neat.”  The United Hebrew Charities said that it had offered the family $5 in aid, “which was refused.”  It had not given more because the family had three children who were old enough to work and the agency offered, as was its practice, to find each of them jobs.

1896: “East Side Roof Garden” published today described  the recently opened facility atop the Hebrew Institute  as “one of the greates blessing that could been devised to give the overcrowded population on the east side a chance to breathe a little fresher air than they can get in the stifling streets and tenements.” Ice water is provided free of charge to the eight hundred people allowed on the roof which is also the scene of evening concerts three times a week.

1896(30th of Av, 5656): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1896: Three days after she had passed away, 55 year old Agnes Rosa Samuel “the fourth daughter” born to Rosa and Ralph Henry Samuel was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

1896(30th of Av, 5656): Aviation pioneer Otto Lilenthal died when his glider crashed during a test flight.  Lienthal is referred to some as the Jewish “Wright Brothers” since he is credited by some with making one of the first flights with a heavier than air craft.

1896: Birthdate of Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget who was treated by Sabina Spiielrein, the Jewish pioneer psychoanalyst who served as his analyst for 8 months in 1921.

1896: Birthdate of Russian psychologist, Lev Vygotsky.

1896: Due to the “sever heat” the milk depots funded by Nathan Straus will be kept open all day.

1896: “Free Milk For Sick Children” published today described the easing of restrictions by Nathan Straus to make free milk available to the children to New York as well as instructions for the best ways for children to drink it.

1896: Because of the “severe heat” all of the depots dispensing free milk sponsored by Nathan Straus will remain open all day today.

1897: Birthdate of NYU trained attorney, WW I veteran and Republican Party leader Lester Bachner the husband of “the former Margaret Goodman” and the father of Robert Bachner.

https://www.nytimes.com/1976/04/07/archives/lester-bachner-lawyer-78-dead-a-leading-bridge-player-active-in.html

1898: During the Spanish-American War, Mathew N. Levy of Norfolk was mustered into Company H of the 4th Virginia Volunteer Infantry.

1899: Israel Zangwill will go to Southampton, Long Island, “as the guest of James Herne, who is “going to state “Children of the Ghetto.”

1902: Almost a year before they were married Arthur Schnitzier and actress Olga Gussman gave birth to their son Heinrich.

1902: Edward VII is crowned King of the United Kingdom (Great Britain, Scotland and Ireland).  When he was Prince of Wales, Edward broke with conventional social notions by including numerous Jews in his “set.”  On ascending the throne, Edward earned a lasting position of endearment among the Jewish people.  He pressed the Russians to improve the treatment of their Jewish subjects.  When he went to Russia, he insisted on raising the issue with Czar Nicholas II even though his advisors pleaded with him not to.  Edward’s intervention did not improve the situation but he gets high mark for having made the effort.

1902(6th of Av, 5662): Sixty-six year old Moritz Szeps the editor-in-chief of the Vienna Morgenpost, passed away today.

1903: Today, a meeting of rabbis was held in Cracow that “opened with a solemn oath taken by all present to the effect that Jews had never been guilty of ritual murder and that no Jewish law ever sanction such practices.”

1903: In Cleveland, the first annual picnic hosted by the United Zionists today “was a great success socially and financially.”

1903: “A committee was appointed to canvass for donations and subscriptions for a Jewish publication” during today’s meeting The Chovevi Zion in Scranton, PA.

1905: Today thirty-three year old businessman and philanthropist Herbert Fleishhacker, the San Francisco born “son of Aaron and Delia (Stern) Fleishhacker married “May Belle Greenbaum with whom he had three children – Marjorie, Herbert, Jr. and Alan.

1910: In Camden, NJ, “on opening Sons of Israel Synagogue at eighth and Sycamore Streets” this “morning, it was discovered that two valuable silver cups had been stolen.”

1910: The 16thannual convention of the Independent Western Star Order came to an end today in Cleveland, OH.

1910: Clarence Isaac de Sola, the Canadian born son “of Esther de Sola and Cantor Abraham de Sola” and his wife Belle Maud de Sola gave birth to Esther Leopolda de Sola who became Esther Leopolda Ellerman when she married Sir John Reeves Ellerman.

1911(15th of Av, 5671): Tu B’Av

1911: It was reported today that Boston Rabbi Wolf Margolies has agreed to become the Rabbi for United Hebrew Communion also known as Adas Israel.  The congregation has 10,000 members and will reportedly the new rabbi an annual salary of five thousand dollars.

1912: Birthdate of Giora Yoseftal, the native of Nuremburg who made Aliyah in 1938 and became a leader of Mapai.

1913(6th of Av, 5673): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon

1913(6th of Av, 5673): Fifty-year old Solomon H. Bauer, the Polish born son of Abraham Jacob Bauer and the recipient of smicha from Rabbi Israel Jehoszua Trunk passed away today while serving as the rabbi for Congregation Anshe Emet of Chicago

1913: It was reported today that the University of Geneva has conferred an honorary doctorate on French chemistry professor Gabriel Lippmann.

1913: It was reported today that Polish born socialist and journalist Stanislaus Mendelson, the son-in-law of Naham Sokolow and husband of fellow socialist Maria Jankowska has passed away.

1914:  Five days after  the declaration of war, a war in which 10,000 Jews would sign up to serve in just the first year,  The H.M. S. Birmingham, a Royal Navy Cruiser sank the U-15 marking the first time that a German submarine was “lost to a an enemy warship)

1915: It was reported today that the committee chaired by Congressman Meyer which will be raising money to help Jews in war-torn Europe is devising a plan whereby “storekeepers” will “display cards in their windows “both asking for contributions and showing that he merchants themselves have already given.”

1916: In World War I, Italian forces take Gorizia, a battle during which General Roberto Serge showed such courage that he was cited for bravery and a year later “promoted to chief of staff of the Fifth Army Corps.

1917: It was reported today that the officers of the newly formed Jewish Board for Welfare Relief Work in the United States Army and Navy are Chairman, Colonel Harry Cutler of Providence, RI; Vice Chairman, Dr. Cyrus Adler of Philadelphia; Treasurer, S.S. Rosenstamm of New York and Secretary, Sidney Goldstein of New York.

1917: “Through the Intelligence Department of the Mayor’s Committee on National Defense, the Provisional Zionist Committee” tonight “made public a letter describing conditions among Jews in Warsaw under German rule” “the veracity and authenticity of” which “is vouched for by” Dr. Stephen S. Wise, Chairman of the Zionist Committee and Associate Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis who is the committee’s honorary chairman.

1917: London born featherweight won his second bout today in Queens, NY.

1918(1st of Elul, 5678): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1918: The Archbishop of Warsaw met with several Jewish leaders who expressed the hope that “the new Polish state would prove “tolerant to the Jewish communities.”

1918: On the Western Front, three days of fighting during which future Medal of Honor winner William Shemmin was wounded after having “left the cover of his platoon's trench and crossed open space, repeatedly exposing himself to heavy machine gun and rifle fire to rescue the wounded” and then taken command of the platoon “after the officers and senior non-commissioned officers had become casualties.”

1918: It was reported today that the 34th infantry participated in pogroms at “Jarislawa and other Galician towns’ where “the police did nothing to protect the Jews.

1918: It was reported today that “Miss Julie Heineman who is doing relief work overseas has been decorated by King Albert of Belgium with the Queen Elizabeth medal in recognition of her work for” those French people have been wounded or blinded.

1918: During WW I which fighting at Chipilly Ridge Nathan Lieberman, a Corporal in Company of C of the 131st Infantry (which had had been the 1st Infantry of the Illinois National Guard) “displayed unusual gallantry he rushed a machine gun nest whose fire was checking the advance” of the unit and captured 4 prisoners as an added bonus.

1919: Today, “Romanian Jewish refugees made public a memorandum characterizing the stipulation of the Bucharest peace treaty as wholly inadequate and demanding a thorough-going solution of the Jewish question.”

1919: Today, Isaac Babel married Yevgenia Gronfein, the parents of Nathalie Babel Brown who became “the editor of her father’s life and work.”

1920: Those who have attended the conference at Carlsbad, are still “processing” the report that over five hundred pogroms have taken place in Ukraine with at least 138,000 Jews having been killed.

1922(15th of Av, 5682): Tu B’Av

1923: The JTA reported that it would not be publishing the Daily News Bulletin tomorrow in observance of the national day of mourning for the death of President Harding

1924: Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor refused to attend the notification ceremony for John W. Davis at Clarksburg, West Virginia. Davis was the compromise candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination for President, having been chosen on the 103rd ballot.

1924: A statement from Samuel Gompers that he was "willing to forget and forgive acts of omission and commission resulting from differences of opinion during the war" is contained in a letter made public by Mr. Gompers today incidental to the meeting of the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor at the Hotel Ambassador.

1925(19th of Av, 5685): Fifty-nine year old philanthropist Sidney Salzado Peixotto passed away today in California.

1925: A memorial tablet erected to one of its patients by his fellow patients was unveiled today in the Montefiore Hospital for Chronic Diseases, at Gun Hill Road and Bainbridge Avenue, the Bronx. Although tablets on hospital walls usually represent benefactions to the institution, this one is a tribute from the 600 patients, who were cheered in his lifetime by Max Messinger.  Confined to his wheel chair for twelve years, Max Messinger was the Good Samaritan of the hospital. His busy brain and fingers, the only parts of his body over which he had control, worked to create amusement for the other patients to whom he brought music, vaudeville, moving pictures, books, magazines and a social club, as well as a monthly paper, which he edited. By establishing contacts with performers and film companies, he was able to present a full performance each week to the hundreds who assembled on crutches and in wheel chairs for relaxation. He received literature which he distributed to the others, and traveled about the wards, especially among the children. With a portable victrola perched on his wheel chair he played the records that friends had sent. For ten years he was the editor of the monthly paper, The Montefiore Echo, in which he encouraged the others to write. On the walls, with memorials to such noted benefactors as Sir Moses Montefiore, Jacob H. Schiff, Professor Morris Loeb, has been placed a bronze plaque made possible by the small contributions of the patients, a simple expression of gratitude to Max Meninger.

1926: The Third International Conference of the Ort associations opened in Berlin at a building that formerly housed the Prussian House of Lords. (ORT is an organization that was founded in 1880 to provide assistance and educational opportunities for Russian Jews.  The scope has expanded and it currently offers programs for Jews in over a one hundred countries.)

1926: The extent of Jewish participation in the struggle for the independence of Poland, in the early days of the movement, unrecognized by the Great Powers and Polish public opinion at large, was impressed upon the public mind today when Josef Pilsudski, first Marshal of Poland and leader of the Legionaires, kissed publicly a Jewish invalid who fought in the Legion. A highly dramatic scene was enacted when the twelfth anniversary of the crossing by Pilsudski's Legion of the frontier of Congress Poland was celebrated at the Legionaire Congress, opened today in Kielce, the first Polish city to be occupied by the Polish Legion under Pilsudski's command in 1914. Many Jewish Legionaires were present at the celebration. Pilsudski publicly kissed a Jewish Legionaire who lost both his legs on the battlefield. (JTA)

1927: In New York City, “Dr. Henry Minsky, an eye surgeon who was chief of ophthalmology at Mount Sinai Hospital, and Fannie Reiser, a social activist and Zionist” gave birth to Marvin Minsky who has made many contributions to AI (Artificial Intelligence), cognitive psychology, mathematics, computational linguistics, robotics, and optics. In recent years he has worked chiefly on imparting to machines the human capacity for commonsense reasoning. Minsky is on the faculty of MIT and winner of the ACM Turing Award.


1927The Maccabee soccer team of Palestine left New York today aboard the SS Sinaia.

1927:M. Henri Torres, counsel for Sholom Schwartzbard, has addressed a cablegram to Louis D. Brandeis, U. S. Supreme Court Justice, asking him to intervene in favor of Sacco and Vanzetti.

1928: Birthdate of Maximillian Grunfeld the native of Czechoslovakia who gained fame as American master tailor Martin Greenfield owner of Martin Greenfield Clothiers.


1929: “Friend Sues To Free Sculptor As Sane” published today described the efforts De Hirsch Margules to gain the freedom of Alfred Dreyfus. The painter and sculptor has petitioned Chief Justice Alfred Frankenthaler on behalf of Alfred Dreyfuss, the sculptor and writer to overturn the order issued by Justice Lydon that has committed his friend to a sanitarium for the insane.  Margules contends that Drefyuss’ mother brought the suit after having been unduly influenced by her other son who is seeking to control the family’s financial affairs.

1930(15th of Av, 5690): Shabbat Nachamu and Tu B’Av

1930: Famed cartoon character “Betty Boop” made her debut in the animated film Dizzy Dishes.  Boop and the film were the creation of an Austrian born Jew named Max Fleischer. Fleischer was producing animated cartoons years before Disney’s Steamboat Willie appeared on the screen.

1931: Birthdate of South African native Sir Mark Aubrey Weinberg, the English trained barrister and financier who founded Abbey Life Assurance Company and Hambro Life Assurance

1932:  In Berlin, Holocaust survivor Hermann Pressman and his family -- Father Zysia, mother Hinda Leah, brother Hermann and sister Sonia --  went to the zoo today “and then to the Rubenstein kosher restaurant.”

1933: In Vilna, Chamber of Commerce unanimously votes to proclaim a boycott against German goods in protest against the Nazi treatment of the Jews.

1933: Ben Jeby (Morris Benjamin Jebaltowsky) was knocked out in the seventh round today ending his reign as middleweight champion.

1933: Edgar Ansell Mowrer, president of the Foreign Correspondents Association in Berlin, resigned from his post in order to secure the release of Paul Goldman, 68-year-old Jewish correspondent of the Vienna Neue Freie Presse, who was charged with "high treason." 

1935: “China Seas,” an adventure moved produced by Irving Thalberg was released in the United States today by MGM.

1936: It was reported today that “among the questions to come before the first Jewish World Congress will be the defense of Jewish equality, re-establishment of the rights of Jews in Germany, the struggle against anti-Semitism and participation in Jewish reconstruction work in Palestine.”

1936: At the opening business session of The World Jewish Congress today in Geneva, Dr. Leon Kubowitski of Belgium made a proposal for a permanent organization that would be ‘elected for four years, meet regularly biannually” and be overseen by “a central council that should meet semi-annually” and an “executive that should have specific administrative duties.

1937: In New York, premiere of “Souls at Sea” featuring Joseph Schildkraut as “Gaston de Bastonet.”

1937: The political resolutions committee of the World Zionist Congress which was elected today began an all-night debate in Zurich on “the Weizmann policy on the partition of Palestine.”

1938: Warner Bros. released “Four Daughters” a musical drama based on a novel by Fannie Hurst directed by Michael Curtiz, produced by Hal B. Wallis with a screenplay co-authored by Jules Epstein, music by Max Steiner and featuring John Garfield.

1938: Today Senator Norris of Nebraska made a recommendation that President Roosevelt appoint Felix Frankfurter, Professor of Law at Harvard University and one of the original New Deal advisers, to the United States Supreme Court to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Justice Benjamin Cardozo.

1938: I “Children Go to Palestine,” published today described the migration of 167 Jewish children from Austria and Germany to Palestine.  The youngsters are part of the Third Aliyah and are being settled at Ain Harod and Kfar Jecheskiel.

1938: The situation in Palestine threatened to grow worse when Moslem ecclesiastical authorities issued a fatwa calling for Iraqi participation in the fighting in Palestine which was labeled a Jihad.  Thousands of young Iraqis responded by rushing to sign up at recruiting stations set up in Baghdad.

1938: Premiere of “Four Daughters,” a musical directed by Michael Curtiz, produced by Hal Wallis, co-starring John Garfield, with a script by Julius Epstein, music by Max Steiner and co-starring John Garfield who was nominated for an Oscar as Best Actor in a Supporting Role.

1940(5th of Av, 5700): Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski, author of Ahi’ezer passed away1940: Birthdate of Carl Robert Zelnick, the New York native whose assignments for ABC news included a two year stint as their correspondent in Israel during the 1980’s.

1941: According to reports at the time the Nazis killed 510 Jews Brest-Litovsk and 296 Jews killed in Bialystok

1942: During the Battle of the Savo Island, the U.S.S. Blue, a destroyer that Ensign Nathan Asher had guided to the safety of open waters at Pearl Harbor, helped to rescue sailors from the sinking HMAS Canberra.

1942: Slovakian and Polish Jews were violently removed from the Rejowiec ghetto as the Nazis shut it down.

1942: Teresa Benedicta of the Cross died in Auschwitz.  Born Edith Stein, Sister Teresa and her sister converted long before World War II.  However, the Catholic Church allowed the Nazis to seize her and thousands of other Jews who had converted to Catholicism and ship them off to the death chambers.  According to Canon Law, Sister Teresa was a Catholic.  But apparently she was not a real Catholic since the Church let her go up in smoke facing the fate of a Jewess named Stein.

1942: In the first mass deportation to the gas chambers 10,000 Jews were sent from the Borislave ghetto to the Belsen death camp.

1942: In London, world premiere of one of the most popular children’s films “Bambi” based on Bambi, A Life in the Woods by Felix Saltan, “the grandson of an Orthodox rabbi.”

1942: Two hundred Jews escape into the forests of Mir. During that week, another 6,000 would die in Naliboki, Lubcz and Karelicze.

1942: In Winnipeg, Canada Rabbi Yasha Steinberg and his wife Ruth gave birth to director and comedian David Steinberg.


1942: Birthdate of Richard Michael Suzman, the native of Johannesburg who was an anti-apartheid activist before becoming a leading social psychologist in the United States.


1943: Fifty-year old Russian born “expressionist” painter Chaim Soutine died today from “a perforated ulcer” after having spent the last three years dodging the Gestapo in Paris.


1943: Birthdate of French art historian Michel Melot author of The Impressionist Print.

1944: German jurist Karl Sack was arrested today for his part in the attempt to assassinate Hitler on June 20th.

1944: “Leon Kubowitzki (later Aryeh Leon Kubovy), the head of the WJC's Rescue Department, relayed a message from Ernest Frischer of the Czechoslovak State Council to the US State Department urging the destruction of the gas chambers and the bombing of railways lines leading to the Auschwitz death camp. US Undersecretary of War John J. McCloy rejected the suggestion five days later…”

1945: Birthdate of Avraham Poraz, the native of Bucharest who made Aliyah in 1950 and served in the Knesset and as Minister of the Interior.

1945: More than 500 people attended the funeral services for State Senator Carl Pack today who was the honorary vice president of Temple Beth Elohim in the Bronx.

1948: The first envoy from the USSR arrived in Israel today,

1948: In Rissani, Morocco, Rabbi Meir and Simcha Abuhatzeira, gave birth Rabbi Elazar Abuhatzeira, known as the “Baba Elazar” the grandson of the Baba Sali, Rabbi Yisrael Abuhatzeira, and the brother of Rabbi David Chai Abuhatzeira of Nahariya who moved to Beersheba in 1966.

1949: In New York City, “aerospace engineer and inventor David Kellerman and his wife Sylvia gave birth to mystery writer Jonathan Kellerman, the author of the series featuring Dr. Delaware, the husband of mystery writer Faye Kellerman and father of novelist Jesse Kellerman and author Aliza Kellerman.

1949: Frank Goldman, the President of the B’nai B’rith sent a telegram to Secretary of State Dean Acheson asking that the United States intervene to force the Syrian government protect that country’s ancient Jewish community which is reeling from the effects of last week’s murderous bombing of a Damascus Synagogue.

1949: “Trottie True” a film based on a novel by S.J. Simon and Caryl Brahms, with music by Benjamin Frankel was released today in London, UK.

1957: In New York, Jerry and Sally Solomon gave birth Deborah Solomon the New Rochelle raised “art critic, journalist and biographer.”

1952: In Westport, CT, “The Stronger,” an opera by Hugo Weisgall premiered at the White Barn Theatre a venue created by actress Lucille Lortel, the daughter of Anny and Harris Walder and wife of industrialist and philanthropist Louis Schweitzer.

1955(21st of Av, 5715): Just six days before her 73rd  birthday, Walla Walla, Washington native Marion Eugénie Bauer, the composer and music critic, passed away today “in South Hadley, Massachusetts, where a rabbi conducted her memorial service.”




1959: “The Ugly Duckling,” a British comedy starring Bernard Bresslaw was released today in the United Kingdom

1959: Today Marya Mannes panned Archibald MacLeish’s “J.B” which is a modern version of the Book Job saying that it was “boring, pretentious and overproduced.”  (So much for Biblical material that does not include the Dance of the Seven Viels)

1960: The Religious Torah Front, an alliance of the Ultra-orthodox parties Agudat Yisrael and Poalei Agudat Yisrael that had been formed in 1955, split today with Poalei Agudat taking two of the Front’s six seats in the Knesset.

1960: Larry Sherry came in to relieve starter Johnny Podres and protect the team’s 3 to 2 victory over the Milwaukee Braves.

1961: Birthdate of John Phillip Key, the 38th Prime Minister of New Zealand and leader of the New Zealand National Party.

1961: “Come September” a comedy with a script by Stanley Shapiro and music by Hans J. Salter was released today in the United States by Universal Pictures.

1962(9th of Av, 5722): Tish’a B’Av

1962: In Brooklyn, “Leonard Bergstein, an engineering professor, inventor and Holocaust survivor” and his wife gave birth gave birth to rogue financier David Rafael Bergstein and husband of Sara Bergstein whom he is currently not seeing since in June of 2018 he was sentenced to eight years in prison after having been convicting of fraud.

1963(19th of Av, 5723): Sixty-eight year old Columbia trained attorney Paul M. Hahn, the New York born son of Richard and Eugenie Hahn, the husband of the “former Nannette Hogan Wells” who gave up the law for tobacco which led to his serving as “President and Chief Executive officer the American Tobacco Company” passed away today.


1964(1st of Elul, 5724): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1964(1st of Elul, 5724): Fifty-eight year old NYU law professor Edmond Nathaniel Cahn, a graduate of Tulane University, Director of the American Civil Liberties Union and an author whose works drew on the lessons of the Hebrew prophets passed away today in New York.


1964: “More than 2,000 American Legionnaires and members of their families witnessed the dedication” today of a wooded area in the Skokie Division of the Country Forest Preserve in Northbrook in honor of the 131st Infantry Division whose members included Corporal Nathan Lieberman which won the battle of Chipilly Ridge 54 years ago today

1965:  Singapore seceded from Malaysia and gained independence.  The Jewish community in Singapore traces its origins back to the early 18th century. The famous Sassoon family established business operations in the middle of the century. David Marshall, a prominent leader of the Jewish community, was known as the “father of Singapore Independence” for his efforts to gain liberation from Great Britain.  Today, Singapore has a small but vibrant Jewish community that supports two venerated houses of worship Maghain Aboth and Chesed El Synagogues.

1967(3rd of Av, 5727): Seventy year old Austrian born British actor Anton Walbrook who did not return to his native land when the Nazis took power because his mother was Jewish passed away today in Bavria.



1967: Hafez Tahoub, a former Jordanian district judge, and Mussa el-Bitar, a insurance agent, were arrested today by Israeli authorities for instigating a general in east Jerusalem that was aimed at crippling the economy in the section of the city that had been occupied by the Jordanians from 1948 until June of 1967.


1969: Birthdate of New York lawyer and politician Andrew Cohen.


1969(25th of Av, 5729): Seventy-seven year old Robert Owen Lehman, Sr. the son of Philip Lehman the cofounder of Lehman Brothers and Carrie Lauer who became head of the investment bank when his father retired in 1925 and guided it through the roaring-twenties, the Great Depression and the era of unprecedented post-war prosperity passed away today.


1969:  Sharon Tate, wife of director Roman Polanski and four others were murdered in Los Angeles.  It would turn out that they were victims of Charles Manson and his gang of killers.

1973(11th of Av, 5733): Ukrainian born, Israeli actor David Vardi, who had Hebraized his name from David Rosenfeld passed away today in Tel Aviv.


1973: Today, Premiere Golda Meir attended the ceremonies marking the opening of the Ivory Coast Embassy in Jersualem.

1973:  At a lecture to the Staff College, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan told the officer “the overall balance of forces is in our favor and this is what decides the question and rules out the immediate renewal of the war.”  These reassuring words would come back to haunt the Israelis when Egypt and Syria would attack two months later in the Yom Kippur War, which almost had disastrous consequences for the survival of the Jewish state. 



1974: In the wake of the Watergate Scandal, Richard Nixon resigned as President of the United States. Nixon turned out to be “a mixed bag” for the Jewish people.  He began his career on the political right as a fellow-traveler the McCarthy Movement which made him an anathema to many Jews who tended to be moderates and liberals.  As President, he appointed the first Jew, Henry Kissinger to the position of Secretary of State.  During the Yom Kippur War, he pulled out all of the stops to aid Israel.  Yet the Watergate Tapes have him uttering some of the vilest anti-Semitic sentiments that one can imagine coming from the lips of U.S. President. 

1974: Following his assumption of the Presidency today, Gerald Ford invited Prime Minister Rabin to come to the White House, promised to honor all commitments that had been made to Israel and later would prove to be a staunch opponent of the UN resolution condemning Zionism as racism.

1975: Today, Samuel Bronfman II “was abducted in New York” after which “his father personally paid $2.3 million ransom” and the FBI and New York City police rescued him from an apartment in Brooklyn where his “abductors” claimed that is was all part of hoax hatched by Bronfman.

1978: Morton Abramowitz began serving as U.S. Ambassador to Thailand.

1980(27thof Av, 5740): Parashat Re’eh

1981(9th of Av, 5741):Tish'a B'Av

1981(9thof Av, 5741): Eighty-nine year old Dartmouth alum Milton Aronowitz, the Albany, NY born son of Max and Dora Ettelson Aronowitz and Albany Medical College trained surgeon Milton Aronowitz who was the husband of Gretchen Aronowitz passed away today after which he was buried at Beth Emeth Cemetery in Loudonville, NY.

1981: At the All Star Baseball Game in Cleveland, Bob Verdi of the Chicago Tribunesits next to Jerome Holtzman, the popular Jewish baseball writer who wrote for the Sun-Times.  Holtzman indicated to Verdi that he was ready to move from the Sun Times to the Tribune.  Verdi contacted George Langford, the Trib’s sports editor, setting in motion Holtzman’s switch from Chicago’s #2 paper, to the Windy City’s # 1 paper.

1982: Grenade-throwing Palestinians burst into the Jo Goldenberg deli in Paris and sprayed machine-gun fire which killed six, including two Americans, and injuring 21 patrons.

1983(30thof Av, 5743): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1985: Release date for “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” starring Paul Reubens as Pee-wee Herman

1991: As the Fed expressed its displeasure over Salomon Brothers trading activity, Bond Trader Paul William Mozer was suspended today.

1993: In Belgium, coronation of King Albert II during which Queen Paola wore a yellow coat that was designed by Olivier Strelli, who was born Nissim Israel at Kinshasa in 1946 and developed “a chain of male and female clothing and accessory boutiques in Belgium, Switzerland, France and China.”

1994: Edward P. Djererjian left his post as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.

1998: The New York Times features a review of Benjamin Disraeli Letters Volume 6: 1852-1856
Edited by M. G. Wiebe, Mary S. Millar and Ann P. Robson.  Disraeli is Britain’s most famous Jew who was not Jewish.


1999: Eighty-five year old, Martin Arrouge, “a former ski instructor” and the man Norma Shearer married after the death of Irving Thalberg passed away today

2000: Clyde Haberman marveled at Joe Lieberman’s run for Vice President, a position that John Nance Garner was not worth a warm of spit’ but has produced four presidents since WWII.

https://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/09/nyregion/nyc-a-milestone-you-call-this-get-real.html?searchResultPosition=6

2001(20th of Av, 5761):  A suicide bomber struck a busy intersection in Jerusalem, blowing up a Sbarro Pizza Parlor, killing 15, 7 of whom were children  and wounding 130. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack. The dead included Zvika Golombek, 26, from Karmiel; Shoshana Yehudit (Judy) Greenbaum, 31 (5 months pregnant), from Passaic, New Jersey, U.S.;Tehila Maoz, 18, from Jerusalem; Frieda Mendelsohn, 62, from Jerusalem; Michal Raziel, 16, from Jerusalem; Malka Chana (Malki) Roth, 15, from Jerusalem; Mordechai Schijveschuurder, 43, from Neria; Tzira Schijveschuurder, 41, from Neria; Ra'aya Schijveschuurder, 14, from Neria; Avraham Yitzhak Schijveschuurder, 4, from Neria; Hemda Schijveschuurder, 2, from Neria;] Lily Shimashvili, 33, from Jerusalem; Tamara Shimashvili, 8, from Jerusalem; Yocheved Shoshan, 10, from Jerusalem; and Giora Balash, 60, from Brazil

2001(20th of Av, 5761): Seventeen year old Aliza Malka was killed by terrorists “in a drive-by shooting.”

2002(1stof Elul, 5762): Rosh Chodesh Elul

2002(1stof Elul, 5762): Eighty-six year old Marian Pollock, the wife of Louis Pollock passed away today.

2002(1stof Elul, 5762): Seventy three year old Emmy award winning composer Peter Matz passed away today.

http://articles.latimes.com/2002/aug/11/local/me-matz11



2004(22ndof Av, 5764): Ninety-two year composer David Raskin who earned two Oscar nominations while composing over 400 scores for movies and television series including the western “Wagon Train” and medical series “Ben Casey” passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/11/arts/david-raksin-the-composer-of-laura-is-dead-at-92.html

http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/DavidRaksinCentennialTribute.htm

2004: TNT broadcast the final episode of “The Grid” a miniseries starring Julianna Margulies.

2005: Eric Edelman began serving as Under Secretary of Defense for Polic

2005:  The Jerusalem Post reported on The Dry Bones Project which is the brainchild of Yaakov Kirschen, creator of the popular Dry Bones Cartoons and is intended to use humor to fight anti-Semitism.  . For more info on the project, go to http://www.drybonesproject.com.

2005:  Haaretz reported on the fourteenth meeting of World Jewish Congress of Jewish Studies held this week at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.  One of the sessions featured a theoretical debate on the question of "Teaching Mysticism in Academia."  Discussion of this topic in an academic form highlights renewed interest among the mainstream Jewish community in the topic of mysticism within the framework of Judaism.

2005(4th of Av, 5765): Eighty-five year old Abraham Jacob “Abe” Hirschfeld, the New York real estate investor and Democratic Party activist passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/10/nyregion/abe-hirschfeld-a-millionaire-and-an-eccentric-dies-at-85.html?_r=0

2005(4th of Av, 5765): Seventy-year old Judith Rossner, author of Looking for Mr. Goodbar passed away.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/10/AR2005081002413.html

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/aug/13/guardianobituaries.books

2006(15th of Av, 5766):  Eighty-three year old Melissa Hayden, one of the biggest starts in  American ballet passed away.(As reported by Anna Kisselgoff)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/10/arts/10hayden.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1526131/Melissa-Hayden.html

2006(15th of Av, 5766):  Fifteen members of the IDF have been killed and another twenty-five wounded in the fight against Hezbollah.

2007: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Saudi Arabian government continues to bar Jews and Christians from bringing items such as Bibles, crucifixes and Stars of David into the country and is threatening to confiscate them on sight. "A number of items are not allowed to be brought into the kingdom due to religious reasons and local regulations," declares the Web site of Saudi Arabian Airlines, the country's national carrier.

2007: A 23-year-old Jewish woman was attacked in Noisy-le-Grand, near Paris, by two youths who beat her and shouted anti-Semitic slogans, said the French National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism. The attackers shouted "You dirty Jew" at the woman before stealing the mobile phone she was using and beating her violently about the head and body

2008(8th of Av, 5768): Shabbat Chazon; Begin reading the Book of Devarim (Deuteronomy)

2008: Five of Israel's representatives will be competing in the first day of the Olympic Games today. Judoka Gal Yekutiel will be the first Israeli to take part in the Games, facing Athens 2004 bronze medalist Tsagaanbaatar Hashbaatar of Mongolia on Saturday afternoon in the first round of the under-60kg event at the University of Science and Technology Gymnasium. Gymnast Alex Shatilov will compete at the National Indoor Stadium, while Gal Nevo, Anya Gostomelsky and Tom Be'eri will swim for the first time at the National Aquatics Center.

2008(8th of Av, 5768): Seventy-four year old Jack Landau “a founder of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press” passed away today.

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2008-08-17/news/36834525_1_libel-suits-legal-assistance-executive-director

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/us/20landau.html

2008(8th of Av, 5768): In the evening, Fast of Tisha B’Av begins; David Levin chants Chapter Five from the Book of Lamentations  - a sweet voice for a sad occasion.

2008: The Washington Post reportsthat nearly three months after a federal immigration raid uprooted almost 400 employees at a meatpacking plant in northeastern Iowa, dozens of Somali immigrants are slowly but steadily filling the depleted ranks left by the arrested workers.

Along Postville's main street, in a storefront that used to hold a mattress store, a dozen Somali men ate dinner and chatted on a recent evening. Some members of the Somali community are renting the room and hope to turn it into a restaurant, said Sadiq Abdi. "They want a place where we can eat Somali food and just to be," he said. Federal officials have said the May 12 raid at Agriprocessors, the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant, was the largest single immigration enforcement effort in U.S. history. As they fill the jobs vacated by the 389 people _ mostly Mexicans and Guatemalans _ who were arrested during the raid, the Somalis are now beginning to form their own community within this town of 2,200. By their own estimates, there are about 100 to 150 Somalis in town. Meanwhile, the Somali presence _ including some women and other family members _ has been more noticeable in recent weeks, as new workers have settled into town. Abdi arrived recently from Minneapolis, which has one of the nation's biggest concentrations of Somali refugees, and he's thinking about applying at the plant, he said. At the former mattress store, he stood next to Ahmed Ahmed, a Somali man who said he worked his first night shift at the plant several weeks ago. Both say they are in the U.S. legally. "When I first come here, nobody knows each other," he said. "After a couple of weeks, we get together to eat and talk." Ahmed works in the plant's sausage department, he said, though he has friends who work in a variety of areas. Though he is Muslim, Ahmed said he saw no difficulty working in a kosher meatpacking plant where most of his bosses are rabbis. "Work is work," he said. "They are nice and they teach me how to do my work." Standards for kosher and halal meat are similar. As a result, practicing Muslims in the United States often buy kosher food because it is easier to find. Chaim Abrams, a manager at the Agriprocessors plant, said the nature of the plant forces employees to work with many different cultures. "There's nothing specific or different about (the Somali workers) that I note," Abrams said during a recent interview at the Agriprocessors plant. "... This is a town that's home to 26 nationalities. We never bothered to do the statistics or research ourselves, but generally speaking, we've always had many different people from many different backgrounds." Abrams said his biggest challenge wasn't cultural. He focused more on filling a workforce with "the right people who could appreciate and enjoy this type of work," he said. The city's mayor, Robert Penrod, said the Somalis were blending into Postville's multiethnic fabric. "They kind of mingle among themselves, and they don't bother anybody," Penrod said. "Some of them have left because they don't like slaughterhouses, but a lot of them have decided to stay for now." Ahmed admitted he is still adjusting to the area. Like Abdi, he came to the town from Minneapolis, where he said he had family and a steady supply of Somali food, such as goat meat. In Postville, Ahmed said, he occasionally eats Latino food in local restaurants, but he hopes an authentic Somali eatery will open soon. Ahmed also said more Somalis were beginning to think about Postville as a long-term option. "We are wanting to bring in families," he said. "But we all need to make sure this is long-term. So far, so good. We came here because they were hiring quickly, and I stay here as long as I can keep my hours."

2009: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Art of Harvey Kurtzman: The Mad Genius of Comics“Denis Kitchen and Paul Buhle’s insightful, entertaining and profusely illustrated biographical monograph, which chronicles almost everything Kurtzman accomplished…”

2009(19th of Av, 5769): Seventy year old Lester Glassner whose penchant for “kitsch” turned him into a major collector of pop culture artifacts, passed away. (As reported by Bruce Weber)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/21/nyregion/21glassner.html

2009: Gaza militants fired mortars at a crossing into Israel just as Palestinian patients were being transferred for treatment, a Palestinian official said. "

 2009: Fervently Orthodox Jews mobbed Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat and threw stones at his car.

The mayor’s car was damaged in this evening’s attack, which occurred as Barkat was leaving a personal meeting with a prominent Jerusalem rabbi in the Ezrat Torah neighborhood.

2010: This is scheduled to be the final night of this year’s San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2010:Oscilloscope Laboratories said today that it would appeal the rating by the Classification and Rating Administration for "A Film Unfinished," which explores a Nazi propaganda film taken in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942. With an R rating, viewers under the age of 17 must be accompanied by an adult. The rating board explained its decision, saying the movie contained “disturbing images of Holocaust atrocities, including graphic nudity.” “This is too important of a historical document to ban from classrooms,” Adam Yauch, an owner of Oscilloscope and a founding member of the Beastie Boys, said in a statement issued today. The film, which was first screened at the Sundance Film Festival this year, is set to open nationally later this month.

2010(29thof Av, 5770):  Eighty-eight year old New York real estate tycoon Paul Milstein passed away (As reported by Douglas Martin)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/nyregion/10milstein.html?pagewanted=all

2010: A New Zealand judge has allowed the kosher slaughter of animals to resume until the lawsuit filed by the Jewish community against the government comes to trial. Justice Denis Clifford of the High Court in Wellington confirmed today that an agreement has been reached between the Jewish community and representatives of the Crown Law Office, which is representing Agriculture Minister David Carter

2010: The synagogue of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, luminary sage and father of modern religious Zionism, was reopened today in southern Tel Aviv 30 years after it closed its doors. The synagogue, Shaarei Torah, is located in the Neveh Shalom neighborhood just north of Yafo (Jaffa). Following the informal re-dedication today amid singing and dancing, the synagogue is now open for daily prayers.

2011(9th of Ave, 5771): Fast of Tisha B’Av

2011: The British Jewish community has expressed its shock over the recent rioting which has shaken the UK over the last few days.

2011: Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, who is a member of the Trajtenberg Committee created to examine the demands of the social-movement protesters, visited the Rothschild Boulevard tent protest  this evening where activists explained to him their discontent with the government, and particularly the minister's, inefficiency.

2011(9th of Av, 5771): Eighty-seven year old David Lewis, the British entrepreneur who founded the Isrotel chain of hotels, which is the country’s large hotel chain, passed away today.

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/08/16/3089001/the-eulogizer-british-entrepreneur-david-lewis

2011: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest including The Long Night: William L. Shirer and ‘The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich' by Steve Wick

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/10/books/steve-wicks-long-night-about-william-l-shirer-review.html

2012: Jerusalem’s Hazel Hill String Band is scheduled to perform tonight at Petah Tiqva

2012: Dr. Laibl Wolf is scheduled to deliver a lecture on "The 2012 Secret of Successful Relationships" - Intimacy, Commitment & Exploitation!” at the Chabad Center of Rechavia

2012:An American Jewish woman, Debra Ryder, is demanding NIS 50,000 in compensation from El Al Israel Airlines Ltd. (TASE: ELAL) for allegedly switching her seat on a flight from the US, because haredi (ultra-orthodox) men refused to sit next to her. She claims that the flight steward moved her to a seat in the back of the plane, which did not meet her medical needs.

2012:A Brooklyn hardware store clerk pleaded guilty today to charges he abducted and dismembered an 8-year-old boy who lost his way home. The guilty plea, to charges of second-degree murder and kidnapping, guarantees Levi Aron a sentence of 40 years to life in a case that traumatized the victim’s tight-knit Orthodox Jewish community.

2012:Al-Quds also reported that this morning, that Mossad had transferred a list of names to Egyptian Intelligence that contained nine names of terrorists connected to the attack in Rafah. According to the same source, this led Egyptian intelligence to send a request to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, using senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar as an intermediary, to extradite members of  the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ paramilitary wing.

2012: David Kilimnick, Razorback by birth – Israeli by choice, is scheduled to perform The Aliyah Monologues: Tour of Funny through the Holy Land at the Off The Wall Comedy Club in Jerusalem.

2012: Janet Maslin reviewed two books that might be of special interest to Jewish readers--Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spiesby Ben Macintyre and Agent Garbo:The Brilliant, Eccentric Secret Agent Who Tricked Hitler and Saved D-Day by Stephen Talty

2012(21st of Av, 5772): Eighty-three year old Mel Stuart director and producer whose career ranged from the ultra-light (Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” to the very serious (The Triangle Factory Fire Scandal) passed away today in Beverly Hills.

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-19210701

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/movies/mel-stuart-willy-wonka-director-dies-at-83.html

2012: The Cleveland Indians fired Scott Radinsky as their pitching coach.

2012(21st of Av, 5772): Forty-seven year old “comic essayist” David Rakoff passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/11/books/david-rakoff-award-winning-humorist-dies-at-47.html

2012(21st of Av, 5772): Seventy-seven year old Holocaust survivor turned New York political powerhouse Raymond B. Harding, passed away today. (As reported by Robert McFadden)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/10/nyregion/raymond-b-harding-ex-liberal-party-leader-dies-at-77.html?_r=2&hpw

2013: “Blumenthal” and “Awake Zion” are scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2013: “Fill the Void,” a film that tells the story an Orthodox Chassidic family from Tel Aviv is scheduled to open at Century 16 in Anchorage, Alaska, making it the second theatre in the state to show the film.

2013 “Former Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin warned today that the West's one dimensional perception of Iran's nuclear program, focusing solely on the uranium enrichment path to a nuclear weapon, could enable the Islamic Republic to build a plutonium bomb without detection.” (As reported by the Jerusalem Post)

2013: An Israeli Air Force drone reportedly struck a jihadist rocket launcher in the Sinai Peninsula near the Israeli-Egyptian border, killing four suspected terrorists who were planning to launch missiles at Israel, Egyptian security sources told Reuters today.

2014: "Automonuments", a solo exhibition by New York based Israeli artist Niv Rozenberg is scheduled to come to an end today.

2014(13thof Av, 5774); Sixty year old Joseph Raskin, an Orthodox Rabbi from Brooklyn was gunned down this morning as he walked to Shabbat services at Bais Menachem, a Northeast Miami-Dade Synagogue.

2014: “After nearly two years of campaigning, millions of dollars spent and one tropical storm that delayed voting in this easternmost corner of Hawaii for nearly a week, Senator Brian Schatz won the Democratic nomination for his seat” today.

2014(13thof Av, 5774): Eighty-four New York real estate developer Arthur G. Cohen passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/16/nyregion/arthur-g-cohen-real-estate-developer-is-dead-at-84.html?ref=obituaries

2014: In Coralville, Iowa, Agudas Achim is scheduled to show “The Big Dig,” a “comedy lampooning…the madness of everyday life in Israel.”

2014: “Amid efforts to revive stalled talks in Cairo, Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip traded blows again today, with a volley of rockets fired toward Israel, and the Israeli military striking dozens of targets across the coastal enclave.” (As reported by Laura King and Batsheba Sobelman)

2015: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish writers and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Days of Awe by Lauren Fox and We’re Still Here Ya Bastards:

How the People of New Orleans Rebuilt Their City by Roberta Brandes Gratz

2015:April Slabosheski , the Holocaust Educator at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to teach “Holocaust Memorials: Context, Interpretation, Memory,” a class “where participants will learn about concepts that underlie widely known Holocaust memorials throughout the world.”

2015: The Jewish Museum of Maryland is scheduled to host a screening of Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator.”

2015(24th of Av, 5775): Eight-five year University College London trained British director Jack Gold, the London born “son of Charles and Minnie (Elbery) Gold and husband of Denyse Alexander, who was an “Honorary Associate of the London Film School” passed away today.

2015: Adei Ad, which is part of the Shilo bloc of settlements was among the outposts raided today by police and agents of the Shin Beit security service who “detained at least nine people.”

2015: In an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria broadcast today, President Obama “said Israeli interference in internal US affairs ahead of a Congressional vote on the Iranian nuclear deal was unprecedented.”

2015: In Amherst, MA, the Yiddish Book Center is scheduled to host a challah baking demonstration and talk on cuisine by Tina Wasserman, author of Entrée to Judaism: A Culinary Exploration of the Jewish Diasporaand Entrée to Judaism for Families: Jewish Cooking and Kitchen Conversations with Children

2015: The Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust is scheduled to host a talk by Betty Cohen the Amsterdam native who “spent two years in hiding” until she and her family “were discovered and sent to concentration camps.”

2016(5th of Av, 5776): Ninety-one year old Russian sculptor Ernst Neizvestny passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/18/arts/international/ernst-neizvestny-a-russian-sculptor-who-clashed-with-khrushchev-dies-at-91.html?ribbon-ad-idx=2&rref=obituaries&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Obituaries&pgtype=article&_r=0

2016: Linda Levi is scheduled to speak on “The JDC Archives and What We have to Offer Jewish Genealogists” at the 36thIAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy.

2016: A gag order was lifted today which made public the arrest of 38 year old Wahid al-Bursh, “as senor United Nations engineer” on charges of “abusing his post in order to aid Hamas.”

2016:The Last Jews Of Baghdad” which “provides a historical and personal view of the persecution, torture, escape, and flight of over 160,000 Jews from Iraq between the years 1940 and 2003” is scheduled to be shown at the Southampton Jewish Film Festival.

2017: “The Caravan Orchestra,” “a collaborative project of Jewish Summer Weimar and the Franz Liszt Music Academy in Weimar” is scheduled  tonight in Erfurt “in celebration of Erfurt’s sister partnership with Haifa.”

2017: The Suzanne Dellal Centre is scheduled to present “Dust,” “an ensemble of four male dancers,” as part of Tel Aviv Dance.

2018(28th of Av): Yarhrzeit for Larry Rosenstein, of blessed memory, husband of Judy Levin Rosenstein, of blessed memory.  Gone too soon but always remembered! 

2018: The Middle Eastern Mixfest” is scheduled to opening with a “Meet the Writers” panel

2018: The Breman Museum is scheduled to co-host “Theatre as Social Change,” “a panel discussion with theatre directors and educators, Mira Hirsh and Patrick McClorey.

2018: In the early morning hours, Israeli time, dozens of rockets have been fired into Israel from Gaza wounding civilians and forcing untold thousands to spend the night in shelters while the sound of rockets mixes with the sound of silence from a world that will care when the IDF strikes back at the terrorists.

2019: In New York, The Landmark at 57 West is scheduled to host a screening of Mike Wallace is Here directed by Avi Belkin.

2019: In Santa Fe, NM, the Center for Contemporary Arts is scheduled to host a screening of “The Spy Behind Home Plate.”

2019: As of “Opera in the Park,” “the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality and the Israeli Opera” are scheduled to present Verdi’s “Nabucco,” a musical version of the destruction of the First Temple by Nebuchadnezzar (Nabucco) at Ganei Yehoshua Park.

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

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August 10



612 BCE: Sinsharishkun, King of the Assyrian Empire was killed and his capital city of Nineveh was destroyed.  This is the same Assyria that destroyed the Northern Kingdom and laid siege to Jerusalem.  This is also the same Nineveh to which God had sent Jonah.

70: According to sources, this is the date on the secular calendar when the Second Temple was destroyed.

117: Start of the reign of Hadrian as Roman Emperor.   At first Hadrian seemed to be a friend of the Jews.  He executed the anti-Jewish governor of Judea and promised to rebuild Jerusalem as a Jewish city.  For some unknown reason, he turned against the Jews banning circumcision throughout the Empire and announcing the decision to build a major temple to Jupiter in Jerusalem.  The Jews responded with what has become known as Bar Kochba's Rebellion.  The fighting was intense on both sides and resulted in the complete desolation of the land by the Romans.  Hadrian banned Jews from Jerusalem and renamed the city Aelia Capitolina.  He even had a copy of the Torah burned on the Temple Mount.  Antonius Pius, Hadrian's successor repealed many of Hadrian's anti-Jewish decrees including the bans on Torah study and circumcision.  But it was too late to save the Jewish community of the Promised Land.

1002: “Shortly after gain the support of the Saxons” Henry II, the Holy Roman Emperor whose expulsion of the Jews from Mayence was lamented in dirges composed by the poet Simon ben Isaac and of which Gershom ben Yehuda said, “Thou hast made those who despise They Law to have dominion over Thy people…” “arranged for Archbishop Willigist to crown his wife…as Queen of Germany” today “in Paderborn.”

1267: Birthdate of King James II of Aragon. James would prove to show greater toleration towards his Jewish subjects than his grandfather James I had.  . He permitted Jewish refugees from France to settle in Barcelona. In recognition of Jewish financial support for his equipping his fleet, the King released many Jewish communities from paying their taxes for a period of several years.  James also protected the Jews from popular anti-Semitic uprisings. In Barcelona in 1285, Berenguer Oller, announced that he planned to kill the local nobles and the Jews following which he would plunder their homes.  The King intervened to prevent the violence.  Whether he was more concerned about the well-being of the nobility or the Jews is unknown.

1391: The anti-Semitic rioting came to an end with Barcelona with an untold number of Jews converting at the point of the proverbial sword.

 1391: Massacre of the Jews in Gerona, Spain.

1397: Birthdate of Albert II, who as Holy Roman Emperor Agreed to accept 900 gulden from the city of Augsburg in return for allowing them to expel their Jews.

1492: A large group of Jews from Spain, thousands strong, arrived in the Port of Naples. Jews from Sardinia soon joined them. 

1675: The Portuguese-Jewish synagogue opens in Amsterdam.

1762: Birthdate of Joshua Montefiore, an English lawyer, soldier, and journalist who would eventually move to the United States where he “edited Men and Measures, a weekly political journal” before finally settling in St. Albans, Vt.

1778: Gotthold Lessing, while having trouble sleeping, comes up with the inspiration for his play, “Nathan the Wise.”

1792: As the French Revolution, which would eventually bring the rights of citizenship to French Jews, intensified, Louis XVI was imprisoned today.

1793: On the first anniversary of the end of the Louvre, which among other things contains “4,000 engravings, 3,000 drawings, and 500 illustrated books” donated by Baron Edmond de Rothschild in 1935, was opened to the public for the first time as a museum.

1793(2ndof Elul, 5553): Thirty-four year old Jacob Aaron (Kopel ben Aaron Berstat) passed away today in London.

1794: In Detmold, Germany, ‘Talmud scholar Immanuel Menachem Zunz and Hendel Behrens, the daughter of Dov Beer,] an assistant cantor of the Detmold community” gave birth tobLeopold Zunz  also known as Yom Tov Lipmann Tzuntz, "the German Reform rabbi and writer who was the founder of what has been termed the "Science of Judaism" (Wissenschaft des Judentums), the critical investigation of Jewish literature, hymnology and ritual.



1807: In Fürth, Marcus and Jeannette Königswarter gave birth to Jonas Königswarter, the husband of Josephine Königswarter who was a leading member of the financial community in Vienna whom Emperor Francis Joseph “decorated with the Order of the Iron Crown of the third class, elevated to the knighthood, and raised to the baronetage.

1808: Emanuel Lazarus married Sophia Simmons today at the Great Synagogue.

1808: Isaac ben Uri married Reizecha bat Judah Leib today at the Western Synagogue.

1810: Birthdate of Count Camillo di Cavour, the Italian statesman who was part of the triumvirate that created the modern Italian state.  Cavour worked with Baron James de Rothschild who secretly provided the funds with which the Piedmont nobleman was able to fight the Austrian.  Cavour enjoyed good working relations with members of the Jewish community, including “Isaac Arton, his confidential secretary and ‘faithful lieutenant’.”

1815: In an attempt to attract non-Hispanic Europeans to Cuba and Puerto Rico, the Spanish government issued the Royal Decree of Graces which allowed non-Spaniards to own land on the islands.  While Jews did settle in the islands, the decree really did not work to their advantage since only Catholics were allowed to own land. 

1818: In Bavaria, Suesel Schloss and his wife gave birth to Moses Schloss who would move to New and become a successful dry goods merchant.

1819: Anti-Semitic riots continue for a second day in Frankfort.

1819: Birthdate of Julius Landsberger, the native of Upper Silesia who was the rabbi at Darmstadt for thirty year and who with his wife Pauline gave birth to Richard Landsberger, a pioneer in the field “biological desntistry.”

1821: Missouri becomes the 24th state to join the Union.  Jewish immigrants, many from Germany, had settled in the area since its territorial days.  The first known Jew settled in St. Louis in 1807.  The first Jewish lawyer settled in St. Louis in 1817.
1824: Under Czar Alexander I, all foreign Jews were prohibited from settling in Russia. Alexander I, after an initial period of liberalism, reverted to the anti-Jewish proclamations of his predecessors. It began with forbidding Jews to have Christian servants. After that came the prohibition of settlement. The culmination of his policies came just before when all Jews were banished from the larger villages in the Mohilev and Vitbesk districts.


1832: Philip Minis, a Savannah physician and the son of Judge Isaac Minis shot and killed James Stark after the latter had called him a “damn Jew,” “a coward” and had pulled a gun on him in the City Hotel at Savannah.

1835(15thof Av, 5595): Tu B’Av

1835: Frederick David Goldsmid, MP and his wife gave birth to their oldest daughter Helen who as the wife of Lionel Lucas whom she married in 1855 was active in the Anglo-Jewish community as can be seen by her service as the President of the Workrooms Committee of the Jewish Board of Guardians, Treasurer of the Jewish Ladies’ West End Charity and Patroness of the City of London Benevolent Society for Assisting Widows of the Jewish Faith.

1837(9thof Av, 5597): Tish’a B’Av observed for the first time under President Martin Van Buren.

1843: Sixty-nine year old anti-Semite Jakob Friedrich Fries passed away. “ In 1816 he wrote Über die Gefährdung des Wohlstandes und des Charakters der Deutschen durch die Juden ("On the Danger Posed by the Jews to German Well-Being and Character"), advocating among other things a distinct sign on the dress of Jews to distinguish them from the general population, and encouraging their emigration from German lands. He blamed the Jews for the ascendant role of money in society and called for Judaism to be "extirpated root and branch" from German society.”

1844: Jeanetta Mallan and Joseph Davis gave birth to Lionel Cartwright Davis

1845: Two days after he had passed away, Lambert Ellis, the husband of Sarah Ellis with whom he had six children – Asher, Abraham, Esther, Jonas, Anna and Moses – was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.

1845: Birthdate of German physician Mortiz Litten, the son-in-law of pathologist Ludwig Traube who was the son of a Jewish wine merchant.

1846: President James K. Polk signed the Smithsonian Institution Act into law” which created the museum known as the Smithsonian Institution of which the National Museum of American Jewish History would eventually become an affiliate institution. 



1851: Eighty-nine year old German theologian Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob Paulus, the anti-Semite who authored "The Jewish National Separation: Its Origin, Consequences, and the Means of its Correction" passed away today.

1854: The Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau opened today.

1856: In Stuttgart, Dr. Friedrich Heimerdinger and his wife gave birth to General Erwin von Heimerdinger the father of Gertrude von Heimerdinger who “was employed in the German Foreign Office as assistant Chief of the Diplomatic Courier Section. An anti-Nazi, she secretly arranged for special passes to enable diplomat Fritz Kolbe (the main Allied source of intelligence) to make frequent trips to Switzerland to pass on information to Allen Dulles, head of American O.S.S.” (Jewish Virtual Library)

1858(30th of Av, 5618): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1859: The New York Times reported that “there has recently arrived in this City an eminent Jewish traveler, a Mr. Benjamin, the object of whose life hitherto has been to explore the interior of the Asiatic and African continents for the purpose of ascertaining the condition, occupations, hopes,  of his Hebrew brethren.”

1861(4thof Elul, 5621): Parashat Shoftim

1861: Fifty-nine year old Frederick Julius Stahl, the German lawyer and political leader who converted to Christianity when he was baptized as a Lutheran at the age of 17 passed away today.

1861: The New York Times reported that “The past week Mr. J.J. Benjamin, a Moldavian traveler and Jew, has been in this city from California. This gentleman's ruling passion appears to be to find out the "Ten Lost Tribes," to accomplish which purpose, he states that he has already traveled over a great portion of the civilized and the uncivilized world. He thinks he has discovered a clue to those missing tribes in Northern Africa and in Asia. Whether or not any such clue exists in this Great Basin, the world will, perhaps, be informed of in due time.”

[Editor’s Note: Mr. Benjamin and J.J. Benjamin are the same person.  J.J. Benjamin was a Rumanian born Jewish businessman who became historian.  Reportedly he modeled himself as modern day version of Benjamin of Tudela, the famous twelfth century Jewish traveler. He signed many of his writing as Benjamin II.]

1861: Forty-year old Samuel (Isaac) Henry Gluckstein a cigar maker from Dusseldorf became a naturalized citizen of the United Kingdom today.

1861: Philadelphian Nathan Rosenfelt who was later wounded at the Battle of Antietam, began serving with company A of the 72nd Regiment.

1861: Henry Isaacs “enlisted with Company M” of the 72nd Regiment today.

1861: Joshua Pickering enlisted in the Cameron Dragoons a “largely Jewish regiment” that was “the first completed regiment of cavalry ever enlisted in the United States during” the Civil War.

1861: Philadelphian James Comelien began serving in the 5th Cavalry where he reached the rank of Lieutenant.

1862: In a letter written to President Lincoln today, August Belmont persisted in his advocacy of a negotiated peace with the Confederates.

1868(22nd of Av, 5628): Approximately three months after her last performance, Adah Isaacs Menken passed away while living in Paris. The cause of death was most likely peritonitis, tuberculosis, or the combined ravages of both. She was buried in the Jewish section of the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris.

https://jwa.org/thisweek/may/30/1868/adah-isaacs-menken

1868: Birthdate of Paul M Warburg, the scion of a German banking family, who came to  New York and became a partner in Kuhn, Loeb & Company and an advocate of a “central bank” that took form as the Federal Reserve Board.

1873: A group of Jewish teachers met at #142 East 40th Street in New York today and formed a committee to develop an organizational plan for a Jewish Teacher’s Association.  The plan will be submitted at a future meeting the time of which has not been established.

1873:  It was reported today that Anshey Chesed has decided to hire Dr. Isaac M. Wise of Cincinnati to serve as it rabbi.  The congregation has just completed the building of sanctuary on the corner of Lexington and 63rd at cost of $250,000.

1873: In Cleveland, Ohio, William Hocking and Julia Pratt gave birth to William Ernest Hocking the Harvard professor who in 1936 expressed his opposition to Jewish settlement in Palestine because it “lacks rainfall” and it is “the immediate” cause “for turbulence on the part of the Arabs” while attacking the Pro-Palestine Federation led by its President, Charles Edward Russell.

1874:  Herbert Hoover, future President of the United States, was born in West Branch, Iowa. Hoover is best remembered by Jews as the President who nominated Benjamin Cardozo to the Supreme Court in 1932.  In his memoirs, Hoover makes only a brief reference to the appointment.  There is no mention about the fact that he was Jewish.  Hoover was concerned that there might be opposition because appointing Cardozo would mean that there would be two New Yorkers sitting on the High Court.  His Congressional supporters advised him that this would not be a problem.  So, thanks to a Quaker from Iowa, the Supreme Court found itself with two Jewish Justices (Frankfurter being the other) at a time when anti-Semitism was on the rise in the United States and Europe.

1874: Queen Victoria allowed Solomon Benedict de Worms to use his Austrian title of Baron in Great Britain.

1874: Sherrif Honscheidt of McClean County, Illinois, wrote a letter today addressed to George Walling, the Superintendent of the Police in New York City containing information about the murder Benjamin Nathan.  According to the Sherriff, a German Jew named Levy came to his house and confessed that he had killed Nathan.  He gave the address of the crime; described the murder weapon; and claimed that the motive was robbery.  Levy says he had an accomplice whose name he will only reveal once he is back in New York.  He claims that he has confessed because “he has had no rest nor peace of mind since he committed the crime.”  The Sheriff is not sure if Levy is telling the truth if he is just some “humbug” looking for a free trip to New York. (Nathan was a prominent Jewish member of the business community.  His shocking murder provided a great deal of scandal, but never produced a perpetrator)

1875(9th of Av, 5635): Tish'a B'Av

1875: In Cincinnati, Ohio, William Jacob Mack and Rebecca M. Mack gave birth to Jacob William Mack

 “the executive board of Hebrew Union College, president of Wise Temple in Cincinnati, Ohio, and president of the International Association of Garment Manufacturers and Chairman of the Mack Shirt Corporation.

1875: The New York Times reported that “the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem will be celebrated throughout the world to-day by the conservative Jews, as a day of mourning.”

1877(1stof Elul, 5637): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1878: Birthdate of San Francisco native and U.C. Berkley undergrad, Saul Epsteen, noted mathematician and author.

https://projecteuclid.org/euclid.bams/1183416909

1878: In Stettin master tailor Max Döblin and his wife Sophie gave birth to prolific author Bruno Alfred Döblin who would convert to Catholicism while living the life of a refugee in Los Angeles during WW II.

1879: In Dresden, “Gustav and Amalie Pinthus” gave birth to Dora Pinthus who married Oskar Michael Blumenthal and became Dora Blumenthal the name under which she was murdered at Theresiendstadt Ghetto.

1879: Two days after she had passed away, Catherine (Elisa) Levy, the wife of Lewis Levy with whom she had had seven children – Esther, Jane, Abraham, Amelia, Frances, Samuel and Philip – was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.

1879: According to reports published today, there were eight societies in Great Britain devoted to converting Jews to Christianity and a dozen more in continental Europe devoted to the same purpose.  Together, these organizations have a half million dollars to spend and employ 250 in this work.  The London Society for the Propagation of Christianity Among the Jews is the oldest and most prominent of these groups headquartered in London.  The society has 34 offices encompassing those cities in Europe, along the Mediterranean and in Abyssinia that have large Jewish populations. [These societies had little success.  Based on anecdotal evidence, most conversions took place in Western Europe and Britain for purposes of social and economic progress.]

1879:  It was reported today that the Jews play an activity role in the philanthropic activities in London since the synagogues of that city have given $3,460 to the hospital fund which is supported by donations from all denominations, “except perhaps the Catholics.”

1879: As various hotels and resorts began excluding Jews one merchant published an ad today designed to further their inclusion. “Although the Jews have been excluded from Manhattan Beach, they are not prohibited on account of their religious principles from buying Humphrey’s Parisian Diamonds.  They are for sale only at Humphrey’s Jewelry Store…Price list sent free.”

1880: In Romania, Abraham and Vera Landesco gave birth to Alexander A. Landesco, the graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School and director of “relief work in East Europe for the Joint Distribution Committee” after World War I who spent 25 years with Lazard Freres and Company was the husband of Olga Spiegel Landesco.

1881: Over 2,500 people attended the corner-stone laying ceremony for the Home for the Aged and Infirmed in Yonkers.  Joseph E. Newberger gave the opening remarks on behalf of the B’Nai Brith and was followed by Norton Otis, the May of Yonkers.

1883: “The Outrages in Hungary” published today described the violent anti-Semitic reaction to the acquittal of Jews who have been standing trial at Nyireghyhaza on charges of ritual murder i.e. killing a young Christian girl.  Joseph Scharf, the father of Moritz Scharf, has been attacked several times because his son’s testimony during the trial.  There have been several outbreaks of arson aimed at the Jewish population of the town in which the dead girl lived.

1883: August Rholing, notorious slanderer of Jews and the Talmud brought charges of defamation against Rabbi Joseph Samuel Bloch of Vienna

1883: The escape by Theodore Hoffman, who was convicted of murdering Zife Marks, a Jewish peddler, was thwarted today.

1884: It was reported today that Jews in England are seeking to have their government intervene on behalf of their co-religionists in Romania who have been harmed by “the new hawking law.”

1884: It was reported today that Novoje Vremya, “the chief Jew-baiting organ in Russia” has received a warning from the authorities to cease its attacks on Jews.

1884 During today’s Earthquake in New York City, Jews living on Ludlow Street threw their furniture out of their windows and fearfully ran out of their houses carrying trunks, valises and mattresses.

1885: Birthdate of Cincinnati native and Harvard Law School graduate who was a WW I veteran and a director of Big Brothers in Chicago.

1886(9thof Av, 5646): Tish’a B’Av

1886: “The Fast of AB” published today described “the fast of Ab or ‘black fast,’ as it is it is sometimes called among the Jews”  which “is one of the most solemn occasions in the Hebrew worship and scrupulously observed by orthodox Jews” because “it commemorates the destruction of the two temples of Judea.”

1887: Abe Furst and Dr. Charles H. Rosenthal both of Cincinnati, Ohio, each donated $10 to the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

1887: The Sanitarium for Hebrew Children are providing another free excursion today for the poor children of the Lower East Side.

1888: The Immigration Committee chaired by Congressman Ford met today at the Westminster Hotel. While Ford and Congressman Guenther tried to paint a picture of an invasion of immigrant paupers, they were stymied by testimony of at least one Jewish witness.  When Ford asked, “Do all the immigrants have the means of subsistence when they reach here?” the response was “If they have not, they are cared for by relatives and friends here.  Certainly they do not become a charge upon the public.  The records of the state Board of Charities will not show that a single Jew has been cared for by public charity.” (This sounds painfully familiar to those who have been listening to the current debate about immigration in the United States)

1889: “Bernard and Anna (Levy) Bloom” gave birth to Columbia graduate Irving Mortimer Bloom the HUC trained Reform Rabbi who led the “Hebrew Tabernacle in New York City” and used “radio talks, articles, sermons and lecturers” to advocate for closer relations “between Liberal Jews and Liberal non-Jews.”

1889: In Brooklyn, “Mary (Miriam) Natelson and Samson Nateslon” gave birth to Ethiel Weiner who married Dr. Meyer Weiner and gained fame as Ethel Weiner, the Brooklyn school teacher, “vice president of the Jewish Teachers Association” and “a sister of the Rachel Natelson… who collaborated with Henrietta Szold in founding Hadassah.”

1890; “Dr. Cyrus Adler” delivered the sixth in a series of lectures sponsored by the Jewish Theological Seminary at Cooper Union entitled “The Bible and Modern Discoveries with Special Reference to the Geography of Egypt and Palestine” which was attended by a large number of people including several ladies.

1890: “Waiting for A,B,C” published today relied on information that first appeared in the Edinburgh to traces the history of written alphabets including a listing of ancient inscriptions, one of which is “the Hebrew text…known as the Siloam inscription” which  “is very clearly of the age of Hezekiah” approximately 700 BCE.

1890: Birthdate of Solomon Rosenthal, the native of Vilnius who became a chess master.

1890 It has been determined that the Polish Jews who fell ill yesterday were not victims of food poisoning.  They had all drank coffee deliberately poisoned by Mrs. Levy, the wife of a second-hand clothing proprietor.  No reason has been given for her action. As to the victims, Jacob Schmidt and Jacob Levenson will recover but two of the mothers and their daughters are still in danger. The mass poisoning was made possible by the fact these Jews cook and eat a communal meal at the Sabbath.

1891: “A Rabbi At Chautauqua” published today described the incredulity of some Christians that Rabbi Gustav Gottheil is scheduled to speak before this organization.

1891: “Caring For Jewish Immigrants” published today described plans that leaders of the Jewish Alliance of America  have to help their co-religionists arriving in this country including helping them to settle in several states, find work for those “who are skilled mechanics or laborers” and “to purchase cheap arable lands for those” who want to farm.

1892: The SS Kehrwider sailed from Hamburg today bound for New York carrying a significant number of passengers who were poor Jews fleeing Poland and Russia.

1893: James O’Mara and William Davison sole the pack of a Jewish peddler went he entered Patrick Devitt’s saloon in Brooklyn.  Two policemen arrived and arrested the thieves.

1893(28th of Av, 5653): Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin passed away today in Warsaw. Born in Mir, Russia, in 1816, he “was also known as Reb Hirsch Leib Berlin, and commonly known by the acronym Netziv.” Berlin “was…dean of the Volozhin Yeshiva and author of several works of rabbinic literature in Lithuania.”

1895: “A score of charitable” people from Brooklyn who are spending the summer at Tannersville, NY, hosted a fund raiser for the benefit of the Hebrew Sanitarium.

1895: Lucian Sanial spoke first tonight at the mass meeting in Union Square sponsored by several Jewish organizations held “express sympathy with the locked-out hat and cap makers.”

1895: During the mass meeting at Walhalla Hall on Orchard Street, it was announced that the strike by the tailors, most of whom are Jewish has come to an end.

1895: Birthdate of Harold Reichman, the native of Cincinnati, Ohio who at the age of 18 changed his name to Harry Richman – the name under which he carved out a career as “a singer, actor, dancer, comedian, pianist, songwriter, bandleader, and night club performer” who began his film career in the classic “Putting on the Ritz.”

https://www.nytimes.com/1972/11/04/archives/harry-richman-is-dead-at-77-broadway-singer-of-the-1930s.html

1896(1st of Elul, 5656): Rosh Chodesh Elul 

1896: Birthdate Pediatrician Dorothy Wilkes Weiss, the wife of Charles Wilkes who was active in Hadassah while living in San Francisco.

https://academic.oup.com/jid/article-abstract/38/4/281/885795?redirectedFrom=fulltext

1896: In New Haven, CT, “Jacob and Sonya (Secoll) Sobol gave birth to WW I veteran Louis Sobol, the “Broadway Columnist” who married Pearl Antman Sobol after the death of his first wife Leah Helen Cantor Sobol with whom he had had one child – Natalie Muriel Sobol Spritzler.

https://www.nytimes.com/1986/02/10/obituaries/louis-sobol-90-dies-broadway-columnist.html

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1986-02-11-8601090630-story.html

 1896: “Education in Germany” published today provided a statistical analysis by religion of the Germans “attending the universities and other higher educational institutions.  For every 10,000 Protestants, 50 of them are students; for every 10,000 Roman Catholics, 32 are students: for every 10,000 Jews, 333 are students. “These figures testify to the extreme value set on a university education by Jews in Germany and explain how it is that young Hebrews are pressing into all the learned professions in far greater proportion than their ratio to the entire population of the country would warrant.” (While the Jews may have been elated about this, many Germans thought the progress of the Jews had to be part of some evil plot which, however irrationally, fueled the flames of anti-Semitism)

1897(12thof Av, 5657): Moses Schloss, a native of Bavaria who has been a successful merchant in New York for the past 50 years passed away today which was his 79thbirthday.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F60A1EFE3B5D11738DDDA80994D0405B8785F0D3

1898: In Wellington, Nevada, the sheriff is about to close down the Occidental Colony Company which was organized and operated by Jewish immigrants from Russia.

1898: One day after she had passed away. Phoebe Winkel, the “wife of Israel J. Winkel” with she had five children – Joseph, Solomon, Kate, Sarah and Leah – was buried today at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.

1900: Birthdate of Philip Levine, the Russian born American pioneer in the research “of serums and antibodies who discovered the Rh factor in human blood.” (As reported by Peter B. Flint)

1902: Birthdate of Canadian Oscar winning actress Norma Shearer who converted to Judaism in 1927 when she married movie mogul Irving Thalberg.

1902: in Podgorze, Kraków's Jewish quarter, Rosa Philippine (née Blum) and Ignatz Siodmak, a devout Hasidic scholar gave birth to Kurt Siodmak who gained fame as “novelist and screenwriter” Curt Siodmak.

1903: The New York Times features a review of a compendium of the writings of Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler entitled Studies in Jewish Literature.

1905(9thof Av, 5665): Tish’a B’Av

1905:  The Russians and the Japanese begin peace talks at Portsmouth under the watchful eye of President Theodore Roosevelt.  The talks would bring an end to the Russo-Japanese War.  The Russians were humiliated by the defeat.  The Czar did make some half-hearted attempts at democratic reform which was encouraging to the Jews in the emerging Russian middle class.  At the same time, the Slavophiles, extreme Russian nationalists also sought power; trying to convince Nicholas II that Russia would only find greatness when it had rid itself of all Western and foreign (i.e. Jewish) influences.  In the end, nothing changed for the better and the Communists would come to power thirteen years later. Russian anti-Semitism gave the Japanese an edge in fighting the war.  The Russian government had refused to take responsibility for pogrom. It had blocked American attempts to investigate the treatment of the Russian Jews. When war broke between the Russians and the Japanese, several American Jewish financiers were instrumental in insuring that Japanese war underwritten which meant that the Japanese would have money to fight the war. 

1906: Birthdate of Abie Bain, the native of St. Petersburg, Russia who reportedly began his boxing career in the United States at the age of 12 as a flyweight but boxed as middleweight for most of his career except when he stepped up to Light Heavyweight class to fight Maxie Rosenbloom.

1907: At Cowes, Lord Rothschild is one of the notable guests aboard the famed yacht Margaritta one of only two vessels of interest at this fabled nautical event.

1910: The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that two valuable silver cups had been stolen from the Sons of Israel Synagogue in Camden, NJ.

1910: Birthdate of Veit Klein, who in 1942 was transported from Prague to Ujazdow where he was murdered.

1910(5thof A, 5670): Portland, OR, banker Benjamin Cohen passed away today.

1911: Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, headed a delegation of men interested in labor publications who appeared before the Congressional commission on second-class mail matter to protest against the raise in the rates.

1911: Birthdate of American playwright Jerome Chodorov, the New York native who is the brother of playwright Edward Chodorov.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0DE6DB1030F937A2575AC0A9629C8B63

1912(27thof Av, 5672): Parashat Re’eh

1912: Approximately 75 people attended services at the Social Hall of the Forest House in Kennebunkport, Maine, led by Rabbi Bernard. G. Ehrenreich of Montgomery, Alabama.

1912: Pitcher Barney Pely “known as ‘the Yiddish Curver’” appeared in his last major league as a member of the Washington Senators of the American League.

1913: The Second Balkan War comes to an end with the signing of the Treaty of Bucharest. As a result of the war, the final boundaries for the modern Greek state were finally established.  This led to an end of the “protected status” many Balkan Jews had enjoyed under Ottoman rule as they became citizens of Greece.

1913: One day after he had passed away, Myer Friedland, the husband of Eva Friedland with whom he had two children – Martha and Annie – was buried today at “the Belfast Jewish Cemetery in Northern Ireland.”









1913: The treaty ending the Second Balkan War signed today gave the town of Monastir, which had been home to a Jewish community since Roman times became part of Serbia and was renamed Bitola although the local Jews continued to refer to it by its Ottoman name.

1914: During WW on the Eastern Front, the Russian Army reached Tilsit.

https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/sovetsk/Tilsit_Jews.html

1914: Samuel Prince, a former Assemblyman from the east side and a labor agitator passed away and includes a bequest of fifty dollars to Samuel Gompers for use in supporting strikers in Colorado.

1915: During the Gallipoli campaign, which saw the appearance of the Zion Mule Corps, forces under Mustfa Kemal (who would gain fame as Ataturk)) defeated the Allies during the Battle of Sari Bair.

1916: Oscar S. Straus and Henry Morgenthau, the two previous U.S. Ambassadors to Turkey were sitting at the speakers table with Abram I. Elkus, the latest appointee to the position at a dinner at the Fruendschaft Society where the attendees expressed “satisfaction and pride in the service rendered to the nation by the Jews.”

1916: Chief Rabbi of Salonica received a telegram from the Minister of Interior stating the government has taken steps to ensure tranquility for the Jews on Corfu, after a blood libel accusation arose. 

1916: It was reported today that in Warsaw which is now under German rule “death from starvation” is so prevalent among the Jews, “that Jewish mothers feel happy to see their nursing babies die” because it puts an end to their suffering and that even the “wealthiest” Jews “cut off their daughters’ hair and sell it to be able to buy indispensable thing like bread for their dying children.”

1916: It was reported today that a commission has been to Switzerland to seek help in maintaining the soup kitchens for the Jews in Warsaw, but that the real hope is that American Jews will send aid because “should America not aid” them, the Jews of Warsaw “will be lost.”

1917: Dr. Reuben Blank sent a telegram today from Petrograd to Lucien Wolf in London that “in the press and proclamations” the “extreme Russian reactionaries, the extreme revolutionaries and the Black Hundreds” “go so far as to throw upon the Jews the entire responsibility for the war and for the obstacles in the way of a peace with Germany”

1917: The Central Committee of Council of Workmen and Soldiers” having learned “of the revival of anti-Semitic activity in the northwestern and southwestern provinces” dispatched “fifteen delegates to the affect districts to counteract the agitation.”

1917: “Professor Felix Frankfurter of Harvard, the assistant to the Secretary of War, who went abroad recently as a member of a semi-official commission” that sought to determine “the condition of the Jews of Palestine” returned to Washington, D.C.

1917: In Berlin, “five orthodox representative of the Jewish community resigned because of the appointment of a radical reformer, Dr. Benzion Kellerman, as a rabbi of the synagogue of the South-eastern district.
1918: During the Battle of Amiens which General John Monash was the commanding field officer, the French re-took the town of Montdidier.


1919(14th of Av, 5679):The Ukrainian National Army massacres 25 Jews in Podolia Ukraine

1919: Today, twenty year old New York native Barnett Robert Brickner who would served  the rabbi at Anshe Chesed for 33 years, “married Rebbeca Ena Aronson, a co-worker at the Bureau of Jewish Education” with whom he had two children – “Joy Marion and Arthur James Balfour Brickner.”

1920: The Turkish government renounced its sovereignty over Eretz Yisrael and recognized the British mandate.

1920: “Dr. Otis A Glazebrook, the United States Consul in Jerusalem,” who arrived in the United States today on a leave of absence “said that the British Government had a difficult problem to handle in its mandate over Palestine and the restoration of the country to the Jews.”

1920:  Birthdate of Basketball coach William Red Holzman When he retired, Red Holzman was the second winningest coach in NBA historywith 696 victories in regular season play, mostly with the New York Knickerbockers. His Knick teams won NBA championships in l970 and l973. Red was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach in 1986. Incidentally, the only man ahead of Holzman on the all-time win list was another Jew, Red Auerbach of the Boston Celtics.

1920: In London “Eight year old Jewish chess wonder” Samuel Rzeschewski “played simultaneous games against twenty strong amateur player at the Gambit Chess rooms” his evening and won 18 of he games and having two end in a draw.

1920(26th of Av, 5680): Eighty-four year old pioneer physician Adam Politzer and a founder of otology passed away today.

http://www.politzersociety.org/content.php?conid=687

1921: Eight days she had passed away, Rebecca Linneweil, the wife of Salomon Linneweil and the mother of Henriette Linneweil was buried today at London’s Edmonton Adath Yisroel Jewish Cemetery.

1923: In Carslbad, Dr. Glickson, a delegate to the Thirteenth Zionist Congress denounced the policy of the British administration in Palestine toward the Jews of the country and toward the Zionist movement. He declared that "the Government hinders the upbuilding of the Jewish national home."

1923: The American delegation to the Thirteenth Zionist Congress cabled the newly installed U.S. President, Calvin Coolidge, “a message of greeting” including wishes for  a “successful administration.  The Zionists…recalled that the President has on various occasions expressed his admiration of the effort to re-establish Palestine as the Jewish homeland.

1923: JTA does not publish its daily news bulletin today because it is the National Day of Mourning in memory of President Warren G. Harding.

1925: More 30,000 members of the ILGWU held a rally today at Yankee Stadium.  The Union was dominated by Jewish members and leaders including Morris Sigman the president from 1923 to 1928 who battled communists and bosses to improve the lot the working men and women of America.

1926(30th of Av, 5686): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1928: In Brooklyn, “businessman” Herman Sabin and pharmacist turned homemaker “Rachel (Davidson) Sabin” gave birth to drummer Ira Sabin, the founder of JazzTimes magazine. (As reported by Richard Sandomir)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/17/obituaries/ira-sabin-dies.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

1928: In Philadelphia, PA, Gitte (later Katherine "Katie" Winokur; 1) and Joseph Tisch gave birth to Edwin John Fisher who gained fame as Eddie Fisher, the  “crooner” and teen-age heartthrob in the 1950’s who dumped Debbie Reynolds to marry Elizabeth Taylor who in turn dumped him to marry Richard Burton.

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/25/arts/25fisher.html

1929(4thof Av, 5689): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon

1929(4thof Av, 5689): Seventy-five year old Aletta Jacobs, the female trailblazer who followed in her father’s footsteps and became a physician and was an active suffragette passed away today.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jacobs-aletta-henri-x00eb-tte

1929(4thof Ave, 5689): Seventy-five year old Aletta Henriëtte Jacobs “the first woman to attend a Dutch University officially and the first female physician in the Netherlands” passed away today.

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/jacobs-aletta-henriette

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jacobs-aletta-henri-x00eb-tte

1929: Two days before his 17th birthday, historian Max Dimont who had sailed to the United States in steerage aboard the SS Berengaria was discharged from the hospital on Ellis Island and begin the trip to his new home in Cleveland, Ohio with the rest of his family.

1929

1929: “The Awful Truth” a comedy filmed by cinematographer David Abel was released today in the United States.

1930: The fourth world congress of the Zionist Revisionists opened in Prague today under the presidency of Vladimir Jabotinsky. The Revisionists constitute the Opposition in the World Zionist Organization.

1932: In today’s diary entry, 18 year old Hermann Pressman, who would survive the Holocaust” described spending his Sunday evening with friends at a Berlin café.

1932: In Berlin “conductor and composer Walter Goehr” and wife gave birth to “British composer and Professor Peter Alexander Goehr.

https://www.mus.cam.ac.uk/directory/alexander-goehr

1933: In Amsterdam, 225 German-Jewish children, chiefly from the Rhine region, arrived to stay with Dutch Jewish families.

1933: Eighteen year old Heddy Lamarr married “Austrian military arms merchant and munitions manufacturer” Friedrich Mandl who “was reputed to be the third richest man in Austria.

1933: Der Ernes, the Yiddish language newspaper published in the Soviet Unon, reported that a farmer named Leiser Kabakoff, had been expelled from his collective in the Crimea for his efforts to get other farmers to refrain from working on the Sabbath.

1935(11thof Av, 5695): Shabbat Nachamu

1936: At Geneva, “the Polish delegation to the World Jewish Congress charged early today in a statement present at the third day’s session that Poland’s 3,500,000 Jews were being terrorized and made paupers. (Editor’s note – the rising tide of Polish anti-Semitism during the 1930’s might help to explain the ease with which her Jewish population was all but wiped in the Shoah)

1936: It was reported today that economist Jacob Lesthiesky estimated that “Nazism has reduced 20 to 22 per cent of All Germans to dependence on relief and 20 per cent of the Jews have already liquidated their affairs in preparation for emigration” and that Polish economist Dr. Arjeh Tartakower estimated that 200,000 Jews in world are being compelled to emigrate due to “economic or political pressure.”

1937: At the historic plenary session of the 20th Zionist Congress, held in Zurich under the chairmanship of Dr. Stephen Wise, a last desperate attempt was made by Menahem Ussishkin to prevent the adoption of a resolution that was tantamount to the Jewish acceptance of the Peel Report’s principle of Palestine’s partition. The acceptance of this proposal, said Ussishkin, means the end of our historic hope... it will mean that a great misfortune must befell us. Ussishkin criticized Moshe Shertok.

1937: The Weizmann policy on the partition of Palestine took textual form today in the draft of a resolution submitted to the political resolutions committee of the World Zionist Congress here. This body, elected today, started what promises to be an all-night secret debate on this resolution, particularly on the last two and most crucial points.

1937(3rdof Elul, 5697): Seventy-four year old Sarah Nathan, the Philadelphia born daughter of “Elvira S. and David Hays Solis,” the wife of Edgar Joshua Nathan and mother of Edgar Jr., Rosalie and Emily Nathan passed away today in Mamaroneck, NY.

1938: A group of Arabs carried out a daring day time robbery of the Barclays Bank at Nablus.  The proceeds of the action are thought to be a source of funding for the on-going wave of Arab terror and violence which claimed more Jewish victims today when a car filled with Jewish workers approaching an orange grove near Hadera struck a land mine and a Jewish cart driver was wounded by sniper fire as he drove along the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

1938: Three Hebrew language dailies, including Davar, published editorials condemning violence that was traced back to the Revisionists wing of the Zionist movement.

1938: Nuremberg Synagogue is burnt down.

1939: Bernhard Maissner (also known as Bejrich Bernhard Majzner) was forced to move to Bentschen, Poland before being shipped to Treblinka where “later he was declared to have perished.”

1940(6thof Av, 5700) Shabbat Chazon

1940: The government of Rumania passed anti-Jewish racial laws.

1941: The Red Army counterattacked invading Nazi forces near Yelnya, a city in which almost three hundred Jews were living in 1939.

1942(27th of Av, 5702): Twenty-seven year old Berta Samuel who had been shipped to Auschwitz from Drancy died at the Nazi death camp today.. 
1942: This was the first of thirteen days when over 40,000 Jews were shipped from Lvov to the death camp at Belzec.  By the end of the month, another 36,000 Jews from Lvov and its surrounding area would be shipped to Belzec where they would meet a similar fate.


1943(9th of Av, 5703): Tish'a B'Av

1943(9th of Av, 5703): Twenty-seven more Jews were found in the ‘Aryan' portion of the ghetto in Warsaw and were shot.

1944: In Manhattan, “Dr. Abraham Leff, a psychiatrist, and the former Rose Levy, a pharmacist” gave birth to Eugene Joel Leff, the lawyer who got justice for the victims of Love Canal.  (As reported by Sam Roberts)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/23/obituaries/eugene-leff-dies-at-73-fought-for-new-york-in-love-canal-case.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

1945(1stof Elul, 5705): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1945: A day after the United States dropped the Atomic Bomb on Nagasaki, the Japanese government sent word through diplomatic channels that it would accept the terms of the Potsdam Conference which meant that WW II was close to coming a close.

1945(1stof Elul, 5705): Staff Sargent Jack Winer, he “only son of a Jewish immigrant mother from Russia” and “a navigator for the 345th Bombardment Group, was killed during an air raid today days before the surrender of Japan” after which he was reinterred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in 1949 and erroneously “ended up with a cross on his headstone instead of the Star of David.”

1946: Kitty “Carlisle married playwright and theatrical producer Moss Hart today.

1948(5th of Av, 5708): Sixty-five year old Viennese native Nathan Eibschutz, the “son of Rabbi Rahmiel Eibschutz,” “a founder of Israel Zion Hospital,” the President and Treasurer of the Night and Day Press printing house and the husband of Ceclia Friedman Eibschutz, of blessed memory and the former Monya W. Tepperman, passed away today in Manhattan.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1948/08/11/85304588.pdf

1948: In another example of how a Jew helped to create American pop culture, Allen Funt's "Candid Camera" TV debuted on ABC.  Long before “reality t.v.” hit it big, Funt showed the world how to laugh with ordinary people doing ordinary things while the whole world (which was much smaller then) watched.

1948: A concert was held in Tel Aviv attended by Ben Gurion, Golda Meir and Moshe Sharett.

1949(15thof Av, 5709): Tu B’Av

1949(15thof Av, 5709): Yiddish author and Belarus native, Yosef or Joseph Tunkel who used “he pen name Der Tunkler” passed away today and was then “buried in the New Mount Carmel Cemetery.

https://web.archive.org/web/20070604022803/http://www.litjews.org/Default.aspx?Element=ViewArticle&ArticleID=1051&TopicID=174&Lang=EN

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosef_Tunkel

1950: “Sunset Boulevard” a film noir set in Hollywood directed by Billy Wilder who also co-authored the script, with music by Franz Waxman and co-starring Erich von Stroheim was released in the United States by Paramount Pictures.

1953: “The Caddy” a Martin and Lewis comedy directed by Norman Taurog and a script co-authored by Danny Arnold was released in the United States today.

1954: Today, Dr. Joseph Alexander, “a specialist in the study  and treatment of lung diseases” who played college football at Syracuse and who in 1925 “ was the first player to sign with the New York Giants football team when it was awarded an NFL franchise “was elected to the National Football Hall of Fame…”

1957: “The Rising of the Moon,” an Irish anthology film featuring Harold Golblatt in “A Minute’s Wait” was released in Ireland today by Warner Bros.

1957: Birthdate of Vienna native Danielle Spera, the journalist who brought new life to the Jewish Museum of Vienna when she began serving as director Vienna in 2010 and who had converted to Judaism (her father was Jewish but her mother was Catholic), married “psychoanalyst Martin Gilbert” with whom she is raising “three children – Samuel, Rachel and Deborah – in a traditional Jewish home.

1959:  In New York City, Brenda Olivia “Mardi” Nowak and Lewis Arquette gave birth Emmy nominated actress Rosanna Lisa Arquette who proved she could work “behind” the camera when directed the documentary “Searching of Debra Winger

1959: Today, the World Jewish Congress was told that “Premiere Nikita S. Khrushchev has indicated a willingness to discuss the condition of Jews in the Soviet Union when visits the United States next month.”

1960: In East Bergholt, Suffolk, “screenwriter, novelist and journalist” Frederic Raphael gave birth to English artist Sarah Natasha Raphael.

1960: The original “Ocean’s 11” directed and produced by Lewis Milestone, co-staring Sammy Davis, Jr. and Joey Bishop and featuring Norman Fell was released in the United States today.

1962: President Kennedy's Secretary of State Dean Rusk criticized Daniel Schorr's actions in a diplomatic cable today for a checkbook journalism story in which, “Schorr involved himself in a matter which was far beyond his private or journalistic responsibilities and proceeded amateurishly in a matter filled with greatest danger for all concerned.” (This was neither the first time nor the last time that Schorr would draw the ire of a government official including those in Washington and Moscow. 

1964: Alaska Democrat Ernest Gruening was one of only two Senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.  The two senators saw the resolution as “unconstitutional because it was ‘a pre-dated declaration of war power’ reserved to Congress. This vote cost Gruening his seat in the Senate; a fate that many of the johnny-come-lately opponents such as the anti-Semite J. William Fulbright were spared.

1965(12th of Av, 5725): Eighty-eight year old “specialist in criminal law and a founder of the doctrine of international criminal law” Emil Stanisław Rappaport passed away today.

http://www.bornglorious.com/person/?pi=/m/09v85c4

1969(26thof Av, 5729): Seventy-two year old Arthur J  “Art” Strauss also known as Dutch Strauss the fullback and running back for Phillips College before turning pro with the Toledo Marrons and the Kansas City Blues passed away today.

1970: “Diary of a Mad Housewife,” the film version of the novel by Sue Kaufman, starring Richard Benjamin was released in the United States today by Universal Pictures.

1972(30th of Av, 5732): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1973: It was reported today that the “national commander of the Jewish War Veterans” has described “the Watergate episode as the culmination of a decade of moral delinquency in the United States.” (JTA)

1976: In Toronto, the Paralympic Games in which volleyball player Hagai Zamier earned a Gold Medal, came to a closes.

1977: “The Kentucky Fried Movie,” a comedy written by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker was released in the United States today.

1979: “Americathon” a comedy produced by Joe Roth and starring Harvey Korman and Peter Riegert was released today in the United States today.

1981(10th of Av, 5741): Seventy-five year old Yeruham Cohen, an Arabic-speaker of Yemeni origin who was “an early Israeli undercover soldier” passed away today. He was a top aide to the commander of Israel's underground forces during the country's war for independence in 1948 and also belonged to a unit whose members disguised themselves as Arabs to infiltrate enemy lines.  Mr. Cohen is most famous for his acquaintance with Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, whom he met in 1948 during the Israeli war for independence while Israeli forces encircled Egyptian troops the southern Negev. According to historical accounts, Mr. Cohen saw the future President while watching the Egyptians retreat, shouted and ran toward him, and they shook hands warmly.

1980(28th of Av, 5740): Seventy-four year old Karl Wolf, a native of Austria who was the husband of Margit Wolf passed away today in Haifa.

1981: Pitcher Bob Tufts made his major league debut with the San Francisco Giants.

1982: Today President Ronald Reagan nominated UCLA trained attorney Alex, Kozinski, the Bucharest born son of Holocaust survivors to serve on the United States Claims Court.

1983(1stof Elul, 5743): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1986: A Broadway revival of “Me and My Girl” featuring George S. Irving in “his Tony nominated performance as Sir John” opened today at the Marquis Theatre.

1988:  After opening in Australia, “Crimes of the Future,” “a Canadian sci-fi film” directed by, produced by, written by, filmed by and edited by David Conenberg was release today in the United States.

1989(9thof Av, 5749): Tish’a B’Av

1989: Birthdate of Ben Sahar, Israeli born football (soccer) star.

1990: “Flaterliners” a sci-fi thriller directed by Joel Schumacher, the son of Swedish Jewess, was released throughout the United States today by Columbia Pictures.

1990: Eighty-two year old Martha Dodd Stern, the daughter of William Dodd, FDR’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany, who became an anti-Nazi, passed away today.  (As reported by Glenn Fowler)

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/08/29/obituaries/martha-dodd-stern-is-dead-at-82-author-and-an-accused-soviet-spy.html

1991(30thof Av, 5751): Shabbat and Rosh Chodesh Elul

1991(30thof Av, 5751): Eighty-five year old Hans Jacob Polostky, the native of Zurich and German educated orientalist who made Aliyah in 1935 to escape the Nazis and became an award winning Professor at Hebrew University passed away today.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13173/medilangrevi.8.1994.0001?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

1993: Ruth Bader Ginsburg was sworn as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme court. Thus she became the second woman, and the first Jewish woman, to serve on the Supreme Court. Ginsburg replaced retiring justice Byron R. White. “Born in Brooklyn on March 15, 1933, Ginsburg was the first in her immediate family to attend college. She earned her B.A. from Cornell, with High Honors in Government, in 1954. Admitted to Harvard Law School, she delayed her studies to move with her husband to Oklahoma, where she worked for the Social Security Administration. Returning east, Ginsburg enrolled at Harvard in 1956, but switched to Columbia Law School for her final year when her husband accepted a job offer from a prestigious New York law firm. At both Harvard and Columbia, Ginsburg was accepted to the Law Review; at Columbia, she tied for first in her class. Despite this record of achievement, Ginsburg found it difficult to work as a lawyer upon graduation. Few judges and no law firms were willing to accept a woman as clerk or staff member. Finally, she won a clerkship with Judge Edmund L. Palmieri of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Palmieri accepted her only on the promise from a male lawyer that if Ginsburg did not work out, the man would leave a law firm job to become a law clerk. That proved unnecessary. After her clerkship, Ginsburg worked for the Columbia Project on International Civil Procedure, which did basic research on foreign systems of civil procedure and recommended changes in the U.S. system of transnational litigation. With the completion of the Columbia Project, Ginsburg embarked on an academic career, first at Rutgers University (1963-1972) (where she was paid less than her male colleagues), and then at Columbia (1972-1980), where she was the first tenured woman on the law faculty. Just before her move to Columbia, Ginsburg also became co-director of the ACLU's Women's Rights Project.

Dividing her time between Columbia and the ACLU, Ginsburg worked extensively on sex-discrimination cases, especially those relating to employment. In this work, Ginsburg filed briefs in nine major sex discrimination cases that were decided by the Supreme Court, personally arguing six of them. Ginsburg argued that protections granted to persons under the constitution should apply to women and, thus, successfully established that differential treatment based on gender was unconstitutional. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed Ginsburg to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. She served there for thirteen years, until her nomination and confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court. In nominating Ginsburg to the Supreme Court, President Clinton described her as "one of our nation's best judges, progressive in outlook, wise in judgment, balanced and fair in her opinions." He also said that "Ruth Bader Ginsburg cannot be called a liberal or a conservative. She has proved herself too thoughtful for such labels." Ginsburg's record as a centrist likely helped to ease her confirmation; the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously endorsed her nomination, and the full Senate voted 96-3 in her favor.

On the Court, Ginsburg's work has been characterized by cool logic and reason, and a pragmatism that takes into account the real-life implications of Court decisions. In her written decisions she has continued to establish the constitutional basis for prohibiting discrimination based on gender. Justice Ginsburg has actively participated in this year's 350th anniversary celebrations of Jewish life in North America, pointing proudly to Judaism's eternal pursuit of justice, the promise of America, and the accomplishments of Jewish women who have preceded her. The resignation of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor makes Justice Ginsburg the only woman on the Supreme Court.”

1994(3rdof Elul, 5754): Paul Grossman, who had been married to Shirley Gorssman and was a member of Larchmont Temple in Larmchont, NY passed away today

1997: The New York Times book section featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Secret Channels: The Inside Story of Arab-Israeli Peace Negotiationsby Mohamed Heikal and Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America by Elliott Abrams

1997(7th of Av, 5757): Sixty-three year old Professor George Zames “known for his fundamental contributions to the theory of robust control” and who was one of the Jews saved by Japanese Consul Senpo Sugihara passed away today.

http://www.autsubmit.com/editorials/ed34_3.html

2000(9thof Av, 5760): Tish’a B’Av

2000:At the U.S. Olympic swimming trials in Indianapolis, Indiana, Dara Torres swam the 100-meter butterfly in a time of 57.86. Jenny Thompson was ahead of her by eight one-hundredths of a second, but Torres's time was good enough to qualify her for the Olympics in Sydney. It would be her fourth Olympic Games.

2001: “American Pie 2” a sequel to “American Pie” with a story by David H. Steinberg and Adam Herz who also wrote the screenplay and co-starring Eugene Levy was released in the United States today by Universal Studios.

2002(2ndof Elul, 5762): Parashat Shoftim

2002: Thirty-one year old Yafit Herenstein was shot in her home by members of the Al-Aqsa Brigades

2003: “Shattered Glass” a biopic based on the fraudulent journalistic career of Stephen Glass premiered today at the Toronto International Film Festival today.

2003: The Sunday New York Times book section includes reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including  When the Chickens Went on Strike: A Rosh Hashanah Tale,Erica Silverman’s adaption of a story by Sholom Aleichem illustrated by Matthew Trueman,  Lay Back the Darkness, a collection of poems by Edward Hirsch a Midwestern man with a Jewish heritage and  Ronit Matalon's novel Bliss translated by Jessica Cohen that “focuses on Israel's two pains: the kind it suffers and the kind it inflicts”

2003(12thof Av, 5763): Sixteen year old Haviv Dadon was “killed by shrapnel from an anti-aircraft shell fired from Lebanon.”

2005: “Escape: Human Cargo,” co-starring Sasson Gabai was broadcast for the first time in Hungary.

2005: “In his first speech before the Knesset following his resignation, Netanyahu spoke of the necessity for Knesset members to oppose the proposed disengagement” from Gaza.

2006(16th of Av, 5766): IDF Staff Sergeant Kobi Idan, 26, from Eilat was killed and at least 16 other soldiers were wounded, nine of them seriously, in the clashes with Hezbollah.

2006: In “Party No. 3” published today David Brooks “imagined a moderate McCain-Lieberman Party in opposition to both major parties, which he perceived as polarized and beholden to special interests.

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/10/opinion/10brooks.html

2006: Twenty-four year old Angelo Frammartino, from Monte Rotondo, Italy was stabbed to death by an Arab terrorist in Jerusalem.

2006: During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, Israeli authors, David Grossman, Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua spoke at a press conference calling upon the government to agree to a ceasefire as a basis for talks toward a negotiated solution, describing further military action as "dangerous and counterproductive" and expressing particular concern for the Lebanese government. [Editor’s note - Two days later, Grossman’s 20-year-old son Uri, a staff sergeant in an armored unit, was killed by an anti-tank missile during an IDF operation in southern Lebanon shortly before the ceasefire.]

2007: The Indianapolis Colts placed tight end Mike Seidman on the injured reserve list

2007: Colonel Giora "Hawkeye" Epstein “was the primary subject of the "Desert Aces" episode of The History Channel series Dogfights that aired for the first time tonight.”

2007 (26th of Av): On the secular calendar commemoration of  Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson’s, the third Rebbe of the Chabad dynasty, popularly known as the "Tzemach Tzedek," departure from Petersburg after having successfully prevented the government's disruption of traditional Jewish life.2008(9th of Av, 5768): Tish'a B'Av

2008:The New York Times book section featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about topics of Jewish interest includingThe Challenge:Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight Over Presidential Power by Jonathan Mahler, My Sister, My Love by Joyce Carol Oates,American Priestess: The Extraordinary Story of Anna Spafford and the American Colony in Jerusalemby Jane Fletcher Geniesse and Kingmakers:The Invention of the Modern Middle East by Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac.

2008: TheJerusalem Post reported that the Jewish Agency has released a statement that some 200 Jews living near the town Gori, on the South Ossetia border, were advised to evacuate to the Georgian capital after the outbreak of hostilities with Russia two days ago.

2008(9th of Av, 5768): Howard G. Minsky, a former Hollywood talent agent and the producer of the movie “Love Story,” passed away today at the age of 94. Mr. Minsky began his career during the silent-film era and sold reels of film door to door before breaking into the Hollywood scene. He worked as an executive for 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures and as a talent agent for the William Morris Agency. In the 1960s he left the agency to produce the romantic drama “Love Story,” written by one of his clients, Erich Segal. Released in 1970, it became a blockbuster, winning five Golden Globes, including best picture, and an Academy Award for music.

2009: The exhibit, Bagels & Barbeque: The Jewish Experience in Tennessee which documents the history of Jewish immigration to Tennessee opened at Chattanooga State, the College on the River.

2009: Opening of the Tzfat [Safed] Klezmer Festival

2009 (20th of Av): On the Jewish calendar, Yahrzeit of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, father of the seventh and last Chabad-Lubavitch Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. A brave and educated soul, he after being imprisoned by the Soviets for thwarting the Communists attempts to wipe out Jewish civilization.

2009: Israeli aircraft bombed tunnels early today along the Gaza Strip border with Egypt, Hamas officials and witnesses said.

2010(30th of Av, 5770): David L. Wolper, an award-winning movie and television producer best known for the groundbreaking mini-series “Roots,” passed away today at the age of 82.  Mr. Wolper produced hundreds of films and television shows, including the hit 1983 mini-series “The Thorn Birds,” a romantic drama set in Australia, with Richard Chamberlain and Rachel Ward. But the work with which he was most closely associated was “Roots,” shown in eight parts on ABC in 1977. The saga of an African-American family’s journey from Africa to slavery and emancipation, based on the best-selling book by Alex Haley, “Roots,” with a cast including LeVar Burton, Ben Vereen and many others, was not the first mini-series, but it was the first to have a major influence not just in the ratings but in American culture. One of the highest-rated entertainment programs in television history, it went on to win nine Emmy Awards and ignited a lively national discussion about race.  Another of Mr. Wolper’s productions, “The Hellstrom Chronicle” (1971), a film concerned with mankind’s real and imagined difficulties with insects, won an Academy Award.  Mr. Wolper was also a tireless showman and a flamboyant organizer of major events. He oversaw the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles, replete with sky divers, break dancers and 84 pianists playing music by George Gershwin. He again dazzled an international television audience when he choreographed a celebration in New York Harbor on July 4, 1986, to observe the 100th anniversary of the dedication of the Statue of Liberty, in which several thousand rockets were set off amid a backdrop of hundreds of tall ships gracing the harbor around the statue. Mr. Wolper initially made his mark as a producer of documentaries and later focused on fictionalized accounts of historical events. He drew his share of criticism: it was sometimes suggested that his documentaries were not sufficiently probing, that his so-called docudramas took too many liberties with the facts, that he was more showman than historian. In 1966 Jack Gould, the television critic of The New York Times, noted that some financiers and government officials had been permitted an advance look at Mr. Wolper’s CBS documentary “Wall Street: Where the Money Is.” “Wolper is incredibly naïve if he fails to understand the consequences of allowing participants in a controversial news story to have the right of advance approval,” Mr. Gould wrote. Mr. Wolper admitted that he had let the officials see the film or read his script before it was broadcast, but insisted he had made no deletions and was not asked to make any. Critics were also cool to many of his big-screen productions, which included “If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium” (1969), “I Love My Wife” (1970) and “One Is a Lonely Number” (1972), although he received good reviews for some, notably “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” (1971) and “L.A. Confidential” (1997), which won two Oscars. “The Bridge at Remagen” (1969), about a World War II battle in Germany, was probably the Wolper movie that attracted the most attention — not for what was on the screen, but because his production company was run out of Czechoslovakia when the Soviet Army invaded. Mr. Wolper scored an early success in 1963 with the television documentary “The Making of the President 1960,” based on Theodore H. White’s best-selling book about John F. Kennedy’s quest for the White House. It won four Emmys, including program of the year. Other noteworthy television projects in the 1960s included the series “Biography,” “Hollywood and the Stars” and “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau.” In the 1970s he branched out into sitcoms, producing “Chico and the Man” and “Welcome Back, Kotter” with James Komack. David Wolper (he had no middle name, but used the middle initial L to distinguish himself from an uncle also named David Wolper) was born on the East Side of Manhattan on Jan. 11, 1928, the only child of Irving S. Wolper, a businessman, and the former Anna Fass. As a teenager he spent a lot of time watching movies, and people noticed that he had a knack for selling things. Upon graduation from Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School, he entered Drake University in Des Moines, remained there a year, then transferred to the University of Southern California for two more years. He left the university at the end of his junior year because he thought he could make money by purchasing old movies and selling them to television stations all over the country. He was right.

In 1958, sensing that the footage shot of the Soviet satellite Sputnik would be worth something, he purchased 6,000 feet of it from Artkino, the official Soviet distributor, and used it as the basis for a documentary, “The Race for Space,” which he sold to more than 100 stations in the United States after all three networks turned it down. Making documentaries for television, he soon learned, was not easy. The networks had large news and public affairs departments staffed by seasoned journalists, and network executives tended to be wary of documentaries produced by outsiders. Undaunted, Mr. Wolper began Wolper Productions on a shoestring. The company’s early projects included “The Rafer Johnson Story” (1961), “Hollywood: The Golden Years” (1961) and “D-Day” (1962). Reviews were mixed, but viewers were receptive. By the mid-1970s Wolper Productions had grown from two people in a one-room office to more than 200 employees using 40 cutting rooms. In 1971 Mr. Wolper produced “Appointment With Destiny,” a series that mixed historical footage with dramatic re-enactments. John J. O’Connor, writing in The Times, criticized it as “pure fiction cleverly masquerading as reality.” Mr. Wolper responded in a letter to the editor: “How else can we approach the past? Shall we leave it, defeated and ignorant, because we cannot fully reconstruct it any more than we can relive it?” Mr. Wolper remained active as a producer of mini-series and documentaries well into the 1990s. Besides “The Thorn Birds,” his noteworthy later productions included “North and South” (1985). In 2002 he revisited his most famous production with the television special “Roots: Celebrating 25 Years.” Mr. Wolper was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ Hall of Fame in 1989. In 2003 he published his autobiography, written with David Fisher. Its title was “Producer.”  (As reported by Richard Severo)

2010(30th of Av, 5770): Rosh Chodesh Elul

2010(30th of Av, 5770): Ninety year old author Nancy Freedman passed away.


2010(30th of Av, 5770): Eighty-two year old David L. Wolper, who changed America’s view of race and slavery with “Roots”, passed away today. (As reported by Richard Severo)


2010: Paul Hunt began serving as Canada’s Ambassador to Israel.

2010: The first public screening of “A Film Unfinished” is scheduled to take place at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City.

2010: While testifying before the Turkel Committee today, Defense Minister Ehud Barak “placed the blame” for the botched flotilla raid “on the IDF, which he said was responsible for warning the government if ‘the mission cannot be carried out.’ In the case of the flotilla the IDF did not warn, Barak said.

2010: “The Human Resources Manager” the movie version of the A.B. Yehoshua novel by the same name directed by Eran Riklis and starring Mark Ivanir was released today in Israel.

2011: The International Master Course for Violinists which has been taking place amid the scenic mountains of the western Galilee at Kibbutz Eilon is scheduled to come to an end today.

2011: The DC Premiere “Maya” is scheduled to take place at this evening’s WJFF (Washington Jewish Film Festival) Friend-raiser Screener and Party

2011: Philip Levine was named tody as the new poet laureate of the United States. Levine has an MFA through the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop. His works include a "continuous examination of his Jewish immigrant inheritance.

2011The Romanian Academy said today that it will change its definition of an anti-Semitic slur in a dictionary to make it clear the word is pejorative.

2011:The International Master Course for Violinists which is taking place at Kibbutz Eilon is scheduled to come to an end.

2012: Rookie right tackle Mitchell Schwartz is scheduled to start in the Detroit Lions’ first exhibition pro-football game.

2012: The Russian Olympic basketball team coached by Israeli-American David Blatt is scheduled to play Spain today in the semifinals.

2012: Victor Lieberman is scheduled to lead Shabbat eve services at B’nai Israel in Grand Forks, ND

2012: Ben Sarasin will help lead Shabbat eve services at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as part of his “Bar Mitzvah Weekend.”

2012: Shai Wosner is scheduled to perform at Lincoln Center

2012:New Zealand Jewish sailor Jo Aleh and her partner Polly Powrie won the gold medal in the women’s 470 regatta. Aleh, 26, whose parents are dual Israeli-New Zealand citizens, skippered the pair into the lead from the start of the gold medal race today at the London Olympic Games

2012: Israeli rhythmic gymnast Neta Rivkin leapt to the finals after her ribbon routine in the individual qualifiers today at the London Games.

2012: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have “almost finally” decided on an Israeli strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities this fall, and a final decision will be taken “soon,” Israel’s main TV news broadcast reported this evening.

2013: “Dancing in Jaffa” and “Gideon’s Army” are scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2013: Kol HaOt is scheduled to sponsor “The Sounds of Elul” featuring Yehuda Katz.

2013: An al-Qaeda-linked group active in the Sinai Peninsula said today that its fighters were the target of a reported Israeli drone strike into Egyptian territory, a rare operation that could indicate increased Egyptian-Israeli security cooperation against militants in the lawless border zone. (As reported by Maamoun Youssef)

2013: “Israeli tennis star Shahar Pe'er won her first tournament in four years today, defeating unseeded Zheng Saisai 6:2, 2:6, 6:3 in the final of the Suzhou Ladies Open in Suzhou China.”

2014:  The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Lena Finkle’s Magic Barrel written and illustrated by Anya Ulinich, Becoming Freud:

The Making of a Psychoanalyst by Adam Phillips, Lucky Us by Amy Bloom and Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Charles Marsh.

2014: Congregation HarTzeon – Agudath Achim is scheduled to host a trip to NYC see the off-Broadway musical “Atomic” about the Manhattan Project.

2014: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host a “conversation with Holocaust survivor Steen Metz.”

2014: “Rocket fire from the Gaza Strip continued today, with over nine rockets being shot at Israel throughout the day. Six hit the Eshkol Regional Council in the early hours, while two others slammed into Sderot, starting a small fire. Two more rockets were intercepted about the city.” (As reported by Ilana Curiel)

2014:” Air raid sirens sounded in Ashdod at 10 pm, two hours before the start of an Egyptian-brokered temporary truce.”(As reported by Matan Tzuri)

2014: The Miami Herald reported today that “the Jewish community of Miami is offering $50,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest of the two suspects in the death of Rabbi Joseph Raksin” who was murdered while walking to services on Shabbat.

2014: Rabbi Joseph Raskin who was murdered in Florida yesterday as he walked to Shabbat services is scheduled to be buried today.

2014: For King and Country? a major new exhibition exploring the Jewish experience of the First World War is scheduled to come to a close today at the Jewish Museum in London.

http://www.jewishmuseum.org.uk/kingandcountry

2015: YIVO and the Congress for Jewish Culture are scheduled to present “Night of the Murdered Poets” during which Ala Zuskin Perelman, daughter of Soviet Yiddish actor, Benjamin Zuskin will discuss her recent biography, The Travels of Benjamin Zuskin about her father’s tragic life and work as an actor and artistic director of the Moscow State Jewish Theater.

2015: Thanks to the efforts of New York State Assembly member Todd Kaminsky, the nephew of Mel Brooks, the emergency room at the Long Beach Community Center that had been closed since Hurricane Sandy reopened today.

2015: The 2015 AIPAC Iowa Annual Event is scheduled to take place this evening in Des Moines.

2015: “I’m convinced that Fiamma Nirenstein” whose appointment as Israel’s ambassador to Rome has rattled the Italian Jewish community “will bring with her to the position lots of diplomatic and political experience, and will succeed in deepening the relationship between Israel and Italy, our close friends, and act for diplomatic, economic, cultural and security cooperation,” Netanyahu said in a statement today

2015: “A disaster at Ben Gurion International Airport was narrowly averted today when a drone came dangerously close to an incoming plane, forcing the aircraft to adjust its course.”

2015: Just days before his death, Kate Edgar, “the longtime personal assistant” of Dr. Oliver Sacks “who described herself as his ‘collaborator, friend, researcher and editor’ wrote in an email ‘He is still writing with great clarity.  We are pretty sure he will go with fountain pen in hand.’”

2015: “The Obama administration, citing the potential for economic and political harm to the Palestinian Authority and the broader peace process, asked a judge today to “carefully consider” the size of the bond he requires for the authority to appeal a huge damages award for its role in six terrorist attacks in Israel that killed and injured Americans.

2016: William Korn is scheduled to lecture on “Pioneer Jews of Leadville, Colorado, 1878-1914” and David McDonald is scheduled to lecture on “A Gentile in the Tribe: Using Christian Church Records” at the 36th IAJGCS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Seattle.

2016: Today Luciana Berger was not selected by the “Labor Party candidate for the position of Metro Mayor of Liverpool.”

2016: “Deli Man” a film that paints a portrait of the rapidly disappearing delicatessens in the United States” is scheduled to be shown in London tonight. 

2017: In Weimar, YSW is scheduled to host both a Dance Orchestra Workshop and Dance Workshop followed in the evening by a series of Yiddish music jam sessions.

2017: “Ballet Pécs, the first contemporary ballet company of Hungary,” is scheduled to present “Carmen” as part of the dance festival in Tel Aviv.

2017: In light of terrorist tunnel attacks, an Israeli military official said “that the army does not believe Hamas has any justification to prevent Israeli from building a protective barrier” and “therefore it will tolerate an attempts by the terror group to interfere with its construction.”

2018: Seventy years and one day after fifty year old Chaim Soutine died in Paris while trying to avoid capture by the Gestapo, the Jewish Museum is scheduled to host a tour of the exhibition “Chaim Soutine: Flesh” featuring thirty of picture painted by the French expressionist.

2018: “Classical Bridge, an international music festival, academy and conference designed to build bridges through the music” featuring violinist Pinchas Zuckerman and clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein is scheduled to continue today in New York.

2018: As Israelis awaken, the question on everybody’s mind is will the truce with Hamas that was supposed to go into effect last night hold or will the rockets and flammable kites return.

2019: In Pittsburgh, PA, the Manor Theatre is scheduled to host a screening of “The Spy Behind Home Plate” that “among the dedications at the end of the Film is the Tree of Life Congregation” which was attacked by a gunman in October of 2018.

2019: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center are scheduled to host a book signing with Steve Schapiro, “the photojournalist behind” the museum’s “Activists and Icons” exhibit.

2019(9thof Av, 5779): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon; Erev Tish’a B’Av; for more see http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/

This Day, August 11, In Jewish History

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August 11

1492: Alexander VI is elected Pope.  Alexander was one of the Borgia popes.  He had reputation for “moral depravity” and was more politician than prelate.  He defied Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain by allowing large numbers of Marranos who were fleeing the Inquisition to take refuge in Rome.  He did reduce the size of the badge worn by the Jews under his rule but raised their taxes by five per cent.  He also lengthened the course that the Jews of Rome were forced to run each year so that he could view it from the comfort of his castle.  The Jews were forced to run naked much to the amusement of the Christian population of Rome – the home of Catholicism.  Everything is relative and for all of his shortcomings, Alexander VI’s treatment of the Jews was a lot better than that of the other Catholic strongman of the day, The Grand Inquisitor – Torquemada.

1634: Seventeen arrests were made by the Inquisition after a man turned another man in for being "unwilling to make a sale on Saturday," and for not wanting to eat bacon.

1667(21st of Av, 5427): Jonah Abravanel, a Dutch Jewish poet and author, passed away today at Amsterdam.   “He was the son of the physician Joseph Abravanel, and a nephew of Manasseh ben Israel.

1770: Moses Mendelssohn and his wife the former Fromet (Frumet) Guggenheim gave birth to Joseph Mendelssohn, their oldest son, founder of the bank Mendelssohn & Co. and along with his sister Recha were the only two of the couple’s six children to remain Jewish.

1772: Following the partition of Poland which gave the Russians a large, unwanted population, Catherine II whom the Boyars call “Great,” issued an order that read, “Jewish communities residing in the towns, cities and territories now incorporated in the Russian Empire shall be left in the enjoyment of all those liberties with regard to their religion and property which they at present possess.” 

1778: Birthdate of Prussian native Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, the German nationalist whose statement in 1810 that "Poles, French, priests, aristocrats and Jews are Germany's misfortune” are an example of views that Peter Vierck among others  claimed made him “the spiritual founder of Nazism” – a claim challenged by the highly respected Jacques Barzun who “observed that Viereck's portrait of cultural trends supposedly leading to Nazism was "a caricature without resemblance" relying on "misleading shortcuts.”

1786: Captain Francis Light establishes the British colony of Penang in Malaysia. The Penang Jewish Cemetery, established in 1805, is believed to be the oldest single Jewish cemetery in Malaysia.  According to legend, the first Jews may have actually come to Malaysia as far back as the 11thcentury.

1793: Thirty-four year old Jacob Aaron who had passed away on Shabbat, was buried today at the Alderney Road Jewish Cemetery in the UK.

1799(10th of Av, 5559): Tish’a B’Av observed for the last time in the 18th century

1800: Today, “Benjamin Nones,” who had come to the United States from Bordeaux in 1777 “published a reply to an anonymous anti-Semitic letter which had been printed on August 5 in the Gazette of the United States.

1804: Francis II assumed the title of first Emperor of Austria. When it came to his Jewish subjects, Francis and his chief minister, Metternich followed in the footsteps Maria Theresa and not the more liberal Joseph II.  During his reign ghettos were set up in Austria.  Jews were not allowed to settle in the province of Tyrol.  Stringent restrictions were placed on where Jews could live in Bohemia and Moravia. In Vienna, a special tax was placed on all Jews who entered the capital.   While the Emperor “ennobled a few Jews” he “humiliated” the remainder of the population. Jewish marriages were restricted to the eldest son or those who had enough money to pay large bribes to the appropriate officials.

1810: In Oberdöbling near Vienna, banker Joseph von Henikstein and his wife, the former Elisabeth von Sonnenstein gave birth to Alfred von Henikstein who was baptized as a child making him  the highest ranking officer of Jewish parentage in the Austrian army and chief of staff before the battle of Königgrätz in the Austro-Prussian War

1824: Yitzhak ben Sampson married Perla bat Benjamin today.

1827: Birthdate of Jesse Seligman, the German born American banker and philanthropist whose career began in Alabama and ended in San Francisco, CA.


1828: Birthdate of Edward Salomon a native of Saxony who served as Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin from 1860 to 1862 at which time he became the state’s 8thGovernor when Louis P Harvey drowned in the Tennessee River.

1830(22nd of Av, 5590): Dr. Philip Moses Russell, a native of England who began serving as a medical officer for various units in the Revolutionary War starting in 1775 passed away today.  In addition to his medical work for which he was commended by George Washington, Russell and six other Jews “volunteered as guides to lead the American forces through the woods and swamps in a surprise attempt to recapture British-held Savannah, GA.”

1833: Birthdate of Robert G. Ingersoll, Civil war soldier, orator and defender of agnosticism.  He was the author of “Some Mistakes Moses Made” which begins “For many years I have regarded the Pentateuch simply as a record of a barbarous people, in which are found a great number of the ceremonies of savagery, many absurd and unjust laws, and thousands of ideas inconsistent with known and demonstrated facts. To me it seemed almost a crime to teach that this record was written by inspired men; that slavery, polygamy, wars of conquest and extermination were right, and that there was a time when men could win the approbation of infinite Intelligence, Justice, and Mercy, by violating maidens and by butchering babes.” Ingersoll was not an anti-Semite.  He had a “low opinion” of other religions as well.

1840: Lord Palmerston the British Foreign Secretary wrote a letter to the ambassador in Constantinople that said, “There exists…among the Jews…a strong notion that the time is approaching when their nation is to return to Palestine…. I instruct you… to strongly recommend that the Turkish Government … encourage the Jews of Europe to return to Palestine.”  Palmerston was not philo-Semite or a proto-Zionist.  Rather he was an English statesmen looking to bring what he considered Western civilization to the Orient.

1843(15th of Av, 5603): Tu B’Av

1844: Birthdate of Wilhelm Stern the son of a rabbi in Posen who became a German physician.

1844: Just days before his death, Rabbi Aron Chorin sent an address to the conference of Hungarian rabbis meeting at Páks.

1848: Establishment of The United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia to which Amy Totenberg would be appointed in 2011 making her the first Jewish woman to serve in such a capacity.

1851: In Vienna, Eleanor and Josef Pick gave birth to Leopold Pick

1852: In Bielostok, Russia, Noah Brodsky and his wife gave birth to Hyman Brodsky who “was instrumental in establishing Sheltering Homes, Talmud Torah Schools, Free Schools, Free Libraries, Building Associations, Loan Associations, Chevra Kadisha and Zionist Societies in New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Providence, RI, Troy, NY and Newark, NJ where since 1899 he has served as the rabbi of Congregation Anshe Russia.

1852: One day after he had passed away, Simon Simmons, the son of Joseph of Rosa Simmons and the husband of Catherine Davis with whom he had seven children – Rosetta, Esther, Israel, Caroline, Joseph, Mary Ann and Elizabeth – was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.

1853: It was reported today that an unnamed Jew owns a house at Table Rock adjacent to the Great Horse Shoe Falls where visitors can buy brandy and cigars and seek protection from the spray of the cataract.

1856:  Isle Dernière (Last Island), a barrier island southwest of New Orleans which has served as a resort was destroyed today by the Last Island Hurricane whose victims included more than one unnamed Jewish resident.



1857:During a debate on India, Benjamin Disraeli reiterated his conviction that the mutiny in India was more than just a military matter and that the government was not taking the correct measures in the matter. He also repudiated the government's faith in European alliances declaring that could not be depended upon.

1858(1st of Elul, 5618): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1859: In Deal, Kent, Amalia Monies, and Charles Kahn gave birth to Jenny Kahn the wife of Arthur Rothenborg

1860: The Jewish Messenger cautions “the public against an impostor, who calls himself Nelton and Abramowitsch, according to circumstances,” who writes his name with Hebrew letters “which may mean saint or sinner, as far as the knowledge of the common crowd goes. He dresses in priestly attire, so the Messenger says, with a white cravat and black cassock. While asking the Editor for charity, he appropriated an article of silver-ware from the mantelpiece”.

1862: In a letter written today addressed to the Adjutant General of the United States Army, General William Tecumseh Sherman warned that "the country will swarm with dishonest Jews" if continued trade in cotton is encouraged. (In a letter written in 1858, Sherman had described Jews as "…without pity, soul, heart, or bowels of compassion…"  During the Civil War Sherman had numerous Jews serving in the various armies under his command with no whiff of anti-Semitism attached to his decisions.  This included the 82ndIllinois Regiment that included a large contingent of Chicago Jews and was commanded by Edward S. Salomon.  The regiment fought under his command during Sherman’s brilliant Atlanta Campaign and rose to the rank of General as Sherman’s forces bravely marched north from Savannah to help trap the remaining Confederate forces.

1862: During the Civil War, Philadelphian Jacob Benedict a Corporal in Company H of the 122ndRegiment began serving in the Union Army.

1862: During the Civil War, Philadelphians Elias Bear, Lewis Cohen, Isaac Davidson, Henry Myers and David Fellenbaum began their nine month enlistment in the 122ndRegiment.

1862: Sarah Bernhardt made her acting debut at the Comédie Française in the title role of Racine's Iphigénie.

1864(9th of Av,5624): Tish’a B’Av (Did the Jewish soldiers fighting in the Union’s multi-prong offensive against the Rebels fast as they made their way across Northern Virginia and Georgia.

1865(19th of Av, 5625): Fifty year old Abraham Mordka Alter, the son of Yitzchak Alter and Feigele Lipschitz passed away today in Warszawa, Poland.

1866: Ernest Abraham Hart “was appointed editor of the British Medical Journal” today.

1867:  Birthdate of Joseph Weber, one half of the vaudeville comedy act of Weber and Fields. Playing Jews was not a key to show biz success when this team started out.  Some of their early success came playing Dutch (German characters) and Irishmen, something their audiences really enjoyed.

1872: In Baltimore, MD, “Charles and Caroline (Frank) Adler gave birth to Johns Hopkins alum and University of Maryland trained physician Harry Adler, the husband of Carrie F. Adler who “founded and endowed the dental clinic at the Hebrew Hospital where he was an “attending physician” for ten years.

1873: Philadelphian Jonathan Manly Emanuel, the son of London born physician Manly Emanuel, who had joined the U.S. Navy as an engineer during the Civil War completed a month tour at the Navy Yard in Philadelphia today after which he was assigned to the “Tuscarora.”

1879: It was reported today that there are parts of Coney Island, New York’s popular resort, where “Jews are not tolerated.”

1879: The New York Times featured a review of Somebody’s Ned by Mrs. A.M. Freeman. This is a work of romantic fiction combined with a murder mystery.  In this case the star crossed lovers are a French Catholic named Danton Roland and French Jewess named Rachel Rosenthal as well David Dudley and Jessica-Rachel.  The plot thickens when Solomon Rosenthal is found dead. To find “who done it” go to

1879: In White Plains, New York, Justice C.W. Cochrane heard a case in which the Osmond C Lyon had filed a complaint against a Jewish merchant – Adolph D. Pollack – for selling cigars and neckties on Sunday in violation of the “blue laws.” The defendant responded that he had not violated the law because he had not “exposed” his goods “for sale” and had only sold them quietly when requested. He also said that as a Jew, he observed the Sabbath on Saturday and the enforcement of the law in this manner was a violation of the New York Constitution which prohibits interference with his religious views.

1879: “A Cool Day At Coney Island” published today shows that prejudice against Jews is now becoming prevalent at the popular resort. “For Coney Island is miniature New York and has its German quarter, its American quarter and its quarter where Jews are not tolerated.”

1881: It was reported today that the new Home for the Aged and Infirmed being built in Yonkers will cost more than $60,000.

1881: During a period of on-going Pogroms,” a dozen of the wealthiest Jews in Tsarist Russia filed into the palatial St. Petersburg home of Baron Horace de Gunzberg”  to discuss their concern that a mass exodus of Jews from Russia would convince the authorities to continue their program of violence as a way of dealing with “the Jewish problem.”

1882: Mr. Lazarus Silverman, a Chicago banker, appeared at the office of the Clerk of Circuit Court with 12 Russians Jews who had arrived in the Windy City with their families.  After following all of the legal requirements, the men took the oath and became citizens of the United States.  Since their knowledge of English was limited, they signed the documents in Hebrew.

1882: In Silesia, Rabbi Jacob David Kallen and Esther Rebecca Glazier gave birth to Horace M. Kallen, one of seven children all of whom, in 1887, came to the United States where Kallen would graduate from Harvard, become the first Jewish professor at Princeton while maintaining a leadership role in the American Jewish Community.



1883: Police fired on a mob that had resumed its attacks on the home of Joseph Scharf one of the defendants who had been acquitted of charges of having killed a Christian girl as part of a Jewish ritual murder.

1883: “The Demands on Charity” published today described a change in the assistance that will be rendered to the needy by New York’s charitable organizations. In the future, they will provide assistance to the needy who are trying to establish themselves in gainful occupations and trades. The United Hebrew Charities will help Jewish immigrants establish themselves in almost any occupation with the exception of street peddler, a calling that is now considered to be a public nuisance.

1884: “Persecuted By His Family” published today described the plight of Walter Gerson a young Jew born in 1858 at Bradford England who moved to London, Ontario and then to Chicago  where he converted to Christianity and married a non-Jewish woman, a fact which his family first accepted but now seems to be determined to undue.

1884(20th of Av, 5644): Israel Blatchky, a young Jew who has been working in Des Moines, Iowa for the past three years passed away today. 

1884: “The remaining members of the ill-fated “Lady Franklin Bay Polar Expedition returned the body of Edward Israel who had died on May 27 to is home in Kalamazoo where he was buried with full honors “in the Jewish Cemetery next to Mountain Home Cemetery.

1885: Dr.law Alois Eisler and Emilie Eisler gave birth to Otto Eisler.

1888(4th of Elul, 5648): Parashat Shoftim

1888: Oliver Hazard Peary married Josephine Diebitsch who would join Angelo Heilprin , the Hungarian born Jewish explorer on the expedition to Greenland in 1891

1888: “Something More About European Pauper Labor” published today included a summary of the testimony of the Director of the Jewish Emigration Protective Society before the Immigration Committee holding hearings at the Westminster Hotel in which he explained the reason for the impoverishment for Jewish workers coming to American and the tendency of them to settle among their co-religionists who provide them with support.

1889: “The Russian Emancipation” published today described the freeing of the serfs, which took place a quarter of a century ago, as a total failure.  The peasants are in perpetual debt due to their inability to re-pay the government for their land and the failed agricultural system.  This forces them to borrow money from the Jews who seize the land when they are unable to repay the loan.  (Yet another reason for treating the Jews badly – they are the moneylenders despoiling the noble serfs)

1890: “Geographical Palestine” published today provides a detailed review of Palestine by Major C.R. Conder.  Claude Reignier Conder served in the Corps of Royal Engineers and served two tours with the Palestine Exploration Fund providing him with invaluable first-hand knowledge of the future Jewish homeland.

1890: “Against Jews In Russia” published today provided a summary of the repressive edicts that the Czar has imposed on four million of his subjects which has led to their impoverishment and are intended to force them to leave the country and/or give up being Jewish.

1890: Sixty-four year old philanthropist and social reformer Charles Loring Brace passed away today In his book The Unknown God Or Inspiration Among Pre-Christian Races Brace points out that there is little “evidence of Egyptian found in the Hebrew faith.”  According to him “the thinkers and teachers of the Jews were visited by those higher and purer inspirations which have made them the greatest benefactors of mankind in ancient history…The Jews of modern days ought to be forever honored for such progenitors; a race which could such men deserves the lasting respect of mankind.”

1890: Birthdate of Samuel Bischoff, the native of Hartford, CT and graduate of Boston University who produced movies from 1922 to 1964.

1891: “The seventh free excursion” sponsored by “the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children” takes place today with the boat leaving from the foot of East Third Street at nine o’clock this morning.

1891: Three days after she had passed away, 52 year old Frederika Myers, the wife of Morris Myers was buried at the Stockton Jewish Cemetery.

1892:  Birthdate of publishing giant Alfred Knopf.

1892: The Third Marquess of Salisbury, Lord Robert Cecil, who as Prime Minister has reassured the House of Lords that regardless of the Czar’s policies “there were no grounds for dreading a wholesale invasion of Great Britain by pauper Jews from Russia” left office today and became the leader of “the loyal opposition.”

1893: In Brooklyn, Justice Walsh sentence William Davison to ten days in jail for his part in robbing a Jewish peddler named Burns.

1894: Birthdate of Ernst Angel the Viennese born man of letters who wrote the script for “Love on Wheels, a British musical comedy before morphing into an American psychologist

1895: Five Jews were arrested by the police from the Elizabeth Street Station for violating the Sunday Closing Laws.  One of those arrested, Morris Cohn “pleaded that he was a strict observer of the Hebrew Sabbath” and he was released by the Magistrate.

1895: “Sympathy For Hat And Cap Makers” published today described a mass meeting held at Union Square by several Jewish organizations in support of the workers who have been locked out by the manufacturers.

1895: Based on instructions provided by Meyer Schoenfeld and Herman Robinson the striking tailors, most of whom were Jewish and who were returning to work were not worried that they were being locked out today by the contractors since it was Sunday and the bosses observed the Sunday closing laws. 

1895: During July, it was reported today, the United Hebrew Charities “responded to the applications for relief from 3,304” people on behalf of 11,013 individuals.

1896: Populist leader Mary Elizabeth Lease was quoted today as saying "Redemption money and interest-bearing bonds are the curse of civilization. We are paying tribute to the Rothchilds of England, who are but the agent of the Jews."

1898: “Nevada Colonists Despoiled” published today described how a group of Russian Jews who had been building a new life in Lyon County, Nevada, were swindled by two of their co-religionists Daniel Schwartz who mortgaged the groups crop to get $1,500 from a bank in Carson City and then ran off with money.  The penniless Jews are now faced with the prospect of losing their newly built homes.

1898:  L’Anti-Juif,“a weekly organ of the Anti-Semitic League” was published today for the first time in Paris.

1899: “Joseph Haworth’s New Role” published today described Jacob Litt’s decision to cast Joseph Haworth in the role of Raphael, the leading character in Israel Zangwill’s “The Ghetto.”

1899: The officers presiding over the court marital of Captain Dreyfus announced that the next four sittings of the court would be held behind closed doors.

1899: In Mitau, Latvia, merchant Lazar Hirshhorn and his wife Amelia gave birth to their 12thchild, Joseph Herman Hirshhorn, the self-made financier and prospector best known for his role in establishing the Joseph H. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.

1899: The great Jewish actor Jacob Adler fell and seriously injured himself today while riding his bicycle at Long Branch, NJ.

1900: Mass meeting of the English Zionist Federation was held in East End.

1903: Birthdate of Polish born American Yiddish theatre actor and Union leader Herman Yablokoff, the husband of Bella Yablokoff and the father of Jack Yablokoff.




1903: Herzl meets Jews from all circles in St. Petersburg and a banquet is arranged by the Russian Zionists.

1904(30th of Av, 5664): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1904: In New York City, Adolf Berkelhammer and Friedel Berkelhammer gave birth to NYU trained attorney Irving Berkelhammer, the husband of Phyllis Berkelhammer, who was involved in various Jewish organizations including the UJA and the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies.

1904(30th of Av, 5664):  The month of Av, which “Zionist Societies have been observing as a “period of mourning” for Theodor Herzl came to an end today.

1905: Birthdate of Erwin Chargaff, the Austrian born American biochemist who discovered two rules that led to the discovery of double helical structure of DNA.  He passed away in June of 2002.

1905: The British Aliens Act, which reflected anti-Jewish bias, became a law. The anti-Jewish bias was aimed at the Jews fleeing Rumania and Russia who were seeking a safe haven in England.  This was manifestation of lingering anti-Jewish sentiment in an English society that was increasingly accepting of its Jewish population.

1907: Birthdate of Max Abrams, the native of Glasgow who played drums for several bands in the 1930’s and 1940’s who wrote “50 jazz tutor books.”

1908: Nathan Solity married Miriam Mendie today at the New Briggate Synagogue in Leeds, UK

1909: The Chief Rabbi of Adrianople was forced to resign by Jews of Demotica for failing to take action and not protesting against the change in market day at Demotica, from Thursday to Saturday.

1910: In Philadelphia, PA, Max Leopold Margolis and his wife, the former Evelyn Kate Aronson gave birth to Catherine A. Margolis.

1911(17th of Av, 5671): One hundred seventeen year old Rabbi Isaac Reich passed away at Szamos Hungary.

1911: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today for “Mrs. Alice Stoll, the sister of Hattie Summerfield.

1911: Birthdate of Giorgio Cavagliere, an American Jewish architect who fled Mussolini’s Italy and became a leader of the urban preservation movement.

1911: Jews suffer the impoverishing effect of fires in Russian communities including Tulishkoff, Mlava and Konskavola.

1911: As the Turks recover from the effects of the fires at Constantinople, the Chief Rabbi forms a Relief Committee and Grand Vizier Hakki Bey sent a telegram to the 10thZionist Congress meeting at Basle, Switzerland thanking the Jewish organization for the contributins to relieve the suffering of fire victims.

1911: In Copenhagen, Denmark, attacks are made on Shechitah at the Animal Protection Congress.

1912: In Westfield, MA, founding of Ahavas Achim synagogue.

1912: In Providence, Rhode, Island, found of Beth Israel synagogue.

1912: In Kenosha, Wisconsin founding of B’nai Zedek synagogue.

1913The London ambassadors conference, of Europe's six "Great Powers" (Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the United Kingdom), settled on the boundaries of the new Principality of Albania, created from former Turkish territory that had been the scene nationalist revolts during the Turks had accused the small Jewish population “of colluding with the Albanian rebels.”

1914: Jews are expelled from Mitchenick, Poland

1914: In a move that showed the British navy did not understand the strategic consequences of its mission, two German warships entered the Dardenlles – a move that would push the Ottoman Empire into the arms of the Central Powers.  (Editor’s note – one can only wonder what would have happened to the Middle East, including Palestine if the Ottomans had remained neutral or joined the Allies.)

1915: As the Cossack and Dragoons continued their attack on the Jews of Lokachi in the Province of Volinski a gendarme found the blood covered coat of Gershon Pfeffer, a Jew who had been dragged off into the woods three days earlier when he resisted being lined up with the other Jews who were then robbed “of all their money and valuables.”

1915: Today in San Francisco., Attorney Edwin R.A. Seligman delivered “The Next Step in Tax Reform,” the Presidential Address at the “Ninth Annual Conference of the National Tax Association”

1916: It was reported today that Oscar Straus, the former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, “assailed Jews who sought to forget their ancestors and their Jewish inheritance” saying “that if the present fashion in Jewish families of giving their children names as remote as possible from those with a Jewish sound continued, within a short time only Americans of Puritan ancestry would have names of Abraham and Jacob, Ruth and Esther.”

1917: It was reported today that the British Labour Party has adopted a memorandum on issues that will be part of a peace settlement that stated “in behalf of the Jews equal citizenship rights with other inhabitants is demanded from all countries and it is hoped that Palestine will be free from Turkish domination and become a free state under international guarantees to which such Jews as desire my return to work out their own salivation free from interference from nations and religions.”

1917: Turkish representative at The Hague, Netherlands denies that negotiations took place between Turkey and former United States ambassador, Henry Morgenthau regarding the sale of Palestine to the Jews

1917: Birthdate of Algerian born, French-Israeli writer Andre Chouraqui, known for his French-language translation of the Bible and his work for the government in Israel. A poet, Chouraqui was best known for translating religious texts, including La Bible hebraique et le Nouveau Testament (The Hebrew Bible and New Testament), published in 26 volumes between 1974 and 1977. Chouraqui studied law in Paris. During World War II, he joined the French Resistance and hid out in the Haute-Loire region of central France. After moving to Israel in 1958, he became an adviser to Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, from 1959 to 1963. He also served as deputy mayor of Jerusalem. He passed away at the age of 89 at his home in Jerusalem in 2007.

1918: It was reported today that in a recent speech given by Dr. von Seidler, the Austrian Premier to the Lower House of the Austrian Reichstag, he said that “most of the Jews” in Austria “are counted as Germans unlike all of the other groups like the Poles, Czechs and Italians who are counted separately. (Editor’s note – considering what would happen twenty years later, this method might have come as a shock to those caught up in the Anschluss)

1919: The Weimar Republic's first Reichspräsident ("Reich President"), Friedrich Ebert of the SPD, signed the new German constitution into law. The Weimar Republic marked Germany’s first experience with a truly democratic government.  It failed for lack of popular support and would give way to Hitler’s Third Reich.  One of the excuses offered for German support the Holocaust was that Jews were associated with the founding of the Weimar Republic and the Weimar Republic was viewed as a humiliation saddled on the Germans by the Allies at the end of World War I.  The logic is tortured, but it is neither the first time that people would rationalize and justify their anti-Semitism.

1920: Samuel Gompers is one of several labor leaders who attend a dinner honoring T.J. Healy before he departs for Europe where he will represent the American Federation of Labor at an international labor conference.

1920: The Joint Distribution Committee in New York has sent 150,000 to Danzig in response to a request from that community which is being overwhelmed with war refugees from Poland and which has been cut off from the Joint Distribution in Warsaw.

1921: In Haifa, “agronomist Yechiel Weizman and his wife gave birth to Yael Weizman, who as Yael Allingham, the wife of Conal Wolsey Allingham, invented “polymeric mulch sheets and mulch films for use in agriculture.”




1923: In the Bronx, Benjamin Meschess and the former Anna Grosse gave birth to Arnold Mesches,, a scenic designer who was tracked by the F.B.I. for a quarter of a century. (As reported by William Grimes)


1923: At a session of the World Zionist Congress meeting in in Carslbad, Czechoslovakia, that continued until 2 o'clockthis morning, Dr. Chaim Weizmann and Nabum Sokolow, heads of the World Zionist Organization, defended their administration from the attacks to which it has been subjected during the last few days.

1925: Birthdate of Philadelphia native Arnold Schulman the University of North Carolina trained screenwriter whose work on such films as “Love With A Proper Stranger” and “A Hole in the Head” have earned him Writers Guild and Oscar nominations.

1926(1st of Elul, 5686): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1926: In “Zelva, Lithuania, “Lazar, a cattleman, and Bella (née Silin) Klug gave birth to Dr. Aaron Klug, the South African trained winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1982.



1926: Birthdate of Brooklyn native Saul Fredericks Rabiner, the Tulane trained doctor and WW II veteran who served on the faculty at the Prtzker Medical School.

1927: Birthdate of Gustav Bermel a member of the Ehrenfield anti-Nazi resistance Group who was murdered at the age of 17.

1927: In Brooklyn, of Sara (née Kaminsky) and David Rosenberg gave birth to Stuart Rosenberg, director of Cool Hand Luke.

1928: “Four Walls” a silent film co-starring Carmel Myers, the San Francisco born daughter of “daughter of an Australian rabbi and Austrian Jewish mother” was released in the United States today by MGM.

1929: Birthdate of Frankfurt, Germany native Geoffrey H. Hartmann one of “the Jewish children evacuated from Nazi Germany as part of a Kindertransport” who became a Professor of English and comparative literature at Yale, co-founder of the Judaic studies program at Yale and the “first director of what is now the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale.”

1929: The Jewish Agency was created at the 16th Zionist Congress in Zurich. It was intended to include non-Zionists such as Louis Marshall, Leon Blum and Felix Warburg to take a leading role among those working to create a Jewish state. 1929: Florence Wolfson Howlett turned 14 and made her first entry in the diary she received as a birthday present.  The diary would provide the basis for The Red Leather Diary by Lily Koppel

1930: In New York City Yiddish poet Ber Lapin and his wife gave birth CCNY and Columbia alum Shmuel Lapin, the director of “the youth department of the Farband,” and “excutive  director  of the Canadian Labor Zionist Movement” who hit his stride as the executive secretary of YIVO while raising three children – Dov, Avrum and Hayim – with his wife Khave.



1930: At the second session of the fourth world congress of the Zionist Revisionist, Dr. Robert Lichtheim delivered a speech in which he said that the organization “would conduct its own political activities, particularly in pleading the Zionist cause before governments and statesmen, independently of the Zionist executive and the Jewish agency.

1930(17th of Av, 5690): Sixty-five year old Hungarian native, Rudolph Farbert, the father of Lillie, Bertrum, Leona, Arnold and Nettye who served as Rabbi at Congregation Gates of Heaven from 1885 to 1887  and Mt. Saini in Texarkana, TX passed away today in Chicago after which he was buried at Waldehim Jewish Cemetery.

1930: In New York City, an announcement was made at the headquarters of the Allied Jewish Campaign that more than $1,214,000 was spent in the development of the economic  and cultural program of the Jewish Agency in Palestine during the half year” that ended on May 1.

1932(9th of Av, 5692): Tisha B’Av

1932: Birthdate of American architect Peter Eisenman whose creations included the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University which was “named in honor of the father of Limited Brands founder, and freind of Jeffery Epstein, Leslie Wexner, who was a major donor to the Center” and “The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe” in Berlin.


1932: Birthdate of Israel Harold “Izzy” Asper, Canadian tax attorney and media magnate. A native of Minnedosa, Manitoba, Asper “was the founder of CanWest Global Communications Corp and father to Leonard, Gail and David Asper, each of whom served as officers of CanWest.

1933: The Supreme Representative Committee of German Jews established a farm near Rathenow, in Prussia, to train unemployed Jews as agricultural workers.

1933: Judah Bergman, the World Light Welterweight Champion, who boxed under the name of Jack kid Berg, “married Bunty Pain, a dancer at the Trocadero, today at Prince's Row register office in London.”

1933: Nineteen year old actress Heddy Lamar, the daughter of Viennese Jewish parents married Austrian arms dealer and fascist Friedrich Mandl.

1933: In response to what is described as an “epidemic of suicides among German Jews of the Rhineland,” the Jewish community of Cologne has issued an appeal signed by the lay leaders and the Rabbinate, urging Jews not to despair.

1933: The Hamburg Federation of Grain Merchants, which had a large Jewish membership, was dissolved. Its funds and property were turned over to the "Aryanized" All-German Federation of Commerce.

1933: In Warsaw, an edict was issued forbidding Jewish bakers, who observe the Sabbath, to bake bread on Sundays. The edict affected over 50,000 Jewish bakers.

1933: In Cracow, Thirty-one of the forty-two arrested persons, charged with organizing riots against Jews in a nearby town received sentences of imprisonment of from four months to three years.

1935(12th of Av, 5695): Sixty-five year old portrait artist Leo Mielziner passed away today.


1936: Condemning British proposals to partition Palestine as "outrageous," Senator Royal S. Copeland (Dem., NY) introduced in the Senate today a resolution asking the Senate's "forthright indication of unwillingness to accept modification in the mandate without Senate consent." Senator Copeland declared that the territory allotted the Jews in the proposed partition was insufficient to maintain even a small number of Jews and that establishment of a small Jewish state might result in a war between the Jews and the Arabs.  The Jews are having a "terrible time" in Germany, Poland and Rumania.... At the same time he noted a "distinct animosity" on the part of American consuls abroad in granting visas to Jews, which, he said, showed discrimination. (As reported by JTA)

1936: “The Polish delegation to the World Jewish Congress charged early today…that Poland’s 3,500,000 Jews were being terrorized and made paupers” and that “anti-Semitic agitation is making the Jews the scapegoats for” Poland’s “ills” which “has led to the loss of Jewish life and property.”

1936: In Geneva,tonight, at the meeting of the World Jewish Congress, Rabbi M.L. Perlsweig, head of the World Zionist Organization's political information department, accused the British authorities in Palestine of "political ineptitude so gross as to be almost unbelievable” while “Rabbi Stephen S. Wise of New York paid tribute to the self-restraint of the Palestine Jews…”

1937: By a vote of 304 to 158, the 20th Zionist Congress, held in Zurich, endorsed Chaim Weizmann¹s proposal and empowered the Zionist Executive to negotiate with the British government the terms of the Royal (Peel) Report, according to which the partition of Palestine would be implemented and the Jewish state was to be established. Dr. Weizmann¹s proposal was denounced by Dr. Stephen Wise, on behalf of American Jewry and many other delegates, including Menachem Ussishkin. A revised version of the partition plan was also supported by David Ben-Gurion.

1937: In Santa Monica, CA, Harry Herschel and Shirley (née Weissman) Cohen gave birth to Iris Margo Cohen who gained fame as ballet dancer and actress Allegra Kent.

1937: In Zurich roving bands of Nazis assaulted and molested a number of Zionist delegates.

1937(4th of Elul, 5697): Detective Isidore Astel, the patrolman who shot a killed a hold-up man during a gun battle last December in Manhattan for which he was decorated with “the gold Police Combat Cross” died today “in the Hospital for Joint Diseases.

1937: New York Mayor La Guardia is scheduled to attend today’s outing sponsored by the Brooklyn Division of the American Jewish Congress which consisted of “a boat rid up the Hudson River on the steamship Delaware.”

1938: “The Osservatore Romano, the authoritative Vatican organ, today protested strongly against the Italian press boycott of the speeches in which Pope Pius has denounced the new racial theories” in words that included “Where Hebrewism means suffering, pain and a target for persecution, it cannot hope for a better defender than the Catholic Church.”

1938: After returning from a trip to Palestine, “Malcolm MacDonald, Dominions Secretary” delivered a radio talk today in which he said the “pacification of Palestine will not be accomplished quickly” but that in the meantime “the British Government will administer its trust on the basis of justice between the Jews…and Arabs. (Editor’s note – in less than a year, the infamous White Paper would make a lie of this as far as the Jews were concerned.)

1939: “When Tomorrow Comes,” a “romantic comedy” directed and produced by John M. Stahl was released today in the United States.

1939: Laurence Steinhardt begins serving as U.S. Ambassador to the U.S.S.R.

1939(26th of Av, 5699): Having received a summons from the Gestapo and fearing that he would be tortured like others who had received such a summons, 68 year old mathematicians Paul Epstein “took a lethal dose of Veronal.


1941: Birthdate of Brooklyn political figure, Elizabeth Holtzman.  A graduate of Harvard Law School, Holtzman began serving in Congress in 1973 just in time to be part of the Watergate investigation.  After leaving the House, she held various political positions but missed out on her biggest prize, a seat in the U.S. Senate. 

1941: Vichy adopted an ordinance excluding Jews from working as doctors.

1941: Het Parool, “an Amsterdam-based daily newspaper” was published for the first time “as a resistance paper during the Nazi occupation” by a staff that included Jaap Nunes Vaz who would be sent to Sobibor in 1942.

1942: Today “Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr (called “the most beautiful woman in Hollywood”) received a patent with composer George Antheil for a “frequency hopping, spread-spectrum communication system” designed to make radio-guided torpedoes harder to detect or jam.”


1942(28th of Av, 5702): The Nazis murdered 13,000 Jews at Rostov-On-Don, a deadly total that would be added to a few days later when another two to five thousand Jews were murdered.

1944: Joop Westerweel, Dutch poet and educator was executed by the Nazis, for helping Jews escape. In late February 1944 Joop Westerweel traveled to the foot of the Pyrenees to say farewell to the group about to cross into Spain, which included Joseph Heinrich and thirteen other young people Joop and his underground group had helped to escape from Holland. His memorable speech was later vividly recalled by many who were present. He wished them well and that they should build Palestine into a place where there would be no war, only food and work for everyone. As the young pioneers left for Spain, Joop turned back to Holland. On March 11, he was arrested by border police while helping two young Jewish girls cross illegally from Holland to France. Five months later he was executed in prison in Vught Concentration Camp. The sacrifice of Joop Westerweel and those like him must never be forgotten.  The challenge for the living is to be worthy of the proof of such virtue.

1945: A ‘small pogrom’ took place in Krakow, Poland, three months after the end of World War II in Europe.

1945: Collier’s magazine published “Terror in Palestine” by Frank Gervasi which provides a contemporary look at events following the death of Lord Moyne.


1948(8th of Av, 5708): Elaine Hammerstein, the daughter of opera producer Arthur Hammerstein, who gained fame as an American silent film and stage actress, passed away.

1949: Birthdate of David Rubenstein, the son of a Baltimore postal worker, who co-founded the Carlyle Group and whose philanthropies included serving as Chairman of both Kennedy Center and the Duke University board of Trustees.

1950: In Riga, Frieda and Zalman Baskin gave birth to Ilya Zalmanovich Baskin who came to the United States in 1976 where he gained fame as actor Elya Baskin whose first film appearance was in “The World’s Greatest Lover”

1950: Ethel Rosenberg was arrested today.

1951(9th of Av, 5711): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon; Erev Tish’a B’Av

1951(9th of Av): Yiddish playwright and journalist David Pinsky passed away.

1951(9th of Av, 5711): Rebekah Bettelheim Kohut passed away



1951: Today thirty-nine year old actress Sara Berner married theatrical agent Milton Rosner with whom she had a daughter Eugenie before divorcing in 1958.

1952: The ailing Talal¹s son, Hussein II, was proclaimed the King of Jordan, but a Regency Council was appointed to rule the country, since he was a minor. In 1952 three Middle Eastern monarchs’ ­ Hussein II of Jordan, Ahmed Fuad of Egypt and Faisal of Iraq ­ were minors. King Hussein had seen his grandfather assassinated by an Arab fanatic who thought he was too friendly with the Jews.  Hussein’s goal was to stay alive and remain king.  He wisely did not take part in the Sinai Campaign of 1956.  He foolishly attacked Israel in 1967 and lost the West Bank and east Jerusalem.  In the end, he signed a peace treaty with Israel but without gaining any territory west of the Jordan River.  Fuad would be ousted by a revolt masterminded by Colonel Nasser, the Pan-Arabist who had a secular version of Osama’s vision.  Faisal would die in a revolt in 1958 that would eventually bring Hussein (the dictator not the king) to power in Iraq.

1953: Birthdate of Stephen M. Katz, the native of Jericho, NY and Doctor of Veterinary Medicine who worked at several overseas locations including the Yotvata Hai-Bar Nature Reserve in Israel before pursuing a political career as a Republican member of the New York States Assembly.

1953: CBS broadcast the last episode of “Steve Randall” “a television series starring Melvyn Douglas.”

1955: Leonard Bernstein led premiere of Symphonic Suite from "On the Waterfront", BSO, Tanglewood

1955: After premiering in the United Kingdom last year, “The Divided Heart” featuring Theodore Bikel and John Schlesinger was released in the United States today by Ealing Studios.

1956(4th of Elul, 5716): Parashat Shoftim

1959(6th of Av, 5719): Eighty-seven year old Yiddish author and playwright David Pinski passed away today, five months are his wife Adele had passed away.


1959(6th of Av, 5719): Eighty-three year old Bertram Joseph Cahn, the son of “Joseph and Miriam Cahn,” the “husband of Irma Cahn” with whom he had three children and the Northwestern educated lawyer who served on the Crime Commission and belonged to the Urban League, passed away today in his native Chicago

1961: Birthdate of Toronto native David Brooks, the award winning New York Times columnist and author whose “oldest son” reportedly served in the IDF


1961: In Palo Alto, CA, Tola Fay Minkoff (née Stebel) and Jack Robert Minkoff gave birth to Academy Award winning director Robert Ralph Minkoff, whose most famous work to date is “The Lion King.”

1962: "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do"“a song recorded by Neil Sedaka, and co-written by Sedaka and Howard Greenfield” “hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100” today.

1964(3rd of Elul, 5724): Sixty-four year old Leopold Mannes, the creator of Kodachrome, passed away today.



1965:Rolf Friedemann Pauls, the man chosen to be Bonn’s first Ambassador to Israel arrived today at a “heavily guarded Lydda Airport.”

1968: In London, Nigerian native Henry Okonedo and his wife Joan Allman the Jewish Pilates teacher gave birth to Tony Award winning actress Sophia Okonedo who was raised in the faith of her mother.

1969(27th of Av, 5769): Bea Adelman who is memorialized at B’Nai Israel in Spartanburg, SC, passed away today.

1970(9th of Av, 5730): Tish’a B’Av

1972(1st of Elul, 5732): Rose Schneiderman passed away.  Born in Poland in 1884, Miss Schneiderman was brought to the United States by her father who worked as a tailor on the lower East Side.  She gained first-hand experience on life in the garment industry when she went to work as a cap maker. She earned eight dollars a week.  But she had to buy her own sewing machine with a cash $25 cash down payment and an additional $45 paid in installments.  In addition to this, she had to pay for power and thread.  Miss Schneiderman helped to organize the Women’s Trade Union League, an organization that she served as President for several terms.  In 1909 she took part in a strike of waistmakers that began the unionization of the garment industry. In New York, she served as Secretary of the State Labor Department from 1937 to 1944.  During the Great Depression, she served as an official of the National Recovery Administration and was considered to be a member of F.D.R.’s “brain trust.”

http://www.amazingwomeninhistory.com/rose-schneiderman-labour-union-pioneer/

https://www.biography.com/people/rose-schneiderman-9475012



1975: Birthdate of Edina, MN native Alex Bernstein the 6’3”, 325 pound guard who played three years of college ball at Amherst before pursuing a brief NFL career with the Raven, Jets and Browns.

1975: “Prisoner of Zion David Chernoglaz received an exit visa to Israel.”

1976(15th of Av, 5736): Tu B’Av

1976(15th of Av, 5736): Twenty-nine year old Harold W. Rosenthal of Philadelphia was an aide to Senator Jacob Javits, Japanese tourist guide, Yutako Hirano and two Israelis – Solomon Weisbeck and Ernest Elias – were murdered and thirty others were  by two Palestinian terrorists who unsuccessfully attempted to hijack an El Al plane at the Istanbul airport.

1977: “West Bank mayors and notables submitted separate views to US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. The mayors acknowledged that the PLO was the”sole” representative of the Palestine Arabs and claimed that no settlement was possible without PLO participation. But other West Bank notables had different ideas. They advocated an immediate mutual recognition of the national rights of Palestinians and Israelis in the area. They claimed that their two homelands must be mutually exclusive and advocated the establishment of a ³peace-promoting force² acceptable to both nations. These West Bank notables advocated the holding of a plebiscite during the interim period so that Palestinians could decide freely whether to join Jordan or establish an independent, democratic state. Unfortunately, these talks led to the same place as those that had come before and after – nowhere.”

1977: Jordan and Egypt informed the US that they were prepared to sign formal peace treaties with Israel, but at the conclusion of the Arab-Israeli peace negotiations.

1982(22nd of Av, 5742): Worcester native and “publisher” James Kahn passed away today in Brookline, MA.

1982: This file picture dated August 11, 1982 shows people standing in front of the Chez Jo Goldenberg restaurant in Paris, two days after it was devastated in an attack by Palestinian gunmen (AFP/ JOEL ROBINE)

1983: Today,Joseph Hochstein wrote an Op-Ed titled "Not goodbye, but l'hitraot," in which he said, "I love newspapering, and I have a special love for this paper, since I helped start it in 1965 with my father. ... What happens each week at The Jewish Week is achieved with greater difficulty than the work done in the newsrooms of great metropolitan dailies, and it is more profoundly needed. Knowing that I played a central role in making this happen helps offset the regret of leaving, as does the joy of realizing a long-held dream of living in Israel." He wrote this just before making Aliyah.

1983: “Phar Lap” a biopic about a racehorse co-starring Ron Leibman was released in Australia today by 20th Century Fox.

1983: Birthdate of Rochester, NY, native Adam Podlesh the outstanding punter for University of Maryland Terrapins who has played for the Jacksonville, Chicago and Pittsburgh NFL teams.

1984(13th of Av, 5744): Ninety-one year old American published Alfred Abraham Knopf, Sr. founder of Alfred A Knopf, Inc passed away today. (As reported by Herbert Mitgang)


1987(16th of Av, 5747): Eighty-six year old Clara Peller who gained fame as the “Where’s the beef” lady passed away today in Chicago.


1987:  Alan Greenspan becomes Chairman of the United States Federal Reserve. Another Jewish economist hits the top spot.

1988: Meir Kahane renounced his US citizenship to stay in the Israeli Parliament.  Kahane and his virulent anti-Arab views have been rejected by the Israeli mainstream.  Kahane himself was gunned down by Arab terrorists.

1991:In The Felix Warburg Mansion; A Window to the Past in the Present,” published today Christopher Gray describes the past, present and future of the building that was home to one of New York’s most influential and famous Jewish families. http://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/11/realestate/streetscapes-the-felix-warburg-mansion-a-window-to-the-past-in-the-present.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm

1991(1st of Elul, 5751): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1992: “MY Sam Simon the fourth vessel of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society fleet, named after American television producer and writer Sam Simon, who donated the money to purchase the vessel” was launched today.

1993: “Searching for Bobby Fischer,” a movie version of the book by Fred Waitzkin the father of Jewish chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin co-starring Max Pomeranc was released in the United States today.

1995: “A Walk in the Clouds” produced by David and Jerry Zucker, co-starring Debra Messing and filmed by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki was released in the United States today 20th Century Fox.

1995: “A Kid in King Arthur's Court” a film based on a Mark Twain novel co-starring Ron Moody as “Merlin” was released in the United States today.

1997: Baltimore born Washington lawyer Alfred H. Moses completed his service as U.S. Ambassador to Romania. Five years later the President of Romania awarded him the Marc Cruce Medal.

1997(8thof Av, 5757): Erev Tish’a B’Av

1997(8thof Av, 5757): Forty-nine year old Eli Adourian of Kfar Adumim died of the wounds he sustained when a Hamas suicide bomber struck at the Mahane Yehuda Market on July 30th where the death toll would reach sixteen with an additional 178 injured.

1997: Eighty-six year old Monument’s Man Walter Farmer passed away today. (Editor’s note – some but not all of the Monument’s Men were Jewish.  Regardless of their origins, this unit played an invaluable role in trying to return looted art to the Jews who owned it and of course, played an invaluable role in trying to preserve the treasures of Western Civilization)





1999:Sheila Finestone began serving as Senator for Montarville, Quebec.

1999: Max Kampelman was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

1999: Janet Jagan, the Chicago born Jewess completed her service as President of Guyana when Bharrat Jagdeo was sworn as President

1999: Michael Dougall Bell began serving as Canada’s Ambassador to Israel.

2000: Today, Daniel Singer “Dan” Bricklin the co-creator of “the VisiCalc spreadsheet program known also as “The Father of the Spreadsheet” introduced the term "friend-to-friend networking"


2001(22ndof Av, 5761): Parashat Ekev

2001(22ndof Av, 5761): Ninety-year old Canadian journalist, dedicated Zionist and founder of The Canadian Jewish News passed away today.


2002: The Sunday New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including 'F E G: Ridiculous Poems for Intelligent Children by Robin Hirsch Fireweed: A Political Autobiographyby Gerda Lerner, the Austrian born Jewish American political activist.

2004: Seventy-three year old German historian Wolfgang Mommsen who fought attempts to whitewash the Holocaust made by some other German historians passed away today.


2005: A memorial service was held today at Temple Beth David in Temple, CA for Nathan “Fred” Asher a graduate of the Naval Academy who took command U.S.S. Blue since the skipper was ashore and in a harrowing trip lasting one and half hours guided the ship out to open waters and safety while Ensign Milton Moldane, a graduate of Washington University Law School “took charge of the forward machine guns” fighting off the attacking Japanese aircraft.

2005:  While the front pages of the paper carried news of Sharon’s attempts to bring peace to the Middle East with the withdrawal from Gaza, the back pages of Haaretzcarried a reminder of Sharon’s warrior past.  According to a story in Haaretz,The bloodstained bandage that wrapped Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's head after he was injured in fighting during the 1973 Yom Kippur War has been offered for sale on e-Bay with the bidding starting at $10,000.”  Sharon sustained the head wound when he was leading Israeli forces across the Suez Canal. 

2006: First day of the New York International Fringe Festival which will include a performance of “The Cheerleader and the Rabbi” featuring Sandy Wolshin.  “A former cheerleader for the Oakland Raiders shelater immersed herself in a mikveh as part of an orthodox conversion.”

2006:  The Jerusalem Post reported that Maj. Nimrod Hallel, 42, from Rosh Ha'ayin, was killed in the town of Leboneh in the western sector of southern Lebanon when an anti-tank missile was fired at his vehicle.

2006:  A reported 120 rockets rained down on northern Israel striking Haifa, Safed and Kiryat Shimona.

2006: “Jules Feiffer: If You Really Loved Me, You’d Find Me, The Strips 1960 - 2000” a collection of over 60 cartoon strips by the Pulitzer Prize winning author, cartoonist and playwright which has been on display at the Adam Baumgold Gallery is scheduled to come to an end today.


2006: Conflicting reports abound concerning the terms of a proposed cease fire intended to stop the fighting in Lebanon.  Some of the major points of contention include the robustness of the mandate of the international force and the willingness of the Lebanese army to confront and disarm Hezbollah fighters.



2007: On the “Jewish Jock Front,” The San Diego Union-Tribunereported that San Diego ChargerIgor Olshanskymay not get to play in an upcoming exhibition game with the Seattle SeaHawks whileJohn Grabow of the Pittsburgh Pirates won a game on just 13 pitches, which was all he needed to complete a one inning relief stint against the San Francisco Giants.



2008: YuliTamir announced plans to remove Ze'ev Jabotinsky's work from the national education curriculum



2008Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Finance Minister Ronnie Bar-On decidedto implement all of the recommendations of the State Commission of Inquiry into the government's handling of Holocaust survivors.



2008: Palestinian terrorists in Gaza violated a truce agreement with Israel, firing a Kassam rocket at the western Negev town of Sderot.

2008: Iowa native, James Hoyt passed away at the age of 83. As one of the first four American soldiers to discover the Buchenwald labor camp in 1945, James Hoyt rarely slept well. “He’s finally getting the rest he’s never had all these years,” his daughter, Theresa Stewart, 51, of Oxford said. When he closed his eyes, he’d see images of the Nazi concentration camp, which he thought was a mannequin factory when he first saw it before its liberation April 11, 1945, Stewart said. His daughters remembered him as a reserved man who put others first and loved reading, rebuilding cars and solving crossword puzzles. “He had time to listen to anyone and would hear everybody’s story,” Stewart said. For years, Hoyt did not share his own story. He later learned from doctors at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Iowa City that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Hoyt of Oxford, Iowa graduated from high school in 1943 and became a private first class after he was drafted in early 1944 to serve in World War II. He was a member of the 6th Armored Division’s 9th Infantry Battalion and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. On April 11, 1945, Hoyt was the radio operator and driver for a four-man reconnaissance team when two Buchenwald escapees flagged them down. The team went to the camp, which was hidden in a forested area. “When the people saw our vehicle with the American markings on it, they really went wild. They tore a part of the fence down. They threw us up in the air,” Hoyt told The Gazette 10 years ago. “It was a very sorry sight all the way. They were skin and bones, the living ones. Of course, there were all kinds of dead ones there.” In all, about 238,500 prisoners were held at the camp. As the years passed, Hoyt became more willing to talk about his experience, helping him to heal, his daughter, Pat Hatcher, said. “We didn’t know what he was fighting,” Hatcher said of the emotional memories. “It helps us understand him better.” After the war in 1949, Hoyt married Doris Hipp. He worked with his brothers in construction before joining the United States Postal Service in Oxford, where he served more than 30 years.

2009(21st of Av, 5769): Robert William LeVine passed away to at the age of 71.(As reported by Emma Stickgold)


2009: Three books about Bernie Madoff – Too Good to Be True: The Rise and Fall of Bernie Madoff, Madoff with the Money, Betrayal: The Life and Lies of Bernie Madoff– all hit the bookstores today.

2009: The National Jewish Retreat opens at Greenwich, Connecticut.  Featured presenters and performers for this event that ends on August 16 include Rabbi Manis Friedman, Rabbi Immanuel Schochet, Rabbi Yossi Jacobson, Professor Jonathan Sarna, Mrs. Rivka Slonim and recording star Arvram Fried.

2009: Barnes & Noble announces that Rashi by Elie Weisel and Blindman’s Bluff by Faye Kellerman are available at their stores and on-line.

2009: Releases of “Saints & Tzadiks” a CD on which Irish chanteuse Susan McKeown and Lexatics bandleader Lorin Skalmerg sing Yiddish, Irish and blends of Yiddish and Irish songs that highlight “the traditions and similarities as well as the different ways each tradition tells a musical tale.”

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

2010: Anat Hoffman leader of the Women of the Wall Prayer group is scheduled to blow the shofar on behalf of the group as she has done for the past 21 years.

2010: US envoy George Mitchell met with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to discuss advancing direct talks with the Palestinians. “We see eye to eye on the need open up direct talks with the Palestinians," Mitchell said about Netanyahu in comments made before the meeting.

2010: IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi told the Turkel Committee today that the IDF made a crucial mistake when it did not resort to accurate fire against those blocking entry to the Mavi Marmara Turkish aid ship as IDF Shayetet 13 commandos rappelled onto the ship from helicopters

2011: Another session of “Hebrew Literacy: Aleph, Bet, and Beyond” is scheduled to take place at Sixth & I Historic Synagogue.

2011: The Eleventh Memorial for Yiddish Poets is scheduled to take place tonight at the amphitheater in Tekoa.  The event memorializes “the victims of the ‘Night of the Murdered Poets’ who were thirteen prominent Jewish figures in the USSR who were secretly executed at Stalin's order on the night between August 12th and August 13th 1952. These were the most outstanding and renowned Jewish writers, intellectuals, poets, musicians and actors of their time.”

2011: At the Off the Wall Comedy Club, Jerusalem funny man David Kilimnick whose funny bone was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, is scheduled to performTu BAv Comedy Special 'Jewish Singles' from The ‘Find Me A Wife’ Show.

2011: Israel's interior minister gave final authorization to build 1,600 apartments in disputed east Jerusalem and will approve 2,700 more in days, officials said today.

2011: Eighty-two year old Juergen Corleis passed away.


2011: Interior Minister Eli Yishai (Shas) said today during a meeting with that the “time is ripe for an upheaval in the coalition” in order to solve the ongoing social crisis that has rocked the country over the past month. Yishai has repeatedly stated that his party will leave the government coalition if no solution is to be found.

2011(11thof Av, 5771): Noach Flug,a Holocaust survivor who dedicated his life to fighting for the rights of other survivors is remembered as "a towering figure" passed away today in Jerusalem at the age of 86.

http://sdjewishjournal.com/site/2516/holocaust-survivor-noach-flug-dies-at-age-86/



2012: Ben Sarsin in scheduled to be called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

2012: “Avenue Q,” the musical creation of Jeff Marx is scheduled to have its final performance at the Barter Theatre.

2012: The International Arts and Crafts Fair also known as Hutzot Hayozer is scheduled to open one after the end of Shabbat in Jerusalem.

2012: A fire broke out near the town of Kiryat Tivon, near Haifa, this morning, a few days after firefighters battled repeated blazes in the area believed to have been set by arsonists. Eight firefighting crews supported by two aircraft brought the fire under control. No injuries were reported.


2012: Israeli rhythmic gymnast Neta Rivkin performed well in all four routines at the London Games today, to secure a best-ever Israeli finish in the event. Rivkin, 21, finished seventh overall, making her the most successful rhythmic gymnast in Israeli Olympic history. Evgenia Kanaeva of Russia won the gold.


2013: “The Last White Knight” Paul Saltzman’s documentary about his personal encounter with Mississippi Racism is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

2013: The San Diego Jewish Film Festival, PJ Library, Shalom Baby, and Jewish Family Service are scheduled to sponsor “Learn About the Jewish New Year with Elmo” an event designed to prepare youngsters for the upcoming holidays.

2013: “Passages through the Fire: Jews and the Civil War,” an exhibit co-presented by the American Historical Society and Yeshiva University is scheduled to come to an end today.

2013: Harriet Rochlin, the leading expert on Western Jewish History recommends that those who can attend this evening’s opening of “American Jerusalem: Jews and the Making of San Francisco” a film that tells the epic story of pioneer Jews in San Francisco, a number of whom played a significant role in the transformation of a tiny village to California’s first metropolis.

2013: In Cedar Rapids, friends and family are scheduled to celebrating the graduation from Nursing School and Pinning of Rebbitzin Sabrina Thalblum.

2013: “Passages through the Fire: Jews and the Civil War,” a new exhibition presented by the American Jewish Historical Society and Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to come to an end today.

http://yumuseum.tumblr.com/CivilWar


2013: Just three days before Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are set to resume in Jerusalem. “Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel (Jewish Home) announced today that 793 new apartments would be built in Jerusalem, and 394 in large settlement blocs in the West Bank.” (As reported by Lazar Berman)

2013: Finance Minister Yair Lapid lashed out today at the decision to build more than one thousand new homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, calling it "a double mistake." Lapid's comments came on the heels of similar condemnation by Meretz leader, Zahava Gal-On, who accused the government of trying to stymie the nascent peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. (As reported by JPost Staff)

2014:”Marvin Hamlisch, What He Did for Love” and “The Jewish Cardinal” are scheduled to be shown at the Berkshire Jewish Film Festival.

2014: Israel will send its team of negotiators back to Cairo today if Hamas honors the 72-hour cease-fire that went into effect at midnight, diplomatic officials said yesterday evening. (As reported by Herb Keinon)

2014: “Former Israeli ambassador to the US Michael Oren denied today that he was fired as a CNN analyst, saying that he asked to suspend his contract, which obligates him to interview exclusively to that network, so he could accept more requests from other media as well.” (As reported by Raphael Ahren)

2014(15th of Av, 5774): “Three Israelis were killed when a train collided with their minibus at a level crossing in the canton of Nidwalden in Switzerland this morning.” (As reported by Stuart Winer)

2014(15th of Av, 5774): Celebration of Tu B’Av, a day devoted to love with no particular ritual but with a long tradition dating back, according to some, to the days when Shiloh was the site of religious observance for the 12 tribes



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_B'Av#mediaviewer/File:PikiWiki_Israel_1112_hadera_%D7%99%D7%9C%D7%93%D7%95%D7%AA_%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%A7%D7%93%D7%95%D7%AA.jpg



2015: The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to present “The Car in Contemporary Israeli Cinema”featuring “excerpts from Metallic Blues, Broken Wings and Lost Islands (all of which are Israeli movies from the 2000s) followed by informal discussion with Dr. Moshe Rachmuth, who teaches Modern Hebrew and Israeli cinema at Portland State University. 

2015: At a time when “an estimated 47,000 African migrants, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan, have managed to illegally enter Israel via Egypt, seeking jobs or asylum” “Residents of south Tel Aviv demonstrated tonight against a High Court of Justice ruling that would limit to 12 months the detention time for migrants in holding facilities” because they feel that their neighborhood has “the State of Israel’s warehouse” for these individuals. (As reported by the Times of Israel)

2015: Julie Azous is scheduled to provide Maj-Johngg training for players at all levels at the 92nd Street Y.

2015:  “Inside Out/ Outside In” an exhibition of three women artists including Isa Lousie Levy opened today.

2015: “Hours after Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon warned that Palestinian terror group were seeking to carry out attacks” “members of the IDF, Border Police and Israel Police arrested 15 wanted Palestinians in a series of operations” tonight.(As reported by Stuart Winer)

2016: Comedian Gary Gulman is scheduled to appear at the summer benefit fund raiser sponsored by the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Educational Center.

2016: “In a world awash in religious and sectarian tensions, the three Olympic victors in the women’s all-around gymnastics competition delivered a multi-faith mosaic on the medals podium today in Rio, with a Christian, a Jew and a Muslim taking gold, silver and bronze respectively.”

http://www.timesofisrael.com/olympic-womens-all-around-champions-a-christian-a-jew-and-a-muslim/

2016: In New Orleans, Congregation Gates of Prayer is scheduled to host the first meeting of PFLAG which “promotes the health and well-being of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons, their families and friends through: support, to cope with an adverse society; education, to enlighten an ill-informed public; and advocacy, to end discrimination and to secure equal civil rights.”

2016: Madeline Isenberg is scheduled to lecture on “Different Traditions Even In Death: Ashkenazi vs. Sephardi Tombstones” and Brooke Ganz is scheduled to lecture on “Using the Gesher Galicia Website and All Galicia Database to Research Towns and Families” at the 36thIAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Seattle, Washington.

2017(19th of Av, 5777): “Yisrael Kristal, a Holocaust survivor who was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records to be the world’s oldest man and one of the ten oldest men who ever lived, passed away today in his home in Haifa. He was one month shy of his 114th birthday.” (As reported by Liel Leibovitz)

https://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/243099/worlds-oldest-man-holocaust-survivor-yisrael-kristal-dies-one-month-shy-of-his-114th-birthday

2017: Israeli born Canadian tennis player Denis Shapovalob defeated Adrian Mannarion of France today “in day eight of the Rogers Cup.”

2017(19th of Av, 5777): Seventy-eight year old attorney and radio personality Neil Chayet passed away today. (As reported by Richard Sandomir)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/business/media/neil-chayet-dead-radio-host-of-looking-at-the-law.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2017: “Menashe” a film that “marks the feature debut of documentary-trained director Joshua Z. Weinstein, who shot his movie, partially under wraps across a two-year period, in the Hasidim community of Brooklyn, N.Y.’s Borough Park district” opened in Chicago.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/movies/ct-mov-menashe-rev-0811-2017-story.html#

2017: In Weimar, the YSW is scheduled to host “a Shabes-inspired, audience participation evening of song, stories and dance, directed by Alan Bern and Yiddish Summer Weimar artists.”

2017: The Jerusalem Arts and Crafts Fair which started on August 7 and runs until August 19 is closed today because of Shabbat.

2018(30th of Av, 5778): First Day Rosh Chodesh Elul

2018(30th of Av, 5778): Parsashat Re’ay;

2018: “Classical Bridge, an international musical festival, academy and conference designed to build bridges through music” featuring “Israeli musicians Pinchas Zuckerman and Alexander Fiterstein” is scheduled to come to an end today.

2018: As a sign of the vitality of small community Judaism, in Coralville, IA, Pam Hills is scheduled to be called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah at Congregation Agudas Achim.

2019: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback editions of The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age by David E. Sager and Conan Doyle for the Defense: How Sherlock Holmes’s Creator Turned Real-Life Detective and Freed a Man Wrongly Imprisoned for Murder by Margalit Fox, the “queen of the obituary writers.”

2019: The American Sephardi Federation and the Sousa Mendes Foundation are scheduled to host “Eleanor Roosevelt and the Jewish Refugees She Save: The Story of the S.S. Quanza which will include a screening the documentary “Nobody Wants Us” followed by a panel discussion “featuring Blanche Wiesen Cook, the leading world expert on Eleanor Roosevelt and the author of her three-volume biography; Michael Dobbs of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and author of The Unwanted (2019), and other experts and eyewitnesses, including a passenger who was on the ship in 1940.”

2019: At the Breman Museum in Atlanta, final showing of the exhibition “Inescapable: The Life and Legacy of Harry Houdini.”

2019(10 of Av, 5779): Fast of Tish’a B’Av observed; for more see http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/

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

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August 12

30 BCE: Cleopatra committed suicide.  According to Josephus, the Egyptian tried to convince her lover and co-ruler, Marc Antony, to give her control over lands to the east including Syria and Palestine.  Herod was so afraid of her that he reportedly built the fortress at Masada as place of refuge should she attack. While Antony did not give into all of her demands, he did give her control over Jericho and several towns surrounding the ancient city.



1099: During the First Crusade, the Crusaders defeated the Saracens at the Battle of Ascalon.  This led to the creation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem under Godfrey of Bouillon.  The Crusader victory led to a period of persecution of the small Jewish population living in Palestine.  The Crusaders attempted to ban the Jews from living in Jerusalem.  Apparently it did not occur to them that such a ban would have meant that Jesus could not live in the Christian kingdom.



1121: At the Battle of Didgori the Georgian army under King David the Builder won a decisive victory over the famous Seljuk commander Ilghazi. Georgian-speaking Jewry is one of the oldest surviving Diaspora Jewish communities. The origin of Georgian Jews, also known as Gurjimor Ebraeli, is debated, but some claim they are descendants of the ten tribes exiled by Shalmaneser. Others say the first Jews made their way to southern Georgia after Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E. after first fleeing to Babylonia. The first Jews in Western Georgia arrived in the 6th century when the region was ruled by the Byzantine Empire. Approximately 3,000 of these Jews then fled to Eastern Georgia, controlled by the Persians, to escape severe persecution by the Byzantines. The existence of the Jews in these regions during this period is supported by archaeological evidence showing that Jews lived in Mtzheta, the ancient capital of the East Georgian state of Kartli. The Ebraeli spoke Georgian and Jewish traders developed a dialect called Qivruli, or Judeo-Georgian, which included a number of Hebrew words. In the second half of the 7th century, the Muslim Empire conquered extensive Georgian territory, which became an Arab caliph province. Arab emirs ruled the majority of the region until 1122. Under the Arabs, in the late 9th century, Abu-Imran Musa al-Za'farani (later known as Abu-Imran al-Tiflisi) founded a Jewish sect called the Tiflis Sect which lasted for more than 300 years. The sect deviated from halakhah in its marriage and kashrutcustoms. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Georgia.html



1281: The fleet of Qubilai Khan, the Chinese emperor who celebrated the festivals of the Muslims, Christians and Jews, indicating that there  really were a significant number of Jews living in China during his reign, is destroyed by a typhoon while approaching Japan.



1317: John XXII, the second of the Avignon Popes, issued “Ex  Parte Vestra” a Bull that dealt with converts who relapse i.e. Jewish converts who wanted to return to the “faith of their Fathers and Mothers.”



1381(14th of Av, 5141): In the Balearic Islands, Sayd ben David was burned at the stake after being charged with “incontinence with a nun”



1452: Birthdate of Abraham Zacuto “a Sephardi Jewish astronomer, astrologer, mathematician and historian who served as Royal Astronomer in the 15th century to King John II of Portugal. The crater Zagut on the Moon is named after him.” The creator of new type of astrolabe that could be used at sea, he was one of the few Jews who was able to flee Portugal despite the edicts of King Manuel I.  He either passed away in Jerusalem in 1515 or Damascus in 1520.

http://islamsci.mcgill.ca/RASI/BEA/Zacut_BEA.htm

http://thejewniverse.com/2017/the-jewish-astronomer-behind-vasco-da-gamas-maiden-voyage/





 1484: The Papacy of Sixtus IV came to an end.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0018_0_18679.html





1530: A charter was granted to the Jews of Germany despite the protests of Martin Luther. Josel of Rosheim, the famous "shtadlan" (interceder) was instrumental in its passing.

1656: “The Jews of Barbados were granted ‘the privileges of laws and statutes of the Commonwealth of England and of this island, relating to foreigners and strangers.’” (Abraham P. Bloch)

1793(4thof Elul, 5553): Meyer Jacob passed away today and was buried at the Alderney Road Jewish Cemetery.

1811: Today Hamburg native Georg Harog Gerson, “the unsung Jewish hero of the Battle of Waterloo” “was proposed for the position of Assistant Surgeon…for the 5thLine Battalion, King’s German Legion.”

1816: Birthdate of Ion Ghica, the five-time Prime Minister of Romania “a valuable ally for Yiddish theater in Bucharest who n several occasions expressed his favorable view of the quality of acting, and even more of the technical aspects of the Yiddish theater. In 1881, he obtained for the National Theater the costumes that had been used for a Yiddish pageant on the coronation of King Solomon, which had been timed in tribute to the actual coronation of Carol I of Romania.

1816: Henry Harvey married Louisa Hart at the Hambro Synagogue today.



1817: Birthdate of German Orientalist Max Grünbaum



1819:  Anti-Semitic riots broke out in Darmstadt and Bayreuth, Germany



1828: In Schubin, Prussia, Rabbi Benjamin Mielziner and his wife gave birth Moses Mielziner who would become a leading rabbi in the Reform Movement.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/mielziner-moses



1829: John Hadkins married Maria Woolf at the Great Synagogue today.



1829(13th of Av, 5589): Mordecai ben Abraham Benet, who was born in 1753 and became the chief rabbi of Moravia passed away.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordecai_Benet

http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Banet_Mordekhai_ben_Avraham





1833: Founding of Chicago.  Jews were present in Chicago from its earliest days. The first Jews in the city were German and Ashkenazim.  By 1847, there were enough Jews in Chicago to establish Kehilath Anshe Maariv — Congregation of the Men of the West — on an upper floor of a commercial building. The congregation was popularly referred to as KAM and found its home in Hyde Park among the South Side German Jewish community. German Jews generally were accepted into mainstream society. In Chicago, they were already being elected to political office in the 1850s. Among the enterprises established by Chicago's German Jews were Florsheim Shoe Co., Hart Schaffner & Marx clothiers, the Brunswick billiard-table empire, Spiegel mail-order Company and Mandel Brothers department store, long a fixture on State Street. The Jews of Chicago: From Shtetl to Suburb by Irving Cutler provides a readable, popular history of the Jews of the Windy City.

1835: Isaac Jacobs married Matilda Levy at the Great Synagogue today.

1840: At Petersburg, VA,Rabbi Abraham H. Cohen officiated at the wedding of Capt. I.S. Cohen of Columbia, SC and Virginia Davis, he daughter of Ansley Davis

1842: Birthdate of Emily Bath, the native of Jefferson, Indiana who was interred in the Jewish Cemetery in Natchitoches, LA when passed away in 1924



1843: Birthdate of American playwright Bartely Campbell, the son of Irish immigrants who wrote “Siberia” a play about the persecution of the Jews in Russia.



1844: Birthdate of Edward Lauterbach, successful defense attorney, leader of the Republican Party and trustee of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.

1845: Two days after he had passed away, Mendel Samuel, the husband of Amelia Emanuel with whom he had five children – Samuel, Charlotte, Jane, Anne and Lewis – was buried today in the United Kingdom

1845: Today a month after the death of Henrik Wergeland, the Norwegian leader who gone from being an anti-Semite to favoring the admission of Jews as full citizens of his country, passed away, “the constitution committee referred their recommendation to repeal” the ban on Jews to the Parliament.

1847(30thof Av, 5607): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1847: Lawrence Emanuel married Eve Braham at the Great Synagogue today.



1848(13thof Av, 5608): Avraham Ullmann, who had been born in 1791 and was the son Shalom Charif Ullman, the chief rabbi of Lackenbach, passed away.



1851: Luis Schlesinger, a Hungarian born Jew who had fled to the United States after the failed revolutions of 1848 was captured by the Spanish at Pinar del Rio when he led an unsuccessful raid on Cuba under the auspices of Cuban General Narciso Lopez. (As reported by Ben G.Frank)



1853: A German Jew, who has used a variety of aliases including J. Meyer, was arrested at the Irving House.  While being taken to court he tried to get rid of a package containing pledge  tickets for a large quantity of valuable goods recently pawned at the shops of Bernstein, Levy, Silver, Smith and Murdock. The items left at the pawn shop were all stolen.



1854: The Moral and Religious column described a new sect that has started in England called The Disciples. They believe that Christ will appear in 1864; that the Russians will triumph over the Turks and the Jews over the Russians-- the latter event to happen in ten years' time when the Jews will become a nation in the Holy Land. Christ is to be their King, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the rest of the righteous Jews of old, with a few elect among Christians, will rise from the dead and live forever in Palestine; but the heathen and the wicked Jews and Christians will sleep eternally.

1857: Joseph Magnus married Sarah Natali today.

1859: Birthdate of Albert Lucas, he native of London who was the husband of Rebecca Nieto and “Secretary of the Union Orthodox Jewish Congregation of America, and Secretary of the Joint Distribution Committee.”

1860: Birthdate of Polish native Benjamin Feigenbaum, the American Socialist and journalist who was an associate editor of The Forward.

http://yleksikon.blogspot.com/2018/10/benyomen-feygenboym-benjamin-feigenbaum.html



1862: In Springfield, Illinois, “Samuel Rosenwald and his wife Augusta Hammerslough Rosenwald, a Jewish immigrant couple from Germany” gave birth to Julius Rosenwald who turned Sears, Roebuck and Company into a retailing behemoth while using much of his fortune to support education for African-Americans when this was one of the least important social concerns in the United States.



 http://www.searsarchives.com/people/juliusrosenwald.htm





1862: Construction was completed on the first synagogue built on Long Island which came to be known as the Boerum Schule because it was located in Boerum Hill.



1862: In the part of Germany that included the cities of Moisling and Lubeck, The Oath More Judaico or Jewish Oath was modified.  It would remain in force until 1879, when the Germans adopted laws regulating civil procedure which abolished the oath.

1862: Philadelphian Samuel W. Rowe began serving as a 1st Lieutenant in Company B of the 122nd Regiment.

1862: Philadelphian Benjamin F. Baer began serving as a Captain in Company F of the 122nd Regiment.

1862: Philadelphian Solomon H. Kamer began serving as Corporal in Company G in the 128th Regiment.

1863: Philadelphian Nathan Fromm, a Corporal in Company A of the 167thRegiment completed his service with the Union Army today.

1863: Philadelphian Joseph Jacoby, a Sergeant in Company I of the 167thRegiment completed his service with the Union Army today.

1865: Birthdate of a British psychoanalyst, physician, Zionist and writer David Eder whose opposition to the partition of Palestine in the 1920’s was summed up in his statement that “There can be only one national home in Palestine, and that a Jewish one, and no equality in the partnership between Jews and Arabs.”





1870: A few days into the inquest being held to determine the facts surrounding the death of Benjamin Nathan, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle protested the disparity in treatment being shown to his son’s Washington and Frederick, and the Irish Catholic servants of the Nathan family who had suddenly become the prime suspects.

1972: Birthdate of Morris Largeman, “the husband of Annie R. Largmen” and member of Shaari Zedek in Brooklyn, NY.

1873: Birthdate of New Yorker Alexander Alexander who passed away in 1940 at Miami Beach, FL.



1876(22ndof Av, 5636): Parashat Eikev



1876(22ndof Av, 5636): Forty-eight year old Leopold Blumberg, the Prussian Army Veteran who came to the United States in 1854, settled in Baltimore, MD and joined the Union Army after the attack on Fort Sumter finally succumbed to the effects of the wounds he received when shot by a sharpshooter at the Battle of Antietam in 1862.



1877(3rd of Elul, 5637): Rabbi Jaques Judah Lyons passed away today in New York. Judah and Mary Lyons; gave birth to him at Surinam, Dutch Guiana in 1814. “He was educated in Surinam, and was minister of the Spanish & Portuguese congregation there, Neveh Shalom, for five years. He left Surinam in 1837 and went to Richmond, Va., where for two years he was minister of the Congregation Beth Schalom. In 1839 he was elected minister of the Spanish and Portuguese congregation Shearith Israel, New York city, in succession to Isaac Seixas, and served the congregation thirty-eight years, successfully combating every movement to change the form of worship in his congregation. Lyons was among those who founded The Jews' (now Mount Sinai) Hospital; he was actively concerned in founding the Jewish Board of Delegates and Hebrew Free Schools and was superintendent of the Polonies Talmud Torah School…For many years he was president of the Hebra Hased ve-Emet and of the Sampson Simpson Theological Fund. Lyons was an ardent student and collected a library that is now in possession of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.” In 1857, he joined with Dr. Abraham de Sola of Montreal, in preparing and publishing a Hebrew calendar covering fifty years, together with an essay on the Jewish calendar system



1878: Jewish representatives from the United States, Holland, Germany, England, Belgium, Romania, Palestine, Turkey, Italy Spain, France Austria and Russia met in Paris today to celebrate the anniversary of the Alliance Israelite Universelle of France. During the meeting, the attendees provided reports on the conditions of Jews in various countries and possible ways to improve their conditions.  It was suggested that a medal “commemorating the emancipation of the Jews in the East” should be presented to each member of the Berlin Congress on behalf “of the Jews of the world.”

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9404E0DF153EE73BBC4D51DFBE668383669FDE





1878: It was reported today that details have been released regarding the will of the late Michael Reese. His generosity included $650,000 for the State University of California and $25,000 to the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F03E4DA143EE63BBC4A52DFBE668383669FDE





1879: It was reported today that Romania might agree “to accept the principle of equal rights for the Jews” if some consideration would be given to how it is applied.  Germany might be willing to agree to such an arrangement.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=940DE5D9133EE73BBC4A52DFBE668382669FDE





1879: “A Theory of Noses” published today provides an example of the outlandish 19thcentury that physical characteristics determined people’s behavior, intellect and social standing.  The fact “that the Jewish nation has for ages maintained a high level of civilization and that nevertheless the Jewish nose is not straight but curved” presents a problem for this theory.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9803E5D9133EE73BBC4A52DFBE668382669FDE



1880: In Hungary, Kalman Hartman and the former Sarah Luchs gave birth Gustav Hartman  attorney, Republican Party leader, jurist and philanthropist who founded the Israel Orphan Asylum in 1913 which he oversaw until his death in 1936

1881:  In Ashfield, MA, Henry and Matilda Beatrice DeMille gave birth to movie mogul Cecil B. DeMille.  His father was Episcopalian and his mother was Jewish. Regardless of how you view his religious background, he will forever be connected with Moses and the Jewish people through “The Ten Commandments.”



1881: It was reported today that anti-Semitism is so prevalent Pomerania and West Russia that recent government actions to protect the Jews living there will be totally ineffective.



1882: Today’s Congressional Record contained “a speech by the Honorable S.S. Cox on the persecution of the Jews in Russia.”  It was “an elaborate paper illustrated with poetical extracts, two pages of tables and a neatly engraved map.”



1882: “Russian Jews” published today described the plan of Chicago banker Lazarus Silverman to settle several Jewish immigrant families totaling 150 men, women in children on 300 acres that owns on 300 acres of land on Carp Lake in Michigan. The group includes one tailor, one wagon-maker, one blacksmith, one cooper, one paper-hanger, two tinsmiths, three coppersmiths and most important of all, 3 farmers.

http://www.nndb.com/people/207/000104892/



1883(9thof Av, 5643): Tish’a B’Av



1883: “Bread Making” published today which describes the baking of bread in the British Isles begins by declaring that “since the time of the early Jews there has been very little change in the process.”

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9C0CE6DF133BE033A25751C1A96E9C94629FD7CF





1883:”Ancient Manuscripts” published today described how Moses Shapira acquired an ancient copy of the Book of Deuteronomy in Palestine and sent it on to London where it can be preserved and studied. It is claimed this codex is 2,700 years old and provides evidence that the ancient Israelites were writing “consecutive narrative” at a time that corresponds to the Greeks Homer and Hesiod.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=940CE6DF133BE033A25751C1A96E9C94629FD7CF





1884: It was reported today that a note had been found on the body of Israel Blatchky, a young Jew who had been living in Des Moines for three years.  According to the note he was despondent over a failed love affair and bought poison six months ago.

1884: Birthdate of Yiddish writer David Bergeson whose “only child, Lev, was an eminent Soviet biochemist who served as a Soviet Army captain during World War II and emigrated to Israel in 1991 with his wife Naomi, where both he and his wife died in 2014 and who was ironically murdered by Stalinist anti-Semitic purge that took place 68 years to the day from the date of his birth.

http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Bergelson_Dovid

1884: Birthdate of May Belle Greenebaum, the wife of Herbert Fleishhacker and mother of Marjorie, Herbert, Jr and Alan Fleishhacker.



1884: In Telšiai, Lithuania, Isaac Noyk and Esther Chana Ravid gave birth to Michael Noyk who became a solicitor and Irish republican political leader.



1884: Leading Chicago businessman Morris L. Cohn was arraigned today and held for trial in lieu of $10,000 bond on numerous charges of forgery that included his issuance of $15,000 in bogus notes.



1885: Americans living Haifa write today that their “colony” in that city “is well known as an industrious, intelligent and law abiding community and the members of it are justly entitled to the full protection of their government…The time has come when it is absolutely necessary for the United States government to take a firm stand against the aggressive and illegal policy of the Turkish authorities.”  (As reported by Ruth Kark and Seth Frantzman)

1885: Birthdate of Russian native Samuel Maurice Pearl, who came to Boston in 1901, earned a medical degree from Tufts University and practiced medicine in Boston where he also served as a “trustee with B’nai B’rith.



1887: Congregation Keneseth Israel of Philadelphia, PA made a payment of $152 to the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

1887: In France, Esther and Joseph Tcherniac gave birth to Dora Tcherniac.

1887: Seymour Bottigheimer the son of Ellis Bottigheimer of Richmond, VA turned celebrated his sixteenth birthday today while waiting to find out if he had been admitted to Hebrew Union College.



1888: It was reported today that the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children will be providing another free excursion for sick children under the age of six later this month.

1888: In St. Paul, MN, Silas Abraham Vehon and Anna Vehon gave birth to Isadore Vehon who was a merchant in Salina, KS and the husband of Josephine Bondy.



1890: The Lord Mayor of London announced that “inquiries into the persecution of the Jews of Russia give reason to believe that the Government’s edicts will not be enforced.” (He was wrong)



1890: Birthdate of Al Goodman. Born in Nikopol Russia, he was the orchestra leader for the NBC Comedy Hour, a show that dominated Sunday nights during the early 1950’s.



1891: In Russayn, Meyer Cohen and Rebecca Benyash gave birth to Canadian lawyer and professor Joseph Cohen



1892: In Canada, Judge Dugas ordered the extradition of two Jews - Harris Blank and Charles Rosenweigh - who are accused of murdering a Jewish peddler named Jacob Marks in Towanda, PA.



1892: Davis Rubenstein, a Russian Jew who lives at 183 Clinton Street lodged a complaint against Berman’s butcher shop at 9 Suffolk Street for the sale of “impure food.”

1893: Birthdate of Elmira, NY, native Irwin Wallace Alpert, the orthopedic surgeon educated at Union College and the University of Buffalo.



1893: In New Orleans, Maximilian Heller, the rabbi at Temple Sinai and a leading member of the Reform movement and Ida Annie Heller gave birth to Isaac Sherck Heller



1893: Birthdate of sculptor Bashka Paeff, the native of Minks who began her training at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and created such works as the “Lexington Militia Man” relief.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bashka_Paeff#/media/File:Lexington_Minute_Man_relief_(Basha_Paeff)_-_Lexington,_MA.JPG



http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9B02E0DA1639E732A25755C2A9679C946890D6CF





1894(10thof Av, 5654): The 9th of Av fell on Shabbat so Tish’a B’Av is observed today



1895: Felix Fader who was found selling calico from a pushcart on Mulberry Street, Nathan Rablowitz who was caught selling dry goods at his store on Grand Street, Abraham Wolf who was arrested for selling three hats on Bowery and Max Rothman who was arrested for selling underwear from a wheelbarrow on Catherine Street went to court and pleaded that they observed the Jewish Sabbath which meant they should not have been arrested for violating the Sunday Closing Laws.  The court “overruled their plea that they worked on the Christian Sunday they must do so quietly.” This downturn was consistent with the downturn for all immigrant groups.



1897: At Temple Emanuel, Rabbi Gustav Gottheil will officiate at the funeral of the late Moses Schloss the life-long Republican businessman who had served as the Congregation’s Vice President as well as President of the Hebrew Theological Institute.  He was predeceased by his wife of 56 years, Amalia Water, the daughter of I.D. Walter.  He is survived by his bother Philip and his son Israel,



1897: A summary of immigration statistics published today showed that 22,750 Russian Jews had arrived in the United States as of the fiscal year ending June 30, 1897.  This compared with 45,137 Russian Jews who had arrived in the United States for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1896.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=FB0912FE385416738DDDAB0994D0405B8785F0D3

1897: Two days after he had passed away “in his 47thyear,” Michael Isaacs was buried today at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.

1898: An armistice took effect ending the Spanish-American War. “In the Spanish-American War, Jews once again demonstrated that they are willing and ready to fight and serve in defense of our country. When the battleship Main was sunk on February 15, 1898, there were 15 Jewish sailors who went down with the ship. The executive officer of the Maine, and later a vice admiral in the United States Navy, was Adolph Marix, a Jew. Marix was the chairman of a board of inquiry to investigate the mysterious sinking of the Maine. It is interesting to note that his father was an interpreter in the Lincoln Administration and that Abraham Lincoln appointed Adolph Marix to the United States Naval Academy. When the United States declared war against Spain on April 21, 1898, the first volunteer was Colonel Joseph M. Heller, who left a thriving medical practice to become an acting assistant surgeon in the Army. About 5,000 Jews served in this war. When the Jewish High Holy Days were approaching in 1898, there were 4,000 requests for furloughs to attend services. There were indeed 30 Jewish Army officers and 20 more in the Navy in the Spanish-American War. Jewish casualties ran high for the percentage of Jews in the service. Twenty-nine were killed, 47 wounded, and 28 died from disease - for a total of 104. Corporal Ben Prager received the Silver Star Medal for his bravery in the Philippines in 19 skirmishes and engagements. The official citation describes his accomplishments: "When the engagement was fully opened up, Corporal Benjamin Prager and seven other soldiers from Companies A and L, 19th United States Infantry, moved out and charged the enemy ... and after twice charging in the face of heavy fire, succeeded in dislodging the enemy and putting the entire force to rout. With true soldierly spirit, the success was followed up and the enemy was driven out of the city across the river and mountains." Colonel Teddy Roosevelt commanded the Rough Riders, which included a large number of Jews. The first Rough Rider killed was a 16-year-old Jewish boy, Jacob Wilbusky. Colonel Roosevelt promoted five men in his command for their bravery in the field without knowledge of their religion. One of them was a Jew. Sergeant Maurice Joost of the First California Volunteers, a regiment that had more than 100 Jewish soldiers, was the first man to fall in the attack on Manila. There were 280,000 American soldiers in this war, which was four-tenths of I percent of the population. Jewish soldiers were one-half of I percent of the American Jewish population; therefore, Jews served in greater proportion than did the remainder of the nation's citizens.”

1898: Birthdate of actor Oscar Homolka who was not Jewish but whose first wife was Jewish and who left for Great Britain when the Nazis came to power.

1899: In Rennes, France, the President of the Court returned Dreyfus’ salute for the first time marking a shift in the tone of the Court Martial which indicates the Jewish Captain will be acquitted.

1899: “Third Zionist Congress” published today identified the “two chief questions” that will be discussed at the upcoming meeting in Basel, Switzerland which relate to the settlement in Palestine and the “financing of trust company” which will further that endeavor.

1899: Five thousand “enthusiastic” Jews gather in London this evening to express their sympathy with Captain Dreyfus.

1899:Herzl travels to Darmstadt and is received by the Grossherzog of Hessen, brother-in-law of the Czar. Herzl asks him to recommend the "Chartered Company" to the Czar.

1899: “Dreyfusites Ask Full Publicity” published today described the demand of Dreyfus’ supporters that that the secret dossier which was used to convict him should be made public so that everybody can see the obvious forgeries and understand that he was framed by the military.


1899: Jacob Adler performed the role of King Lear at the People’s Theatre, a Jewish playhouse located in the Bowery.

1900:A Garden Party was held in Regent's Park during Herzl’s visit to Great Britain.

1900(17th of Av, 5660): The Father of Modern Chess, Wilhelm Steinitz, passed away.  Born in the Jewish Ghetto in Prague, in 1836, Steinitz began his professional career as a journalist.  He won his first major chess tournament in Vienna in 1861.  This marked the beginning of his domination of the game that would continue almost up to the time of his death.



1902(9th of Av, 5662): Tisha’ B’Av

1902: In Dallas, TX, Rabbi Simon Glazer and Ida Cantor Glazer gave birth to B. Benedict Glazer, the both Charles and Aubrey Glazer, who followed in his father’s footsteps after being ordained at HUC, leading congregations in New York and Detroit, Michigan where he also served on the state’s Commission on Civil Rights.

1904(1st of Elul, 5664): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1904(1st of Elul, 5664): Thirty-one year old Rumanian native Mary Bunderoff passed away today after which she was buried at the Happy Valley Jewish Cemetery in Hong Kong.

1905(11th of Av, 5665): Shabbat Nachamu

1905: Birthdate of Chicago native Ruben Grossman, who moved to Palestine in 1929 where as Ruven Avinoam he taught English literature at Hezliyyah high school, became a published author, serve as “supervisor of English studies at the Israel Ministry of Defense” and raised a son Noam, an author who died in the War of Independence

.

1908(15th of 5658): Tu B’Av is observed for the last time during the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.

1910: Jews in Serres, Salonica protested against the use of the 200-year-old Jewish cemetery site for the construction of a new hospital. The plan was later abandoned. 

1911(18th of Av, 5671): Parashat Eikev

1911: It was reported today that 102 year old “Mrs. S. H. Cohen of London, the great aunt of Sir Rufus Isaac is the oldest Jewess in England.”

1911: It was reported today that “in a recent address Czar Ferdinand of Bulgaria said that he hoped the Jews would always regarded as political equals in that country…”

1911: It was reported today due to “constant persecution,” one hundred Persian Jewish families from Shiraz “who have lost their homes” “have petitioned the Jews of London” for funds to help them emigrate to Palestine.

1911(18th of Av, 5671): Eighty-seven year old Dutch painter Jozef Israëls whose works included “David Singing Before Saul” and “Jewish Wedding” painted in 1903  passed away today

http://www.nndb.com/people/207/000104892/



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jozef_Isra%C3%ABls#mediaviewer/File:Isra%C3%ABls-A_Jewish_Wedding-1903.jpg



1912:Yankee Guy Zinn sets a record by stealing home twice in the same game.

1912: On his 50th birthday Julius “Rosenwald made a dramatic entry into large-scale philanthropy” wheh he “announced he would be giving away close to $700,000 (about $16 million in current dollars), and encouraged other wealthy individuals to support good causes of their own. “Give While You Live,” was his slogan.”

http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/almanac/hall_of_fame/julius_rosenwald

1912(29th of Av, 5672): Twenty-seven year old Chester H. Brunswick, the “Deputy Harbor and Wharf Commissioner” passed away today in St. Louks.



1912: In Worcester, MA, Benjamin Rabinovitch and his wife gave birth to author and screenwriter Samuel Michael Fuller the decorated member of the Army’s famous First Division which he immortalized in “The Big Red One,” the popular name for his WW II unit



1912: Birthdate of Max I Dimont, the native of Helsinki who moved to Cleveland as a teenager and wrote Jews, God and History while spending 35 years working for Edison Brothers.



https://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/jews-god-and-history-by-max-i-dimont/



1912: Birthdate of Whitney Harris, one of the prosecutors who brought high-ranking Nazi war criminals to justice at the Nuremberg trials and who, a half-century later, was a significant voice in the creation of the International Criminal Court.



1913(9th of Av, 5673): Tish’A B’Av

1913: The brand name "Oreo" was registered by the United States Patent and Trademark Office for exclusive use by the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) for its cookies which get its Chesher in 1988.



1914: As Europe stumbles its way into what will become World War I with all of its negative consequences for Jews Britain (and therefore the British Empire) declares war on Austria-Hungary.



1914:  “Jewish historian Gustav Mayer…found his father bewailing the collapse of business as his drapery shop in Berlin’s Zehlendorf.  (As reported by Max Hastings)

1915: In Wennetka, a suburb of Chicago Alfred Samuel Alschuler, Sr. and Rose Alice Alschuler, the daughter of Charles and Mary Haas, gave birth to Richard Haas Alschuler

1915: At the Dardanelles, during the Gallipoli campaign, for the first time a ship was sunk by torpedo from a British seaplane

1915: Sixty year old Eli Pochansky, “an Orthodox Jewish father” who believes that smoking  cigarettes on the Sabbath is a sin deserving of severe punishment” appeared in Tombs Court today “on a charge of assaulting members of his family who do not conform to his views.”

1916: Isaac Don Levine, the Russian born American newspaperman who covered the Russian Revolution for the New York Herald Tribune described a meeting of the ruling Cabinet held in July where discussion of the “Jewish Question” included approval of the abolishment of the Pale of Settlement and agreement to discuss it further when “the Minister of Finances, Pierre Bark and the Imperial Controller N.N. Pokrovsky return from abroad.”



1916: At a farewell luncheon at the City Club, “Abram I. Elkus, the newly appointed Ambassador to Turkey, told Jewish editors and educators” including Herman Bernstein “that serious problems awaited him in Turkey but he hoped to to solve them to the satisfaction of the Administration and of his friends.”

1916: “Italian troops landed at Salonika” home to an ancient Jewish community that would be wiped in the Shoah, and joined in the fighting with Allied forces.

1916:  In the aftermath of the Battle of Romani, the first clear victory by Allied troops over the Ottomans, the Anzac Mounted Division entered Bir el Abd and found that the Austrians, Turks and Germans had withdrawn and was head back to El Arish and beyond.

1917: It was reported today that, “following the example set by Nathan Straus who has offered his New York City home for sale for the benefit of Jewish war sufferers, Mrs. Charles Brady of Rock Island, Illinois has given away her jewels with the idea that they will be sold and the proceeds given to the Central Jewish Relief Committee” which is attempting to raise $10,000,000 under the leadership of Harry Fischel who is the treasurer.



1917: “About 100 Palestine Jews, principally the wives and children of men who were naturalized years ago in the United States arrived” in Berne, Switzerland “today from Jerusalem on their way to New York.”



1918: Birthdate of Sanford Daniel Garelik, the Bronx native whom became the first Jew to serve as Chief Inspector in the New York Police Department (As reported by Matt Flegenheimer)



1918: Birthdate of Sidney “Sid” Bernstein the “impresario whose long career included bringing the Beatles to Carnegie Hall in 1964 and Shea Stadium in 1965.” (As reported by Allan Kozinin)

1918: The “announcement of the decision of the Prussian Foreign Minister that Jewish laborers will not be admitted to Germany from the East has caused resentment in all Jewish circles especially in Austria” where the realization has set in that while “Russia has abolished all laws placing limitations on Jews” “Germany is the only European state which wises to drive out the Jews.”

1918: General John Monash was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath on the battlefield by King George V following the successful Battle of Amiens. (Monash was Jewish; King George wasn’t)



1918(4th of Elul, 5678): Anna Held Polish-born, American actress and singer, passed away.  Held is variously described as the mistress and/or common-in-law wife of Flo Ziegfeld.  Reportedly, she collaborated with Ziegfeld on the creation of his famed Follies review. She was 46 when she died of cancer. 

1920: “Colonel Harry Cutler” who has been “named by Secretary Baker” to serve “on the War Memorial Commission left for Europe” today aboard the SS Imperator.



1921: Following an earlier donation by Mrs. Nathan Straus of jewels valued at $18,500 to the “Zionist Organization of America for medical and health services in Palestine, today, “Nathan Straus presented eight milk stations and a pasteurization laboratory” to the city of New York.



1922: Birthdate of Holocaust survivor and Polish journalist, Leopold Unger.

           

1924: Moshav Magdi'el (now part of Hod Hasharon) was founded. A Moshav is a form of collective settlement.  Unlike the Kibbutz, the Moshav allowed for more private ownership.  Hod Hashron has grown into a modern city in the Central District of Israel.

1926: In Southwark, “a professional photographer” and his wife gave birth to David Cyril Aarons who gained fame as “jazz pianist and songwriter” David Lee.

1927: Birthdate of cellist Mstislav Rostropovich winner of theJewish National Fund 1987 Man of the Year and the Humanitarian Award from the United Jewish Appeal Federation



1930: In Budapest,Erzsébet (also known as Elizabeth) Soros and attorney “Tivadar” Soros gave birth to “billionaire businessman and philanthropist George Soros “the right wing bogeyman” who in a 1993 speech essentially blamed Jews for anti-Semitism saying that the rise in European anti-Semitism was just the result of Israel’s policies which lead the “head of the Anti-Defamation League to describe his views as obscene.”



1931: In Highland Park, Illinois, Marion (née Weil) and Maurice Clarence Goldman gave birth to author

William Goldman, whose works included Marathon Man and Princess Bride as well as the script for “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/16/obituaries/william-goldman-dead.html

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/nov/16/william-goldman-obituary



1931:Louis Lipsky, former president of the Zionist Organization of America, returned today aboard the White Star liner Homeric from Europe where he had attended the World Zionist Congress, held recently at Basle, Switzerland.

1931: “Following the death of President George Cowen and the resignation of Sigmund T. Hess, Walter T. Kohn was elected president of Temple Beth Miriam in Long Branch, NJ.

1931: Martha and Jackie Fields, the winner of two boxing world championships were joined in a marriage today which did not last since they separated in 1940 and divorced in 1944.



1935: Birthdate of Joan Hamburg, “New York Radio’s First Lady” and the first cousin of Arthur Liman.



1936: In Vienna, Ernest and Mimi Hausner gave birth to Evelyn Hausner, the Austrian born refugee who gained fame as Evelyn Lauder, the wife of Leonard Lauder.



1936: Today, New York City “Mayor La Guardia accepted…membership on a committee sponsoring the publication of the United Palestine Appear Year Book for 1936 which will aid the $3,500,000 campaign for the settlement in Palestine of Jews from Germany, Poland and other lands” writing to the committee that “the regeneration of Palestine through the settling of more than 30,000 refugees from Germany is a warning to oppressors and tyrants.”



1936: “A proposal was made today to finance by an individual tax the permanent world organization that the World Jewish Congress is meeting” at Geneva “to create” while “the boycott commission agreed today to recommend that the Jewish congress endorse the German boycott, establish a special department to extend and strengthen this boycott and issue economic reports exposing subsidies for products made in Germany.”

1937: The British Colonial Secretary, Mr. W.G.A. Ormsby-Gore, declared in Geneva, during the deliberations of the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission, that he was told by Dr. Chaim Weizmann that the political resolution adopted by the 20th Zionist Congress opened the door to negotiations for giving effect to the Peel Commission¹s proposals for the partition of Palestine and that talks on this subject would start at the conclusion of the September sessions of the League of Nations Council. Reports from Damascus indicated that Syria had become the center of activity for the training of armed men, the future leaders of the Palestine Arab uprising. The recent attack on Kfar Menahem was a trial measure perpetrated by such roving terrorist bands. The Arab Higher Committee denied that foreign money donations were used to carry out such military and sabotage training, carried out in preparations for future disturbances. 

1937: “A contract was drawn up today requesting ‘musical dramatic work…suitable for radio broadcasting” that would result in Marc Blitzstein creating “I’ve Got the Tune,” an opera dedicated to Orson Wells for CBS Radio.

1937:A proposal to settle 200,000 Jews in Palestine within the next three years, involving an investment of about $175,000,000, was laid before the World Zionist Congress today. The proposal was made by Elieser Kaplal, treasurer of the Zionist executive committee, who said American Jewry was expected to contribute $2,000,000 to the Zionist movement and Palestine fund in the current fiscal year.

1938(15th of Av, 5698): Tu B’Av

1938(15th of Av, 5698): Seventy-four year old German born Egyptologist Ludwig Borchardt who married Emilie (Mimi) Cohen, the daughter of artist Eduard Cohn, in 1903, and was involved in the excavations of the Pyramid of Sahure and Amana where the bust of Nefertiti was found passed away today in Paris.

1939: In Greenwich, CT, Walter E. Sachs, an investment banker with Benjamin & Sachs married actress Mary Williamson.

1939: Birthdate of David Jacobs, the Baltimore screenwriter who created “Dallas” the prime-time CBS soap opera that made JR Ewing a household name.

1939: “The Spy in Black” produced by Alexander Korda with a screenplay by Emeric Pressburger was released in the United Kingdom today by Columbia Pictures.

1940(8th of Av, 5700): Erev Tish'a B'Av

1940: In New York City, Ruth (née Goldberg) Kostner and her husband, Wall Street executive Theodore Kostner, gave birth to Gail Kostner who gained fame as screenwriter and author Gail Parent.

1941: In Vire, France, Abraham Drucker and his wife gave birth to television executive Jean Drucker, the brother television host Michel Rucker and Professor of Medicine Jacques Drucker and the father of journalist Marie Drucker.

1941(19th of Av, 5701): Nazis began the systematic murder of the Jews of Dvinsk, Latvia.

1941: The House of Representative votes to extend the first peace time conscription bill.  Proponents of the bill prevailed by one vote.  This one-vote victory was one of Sam Rayburn’s proudest legislative accomplishments.  If the bill had not passed, the United States would have been in the process of disbanding its newly created military force just at the moment when the Japanese were attacking Pearl Harbor.  One can only imagine of how much longer World War II would have lasted and how many more than six million Jews would have perished in a prolonged Holocaust.

1941: “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” the movie version of the 19th century novella with a script co-authored by Samuel Hoffenstein, music by Franz Waxman and filmed by cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg was released in the United States today.

1942: Despite a campaign under the leadership of Hashomer Hatzair activist Zvi Dunski to stay away, “all the remaining Jews in Bedzin, Sosnowiec and Dabrowa Gornicza, the three neighboring towns located in the Zaglebie district in southwest Poland reported to the soccer field in Sosnowiec, where instead of having their papers revalidated they were subjected to “a large selection resulting in the deportation of 8,000 to Auschwitz.”

1942: Eighty-seven year old Jacob Gould Schurman who as President of Cornell University in 1905 sent a check to Jacob H. Schiff “for the fund in relief of the suffering Jews of Russia” along with a letter saying “The atrocities of the Russian mob have been beyond all description or imagination” and that it was his prayer “that the Christians of America may…remember with compassion and help with the generous contributions their sorely stricken Jewish brethren in Russia” passed away today.

1942(29th of Av, 5702): Fifty-six year old pioneering psychoanalyst Sabin Spielrein was murdered by the Nazis at Rostov-on-Don.


1943: “Phantom of the Opera” directed by Arthur Lubin and featuring J. Edward Bromberg was released today in the United States.

1944: Members of the 16thSS-Panzergrenadier Division “Reichsfuehrer SS,” killed more than 500 civilians in the Tuscan Village of Sant’Anna di Stazzema (As reported by David Rising)


1944: Birthdate of American actor Bruce Solomon who appropriately played Rabbi David Small in the television series “Lanigan’s Rabbi.”

1944(23rd of Av, 5704): Berl Katznelson “one the intellectual founders of Labor Zionism, instrumental to the establishment of the modern State of Israel, and the editor of Davar, the first daily newspaper of the workers' movement,” passed away today. “He was born in Bobruysk, Russia in 1887, and dreamed of settling in the Jewish homeland from an early age. In Russia, he was a librarian in a Hebrew-Yiddish library and taught Hebrew literature and Jewish history. He made aliyah to Ottoman Palestine in 1909, where he worked in agriculture and took an active role in organizing workers' federations based on the idea of "common work, life and aspirations." With Meir Rothberg, Katznelson founded the consumer co-operative known as Hamashbir Latzarhan. He helped to establish the Kupat Holim Clalit sick fund, a major fixture in Israel's network of socialized medicine. He was the editor of the newspaper, Davar, as well as the founder and first editor-in-chief of the Am Oved publishing house.” Katznelson was buried in the cemetery on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.

1944: “Just days before the liberation of Paris” 39 year old Suzanne Spaak, the lady of luxury who joined the joined Leopold Trepper’s “Red Orchestra and saved 163 Jewish children from sent to the death camps before being captured, tortured and murdered by the Nazis – actions for which she recognized by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Among the Nations – “was executed by the Gestapo today.


1944: Birthdate of Jersey City, NJ native Steven Katz, the hold of Ph.D. from Cambridge (UK) who has served as “the director Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies” at Boston University.

1945: In Brooklyn, Henry Rascoff, a pediatrician, and the former Minna Martz, a criminal lawyer gave birth to Joseph Fishel Rascoff the accountant who “became the business manager and tour producer of the Rolling Stone, U2 and Paul Simon. (As reported by Richard Sandomir)


1945: From Halkis, Greece it was reported, "The one man capable of teaching Hebrew and Judaism, Rabbi Davidson Matsa and his wife and 6 children have recently left for Janina, where he hopes to function as rabbi. He originally came from Janina. Individual Jews are trying to fill his place by carrying on religious activities in the Synagogue." 

1946(15thof Av, 5706): Tu B’Av

1946: President Harry Truman sent a telegram rejecting the ”Morris-Grady” plan because it would turn the Jewish zone in Palestine into “a ghetto” and “a betrayal” of promises made to the Jews and to Jewish aspirations for a homeland.

1946: Birthdate of New York native William D. Rubenstein, the Swarthmore and Johns Hopkins University trained historian who has taught in Great Britain and Australia and is the author of Men of Property: The Very Wealthy in Britain Since the Industrial Revolution.

1948: The first diplomatic envoy of the United States arrived in Israel

1948: The Czech government ordered a halt to arms shipment to Israel.  The new Communist Czech government’s policy was conforming to the increasing anti-Israel policy of their Soviet masters.  

1948(7th of Av, 5708): Three Jewish soldiers, Moshe Eliash, Alfred Rabinowitz and Pinah Solevetchik, were killed when Arab Legion shells fell on Mount Zion.

1948: “Arab Legion forces blew up the Latrun water pumping station” forcing Jewish Jerusalem to rely on private cisterns for its water supply.

1949: In Glasgow, Scotland Erwin Knopfler a Jewish refugee Hungary and Louisa Mary gave birth to rock musician Mark Freuder Knopfler

1949(17th of Av, 5709): Eighty-one year old Al Shean the German born Jewish comedian who was the “Shean” in the vaudeville team of Gallagher and Shean passed away.  (Editor’s note – is comedy genetic; Shean was the brother of Minnie Marx meaning he was the uncle of the Marx brothers)


1950: Riots broke out at Kikar HaShabbat (Sabbath Square) in Jerusalem when members of the Haredi community clashed with youth from Hashomer Hatzair who were upset by the problems they were having delivering milk from their farms.

1950(29thof Av, 5710): Parashat Re’eh

1950(29thof Av, 5710): Fifty-nine year old Austrian native Morris Jacobovits, who served as a rabbi in Cologne and Strasbourg as well as a chaplain in the French Army and worked with “the French Underground and various American relief organizations” to help adults and children regardless of religion during the occupation before escaping to Switzerland with his family and finally arriving in New York where he was serving “Congregation K’hall Adath Jeshurun” when he passed away today.


1950: After 581 performances, the curtain came down today at the Broadhurst Theatre on the original Broadway production of “Detective Story” written by Sidney Kingsley and in which Lee Grant “earned praise for her role as a shoplifter.”

1951(10th of Av, 5711):  Since the 9thof Av fell on Shabbat, observance of Tish'a B'Av

1951: Joseph B. Levin was designated Assistant Director of Office of Opinion Writing at the Securities and Exchange Commission.

1952: The government withdrew from the Knesset the bill granting the World Zionist Organization a special status, as “the representative of the Jewish people.” The government felt that there were many Jews and Jewish organizations in the world which were not a part of the Zionist movement and who had no intention of joining it, and yet they were interested and working for Israel. The government did not wish to do anything to lessen their goodwill or to interfere with their direct connection with the State. It was, however, prepared to support a corrected version of the WZO status. A new, blue Israeli passport was shown to the press for the first time.

1952: “Park Row” a drama directed, produced and written by Samuel Fuller was released in the United States today.

1952(21st of Av, 5712): In what was part of a wave of post-war anti-Semitism, 24 of the foremost Yiddish writers of Russia were executed by the Soviet Government. Among the victims were Peretz Markish, David Bergelson, Itzik Fefer, Leib Kwitko, David Hofstein,Benjamin Zuskin, Solomon Lozovsky and Boris Shimeliovich


1955: Today Columbia trained attorney William Bernard “Herlands received a recess appointment from President Dwight D. Eisenhower to a seat on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.”

1956: William Shatner married Gloria Rand.



1957(15th of Av, 5717): Tu B’Av



1957: “Chances Are” a popular song with lyrics by Al Stillman was released today.



1958: In New York, psychologist Sally Landsburg and Alan Landsburg gave birth to actress Valerie Landsburg “best known for her role as Doris Schwartz in the 1982 television series ‘Fame.’”

1959: It was reported today that The World Jewish Congress has elected Dr. Nahum Goldmann  to serve a second term as President.







1961(30th of Av, 5721): Parashat Re’eh; Rosh Chodesh Elul

1961(30th of Av, 5721): Bryn Mawr grad and pioneering psychiatrist Sadi Muriel Baron, the wife of Dr. David Raskind and the mother of Dr. Richard Raskind who gained fame as Dr. Renee Richards passed away today.

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/Baron-Sadi-Muriel





1961: Dr. Arthur G. King wrote to Dr. Jacob R. Marcus discussing “the origin of the Jewish cemetery located in the Cincinnati, Ohio suburb of Clifton.



1962: Birthdate of David Horovitz, the London born Israeli journalist who made Aliyah in 1983 and founded the newly created The Times of Israel.

1964: “The Patsy” a comedy directed by Jerry Lewis who co-wrote the script and co-starred along with Ina Balin, Phil Foster and Peter Lorre was released in the United States today.



1964:  Ellen Siegel, a “Freedom Summer volunteer” wrote a letter today in which she said, ““For the first time in my life, I am seeing what it is like to be poor, oppressed, and hated. And what I see here does not apply only to Gulfport or to Mississippi or even to the South … The people we’re killing in Viet Nam are the same people whom we’ve been killing for years in Mississippi. True, we didn’t tie the knot in Mississippi and we didn’t pull the trigger in Viet Nam—that is, we personally—but we’ve been standing behind the knot-tiers and the trigger-pullers too long.” (JWA)



1965: In Tel Aviv, “the $150,000 Anna Lazaroff Synagogue of the Lubavitcher Vocational Schools in Kfar Chabad, created with contributions from a number of American Jewish families, was dedicated today.” (JTA)



1970: “Soldier Blue” a movie based on the Sand Creek Massacre produced by Harold Loeb and co-starring Peter Strauss was released today in the United States.

1971:  Birthdate of actor Michael Ian Black

1971: “The Black Belly of the Tarantula” an Italian horror film featuring Barbara Bach was released today.



1972(2nd of Elul, 5732): Sixty-two year old Richard “Dick” Fishel who played halfback for Syracuse in the 1930’s and then turned pro as a linebacker with the Brooklyn Dodgers football team passed away today.

1976(14th of Av, 5733): Sixty-three year old Harry A. Pearson the graduate of Cooper Union and NYU and director of research for the Sontone Coporation passed away today in White Plains, NY five days after his birthday.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9A03E0DA103DE63ABC4C52DFBE668388669EDE

1976(14th of Av, 5773): Seventy-five year old Pittsburgh native J. Marshall Taxay, the graduate of the University of Cincinnati and Hebrew Union College who served as the Rabbi at Temple Israel in Bath, OH from 1945 to 1953 and at Temple B’nai Israel in Pinellas Count from 1960 until his retirement in 1969 and who raised one child, Emil, with his wife Mildred passed away today.

https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Message_of_Rabbi_J_Marshall_Taxay_Pr.html?id=rsOBNAAACAAJ



1976: “The Israeli Ministry of Commerce and Industry” announced today that “an agreement had been worked out between the Government and Ted Ashley, the Chairman of the Board of Warner Bros., to produce a film about the” rescue “of more than 100 Israeli hostages” who had been “held last month in a hijacked Air France plane at Entebbe Airport in Uganda.



1976: Daniel P. Moynihan said today “that the United Nations was lax in combating terrorism and pointed to the Istanbul bombing…as proof of the need for the ‘world’s democracies’ to form an ‘international force to do the job.”



1976: First Lady Betty Ford “shook hands with the 160 members” of “the national board of Hadassah” who attended a reception in the Blue Room where they enjoyed “tea, pastries and string ensemble music.”



1976: In Istanbul, the state prosecutor said tonight that “two Palestinian terrorist will face the death penalty in a Turkish court on charges stemming from their attack at Istanbul airport” where they killed four and wounded more than thirty people” in a vain attempt to hijack an Israeli airliner”



1979(19th of Av, 5739): Seventy-nine year old Ernst Boris Chain, the Berlin born son of Margarete (née Eisner) and Michael Chain,  biochemist and recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1945 who had fled Nazi Germany in 1933 passed away today.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1945/chain/biographical/





1988: “Tucker: The Man and His Dream” a biopic comedy written by Arnold Schulman and David Seidler and co-starring Martin Landau was released in the United States today.

1988: “The Last Temptation of Christ” co-starring Harvey Keitel and Barbara Hershey and featuring Irvin Kershner was released today in the United States.

1990: Iraq President Saddam Hussein says he is ready to resolve the Gulf crisis if Israel withdraws from occupied territories.  Of course, invading Kuwait had nothing to do with Israel, but Israel is always a good smoke screen when Arab dictators are up to devious deeds.



1991(2nd of Elul, 5751): Yeruham Cohen, an early Israeli undercover soldier, died on today, at the age of 75 years. “Mr. Cohen, an Arabic-speaker of Yemeni origin, died of an unspecified illness. He was a top aide to the commander of Israel's underground forces during the country's war for independence in 1948 and also belonged to a unit whose members disguised themselves as Arabs to infiltrate enemy lines.  Mr. Cohen is most famous for his acquaintance with Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, whom he met in 1948 during the Israeli war for independence while Israeli forces encircled Egyptian troops the southern Negev. According to historical accounts, Mr. Cohen saw the future President while watching the Egyptians retreat, shouted and ran toward him, and they shook hands warmly.



1992: NBC begins broadcasting season four of “Seinfeld.”



1997(9th of Av, 5757): Tish’a B’Av



1999(30th of Av, 5759): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1999(30th of Av, 5759): Eight-two year old character actor Ross Elliot passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/24/arts/ross-elliott-82-an-actor-on-tv-series.html



2000: Television wizard Steve Bocho, whose hits included “Hill Street Blue” re-married today.

2001: The New York Timesbook section featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Houdini’s Box: The Art of Escapeby Adam Phillips, a children’s book entitled Sigmund Freud Pioneer of the Mindby Catherine Reef and two books about Nixon’s Jewish born Secretary of State: The Trial of Henry Kissingerby Christopher Hitchens andNo Peace No Honor: Nixon, Kissinger, and Betrayal in Vietnamby Larry Berman.



2001: Palestinian Islamic Jihad took credit for today’s bombing at the Wall Street Café in Kiryat Motzkin that injured 21 people. (According to other sources one person was killed and fifteen were injured.)



2003(14th of Av, 5763): Eighteen year old Erez Hershkovitz and twenty-two year old Amatzia Nisanevitch were murdered by a Hamas terrorist bomber.



2003(14th of Av, 5763): Forty-three year old Yehezkel (Hezi) Yekutieli was murder today by terrorist suicide bomber at Rosh HaAyin.







2004(25th of Av, 5764): Thirty year old Capt. Michael Y. Tarlavsky was killed today when his unit was attacked in Najaf, Iraq.(As reported by Maia Efrem)



2005:  A report in the Jerusalem Post concerning absenteeism among workers may come as a surprise to some Americans.  For the first seven months of 2005, the rate of absenteeism was higher among men than women.  There was no explanation for this reverse in the statistical model from past years.  The report also revealed that absenteeism rates rise when economic conditions improve.  During economic slowdowns workers are loathe to be away from work for fear of being replaced. 



2005:  It was announced at Texas Tech University that an article about co-option for which Michael Levin was the lead author was accepted for inclusion to the American Marketing Association's Winter Educators Conference which is the top conference for strategists.

2005: Today, the Younker’s main store in downtown Des Moines which had been operating at the 7th and Walnut Streets location since 1899 when it moved there “by three Polish Jewish immigrant brothers Lipman, Samuel, and Marcus Younker” was closed today



2005: Reuben Greenberg resigned as Chief of Police in Charleston, SC.



2006(18th of Av, 5766):Staff Sgt. Uri Grossman, 20, the son of renowned novelist and peace activist David Grossman was killed in Lebanon, just days after his father made a public call for the government to halt its military operation and enter negotiations.



2007: The Sunday New York Times book section features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including How American Grew From Sea to Shining by Jewish Pulitzer Prize winning author Richard Kluger and The Man In The White Sharkskin Suit by Lucette Lagnado in which she “chronicles her Jewish family’s flight from the rise of Nasser.”



2007: The Chicago Sun Timesbook section featured a Q&A with Gail Carson Levine author of Fairy Haven and the Quest for the Wand and a review of What Goes Up by Eric J. Weiner.



2007: In a story entitled, “A Museum to Get Lost In, And How Israel Is Fixing It” the New York Times describes “an $80 million expansion and renovation that will transform the way a visitor navigates and experiences” the Israel Museum, “



2007(28th of Av, 5767): Eighty-six year old Dr. Ralph Asher Alpher, author of the Big Bang Theory, passed away.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/18/us/18alpher.html





2007: The City of Toronto “granted a closure of Bloor Street between Bathurst and Markham Streets to accommodate a celebration in honor of Ed Mirvish” the late Canadian “businessman, philanthropist and theatrical impresario.”



2008: In Little Rock, AR at the Chabad House, second session of From Ruins to Glory, a course of study based on a virtual tour of the Temple



2008:Rabbi David Loksen and Rabbi Shmulie Hecht, of the Brooklyn, New York-based Chabad Lubavitch Jewish Community Enrichment Program who are volunteers with Chabad Hawaii, leave Guam.  They have been working with the island’s small Jewish community since July 22, 2008



2008:Two Israeli physicians were dispatched to Georgia to treat Yedioth Aharonot journalist Zadok Yehezkeli, who was seriously wounded in Gori when shrapnel from an artillery shell, reportedly fired by the Russians, hit him.



2008: General Norton A. Schwartz became the 19th Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force and the first Jew to hold that position.



2008: Janet Jagan was lected as editor of the PPP newspaper, Thundertoday.



2009:Tzfat [Safed] Klezmer Festival comes to a close.

2009:Two Israelis were lightly wounded in a shooting attack in the northern West Bank tonight, according to the IDF. An initial investigation established that two of three young passengers driving in a car near the settlement of Ma'ale Levona, near Nablus, were lightly injured when Palestinians in a passing car opened fire on them.

2009:The youth movement Habonim Dror, a driving force behind the popular campaign for Gilad Schalit's return, organized a global prayer for the captured IDF soldier's safe return the focus of which was a communal service held at the Western Wall tonight at time that coincided with the soldier's 23rd birthday according to the Hebrew calendar. Aviva and Noam Schalit, Gilad's parents, as well as hundreds of others, were present at the Jerusalem gathering.  Habonim joined forces with Tel Aviv Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau to organize the ceremony, and released a statement which read, "We are calling on all Jews - one people, one heart - to pray on behalf of our brother Gilad's well being and for his safe return." Rabbi Lau penned a special prayer for the service, which begins "May he who blessed our forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Ya'akov, Joseph, Moses and Aaron, David and Solomon bless and guard over and save Gilad son of Aviva and Noam Schalit."  The prayer also beseeches god to "redeem [Schalit] from his captivity and return him in the immediate future." The event took place amid a flood of rumors in the Arab media that a deal for the prisoner's release was nearing, despite the lack of official statements from either Israel or Hamas.

2010:YAD Detroit Book Club Cluster is scheduled to discuss The Piano Teacher by Janice Y. K. Lee at the Barnes & Noble Book Store in West Bloomfield, Michigan.

2011:A special performance by Makela, DC’s co-ed Jewish a cappella group, is scheduled to take place at the Sixth &I Historic Synagogue.

2011:Tel Aviv municipal inspectors distributed an eviction notice today to a tent dweller who erected a structure that served as a kitchen and storage room at the Nordau Boulevard tent city in north Tel Aviv.In response to the eviction notice, one of the tent protest organizers said that the structure has been standing since the "first day of the protest, and there is no reason to remove it".  "The municipality must decide whether it will allow a legitimate and non-violent protest, or whether it is more interested in fighting the protest", said the organizer. Organizers also stated the protests will continue despite the municipality's recent attempts at dissolving it with a Friday night Shabbat service to be held on Nordau Boulevard. The last few days have seen municipal inspectors remove several tents, claiming that they were not being used. The inspectors also distributed eviction notices to protesters in Tel Aviv's Kikar Hamedina, towed a caravan and confiscated a guillotine from Rothschild Boulevard. The municipality has stated that they support the protest and have allowed for it to take place since day one, but are also responsible for maintaining public order. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel strongly criticized the move, saying the mayors are attempting to "push the police to silence the protest".

2011: A hearing to discuss political redistricting in the Baltimore area began this evening at 6:30 p.m.  The hearing was originally scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. but was changed to the earlier time to accommodate Jewish citizens who need to be at home or in their synagogues to mark the start of Shabbat.  Like all other citizens, Jews can e-mail in their testimony.

2011: The New York Daily News published the first interview that Levi Aron, the man charged with killing 8 year old Leib Kletzky, has given to the media.

2012: The New York Times features reviews of books written by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Patagonian Hare: A Memoir by Claude Lanzmann and the recently released paperback editions of The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and Heddy’s Folly:The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World by Richard Rhodes.

2012: The Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia is scheduled to sponsor a contra-indicated (by the weather) fundraiser – Community Eat-for-Heat featuring a pancake feast and water play.

2012: The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to present a special screening of “Granito:  How to Nail a Dictator”

2012(24th of Av, 5772): Eighty-five year old comic book artist Joe Kubert passed away today. (As reported Margalit Fox)




2012: The Summer Learning Institute at Hebrew Union College is scheduled to come to an end.               

2012: “Word Games (Mischakei Milim)” is scheduled to be shown at the Abingdon Theatre in NYC

2012: An off-duty female soldier was forced to disembark from a bus before she had completed her journey in order to avoid a verbal assault by ultra-Orthodox passengers who complained about her attire and point of boarding onto the vehicle, Israel Radio reported today


2012: Luiza Nahari, a Yemenite Jew whose husband, Moshe, was murdered in their hometown of Raydah in December 2008, immigrated to Israel this morning with four of her children.Nahari was reunited with her five other children, who had moved to Israel following her husband’s murder.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/widow-of-murdered-yemenite-jew-immigrates-to-israel/



2012: “More than 1,000 people gathered at Rostov-on-Don, which 70 years ago witnessed the worst Holocaust atrocity in Russia.  Wearing arm bands marked with a Star of David, the crowd today marched to the mass grave of approximately 27,000 people executed by German soldiers near the city in 1942. Most of the victims were Jewish, according to the Russian Jewish Congress. Leading the procession was Rabbi Meir Lau, a Holocaust survivor and former chief rabbi of Israel. “The unprecedented turnout shows the memory of the Jewish genocide in Rostov is shared and preserved by Jews and non-Jews,” Russian Jewish Congress President Yury Kanner said.(As reported by Haaretz)



2013: “The A Word” which tells the story of the Rotenberg clan who live in the Arava desert is scheduled to shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.



2013: Lisa Levine of the Wharton Business School is scheduled to present “Negotiate with Israelis – Like a Pro!” at Talpiyot Jerusalem.



2013: MK Ayelet Shaked (Bayit Yehudi) today called for implementing the death penalty for terrorists. She said the measure was necessary to ensure that terrorist murderers are "never released." (As reported by David Lev and Ari Soffer)



2013:  The recently deployed Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepted a least one of the rockets that was fired towards Eilat tonight. (As reported by Elad Benari)



2013: The Israel Prisons Service published “the list of the first 26 convicted terrorists who will be released as part of Israel’s confidence-building measures to help the restart of peace talks with the Palestinian Authority. The list included 17 names of prisoners who had murdered Israelis, including Abu-Musa Salam Ali Atia of Fatah, who murdered Holocaust survivor Isaac Rotenberg in a Petah Tikvah construction site in 1994.” (As reported by Haviv Rettig Gur and Aaron Kalman)

http://www.timesofisrael.com/ministers-name-26-prisoners-to-be-released/



2014: It was announced today that Steve Ballmer “would become the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers.

2014: In New Orleans Bruce Spizer is scheduled to deliver a lecture at the Uptown JCC on the cause of Beatlemania were the attendees will be able to enjoy a catered kosher lunch.



2014: Tova Birnbaum, Director of the North America Region of the World Zionist Organization, is scheduled to speak on Is Zionism Still Relevant for the Next Generation? with Hadassah’s Lauren Katz.



2014: Prime Minister Netanyahu “summoned senior ministers late tonight to discuss” developments at the Cairo ceasefire talks in what is described as a “preparation talk.” (As reported by Attila Somfalvi)



2014(16thof Av, 5774): Ninety-three year old photographer Lida Moser passed away today.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/lida-moser-photographer-of-new-york-and-beyond-dies-at-93/2014/08/30/ea3fb98a-2ec3-11e4-9b98-848790384093_story.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/arts/lida-moser-photographer-with-an-urban-eye-dies-at-93.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHedThumbWell&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0





2014(16thof Av, 5774): A month before her 90th birthday, actress Lauren Bacall, the first cousin of Israeli President Shimon Peres, passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/13/movies/lauren-bacall-sultry-movie-star-dies-at-89.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=LargeMediaHeadlineSum&module=photo-spot-region&region=photo-spot&WT.nav=photo-spot&_r=0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lauren_Bacall_with_Vice_President_Truman.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bogart_and_Bacall_To_Have_and_Have_Not.jpg





2014: “Members of the United States Senate are demanding an independent investigation into the role of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency during Israel's most recent war in Gaza with Hamas.” (As reported by Michael Wilner)

http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Senators-want-UNRWA-investigated-over-troubling-Gaza-role-370897





2014: New York Governor Mario “Cuomo, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate co-leaders Dean Skelos and Jeff Klein are scheduled to travel to Israel” today for a two-day visit as a “demonstration of solidarity” with that country in the conflict in Gaza. (As reported by David Klepper)



2015: The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to show “The Love Bug” as part of its “August at Noon – Car Movies” program.









2015: “Researchers open 'neglected chapter' of Ukraine's Holocaust history” published today revealed how a “project commemorating the killing of Jews” revealed “tensions between Soviet and modern Ukrainian historical narrative.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/12/ukraine-holocaust-history-project





2015: The Thaler Holocaust Programming Committee under the leadership of Dr. Robert Silber is me today in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.



2015: Holocaust survivor Peter Kubicek who “calls himself the luckiest man alive” is scheduled to speak at the National Czech & Slovak Museum and Library in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

http://thegazette.com/subject/life/people-places/holocaust-survivor-will-speak-at-national-czech-slovak-museum-and-library-20150809





2015(28thof Av): Yarhrzeit for Larry Rosenstein, of blessed memory, husband of Judy Levin Rosenstein, of blessed memory.  Gone too soon but always remembered! 

2016: Today, “Treasure hunters relaunched their search for a lost Nazi gold train allegedly loaded with loot and buried in southwestern Poland, despite there being no scientific evidence it exists.”

2016: “Israel’s Or Sasson beat Cuba’s Alex Maxell Garcia Mendoza to win a bronze medal in the men’s over-100kg competition at the Rio Games” today,

2016: Diana van den Boogaard and Adam Brown are scheduled to provide a Preview of the 2017 conference to be held at Orlando on the final day of the 36thIAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Seattle, Washington.

2016: Flooding began in Baton Rouge, LA, which would eventually cost 34 families in the state capitol’s Jewish community their homes.

2016: “From the Deep” a play “inspired by the story of Gilan Shalit and Israeli POW Ilan Shaiach” is scheduled to open at The Fringe in New York City.

 2017(20th of Av, 5777): Parashat Ekev

2017: Following the June Chicago Dyke March, “when three Jewish participants at the LGBTQ demonstration were ejected for carrying LGBTQ Pride flags adorned with the Star of David

2017: In the Negev, Mitzpe Ramon is scheduled to host “special events in the Spice Route Quarter” complete with telescopes to provide the best possible viewing of the Perseids Meteor Shower which is at its most impressive today organizers of the Slutwalk Chicago used “red umbrellas to block sings being held by Zioness Movement members who had “joined the initial rally in a local park, carrying signs depicting a woman wearing a Star of David necklace and some wearing rainbow-colored T-shirts emblazoned with a Star of David.”

2017: Hatikva 6 is scheduled to host Hanan Ben Ari at the International Jerusalem Arts and Crafts Fair -(the Hutzot Hayotzer festival)

2017: In Weimar, The Yiddish Summer Farewell Ball is scheduled to be held tonight marking the end of YSM 2017.

2017: As Jews observe Shabbat, they mourn the passing at Haifa Erev Shabbat of “Yisrael Kristal, a Holocaust survivor who was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records to be the world’s oldest man who He was one month shy of his 114th birthday. (As reported by Liel Leibovitz)


2018: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest Jewish readers including Famous Father: A Memoir of Growing Up Bernstein by Jamie Bernstein and Get What’s Yours: The Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security co-authored by Laurence J. Kotlikoff

2018(1st of Elul, 5778): Rosh Chodesh Elul – Blow the shofar for the first time

2018: In Beverly Hills, CA, the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts hosted the last performance of “Hershey Felder: Beethoven.”



2018: Demonstrators who are expected to be carrying Nazi flags as they did last year in Charlottesville, VA are scheduled to take to the streets of Washington, DC

2018: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Through Lotte’s Lens” a documentary that tells the extraordinary story of the ‘Hitler Émigrés’, the refugees – mainly Jewish who escaped the Nazi regime in the 1930s and found refuge in the UK.”

2018: Israeli cellist Inbal Segev is scheduled to perform solo works by 21stcentury women including “Anna Clyne, Missy Mazzoli, Augusta Reed Thomas and Gity Razaz.”

2018: In Los Angeles, “Yiddishkayt is scheduled to join with the Southern California Arbeter Ring/Workmen’s Circle and the Sholem Community to view the 1925 classic film JEWISH LUCK, with titles in English translation” as part of events marking “the 66th anniversary of Stalin's purge of the members of the Jewish Antifascist Committee and” the 70thanniversary of the “murder of the Committee leader, the great Yiddish actor Shloyme Mikhoels.”


https://mailchi.mp/yiddishkayt/head-to-the-heartland-of-jewish-culture-1488937?e=3efca73e9a



2019: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host “German and True” a “multi-media presentation by Michael Haas, Chair of the exil.arte Center at Vienna's University for Music and Performing Arts, who will highlight the lost contributions of Jewish composers who identified culturally as German, both those who survived and those who perished.”

2019: In New Orleans, the Jewish Community Day School is scheduled to hold its board meeting this evening.

2019: Having finished a four game series with the Phillies, outfielder Kevin Pillar and the San Francisco Giants are scheduled to have a day off before taking the Athletics for a two game series.

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

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August 13

236: The body of Hippolytus, the author of Contra Judaeous, which blamed the harsh conditions of the Jews on their rejection of Jesus was buried in a cemetery on the Via Tiburtina

339: The Roman Emperor “issued a decree forbidding intermarriage between Jews and Christians with transgressors to be punished by death.” (As reported by Austin Cline)

339: The Roman Emperor “issued a decree imposing the death penalty on Jews who circumcise non-Jewish slaves.” (As reported by Austin Cline)

339: The Roman Emperor issued a decree imposing the death penalty on any Jews who hired women weavers that had been “in imperial service.” (As reported by Austin Cline)

985: Birthdate of the Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim who “ordered…Jews to wear wooden calves around their necks.”

1099: Following a ceremonial that had been instituted by Emperor Otto III, the Jews of Rome “were obliged to attend the entry into” Rome of Paschal II whose papacy began today “singing laudatory hymns.

1311: Birthdate of King Alfonso XI of Castile. During his reign, in 1348, Alfonso issued decrees prohibiting Jews from charging interest when lending money and prohibiting them from collecting unpaid debts.  (The same rules applied to Moslems, but not Christians.) At the same time, Jews were still allowed to own land during his reign.

1315: Louis X of France marries Clemence d'Anjou.In 1315, Louis X also overturned the decree of his predecessor that allowed the Jews to return to France, and accorded them a charter "in answer to the demands of the people."

1391: In Spain, anti-Semitic mobs attacked the Jews of Lerida, reportedly killing 75. Other Jews were forcibly baptized and were forced to see their synagogue turned into a church. 

1453: Seventeen Jews were burned at the stake in Silesia (now Poland and/or Czech Republic).

1516: The Treaty of Noyon between France and Spain is signed. Francis recognized Charles's claim to Naples, and Charles recognized Francis's claim to Milan. Twice, Charles would issue edicts expelling the Jews from Naples.  The second one, issued in 1533, would take effect despite Jewish attempts to dissuade him. 

1550: “The Jewish community of Salonica,” the Greek city that was at this time part of the Ottoman Empire, “invited the Jews of Provence” who were being expelled from France to settle in their community. (As reported by Abraham P. Bloch)

1551: Jews of Great Poland were granted limited self-government.

1599: In Basel, “Protestant Christian Hebraist” Johannes Buxtorf and his wife gave birth to their son “Johannes Buxtorf the Younger” who completed and edited several of his father’s works on Hebrew or related to Judaism as well as creating works of his own including a Latin translation of the writings of Maimonides. 

1620(4th of Av): Rabbi Menachem Azariah da Fano (Rama), author of Alfasi Zuta, passed away

1624: In France Cardinal Richelieu was named first chief minister of finance by King Louis XIII.  The Cardinal gave new meaning and depth to the term “power behind the throne.”  Many historians contend that any decree issued by King Louis XIII was really the work of Richelieu. This would include a decree issued in 1632 after the French had taken the fortress city of Metz that allowed the Jews to remain in the city.  The decree was necessitated by the fact that the King had issued a decree in 1615 banning all Jews from living in France.  This decree is an oddity in its in own right since when it was issued Jews were supposedly not living in the Gallic realm to start with.

1713: Birthdate of David Franco Mendes, the native of Amsterdam, a successful businessman who used his leisure time to write poetry, study Talmud and play a prominent role in the Spanish-Portuguese community.

1793: In Stamford Hill, UK, Benjamin Goldsmid and Jessy Salomons gave birth to Albert Goldsmid.

1804: Birthdate of Israel Franklin Moses the native of Charleston, South Carolina who became known as Franklin J. Moses, Sr. – prominent planter, politician and jurist.

1807(9thof Av, 5567): Tish’a B’Av

1807(9thof Av, 5567): “Rabbinical author Meir Schiff” the brother of “Teble Schiff, the rabbi of London” who had passed away in 1792, passed away today “at Frankfurt-am Main.”

1816: Birthdate of German jurist and office holder Rudolf von Geneist who courageously helped to found the Association for the Defense against Anti-Semitism “a non-Jewish organization” also known as The Union for Combating Anti-Semitism.

1817: In Frankfurt am Main Malchen Schloss and David Philipp Schloss gave birth to Jenny Schloss

1823: Birthdate of British born historian Goldwin Smith, “a pathological anti-Semite” who spent his last years in Canada.

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/antisemitism

1824: Nota ben Solomon married Reizecha bat Moses Israel at the Western Synagogue.

1829: One day after she had passed away, Shifra bat Joel, the wife of Jacob ben Moses was buried at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.

1831: Birthdate of composer and pianist Salomon Jadassohn whose musical accomplishments are overshadowed by the fact that unlike other German Jews he did not convert even though his being Jewish kept him from many “church jobs such as directors or organists” which went to Christians instead.

1833: Eighty-nine year old Simon Solomon Wilks, the husband of Elizabeth Wilks with whom he had seven children – “Abraham Philip, Israel, Leah, Sara, Mary and Elisha” – was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.

1837(12 of Av, 5597): Aryeh Löb ben Joseph Katzenellenbogen: who followed in the footsteps of his grandfather and father by serving as a rabbi at Brest-Litovsk a city that would become infamous in the 20th century as the site of the humiliating peace treaty that the Germans forced on the Russians during WW I passed away today.

1846: In Hamburg, Germany, Friederike and Daniel Joseph Jaffe gave birth to Otto Jaffe, the Lord May of Belfast and the husband Paula Hertz with whom he had two children – Arthur and William Jaffe.

Birthdate of Sir Otto Jaffe, the Hamburg native who became a successful British businessman and Lord May of Belfast.

1846: “In Kensington,” Adelaide Cohen and Aaron Salomons gave birth to “their only son” Alfred Hymen Salomons.

1847(30th of Av, 5634): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1851: In England, Cigar Maker Samuel (Isaac) Henry Gluckstein and Hannah Coenraad Gluckstein who had gotten married at the Great Synagogue on Saint James’ Place in 1845 gave birth to their fifth child Isidore Gluckstein.

1851: Birthdate of Felix Adler. Born in Germany, Adler’s family moved to the United States when he was five.  His father, Rabbi Samuel Adler, was head of Temple Emanu-el, the leading Reform Congregation in New York City.  In 1873, Adler became professor of Hebrew and Oriental Literature at Cornell University.  In that same year he delivered a major address at his father’s congregation entitled “the Judaism of the Future.”  He proposed ridding Judaism of its superstitious traditions in order to better focus on the ethics that he felt were central to any human community.  The congregation was receptive to his emphasis on ethics but was loathe to cast aside 3000 years of religious tradition.  Adler soon found himself beyond the pale.  In 1876, he founded the New York Ethical Cultural Society.  He remained a champion of the Ethical Cultural Movement until his death in 1933.

1860:In response to a public call, signed by a number of influential citizens, a meeting was held at the Tract-Society House today afternoon, to consider the subject of the Christian massacre in Syria, and to adopt measures for rendering assistance to the sufferers. About twenty persons were present, among them some of our most prominent clergymen.  During the meeting it was noted that meetings for the same purpose were being held in England and France by Jews as well as Christians.

1861: Philadelphian Joseph Lewenberg began serving with Company I of the 23rdRegiment.

1861: Birthdate of Dr. Marcus Jastrow, Jr., the Warsaw native who moved to Philadelphia with his father, the famed Talmudist Marcus Jastrow and became a noted Orientalist.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F30917F73D551A738DDDAA0A94DE405B818EF1D3

http://forward.com/articles/138271/

1862: Philadelphians, Emanuel Lehman, Jacob Lehman, Eli Arnold, Charles Lillienstein and Daniel S. Myers began a nine month hitch with the 127thRegiment.

1862: During the Civil War, Aaron Miller began serving with Company F of the 129thRegiment today.

1862: During the Civil War, William Lazarus who would be killed during the Battle of Antietam began serving with Company E of the 132nd Regiment.

1862: Henry Bear began serving with Company H. of the 133rd Regiment today.

1862: The Keystone Battery, a Pennsylvania Light Artillery Regiment in which Leon da Silva Solis-Cohen served until just before the Battle of Gettysburg was organized today in Philadelphia.

1865: Morris Sontheimer completed four years of service with Company K of the 108thRegiment of the Eleventh Calvary.

1865(21stof Av, 5625): Fifty year old Bavarian native Henry Bendel, the son of Abraham and Pessle Bendle who married Mary Anker Bendel with whom he had 8 children passed away today in Albany, NY.

1866(2ndof Elul, 5626): Forty year old Lithuanian born Hebrew scholar Wolf Adelsohn whose students included grammarian Ḥayyim Ẓebi Lerner passed away today in Odessa.

1867: Birthdate of Arthur Eichengrün, the German-Jewish chemist who holds 47 patents but is best known for his claim to really have been the inventor of Aspirin.

1867: Birthdate of Dr. Lee K. Frankel, the Philadelphia native who gained fame for his work with various Jewish philanthropies.

1867: Birthdate of Dr. Charles Foster Kent, the American Biblical scholar who dozens of works on ancient Israel including Outlines Of Hebrew History, A History of the Hebrew People (2 volumes) and A History of the Jewish People during the Babylonian, Persian and Greek Periods.

1869: In Nordhausen, Germany, “Jacob and Clementine (Heineman) Ball gave birth to University of Berlin trained surgeon Max Ballin who began practicing in Detroit in 1901, served as a Lt. Col. in the Medical Corps during WW II while sharing a life with his wife, the former Carrie Leppel.

1870: In New York City, “Joseph Arthur and Pauline (Goodheim Levy” gave birth to patron of the arts Florence Nightingale Levy.

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/levy-florence-nightingale

1871:The Grand Lodge of the Ancient Jewish Order of Kesher Shel Barzel held their annual banquet this evening at the corner of Seventh Avenue and 14th Street in New York City. The lodge has 4,000 members. The dinner was attended by 110 members including thirty delegates from various parts of the United States.

1871: In Chicago, Rabbi Elkan Herzman was physically forced to leave his synagogue on Fifth Avenue. Some of the congregants had complained because Herzman had violated Jewish law by eating ice cream on a day when he should have been fasting.  When Herzman arrived at the synagogue he found another rabbi in his usual place.  Following the altercation, Herzman complained to the police who said that there was nothing they could do about.  Herzman has threatened further political action.  (I have not been able to find any further reference to this Rabbi or a synagogue on Fifth Avenue, so if you have, please let me know.)

1871: “Berton Gotthemier” the husband of the former “Julia Zachariah” with whom he had two children – “Lavinia and Maurice” – was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

1872: Birthdate of German born chemist, Richard Willstätter.  Willstatter won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1915 for his study of the structure of chlorophyll and other plant pigments.  He resigned his position on the faculty at a university in Munich over the issue of anti-Semitism. After Hitler’s rise to power, he fled to Switzerland where he died in 1942. 

1872: Birthdate of Jacob de Haas, an English journalist who was one of Herzl’s earliest supporters. After Herzl’s death, de Haas became a lead of the Zionist movement in Israel.

1874(30thof Av, 5634): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1874: It was reported today that George Walling, the Superintendent of the New York Police Department had written to Henry Honscheidt, the Sheriff of McLean County, Illinois, telling him that in his opinion the man who had confessed to the Sheriff that he had killed Benjamin Nathan was “either  insane or an imposter.”

1875: Birthdate of Arthur Yitzhak Biram, Israeli philosopher, philologist, and educator, who died on the first day of the Six Days War.

1877: Midhat Pasha, the head of the “Young Turkey” Party is in Vienna where he hopes to negotiate a treaty with Austria and England that will protect the Ottoman Empire and avoid a Holy War. Pasha is the son of a Bulgarian Jew who converted to Islam to enhance his commercial opportunities in the lands of the Sultan.

1876: The Anglo-Jewish Association’s description of a Jewish community living in India was published today. According to the reported the community is known as the Beni-Israel (Children of Israel) and has been in existence for a thousand years.  They dress like Hindus and speak the Hindu language.   While they know little Hebrew, they follow the Levitical Code and strictly observe the Sabbath. They are separate from other Jewish communities in the subcontinent.

1878: Birthdate of Arthur Yitzhak Biram, the native of Saxony who earned a Ph.D. at the University of Leipzig and completed training as a rabbi before emigrating to Ottoman Palestine in 1913 where his academic accomplishments to him being awarded the Israel Prize for education in 1954.

http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Features/Streetwise-Rehov-Biram-Haifa

1880: Belfast native George Betzold and Anne Rosenbaum gave birth to Florence Betzold.

1881: It was reported today that the government is taking “strong measures” to suppress the anti-Semitic riots in Pomerania including the arrest of 21 rioters at Koslin.

1881: Birthdate of Hugo Hansel who was transported from Prague in 1942 to Ujazdow where he was murdered.

1881: “Comical German Names” published today includes a commentary on the names used by German Jews who were “not more than a century ago, forlorn of family names.”  “He was either known by a ‘front name,’ supplemented by that of his father as in ‘Aaron ben David’ or ‘Solomon ben Israel’ or by some nickname owing its origin to the nature of his occupation or perhaps to a conspicuous physical peculiarity.” Apparently this method of nomenclature made it difficult for the taxman to make his collections so a law was passed requiring Jews to choose a surname, use for the entire lifetime and “transmit it by legal act of registration to his children.”

1882: “Mr. Jenkins’s New Book” published today provides a review of A Paladin of Finance by Edward Jenkins in which the Member of Parliament creates a work of fiction based on the financial crash in France in which “he insists., the Jews rule the finances of the world and there wield all the power.”

1883: The New York Times published a letter to the editor from Raphael Lewin in which the author disputes the account of the Damascus Libel of 1840 published in the Times on August 6 describing it as being slanted and anti-Jewish.

1884: The Board of Governors of the Hebrew Union College re-elected Bernhard Bettmann as President.  Rabbi Henry Berkowitz of Mobile, Alabama and Rabbi Max Landsberg of Rochester, NY, were chosen to serve as new members on the board.

1884: It was reported today that Russian Jew on his way to his brother’s wedding in Paris was detained for 4 days by authorities because he did not understand French and could not answer their questions.  While in custody, a rope was kept around his neck; he was handcuffed and knocked about by those holding him.  When the mayor heard of the incident he called for an investigation

1884: It was reported today that Mrs. Morris Cohn, the daughter of Michael Englemann (the Salt King of Manistee, Michigan) has gone left her husband and returned after his arrest on charges of numerous counts of forgery.  Cohn, a prominent Jewish businessman had spent the $50.000 wedding gift from Englemann and turned to criminal activity to support their lifestyle.

1886: It was reported today that numerous homes of Jews living in Kiev have been destroyed during anti-Jewish riots in the Russian province.

1887: It was reported today that Israel Lipski’s solicitor has new facts that will prove that he did kill Miriam Angel, the woman he was convicted of killing.  Lipski’s lawyer has met privately with Judge Stephen convinced him of his client’s innocence.

1887: Israel Lipski’s solicitor, who has prepared a pamphlet reviewing the case against Israel Lipski containing “sundry points that could not brought into trial” met privately with Judge Stephen, who tried the case and is said “to have been convinced that there was grave doubt of Lipski’s guilt.”

1887: Henry Mathews, the Home Secretary who has refused to interfere in the case of Israel Lipski who has been sentenced to hang for murdering Miriam Angel “took the prompt step of announcing to the press late” tonight “that “Lipski would certainly be hanged” as scheduled.

1889: It was reported today that Theodore Cohn, the young man who stole $610 from A.H. & King is in the Tombs awaiting trial on a charge of grand larceny.

1890: The expenses of today’s excursion sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children will be paid in full by an anonymous female donor who has been paying for one such excursion for each of the last seven years.

1890: In London, “the meeting at the Mansion House to protest against” Russian persecution has been postponed following reassurance by the Lord Mayor offers reassurances that there is no reason to believe that the Czar’s government will enforce the edicts of 1882.

1890: Godfrey Taubenaus has been selected to serve as Rabbi of Mount Sinai Temple on East 72nd Street.

1891: The Russian government prohibited the collection of funds or the publication of appeals for financial assistance to Jewish immigrants today

1892: “A Chicken Too Much for the Police” published today described the uproar at police stations throughout New York caused by Davis Rubenstein bringing a decayed chicken  to each police station in his attempt to have action taken against Berman’s Butcher Shop which is “selling impure food.” The foul fowl was turned over the Sanitary Bureau to use in its investigation.

1893(1st of Elul, 5653): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1893: “Parties in Austria” published today described the political divisions in the polyglot central European kingdom that include “anti-Semites, who conscientiously hold that hell is not hot enough for the Jews, whose torments ought, in strict justice, to begin in this life and be continued in the next.”

1893: Birthdate of Monnet Bain Davis who served as U.S. Ambassador to Israel from 1951 through 1953>

1895: According to Charles Bernstein, the settlement committee of the striking tailors, most of whom were Jewish, will meet for the last time tonight.

1895: American opera singer Francesca Halle and Joseph Gluckstein who with his brothers Isidore and Montague founded J. Lyons and Co. gave birth to Hannah Gluckstein the British painter known simply as Gluck who also the brother of Sir. Louis Gluckstein.

http://jwa.org/thisweek/aug/13/1895/androgynous-artist-gluck-is-born

http://www.glbtqarchive.com/arts/gluck_A.pdf

1896: Herzl meets with the Turkish ambassador, Mahmud Nedim Bey, in Vienna.

1896:  Since American commanders did not know that an armistice had been signed yesterday they proceeded to capture the Philippine city of Manila, the climactic moment in the Battle of Manila.  Sergeant Maurice Justh of the First California Volunteers, a regiment with 100 Jewish members, was the first soldier “to fall in the attack on Manilla.”

1898: “Hebrew Charities Building” published today described “the new Hebrew Charities Building, just now rising above the ground level on the corner of Second Avenue and Twenty-first Street” next to the Post Graduate Hospital.

1898(25thof Av, 5658): Parashat Re’eh

1898: An entry in a Swiss hotel log showed that Freud stayed at the hostelry possibly with “a woman who was not his wife” and may have been his sister-in-law Minna Bernays.

1899: As tensions rise in France during the re-trial of Captain Dreyfus, Paul Deroulede, the poet who is also a member of the Chamber of Deputies and 23 of his allies were arrested today.  (The Dreyfus affair was symptomatic of deep divisions in French society that pitted Republican secularists against Royalist Roman Catholics.)

1899: Three duels are scheduled to be fought by journalists cover the court martial of Captain Dreyfus and Rennes, France.

1899: In Paris, demonstrations took place this evening outside of the offices of the Anti-Semite League where the President of the League and Max Regis, “the former Jew-baiting Mayor of Algiers” are hiding.

1899: “London Sympathy With Dreyfus” published today described a rally where a resolution was adopted calling for “a meeting of rejoicing” “in the event of the acquittal of Dreyfus.”

1899: “‘King Lear’ In Hebrew” published today described the emotional response to Jacob Adler’s portrayal of King Lear at the People’s Theatre in Brooklyn.  The Shakespearian drama has been updated to fit the taste of its predominately immigrant Jewish population so it is set in modern day Vilna and the women “dress in the latest New York Fashions.”

1899: It was reported today that the recent rapprochement between France and Germany has led to renewed mistrust and mistreatment of Germans in Russia as well the decision of the government to order German and Polish Jews who have been living in St. Petersburg for years to leave the capital by the end of the month.

1900:The Fourth Zionist Congress convened in London with five hundred delegates in attendance. Max Nordeau gave the opening in address which included an account of the appalling conditions faced by the Jews of Romania and a tribute to the Kaiser for his treatment of the Jews of Pomerania and East Prussia.

1900: In London, an open air meeting for the evangelizing of Jews was held near Queen’s Hall where the Zionists were holding their congress.

1900: Forty-seven year old Russian theologian and philosopher who “profoundly disagreed with the views of novelist Dostoevsky about the Jews” because he did not “see Judaism…as the antithesis of Christianity but as a forced that could help reconcile the peoples of Eastern Europe and revitalize Christianity” passed away today.

1903: In Salt Lake City, Utah President Joseph F. Smith of the LDS (Mormon) Church gave the dedicatory address at the cornerstone laying for Congregation Montefiore.

1903: Birthdate of Rochester, MN, native and University of Minnesota graduate Herman, “the associate librarian for manuscripts and archives at Yale” who raise two children with his wife, “the former Anne Seuss.”

1907: The first American taxicabs appear on the streets of New York City.  At least two Jews played a major role in the introduction of this type of conveyance in the United States. In 1915, John Hertz, a Hungarian born Jew started the Yellow Cab Company in Chicago, Il. In 1922, a Russian born Jew named Morris Markin formed the Checker Cab Company and in 1929 he bought the Yellow Cab Company from Hertz.

1909: Birthdate of attorney Joshua J. Nasaw, the husband of Beatrice “Bea” Kaplan Nasaw and the father of historian and author David Nasaw.

1910: Birthdate of Shlomo-Yisrael Rosenberg; the native of Warsaw who moved to the United States where he became a lawyer and a rabbi before making in Aliyah where as Shlomo-Yisrael Ben-Meir he became an MK who held several ministerial portfolios.

1911: At Basel, Switzerland, the 10th Zionist Congress, adopted a resolution to establish a Zionist immigration office in Berlin

1911: In New York City, Jacob and Rebecca Reiter gave birth to NYU graduate William Bernbach, “the founder and chairman of the Doyle Dane Bernbach advertising agency and the husband of the “former Evelyn Carbone with whom he had two sons, John and Paul – the New York attorney and patron of the arts.

1912: Franz Kafka met Felice Bauer in Berlin.  The relationship between these two had a profound effect on Kafka’s literary output as well as his personal life.  One critic recently wrote that Kafka’s correspondence with Bauer “is the most useful key to Kafka’s thoughts and actions during the decisive years of his emergence as a writer.”

1912: In Vineland, NJ, founding of Ahabat Achim synagogue

1912:  Birthdate of Italian born biologist Salvador Luria. In 1969 he and Max Delbruck shared the Nobel Prize in medicine for the “Luria-Delbruck experiment” which “demonstrates that in bacteria, beneficial mutations arise in the absence of selection, rather than being a response to selection. This reinforces the Darwiniannotion of evolution by natural selection acting on random mutations.”

1913: In Bavaria, Moritz and Rachel Hellmann, the daughter of Rabbi Isaac Bamberger and Julie Judith Bamberger, gave birth to Julie Hellmann

1913: Birthdate of Melvin Frank, the Chicago native and graduate of the University of Chicago whose screen writing efforts included two classics “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House” and “White Christmas” that helped to create the “middle class American dream.”

https://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/15/obituaries/melvin-frank-producer-director-and-writer-of-movies-dies-at-75.html

1914: The Great War, which will bring so many changes to Jews throughout the next four years, began to take shape as a great conflict as today, on the same day, “four squadrons of the Royal Flying Corps flew from Dover to France while Austria invaded Serbia as its armies crossed the Drina.

1915: Sixty-year old Eli Pochansky, an Orthodox Jew who attacked his son Samuel for smoking on Shabbat and then struck his wife and daughter who tried to defend them is a free man because when the magistrate hearing the assault complaint learned of Pochansky’s strict view on smoking he “decided not to entertain the charge.

1915: In a move that would presage the greatest naval threat to the Allies, a German submarine sank the H.M.T. Royal Edward in the Ægean Sea.

1916: It was reported today that Abram I. Elkus, the new United States Ambassador to Turkey is scheduled to set sail on August 17 for Copenhagen and then spend two or three days in Berlin before continuing on to Constantinople.

1916: It was reported today that Herman Bernstein, the editor of The American Hebrew, in speaking about the service of Oscar Straus, Henry Morgenthau and Abram Elkus as American diplomats said, “The world is more exacting toward a Jewish statesman” meaning that “in addition to serving his country, he must by the brilliance of his service disarm prejudice and raise the prestige of the Jewish people.”

1916: Birthdate of Connie Polan who became Connie Wald when she married Jerry Wald.

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-connie-wald-20121123,0,7388384.story

1917: The Turkish military leader Djemal Pasha announces the Turkish government has become convinced that the Jewish colonies inside Palestine must be destroyed, so they won't present a danger to the integrity of Turkey.

1917: It was reported today that to meet the needs of the thousands of Jews “who will be drafted into the” United States Army and Navy, “the need for Jewish Chaplains to tend to their spiritual wants” has become clearly apparent which has led Representative Isaac Siegel of New York has introduced a bill into Congress which provides that “The President may appoint not exceeding twenty Chaplains at large for the United States Army representing religious sects not recognized in the apportionment of Chaplains now recognized by law..”

1918: Based on information first supplied by the Vienna Morgen Zeitung, “the Jews who were supporters of the Austro-German Alliance…must now alter their opinion regarding Austria’s foreign policy since Germany no longer allows Jews to cross her frontier” and enter the country while Russia, as a result of the Revolution has lifted all of her laws aimed at suppressing the Jewish population.

1918: Birthdate of Judith Iris Martin, the Newark native who created the long-lived children’s theater group, the Paper Bag Players which would become a New York City institution (As reported by Douglas Martin)

1918: In a move that will have unforeseen meaning for decades to come the “British Government recognized the Czecho-Slovaks as an Allied nation on the same day when the Czechs declared their independence and declared war on Germany.

1920: One day after she had passed away Myer Lukowsky was buried today at the “Belfast Jewish Cemetery in Northern Ireland.”

1920: In Carlsbad, Czechoslovaki, the “Chief Rabb of Stockhom” today delegates attending the Jewish World Relief Conference that “half a million children in Russia and Ukraine are absolutely without any schooling”  and “that in Switzerland Jewish academicians were pawning their diplomas in order to stave off starvation. 

1921: “The Hotel of the Dead” a silent film written by Walter Wassermann, starring Rosa Valetti and featuring Hermann Picha was released today in Germany.

1921: In Philadelphia, a $15,000 donation to the Jewish Hospital (now the Einstein Medical Center) established the May Fleisher Rosenburg Memorial Fund.

1922: Birthdate of Ruby Burman, the native of Columbus, Ohio, who as Ruby Cohn became “a theater scholar who espied the genius of Samuel Beckett early on in Paris and became a leading authority on his work as well as his friend…” (As reported by Bruce Weber)

1922:Samuel Untermeyer, President of the Palestine Foundation Fund made public a letter from Dr. Arthur Ruppin describing the future establishment of Jewish suburbs at Jerusalem and other sites in Palestine which show the likelihood of the development of major municipalities throughout the area.

1925: In the “Free City of Danzig” Eliezer and Dina Sterenberg gave birth to Meir Shamgar who served as President of the Israeli Supreme Court from 1983 until 1995.

1926: “The Third Squadron” a silent German movie starring Fritz Spira and Eugen Burg, both of whom died in concentration camps in WW II, was released in Germany today.

1926: Birthdate of Arthur Ortenburg, the native of Newark who teamed with his wife Liz Claiborne and Leonard Boxer to create fashion line Liz Claiborne, Inc (As reported by Douglas Martin)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/05/business/arthur-ortenberg-a-liz-claiborne-founder-dies-at-87.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&_r=1

1927(15thof Av, 5687): Shabbat Nachamu; Tu B’Av

1928: Birthdate of Yehuda "Nimrod" Lapidot “an Israeli historian and former professor of biochemistry. Lapidot was a member of the Irgun and an officer in the Israel Defense Forces. In 1980 he was appointed head of Lishkat Hakesher by former Irgun commander and then Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Lapidot received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Hebrew University in 1960 and later became a professor.”

1928(27thof Av, 5688): Eighty-two year old American Jewish author Isaac Markens, the son of Orientalist Elias Markens and the collector of Lincoln memorabilia whose works included  Lincoln and the Jews  passed away today in Newark, NJ.

1928(27thof Av, 5688): Seventy-one year old Nathan Lamport, the son of Tsvi Hirsch Lamport and Esther Lamport  and the husband of Sarah Lamport passed away today in Dobbs Ferry, NY after which he was buried in Jerusalem. He was“nationally known Orthodox leader and philanthropist, president of the Board of Directors of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary and donor of $200,000 toward the Yeshiva College now in process of construction.”

1928: At the casino in Deauville, Charles A. Levine punched the editor of The Boulevardier after the latter admitted that he was the one who had been taking “dirty cracks” at Levine.  The two were separated and Miss Mabel Boll, who was reportedly Levine’s mistress, took him away.  Levine, a non-observant Jew, claimed to be the first passenger to fly the Atlantic in 1927.

http://www.jewishmag.com/123mag/jewish-aviators/jewish-aviators.htm

1929: New York State Supreme Court Justice Frankenthaler is scheduled to hear arguments regarding a petition to have the question of the sanity of Alfred Dreyfus be determined by a jury.

1929: Jewish financier Felix Warburg and Lord Melchett, the famous British nobleman whose picture appeared on the cover of Time Magazine on October 29, 1928, each donate five hundred thousand dollars to start a financial concern aimed at helping development in Palestine.

1933:The Jewish Telegraphic Agency published an article that estimated that there were about 660,000 non-Aryans living in Germany of which 500,000 are "official" Jews and 160,000 of Jewish descent.

1933: “So This Is Harris!” – “a short comedy directed by Mark Sandrich” was released in the United States by RKO.

1933: Birthdate of Luxemburg native Gaston Kahn who went from Drancy to Auschwitz

1934: La signora di tutti (Everybody's Woman) the only Italian film directed by Max Ophüls was released in Italy today.

1934: The comic strip “Li’l Abner,” created by Al Capp, made its debut. Born Alfred Gerald Caplan in New Haven, in 1909, Capp was a successful syndicated cartoonist by the age of 19.  He created Li’l Abner and all of his Hillbilly friends during the depths of the Great Depression.  One of the most famous characters in the strip were the Schmoos.  These characters could jump into your pot or skillet and “cook up” to taste like any food you wished for.  To Jewish kids, the Schmoos sounded an awful like the manna in the Bible.

1936:Felix M. Warburg, New York banker and philanthropist, today was named chairman of the American division of the executive committee of the Council for German Jewry.

1936: It was reported today that two Jewish newspapers in Berlin are not publishing any news about the Olympics because “neither has received a press card or been recognized in any way.”

1936(25thof Av, 5696): Late tonight in Safed, “Arab terrorists” “broke in the house of Rabbi Alter Ungar who was asleep with his family” and threw a bomb that “decapitated the rabbi” and killed an eight year old girl and a six year old boy.

1936: It was reported today that “there are no real Jews on the German Olympic team” since “Helen Mayer is only half Jewish” and that “there is no evidence that Olympics has made any difference (improvement) in the status of German Jews.”

1936: In Geneva, “The World Jewish Congress adopted eight resolutions by acclamation today and tonight cover the Palestine problem, the German boycott, emigration, anti-Semitism, the German Jewish question, refugees, relief and Soviet Russia.”

1936: Roger W. Straus, the co-chairman of the National Conference of Christians and Jews was appointed as “special assistant” in the Landon Presidential Campaign and “hit at reports that the Republican National Chairman had anti-Semitic tendencies.”

1937(6thof Elul, 5697): “Four members of a Jewish family,” including three children were “shot dead by Arabs who broke into their home in Safed.

1937: Two day after he had passed in New Haven, CT. funeral services were scheduled to be held for Leopold A. Spier, the husband of Hannah Shenfeld Spier.

1937: Dr. Isidore Frank, a chaplain in the NYPD and assistant rabbi at Mount Neboh Temple officiated at the funeral for Detective Isidore Astel which attended by hundreds of patrolman and Mayor La Guardia who “paid tribute to his heroism in the line of duty” which led to his death following his thwarting of a robbery in December of 1936.

1937:A proposal to settle 200,000 Jews in Palestine within the next three years, involving an investment of about $175,000,000, was laid before the World Zionist Congress today. The proposal was made by Elieser Kaplal, treasurer of the Zionist executive committee, who said American Jewry was expected to contribute $2,000,000 to the Zionist movement and Palestine fund in the current fiscal year.

1938: “Fifty-five Austrian Jews,” including ten women and three children “who have been deprived of their livelihoods and homes” following the Anschluss arrived in Helsingfors, Finland, aboard a Finnish liner but were forbidden to come ashore because of irregularities in their passports” even though the local Jewish community promised to provide food and shelter for the refugees and the Cabinet granted temporary permission for their landing.

1938(16th of Av, 5698): As they bicycled from Ramatayim to Petah Tikva Benjamin Babayoff and his wife were shot and killed by gunmen firing from an orange grove and their seven year old daughter who was riding on the handlebars was severely wounded.

1939: Newlyweds Katherine and Walter E. Sachs were sailing across the ocean to Europe today.

1939:  In Brooklyn Julius and Anee Cohen Steinberg gave birth to Saul Phillip Steinberg the Wharton graduate who founded “Leasco” which provided him with the financial bases to acquire 150 year old Reliance Insurance Company.

1940(9th of Av, 5700): Tish'a B'Av

1940: Birthdate of Rabbi Alan Bergman, who served Congregation Temple Israel in St. Louis before moving to the Chicago area where her served “as Director of the Great Lakes Region/Chicago Federation of the Union American Hebrew Congregations” for a quarter of century while raising three children – Daniel, Marc and Saralyn – with his wife the former Marcia Sky

1940: During the Battle of Britain the Luftwaffe attacked British airfields   Field Marshall Goering told Hitler that the Luftwaffe could bomb the British into submission making an invasion unnecessary. On the other hand, by destroying the RAF, the Germans would be able to invade the British Isles with complete control of the skies insuring a Nazi victory.  If the British had lost the Battle of Britain, the Final Solution would have been that much closer to being truly “final.”  For more about the role of Jews in actually fighting the Battle of Britain see http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/ww2/sugar4.html.   Failure to win the Battle of Britain soured Hitler on the capabilities of the Luftwaffe and caused him to turn his face eastward towards the Soviet Union.  The invasion of the Soviet Union would result in the millions of Jews coming under the sway of the Final Solution.

1941: “Ostland Reichkommissar Hinrich Lohse ordered that all property belonging to Jews was to be confiscated and registered, and all money and valuables in their possession handed over immediately.”

1942(30thof Av, 5702): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1942: Four days after its world premiere in London, “Bambi” one of the most popular children’s films which was based on Bambi, A Life in the Woods by Felix Saltan, “the grandson of an Orthodox rabbi” opened in New York City today.

1942(30th of Av, 5702): Sixty-nine year old German born Nobel Award winning chemist Richard Willstätter who in 1924 he left his post a prominent German university because of the overt anti-Semitism he encountered passed away today in Switzerland after having left his homeland in the 1930’s.

https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1915/willstatter-bio.html

1942: The Jewish communities at Mir, Belorussia, and Gorodok, Ukraine, are liquidated.

1942: Switzerland forces Jews (mostly French) already safe in Switzerland back across the border. The Swiss government will turn back 10,000 Jews to their deaths during the remainder of the war on the grounds that only political refugees can be admitted into Switzerland, not "racial refugees." The Swiss government does, however, welcome the gold that the Germans extract from the mouths and fingers of the dead Jews.  

1942: For the next fourteen days, 53,750 Jews from Warsaw will be deported to the Treblinka death camp.

1942: United States State Department officials and the British Foreign Office decide that the Riegner Cable outlining details of the Holocaust be kept secret.

1943: “A group of 367 Jews with Spanish citizenship arrived at Bergen Belsen, and in violation of his instructions Spanish diplomat Sebastian de Romero Radigales kept them alive until the Spanish government “changed its position and permitted their transfer to Spanish Morocco.”

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/es/righteous/stories/romero.asp&prev=/search%3Fq%3DSebastian%2Bde%2BRomero%2BRadigales,%26biw%3D1137%26bih%3D496

http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/206638/spanish-diplomat-honored-as-righteous/

1943: Y. Ben Ami wrote a letter to Peter H. Bergson proposing “the creation of a ‘Free Palestine League’ to influence United States policy on the Middle East and to wage a publicity campaign to create public support for an independent Palestine.” (Ben Ami would have a son, Jeremy who became the executive director of “J Street.”)

http://www.gale.cengage.com/pdf/scguides/palestine/palstateintro.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Ben-Ami

1944(24thof Av, 5704): Sixty-seven year old Yale educated attorney Leo Arnstein, the San Francisco born son of “Eugen and Josefine Mandelbaum Arnstein,” who served as a Lt. Colonel during WW I and was a civic leader closely connected with Mayor La Guardian while raising four children – William, Robert, Margaret and Elizabeth – with his wife “the former Elsie Nathan” passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1944/08/15/87463870.pdf

1944:  The Monuments Men under the command of James Rorimer “met as a group for the first time today outside the ruins of Saint Lo.”

1944: Following today’s arrest of an SOE agent and a French officer by the Gestapo, Krystyna Skarbek with the SS officer in charge, and using a combination of threats and bribery obtained the release of her comrades.

1945(4th of Elul, 5705): Sixty-nine year old architectural scholar Samuel Edward Gideon, the Louisville, KY born son of “Louis and Henrietta (Brooks) Gideon” who was a professor at the University of Texas passed away today.

https://cemetery.tspb.texas.gov/pub/user_form.asp?pers_id=2279

1945(4th of Elul, 5705): Thirty-five Jews sacrifice their lives to blow up Nazi rubber plant in Silesia

1946: British authorities open detention camps on the island of Cyprus to hold Jewish refugees who have been prevented from entering Palestine due to British restrictions on immigration.

1946: In Brooklyn Anna Blumenthal and Dr. Julius Yellen gave birth to Janet Louise Yellen the American economist who has a career as an academic and public service including chairing the Council of Economic Advisers and holding senior positions with the Federal Reserve.

1948: Harry Dexter White, the son of Jewish immigrants from Lithuania, who had been accused of being a communist and a traitor denied being a member of the party when testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee today.

1948: On what came to be known as “Black Friday” due to the horrible weather conditions, during the Berlin Blockade, American and British aircrews delivered a record amount of supplies to the citizens of the Western Zone in what was part of an effort to halt Communist Russia’s imperial designs on western Europe – designs, as the Stalin purges were showing were inimical to the survival of the Jewish people.

1948(8th of Av, 5708): Silent screen star Elaine Hammerstein, daughter of Arthur Hammerstein and granddaughter of Oscar Hammerstein, died in an automobile accident.

1949(18thof Av, 5709): Parashat Eikev

1949(18thof Av, 5709): In Brooklyn, dentist Abraham Schartzburg who wrote short stories in Russian, Hebrew and Russian, passed away tday.

1951: “A Nahal group from the Ezra movement” Sha’alvim, “a religious Kibbutz in central Israel…affiliated with Agudat Israel.

1951: Gonen a Nahal settlement which was “civilianized in 1952 by a group of Hebrew Scouts” was established today in the Upper Galilee “

1952: In New York Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt welcomed the 50,000th visitor to the Bond Drive’s Israeli Industrial Exhibition. The Hebrew lettering on a gleaming, Kaiser-Frazer car, assembled in Israel, made a great impression.

1953(2nd of Elul, 5713): Seventy-three year old history Eugen Täubler who began his career teaching  ath the Higher Institute for Jewish in Berlin and finished it teaching at HUC in Cincinnati, Ohio, passed away today.

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3622238?uid=3739640&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21102544530873

http://leobaeck.oxfordjournals.org/content/39/1/131.extract

1955: Two years after the death of Joseph Stalin, old-line Bolshevik Semyon Dimanstein was rehabilitated by the Communists running the Soviet Union.  Born in 1886, Dimanstein reportedly became a Rabbi after studying at a Chabad Yeshiva before becoming a Russian revolutionary.  He was widely identified with Jewish issues inside the Soviet Union including the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the Far East and Yidn in FSSR (Jews in the Soviet Union). He was a victim of Stalin’s murderous purges in 1938. Rehabilitation is sort of like the Communist version of Resurrection.

1957: In Philadelphia, PA, “veteran WCAU Philadelphia news anchor Gene Crane and his first wife Joan”

 gave birth to David Crane,  who helped to create one television’s most popular sitcoms – “Friends” which will live on forever in re-runs.

1958: “God’s Little Acre” the film version of a novel by the same name directed by Anthony Mann with a script by Philip Yordan and Ben Maddow, starring Vic Morrow and with music by Elmer Bernstein was released today in the United States.

1959(9th of Av, 5719):Tish'a B'Av

1959: Today, “the Supreme International Restitution Court in Berlin, recognized the claims of four Jewish families for the return of valuable estates and houses sold to foreign diplomatic agencies during the Nazi era.”

1961(1st of Elul, 5721): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1961: Ernst and Karola Bloch were on a lecture tour in the Federal Republic of German when the Berlin Wall “went up” today forcing them to forsake their home Leipzig (East Germany) and settle in Tubingen (West Germany)

1961(1st of Elul, 5721): Seventy-nine year old Sir Ellice Victor Sassoon, who became a Baron on the death of his father Edward Elias Sassoon and who made much of his fortune in the orient passed away today. 

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=19610814&id=STM1AAAAIBAJ&sjid=HqYLAAAAIBAJ&pg=5179,6071164

http://www.chinaexpat.com/2009/03/30/sir-victor-sassoon-a-most-fortunate-expat.html/

1964: In Los Angeles, “stage and film director Gordon Davidson” and his wife Judi Davidson” gave birth to movie actor and director Adam Davidson who “won the Academy Award for Best Short Subject” for “The Lunch Date.”

1965: It was reported today that the auditorium of newly built Anna Lazaroff Synagogue in Kfar Chabad

“was donated by Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Ferkauf, of New York, honoring Mr. and Mrs. Isidore and Rose Silverman.” (JTA)

1970: Two months after being released in the United States, “Two Mules for Sister Sara” directed by Dan Siegel and with a screenplay by Albert Maltz was released in Mexico today.

1973(15th of Av, 5733): Tu B’Av

1973(15th of Av, 5733):Maurice Bisgyer, retired executive vice president of B'nai B'rith, the Jewish service organization, died today at the age of 75.

1973:The body of Sir Moses Montefiore, father of modern Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel, will be returned to Jerusalem a century after his death, the Israeli Government said today. The body will be moved from Ramsgate to Israel in 1975.

1975(6th of Elul, 5735): Forty-four year old Jerusalem native Rabbi Simcha Teitlebaum the found of Hillel Academy in Pittsburgh and the Yeshiva High School of Queens while two children – Aron and Naomi – with “the former Elly Mayer” passed away this in evening.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1975/08/15/76584163.html?pageNumber=38

1976(15th of Av, 5755): Tu B’Av

1976: It was announced today that “the working title” of the film to be made about the raid on Entebbe “is ‘Operation Jonathan,’ in honor of Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Netanyahu, a 30 year old American born Israeli officer who killed during the rescue operation.”

1976: Having returned to NYC from a campaign trip to Rochester, Daniel P. Moniyhan who is running for a seat in the U.S. Senate was reported today to have “said that the Entebbe raid followed by” the terrorist attack at Istanbul “were indications of the failure of the international community to cooperate to cope with terror.”

1976: The Palestinian terrorists “who killed four persons in an attempt to hijack an Israeli plane at Istanbul were reported today to have “said they had been instructed to kill as many Israelis as we can” and that they were “active warriors of the PLO” which “they had joined six months ago.”

1976: Abraham Hirschfeld, a candidate for the U.S. Senate from New York was reported today to have named “a coordinator for his effort to win support in Hispanic areas of the state.”

1977: President Carter’s administration rejected the Israeli request for the co-production rights of the F-16 fighter-bomber and announced that Israel would not be able to purchase the 250 planes as requested. This number had been reduced to 50 or 75 on grounds that the Israel Air Force no longer needed to maintain its air superiority over the Arabs.

1978(10th of Av, 5738): Tish’a B’Av observed

1982: “White Dog” a cinematic treatment of Romain Gary’s novel of the same name “directed by Samuel Fuller” who co-authored the script was released in the United States by Paramount Pictures today.

1982(24th of Av, 5746): Sixty-seven year old New York native, “singing waiter” and WW II Veteran Joe E. Brown the comedic actor best known for his role in the sitcom “Car 54” passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1982/08/15/obituaries/joe-e-ross-dies-at-67-actor-in-tv-s-car-54.html

1987: “Lyricist Lorenz Hart Lives On Through Sisterly Devotion” published today described the efforts of Dorothy Hart, the sister-in-law of the composer to preserve his legacy as can be seen by her new book The Complete Lyrics of Lorenz Hart.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1987-08-13/features/8703010662_1_lorenz-hart-dorothy-hart-beverly-hills-hotel

1982: “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” directed by Amy Heckerling was released in the United States by Amy Heckerling.

1987: “Didn’t We Almost Have It All” a Grammy nominated song written by Michael Masser was released today.

1991:The publisher Robert Maxwell said today that he had reached a private agreement with the publisher and other shareholders of Israel's Ma'ariv-Modin Group to acquire the majority of shares in the company, which owns the Israeli daily Ma'ariv. Ma'ariv is published in Hebrew in Tel Aviv. Financial details were not given. A statement said Mr. Maxwell would be the chairman and publisher and hold more than 70 percent of the shares. Dov Judkowski, who with Mr. Maxwell controls more than 75 percent of the shares, will be editor in chief and deputy chairman. "I shall put at the disposal of Ma'ariv-Modin all the funds necessary for the swift development of the paper, for the benefit of both the group and its staff," said Mr. Maxwell, who recently acquired The Daily News in New York.

1993: “A Bronx Tale,” a crime film produced by Jane Rosenthal premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.

1993: Belgian middle distance runner Nathan placed 10th in 800 metres at the 1993 World Championships which opened today at Stattgart.

1995: Aharon Barak succeeded Meir Shamgar as President of the Supreme Court of Israel.

1999(1st of Elul, 5759): Rosh Chodesh Elul

2000: The New York Times book section featured a review of Half-Jew: A Daughter's Search for Her Family's Buried Pastby Susan Jacoby and Rodinsky’s Room a mystery about David Rodinsky coauthored by Iain Sinclair and Rachel Lichtenstein, granddaughter of Polish Jewish refugee Gedaliah Lichtenstein.

2001: In the fight against West Nile Virus, pesticides are applied at Baron Hirsch Cemetery In New York

2003(15th of Av, 5763): Tu B’Av

2003: “The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rules to refuse to reconsider a three-judge panel ruling that a Ten Commandments plaque from 1920 can remain on the Chester County courthouse in Pennsylvania. The appeals court was overruling a decision that the plaque with the commandments “violated the separate of church and state.” (As reported by Austin Cline)

2005:The 20th annual Conference on Alternatives in Jewish Education (CAJE) opens at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

2005(8th of Av, 5765): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon; Erev Tish’a B’Av

2005(8th of Av, 5765): Ninety-two year old movie producer Armand Deutsch passed away today.

http://articles.latimes.com/print/2005/aug/17/local/me-deutsch17

2006: A Woman in Jerusalem by A. B. Yehoshua (translated from the Hebrew by Hillel Halkin) was reviewed in the Book Section of the New York Times. A human resources manager is described as “the nameless main character” of this latest acclaimed novel.  Finally a novel features a Jewish human resources manager – how can one not be excited at the prospect of reading this? 

2006: The Book Section of the Washington Post featured a review of  Peter Hartcher’s Bubble Man: Alan Greenspan and the Missing 7 Trillion Dollars which the reviewer describes as a “flawed jeremiad” that attempts to blame Greenspan for the collapse of the dot com bubble and the losses that may or may not have taken place.

2006(19th of Av, 5766): Mahadi Hiyat, 83, was killed when a rocket crashed directly into his house near the town of Shlomi. Hiyat was the sole Egyptian resident of the northern Jewish community of Ya'arah.

2007: A copy of Faye Kellerman’s latest novel, The Burnt House is contributed to the Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, thus insuring that its library will have a complete collection of her detective mysteries. With The Burnt House, Kellerman returns to her literary roots with Rina and Peter Decker, the Jewish couple that solves murders.  Besides the fact they are slick yarns, where else can you be on the trail of multiple murderers while one of the characters talks about “hashgacha pratite” and another reassures his spouse that they could enjoy a visit to Santa Fe since “they have a Chabad there.”

2007: Some 75 people from the Jewish community of Rochester, New York, attended a dedication ceremony today to honor a rediscovered burial plot, long unknown to the community, where over 100 Jews from the 19th century were buried.

2008: Forty Reform Jews land in Israel for a first-of-its-kind trip to meet the Israeli Reform movement. The 10-day trip is titled "Reform Family Experience: Move Beyond the Tour Bus," and may be a sign of the times in seeking to connect Reform Jews more powerfully than in the past to an Israel that is more complex and diverse than that seen by most tourists.

2008: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez met with Jewish leaders today, pledging to work together against anti-Semitism and open up channels of communication despite differences on Middle East politics.

2009: Funeral for Robert William Levine, the businessman and philanthropist who worked to aid Russian immigrants is scheduled to take place at Temple Emanuel in Newton, MA followed by burial at Memorial Park in Sharon, MA.

2009: In Jerusalem, the Yiddishpiel Theatre helps prepare people for the High Holidays by presenting a “unique musical event which combines stories about the great cantors and Jewish and cantorial soul songs.

2009: In Jerusalem, Beit Avi Chai,A cultural center that explores concepts of Jewish and Israeli identity and creativity presents a workshop led by Dr. Meir Buzaglo, Department of Philosophy, at Hebrew University entitled Rambam in the 21st Century that asks the questions, “How does the Rambam’s thinking relate to the basic questions of the modern age?”

2009:The Israel Defense Forces said today that they were investigating reports of a kidnapped soldier. A previously unknown Palestinian group calling itself the "Al-Quds Army" claimed that it had kidnapped an Israeli soldier the Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported

2009: The Jewish Lads’ and Girls’ Brigade (JLGB), “the UK’s oldest Jewish youth which was founded as the Jewish Lads’ Brigade by Colonel Albert E.W. Goldsmid” “broke the Guinness World Record for the largest custard pie fight at their annual summer camp with 253 people taking part and throwing 648 pies in a matter of minutes.”

2009: Rai Ephraim Simon, co-director of Friends of Lubavitch and a father of nine donated one of his kidneys to Samar Chasid living in Williamsburg who is the father of ten.

2009 Today, 36 year old Tzipora “Obziler convened a press conference to announce her retirement from professional tennis.”

2009 Patriot’s rookie Julian Edelman scored his first professional points on today in a pre-season game with the Philadelphia Eagles returning a punt 75 yards for a touchdown

2010(3rd of Elul, 5770):  On the Hebrew calendar today marks the 75th anniversary of the passing of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook. He passed away on the 3rd of Elul, 5695. During the British Mandate, “Rabbi Kook was the first Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of the Jewish population in the Land of Israel in modern times, and had great love and respect for the secular Zionist movement…”

2010: Temple Judah is scheduled to celebrate the 88th birthday of Marianne Bern at the Oneg following Friday night services.

2010(3rd of Elul, 5770): Seventy-eight year old Oregon State University statistician, the widow of Professor Alan Berg and the first “female mayor of Corvallis, OR” passed away today.

https://www.gazettetimes.com/news/local/article_fd4053cc-a967-11df-a42f-001cc4c002e0.html



2010: The man who killed Meir Kahane in 1990 claims he did not carry out the shooting alone, as previously thought, but was part of a three-man terrorist cell with links to al-Qaida. Its original target was future prime minister Ariel Sharon, according to a newly-leaked US government document. During his investigation for an article into alleged counter- terrorism blunders published in Playboy magazine today, freelance journalist Peter Lance uncovered official FBI memos which bring new information to light about the murder of the Israeli politician in New York.According to the documents, Kahane’s killer, El-Sayyid Nosair, told detectives in 2005 that he had planned to assassinate Sharon, who was then Israel’s minister of housing and construction

2010:The reopening of Shaarei Torah,the synagogue of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, luminary sage and father of modern religious Zionism, coincided with the 75th anniversary of Rabbi Kook's death.



2011: The Gaga Summer Intensive that included Ohad Naharin's Repertoire is scheduled to come to a close today. Ohad Naharin “is an Israeli contemporary dancer, choreographer, artistic director, and musician.”

2011(13th of Av, 5771): Shabbat Nachamu

2011: The Summer Israeli Folk Dance Mostly Couples Marathon is scheduled to take place at Buttenwieser Hall in New York City.

2011: Social protests took place throughout Israel today, with demonstrators turning out en masse in Haifa, Be’er Sheva and Afula. This was the first time since the start of the social protests nearly a month ago that Tel Aviv did not hold a march.

2011:Gunmen abducted an American Jew after breaking into his house in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore today in an unusually brazen raid that illustrated the threat to foreigners in this militancy-wracked, US-allied country. The US Embassy identified the victim as Warren Weinstein. A man by that name serves as the Pakistan country director for J.E. Austin Associates, a development contractor that works with the aid arm of the American government, according to a profile on the LinkedIn networking website. (YNET News)

2012: Five short films created by Israeli directors - Occupy Rothschild, Wall to Wall, Busted, Word Games, A Wonderful Day – are scheduled to be shown in NYC



2012:The Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry announced today that the price of a price-controlled loaf of bread will rise by 6.53 percent tomorrow.

2012: Hezbollah has rockets that can hit any Israeli city, a leading official of the organization said this afternoon. In the morning Walla News reported a battery of the mobile Iron Dome anti-missile defense system was installed near Safed last week as part of an ongoing series of tests.

2012:Israel may need to destroy parts of Lebanon and Gaza if Hezbollah and Hamas rain missiles upon the country in response to an Israeli attack on Iran, former Mossad head Danny Yatom said today

2012(25thof Av, 5772): Eighty three year old real estate mogul and philanthropist Zev Wolfson passed away today.

http://www.eilatgordinlevitan.com/vilna/vilna_pages/vilna_stories_zev.html

2013: “Israel: A Home Movie” is scheduled to be shown at the Morris Cafritz Center for the Arts as part of the Year-Round Washington Jewish Film Festival.

2013: “Little Me” a Neil Simon musical opened at the Rose and Crown Theatre in London.

2013: “The High Court of Justice today rejected a petition by the families of terror victims to block the release of 26 Palestinian prisoners who were convicted of terrorism, ruling that it is not for the court to involve itself in what is a diplomatic rather than a legal process.” (As reported by Stuart Winer)

2013: The Israel Defense Forces gained 125 new recruits today as over 300 immigrants from North America landed in Israel, part of a charter flight organized by the Nefesh B’Nefesh organization. (As reported by Joshua Davidovich)

2013: Amir Levy is scheduled to appear in “Bellimi and the Sultan” at the Robert Moss Theatre

2014: The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to unveil two plaques honoring rescuers from Italy and Poland at the Ferro Fountain of the Righteous

2014: Dr. Mark W. Weisstuch is scheduled to deliver the second in his series of lectures on “The Merchant of Venice: A study of despair and humanity” at the Skirball Center for Jewish Life and Learning.

2014: “Jewish people must be allowed to pray on the Temple Mount during the High Holidays and Sukkot, lawmakers in the Knesset Interior Committee said today.” (As reported by Lahav Harkov)

2014: “Rockets were fired from Gaza tonight two-hours before the midnight deadline to Sunday's 72-hour cease-fire, as the IDF enhanced its troop presence along the border preparing to once again wage war against Hamas in Gaza.” (As reported by Herb Keinon, Hhaled Abu Toameh and Michael Wilner)

2014: “Accompanied by Senate Majority co-leaders Dean Skelon and Jeff Klein together with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Andrew M. Cuomo, the Governor of New York, called on President Reuven Rivlin today to affirm the State of New York’s support for the State of Israel in light of the continued threat of attacks by Hamas and other terrorist organizations.” (As reported by Greer Fay Cashman)

2015: ““Asif Kapadia’s Amy Winehouse film is” is scheduled to be shown in London under the auspices of the UK Jewish Film which “aims to develop a culture where Jewish and Israeli film is recognized and enjoyed by the widest possible audience, and to bring Jewish related film to the heart of British culture.”

2015: Jews On Bikes is scheduled to cosponsor “What It Takes: Havdalah” where attendees will “gain the skills to make Havdalah on their own” at the Historic 6th& I Synagogue.

2015: It was reported today, that the appoint of Fiamma Nirenstein, a former Italian MP and journalist who immigrated to Israel in 2013 to serve “as Israel’s ambassador to Rome has rattled the Italian Jewish community amid fear of accusations of dual loyalty.”

2016: In “Obit for the Obits” Bruce Weber bid farewell to his role an obituary writer for the New York Times. (Editor’s Note – This a moment of mixed emotion.  On the one hand we are glad that Mr. Weber will get to enjoy the fruits of a long life.  On other hand, he will be sorely missed.  His obits have provided mountains of information.  And his writing his elegant and amazing.  He is able to capture the life of people, some of whom are obscure and/or long forgotten, in a handful of well-chosen words.  I can think of no greater way to end one’s life than to be a subject of Bruce Weber’s writing.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/14/sunday-review/obit-for-the-obits.html?_r=0

2016: At its triennial assembly which ended today, ‘The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America approved a resolution calling on the U.S. government to end all aid to Israel if Israel does not stop building settlements and “enable an independent Palestinian state.” (Editor’s Note – considering Luther’s view on Jews, he would be so proud of his spiritual descendants.)

2016: “Israeli superstar David Broza” and the Jazz Encounters are scheduled to perform at National Sawdust.

2016(9thof Av, 5776): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon; Erev Tish'a B'Av; for more see

2016: The “22nd annual March around the Old City Witt the Women in Green” is scheduled to begin at 9:30 pm with the reading of “Eicah” in Independence Park.

2016: At midnight, “floodwaters began to flow into Ellen Sager’s Baton Rouge” – one of the 34 homes owned by Jewish resident of the city that would be lost to the rising waters.

http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/348340/34-jewish-families-lose-homes-in-louisiana-flooding-aid-pours-in/?utm_content=food_Newsletter_BreakingNews_Position-3&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Food%20Redesign%202016-08-24&utm_term=Food

2016: The Jerusalem Soul Center is scheduled to host the annual reading of Eicha starting at 8:45 pm which this year will be “dedicated to the Memory of Mike Levin z'l, our holy brother and lone soldier friend killed 10 years ago in the Lebanon War and buried on Tisha Bav 2006.”

2017: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Bed-Suy Is Burning, a novel by Brian Platzer and the recently released paperback edition of You’ll Grow Out Of It by Jessi Klein as well as recommendation for the sleep deprived to read Go The F**K To Sleepby Adam Mansbach.

2017: The Gula Bar and Restaurant at 4 David Remez Street in Jerusalem is schedule to host an Ilan Jazz Trio Concert featuring singer and pianist Ilan Chouraki.

http://icmusic.club/index.php/en/bio

2017: Dov Boros, the native of Budapest who survived the Gestapo and the Arrow Cross, who survived the Budapest ghetto is scheduled to talk about his experiences at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.

2017: Rita is scheduled to host Shimon Buskila at the Jerusalem Arts and Crafts Fair.

http://us.napster.com/artist/shimon-buskila

2017: The exhibition “Generation of Wealth by Lauren Greenfield” came to a close at the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles.

2018: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Through Lotte’s Lens” a documentary that tells the extraordinary story of the ‘Hitler Émigrés’, the refugees – mainly Jewish who escaped the Nazi regime in the 1930s and found refuge in the UK.”

2018: Today Politico published an essay by Stephen Miller's uncle, Dr. David S. Glosser, titled "Stephen Miller Is an Immigration Hypocrite. I Know Because I'm His Uncle", in which he detailed the Glosser family's history of coming to the United States from the village of Antopal in present-day Belarus

2018: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled “to host the U.S. premier of MGM's new motion picture Operation Finale- the story of the Mossad capture of Adolph Eichmann” followed by a presentation by “Avner Avraham, former Mossad agent and special Operation Finale film consultant.”

2018: In New York the Muslim American Leadership Alliance and the American Sephardi federation are scheduled to host “An Evening of Islamic and Jewish Calligraphy” led by “experiential educator and artist Ruben Shimonov.”

2019: Outfielder Kevin Pillar and his fellow San Francisco Giants are scheduled to begin a two game series with the neighboring Oakland A’s.

2019: The JCC of Northern Virginia is scheduled to host “Relax, Meditate and Find Peace with Nature.

2019: The Center for Jewish History and the YIVO Institute are scheduled to present a workshop on “Researching Your Ancestral Town” in which participants will learn how to investigate the history and culture of the Jewish community in their “ancestral towns.”


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

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August 14

508: Maurice, the Emperor of the Byzantine Emperor who in 592 would punish “the entire Jewish community of Antioch after a Jew violated one his laws” began his reign today.

1197: "In the year 4957, on the twenty-eighth of Ab, there was a great persecution of the Jews in the kingdom of Leon at the hand of the two kingdoms that came to besiege it. At that time they removed thence the twenty-four sacred books which were written about 600 years before. They were written by R. Hillel ben Moses ben Hillel, and hence his name was given to the codex, which was called 'Hilleli.' It was exceedingly correct; and all other codices were revised after it. I saw the remaining two parts of it, containing the Former and Latter Prophets, written in large and beautiful characters; these had been brought by the exiles to Portugal and sold at Bugia in Africa, where they still are, having been written about 900 years ago. Kimḥi in his grammar on Num. x. 4 says that the Pentateuch of the Hillel Codex was extant in Toledo."

1349: Walram of Jülich , the Archbishop of Cologne who “protected” the Cologne Council from paying the debt it owned to “a Jewish banker named Meyer of Siegburg who was officially condemned to death, passed away today.

1385: In what might be called the “Battle of the Johns” The Portuguese forces commanded by King João I (King John I) defeat the Castilian army of King Juan I(King John I) at the Battle of Aljubarrota, leaving King Juan as ruler of Portugal. The victory of King João I guaranteed the existence of an independent Portugal which would provide a haven for Jews fleeing Christian persecution in Spain at the end of the 14th and start of the 15thcenturies.

1433: John I (King João I) of Portugal passed away.  As the following entry shows, King John I provided a haven for at least one Jew seeking to escape persecution in Spain.

In 1391, an anti-Jewish riot inspired and provoked by the church occurred in Seville and spread rapidly throughout Spain. Jews were being beaten and killed by religious fanatics and many others who were just taking advantage of the rioting to rob the Jews. The streets were flowing with Jewish blood; synagogues, homes and businesses are being destroyed; Jewish property is being stolen. The rioters were yelling; "Convert or Die!" The church promised peace and safety to the Jews who convert. Don Samuel Abarbanel, an observant Jew and his family were forced to convert. At that time the Abarbanels was one of the most distinguished families in Spain.  Its patriarch is Don Samuel Abarbanel, Treasurer of the State, Courtier, and friend to three kings of Spain. But even somebody as powerful as Don Samuel was not immune from the violence. He took the Christian name of Juan Sanchez de Seville and continued to serve King Henry III as his treasurer. He and his family attended church and mass on Sunday, but at great risk they were secret Jews, trying to eat kosher, observe the Sabbath and holidays and pray to Hashem. It was not an easy thing for them to do but they did so for about six years when it became increasingly more difficult. By 1397 Juan Sanchez de Seville and his family were able to escape to Portugal where they threw off their Christian customs and names and resumed their practice of Judaism.

Don Samuel Abarbanel's reputation as a brilliant financier and statesman preceded him. King John I had his agents approach Don Samuel to ask him to be an advisor to the king. Don Samuel readily agreed, and a long personal friendship and relationship began. The relationship was not only between the king and Don Samuel, it was between their two families, their children, and their grandchildren. Samuel's son Judah followed in his father's footsteps. Don Judah was highly respected by King John I who frequently sought his advice. King John I was called "King John the Great." The title was well justified. During John I's reign Portugal prospered. Portugal was entering the age of exploration and acquiring new territories and becoming rich. Don Judah Abarbanel's advice to the king was invaluable in pursuing this course of action. One of King John's sons was Prince Henry the Navigator who ran a school of navigation and encouraged its Navy to explore, discover and settle new territories and to bring greater wealth and prestige to Portugal.      

1447: Following a fire in Posen (Poland) where the original charter granting the Jews "privileges" was written, (by Casimir the Great), Casimir IV renewed all of their rights, making his charter one of the most liberal in Europe. This charter lasted less than a decade before it was revoked.

1569: In Cracow, Isaac ben Aaron Prostitz began printing “R. Naftali Hertz ben Menahem of Lublin’s “commentary on the Torah Portion of Midrash Rabbah.

1587: When Vincent I succeeded his father William as Duke of Mantua today Salamone Rossi was serving in his first year as a court musician and concertmaster.

1587: Thirty nine year old to “Federico II of Gonzaga, the ruler of the Italian city of Mantua at the time of the birth of Leone de' Sommi, the first “unapologetically Jewish playwright and poet” and a ruler who enjoyed Jewish comedians enough to hire “Solly and Jacob” passed away toay.

1591(24thof Av, 1591): Abigdor Eisenstadt, aka Abigdor Sofer ben Moses, “the author of translation of festival prayers and a prayer-book from Polish into German” passed away today.

1629: Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, who had been befriended by “Bohemian Court Jew and financier” Jacob Bassevi and who “was arrested at the order of the imperial court of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II, put in prison in Vienna, and accused of insulting Christianity” was freed today because a group of “generous Jews” paid a first installment of 2,000 florins on the 10,000 florin fine that had been levied against him,

1688: Birthdate of Frederick William I of Prussia whom Veitel-Heine Ephraim served as court jeweler and mint master.

1716:  Italian Rabbi Isaiah Bassani wrote a poem in honor of Zebulon Conegliano passing his examination in medicine today in Padua.

1725: “The Jewish Law of 14 August 1725” “forbade the settlement by Jews in places where they had not previously been settled” including Reichenberg.

1735: Birthdate of Jacob Meyer mystic and magician who gained fame as Jacob Philadelphia the name he took when he converted to Christianity.

1758: Philip Cuyler wrote to David Franks concerning the insurance policy on “good in the Charming Rachell…”

1767: The will of Barbados resident Emanuel Aboaf was dated today.

1788: In Amsterdam, Abraham Benjamin Cohen and Elizabeth Gompertz gave birth to William Cohen.

1779: In Prague, Selig Trebitsch, ḥazzan at the Old New Synagogue and his wife gave birth to Rabbi Menahem Nahum Trebitsch whose writings included “Shelom Yerushalayim"

1787(30th of Av, 5547): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1787(30th of Av, 5547):Isaac de Pinto “a Dutch Jew of Portuguese origin, a scholar and one of the main investors in the Dutch East India Company” passed away. He had been born in 1717 in Amsterdam. In1748, Pinto helped stadholder William IV of Orange, sending or lending him money to defeat the French at Bergen op Zoom. In return he asked for uplifting measures against Jewish merchants forbidding them to sell clothes, gherkins or fish on the street. He proposed to send the poorest Jews to Surinam. Pinto was a man of broad learning, but did not begin to write until nearly fifty, when he acquired a reputation by defending his co-religionists against Voltaire. In 1762 he published his Essai sur le Luxe at Amsterdam. In the same year appeared his Apologie pour la Nation Juive, ou Réflexions Critiques. The author sent a manuscript copy of this work to Voltaire, who thanked him. Antoine Guenée reproduced the Apologie at the head of his Lettres de Quelques Juifs Portugais, Allemands et Polonais, à M. de Voltaire. In 1763 De Pinto became bankrupt as a result of speculation; he had to sell his house on Nieuwe Herengracht with five famous fixed wall-paintings by Jan Weenix. De Pinto moved to another fine mansion in The Hague; he and his family were invited to the palace when Mozart and his sister played. In 1768, Pinto sent a letter to Diderot on Du Jeu de Cartes. His Traité de la Circulation et du Crédit appeared in Amsterdam in 1771, and was twice reprinted, besides being translated into English and German. His Précis des Arguments Contre les Matérialistes was published at The Hague in 1774. Pinto's works were published in French (Amsterdam, 1777) and also in German (Leipzig, 1777).

1793: Birthdate of Baruch Auerbach, the “educator and philanthropist” who founded the Jewish Orphan Asylum in Berlin.

1815: Birthdate Rabbi Maier Zipser “one of the leaders of the Conservative (Neolog) movement of the Hungarian Jewry.”

1818: In St. Thomas, Jacob Baiz, a native of Bayonne, France and his wife Leah Baiz gave birth to Rachel Baiz who became Rachel Levi when she married Joseph Levi.

1820: John Jacob Hays, the grandson of Solomon Hays arrived today in Fort Wayne where he began serving as Indian an Indian agent making him the first Jew to settle in the Indiana city.

1822: In New York, Thomas Strong gave birth to Dr. James Strong a student of the Hebrew language whose pamphlet on the subject was published before the Civil War.  Strong was a member of the Palestine Exploration Committee and traveled there in 1884. (Strong was part of a group of 19th century Christians whose interest in Palestine laid the groundwork for the archaeological activities that became “Israel’s National Pastime.”)

1824: Birthdate of Breslau native Edward Kanter, the Detroit banker and husband of Fanny R. Granger Kanter with whom he had four children – Henry, Charles, Edward and Jessie.

1829: Birthdate of Jules Moch a graduate of Saint-Cyr who fought served in the Crimean War and was captured at the Battle of Sedan during the Franco-Prussian War.

1834: German born Samuel Stiebel and Jane Stiebel gave birh to Charles Dan Stiebel.

1840: Birthdate of New York native Manuel Augustus Kursheedt

1840: The U.S. government sent instruction to Mr. Glidon, the American Consul expressing President Van Buren’s concern over the treatment of the Jews of Damascus and his wish that United States work in concert with the governments of Europe to relieve their suffering.

1840: In New York, Asher Kursheedt and Abigail Judah City College of New York alum Manuel Augustus Kursheedt, whose activities in the Jewish community included serving as “the director of the United Hebrew Charities and the Educational Alliance, managing secretary of the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society and President of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.

1844: Morris de Saxe married Abigail Isaacs at the Great Synagogue today.

1850: David Hyams married Rebecca Arrobas today at the Great Synagogue today.

1850: One day after he had passed away, Myer Moses was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.

1855(30th of Av, 5615): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1856: Birthdate of Philadelphia native Isidore Langsdorf, the manufacturer the Roig Cigars and a leading member of Congregation Rodeph Shalom.

1859: Congregation Gemiluth Chassed was founded today in Port Gibson, Mississippi.

1861: Second Lieutenant Leopold Rosenthal began who would be wounded at Fort Magruder in Virginia began his three years of service with the 5th Cavalry today.

1862: Philadelphian Jacob Stern began his service with Company E of the 133rdRegiment.

1862: Jacob Ezekiel Hyneman, a native of Richmond, VA who had moved to Philadelphia with his father in 1850 enlisted in the U.S. Army during the Civil War.  Unlike some other native Virginians, Hyneman was able to choose fighting for the Union as opposed to defending slavery.

1863: Birthdate of London “communal worker” Felix Arthur Davis.

1863: "Affairs at Vicksburg” published today describes conditions a month after the fall of the Confederate Citadel including the following, "When the news reached the North that Vicksburg had fallen, a few thousand Hebrew patriots immediately made an exodus in this direction, with a view of opening a few hundred clothing stores at once. Greatly to their disgust Gen. Grant refused to allow any trade whatever, and much to their pecuniary grief they found that they had brought their shoddy to the wrong market. Something, however, must be done, and so fifty or sixty opened shops for the repair of watches, an equal number opened establishments for taking pictures, another quantity went to work gathering up the immense amount of old rags left everywhere by the rebels, while the balance stood disconsolately for a time around corners cursing Grant in every dialect originating at Babel, and then returned up the river. Those who went into the rag business had a good thing, for rags are high and the quantity left by Confederates in this place was enormous."

1864: In Columbus, Indiana, Samuel Ginsburg and Rachel L. Helfman gave birth to Bernard Ginsburg the husband of Ida Esther Goldman and resident of Detroit, Michigan who was Director of the Jewish Orphan Asylum in Cleveland for eight years and began serving as the first vice-president of the National Conference of Jewish Charities in 1904.

1865: Prussia and Austria signed the Gastein Convention that established the rules for governing Schleswig and Holstein which was one of the steps on Bismarck’s path to making uniting Germany under Prussian rule and making it the dominant power in Europe – a path that led to three wars: Franco-Prussian, WW I, and WW II – which had major impacts on the Jews of the Continent which included the Holocaust.

1865: Today's Foreign Items column reports that The Chief of Police in Warsaw has forbidden the Jews to wear their ancient dress and coiffure, (two curls sticking out from a velvet cap.

1865: Officer Thomas Ward who was murdered by a gang of felons in the line of duty, died at the Jew's Hospital. (Jew’s Hospital would later be known as Mt. Sinai.  The hospital took on the role of treating New Yorker’s regardless of religion during the Civil War when it treated large numbers of Union soldiers wounded during McClellan’s ill-fated Peninsula Campaign.)

1872: A letter published today signed simply “A Jew” took issue with the New York Tribune’s characterization of President Grant’s views on, and relationships with,  the Jewish people.  The writer denied the Tribune’s claim that Grant had apologized for General Oder No. 11 by saying “that his chief of staff had issued and that he (Grant) had countermanded it.  When questioned on the subject in 1868, Grant said that “he issued that order under misapprehension, and regretted his action.  He took the responsibility and did not claim credit for countermanding it.”  The Tribune, whose publisher Horace Greely, was running against Grant for the Presidency, was making the same claims against Grant that had failed to dissuade Jews from voting for the Civil War hero in 1868.  The writer concludes by stating that The Tribune does not understand Jews.  Jews think for themselves.  Some will vote Democrat.  Some will vote Republican.  But none of them will be swayed by the Tribune’s re-hash of the claims left over from the 1868 Presidential Campaign.

1873: According to Chief of Police John Malloy, the man who was murdered in Albany is a Brooklynite named John D. Weston.  He was allegedly murdered by Emil Lowenstein, a German-Jewish barber who had been enlisted by Mrs. Weston with enticements of sharing in the decedent’s property and enjoying her company.

1874(1st of Elul, 5634): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1874: It was reported today that the police superintendent of New York had received a telegram from the Sheriff of McLean Country, Illinois, stating that the ”German Jew named Levy” had confessed to murdering New York businessman Benjamin Nathan.  The sheriff doubts that truth of the confession and thinks the man is “a humbug” looking for a free trip back to New York.

1875(13thof Av, 5635): Shabbat Nachamu

1877: Two days after she had passed away, Adelaide Collins, the daughter of Solomon Collins and Catherine Isaacs and the husband of John Collins with whom she had four children – Kate, William, Louisa and Solomon – was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

1878: It was reported today that the government is doing nothing to alleviate the suffering from the effects of the famine in southern Morocco.  The Jews of the region are receiving some assistance from co-religionists

1879:  Harris Levy, a 28 year old Polish Jew was shot in the arm on Forsyth Street in New York.  Levy was as a night watchman for Louis Solomans, a manufacturing tailor whose businesses occupied three rooms on the building’s 6th floor.

1881: In Latvia, Abraham I. and Jennie Kaplan Gallant gave birth to St. Louis attorney C. Lew Gallant

1881: “Bleichroder and Thiers” published today described one Frenchman’s reaction to Barthelemy St. Hilaire recommending that the President of the Republic name Gerson von Bleichröder the German Jewish banker with close ties to Chancellor Bismarck be named a Knight of the Legion of Honor.

1881: In Kiev, Abraham and Dvora Wellcher gave birth to Laibel Welcher gained fame as aviation pioneer Arthur L. Wlesh who was a flight instructor and friend of the Wright Brothers.

1881: It was reported today that donations to help defray the cost of the next excursion sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children can be sent to the offices of the Jewish Messenger on Walker Street.

1881: A concert sponsored by several prominent Jews is scheduled to be held today to raise funds for a cemetery at the popular resort town of Long Branch, NJ. The cemetery, “The Strangers’ Cemetery, will be open to all – rich or poor, Jew or Gentile

1882: It was reported today that there are forty Jews living in Hoboken NJ.

1882: It was reported today that yesterday’s account in the Congressional Record of speech given by S.S. Cox in defense of the Jews of Russia could not have happened since Congress had already adjourned. This was an example of the time-honored technique of entering things into the Congressional Record that were not actually said on the floor of the House and/or Senate.

1882: It was reported that a barrel of gunpowder had accidentally exploded at a shop in Grodeno, Russia killing an untold number of Jewish children attending a nearby school

1882:“Old Time Business Ways” reviewed The Growth of English Industry and Commerce by William Cunningham which included a description of how the reality of Jewish money lending in Medieval England.  While it appeared that the Jews had a monopoly on money lending, “the King had indirectly a monopoly on money-lending” because the Jews “were mere chattels of the King” which meant that “all that they had was his.”

1883: “With Hermann Guthe’s publication of his monograph on the scroll fragment completed” today “the Shapira’s manuscript” which was a scroll of Deuteronomy “officially achieved scholarly recognition.”

1884: It was reported today that Rabbi Henry Zindorf of Detroit’s Temple Beth El has been chosen as Professor of History and Hebrew Literature at Hebrew Union College.

1884: Tonight, in Kingston Jamaica, “David ben Abraham Nunes” married “Amy bat Alfred Delgado,” the granddaughter of “Moses Delgado, amajor figure in the history of Jewish Jamaica” who served as “President of the Kaal Kadosh Shahar Ashamaim, the Sephardic synagogue of Kingston” and who “was responsible for the successful 1831 campaign to grant full civil rights to the country’s Jews.”

https://www.jta.org/quick-reads/rare-jamaican-ketubah-to-be-sold-at-auction

1886: On the Lower East Side, Louis and Mary Strauss Frankenthaler gave birth to George Frankenthaler who served as the State Supreme Court Justice and New York County Surrogate.

1887: The members of the jury that convicted Israel Lipski of murder are scheduled to meet with the condemned man’s solicitor today.

1887: It was reported today that Israel Lipski’s solicitor has new facts that will prove that he did kill Miriam Angel, the woman he was convicted of killing.  Lipski’s lawyer has met privately with Judge Stephen and convinced him of his client’s innocence.

1887: It was reported today that that Israel Lipski’s solicitor has “sent a telegram to the Queen” asking her to stay the execution because “he is in possession of facts which will enable him to establish” Lipski’s innocence.

1887: “Old World News By Cable” published today included a description of the excitement gripping London over the upcoming hanging of Israel Lipski, a Polish Jew who was found guilty of murdering Miriam Angel.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9403E4D71430E633A25757C1A96E9C94669FD7CF

1888: An excursion for sick children under the age of six sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children will take place this morning at nine.

1888: Birthdate of Dr. Paul Zucker, the successful German architect who, when the Nazis came to power left for the United States where he became a citizen in 1944.

1888: Twenty-four year old  Joseph B. David, the Louisville born “son of Theobold and Adelaide (Strauss) David” who practiced law in Chicago where he was a Special Assistant City Attorney before serving several terms as on the Superior Court of Cook County, first as a judge and then as Chief Justice married Emma Siesel today

1889: The seventh free excursion of the summer sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children is scheduled to leave from the Fifth Street pier of the East River.  Only children without contagious diseases and six years of age or younger will be allowed on the boat.

1889: One hundred twenty Jewish families arrived in Buenos Aires giving birth to the modern Argentinean Jewish community.In 1889, 824 Russian Jews arrived in Argentina on the S.S. Weser from Podolia in western Russia. Many of them became gauchos (Argentine cowboys). The gauchos bought land and established a colony, which they named Moiseville. Due to lack of funding, the gauchos appealed to Baron Maurice de Hirsch for funds and the Baron subsequently founded the Jewish Colonization Association. During its heyday, the Association owned more than 600,000 hectares of land, populated by more than 200,000 Jews. While many of these cooperative ranches are now owned by non-Jews, Jews continue to run some of the properties.

1890: It was reported today that donations to help defray the costs of the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children can be sent to  Nathan Lewis, President; Dr. H. Gomez, Vice President; Hezekiah Kohn, Treasurer: and Joseph Davis, honorary Secretary.

1891: In “Hackney, London,” Amy Davis and Solomon Henry Andrade gave birth to Arthur Frank Andrade.

1891(10thof Av, 5651): Sixty-four year old Emile Frank, the widow of Joseph Frank and passed away at Huguenot, NY. The funeral will be delayed because the body has to be taken back to New York City and tomorrow is Shabbat.

1891:Mr. Rosenbluth, of the Sanitary Aid Society who works with the Trustees of the Baron Hirsch Fund gave one of the Russian Jewish refugees living at Highstown, NJ $5,000 and sent him out to purchase farm lands in an attempt to replicate the success that Jewish refugees have enjoyed farming in Connecticut.

1892: Lewis Novra the son of George Novra and Rebecca Abrahams was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

1892: Rabbis Aaron Wise and David Cahn officiated at the wedding of Lottie Naomi Swartwood and Leopold Kahn known as “Admiral Dot.” Kahn and Swartwood were both dwarfs.  He had begun performing with P.T.Barnum until he formed the American Lilliputian Company in 1877 where both of them were stars.

1892: Louis-Norbert Carrière the government commissioner who successfully pled at Rennes for Dreyfus's second conviction was appointed government commissioner to the Dreyfus court martial in Rennes today,

1892: “Decline of the Hat Industry in the Oranges” published today offered numerous reasons for the decline of millinery business in New Jersey including the fact that Polish Jews in Newark and Orange are finishing hats for eight and three quarters of a cent per dozen.  “American workmen have always been paid 25 cents per dozen.”  (In reality, the problem was the tariff)

1893: When representatives of the Board of Health, the Street Cleaning Department, the Fire Department and the Police swept through Hester Street and Mulberry Bend in an attempt to clear out the pushcarts and street vendors, they were forced to deal with “an old Jew” selling pears who had padlocked his cart in place and a Jew selling calico wrappers who claimed he could not move his cart because the wheel was broken.

1893: Birthdate of Samuel Simon Leibowitz, American attorney and jurist who would gain fame as the lawyer who defended the Scottsboro Boys.

1893: Jack O”Mara, the bartender at Patrick Devitt’s saloon in Brooklyn, is scheduled to go before the judge on charges that he handcuffed a Jewish paddled named Bruns and then stole his pack.

1894: Two day after his death “in his 48thyear,” Oscar Alexander, the husband of Sarah Woolf with whom he had nine children – Henry, Rachel, Leah, Hannah, Amelia, Rebecca, Bertha, Jacob and Rose – was buried today at the West Ham Jewish Cemetery.

1896: Heinrich von Gossler was appointed Prussian Minister of War. During his tenure in office he would defend Jewish manufacturers of rifles of when they were attacked by anti-Semites in the Reichstag. 

1897: In Chicago, Samuel Marlow, a German Jew and his son were arrested today when “officers raided a little frame house on 26thPlace” where they found a still that could produce 52 gallons of moonshine a day.

1898: As the staff at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum works to deal with an epidemic of dysentery “a well-known physician said that there forty to fifty cases in apartments in the same neighborhood which he attributed to polluted water.

1898: “The Arrival of the Immigrant” published today described the arrival of Italians at Ellis Island and the Barge Office who have replaced the wave of Jews “from the Ghettoes, the Judenstrasses and the village streets of Russia, Russian Poland and all of Jewish Western Europe” that filled these offices through-out the 1880’s.

1899: A New York Times reporter went to 3,815 Park Avenue which Abraham Reinold, a patient at Georgetown University in Washington, DC gave as his address.  The address given by this mysterious Jews was a vacant lot and no one in the neighborhood knew who he was.

1899: Birthdate of Evelyn Kozak the native New Yorker whose parents had left “Russia to escape anti-Semitic attacks” who would be described as the world’s oldest living Jew when passed away at the age of 113.

1899: In Paris, the police have surrounded the office of the Anti-Semite League where M.M. Guerin, the president of the league and Max Regis, the “noted –Jew baiter” and former Mayor of Algiers have barricaded themselves in attempt to avoid arrest “for political crimes that are punishable with penal servitude.”  A mob of their supporters shouting “Vive l’armee” and Mort aux Juifs’ has gathered outside the building.

1899: “Dreyfus Fight Thickens” published today described the split in French society that centers “around the shadowy and emaciated red-haired Jew, whose uniform of an artillery Captain so ill fits and befits his figure physiognomy.” 

1901: Two days after she had passed away “in her 16thyear,” Rachel Davis, the daughter of “Isaac and Betsy Davis” was buried at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.

1903: Birthdate of Hezl Rosenblum, the native of Kaunas who was “a signatory of the Israeli declaration of independence, he worked as editor of Yedioth Ahronoth for more than 35 years.”

1904: Rabbi Meir Berlin and his wife gave birth to Judith Lieberman the wife of Rabbi Saul Lieberman.

1904: Lillie Solomon, the daughter of Anna and I.E. Solomon, who was born in Solomonville, Arizona Territory in 1879, married Jewish merchant Max Lantin of Globe.

1905(13th of Av, 5665): English painter Simeon Solomon passed away. For examples of his art and a whole lot more see

http://simeonsolomon.com/default.aspx

1905: Louis M Mayer and his first wife, Margaret Shenberg gave birth to their eldest daughter Edith “Edie” Mayer who married producer William Goetz.

1907: In Deal, NJ, Judge Joseph M. Proskauer, who served on the New York State Supreme Court before becoming a partner in the law firm now known as Proskauer Rose and the former Alice Naumburg, who helped found the Euthanasia Society of America, a right-to-die group gave birth to “Ruth Proskauer Smith, a longtime reproductive rights advocate who helped found what is now Naral Pro-Choice America.” (As reported by Margalit Fox)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/nyregion/27smith.html

1910: Birthdate of French-Jewish photographer Willy Ronis

1910: Birthdate of Natan Alterman the Warsaw native who gained fame as an Israeli poet, playwright, journalist, and translator.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/natan-alterman

1910: Birthdate of Herta Herzog, the author of “The Jews as 'Others': On Communicative Aspects of Anti-Semitism” and the wife of Paul Felix Lazarsfeld.

1910(9th of Av, 5670): Tish’a B’Av

1910(9th of Av, 5670): Moses Frankfurt who had been born in 1828 and was married to Babette Frankfurt passed away today in Norfolk, VA.

1911: In Richmond, Indiana, a meeting of the Society of Friends adopts a resolution protesting the treatment of the Jews of Russia.

1911: Today Lazarus Schwartz was elected Mayor of Mobile, Alabama, a position he would hold until 1915.

1914: In what would prove to be a costly act of bravado “the French First and Second Armies crossed the Franco-German border and began fighting the Battles of Morhange and Sarrebourg and the Battle on Mortagne which were part of the ill-fated Battles of the Frontiers – a doomed offensive that would almost cost the Allies the war in the Summer and Fall of 1914. (Editor’s note - there is a direct line from these defeats to the defeats suffered in 1940 and the subsequent collapse of France which led the Jews to Drancy and then to the death camps.)

1915: “In Brixton, south London,” “Arnold Mishcon, a rabbi who emigrated from Russian Poland, and his wife Queenie” gave birth to Victor Mischon, the British solicitor and Laborite who as a life peer became Baron Mishcon in 1978.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/jan/30/guardianobituaries.mainsection

1915: Harry H. Schlacht, who is working to form “the American Legion, composed of foreign born Americans who have received military organization” said tonight “these people are loyal Americans” who “are anxious and willing to join the Foreign Legion and are ready to respond to the call for drill just as soon as army officers are appointed to train them.”

1916(15th of Av, 5676): Tu B’Av

1916: It was reported today that the in Russia “no definite decision has been reached” by the government but “the wish has been expressed that the circular of the ex-Minister of the Interior, Prince Cherbatoff abolishing the pale of settlement be confirmed and incorporated by the legislative institutions i.e. the Duma and Council.”

1917:  A memorandum from the Jewish Socialist Labor Union has been delivered to the Dutch-Scandinavian Labor Committee which calls for “perfect civil equality for Jews in every country and their re-establishment in the provinces” which they were forced to leave because of the war.

1917: It was reported today that “the situation in Palestine this Summer is the most serious since the war began,” that “a scheme for the looting of Jerusalem is already being executed” and the only hope of the inhabitants “is that the British armies now hammering at the gates of the Holy Land may soon drive out the Turks.

1917: A cablegram from Kiev sent to The Day, a Jewish daily in New York announced today “that the Ukrainian Congress had elected a member of the Jewish Socialist Territorialist Party as Minister for Jewish Affairs in Ukraine”

1917: In the Bronx, Harry and Molly Glickmann give birth to Martin “Martry” Glickman. A graduate of Syracuse University, where he played football, Glickman was best known for his skills in track & field. In 1936, Glickman was one of two Jews on the U.S. 400 yard relay team at the 1936 Olympics.  The two were replaced just before the event.  According to Glickman, this was in response to pressure Avery Brundage, an anti-Semite and supporter of the Nazi regime. Glickman went on to a very successful career as a sports broadcaster. Glickman’s parents came from Jassy where the Germans and their Romanian allies slaughtered over twenty thousand Jews during the summer of 1941. 

 1918: As the Amiens Offensive, in which John Monash played such a key role comes to an end French forces continue to engage the flagging Germans at the Battle of Montdidier.

1920: After having visited congregations in Denver, Salt Lake City and other Western and mid-Western cities “on behalf of the Palestine Restoration Fund of the ZOA, Rabbi Louis I Newman of the Bronx Free Synagogue is scheduled to return to New York City today.

1921(10th of Av, 5681): Tish’a B’Av is observed for the first time during the Presidency of Warren Harding.

1926: In Paris, Stanisław Simkha Gościnny, “a chemical engineer from Warsaw” and Anna (Hanna) Bereśniak-Gościnna gave birth to cartoonist René Goscinny, the co-creator of Astérix

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/10/09/rene-goscinny-the-man-who-wrote-the-stories-about-asterix-and-obelix/

https://www.lambiek.net/artists/g/goscinny.htm

https://www.asterix.com/en/the-creators/rene-goscinny/

1926: Birthdate of Martin Broszat “a prominent West German historian and a specialist on Nazi crimes against the Jews.” (As reported by Eric Pace)

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/11/02/obituaries/martin-broszat-german-historian-and-war-crimes-expert-63-dies.html

1927: Twenty-three year old Julliard trained violinist and composer Samuel Applebaum, the Passaic, NJ born son of “Michael and Fanny (Levine) Applebaum” married Sada Rothman with whom he had two children – Lois and Michael Applebaum.

http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n85374282/

1928: The original production of “The Front Page,” directed by George S. Kaufman, opened at the Times Square Theatre

1929: The Jewish Agency for Palestine was founded.  The Jewish Agency “became the main organization through which Palestinian Jewry maintained its contacts with world Jewry and with the Mandatory authorities and foreign governments.  It was, in fact, the de facto government of the Jews in the Jewish homeland.

1931: In Chicago, Irene Rose (née Mauser) and Cedric Michael Raphael gave birth to Oscar winning screenwriter Frederick Michael Raphael.

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

1933: While speaking in Prague, Dr. Stephen S. Wise, honorary president of the American Jewish Congress, approves of the boycott against German goods and services.

1933: The Government prohibits the circulation in Germany of all Jewish newspapers printed in foreign countries, irrespective of language, and commands Jewish libraries to remove such periodicals from their quarters.

1934: After buying “the defunct synagogue building formerly run by Rabbi Meyer Isserman,” Rabbi Yaakov Ben Zion HaCohen Mendelsohn opened the Bergen Street Shul today – a “ceremony attended by hundreds of locals along with rabbis from Passaic, West New York, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia.”

1935: President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act

1936: Today, “the World Jewish Congress adopted the main principles of its organization on a permanent basis, empower the executive committee, which is to be elected, to draft statutes and put them into force” and “also voted a $75,000 budget to finance during the first year the work to which this session has committed the congress.”

1936: It was announced today “at Second Corps Area Headquarters on Governors Island” that “Jewish soldiers in the United States Army will be granted to observe the High Holy Days” starting at noon on September 15th.

1936: Following appeals by ninety-two American citizens to the United States Consul and appeals by a number of Polish citizens to the Polish Consul “for protection against Arab terrorists in Safed” the consuls of these two countries “made representations to the Palestine Government” in Jerusalem “regarding the safety of their nationals in the city of Safed.”

1936: Arnold Spencer Leese was put on trial in London on charges of seditious libel against British Jews. In 1935, Leese who was a licensed veterinarian had proposed using gas chambers to murder Jews.  This led to an indictment “on six counts relating to two articles published in the July issue of The Fascist (the IFL newspaper) entitled "Jewish Ritual Murder," which later appeared as a pamphlet.” He would be convicted and served 6 months in prison.  The experience did not chasten him since he would help members of the Wafften SS escape Justice which would lead to another prison term in 1947.  Leese was so extreme that he attacked fellow fascist Oswald Mosley for being soft on the Jews.

1937: In his closing statement to the 20th Zionist Congress, held in Zurich, David Ben-Gurion said that the subject of a passionate debate regarding the proposed Jewish state was not the integrity of Palestine, which no Zionist can forgo, but the methods for securing the quicker achievement of the common aim. He welcomed the decision of the two-thirds majority of the Executive to negotiate the precise contents of the scheme, while this did not imply any assent to the principle of Partition.

1937: Nazis continued to harass the Zionist delegates in Zurich.

1937: Commissioning of the The USS Blue (DD-387) which on December 7, at Pearl Harbor, Ensign Nathan Asher, a graduate of the Naval Academy took command of since the skipper was ashore and in a harrowing trip lasting one and half hours guided the ship out to open waters and safety while Ensign Milton Moldane, a graduate of Washington University Law School “took charge of the forward machine guns” fighting off the attacking Japanese aircraft.

1937: While the League of Nations debated the recommendations of the Peel Report, Arab attacks against Jews in Palestine continued. Shots were fired at Motza and other Jewish settlements in a significant number of increased terrorist attacks all over the country.

1938:Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, announced today that the Jewish children who were among the Austrian exiles expelled from Burgenland by Nazis and set drift on the Danube four months ago will be cared for by the Youth Aliyah (immigration) of movement and sent to Palestine before Sept. 30.

1938(17th of Av, 5698): Fifty-six year old Abraham Zevi Idelson the Latvian born Cantor who in 1922 composed Yiftah (Jephthah) passed away today.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Abraham-Zevi-Idelsohn

1938: Arab terrorists conducted a series of early morning attacks including one by 200 armed Arabs at “the tiny Jewish colony of Shimroon” and another at Kfar Yabetz where Arabs “burned an orange packing house and uprooted four hundred trees on the grounds of the Kibbutz.”1939: A resolution expressing "deep regret" that the executive of the Jewish Agency for Palestine did not resign immediately upon publication of the terms of the recent British White Paper was adopted today by the World Mizrachi. Mizrachi announced plans to fight the White Paper and calls on World Zionists to refuse to cooperate with the British in Palestine.

1939:Birthdate of Eric Weissberg the American banjo player, best known for the theme from the movie Deliverance.

1940: While fleeing from Paris which had been conquered by the Germans, Italian banker and philanthropist Angelo Donati stopped in Marseille where he was the best men at the wedding of his cousin Piero Sacredoti  and Marseille Ilse Klein, daughter of Siegmund and Helene Klein.

1941: All residents of the Jewish community of Lesko, Poland, are transported to Zaslaw, Poland, and executed.

1941: In the aftermath of the German invasion of the Soviet Union which raised the rate of Jewish genocide exponentially, Stalin sought to ingratiate himself with the West by signing a military alliance with Poland today – just two years after the Communist Jackal had eaten his half of Poland after the Nazi conquest.

1941: As German killing squads slaughter Jews in the Soviet Union, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill jointly issued the Atlantic Charter, stating the Allied goals for the post-war world.

1941: Today, a training report described Isidore Newman, who was being trained as a Wireless Officer with SOE as being “self-assured and thinks with precision.”

1941: In Hungary, The Union of the Jewish Communities obtained “the liberation of the rabbis, leaders of communities, and teachers employed in Jewish schools, who had been arrested after the outbreak of war with the U.S.S.R., from the Targu-Jiu concentration camp. (Jewish Virtual Library)

1942(1stof Elul, 5702): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1942(1stof Elul, 5702): The Germans killed 1,850 Jews from the Lenin ghetto including the parents, sisters and younger brother of Fay Shulman

http://www.jewishpartisans.org/t_switch.php?pageName=mini+bio+short+bio+1&parnum=56#1942: Esther "Etty" Hillesum returned to Amsterdam from Westerbork

1942: The Archbishop of Lvov provided hiding places for Jewish children and Sifrei Torah.

1942: The entire Jewish community from Gorlice, Poland, is deported to the Belzec extermination camp.

1942: On the evening of 14 August 1942, the first day of the Hebrew month of Ellul, a Friday, the SS surrounded the ghetto in the village of Zagrodski, near Pinsk in Belarus (Belorussia), home to five hundred Jewish families. “The commotion and noise on that night”, recalled Rivka Yosselevska, “was not customary, and we felt something in the air.”

1942: A woman named Rivka Yosselevska is one of just four Jews to survive a bloody burial-pit massacre outside Zagrodski, Poland, near Pinsk.

1943: Premiere of wartime musical comedy “This Is the Army” directed by Michael Curtiz, produced by Hal Wallis and Jack Warner, featuring 19 songs by Irving Berlin, co-starring George Tobias.

1944: Twenty-five year old Edwin Newman, the future NBC television journalist and anchor married Rigel Grell today.

1944: “The American Jewish Conference submitted a four point ‘International Bill of Rights’” to the Under Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, Jr which they want submitted to “four-power conference on post-war and international security which is scheduled to meet on August 21.

1944: Five days after “Leon Kubowitzki (later Aryeh Leon Kubovy), the head of the WJC's Rescue Department, relayed a message from Ernest Frischer of the Czechoslovak State Council to the US State Department urging the destruction of the gas chambers and the bombing of railways lines leading to the Auschwitz death camp. US Undersecretary of War John J. McCloy rejected the suggestion five days later, writing to Kubowitzki: "After a study it became apparent that such an operation could be executed only by the diversion of considerable air support essential to the success of our forces now engaged in decisive operations elsewhere and would in any case be of such doubtful efficacy that it would not warrant the use of our resources."

1945: From Larissa, Greece it was reported: "One synagogue is completely destroyed, not even the foundation exists, so thorough has been the German destruction. The other synagogue has been almost-completely destroyed, also- It cannot be used in its present condition

1945: Japan surrendered unconditionally to end WW II.  It took two atomic bombs and the invasion of Manchuria by the Soviet Army to finally convince the Japanese that all was lost.  The official surrender ceremony would not take place until September, 1945 on the decks of U.S.S. Missouri which would be anchored in Tokyo Bay.  While there is general agreement as to what the official start dates were for World War II, we have seen that the end dates both the war in Europe and in the Pacific get a little fuzzy. 

1945: Alfred Eisenstaedt took the iconic photo of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square as part of the V-J celebrations that was published in Life magazine.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-J_Day_in_Times_Square#/media/File:Legendary_kiss_V%E2%80%93J_day_in_Times_Square_Alfred_Eisenstaedt.jpg

1946: Today, “Will Rogers, Jr” the son of the popular American entertainer and “Board Member of the American League for a Free Palestine” wrote to Barley C. Crum, a Roman Catholic “member of the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry on Palestine” who supported opening Palestine to unrestricted Jewish immigration” in which he said the League was “determined to challenge” the British claim of “illegality” when it came to the issue of “Hebrew immigration into Palestine” “by publicly announcing the intention to repatriate the Hebrew people to Palestine and by assuming public responsivity for this action…”

1947:  India granted independence within British Commonwealth.  According to some historians, the end of British rule in India had an impact on British policy in Palestine.  The reason the British had wanted to control Palestine, according to them, was to protect the Suez Canal which was part of the route connecting Britain and India.  Once India was independent, the imperative for holding on to Palestine was no longer there and the British were no longer quite so keen to spend blood and bullets on rocks and sands of Palestine.  There other imperial holdings including Transjordan, et al were enough to meet English commercial and political needs.

1947: “The Buchenwald Trial or United States of America vs. Josias Prince of Waldeck et al in which 31 people answered charges of war crimes “related to the Buchenwald concentration camp and its satellite camps” came to an

1947: “Life With Father” a movie version of the novel by the same name directed by Michael Curtiz and music by Max Steiner was released in the United States today Warner Bros.

1948(9th of Av, 5708): Since it is Shabbat, the fast will begin in the evening and be observed on Sunday.  There is an irony in this since it is the first time this day of mourning will be observed in an independent Jewish state.

1948(9th of Av, 5708): Tish’a B’av

1948: A day after testifying before HUAC where he denied being a communist, Harry Dexter White suffered another heart attack as he was arriving at his farm in Fitzwilliam, NH.

1948: Habib Vidal, "the owner of a printing shop and the custodian of the synagogue at Helwan" was one of the Jews arrested in Egypt.  Vidal was sentenced to 15 months at the Huckstep Prison despite the fact that he had not been formally charged or tried in a court of law.  (In Ishmael's Houseby Martin Gilbert)

1948: The Pan York, a ship filled with Jewish DPs as well as American volunteers for the Israeli army, arrived in Haifa.

1948: Birthdate of Kathi Kamen Goldmark who “had made a lot of friends in the literary world by shepherding authors on book tours when one day inspiration struck: what the very best authors yearn to be, she realized, are rock stars.” (As reported by Douglas Martin)

1948: Today Prime Minister Muhsin al-Barazi who had conducted secret negotiations with Israel which were leading to a summit meeting with Ben Gurion was killed today during a coup today in Damascus.

1951: “A Place in the Sun” starring Shelly Winters and featuring Paul Frees with music by Franz Waxman was released in the United States today by Paramount Pictures.

1951:The Jerusalem Postreported that Jerusalem was assured of a regular supply of ice for domestic purposes from outside of the city and that the government granted a subsidy, due to the cost of the transport of ice from the coast. The Jerusalem Program for Zionism, replacing the Basel Program drawn up at the First Zionist Congress in 1897, was drawn up for the 23rd Zionist Congress to be held in Jerusalem on August 14.

1952(23rd of Av, 5712): David Zvi Pinkas passed away.  At the time of his death at the age of 57, Pinkas was Minister of Communication in the Israeli government.

1952:Shlomo-Yisrael Ben-Meir became on MK “as a replacement for the late David Pinkas.”

1952: Israel and the representatives of the World Jewry announced that they reserved the right to demand restitution payment for the undeclared and heirless property in Austria.

1952: At this time, life in Israel was very difficult.  The Jewish settlers were pioneers in the truest sense of that term. For example, The Medical Advisory Council told the government that a large section of the Israeli population, mainly those who depended solely on the government’s rationing scheme, did not receive sufficient nutrition.

1953: In Los Angeles, Oscar winning set designer and art director Harry Horner and the former Joan Frankel gave birth to James Roy Horner the composer who won two Oscars for the romantic disaster film “Titanic.” (As reported by Sam Roberts)

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/24/us/james-horner-whose-soaring-film-scores-included-titanic-dies-at-61.html

1953: “The Affairs of Dobie Gillis” a musical comedy based on the short stories about this adolescent created by Max Shulman was released in the United States today.

1953(3rd of Elul, 5713): Eighty-one year old Julius Ullman, the physician who practiced medicine in his home own “for more than sixty years” passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1953/08/16/92731390.pdf

1953: Forty-eight year old Max Colpet (born Max Kolpenitzky) a native of Koningsberg, whose parents died in a concentration camp during WW II and who was a friend and a collaborator with fellow artist Billy Wilder became a United States citizen today.


1955. “Zero Mostel declined to name names and jousted with the members of Congress, invoked the Fifth Amendment, while standing up for his right to the privacy of his personal political beliefs.”

1957:Mohammed V, who according to Meredith Hindley, found Vichy’s laws pertaining to Jews “appalling” and did what he could given his limited power, to ameliorate their affect went from being Sultan of Morocco to being King of Morocco.

1959(10th of Av, 5719): Seventy-year old labor economist, college professor and author Selig Perlman whose works included A Theory of the Labor Movement and The History of Trade Unionism in the United States passed away today.


1963(24th of Av, 5723): A month after his 57th birthday, playwright Clifford Odets succumbed to colon cancer.



1969(30th of Av, 5729): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1969(30th of Av, 5729): Eighty-eight year old author and publisher Leonard Woolf, the husband of Virginia Woolf passed away today.


1971(23rd of Av, 5731): Parashat Eiken

1971(23rd of Av, 5731): Seventy-nine year old New York native Benjamin Cohen, the husband of Anna Klein Cohen and the father of Gerald Robert Cohen passed away today after which he was buried in “Neveh Zedek-Rose City Lodge Cemetery” in Portland, OR

1972(4th of Elul, 5732):  Actor, composer and musician Oscar Levant passed away.


1973(16th of Av, 5733): Seventy-eight year old Lady Eva Violet Mond Isaacs, née Melchett, Marchioness of Reading passed away today.


1974: “Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia” produced by Martin Baum, with music by Jerry Fielding and co-starring Helmut Dantine, an Austrian gentile whose anti-Nazi activities landed him in a concentration camp after the Anschluss, was released in the United States.

1974: “Valery and Galina Panov demonstrated outside Soviet Embassy in London on behalf of Victor Polsky, the Soviet Jewish activist accused of “dangerous driving”.

1975: A letter from President Gerald R. Ford with today’s date praised John Gunther Dean, the U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia for carrying out the evacuation of the capital city which was “one of the most difficult assignments in the history of the Foreign Service” “with distinction.

1976: It was reported today that “In Morris Township, NJ, the Rabbinical College of America announced that its new President would be Albert Richman” an electrical engineering executive who was a graduate of Cooper Union and “a founding member of the Technion.”

1976: It was reported today that during a White House reception, when Betty Ford, whose husband is running for re-election “was introduced to Bernice Tannenbaum, the board nominee for Hadassah president” she “laughed and said ‘If you’re elected and we’re elected, I’ll see you here again.’”

1977: The new Likud cabinet had announced a policy of equalization of services for the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza. Officials claimed that this did not mean annexation or a change in the legal status of these areas, an opinion which was disputed by Arabs, foreign observers and the press.

1977: The American Jewish leadership asked US President Jimmy Carter to clarify his position on his possible recognition of the PLO.

1977: According to Time MagazineIsrael provided Lebanese Christians with $30 million to $35million in direct aid.

1979: After losing her seat in the 1977 elections Esther Herlitz “returned to the Knesset today as a replaced for the deceased Yehoshua Rabinovitz.

1979(21st of Av, 5739): Seventy-six year old Harry Cutler, the Russian born son of Elda and Meyer Cutler and husband of Rose Cutler with whom he had had four children passed away today in Long Beach, CA

1979(21st of Av, 5739): Sixty-seven year old Yehoshua Rabinovitz, who had served a Minster of Housing and Minister of Finance, passed away today.

1980: Jimmy Carter, the man who brokered the Camp David Peace Accords, was nominated by the Democrats for a second term.

1980: Bruce Sundlun who become Rhode Island’s second Jewish Governor was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention which came to an end today.

1981(14th of Av, 5741): Sixty-five year old Morton B. Levin, a native of Philadelphia who worked for the federal government for over 3 decades and who was a member of Adas Israel passed away today.


1981: Warner Bros. released “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do) the Oscar winning song “written by Burt Bacharach, and Carole Bayer Sager.

1982: In Moscow, Anna Shulkina and Aleksandr Epshteyn gave birth to Boris Epshteyn investment banker and attorney, turned Chief Political Analyst for the Sinclair Broadcast and “senior advisor to Donald Trump whose marriage to Lauren Tanick Ephsteyn in 2009 has produced one child to date.


1982: Birthdate of Benjamin Cohen who became known for his dot.com enterprises as a teenager and for a dispute with Apple computers over the domain itunes.co.uk. In 2006, he became technology correspondent for Channel 4 News in the UK

1983: Elvira and Mark Kunis gave birth Mila Kunis who plays “Jackie” on the television hit, That 70’s Show.

1983(6th of Elul, 5743): Seventy-six year old Brooklyn born Julius Yablok, the son of Lena and Louis Yablok and the husband of Miriam Yablok who played quarterback for Colgate University, coached St. Francis College and law partner of Mickey Marcus  passed away today in California.

1985(27th of Av, 5745): Eighty-six year old actress Edith Holm "Gale" Sondergaard who along with her husband writer Herbert Biberman was blacklisted passed away today.

1986(9th of Av, 5746): Tish'a B'Av

1987: Premiere of “No Way Out” co-produced by Laura Ziskin

1987(19th of Av, 5747): In Little Rock, Arkansas, Sheldon Luber, son of Elaine and Harvey Luber passed away.  He left us too soon, but he will always be remembered.

1989(13th of Av, 5749): Ninety-two year old Rosa Levin Toubin, the daughter of Joe Levin and wife of Sam H. Toubin passed away.  A native of Brenham, TX, this graduate of Rice University demonstrated her skill as a Jewish Texan historian with the publication of  History B’nai Abraham Synagouge.

1989(13th of Av, 5749): Sir Dove-Myer Robinson passed away. Born in 1901, he “was Mayor of Auckland City from 1959 to 1965 and from 1968 to 1980, the longest tenure of any holder of the office. He was a colorful character and became affectionately known across New Zealand as "Robbie". He was one of several Jewish mayors of Auckland, although he rejected Judaism as a teenager and became a lifelong atheist. He has been described as a "slight, bespectacled man whose tiny stature was offset by a booming voice and massive ego.”

1990: Leonard Bernstein conducted Copland's Symphony No. 3, BMCO

1991:Comedian Jackie Mason marries his manager Jyll Rosenfeld.

1991: In “The Pioneers of Israel Long Before the State” published today Herbert Mitgang reviewed The Blue Mountain by one of Israel’s premier authors Meir Shalev.


1993: According to Argentinian prosecutor Alberto Nisman the authorization for the Argentinian prosecutor Alberto Nisman, the authorization for the bombing of the AMIA (Argentine Israelite Mutual Association) was given at today’s meeting of Iran’s National Security Council (As reported by Adiv Sterman)

1994: The fifth congress of the European Association for Jewish Studies opened today in Copenhagen.

1994: Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, the terrorist known as "Carlos the Jackal", is captured. Carlos involvement with Arab Terrorists, specifically the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) began in 1970. By July 1970 Ramirez was at a training camp in Jordan and after a meeting with Abu-Sharif the PFLP's recruiting officer he became known as Carlos the Jackal. The PFLP gained strength and started to form alliances with other terrorist groups such as the Baader-Meinhof gang and the Italian Red Brigade. Carlos' reputation within the organization grew after "Black September" where he fought against the Jordanian army trying to purge their country of terrorists. In 1972, the PFLP ordered Carlos to kill a respected member of the Jewish community in London, Edward Sieff the president of Marks & Spencer. In December 1973 Carlos went to Sieffs house and shot him, luckily not fatally. Carlos had preceded this by a hand grenade attack on the London headquarters of an Israeli bank and a car bomb in Paris in 1972, which injured 63 people. His international reputation was born. In 1976 he was involved in a skyjacking of an Air France jet to Uganda that lead to the famous raid on Entebbe by Israeli Special Forces

1994(7th of Elul, 5754):  Hamas took credit for the murder of 18 year old Ron Saval today in an ambush near the Kissufim Junction.

1994(7th of Elul, 5754):  Eighty-nine year old Elias Canetti, a novelist, playwright and cultural historian who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981, passed away today (As reported by William Grimes)



1996(29th of Av, 5756): Eighty-eight  year old Albert Neuberger, the German born physician who was a Professor of Chemical Pathology and a Fellow of the Royal Society, passed away.



1998: “Slums of Beverly Hills” a comedy about “a teenage girl struggling to grow up in the late 1970s in a lower-middle-class nomadic Jewish family that moves every few months” directed and written by Tamara Jenkins, co-starring Natasha Lyonne Alan Arkin and Carl Reiner and featuring David Krumholtz and Carl Reiner was released today in the United States by Fox Searchlight Pictures.

1999(2nd of Elul, 5759):  Phillip Klutznick, U.S. Secretary of Commerce under President Carter, passed away

2002: “In an interview with American Journalist Amy Goodman Shulamit Aloni described how she believes the charge of antisemitism is used to suppress criticism of Israel.”


2002(6th of Elul, 5762): Seventy-eight year old artist Larry Rivers (Yitzroch Loiza Grossberg) passed away today.


2002: Argentine pianist “Alberto Portugheis was the only Europe-based pianist to play in the concert "Homage to V Scaramuzza" at the Colon Theatre” today.

2003(16th of Av, 5763): Moshe Carmel “an Israeli soldier and politician who served as Minister of Transportation for eight years” passed away today.

2005(9th of Av, 5765): Tish'a B'Av:

2005: “The evacuation of Neve Dekalim” an Israeli settlement in Gaza was completed today as part of the unilateral disengagement plan that was supposed to put an end to violence in the Gaza Strip.

2005: Members of the Ukrainian Conservative party demanded that Jews be prevented from teaching the Tanya in Jewish schools and synagogues. While Ukrainian officials denied any anti-Semitic intentions, others saw a link between this policy and those being...

2005:  The Jerusalem Post reported that “members of the Ukrainian Conservative Party and several far right-wing editors demanded that Jews be prevented from teaching the Tanya in Jewish schools and synagogues.”  While Ukrainian officials at the embassy in Tel Aviv offered assurances that their government was opposed to any anti-Semitic behaviors, others saw a similarity between these demands and those being made in other republics of the former Soviet Union.

2005:  The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported that the Library of American will publish an eight volume collection Phillip Roth’s novels and stories beginning later this summer.  Roth joins Saul Bellow and Eudora Welty as the only American to have their complete works preserved by the Library of America during their lifetimes. 

2005: The Sunday New York Timesbook section included a review of The Last Expedition: Stanley’s Mad Journey Through the Congoby Daniel Liebowitz and Charles Pearsonwhich describesthe quest to find Emin Pasha who was a Silesian born Jew named Isaak Eduard Schnitzer

2006: A U.N. sponsored cease fire takes place along the border between Israel and Lebanon marking an end to five weeks of fighting.

2006:Kohenet’s first Hebrew Priestess Training Institute began today, at the Elat Chayyim Retreat Center in Accord, NY

2006: A Polish humanitarian organization is working to provide humanitarian assistance to hard-hit residents of northern Israel. The non-governmental Polish Humanitarian Organization will ask the Polish government as well as private donors for about NIS 1 million in aid for residents in the north for two projects, in addition to separate funding for Lebanese civilians, said Janina Ochojska, the group's founder and president.

2006: Cease fire goes into effect intended to end the “war” between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. 2006: A month “after a Hezbollah Katyusha rocket hit a train depot killing eight Israel Railways workers service was restored today to the KIryat Motzkin Railway Station, “an Israel Railways passenger station serving the city of Kiryat Motzkin and the surrounding Kerayot region.”

2007: Haaretz reported that fifty-nine years after they were killed in the War of Independence near the Arab village of Tel Arish, the Israel Defense Forces has identified the bodies of five fighters. The men were soldiers in Battalion 52 of the Givati Brigade, and have been identified as First Lieutenant Yehiel Rosenfeld, Private David Kohavi, Private Itzhak Hamami, Private Yehoshua Lustig and a fifth soldier. The remains of the soldiers, who up until now were considered missing, were identified in unmarked graves in the Nahalat Itzhak cemetery. Their families have been notified. The mission to locate the bodies has gone on for approximately ten years. Nine months ago, the graves of the five were dug up, and samples from the bodies were sent to a laboratory in the United States, where DNA from the bones was compared to samples from family members. The decision to dig up the graves was made after lengthy debates between the Chief Rabbinate and the IDF unit that searches for missing people. During the debates, it was determined "beyond reasonable doubt" that the IDF knew the identities of the missing soldiers. The breakthrough was made thanks to the possibility of carrying out the tests in the United States, using technology unavailable in Israel. "These were nine months of taut nerves, during which consistent contacts were maintained with the families," said a source from the IDF unit carrying out the searches. The five soldiers fell during a battle over "Pillbox Hill" near the Arab village of Tel Arish, near Holon. The battle was fought to gain free access between Jerusalem and Jaffa. The remains of Corporal Amos Danieli and Private Itzhak Kandler, also of Batallion 52, are still missing. The remains of a total of 109 fallen soldiers are currently missing, and the fates of ten soldiers are unknown.

2007: Rosh Chodesh Elul, 5767

2008: In Becket, MA, Gallim Dance appears at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. “Prior to founding Gallim Dance, artistic director Andrea Miller danced with master choreographer Ohad Naharin’s Batsheva, in Tel Aviv. Now, Miller presents her own explosive movement vocabulary, which hangs somewhere between elegance and insanity, in this smart, powerful program.”

2008(13th of Av, 5768):Marvin Pomerantz, 78, a friend and adviser of Republican governors and presidents for four decades who twice served as president of the Iowa Board of Regents, passed away today in Iowa City.

http://okhenderson.com/2008/08/20/in-memoriam-marvin-pomerantz/

http://iowaindependent.com/4086/former-regent-gop-political-adviser-marvin-pomerantz-dies-at-78

2009: In New York, opening performance of “Peace Warrior” by Israeli Professor Doron Ben-Atar of Fordham University. a historian of the early American republic and a playwright.

2009: In New York, Rooftop Films presents a screening of “Bloomfield or a Childhood Memory" by Eran Barak.

2009: Willy Ronis celebrates his 99th birthday. “The sole survivor of a generation of famous French photographers that included Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Doisneau, Ronis has become a media darling. Yet, this son of a Ukrainian-Jewish portrait photographer father and a Lithuanian-Jewish pianist mother, both of whom fled pogroms to settle in Paris, still remains a belatedly recognized outsider. Ronis’s religious mother made sure her son had a Jewish education (Willy was bar mitzvahed at Paris’s venerable Grande Synagogue on the Rue de la Victoire, familiarly known as the Rothschild-Schule). Ronis, however, remained an nonbeliever like his agnostic father, reserving his real devotion for the labor movement. Outraged to see his father working himself to an early death, the young Willy, despite years of studying to be a violinist and composer (the latter studies were with the noted French-Jewish musician André Bloch), became his ailing father’s assistant. An unrelenting diet of tediously static identity photos and posed marriage snapshots spurred Ronis to redefine photography for himself as something essentially dynamic, capturing movement on the spur of the moment with crackling energy. Soon after his father’s death in 1936, Ronis created some of his most celebrated images, like “Front Populaire, 14 Juillet 1936” (“The Popular Front,” July 14, 1936), which immortalized the revelry of humble Parisians after the election of Léon Blum, the first Socialist — and first Jewish — premier of France. A moderate left-winger, Blum resolved to augment workers’ rights, and despite many attacks, such as one by a right-wing National Assembly deputy who termed Blum a “cunning Talmudist,” the newly elected Socialist was widely seen widely as a symbol of hope (short-lived, as it turned out). Ronis’s immediate empathy with workers was translated into photos marked with seemingly unplanned architectural symmetry (which Ronis himself has likened to Bach’s counterpoint), especially when compared to the relatively cold formalism of Cartier-Bresson, or the sometimes sentimental, staged images of Doisneau. Armed with a secondhand Rolleiflex, Ronis captured vivid, strikingly natural-seeming images like “Rose Zehner, Grève aux Usines Javel-Citroën, 1938” (“Rose Zehner, Strike at the Javel-Citroën Factory, 1938”), showing a powerful female labor organizer haranguing fellow workers with theatrical zest. Depicting hefty French laborers as moving with the grace of professional dancers became a Ronis specialty. His subject, Rose Zehner, soon became a Resistance fighter. Zehner would be reunited with Ronis decades later in a 1982 feature-length documentary film, “Un Voyage de Rose” (“Rose’s Voyage”), in which both photographer and subject reminisced about their left-wing friends of long ago. These included French-Jewish cinematographer and union activist Henri Alekan and popular singer Francis Lemarque (born Nathan Korb of Lithuanian-Polish Jewish origin). More pertinent to Ronis’s growing aesthetic mastery was his collegial friendships with fellow photographers like Izis (born Israëlis Bidermanas in Lithuania), David “Chim” Seymour (born David Szymin in Warsaw) and Robert Capa (born Endre Ernö Friedmann in Budapest). The steady rise of European fascism made Ronis feel especially close to these émigré friends and colleagues. Already feeling excluded as a boy, due to schoolyard antisemitic jokes, Ronis was not inclined to try to live under the German occupation overoptimistically, as many French Jews did at first. As Ronis recently told a Radio France Internationale interviewer with typical lapidary concision, “I didn’t want to wear a yellow star.” So he fled to the South of France with false papers (his mother, who refused to leave Paris, managed to survive the occupation, shielded by friends and neighbors). After the war, when Ronis returned to Paris with the woman who would become his wife, he quickly realized that many of his Jewish relatives, friends and neighbors had not been as fortunate. An atypically tragic aura invades some of Ronis’s postwar photos, like those taken at a 1949 commemoration held at Oradour-sur-Glane in west central France, the site of a Nazi massacre where almost an entire village, including women and children, was burned alive. Ronis’s images taken during the commemoration ceremony show visitors (especially children) reacting to the site with somber reverence. As if in a subliminal search for other survivors, Ronis soon became a visual poet of Belleville, then, as now, a lower-class Parisian neighborhood with a historic population of Jewish residents. As Karen Adler’s perceptive “Jews and Gender in Liberation France” (Cambridge University Press, 2006) notes, Ronis “humanized Belleville’s poverty and architectural decline” after World War II. Essential to his capturing of these lines and forms is that for a while after the war, cars were still very scarce, until eventually they returned in force to Paris, suffocating the city. Away from Paris the same year, Ronis took what remains his most loved photo, “Le Nu Provençal: Gordes, 1949” (“Nude in Provence, Gordes, 1949”), a celebration of sensuality that shows his wife at a wash basin in a village bedroom in Southern France. Despite such exultant imagery, to some observers Ronis retains a sense of dislocation and apartness that is integral to his artistry. His friend and fellow photographer Brassaï dedicated his volume of “Conversations With Picasso” “to Willy Ronis, the distant one.” Amid all the merited hoopla, it is worth recalling that this photographer’s sheer survival has an element of the escape artist to it, a sleight of hand that perhaps can never be fully analyzed or understood. Having retired from photography almost a decade ago because of arthritis, and having survived his wife as well as their son, Vincent, Ronis now lives in a humble two-room flat in Belleville. He emerges for public appearances and patiently receives visitors eager to interview and photograph him, sometimes with frankly odd results. Despite what seems like friendly forbearing toward young shutterbugs, Ronis recently confessed to the French daily Le Monde: “I have little esteem for machine-gun [photographers]. It may be a severe notion of my trade, but I believe an image must be deserved before it can be taken.” Ronis has deserved, and taken, some of the memorable images of his century.”

2009(24th of Av, 5769): Erev Shabbat, Leonard Arik Karp, 59, was accosted and murdered by a gang of youths while walking with his wife and daughter along the Tel Aviv beachfront tonight.

2009: The City of Pittsburgh designated today as “Evelyn Kozak Day” which coincide with her 110th birthday.

2010: The 35th Hutzot Hayotzer International Craft Fair is scheduled to come to an end.

2010(4th of Elul, 5770): Eighty-eight year old Moshe “Misha” Lewin, Polish born Holocaust surviror and noted Russian history professor passed away today.

http://www.upenn.edu/emeritus/memoriam/Lewin.html

http://www.archives.upenn.edu/faids/upt/upt50/lewinm.html

2010: The Daily Mail rated Isaac Rosenberg as one of the ten greatest British poets.

2011: The headstone unveiling for Rose Becker is scheduled to take place today at Eben Israel Cemetery

2011: The 31st IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy is scheduled to open today in Washington hosted by the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington.

2011:  The JCC Maccabi Games are scheduled to open in Philadelphia, PA and Springfield, Mass.

2011: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz: Volume I, 1915-1933 edited by Sarah Greenough and recently released paperback editions of Dreyfus: Politics, Emotion, and the Scandal of the Century, by Ruth Harris, Where I Live: New and Selected Poems 1990-2010 by Maxine Kumin and The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman.

2011:Twenty high-school teachers brought to Israel by the UK-based Holocaust Education Trust will complete a 10-day education training seminar at the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem. The group, which arrived in Israel on August 5, participated in a series of workshops and lectures conducted by leading academics and experts, covering issues such as 19th-century anti-Semitism in Europe, Jewish life between the world wars in Poland, the Final Solution, and Jewish theological responses to the Holocaust.(As reported by Jerusalem Post)

2011:Israeli NBA star Omri Casspi is returning to Maccabi Tel Aviv, David Federman, one of the club's owners said in an interview with Army Radio today. According to Federman, the majority of Casspi's contract has been negotiated and he will be joining Maccabi for the upcoming season, granted the NBA labor dispute continues and the 2011-2012 NBA season is delayed or canceled all together as many suspect. (As reported by Jerusalem Post)

2011: Egypt, in coordination with Israel, has deployed its military in the northern Sinai Peninsula in order to gain control over the anarchy that has taken hold of the region, a senior Israeli defense official said today.

2011(14th of Av, 5771): Seventy-seven year old transplant expert Dr. Fritz Bach passed away. (As reported by Douglas Martin)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/18/us/18bach.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

2012: The Eyal Vilner Big Band, led by Tel Aviv native Eyal Vilner, is scheduled to perform at the Garage Restaurant in NYC.

2012:Sacramento city leaders are scheduled to vote on a resolution making Ashkelon its 10th sister city (As reported by Ari Ben Goldberg)

http://www.timesofisrael.com/anti-israel-activists-bid-to-torpedo-sacramento-ashkelon-sister-city-plan/

2012: The price of a price-controlled loaf of will bread is scheduled to rise by 6.53% today. “The price of standard 750-gram loafs of dark or white bread will rise to NIS 5.24; a 500-gram challah will increase to NIS 5.72; a 750-gram loaf of sliced and packaged dark bread will cost NIS 7.87; and a 500-gram loaf of sliced and packaged white bread will cost NIS 6.99.”(As reported by Jerusalem Post)

2012: Funeral services for Zev Wolfson are scheduled to be at Sh’or Yoshuv Institute followed by interment at Wellwood Cemetery in Farmingdale, NY.

2012:European rabbis said today that they were lobbying Apple Inc. to pull a mobile app version of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a notorious anti-Semitic forgery

http://www.timesofisrael.com/rabbis-call-for-apple-to-drop-elders-app-from-itunes/

2012: Some 350 new immigrants from North America — including five sets of twins and two sets of triplets — were welcomed personally by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Ben Gurion Airport this morning. “I’m proud of you,” the prime minister told the group. “We’re all proud of you. Friends of Israel, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, are all proud of you.”

http://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-sharansky-greet-351-new-us-immigrants-including-five-sets-of-twins-and-two-sets-of-triplets/

2013: Noam Kat, the Minister for Public Diplomacy at the Embassy of Israel is scheduled to provide a briefing on The Middle East Process.

2013: Israeli jazz guitarist Assaf Kehati and his trio are scheduled to perform at the Bar Next Door in New York City.

2013: Today, Kevin “Pillar was called up to the Blue Jays for the first time in his career.”

2013: The inauguration of Rabbi David Lau “took place today at the official residence of the President of Israel.”

2013: The IDF launched an airstrike on Gaza early this morning in response to rockets fired into southern Israel from the territory, the army said in a statement.

2013: Twenty six convicted Palestinian terrorists were freed by Israel, and welcomed home to the West Bank and Gaza, as part of the US-brokered deal that enabled the resumption of peace talks. (As reported by Asher Zeiger and Michal Shmulovich)

2014: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to host “Jewish Italy: Food Culture and Travel” during which attendees can “discover Italy’s cucina ebraica (“Hebrew kitchen”) and desserts like sour cherry cheesecake from Rome’s famed Forno del Ghetto.”

2014: “The owners of 21 grocery store branches and kiosks” are scheduled to attend court session in Tel Aviv this morning “where they are expected to be ordered to close on Saturday.” (As reported by Niv Elis)

2014:” The State Department confirmed today that weapons shipments to Israel would be undergoing additional review due to the war in Gaza, but denied reports that the Pentagon had engaged in weapons transfers to Israel behind the back of the White House and State Department.” (As reported by Rebecca Shimoni Stoil)

2014: “The Simon Wiesenthal center requested that a small hamlet south of Paris known as La-Mort-aux Juifs—‘Death to the Jews’—since the 11th century change its name.” (As reported by Stephanie Butnick)

2014: “Today, the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) initiated both criminal and civil charges against Tony Ehrenreich, provincial secretary of the Western Cape branch of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, for hate speech and incitement to violence against the Jewish community’s leadership” when he wrote “The time has come to say very clearly that if a woman or child is killed in Gaza, then the Jewish board of deputies, who are complicit, will feel the wrath of the People of SA with the age old biblical teaching of an eye for an eye,” he wrote. “The time has come for the conflict to be waged everywhere the Zionist supporters fund and condone the war killing machine of Israel.”

2014(18th of Av, 5774): Eighty-year old Leonard J. Fein the Jewish man of letters who founded and edited Moment Magazine and who was the brother of Rashi Fein passed away today.

http://www.jta.org/2014/08/14/news-opinion/leonard-fein-liberal-activist-and-scholar-dies

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/17/us/leonard-fein-80-provocative-writer-on-jewish-affairs-dies.html?_r=0

2015: In “Sabbath” published today, Oliver Sacks examines the big questions of life using the Jewish day of rest as his point of reference.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/opinion/sunday/oliver-sacks-sabbath.html?_r=0

2015: Shira Garielov, the Israeli musician who “was kicked off American Idol” and is working on “her second LP for the Israeli market” is scheduled to perform at Arlene’s Grocery.”

2015: After premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in January, “Mistress America” a comedy directed, produced and written by Noah Baumbach was released in the United States today.

2015: After premiering at the Washington Jewish Film Festival in February, “Rosenwald a documentary film directed by Aviva Kempner about the career of American businessman and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald was released in the United States today.

2015: The Secure Community Network issued an alert today warning that Hamza bin Laden, who has ambitions to lead al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization founded by his father, posted an audio message calling “for the targeting of Jewish American interests globally.”

2015: Prime Minister “Netanyahu announced the appointment” Danny Danon who in 2013 “asserted that his Likud Party’ was “staunchly opposed to a two state solution” “as Israel’s next Ambassador to the United Nations.” (As reported by David Horovitz)

2015: An exhibition featuring the work of Haifa born artist Guy Yanai is scheduled to come to an end today.

http://www.amy-nyc.com/exhibitions/guy-yanai

2016: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including American Heiress: The Wild Sage of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst by Jeffrey Toobin and Cousin Joseph: A Graphic Novel written and illustrated by Jules Feiffer.

2016: the UKJF is scheduled to sponsor a screening of “Bulgarian Rhapsody” – Bulgaria’s official submission to the 2015 Academy Awards.

2016: “Shadows From My Past” is scheduled to be shown today as part of the Tisha B’av Film Series.

2016(10thof Av, 5776): Fast of Tisha B’Av observed since the 9th of Av fell on Shabbat.

2016(10thof Av, 5776): Ninety-three year old Obie award winning actor Fyvush Finkel passed away today. (As reported by Joseph Berger)

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/15/theater/fyvush-finkel-pillar-of-yiddish-theater-dies-at-93.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2017: “The Police National Fraud Unit today detained Israeli diamond mogul Beny Steinmetz and four others for questioning in a money-laundering investigation involving real estate deals abroad, police said in a statement.” (As reported by Stuart Winer)

2017(22ndof Av, 5777): Ninety-seven year old St. John Law School grad Milton Mollen, the navigator who spent part of WW II in a Nazi POW camp and who was the leader of the corruption fighting Mollen Commission passed away today. (As reported by Joseph P. Fried)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/nyregion/milton-mollen-dead-investigated-police-corruption-in-new-york-city.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2017:  In New Orleans, Kenneth Hoffman is scheduled to his new position today as the executive director of the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience.

2017: “The Legacy of the Hebrew Orphans’ Home” an exhibition that “highlights the oldest Georgia-based Jewish non-profit from inception to present through photography and stories” is scheduled to open today at the Breman Museum

2017: Israeli singer and actress Miri Mesika is scheduled to host Yehuda Poliker at the Jerusalem Arts and Crafts Fair today.

http://www.hebrewsongs.com/artists-yehudapoliker.htm

2018: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Through Lotte’s Lens” a documentary that tells the extraordinary story of the ‘Hitler Émigrés’, the refugees – mainly Jewish who escaped the Nazi regime in the 1930s and found refuge in the UK.”

2018: “The Israeli rock band ‘Tattoo’ is scheduled to open tonight’s performance by “English song-writer and singer Marc Almond” at the Caesarea Amphitheatre in the Israeli seaside resort city that dates back to Roman times.

2019: The Jerusalem Municipality, in cooperation with the Youth Division of the Football Association and the Referees Union” are scheduled to host the Jerusalem Football Cup Tournament for the second time at the Kraft Sports Center in the Jerusalem Valley.

2019: A reception is scheduled to be held today in Berlin marking a photo exhibition featuring the works of “Israeli photographer, videographer and visual storyteller Boaz Arad.

2019: Tel Aviv born drummer Daniel Dor is scheduled play with saxophonist Daniel Zamir and guitarist NItzan Bar in Jerusalem

2019: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “As Dr. Ruth.”

2019: In New Orleans, the Uptown JCC is scheduled to host the Executive Committee Meeting of the Jewish Federation








This Day, August 15, in Jewish History by Mitchell and Deb Levin

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August 15

423: Honorious Flavius, the Western Roman Emperor who confiscated gold and silver which had been collected by the synagogues to be sent to Jerusalem and “defined Judaism as an unworthy superstition  passed away today.

1096: The armies of the First Crusade set out from Europe to deliver Jerusalem from the occupying forces of Islamic Turks. Championed by Peter the Hermit in 1093, Pope Urban II had sanctioned the crusade at the Council of Clermont in 1095.

1286: As what the original and 21st tenants of the city might find as an act of usurpation, during the era of the Crusaders, Henry II was name King of Jerusalem succeeding his brother John I whose death he was rumored to have hastened with the use of poison.

1309: Knights of St. John, complete their conquest of Rhodes. Apparently the Knights treatment of the Jewish population was comparatively benign since many Sicilian conversos would move to the island because “they remembered the Knights’’ liberal policy towards the Jews or Rhodes.”

1418: Birthdate of Johannes Hinderbach, the Prince-Bishiop of Trent who created a blood libel when he blamed the Jews for the death of Simon of Trent.

1461: Trapezunt surrenders to the forces of Sultan Mehmet II marking the real end of the Byzantine Empire. The experience of the Jews of Anatolia had been uneven in the days of the Byzantine (Christian) Empire.  The Jews of Constantinople remained in place after the Islamic forces came to power under Mehmet II.

1488: In Cordoba, Christopher Columbus and his companion Beatriz Enriquez de Arena gave birth to the explorer’s second son Ferdinand Columbus



1534: Ignatius of Loyola and six classmates took initial vows that would lead to the creation of the Society of Jesus in September of 1540. In its early days, the Jesuits accepted Jewish converts and their descendants who were known as New Christians were admitted to the order.  After the death of Loyola, the Jesuits adopted the Spanish attitudes and refused to accept New Christians or their descendants as members.

1753(15h of Av, 5513): Tu B’Av

1769: Birthdate of Napoleon Bonaparte.  Napoleon had profound effect on the Jews of Europe.  But if one asks “Was Napoleon good for the Jews” the best answer might be, “It depends.”  For one version see


1776(30th of Av, 5536): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1784: In Gorizia, Rabbi Abraham Vita and his wife gave birth to Isaac Samuel Reggio an Austro-Italian scholar and rabbi.

1796: In what may have been the first attempt for a governmental entity to protect Kashrut in the United States, the Common Coincil suppressed the butcher license of Nicholas Smart, a non-Jew, for affixing Jewish seals to non-kosher meats.  Pg 246

1806: Rabbi Joseph David Sinzheim delivered a sermon in the synagogue of Paris in honor of the emperor's birthday that strengthened Napoleon's favorable opinion of the Jews, who received the imperial promise that their rights as French citizens would not be withdrawn.

1815 (9th of Av): Rabbi Joseph Isaac Horowitz, known as “The Chozeh” of Seer of Lublin author of Divrei Emet, passed away.

1815: In “Fryingpan Alley,” Elizabeth and Benjamin Fileman gave birth to Rachel Fileman

1818: In Alsace, France, Alexandre Aron and Charlotte Aron, the daughter of Asser Lion and Gitlé Loëw gave birth to Jérôme Aron-Duperret

1819: Birthdate of Joseph Jacob Goldmark, the Hungarian physician who came to the United States after the failed revolution of 1848 where he discovered red phosphorous and became the father-in-law of Louis Brandeis and Felix Adler.

1829: In “Leigh, Essex” Catherine Phillips and Laurence Lazarus gave birth to Benjamin Lazarus.

1829: Sara and Jacob Nunes Castello gave birth to Baruch Castello, the husband of Sophia Woolf.

1830: Birthdate of Henry Aaron Isaacs who became sheriff of London and was knighted in 1887 and was elected Lord Mayor of London two years later.

1831: In Bavaria, David Isaac Seligmann and Fanny Seligmann gave birth to Leopold Seligmann, the husband of Julia Levi.

1831: Birthdate of Leopold Morse, the native of Wachenheim, Germany who moved to the United States in 1849 where he opened a successful clothing store in Massachusetts and became so active in the Democratic Party that he served as a delegate to the National Convention and a member of the House Representatives.

1838: Lewis Nathan married Hannah Cohen at the New Synagogue.

1838(24th of Av, 5598): German businessman Moses Moser whose business associates included Moses Friedländer and Moritz Robert and who was a close personal friend of Heinrich Heine passed away today in Berlin.

1842: Charles Henry Churchill, the British Consul in Damascus whose area of responsibility included Palestine, delivered his formal proposal to Sir Moses Montefiore concerning the role of Jews in the Middle East.  A Zionist before Zionism existed, Churchill proposed “that the Jews of England conjointly with their brethren on the Continent of Europe should make an application to the British Government through the Earl of Aberdeen to accredit and send out a fit and proper person to reside in Syria for the sole and express purpose of superintending and watching over the interests of the Jews residing in that country.” Charles Churchill was the grandfather of Sir Winston Churchill.

1849: Moss Davis and Jane Davis were married today at the Great Synagogue.

1849: Joseph Seligman and Babette Seligman gave birth to Helene Seligman who became Helene Spiegelberg when she married Emanuel Spiegelberg.

1854: M.H. Bresslau began serving as editor of The Jewish Chronicle (New Series) and Working Man's Friend" an Anglo-Jewish newspaper which he renamed “The Jewish Chronicle and Hebrew Observer."

1854: In Hesse, Levi Hoechster and Betty Hoechster gave birth to Max Hester.

1855(1st of Elul, 5615): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1855: Birthdate of Baden, Germany native Julius J. Dukas who came to New York at the age of 19 and eventually start a brush manufacturing company known as J. Dukas and Company while raising a daughter with his wife Sarah Hyman Dukas.

1858: In Montreal Abraham de Sola, the first chazzan Shearith Israel and Esther Joseph, “daughter of Henry Joseph, one of Canada’s earliest Jewish settlers” gave birth to “businessman, Zionist leader and author Clarence Isaac de Sola, the husband of Belle Maud Goldsmith with whom he had “two sons and two daughters.”

1857: Birthdate of Albert Ballin, the German-born businessman who served a general manager of the Hamburg America (Shipping) Line.

1859: In Russia, “Loeb and Cima (Davidow) Davidson gave birth to Benjamin Davidson, who arrived in Sioux City, IA with two dollars, began peddling “tinware,”  and later opened a dry goods store which was the foundation of Davidson Brother’s owned by Benjamin, David and Abraham Davidson which at one time was described as one of Iowa’s “leading department stores..”

1861: Ralph Disraeli, the brother of Benjamin Disraeli, and Katherine Trevor were married today in Middlesex, England.

1861: Austen Henry Layard, the archeologist who excavated Nimrud and Niniveh as described in Discoveries at Nineveh began serving as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

1862: Philadelphians Corporal Lehman K. Strouse and Sergeant Albert Mers began serving in the 125thregimen.

1862: Philadelphian Private Joseph Levi began serving with Company G of the 129thRegiment.

1864: During the American Civil War, Isaac M. Abraham of Philadelphia who had been serving with the Union Army since November of 1861 was wounded while fighting near Deep Bottom Virginia as member of Company G of the Eighty-Fifth Regiment.

1865: The New York Times reported that "A letter in the Journal de Posen alleges that the official journals, not daring to support the accusations launched by the Moscow Gazette against the Polish nobility, imputing to them the recent fires in Lithuania, and, on the other hand, feeling it necessary to throw the blame upon somebody, represent the Jews as the authors of these disasters. According to the official journals, the Jews, having first insured their houses for a sum superior to their real value, themselves set fire to the buildings to pocket the difference. If this criminal calculation has been made in certain cases, the supposition of its existence cannot give an explanation of all the disasters of this nature that have lately taken place; for, although insurance against fire is much practiced in Lithuania and Ruthenia, it is to be seen only in the more important towns, while a great number of fires have broken out even in the smallest towns."

1867: Birthdate of Esther Lefkowitz who was buried alongside Sam, Shimon and Anna Lefkowitz at Mt. Hebron Cemetery in Flushing, NY

1868(27th of Av, 5628): Parashat Re’ey

1868(27thof Av, 5628): S.A. Bierfield was lynched by the K.K.K. in Franklin TN. This was the first such reported incident involving a Jew. “A masked mob of Ku Klux Klansmen broke into the dry goods store of S. A. Bierfield, a Russian Jew, in Franklin, Tennessee, and fatally shot both Bierfield and his Black clerk, Lawrence Bowman. The reason given by the lynchers was a false charge of Bierfield's implication in a murder a few days earlier. But as the New York Times reported about a week later, the real reason for the lynching was that Bierfield was "an intelligent advocate of the present reconstruction policy of Congress and a friend to the freedmen of his neighborhood, among whom--he being a merchant--he commanded quite a trade, and perhaps found it expedient to keep one from among their number in his employ." A Nashville newspaper account stated that Bierfield was "an active and prominent Republican, having considerable influence with the colored people. . . . Our informant says that was his only crime"

http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=26256707

http://forward.com/news/210334/untold-story-of-the-first-jewish-lynching-in-ameri/

1869: Two days after he had passed away, Joshua Jacobs, the son of Isaac and Catherine Jacobs was buried today at the “Halfway (Queenborough) Jewish Cemetery” in Kent.

1870: Birthdate of Ukraine native Yitskhok Perkov the photographer and author who moved to London where he worked in the Yiddish theatre.

http://yleksikon.blogspot.com/2018/08/yitskhok-perkov.html

1871: Jacob Levi a German Jew swindled Alois Grieshaber out of $545 today using a form of the “pigeon drop.”  Grieshaber eventually discovered the swindle and went to the police.  Levi, who had become wealthy as a swindler, was tried, convicted and sent to Sing Sing Prison in 1872.

1873: On his 42 birthday, Leopold Seligman and Julia Levi gave birth to Walter Seligman

1873: John J. Malloy, Chief of the Brooklyn Police, notified police in several “Western cities” to be on the lookout for Emil Lowenstein, a German Jewish barber who sometimes uses the alias of Livingston.  Lowenstein is wanted in connection with his part in the murder of John Weston.  The governor of New York has offered a $500 reward for his capture.  Police believe that Mrs. Weston was a confederate in the plan and that she planned to run off with Lowenstein once they had murdered Mr. Weston and taken his money.

1873: “England’s New Master of the Rolls,” an article published today reports on the announcement that Sir George Jessel will soon be serving as the new Master of the Rolls. The Master of the Rolls dates back to the 13th century and “is the second most senior judge in England and Wales, after the Lord Chief Justice”. When he assumes the office later this month, Jessel will be the first Jew to serve in this capacity. The Jewish Chronicle noted the irony of Jessel’s appointment.  At one time the Master of the Rolls was officially known as “the Guardian of the Converted Jews” but thanks to a changed in the Judicature Act such is no longer the case. Jessel was the son of a coral merchant named Zadok Aaron who graduated from the University College London because his religion kept him from attending either Oxford or Cambridge.

1874: Birthdate of Cincinnati, Ohio native  Rose  Fechheimer who z”like many other Rookwood artists, studied at the Cincinnati Art Academy, decorated pieces at Rookwood Pottery for ten years, between 1896 and 1906 and died in October, 1961 at Santa Monica, California.

1877: The funeral of Rabbi J.J. Lyon took place at the 19th Street Synagogue today. Albert Cardozo, father of future Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo was one of the pallbearers.

1877: In Minsk, Russia, “Samuel and Leah (Mekler) Touroff gave birth to Nisson Touroff one of the founders of the Girls School in Jaffa before WW I and one of the founder of Hebrew Teachers College in Boston after WWI.

https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/touroff-nissan

1878(1st of Elul, 5547): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1879: In Belarus, Zvi Mileikowsky and Liba Gitl Milikovsky gave birth to Rabbi Nathan Mileikowsky the father of historian Benzion Netanyahu and the grandfather of Yonatan Netanyahu of blessed memory (the Hero of Entebbe) and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

1879: According to reports published today police still do not feel like they have the true story surrounding the shooting of Harris Levy, a 28 Polish Jew who worked as a night watchman for a workshop owned by Louis Soloman, a manufacturing tailor.  Levy claims he was shot by an unknown assailant.  The police think the wound was self-inflicted.  However, they cannot find any evidence that it was suicide and Soloman believes the story about the burglar since his workshop was robbed 5 or 6 weeks ago.

1879: Justice C.W. Chocrane found Adolph D. Pollack, a Jew from White Plains, NY, guilty of having sold merchandize on Sunday, in violation of the law.  Chochrane suspended the sentence because it was Pollack’s first offense, but warned the defendant not to open his store again on Sunday.

1879: It was reported today that Lord Salisbury, British Foreign Minister, feels that it is time for Romania to fulfill to honor its commitments to improve the situation of its Jews since the autonomy the country enjoys was conditional on these promises.

1880: It was reported today that Silesia has a population of 3,800,000 of which 47,000 are Jewish.

1881: It was reported today that M.J. Butler, the proprietor of the Manson House donated the use of the hotel’s dining room for the concert that had been held to raise funds for a cemetery in Long Branch, NJ, that will be open to all regardless of faith or financial status.

1881: “Jews in Germany” published today described the pervasive anti-Semitism in that country that stands in stark contrast to the theme of the “Nathan the Wise” which is a popular German theatrical production.

1881: In New York City, “Moses Siegman and Anna Solfrey gave birth to Arthur Siegman the owner of Arthur Siegman, Inc. “one of the largest manfuacturers of men’s neckwear in New York, if not in the whole United States who married Beatrice Rosenzweig  of Brooklyn in 1912 and whose advice to young men in is “Work Hard, be steady, learn to love your business and make friends.”

1882(30th of Av, 5642): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1882: In Walla Walla Washington, “shopkeeper Jacques Bauer” and “modern language teacher Julie Bauer gave birth to Marion Bauer the composer and music critic who was the younger sister of fellow musician Emilie Bauer.

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/bauer-marion-eugenie

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/marion-eugnie-bauer

http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/archives/bauer/bioghist.html

1882: “Mr. Cox’s Wild Eloquence” published today provided a summary of speech by Representative Samuel S. Cox that he delivered during the last session of Congress in which he “eloquently” reviewed “the atrocities perpetrated on the Jews of Russia” and concluded “with an appeal for help and sympathy from America” to help the Jews overcome their plight.

1883: Birthdate of Russian born Yiddish author and co-founder of the Sholem Aleichem Schools, Joshua Kaminsky who in November of 1937 “introduced the new Kinder Tsaytung (Children’s newspaper) with a “cover that features a buoyant impressionistic drawing by Nota Koslowsky” passed away today.

https://www.jta.org/1958/12/02/archive/joshua-kaminsky-educator-and-author-dies-in-new-york

1883: An unnamed British Jew representing a London business firm was expelled from Russia today even though he was carrying a British Passport.

1883: Among those receiving funds from the Board of Estimate and Apportionment was the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society which got $1,896.85.

1884: “Doom of the Ghetto at Rome” published today described the crumbling condition of the former Jewish quarter.  Paul IV was the first Pope to move the Jews across the river into “somber Tower of Marcellus.  He was the same Pope who used to force the Jews to listen to annual sermons on Holy Cross Day in hopes that they would convert.

1884: Birthdate of Moses Garber, the Western Reserve trained physician who became “chief in Obstetrics at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Cleveland where “he was one of the directors of the city’s Hebrew School and as chairman of the Keren Hayesod Committee.

1885: In Kalamazoo, Michigan, “Hungarian-born Jewish storekeeper, Jacob Charles Ferber, and his Milwaukee, Wisconsin-born wife, Julia (Neumann) Ferber” gave birth to Pulitzer prize winning author Edna Ferber who works included Show Boat, Giant and Cimarron– big books that treated big topics.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/ferber.html

1885: In Kovno, Hyman Jehuda Osinksy and Rachel Osinsky gave birth to Meshe David Osinsky who came to Britain in 1900 where he gained fame as Sir Montague Maurice Burton the founder of Burton London and Burton Menswear.

1886: Based on information that first appeared in the Hebrew Standard it was reported today that a young Jewish lady “refused to play at a game of kissing forfeits, giving as her reason the quotation ‘Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves’ (Hosea, XII, 2)”

1887: It was reported today that Israel Lipski has been granted a reprieve from the hangman’s rope.

1887: Three days after he had passed away, seventy-two year old Philip Gowa, the husband of Juliette Gowa and father of Josephine Gowa was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

1887(25th of Av, 5647): Sixty-seven year old Danish author Meïr Aron Goldschmidt whose works included A Jew, “the first novel to provide an” an insider’s “description of the Copenhagen Jewish milieu” passed away today.

1887:  Birthdate of novelist Edna Ferber.  Born in Michigan, Ferber wrote sweeping epics many of which became equally famous films.  Included in these are Showboat, Cimarron and Giant.   Ferber won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1925 for the novel So Big.  She passed away in 1968.

1888: Congressman Ford’s Immigration Committee heard testimony today in New York from Daniel Harris a journeyman cigar maker who testified on the impact of foreigners on his business.  In the past two decades foreigners have gone from being 10 per cent of the cigar makers to being 90 percent.  Wages have gone from fifty dollars a week to twelve dollars a week.  He blames part of this one the arrival of thousands of Russian and Polish Jews many of whom have their tickets to the United States by charitable organizations.

1888: Birthdate of Girsh Yankelovich Brilliant who as Grigori Yakovlovich Sokolnikov became a leading Bolshevik who would be murdered by Stalin during the purges of the 1930’s/

1888: In Vienna Leopold Leopoldi (whose name was Kohn before he changed it) and his wife gave birth to Herman Leopoldi the Austrian composer and performer who survived Buchenwald.

1889: Birthdate of Jekuthiel Ginsburg, the native of Poland, who came to the United States in 1912, earned his degrees in Mathematics at Columbia and founded the Institute of Mathematics at Yeshiva University.

http://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n79127004/

http://yleksikon.blogspot.com/2015/08/yekutiel-ginzburg-jekuthiel-ginsburg.html

1888: Birthdate of Ukrainian-American Cantor Joshua Samuel Weisser.

https://www.milkenarchive.org/artists/view/joshua-weisser/

http://yiddishmusic.jewniverse.info/weisserjoshuasamuel/index.html

1890: Jacob Levy was delivered to the City of London lunatic asylum, Stone, in Kent, as an insane person. Born in 1856, at Aldgate to Joseph and Caroline Levy, he was a butcher who was a suspect in the Jack the Ripper Cases.

1890: The Jewish Messenger reported that Mr. Lippman Levy has left New York and returned to Cincinnati, Ohio.

1890(29thof Av, 5650): Montagu Meyer Gluckstein, the German born husband of Betsey Gluckstein passed away today in London

1890: It was reported today that Mount Sinai Temple has elected Godfrey Taubenhaus as rabbi

1891: Congregants at the House of Miriam in Long Branch, NJ, donated approximately $165 in response to today’s appeal made by Rabbi William H. Karuskopf.

1891: In London, the lead article in the Daily News deals with “the question of the Jews of Russia.”

1891: “Russian Refugees” published today described the difficulties faced by the Jewish immigrants from Russia who had been sent to Hightstown, NJ by the Baron Hirsch Fund.  Wallach & Sons of New York opened a shirt factory there and agreed to hire them as workers.  However, none of them have any experience and do not like the work.  They have complained to Jesse Seligman about conditions, but Seligman has expressed the feeling that those who are complaining are a few malcontents who do not want to work.

1892: “Orthodox or Reform?” published today described main issue that will be dealt with when a “conclave of Rabbis gathers in New York in October.  The Reform have clashed with the Orthodox by adopting a resolution making performance of “the Abrahamic rite” (circumcision) optional for those wanting to convert to Judaism.  The change championed by the Reform movement grew out of the fact that the daughter of Rabbi Wise, their leader, had married her physician, Dr. Maloney, who was Catholic.  Maloney said he would convert but he would not submit to circumcision.  According to the Orthodox, it was at that point that Rabbi Wise decided that the “Abrahamic rite” was optional.

1892: Meyer Reinherz of the of the United Hebrew Charities appeared in the Essex Market Police Court as the complainant in the case again Edward Pollock, an Austro-Hungarian reporter who had written several articles about Ellis Island and the Jewish boarding houses

1892: “A Wedding of Midgets” published today described the courtship and marriage of Leopold Kahn and Lottie Naomi Swartwood.  The 48 inch tall Jewish comedian met the 49 inch tall love of his life in Philadelphia where he was performing with the American Lilliputian Company. They overcame the obstacle of religion when she agreed to convert before they married and took the name Naomi which she incorporated into her secular name.

1892: “Will Not Object to Crosses” published today described the decision of Russian Jews who are the members of the Erie Street Congregation in Cleveland, Ohio to rent a hall from the Young Men’s Christian Association for use during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  It was agreed that “inasmuch as the crosses were more than twenty feet above the hall…and there were no crosses in the decoration in the room itself” there was no reason not to rent the room which will provide the needed space for the upcoming High Holiday services.

1893: The police promise to keep Hester and Mulberry Streets clear of all peddlers and vendors, many of whom are Jewish, after having conducting a successful operation to remove all such obstacles.

1893: In Seattle, WA, “Viola (Cohen) Kahn, the daughter of a famous rabbi” and “successful businessman Julius Kahn gave birth to “Dorothy Kahn, the eldest of their three children” and a leading Social Worker during the 1930’s and 1940’s.

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/Kahn-Dorothy-C

1894: One day after he had passed away sixty-seven year old Leah Cohen, “the widow of Woolf Cohen was buried at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”

1894: Birthdate of New York song writer Harry Askt who began his career playing piano for such vaudeville performers as Al Jolson and who began his partnership with Irving Berlin while they were serving at Camp Upton during WW I.

https://www.songhall.org/profile/Harry_Akst

1894: Birthdate of Louis B. Popkin the New York born journalist and public relations executive who was the editor of the American Hebrew and a board member of the Joint Distribution Committee, Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the Fair Play for Palestine Radio League.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9806EFD6163CEE3BBC4A52DFB7668388659EDE

1895: While stopping at the Union Square Hotel Senor Segundo Alvarez, the Mayor of Havana blamed the troubles in Cuba on American adventures including Carlos Roloff, “a Polish Jew” who has gotten funding from “the cigar-makers of Key West” whom some “say has landed in Cuba with a thousand men, guns and ammunition and dynamite.

1896: In Prague, Martha and Otto Radnitz, the manager of a sugar refinery, gave birth to “Dr. Gerty Theresa Radnitz Cori was the first American woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology, in 1947, which was shared with her husband, Dr. Carl F. Cori, and Dr. B.A. Houssay of Argentina.” (As reported by Jewish Virtual Library)

1897: The New York Times published a lengthy favorable article about the Zionist cause led by Herzl and the upcoming congress to be held in Basel, Switzerland.

1897: It was reported today that Joseph Barondess has started a new labor organization in opposition to the Hebrew Trades and the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance.

1897: “The Jewish State Idea” published today described the history of Jewish settlement in Palestine and the challenges facing the Zionists as they meet at Basle.

1897: “The Adaptiveness of the Jew” published today summarizes an article by Professor A.S. Isaacs that first appeared in the August issue of the North American Review in which he said that “critic of Judaism…must familiarize himself with the history of the Jew in every land” in which he has lived.  And then “he must account for that marvelous vitality…which has made the Jew at home whether” on the banks of the Vistula, the Thames or the Euphrates or “amid the orange groves of Sicily or the plains of Arabia.

1898: “Bad Water Kills Orphans” published today described the efforts to care for those at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum who have become ill during the latest outbreak of dysentery in the neighborhood which has been attributed to polluted city water.

1898: On this date Clara, Baroness von Hirsch signed the 15th and final codicil of her will.

1898: The fifteenth and final codicil for the will of Clara, Baroness von Hirsch, formerly Bischoffsheim, the widow of Baron Moritz von Hirsch which declares that her estate should be administered in Vienna under the terms of Austrian law is filed and attested to

1899: In Washington, DC, the Treasurer of the Dewey Home Fund received a letter and a contribution of ten dollars from Mrs. Lizzie A. Cohen, Treasurer of the Woman’s Democratic Club of Salt Lake City which did not surprise him since the Jews have “contributed liberally” to this cause from the beginning.

1899: As passions flare in France during the second court martial of Captain Dreyfus Bonapartists and Oreleanists held rallies and dinners during which they challenged the very existence of the French Republic. (These divisions are meaningless today.  In a nutshell, these were two right wing groups seeking to bring down the republican government and replace it with a monarch.  Of course, each group wanted their own candidate to fill the job.  The important thing to remember is that while Jews focus on the anti-Semitic aspect of the Dreyfus Affair, it really was part of a larger conflict between republicans and reactionaries.  The last act of this dreadful conflict would be played out at Vichy and Drancy four decades later)

1899:The Third Zionist Congress begins meeting in Basel.

1899: The American delegation at today’s Third Zionist Congress includes Professor Richard Gottheil of Columbia University and his wife, Miss Eva Leon, Rabbi Stephen Wise, Rabbi Marcus Jastrow of Philadelphia, Henrietta Szold of Baltimore and William Schurr of Chicago.

1899:”Would-Be Suicide Shaming” published today described the condition of Abraham Reinold who has been a patient at Georgetown Hospital ever since he tried to shoot himself while visiting Washington, DC. 

1902: Birthdate of Iris Margaret Origo, an Anglo-Irish writer who helped to save Jewish children through the kindertransport including the painter Frank Helmut Auerbach.

1902: Birthdate of Jack S. Popick, the native of Kishinev who came to the United States in 1904, became a successful businessman who helped co-found the Graduate School Education at Yehsiva University and served on the board of the Jewish Family and Children Services

1902: In Montreal, Clarence Isaac de Solla and Belle Maud de Sola gave birth to Raphael David de Sola, the grandson of Cantor Abraham de Sola.

1902: In the “Jewish Harlem Section” of New York City, Ruth Green, a widow whose husband died in a factory accident before the birth of her son, gave birth to Charlie Green who gained famed as World Bantamweight Champion Charlie Phil Rosenberg.

1903(22ndof Av, 5663): Parashat Eikev

1903: Birthdate of Wilma Shannon Warburg the wife of Frederick Marcus Warburg.

1904(4thof Elul, 5664): Fifty-nine year old Gustav Przibram, the son of Salomon and Marie Przibram and the husband of Charlotte Przibram passed away today in Switzerland.

1905: Birthdate of Philadelphia native and violinist Louis Pearlman, the “director of the Pearlman School of Music” and the “conductor of the Doylestown Symphony.”

1907(5th of Elul, 5667): Seventy-six year old violinist and composer Joseph Joachim passed away.

http://www.nndb.com/people/463/000105148/

1908: In Galicia, Joseph Weinberg, “a metal worker who operated a body and fender repair business after he came to Baltimore” and homemaker Sarah Weinberg gave birth to their second child Harry Weinberg the successful businessman and husband of the former Jeanette Gutman with whom he had one child, Morton and created the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, just one of his many charitable entities.

https://hjweinbergfoundation.org/

http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/7394091/who-were-harry-jeanette-weinberg

1911: B’Nai Brith contributes $3,382 to Jews who have suffered during the fires that raged through Constantinople.

1911: The 10thZionist Congress elects Professor Otto Warburg, Dr. Hantke, Dr. Shmaryahu Levin, Hahum Sokolow and Victor Jacobsohn as successors to David Wolffsohn

1913: In London, Abraham Jacobs and Sarah Jacobs, the daughter of Abraham Simcha (Simon) Flashtiq and Rebekah Flashtiq gave birth to Marie (Esther Miriam) Lewis

1914:  The Panama Canal opened to traffic.  The territory that made up the nation of Panama had been amputated from Columbia in a revolution supported, if not created, by the United States so that a canal could be built.  Panama has a very old Jewish community.  When the Canal opened there were about six hundred Jews, mostly Sephardic, living in Panama.  Panama is the only country, with the exception of Israel, to have elected two Jews as President.

1914: Birthdate of Brooklyn native Peretz Rosenbaum who gained fame as Paul Ryan “the creator of sleek graphic designs.” (As reported by Steven Heller)

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1996/11/28/506699.html?pageNumber=98

1915(5th of Elul, 5675): Albert Bettelhein, journalist and author, convicted by a Georgia jury of murder, was lynched by an anti-Semitic mob.

1915(5thof Elul, 5675): In Frankfurt am Main 62 year old Karl Ferdinand Moritz Flesch passed away.

1915(5thof Elul, 5675): Ninety year old Sarah Blumenthal, who was living with her Mr. and Mrs. Solomon Shillon, her son-in-law and daughter and her granddaughter Fanny “was killed last night when she accidently “feel from a window of her room on the 5th floor of an apartment house at 34 West 116thStreet.”

1915: Birthdate of Julie Fisherova, the wife of Salomon Fisher, who was deported from Prauge in 1941 to Lodz where she was murdered.

1915: Robert Moses married “Mary Louise Sims, of Dodgeville, Wisconsin, the granddaughter of the Reverend George Sims, a Methodist circuit rider.

1915: In Asbury Park, NJ, a crowd of more than 200 people heard several prominent rabbis say that “the very fate of the Jewish race in Continental Europe and Palestine depends in large measure on America’s response to the Old World’s entreaties” for financial aid.

1915: “An Inside View of Russia in War Time” published today provided a review of Russia and the Great War by Gregor Alexinsky

1915: “Russia’s Expulsion of Jews” published today described “the horrors wrought by a decree that forced 200,000” Jews to “leave the War Zone” with almost no warning.

1915: The original Broadway production of “The Blue Paradise” with music by Signmund Romberg and Edmund Eysler opened at the Casino Theatre.

1915: “Miss Theresa Dreyfus of New York, who has recently returned from Jerusalem” where she “said thousands of male Jews had allied to the Moslem war colors while their women and children remained at home in poverty and misery.”

1916: In the see-saw fighting in the Caucasus Mountains the Turks took back Mush and Bitlis from the Russians in the kind of miserable fighting that would help to bring on the Revolution in 1917.

1917(27thof Av, 5677): Eighty-two year old philanthropist Abraham Slimmer passed away today in Dubuque, IA.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F0DE0D9113BE733A25750C1A9619C946397D6CF

http://www.encyclopediadubuque.org/index.php?title=SLIMMER,_Abraham

1917: It was reported today that Samuel Gompers has been “denounced at a workingmen’s council.”

1917: It was reported today that Minister for Jewish Affairs in Ukraine Silverfarb is the first person to hold this unique position that he uses the penname “Basin.”

1918: Birthdate of Sanford Daniel Garelik, the first Jewish chief inspector of the New York Police Department.  Garelik graduated from the Police Academy in 1940 along with Gertrude Schimmel who became the first female and the first Jewish female deputy chief of police.

1918: As the effects of the Aimens offensive in which Sir John Monash played such a major part took effect, German long-range guns fired on Paris for the last time.

1919: Birthdate of Stanley Frazen, “a longtime film and television editor who was a member of the Army Air Forces' First Motion Picture Unit during World War II.”

1920: Today, Louis Lipsky, “one of the American delegates” who attended the World Zionist Conference  in London “declared that that the British government had promised to aid in the development of” “Palestine as a Jewish homeland.”

1921: Birthdate of August Marian Kowalczyk, the Polish actor and director who “was the last survivor of a breakout from Auschwitz on June 10, 1942.”

1922: Birthdate of sculptor and printmaker Leonard Baskin.

1924: In Brooklyn, Dr Henry and Celia Kresky gave birth to Edward Mordecai Kresky  “an investment banker who was an architect of the debit refinancing plan that saved New York City from bankruptcy in the 1970’s” (As reported by Paul Vitello.

1925: Charlie Chaplin in "The Gold Rush" opens with a gala performance at midnight.

1926: Birthdate of Sami Michael, the left wing native of Baghdad who in 1949 came to Israel where he became an author and the President of The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI).

1926: The Chevra Kadisha, at its last meeting here, decided to contribute a sum of 5,000 pesos to the Palestine campaign. At the same time, it decided to contribute a sum of 500 pesos to the Jewish Colonization work in Russia. (As reported by JTA)

1928: In Rochester, NY Abraham and Hannah Glazer gave birth to their fifth child Malcolm Irving Glazer the CEO of First Allied Corporation who owned two football teams – Manchester United (soccer) and Tampa Bay Buccaneers (NFL)

1929(9th of Av, 5689): Tish'a B'Av observed on the day after the founding of “The Jewish Agency for Palestine” which was, in fact, “the de factor government of the Jews in the Yishuv.”

1929: Several hundred members of Joseph Klausner's Committee for the Western Wall, among them members of Vladimir Jabotinsky's Revisionist Zionism movement Betar youth organisation, under the leadership of Jeremiah Halpern, assembled at the Western Wall. They raised the Jewish national flag and sang the Hatikvah. The authorities had been notified of the march in advance and provided a heavy police escort in a bid to prevent any incidents.

1933: In Prague, the Conference of the Women's International Zionist Organization (Wizo), attended by 103 delegates from 19 countries, came to a close after hearing that its membership is now 50,000; adopts budget of £47,000, and approves resolutions encouraging immigration into Palestine of German-Jewish youth, especially those of the middle classes, urging more certificates for girl immigrants, and equal rights for women.

1933: In New York City Romanian born Adele (née Israel), and Hungarian-born baker, Samuel Milgram gave birth to social psychologist Stanley Milgram.

1933: In Bucharest.—M. Pandrei, Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Education, in an interview with the press, denies that the Government intends to establish a “numerus clauses” in the universities of Romania, and announces that owing to a lack of laboratory facilities, a general limitation of students is contemplated.

1934: Premiere of “Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back,” a comedic murder mystery with a script co-authored by Henry Lehman and music by Alfred Newman.

1934: Deadline, according to “Leroy Peterson, the New York poultry code supervisor for settling all disputes “with the live poultry industry” including issues pertaining to the proposed “rabbinical supervision of poultry markets.”

1935: “Alice Adams” produced by Pandro S. Berman with music by Max Steiner was released in the United States today by RKO.

1935:  Humorist Will Rogers and aviator Wiley Post were killed when their airplane crashed near Point Barrow, Alaska.  Rogers was one of the most popular celebrities of his time.  His radio shows, movies and columns were devoured by millions of Americans.  This son of the American Plains got his first big break when Flo Ziegfield featured him in the famous Zigfield Follies.  According to legend, he took away Will’s horse, left him with a rope and the wit that became his trademarks.

1936(27th of Av, 5696): Parashat Re’eh

1936: In Geneva, The World Jewish Congress adjourn tonight until 1938 after approving the recommendation of the nominations committee that included naming Federal Judge Julian W. Mack of New York as honorary president; “”Rabbi Stephen S. Wise as chairman of the executive committee; Louis Lipsky of New York as chairman of the council; and Louis Sturz who is chairman of the American Jewish Congress’s finance committee as treasurer.”

1937: In Tel Aviv, Amnon Drori, the son of Isaschar Dov (Bar-Drora) Drori (Freier) and Shulamit Drori (Bar-Drora) and Ella Drori, the daughter of Alexander Govorkovski and Ester Goverkovsky gave birth to General Amir Drori, the winner of the Medal of Courage and “the first director general of the Israel Antiquities Authority.” (Some sources show his birth at August 5)

http://members.bib-arch.org/publication.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=31&Issue=3&ArticleID=18

1937: Sha’ar HaNeveg (which was renamed Kfar Szold) a new agricultural village east of Gedera was established. It was the 17th village to be settled in 1937.  Kfar Szold was only two hundred yards from the Syrian border.  In January, 1948, even before the state of Israel had been created, the Syrian army attacked the settlement in a determined effort to destroy it and kill the inhabitants.  Nine hundred Syrian soldiers attacked a settlement manned by fewer than hundred defenders.  After a spirited defense, the British army, for once, intervened on behalf of the Jews and the Syrians withdrew.

1937: Lord Melchett, Prof. L. Namier, H. Sacher, M. Ussishkin, Dr. S. Wise, Berl Katznelson, Dov Hos, Rabbi Berlin, Dr. Glickson, and Franz Bernstein joined the Advisory Commission, formed to assist the new Zionist Executive to negotiate the country’s partition under the Royal (Peel) Commission¹s scheme.

1937(8th of Elul, 5697): Solomon Wander, one of the first Jewish immigrants to form the Jewish community in Albany. New York passed away at the age of 71.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1937/08/16/118986900.pdf

1937: The New York Times describes the growing tension in Palestine on the streets of Jerusalem and Haifa and the British response which includes the recommendation by a Royal Commission for "a surgical operation" on Palestine which will result in the creation of a Jewish State, an Arab State and a new British mandate over Jerusalem with a corridor to the sea.

1938: “The Gladiator” a comedy produced by David L. Loew with a script by Arthur Sheekman and music by Victor Young was released in the United States by Columbia Pictures.

1938: Birthdate of Lewis E. “Lew” Lehrman the founder of Rite Aid Drugstore and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History who ran for Governor of New York in 1982 on the Republican ticket.

1938:  In San Francisco, CA, Anne A. and Irving G. Breyer gave birth to Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.

1938: As Arab violence spirals to new levels of intensity, “six Jews were killed and two, both women, were seriously injured near Haifa this afternoon when a bus going to Mount Carmel was ambushed by Arabs while passing through a forest. It is believed several of those killed were Jewish special policemen.” A bomb was detonated on the road running between Herzliah and Raananh wounding some of the 25 workers in a truck bound for a local orange grove.  Several other acts of violence and sabotage took place including a bomb-throwing episode on the streets of Tel Aviv.

1938: Paul Ferdinand Strassmann, the Jewish born German gynecologist who became a Protestant, passed away.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Stra%25C3%259Fmann&prev=/search%3Fq%3DPaul%2BFerdinand%2BStrassmann%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D739%26bih%3D645%26prmd%3Dimvnsob&sa=X&ei=b34pUOa1NcfI0QGf6IAY&ved=0CEcQ7gEwAg

1939: “The Wizard of Oz” the classical musical produced by Mervyn LeRoy with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by Yip Harburg “both of whom won the Academy Award for Best original Song for ‘Over the Rainbow’ “had its Hollywood Premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theater.

This is another example of Jews creating an icon of American popular culture.

1939(30th of Av, 5699): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1940: Baden, Germany native Julius J. Dukas, the founder of the brush making company that bears his name and for the for the last 35 years the “president of the Hebrew Free Loan Society” celebrated his 85th birthday today with his daughter and his wife, Sarah Hyman Dukas.

1941:  Heinrich Lohse, Reich commissioner for Eastern Territories of the Ostland (Eastern Europe) region, decrees that Jews must wear two yellow badges, one on the chest and one on the back; that Jews cannot own automobiles or radios; and that their presence in public places will be severely proscribed.

1941 A Jewish ghetto is established at Riga, Latvia.

1941: Last of the remaining 25,000 Jews in Kovno were removed to Viampole. Each is allotted three square feet of living space.

1941: Six hundred Jews are taken from Stawiski and shot in nearby woods.

1941: A massacre begins at Rokiskis that leaves 3,200 men, women and children, shot by the next evening.

1942(2ndof Elul, 5702): Parashat Shoftim

1942: On Shabbat, “the Germans entered the ghetto in the village of Zagrodski, ordering the Jews to leave their houses for a roll call” and then left to stand outside all day without any food or water.

1942: This evening, “a truck arrived at the ghetto in the village of Zagrodski. “The Jews were ordered on to it, and drove out of the ghetto. Those for whom there had been no room on the truck were ordered to run after it. For the rest of the tale of the ensuring slaughter read http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/einsatz/rytest.html

1942: The Germans open Jawiszowice, a slave-labor camp located near Auschwitz.

1942: One thousand Belgian Jews, including 172 children, are deported to their deaths in the East.

1943: Nearly 1000 French Jews of Polish birth are deported to a slave-labor camp on Alderney, one of the British Channel Islands seized in 1940 by Germany, and are put to work building fortifications. Hundreds of the Jews die due to ill treatment and exhaustion

1944: “Operation Dragoon,” the Allied invasion of southern France in which former B-17 pilot Bruce Sundlin served as a bombardment spotter for the OSS, began today.

1944: “Children standing behind the ghetto fence in Lodz, Poland.”

http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/august/11.asp

1945:  V.J. Day – Victory over Japan Day is proclaimed by the Allies after having received official word of that the Japanese had indeed surrendered.

https://www.google.com/search?q=pictures+of+VJ+day&biw=998&bih=722&tbm=isch&imgil=-r8t0OLqgyC3pM%253A%253BS3H6oLURH50aXM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Ftime.com%25252F3517476%25252Fv-j-day-1945-a-nation-lets-loose%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=-r8t0OLqgyC3pM%253A%252CS3H6oLURH50aXM%252C_&usg=__EkpKYoDhbvgcW1B5KyzyQleOSaI%3D&ved=0ahUKEwjUnJuW37_OAhUGSSYKHeJmBesQyjcIMQ&ei=0sevV9TrCoaSmQHizZXYDg#imgrc=-r8t0OLqgyC3pM%3A

1945: Bess Myerson, who refused to change her name to something less Jewish and won the Miss New York beauty pageant based on her performance of music by Edvarg Grieg and George Gershwin as well as on her looks.

1947: Birthdate of Brooklyn native Allen H. Weisselberg, the “CFO the Trump Organization.”

 1947: With the end of the British rule of the Indian subcontinent, two new nations declared the independence.  One was Islamic Pakistan; the other was India which while heavily Hindu retained a large Islamic population.  India’s relations with Israel have been a mixed bag.  In the early days, under Nehru, the Indian government was anti-Israel, taking the lead, for example in denying it admittance to the Bandung Conference.  In more recent times, relations between the two states and their citizens have improved.

1947: Following today’s division of the Indian sub-continent into two states, Indian airlines responded to the Prime Minister Nehru’s request that they fly Hindus living in Pakistan to India.  Among those participating was Abie Nathan who was a co-pilot for one of the Indian airlines. 

1948(10th of Av, 5708): Tish’a B’Av observed since the 9th of Av fell on Shabbat

1948(10th of Av, 5708): As Israel fights for her independence Tish'a B'Av is observed today because the 9th of Av fell on Shabbat.

1948: Mitchell Flint, a WW II naval combat pilot who had planned to celebrate his graduation UC-Berkley by attending the Olympics in London but chose to fly for the IAF “out of concern for the plight of Holocaust survivors” flew his first two missions today – the first involving “a search for a last aircraft” and the second being an “attempted interception” of an enemy aircraft.

1948: In Iraq, a leading Jewish businessman, Shafiq Adas was hanged on trumped up charges of treason.  His body was mutilated by a crowd of on-lookers.

1948: American Michael “Mike” Flint joined Israel’s squadron 101.

1948: Two Israeli and two Arab soldiers were killed during a second unsuccessful Arab attack on the Mandelbaum House a key defensive point in Jerusalem.

1949(20th of Av, 5709): Fanny Binswanger Hoffman passed away. (As reported by Selma Weintraub, a past national president of the Women’s League for Conservative Judaism)

http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/hoffman-fanny-binswanger

1950: In Indianapolis, Indiana, Anne and Wolf Rosenblum gave birth to Gail Sue Rosenblum who gained fame as Gaylen Ross “American actress, writer, producer and director” who produced the awarded “Killing Kasztner”

(For more see Gaylen Ross’s award winning documentary “Killing Kasztner: The Jew Who Dealt With Nazis” http://www.killingkasztner.com/

1951: Prime Minister David Ben Gurion's plan to take control of the Zionist movement outside of Israel from political parties and transfer it to non-partisan regional organizations was attacked here today by delegates to the twenty-third World Zionist Congress.

1951(13th of Av, 5711): Pianist and composer Artur Schnabel passed away.

http://www.schnabelmusicfoundation.com/Artur%20Schnabel.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpiPHjSRUOg

1951: The last inmates of Bergen-Belsen left the camp on their way to the United States. Bergen- Belsen was originally set up in 1943. Many of its inmates were Jewish prisoners who had dual citizenship with Latin American countries or entry permits to Palestine. A few hundred were used by the Germans for prisoner exchanges. Though not a death camp per se, over 51,000 people died there including Anne Frank.

1951: In Philadelphia, premiere of “His Kind of Woman” directed by Richard Fleischer

1952)24thof Av, 5712): Eighty-three year old Waynetown, Indiana, born Louis Landman, “the president and director of the Parmelee Transportation Company passed away today while visiting his son Roger Kahn and his wife.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1952/08/16/84344923.html?pageNumber=15

1953: Seventy-seven year old Reinhold Quaatz the German right wing politician “who endorsed anti-Semitic policies” despite the fact that his mother was Jewish and avoided the Holocaust passed away today.

1954(16thof Av, 5714): Abram Pofcher, the son of Michael and Rose Nizel Pofcher and the husband of Mamie Pofcher  with whom he had five children passed away today after which he was buried in Suffolk Country, MA.

1955: “A Kid for Two Farthing” a screen version of the novel by Wolf Mankowitz who wrote the screenplay with music by Benjamin Frankel and co-starring David Kossoff was released today in the United Kingdom.

1959(11thof Av, 5719): Shabbat Nachamu

1959: “In the summer of her freshman year of college Judith Sussman married John M. Blume which meant she was Judy Blume, the name under which she became an award winning auther.

1959: Today, Guggehiem awarding winning syndicated columnist Nathan Irving “Nat” Hentfoff “married his third wife, Margot Goodman, with whom he had two children: Nicholas and Thomas.

1959: As the Los Angeles Dodgers made a surprising run for the National League pennant ‘Larry Sherry walloped three hits, including his first home run, and pitched eight and two-thirds innings of scoreless relief ball today in leading the second place Los Angeles Dodgers to a 4-3 decision over the Cardinals.”

1960: It was reported today that “some quiet talk in the corridors of the U.N. here and in the Foreign Ministry in Buenos Aires may lead soon to restoration of full diplomatic relations between Israel and Argentina which had soured after “the two countries had clashed bitterly over the abduction of Adolf Eichmann.”

1961: “Marines, Let’s Go” a Korean War that President Kennedy did not like with music by Irving Getz was released today in the United States.

1961: Elections were held today for the fifth Knesset Ben-Gurion’s Mapai came in first with 34.7% of the vote which earned 42 seats.  Herut, led by Menachem Begin and Liberal  led by Peretz Bernstein tied for second with each getting a little more than 13% of the vote which translated into 17 seats for each party.

1961: “The Lawbreakers” with music by Johnny Mandel who wrote the theme for MASH (Suicide is Painless) and featuring Jay Adler as “Abe Hirsch” was released in Germany today.

1962(15thof Av, 5722) Tu B’Av

1962(15thof Av, 5722): Sixty-three year old Russian native David Jacob Sandweiss who came to the U.S. in 1909, earned a Medical Degree from the University of Michigan, practiced in Detroit where he raised his son Samuel with his wife Frieda.

1968:  In Brooklyn, “Sandra (née Simons), who has worked as a professional singer, banker, travel and real estate agent, and Brian Messing, a sales executive for a costume jewelry packaging manufacturer” gave birth to actress Debra Messing who plays Grace, “the Jewish interior designer” on the television show Will and Grace.

1969(1stof Elul, 5729): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1969(1stof Elul, 5729): Sixty-six year old movie producer William B. “Bill” Goetz, the husband of Edith Mayer,  who was one of the founders of what is now 20th Century Fox and who had a stormy relationship with is father-in-law Louis B. Mayer passed away today

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1955&dat=19690816&id=AN0hAAAAIBAJ&sjid=NaAFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6003,139459&hl=en

1969: The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, which became the iconoclastic hippie happening simply known as Woodstock, began today in Bethel, NY, at the farm of Jewish dairyman Max B. Yagur.

1970: “The Appointment” a drama directed by Sidney Lumet and written by James Salter (James Arnold Horowitz) was released today in Sweden.

1971(24thof Av, 5731): Eighty-year old Paul Lukas, the Budapest born Jew Pál Lukács, who won the Oscar for Best Actor for his role in the anti-fascist drama Watch on the Rhine passed away today in Morocco.

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/08/17/archives/paul-lukas-1943-oscarwinne-des.html

1971: A new paperback version of Tillie Olsen's classic short story collection Tell Me a Riddle was issued

1973: Black September, the Palestinian terror group, kills 3 and wounds 55 in Athens

1974(27th of Av, 5734): Seventy-eight year old prolific Russian born American Yiddish author Saul Saphire who was a graduate of Columbia University’s Teachers College and the husband of the former Bessie Rubin with whom he raised a son, William, passed away today in Miami Beach.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1974/08/17/79373524.html?pageNumber=26

1974: “Once Upon a Scoundrel” a comedy starring Zero Mostel was released today.

1975: “Yakov Vinarov, a 21 year old engineering student who refused conscription into the army, was sentenced in Kiev to three years’ imprisonment for “evading military service”.

1976: It was reported today that “in preparation for the raid on Entebbe Airport, Israeli intelligence officers allegedly hypnotized several previously-released hostages” one of whom “was able to give helpful physical details of the airport” where the terrorists were holding their captives.

1976: The National Convention of Hadassah is scheduled to open today in Washington, DC.

1977: The Arabs in the administered territories and neighboring countries continued to dismiss the Israeli government’s decision to equalize the standard services on the West Bank and in Gaza as one more step toward annexation. Israeli opposition, the Alignment and the Democratic Movement for a Change, dismissed the plan, claiming that Israel could not afford to give residents of the administered territories services equal to those enjoyed by Israelis. The new prime minister, Menachem Begin called upon the Labor Opposition to support his government if and when Israel would be pressed to accept the PLO as a negotiating peace-talks partner.

1977(1stof Elul, 5737): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1977(1stof Elul, 5737): Ninety-one year old Upper Silesia native and multiply married art collector Hugo Perls who came to the United States in 1941, worked at the Perls Gallery founded by his Klaus and devoted himself to writing about philosophy passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1977/08/16/75296131.pdf

1980: The World Conference on Records – Preserving our Heritage at which Malcom H. Stern spoke on “Jewish Families: Their Assimilation into North American Culture” came to a close today.

1980: “The Girl in the Book” by Primo Levi was published for the first time in La Stampa.

1982(26thof Av, 5742): Seventy-seven year old Minsk born American journalist, “Joseph TAishoff, the editor and co-founder of Broadcasting magazine passed away in Washington, DC

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1982/08/16/086151.html?pageNumber=55

1983(6th of Elul, 5743): Seventy-six year old Brooklyn born Julius Yablok, the son of Lena and Louis Yablok and the husband of Miriam Yablok who played quarterback for Colgate University, coached St. Francis College and law partner of Mickey Marcus  passed away today in California. (There is some confusion since some sources report his demise as taking place on August 14)

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/Y/YablIz20.htm

1983(6th of Elul, 5743): Eighty-eight year old Benjamin V. Cohen a member of FDR’s “Brain Trust” who stayed on to work with Harry S. Truman passed away.  (As reported by Marjorie Hunter)

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/08/16/obituaries/benjamin-v-cohen-new-deal-planner-dies-in-washington.html?pagewanted=print

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/08/17/obituaries/benjamin-cohen-new-dealer-dies.html

1984: A car bomb was discovered on Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem and defused about 10 minutes before it was to have exploded. In the car were about 12 kilograms of explosives and another three kilograms of iron nails.

1984: “Buckaroo Banzai” a sci-fi film co-starring Ellen Barkin and Jeff Goldblum was released in the United States by 20th Century Fox.

1984: “The Woman in Red” a comedy directed by Gene Wilder who also wrote the script and starred in this film produced by Victor Drai which also featured performances by Charles Grodin and Gilda Radner opened today in the United States.

1985(28thof Av, 5745): Eighty-one year old Lester Cole, one of the founders of the Writers Guild of America and a member of the Communist Party who was among the ten writers sent to prison for failing to answer questions asked by a committee of the House of Representatives passed away today in California.

http://www.nytimes.com/1985/08/18/nyregion/lester-cole-dies-in-hollywood-10.html

1986: “The Fly” a remake of an early version the sci-fi thriller directed by David Cronenberg with music by Howard Shore and starring Jeff Goldblum was released in the United States today 20th Century Fox.

1986: “Manhunter” a “crime thriller” directed by Michael Mann who also wrote the script was released in the United States today by De Laurentiis Entertainment Group.

1986: “Armed and Dangerous” a comedy produced Brian Grazer who co-authored the script along with Harold Ramis and co-starring Eugene Levy was released in the United States by Columbia Pictures.

1987: Today actress Jennifer Grey the daughter of actor Joel Grey and actress Jo Wilder Brower, both of whom are Jewish, “suffered severe whiplash in a car collision in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, while vacationing with actor Matthew Broderick, who she had begun dating in semi-secrecy during the filming of Ferris Bueller's Day Of.”

1992: Giorgio Perlasca, an Italian businessman who saved more than 3,000 Jews from deportation to Nazi concentration camps in World War II, passed away today at his home in Padua, Italy. He was 82 years old. Mr. Perlasca died of a heart attack, The Associated Press reported. Trapped in Budapest late in the war by the fall of the fascist Italian Government, Mr. Perlasca, a livestock trader, joined in a plan conceived by international relief workers and diplomats from neutral countries to save as many Jews as possible from the Nazis. When the Spanish diplomatic representative fled Budapest in November 1944, Mr. Perlasca, who had been a volunteer in Franco's army in the Spanish Civil War, persuaded Hungary to accept him as the Spanish representative, and in two months he issued travel documents to thousands of Jews to save them from deportation. In 1987 Mr. Perlasca, whose achievements had gone largely unnoticed, was made an honorary citizen of Israel and was honored by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum there. In 1990 he received the Medal of Remembrance of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. A tall, quiet man, Mr. Perlasca told The Jerusalem Post in 1987 that he had been motivated by neither religion nor politics. "I couldn't ignore it," he said. "I did what I had to do. I was lucky. I had friends among the Jews who were being killed by the Nazis. That gave me courage."1993: TraveldoctorOnline commemorated “the 55th anniversary of the death of the Berlin gynecologist Prof. Paul Ferdinand Strassmann. In the first half of the 20th century, Strassmann was one of the leading specialists of plastic surgery of the female genital tract. Famous gynecologists and surgeons, e.g. the Mayo brothers, visited the Strassmann clinic in the Schumannstrasse with the aim of learn new surgical techniques. The present paper aims to outline particularly the life of Paul F. Strassmann but also his importance in the creation of modern gynecological surgery.”

1996(30th of Av, 5756): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1997: “Event Horizon” a sci-fi film co-starring Jason Isaacs with music by Michael Kamen was released in the United States today by Paramount Pictures.

1998: The curtain came down tonight on a three month revival of Neil Simon’s “Sweet Charity” at London’s Victoria Palace Theatre.

1998: A Broadway revival of “Ain’t Misbehavin’” a musical with a “book” co-authored by Murray Horwitz” opened today at the Ambassador Theatre “where it ran for 176 performances and eight previews.

1999: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Edward Albee: A Singular Journey: A Biography by Mel Gussow and Inside Picture Booksby Ellen Handler Spitz.

2000(14thof Av, 5760): Eighty-year old Harry Kuniansky the native of Atlanta and star football player for the Georgia Bulldogs who earned a Purple Heart in WW II and formed Raco General Contractors in Marietta, Georgia, passed away today.

2002(7th of Elul, 5762): Haim Yosef Zadok a native of Galicia who made Aliyah in 1935 and served as Jurist and political leader, passed away.

http://onlineathens.com/stories/082100/dog_0821000032.shtml#.V6_BC4-cF9B

2003: Seven months after premiering at Sundance, “American Splendor” co-directed by Shari Spring Berman and her Italian husband Robert Pulcini who also co-authored the script was released today in the United States.

2003: Stan Lee voiced the character “Frank Elson” in the broadcast of an episode of “Spider Man” titled “mind games.”

2003: “In Doctor Writes ‘Epic Saga’ of Jews in Medicine,” Max Gross reviewed Jews and Medicine: An Epic Saga by Frank Heynick

http://forward.com/articles/7926/doctor-writes-epic-saga-of-jews-in-medicine/

2004: The Sunday New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish authors including Dark Voyage by Alan Furst andThe Numbers Game: Baseball's Lifelong Fascination With Statistics by Alan Schwarz

2004: In “Past, Prologue and Paris” published today Alice Steinbach visits the world of the Camondo family and reminds us tenuous the fate of even the most powerful Jews can be.

2005: Deadline for Israeli citizens living in Gaza to accept government compensation packages as part of the voluntary evacuation plan.

2005: The evacuation of Gaza “under Major General Dan Harel of the Southern Command” began at 8 a.m. when “a convoy of security forces entered Neve Deakalim.”

2005:  Haaretz reported that the Israeli Defense Forces unit that is responsible for finding the remains of missing soldiers discovered the burial site of eight soldiers who died during the War of Independence.  The missing eight died in fighting on May 13, 1948near Kibbutz Nahshon. Their remains have been re-interred in cemeteries on Mount Herzl and Rosh Pina.

2006: The Sony BMG Masterworks label released Jay "Bluejay" Greenberg’s first CD. It includes his Symphony no. 5

2006(21st of Av, 5766): Myriam Fefer, a Jewish businesswoman, was brutally murdered in her home in Lima Peru.

2007(1st of Elul, 5767: Rosh Chodesh Elul; First Day of the month of Elul.  Psalm 27 will be recited from this date through Shemini Atzeres.  Shofar is blown daily at Shacharit except on Shabbat through the penultimate day of the month of Elul.

2007: Yad Vashem posthumously honored a Romanian reserve officer who blocked the deportation of Romanian Jews to Nazi death camps during World War II. Theodor Criveanu joined the Righteous Among the Nations group of non-Jews who rescued Jews from the Nazis. His son, Willie Criveanu, accepted the award on his behalf. Yad Vashem said it could not estimate how many Jews he saved. Criveanu married the daughter of one of the Jews he saved. He died in Romania in 1988.

2008: At the Israel Museum an exhibition entitled “Swords into Plowshares: The Isaiah Scroll and Its Message of Peace” comes to an end.

2008:Bais Chana Jewish Women's Weekend Retreat opens in St. Paul, Minnesota

2008: A Kassam rocket was launched into Israel from the Gaza Strip in the afternoon. The rocket hit an open field in the western Negev. No casualties or damage were reported.

2008:In a letter published today in Corriere della Sera, former Italian President Francesco Cossiga described a "secret 'non-belligerence pact' between the Italian state and Palestinian resistance organizations, including terrorist groups" such as the PFLP.

2008: Jody Wagner announces her candidacy for Lt. Gov. on the Republican ticket in the state of Virginia.

2008(14th of Av, 5768): Ninety-one year record producer Jerry Wexler who coined the term “rhythm and blues” passed away today. (As reported by Patricia Sullivan)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/15/AR2008081502076.html

.2009: The 92nd Street Y sponsors Israeli Folk Dance: Summer Marathon 2009.

2009: In Jerusalem, Amit Erez hits the stage at Hama'abada, playing an acoustic show which blends folk and indie style music, influenced by musicians such as Nick Drake and Elliot Smith on the one hand, and Shalom Hanoch on the other. Erez performs songs from his new album, including "Last Night When I Tried to Sleep" and "I Felt the Ocean on my Fingertips."

2009: As part of the activities designed to welcome Rabbi Todd Thalblum and his family to Cedar Rapids, Temple Judah celebrates a special outdoor Havdalah service at Woodpecker Lodge.

2009: A revival “How Now Dow Jones” with a book by Max Shulman, music by Elmer Bernstein and lyrics by Carolyn Leigh opens at the New York International Fringe Festival.

2009: According to a report broadcast today on Voice of Israel government radio wealthy foreign Arabs have bought up hundreds of dunams of land in the Galilee, land, which was owned privately and which was zoned for agricultural use, was sold due to economic hardship.

2010: Defense Minister Ehud Barak gave his approval today for the purchase of the fifth-generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) by the Israeli Air Force from the US.

2010: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Denial: A Memoir of Terror By Jessica Stern

2010: The Los Angeles Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldmanand Quantum: Eisenstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality by Manjit Kumar.  [Editor’s note – The only person I know who is smart enough to understand this is Dr. Joe Rosen, so if you have questions write to him not to me.]

2011: The 31st International Conference on Jewish Genealogy (sponsored by the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington) and the Washingtoniana Division of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library are scheduled to offer a free talk on "What’s Your Story? An Introduction to Genealogy and Family History"

2011:Hutzot Hayotzer, the popular international arts and crafts fair that has become a Jerusalemite ritual, is scheduled to open today.

2011(15th of Av, 5771): Tu B’Av- Jewish Saidie Hawkins Day

2011:A marble statue of Hercules dating back to the second century C.E. has been found in an archeological dig in northern Israel, Israel's Antiquities Authority announced today. The statue, approximately a meter and half tall, was probably part of the decoration of a bathhouse pool. The statue depicts Hercules leaning on a club, with the skin of the Nemean lion hanging from it. Hercules killed the monstrous lion as the first of the twelve "Labors of Hercules." Archeologist Walid Atrash of the Israel Antiquities Authority said the statue is a rare and high-quality discovery. Hercules, son of the god Zeus (Jupiter in Roman mythology) and the mortal Alcmnene, was considered in the Greek and Roman civilizations as a symbol of power, bravery and superhuman strength. The excavation took place at Horvat Tarbenet in the Jezreel Valley, which was a Jewish settlement in the third century C.E.

2011:The Israel Medical Association said in a discussion at the High Court today that it would be willing to hold mediated talks on points of contention with the Ministry of Finance, so long as certain conditions are upheld.

2011: A column entitled “No Loss For Words” published in today’s Sports Illustrated provides a portrait of Marv Levy, the coach who took the Bills to four Super Bowl, and a review of his soon to be published first novel, Between the Lines.

2011: The documentary “Gloria: In Her Own Words” about the life and times of Gloria Steinem premiered on HBO. (As reported by Jewish Women’s Archives)http://jwa.org/thisweek/aug/15/2011/gloria-steinem

2012: The brit of “Baby Boy Sann” the son of Debbie and Ron Sann is scheduled to take place at Adas Israel in Washington, DC

2012: In Boston, MA, Congregation Beth Elohim is scheduled to sponsor an evening of “Jewish Meditation.

2012: Cantor Regina Heit is scheduled to lead the Learn and Lunch at Temple Emanuel in Denver, CO.

2012: Members of Israel’s national soccer team apologized today for laughing during a lecture the day before on the murder of Hungarian Jewry by the Nazis. Some players tittered during a talk in Budapest, one day before the team’s friendly match against Hungary, the Sport Channel reported today

2012:Egg, milk and chicken prices are expected to rise by up to 17 percent by the end of this year, the Agriculture Ministry forecast today. A study conducted by the ministry’s Research, Economy and Strategy Division said the price increases can be attributed mainly to the prolonged drought in the US, which has triggered a rise in the cost of agricultural commodities.

2012(27th of Av, 5772): Sixty-eight year old “David M. Lederman, who led the team of scientists that developed the first fully implantable artificial heart — which, although it had limited success, prompted further advances in the treatment of late-stage heart disease” passed away today (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/29/health/research/david-lederman-pioneer-of-artificial-heart-dies-at-68.html?hpw

2013: Israeli jazz guitarist Assaf Kehati and his trio are scheduled to perform at the Bar Next Door in New York City.

2013: Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, two of the Jewish members of “Kiss”  “became a part of the ownership group that created the LA Kiss Arena Football League team, which plays their home games at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California.”

2013: Oakland A’s first baseman Nate Freiman had four hits today including a homer and a double.

2013: “Soul Doctor,” a musical based on the life of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach opened tonight at the Circle in the Square in New York City.

2013: “An archeological team headed by Dr. Alexander Fantalkin of Tel Aviv university has announced the discovery of one of the largest construction projects in the entire Mediterranean basin: a system of fortifications from the 8th century BCE, as well as coins, weights and parts of buildings from the Hellenistic period, have all been found in the archeological dig Tel Ashdod Yam – where the harbor of the philistine city of Ashdod used to be. The site is about 3 miles south of today’s thriving Israeli city of Ashdod.’ (As reported by Yori Yanover)

2013: Documents linked to Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist known for his efforts to save Jews from World War Two concentration camps, were sold at auction for more than $122,000, a New Hampshire auction house said today.

2013: Hebrew University is ranked first in Israel and 59th globally, according to the 2013 Academic Ranking of World Universities released today. (As reported by Lahav Harkov)

2014: Today is the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington’s deadline for raising funds to save the original portions of the synagogue mural on 415 M Street, NW in Washington, D.C.

2014: Mark Ethan Toporek is scheduled to lead a talk on “Gender Benders” following a screening of “Liberace” at the 92nd Street Y.

2014: In London, The Tricyel Theatre and the UK Jewish Film Festival issued a joint statement saying that the Tricycle’s initial decision to refuse to host the festival “because of the event’s Israeli’s government funding “provoked considerable public upset” and that the theater has “invited back the UK Jewish Film Festival on the same terms as in previous years with no restrictions on funding from the Embassy of Israel in London.” (As reported by JTA)

2014:“After nearly two years of campaigning, millions of dollars spent and one tropical storm that delayed voting in this easternmost corner of Hawaii for nearly a week, Senator Brian Schatz won the Democratic nomination for his seat today defeating his challenger, Representative Colleen Hanabusa, by fewer than 1,800 votes — less than 1 percent of the total cast -- bringing one of the longest and most acrimonious primary contests in the state’s history to an apparent end.” (As reported Ian Lovett)

2014: “Israeli-American athlete Donald Sanford, the husband of Israeli basketball player Danielle Deke., made some Israeli history todayy when he won a bronze medal in the 400 meter dash in the European Athletics Championships in Zurich, Switzerland – the first running medal for Israel in the history of the championships.” (Times Of Israel)

2014: Even as the cease fire seems to be holding for another day, Israel's Davis Cup tie against Argentina originally scheduled for Tel Aviv next month has been moved to Florida, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) said today.

2014: In Zurich, American-Israeli sprinter Donald Sanford won the bronze medal in the 400 metres sprint at the European Athletic Championships which “he dedicated to the IDF.”

2014: Nate Freimans “61-game errorless streak, the seventh-longest first baseman errorless streak in Oakland history” came to an end today.

2015(30thof Av, 5774): Rosh Chodesh Elul

2015: Tenth anniversary of the Israeli evacuation from Gaza. 

2015: A sixteen year old Palestinian stabbed a border police officer who was “conducting a routine security check…at the Beita Junction.”

2015: The friends, family and fans of Gaylen Ross “American actress, writer, producer and director” who produced the awarded “Killing Kasztner” are scheduled to join in celebrating a “milestone birthday.”

(For more see Gaylen Ross’s award winning documentary “Killing Kasztner: The Jew Who Dealt With Nazis” http://www.killingkasztner.com/

2015: One hundred thirtieth anniversary of the birth of Edna Ferber.

https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/553273/abramsonanne.pdf?sequence=1

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/ferber.html

http://www.biography.com/people/edna-ferber-9293049

2015: The 2015 MoCCA Arts Festival Awards of Excellence Exhibit featuring the works of Israeli illustrator Keren Katz is scheduled to come to an end today.

2015: “A Decade Later, Many Israelis see Gaza Pullout as a big Mistake” published today described the reaction to a move that was supposed to put end to violence in Gaza which was attributed to the presence of Jewish settlements.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/a-decade-later-israelis-see-gaza-pullout-as-big-mistake/2015/08/14/21c06518-3480-11e5-b835-61ddaa99c73e_story.html

2015: The Havdalah Bike Ride, a six mile event is scheduled to depart from the park across from the Historic 6th& I Synagogue this evening followed by a community Havdalah service.

2015: At the Concordia Library in Oregon, Jeannie Opdyke Smith is scheduled to speak about her mother, the late Irene Opdyke who was a brave and inspiring figure who received international recognition for her life-saving actions during the Holocaust when working for a high ranking German official.

2016: “Scapegoat,” a short film by Gal Haklay and Shulamit Tager, won first prize in the original design category at the 13th annual Animation Block Party Awards, Bezalel announced today. (Reported by JTA)

2016: “Hanna’s Journey” is scheduled to be shown as part of The Hampton Synagogue Film Series.

2016: “The Israeli orchestra, conducted by Zubin Mehta, performed today at the National Grand Theater during celebrations of the 109th anniversary of the Lima Philharmonic Society at which Peru’s President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, whose father was a Jewish refugee, conducted Israel’s Philharmonic Orchestra during the playing of the Peruvian national anthem

2016:  On what is a double header for the celebration of women of Jewish letters celebration of the anniversary of the birth of Edna Ferber and the birth of Gaylen Ross.

http://www.grfilmsinc.com/aboutgr.asp

2017 In partnership with Confucius Institute U.S. Center, the Jewish Historical of Greater Washington is scheduled to host a concert featuring Robyn Helzner who “served as Cantor for the United Jewish Congregation of Hong Kong and officiated at the first modern bar mitzvah celebrated in Beijing” followed by a viewing of “the exhibition Jewish Refugees in Shanghai on loan from the Shanghai Jewish Refugee Museum.

2017: “Israeli Mizrahi pop singer-songwriter and composer Moshe Peretz is scheduled to host 31 year old singer and songwriter Nathan Goshen at the Jerusalem Arts and Crafts Fair.

2018: In Jerusalem, Beit Avi Chai is scheduled to host “David” a children’s play about the king and the future mother of Solomon

2018: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to host “a concert with Robyn Helzner to celebrate Jewish culture and history in China through lively stories, photos, video and music.”

2019: At the Chabad Center for Jewish Life in Little Rock, AR, The Upshernish for Binyamin Kramer, the son of Rabbi Yosef and Mushka Kramer is scheduled to take place this evening.

2019: In North Carolina, the Wilmington Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “The Spy Behind Homeplate.”

2019: In Palo Alto, CA, the West Coast Chapter of the ZOA is scheduled to host “Morton A. Klein, National President of the ZOA” who will deliver “a special lecture on Israel and the clear and present danger of anti-Semitism in America.

2019: JW3 is scheduled to host the last two London screenings of “Ask Dr. Ruth.”

http://ukjewishfilm.org/film/ask-dr-ruth/




This Day, August 16, In Jewish History by Mitchell and Deb Levin

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August 16

1027:  The King of Georgia, Giorgi I, passed away. Jews were among the subjects of this monarch who ruled over a country situated in the Caucuses, on the eastern edge of the Black Sea.  Leonti Mroveli, an eleventh century chronicler of Georgian history, offers various dates for the arrival of the Jews including the period after the destruction of the First Temple or after the destruction of the Second Temple.  Other sources claim that the first Jews arrived during the time of Alexander the Great or during the Sixth Century of the Common Era when they were fleeing persecution of the Byzantines.  No matter which source you choose to believe, The Jews were there when King George died and remain there to this day.

1284: A year before he began his reign as King of France, Philip IV, who expelled the Jews from his realm to avoid paying his debts began his reign as King of Navarre and Count of Champagne.

1419: Wenceslaus IV, the Emperor who failed to continue the Imperial protection of the Jews of Luxembourg which led to their expulsion in 1391 passed away today.

1458: Coronation of Ferdinand I of Naples, who provided a refuge for Jews expelled from Spain.

1486: Twenty men and five women were burned after being sentenced at an auto-de-fe in Toledo on the charge of Judaizing. Among them were Dr. Alonso Cota and many other notables of the town. They were marched through town being humiliated wearing the dreadful san benito, with their hands tied to their neck behind their backs.

1648(28thof Av, 5408): Rabbi Joshua Höschel ben Joseph passed away in Cracow.  Born at Vilnius in 1578, he studied both the Kabbalah and the Talmud.  He wrote Maginne Shelomoh and She'elot u-Teshubot Pene Yehoshua'

1532: John Frederick I began his reign as Elector of Saxony during which, four years later in August of 1536, in response to the teaching of Martin Luther “issued a mandate that prohibited Jews from inhabiting, engaging in business in, or passing through his realm.”

1599(25thof Av, 5359): Isaiah Menahem Ben Isaac passed away today while serving in the rabbinate in Cracow.

1664: Sixty-five year old Christian Hebrew language student and author Johannes Buxtorf the Younger who “employed Abraham Braunschweig to purchase Hebrew books for him and for many years corresponded with the scholarly Jacob Roman of Constantinople regarding the acquisition of Hebrew manuscripts and rare printed works” passed away today.

1648(28thof Av, 5408): Rabbi Joshua Höschel ben Joseph, a student of Rabbi Samuel ben Phoebus of Cracow and  Rabbi Joshua Falk whose students included Rav Shabbatai HaKohen, passed away today.

1675: Ukrainian leader Bogdan Chemlnicki (with the blood of over 300,000 Jews on his hands) died.

1724: In London, Bavarian immigrants Yehezkel (Ezekiel) and Judah Hirsh gave birth to their son Aaron Hart. The family changed their name from Hirsh to its English version, Hart.  Hart would go on to become a successful businessman and “is considered the father of Canadian Jewry.”

1772: Israel Abbady was appointed Chazan in Barbados – a position he held until 1794 when he was replaced by David Sarfaty De Pien

1776(1stof Elul, 5536): Rosh Chodesh Elul; for the first time the shofar is sounded in the newly independent United States of America.

1799(15thof Av, 5559): Tu B’Av

1799: “The Prague Jew Pzřibram bought a house in the village of Hanichen (Hanychov) from Joseph Porsche but was ordered by Count of Clam-Gallasto sell it within a year to a gentile.”

1807: During the “Gunboat Wars” which helped lead to the “complete emancipation of the Danish Jews, the British began the bombardment of Copenhagen.

1807: Today, under the chairmanship of Samuel Marx, the Jewish community of Trier held a celebration in honor of Napoleon

1834: In Amsterdam, Joseph Barend Stokvis, Jr., a Jewish physician and obstetrician and his wife gave birth to Barend Joseph Stokvis a physician and professor of physiology and pharmacology at the University of Amsterdam who was the husband Julia Elisabeth Wertheim and a leader of the Dutch Jewish community.

1837: Birthdate of German native Joseph Cahn, the “husband of Miriam Cahn” and the father of Bertram, Army, Stella and Morton Cahn.

1840: During the Damascus Affair, in a move supporting the Jewish prisoners, the British led European powers issued a stern warning to the Egyptian Khedive that he should move his forces away from the Turkish frontier.

1842: In Canterbury, England, Fanny Nathan and Joel Abrahams gave birth to Fanny Abrahams.

1842: Birthdate of Jakob Rosanes, the native of Brody who gained fame as a mathematician and chess master.

1845: In Bonnevoie, Luxembourg, Miriam Rose (Lévy) and Isaïe Lippman, the manager of the family glove-making business gave birth to Gabriel Lippman, French physicist who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1908.

https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1908/lippmann-bio.html

1845: In what might have been the first mention of potato blight in the British Isles, today Gardeners' Chronicle and Horticultural Gazette reported "a blight of unusual character" in the Isle of Wight the home of the Isle of Wight Jewish Society

1847: A day after she had passed away, 71year old Grace (nee Da Costa) Cohen, the widow of Judah Cohen was buried today in the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.

1848: William Flatau married Rebecca Meseena today.

1849: Birthdate of Sibylle Riqueti de Mirabeau, the French anti-Semite and “anti-Dreyfusard” who wrote under the pseudonym of GYP.  While testifying in a court case she “gave her profession as ‘anti-Semite’ rather than ‘writer.’”

1851: In Buffalo, VA, Robert and Anna Harvey gave birth to William Hope "Coin" Harvey the populist leader who wrote the anti-Semitic Tale of Two Nations, “the story of a wealthy London banker, Baron Rothe, who engineers a plot to keep the United States from ever using a silver as currency.”

1852: In reporting on the clash between Sir Robert Peel and Benjamin Disraeli over the issue of Free Trade "Items of Foreign News" column published today quotes the following disparaging remarks that appeared in The Morning Chronicle. "When Mr. Disraeli attempts to trade on the policy of Sir Robert Peel, it will be difficult to refrain from challenging him in the words of the Hebrew prophet, 'Hast thou killed and also taken possession.'"  [Editor's Note: the quote is from 1 Kings 21:19]

1858: In Konigsberg, Prussia, Michaelis Spicker and Flora Rosenthal gave birth to Max Spicker the pianists and conductor who came to the United States in 1883 where he eventually became the “Musical Director at Temple Emanu-El in New York City.

https://www.milkenarchive.org/artists/view/max-spicker/

1859(16thof Av, 5619): Loeb Bendel, the son of Henry and Mary Anker Bendel passed away today after which he was buried in Beth Emeth Cemetery in Loudonville, NY.

1859: In London, birthdate of “communal worker” Ernest Louis Franklin

1860: David Wemyss Jobson was found guilty of libeling the character of Sir James Furgurson in the London Central Criminal Court today.  Among the many prominent witnesses to appear was Benjamin Disraeli. When asked by the Defendant “Are you a Jew now or not?”  Mr. Disraeli repIied, “I am what I always was -- a Christian.” This is an interesting answer since Disraeli was actually born a Jew.  Was he being disingenuous or was he taking poet license in writing his own biography.

1861: Jacob Miller, who would be killed at South Mountain in 1862 began serving in Company A of the 45th Regiment.

1862: The Chicago Tribune published a tribute to the Jews of Chicago.

1864: Two days after he had passed away, sixty-one year old John Levy, the son of David Levy and Hannah Solomons was buried today the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”

1868(28th of Av, 5628): Fifty-five year old Ruben Joseph Wunderbar the author who succeeded Max Lilienthal as principal the Jewish school at Riga passed away today in his hometown of Mitau.

1872: Birthdate of Maurice Fishberg, the native of the Ukraine who came to the United States in 1890, and earned his medical degree from New York University in 1895 after which he married Bertha Fishsberg with whom he had two children – Dr. Arthur Maurice Fishberg and Dr. Harriet Fishberg – and became “a professor of clinical medicine of the University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College.”

1873: Lipman “Lip” Pike, one of the first Jewish major league baseball players, “raced a fast trotting horse named Clarence in a 100-yard sprint at Baltimore's Newington Park, and won by four yards with a time of 10 seconds flat, earning $250 ($4,570 today).”

1873: It was reported today that the Governor of New York has offered a $500 reward for the apprehension of Emil Lowenstein who allegedly murder John Weston in Albany, NY.  Mrs. Weston has already been arrested for her role in the killing.  Lowenstein, a German Jewish barber’s assistant, is thought to be headed for an unnamed “Western city.”

1875: It was reported today that of the 57,200 children attending primary schools in Algeria, 5,646 “are native Jews.’

1875: In Prague, Moritz Moses Piesen and Rosalia Piesen gave birth to Hugo Peisen the husband of Annie Piesen and treasurer of the Brooklyn Federation of Jewish Federation.

1875: It was reported today that 40 year old Joseph Samuels and 15 year old Sallie Mossheim were arrested in New Jersey. This tangled tale of two Jews includes a married man (Samuels) and the daughter of a successful businessman, who fell in love and ran off together.  The case is complicated by the fact that Sallie’s father reported that $500 was missing from his safe and this same amount was found in his daughter’s possession.

1878: Birthdate of Adolph Lebovitz, the husband of Charlotte “Sadie” Lebovitz and broth of “Molly and Dora Lebovitz.”

1880: Sir Saul Samuel completed his second term as a Member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales

1880: “Hebrew Poetry” published today provided a detailed review of The Historical Poetry of the Ancient Hebrews, a two volume work by Michael Heilprin.

1880: Based on information that originally appeared the Journal de St. Petersburg it was reported today that Jews account for 0.22 of the illegitimate births in the European portion of the Russian Empire

1881: It was reported today that Count Kutisoff, who is investigating the causes of the anti-Jewish riots met with a deputation of Jews from Kharkoff.  The Jews told him that the causes were not just economic.  The count said that the government was determined to stop the violence.  He said that they needed “to regulate the abnormal conditions” in the Western provinces where “the Jews outnumber the Christians and monopolize trade.”  (The Western provinces included the Pale of Settlement and it is inconceivable that the Russian leader did not know that there were so many Jews there because that is where the government had confined them)

1882(1stof Elul, 5642): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1882: It was reported today that the speech by Congressman Cox on the persecution of Russian Jews that appears in the Congressional Record was in fact never given since Congress had already adjourned. Cox had apparently taken advantage of the time honored practice of entering remarks in the Record that has gone into the 20th century.

1884: In Luxembourg City, “Berta (Durlacher), a housewife and Mortiz Gernsbacher, a wine maker” gave birth to Hugo Gernsbach, “an inventor, author, editor and publisher who has been called the father of modern science fiction.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/08/20/107196605.pdf

1885: Birthdate of Kiev native and New York City “merchant” Jacob Ravinovich.

1885: Beth Hamedresh Hagadol, an Orthodox congregation formed by Polish Jews 30 years ago, dedicated its new sanctuary on Norfolk Street this afternoon. Rabbi Abraham Ash, the spiritual leader of the congregation, was the driving force behind the project.

1885: The Associate Members’ Literary Society of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association held a Grant-Montefiore Memorial Meeting this evening in New York City. G.A. Ettinger delivered a speech in which compared both of these saying that although one was a man of war and the other a man of peace, “they were alike in one respect, that both labored for the emancipation of the human race.”

1886: Based on information that first appeared in the Warsaw Courier two Polish peasants have been sentenced to six months in prison after having been found of disinterring  two Jewish corpses, cutting off their hands and then grinding them into “little morsels for…medicinal purposes.”

1886: “Last of the Roman Ghetto” published today reported that within the next couple of weeks the Jew’s quarter of Rome, “a picturesque piece of antiquity” will disappear.  The reporter of the Pall Mall Gazette (a British publication) described the ghetto as a place where “the Jews had made themselves…a sort of second fatherland” where they could observe “their habits and traditions…in a little town” they had all to themselves.

1887: Joseph Froehlich of Davenport, Iowa donated $4.00 to the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

1887: The will of Jonas Heller which was filed for probate today gave $10,000 for the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews on the condition that the Directors erect a prominently placed tablet saying “In Memory of Jonas Heller, Trustee, from______ to ______ Bequeathed Ten Thousand Dollars.”

1888: It was reported today that Levi Davis, a prominent Jewish citizen living in New Brunswick, NJ, has filed a suit seeking $10,000 in damages from Charles Scheede “for ruining his daughter Jennie.” Schweede, who is a partner in the clothing firm of Schweede Brothers denied the charge.

1888: It was reported today that Siegfried Porter, a native of Bohemia who is now an American citizen, testified before Congressman Ford’s Immigration Committee that he was now able to earn seven or eight dollars a week as a cigar maker because of the influx of Russian and Polish Jews.  According to the embittered witness the Jews were willing to work for four or five dollars a week and that they lived in such poor conditions that they were able to save three dollars of that.

1888: Birthdate of T.E. Lawrence, known to history as “Lawrence of Arabia.”  In the popular mind, Lawrence is remembered as a driving force behind Arab nationalism.  However, Lawrence was not anti-Zionist.  In “The Changing East” he wrote of the way in which the Zionist settlers would help improve the economic and social condition of the Arab population.  “In 1919 he drafted a letter for Emir Feisal for a meeting with Felix Frankfurter, a leader of American Zionists. In his letter Feisal wished ‘the Jews a hearty welcome home’ and asserted ‘our two movements complete one another.’ ‘There is room in Syria for both of us’ he concluded.”

1889: Birthdate of Maurice Copisarow, the Russian born Chemist who came to England in 1908 where he received his education and co-authored a paper with fellow chemist Chaim Weizmann.

1889: Birthdate of Chicago native and University of Michigan Law School graduate Sigmund David.

1890(30thof Av, 5650) Rosh Chodesh Elul

1890: Rabbi Gustave Gottheil is scheduled to deliver a sermon today entitled “Who Needs Converting?”

1890(30thof Av, 5650): On Shabbat, New York attorney Montague L. Marks passed away today.

1891: The funeral for Emilie J. Frank, the widow of Joseph Frank, is scheduled to be held at the home of her daughter Mrs. William Rosenberg at 40 West 95thStreet.

1891: As local merchants expressed their indignation over the high-pressure tactics of sales person working for the “Jewish Times” the publishers said that the agent had sent in the ads but that they “were not aware of his making false representations” to obtain them.

1891: “Russian Jew Question” published today described the impact the articles that George Kenan has written on this subject have had including Prime Minister Gladstone urging Continental  to conduct “a full and fair” investigation of the issue.

1892: “Charges Against Edward Pollock” published today described events surrounding Meyer Reinherz’s an agent of the United Hebrew Charities, decision to file a complaint against Edward Pollock for allegedly attacking him while writing stories for Austro-Hungarian newspapers.”

1893: A circular was disturbed today setting forth the rights of the thousands of unemployed Jewish workers and the wrongs done to them and calling for a mass meeting tomorrow at the Walhalla Hall on Orchard Street.

1894(14thof Av, 5654): Just two days before her 74th birthday Elisa “Elka” Hirschfelder Bodenheimer, the daughter of Fradel and Jakob Hirsch Moses Hirschfelder and the wife of Hermann Bodenheimer with whom she had eight children passed away today in Germany

1895: In Massachusetts, the Worcester Hebrew Benevolent Society which had been founded in 1891 received its charge today.

1895:  Birthdate of novelist Albert Cohen.  A native of Greece, Cohen worked for various international organizations located in Switzerland. He became a Swiss citizen after World War I and based some of his fiction on experiences with the League of Nations.  The Greek native, who was a Swiss citizen, wrote in French.

1896: In Lemberg, Austria, “Louis and Ethel (Schaumann) Salpeter gave birth to art dealer and art critic, Harry Salpeter, the husband of Betty Berkowitz.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/11/14/90417644.pdf

https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/harry-salpeter-papers-9052

1896: Birthdate of Buffalo native wood engraving artist Asa Cheffetz.

http://rogallery.com/Cheffetz_Asa/cheffetz-biography.html

https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.3742.html

1896: “Heat and the Babes” published today described various steps being taken to beat the August heat including the decision of the Hebrew Institute to open a free roof garden on the top of its building.

1897: Birthdate of Sir Hersch Lauterpacht the Austro-Hungarian born British Jurist who served as a member of the United Nations Internal Law Commission and a Judge of the International Court of Justice.

1897: In Missouri, Russian born Joseph Lazarus Kranson and Caroline Kranson gave birth to Bernard J. Kranson today.

1898: Children are being removed from the Hebrew Orphan Asylum at 138thStreet and Amsterdam Avenue because of an epidemic of dysentery.

1898: “For Jewish Worshippers” published today described a letter J.E. Bloom, Assistant Adjutant General, Third Brigade, Second Division, Third Army Corps wrote to the President and Executive Committee of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association in New York suggesting that they raise funds to be used to “provide a large tent for holding religious services for Jewish soldiers” attending the re-union at the Chickamauga Battlefield this Fall.

1898: “Great Charity Enterprise” published today described plans for a fundraiser to be sponsored by the Young Men’s Hebrew Charity Association in Chicago.  Half of the funds will go to Michael Reese Hospital and the other half will go to the United Hebrew Charities.

1899: It was reported today that “the leading Jews of Europe are” planning on holding a meeting “in Switzerland in order to form an international association for their defense against the crusade of the anti-Semites and to protect the Jews in France after the Dreyfus court-martial is ended.”

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F70910F6395913738DDDAF0994D0405B8985F0D3

1899: The New York Federation of Zionists met at Cooper Union tonight. “They adopted resolutions against anti-Semitism and for the rejuvenation of Zion.”

1899: “Jews Aid The Dewey Home Fund” published today described the “considerable interest” that the Jews have shown in raising money to buy a home for the Hero of Manila Bay.  “At least one-fourth of the names making up the list of contributors so far are Jews.”

1899: In South Africa, President Kruger “has issued a brochure supporting his proposal regarding the removal of religious disabilities” which would the discrimination against the Jews by the Protestant dominated government.

1899: Julius P. Witmark, J.W. Bratton, Sager Midgley, J. Leslie Gossing, J.J. Raffael, Miss Alic Magil, Smith O’Brien, Miss Grace L. Weir and Fred Rycroff proved the entertainment tonight at the Arverne Hotel Casino where a fund-raiser was held for the benefit of the Hebrew Infant Asylum.

1899(10th of Elul, 5659): Abraham Cohen Labatt, native of Charleston, SC who founded several Reform Congregations from South Carolina to Louisiana to California to Texas passed away in Galveston.

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fla72

1900: The Fourth Zionist Congress comes to an end in London.

1902: In Dvinks Latvia, Mendel and Sarah (Einhorn) Siegel.to philosopher, educator, founder of Aesthetic Realism Eli Siegel

https://aestheticrealism.org/about-us/eli-siegel-founder/

1902:  Several thousand persons greeted Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, at Mountain Lake Park, Maryland where he delivered an address before the Chautauqua Assembly on "Labor and Capital -- the Workman's Side of the Story."

1903(23rdof Av, 5663): Seventy-one year old Moses Polock “a well-known and somewhat eccentric antiquarian bookseller” who was the maternal uncle of Abraham Simon Wolf Rosenbach as well as mentor passed away today.

1903: In Newark, NJ, The Young Ladies’ Zionist Society hosted an ice cream festival this evening at Foresters’ Hall where several “well-known Zionists” addressed the attendees.

1903: Herzl stopped in Vilna where a tremendous ovation is awaiting him. Old Reb Shleimele lifted his hands over Herzl and pronounces the Priestly Benediction. After one day of rest in Altaussee, Herzl left for Basle and the Sixth Congress.

1903: In Brooklyn, NY, “the annual ice cream festival of the Shosanath Zion was held” today “at the Arion Hall.”

1906: In Philadelphia, “disturbances occurred between Jewish strikers and the non-Jewish workingmen” who had been hired to replace them.

1905(15thof Av, 5665): Tu B’Av

1907: “Reminiscences of the Breslau Seminary: Leyser Lazarus” appeared today in “Jewish Comment.”

1909: La Divorziata, the Italian version of Die geschiedene Frau (The Divorcée), “an operetta in three acts by Leo Fall with a libretto by Victor Léon” opened today “at the Teatro Lirico Internationale in Milan.”

1909 (29th Av): Rabbi Samuel “Shmuel” Salant Chief Ashkenazic Rabbi of Jerusalem, who was a leading Talmudist and a friend of Moses Montefiore passed away and was buried on the Mount of Olives.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9D04E3D6173EE733A25754C1A96E9C946897D6CF

1911: Rabbis David de Sola Pool and H.Z. Masliansky and laymen Louis Lipsky and Reuben Brainin were among those who spoke at “a mass meeting at the Educational Alliance” marking the opening of the Tenth Congress of the Federation of American Zionists.

1912(3rdof Elul, 5672): Seventy year old Elias Landauer who with “his spouse, Bertha Bodenheimer Landauer, immigrated from Germany in 1866 settled in Harrisonburg, Louisiana where he operated a retail supply business for 22 years before coming to New Orleans and opening Landauer & Meyer, a wholesale hat store” passed away today.

1913: “Potash and Perlmutter” a British comedy “featuring the characters Abe Potash and Mawruss Perlmutter, who are business partners in the garment industry” opened today in New York at the George M. Cohan Theatre.

1913: In “Brest, a town called Brest-Litovsk, then part of the Russian Empire, but today Belarus” Zeev and Hassia Biegun” gave birth to Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.  The life of Menachem Begin is too colorful and controversial to be covered in this brief guide.  His life became one of many contradictions.  Consider that this political heir to Jabotinsky, the man who waged violent war against the British in the last years of the Mandate was the man who signed the peace accord with Sadat.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/begin.html

http://www.biography.com/people/menachem-begin-37331

1914: As WW I expanded, the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) which would later include Dr. Michael Adler as the first Jewish chaplain to serve with the British Army overseas, landed in France today

1915: It was reported today that Louis D. Brandeis and Nathan Straus will address the upcoming national meeting of Jews to be held at Cooper Union.

1915: Among those who were reported today to have addressed the mass meeting aimed at raising money for Jews in the war zone were Dr. M.S. Margolies, President of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of New York, Dr. Moses Hyamson the rabbi of Congregation Orach Cahim in New York and Rabbi Aaron Tietelbaum of Jerusalem.

1915: A lynch mob from Marietta, GA arrived at the prison in Milledgeville.  After cutting the telephone wire emptying the gas from the prison’s automobiles and handcuffing the warden, they seized Leo Frank and drove away from the prison.

1916: Today, DePauw University graduate and University of Chicago trained attorney Benjamin Blumberg the son of Max and Theresa Blumberg who served as an officer realty and investment companies while being a member of Temple Israel and the Temple Israel Men’s Cub married Fannie Louise Burgheim,

1916: Neutral Romania continued its negotiations with the Entente Powers, as the Allies try to get her to declare war on the Central Powers – a move that could have profound effect on the suffering Jewish population of that eastern European nation.

1917: Two after she was killed in air raid along with her husband during WW I, Leah Cohen, the wife of John Cohen was buried at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.

1917: Two days after he was killed in an air raid along with his wife, 54 year old John Cohen was buried at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.

1917: The State Department instructed Ira Nelson Morris, the American Minister to Sweden “to forward $25,000 for the continuation of soup kitchens and relief of Jews in Turkey.”

1917: In the East New York section of Brooklyn Benjamin and Bertha Taubman gave birth to “Dorothy Taubman, who developed a method to help pianists strengthen their techniques and avoid repetitive strain injuries.” (As reported by Vivien Schweitzer)

1918(8th of Elul, 5678): Sixty-eight year old Dr. Adolf Rosenzweig, the rabbi at the New Synagogue (Neue Synagoge) in Oranienburger Straße, Berlin passed away today and was buried under a gravestone on which was written "The law of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips" (Malachi 2:6).

1918: It was reported today Joseph Duveen, “a well-known member of the Anglo-Jewish Community” has offered to provide the funds for a National Gallery for modern foreign art that had been planned for by a committee chaired by Lord Curzon in 1915.

1919: “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is distributed in Germany and the United States.

1920: Morris Abrams, “an from Russia who ran a successful company that produced machinery and factory tools” and the former Freda Sugarman gave birth to Dr. Herbert Leroy Abrams “a radiologist at Stanford and Harvard universities and a founder of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 for its work in publicizing the health consequences of atomic warfare.” (As reported by William Grimes)

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/science/herbert-abrams-worked-against-nuclear-war.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

1921: In London, The Times published the first in a series of articles by it “Constantinople Correspondent” that “incontrovertibly demonstrated that ‘The Protocols’ consist in the main of ‘clumsy plagiarisms’ from a French political pamphlet directed against Napoleon III and published in Brussels in 1865 by a French Lawyer named Maurice Joly and entitled ‘Dialogues in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu.’”

1922: Birthdate of Herbert Vogel, the New York born postal clerk, who, along with his wife, became “fabled art collectors. (As reported by Douglas Marin)

1922: “Theatrical release of ‘Up and at ‘Em’” a silent film which “marks the first Hollywood screenplay” by Lewis Mileston.”

1923: Rabbi Meir Shapiro “introduced his idea” of “a daily regimen” of studying the Babylonian Talmud “one day at a time in a cycle of seven and a half years” “at the First World Congress of the World Agudath Israel in Vienna” today.

1923: Birthdate of Shimon Peres, Zionist leader who would hold numerous positions including President of the Jewish state.  There are as many views of Peres as there are candles on his birthday cake.

1925: The Palestine Foundation Fund reported that it had spent $8,646,750 in the economic rebuilding of Palestine during its four years of existence, just concluded. More than 60 per cent of this sum has come from American Jews, according to the statement, the balance being collected from fifty-two other countries. $2,570,785 was expended on farming enterprises and $1,624,695 for Hebrew education. Samuel Untermeyer is President of the American branch of the fund.

1926: Sephardic and Oriental Jews at a Zionist conference in Vienna had their delegates gather for the purpose of furthering Zionist interests among their peoples. 

1927(18thof Av, 5687): Forty-eight year old Jennie Weiner passed away today after which she was buried at the Waldheim Jewish Cemetery in Cook County, Illinois.

1927(18thof Av, 5687): Seventy-five year old Leopold Pick, the husband of Betty Pick passed away today.

1929: In Amsterdam, neurologist “Herman H. DeJong” and psychologist “Marianna (Witteboon) De Jong whose “Jewish roots made them targets of the Nazis” gave birth to Evelyn Yvonne DeJong who gained fame as corporate gadfly Evelyn Y. Davis. (As reported by Emily Flitter)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/07/business/evelyn-davis-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries
1929: Although warned by the Zionist Executive that the Arabs were preparing to attack the Jews of Jerusalem in massive riots, High Commissioner Sir John Chancellor refused to cut his vacation short, declaring that relations between the sides were improving. After Friday prayers on the day after the ninth of Av, two thousand Arabs attacked Jews praying at the Western Wall. One Jewish youth was stabbed in the back. The British Government refused to condemn the attack leading the Arabs again to believe that the British supported their riots.


1930: “Dreyfus” or “The Dreyfus Case,”as would be known when released in the United States, based on a novel about the French officer directed by Richard Oswald and starring Fritz Kornter in the title role was released today in the Weimar Republic (Germany)/

1930(22ndof Av, 5690): Gustave Frohman who along with his brothers Charles and Daniel worked together as theatrical producers and advanced men passed away.

http://www.jta.org/1930/08/19/archive/gustave-frohman-eminent-theatrical-figure-dead

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2206&dat=19300817&id=dywuAAAAIBAJ&sjid=JNUFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1694,1477853

1931: Birthdate of “piano prodigy” Michael “Mickey” Leonard the native of Rockville Center, NY who became a leading composer and arranger. (As reported by Daniel L. Slotnik)

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/arts/music/michael-leonard-whose-songs-from-failed-musicals-endured-dies-at-84.html

http://www.playbill.com/article/michael-leonard-broadway-composer-dead-at-84-com-371319

1932: In Washington, DC, “Marceline Gray and George Jackson Eder, a lawyer and economist who for a time worked in the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt” gave birth to Richard Gray Eder the New York Times foreign correspondent who “won a Pulitzer Prize for his book reviews in The Los Angeles Times.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/22/business/media/richard-eder-arts-critic-and-foreign-correspondent-dies-at-82.html?_r=0

1933: Following a baseball game in Toronto, six hours of violence broke out between Harbord Playground, which was predominantly Jewish, and St. Peter's, a baseball team sponsored by a church at Bathurst and Bloor that became known as the Christie Pitts Riot.

1933: In New York, more than seventy thousand workers joined a strike called by the ILGWU under the leadership of David Dubinsky

1933: Three hundred Polish Jews including a group of 140 chalutzim leave for Palestine.

1933: Local authorities in East Prussia inform Jews that they must call for their mail because Nazi postmen will be humiliated in delivering mail to Jews.

1934: Birthdate of Dr. Daniel Norman Stern “a psychiatrist who increased the understanding of early human development by scrutinizing the most minute interactions between mothers and babies” (As reported by Douglas Martin)

1936: The 1936 Olympics came to an end in Berlin.  Calls for boycotting the Hitler Olympics fell on deaf ears.

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005680

http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/olympics/detail.php?content=jewish_athletes_more&lang=en

1936: The New York Times published a lengthy review of Jewish Studies in Memory of George A. Kohut, 1874-1933, edited by Salo W. Baron and Alexander Marx.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0F16F63C59167B93C4A81783D85F428385F9

1936(28th of Av, 5696): An eight year old Jewish boy “was killed and nineteen Jews were injured by the explosion of a bomb thrown by an Arab from a train window into one of the principal streets of Tel Aviv today as the train was passing the city en route to Jaffa.” In the last three days ten Jews – 7 adults and 3 children – have been killed in Safed, Haifa and on the highway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.  Authorities fear that this latest in a series of attacks that began four months ago will finally provoke the Jewish population into acts of violence aimed at their attackers. 

1936(28thof Av, 5696): “Julius Vagshall, an employee of the Palestine Electric Company was shot by assailants from the darkness near Mikveh Israel” and two others were wounded in what was the climax to a night of terror in which at least twenty people were wounded including British constable.

1936: “Saar Now Shares Reich Hardships” published today described the deteriorating conditions of the territory seized by the Germans 18 months ago including a scarcity of capital for investment that “has been greatly intensified by the emigration of approximately 5, 000 Jew…who under the Rome protocol were allowed to take all of their property with them…”

1936: In Cleveland, Ohio, between 25,000 and 30,000 followers of Father Charles E. Coughlin heard him this afternoon in Municipal Stadium describe “his disillusionment in President Roosevelt” and “challenge the Jews of America to accept the doctrine of Christian brotherhood…”

1936: According to the Palcor Agency, the Palestine Government “was accused of negligence in the protection of Jews from Arab violence.”

1936: “The World Jewish Congress decided tonight to incorporate as a permanent organization in Switzerland” with offices in Geneva, Paris and New York that should be financed by the $75,000 that will be raised in 1937.

1936: “A Yiddish Novel” published today provided a review of Noah Pandrewritten by Salman Schneour and translated by Joseph Leftwich.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9C07E4D8173DE33BBC4E52DFBE66838D629EDE

1936: “Studies in Memory of George Kohut” published today provided a review of Jewish Studies in Memory of George A. Kohut edited by Salo W. Baron and Alexander Marx

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9405E7D7173DE33BBC4E52DFBE66838D629EDE

1936: It was reported today that “all efforts of Emir Abdullah to mediate between the Palestine Government and the Arabs have been futile” because “none of the older Arab leaders dare accept the British Government’s proposal of a royal commission in the fact of the militant Nationalist youths” who have been attacking Arabs who oppose them.

1936: It was reported today that “a reign of terror is prevailing throughout Palestine” where “Arab leaders, especially Arab police officer are just as exposed to the bullets” of Arab terrorists “as Britons and Jews.”

1936: In “Habimah in Emek,” published today Arthur Settel describes a recent performance of “Jew Suss” in Ain Taun a village in the Valley Of Jezrel on the northern plain of Palestine.

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30716F63C59167B93C4A81783D85F428385F9&scp=1&sq=Habimah+in+Emek&st=p

1937: “Hammer Icons” published today tells the story of Armand and Victor Hammer, “two of the most startling characters in the U.S. art world.

http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,770808,00.html

1937: The 20th World Zionist Congress comes to an end with a resounding vote of support for Dr. Chaim Weizmann who was re-elected as President with only 8 delegates voting against him

1937: Talks are proceeding between Americans of Jewish and of Arab origin with a view to-exploring the possibilities of bringing peace between their peoples in Palestine by applying the American federal principle, it was revealed by Adil Arslan, one of the Arab High Committee's two delegates here.

1938(19thof Av, 5698): Arabs killed three people when they kidnapped a Jewish family today at Atlit.

1938: Andrej Hlinka, a Catholic Priest, a leader of the Slovak National Party and “a symbol of Slovak fascism” passed away.  He opposed the democratic principles of Czechoslovakia and was an admirer of Hitler and Mussolini.  Although he died before the war, he was considered to be the spiritual “godfather” of Slovak nationalism that sent 70,000 Jews to the concentration camps, most of whom perished.

1938: Russian born, British trained Harry Mordecai Freedman began serving as the “rabbi of the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation at South Harra.”

1939: More than 600 Zionists from all parts of the world attend the twenty-first World Zionist Congress, which opens in Geneva today. The congress will last thirteen days.

1939: Birthdate of American banjo player Eric Weissberg best known for “Dueling Banjos” which provided the musical background for “Deliverance.”

1939(1st of Elul, 5699): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1940: “Foreign Correspondent” a spy film produced by Walter Wanger, with music by Alfred Newman and filmed by cinematographer Rudolph Maté was released in the United States today.

1940: The Vichy (France) government prohibited aliens from practicing as physicians, dentists or pharmacists.  This destroyed the livelihood for numerous Jews who had fled to France before the war and/or were not living in Vichy at the time of the French surrender to the Nazis.  The Jews living in Vichy France would learn that anti-Semitism was part and parcel of the Petain government.

1940: Today the building at 770 Eastern Parkway in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York was purchased by Agudas Chassidei Chabad (the Chabad-Lubavitch community) to house the living quarters, study and office, Yeshivah, and synagogue of the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn who had arrived in New York (following his rescue from Nazi-occupied Warsaw) five months earlier [It would later serve as the headquarters of his son-in-law and successor, the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, and become the vortex of Chabad-Lubavitch's global network of institutions of Jewish education and outreach.]

1941(16thof Av, 5701): Parashat Eikev

1941: Birthdate of Brooklyn native Vivian Hoffman who gained famed as Vivian Stromberg a champion of women’s rights around the world and founder of Madre.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/06/us/vivian-stromberg-who-worked-to-aid-women-dies-at-74.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

1942: In the Warsaw Ghetto at today’s selection only two members of Władysław Szpilman’s family “were passed as fit to work” while “the rest of the family was taken to the Umschlagplatz.

1942: Tonight, all the members of Władysław Szpilman’s family were shipped from Warsaw to Treblinka where they were murdered. 

1943:  Nazi troops enter the Jewish ghetto at Bialystok, Poland and over the next four days destroy the more than 30,000 Jews inside. Hundreds of Resistance fighters, led by Mordechai Tenenbaum-Tamaroff and Daniel Moszkowicz--who battle back with small arms, axes, and bayonets--are annihilated. Those who survive are transported to death camps, where 25,000 are killed

1943: Inmates revolt at the slave-labor camp at Krychów, Poland.

1943: During World War II, the keel for the SS Oscar Strauss was laid today.

1943: Maurice H. Rindskopf was among the officers serving on ehe USS Drum, an American submarine as she left Brisbane on her seventh war patrol

1943: The Spanish government stated that they would allow more repatriated Jews to come to Spain, "only if those in Spain already left." The obvious lack of sentiment on the part of Spain was apparent to the Joint Distribution Committee, which went ahead and placed a "priority" on emigration of "these so-called Sephardics." The Jews who did make it to Spain were not in any way treated like citizens.

 1944: A train arrived at Birkenau from Athens with 1,651 Jews from Rhodes and 94 from Kos. Upon arrival and then separation, Sidney Fahn would see his wife and young child for the last time. Only 151 of these Jews would survive.

1945: In Chicago, Illinois, Eleanor (née Pottasch) and Elmer Balaban, who owned several movie theatres and later was a pioneer in cable television gave birth to Robert Elmer “Bob” Balaban the “actor, author, producer and director who gave one of his most memorable roles in “The Monuments Men” as Private Preston Savitz.

1945: Today, “President Truman called…for the free and open settlement of Palestine by Jews to the point consistent with the maintenance of civil peace.”  For the first time he revealed that that U.S. government has informed the British who are attending the Big Three’s Berlin Conference. (The Big Three were the U.S., U.K. and U.S.S.R.)

1945: Former Iowa Senator Guy Gillette who is President of the American League for a Free Palestine expressed his “disappointment at the inconclusive nature of the American position” about Jewish settlement “as outlined by” President Truman today.  According to Gillette, millions of displaced persons have been returned to their homes.  Yet, the Jews, who suffered the most, have been denied a clear solution to their plight.  The League of Nations had already had already designated that Palestine should be a free and independent nation.  According to Gillette, Palestine “is the historic national territory of the Hebrew people and their right to enter it should no longer be challenged.

1945: “Dr. Abba Hillel Silver of Cleveland, Ohio and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise of New York were elected member of the executive board of the Jewish Agency for Palestine by the general council of the World Zion Conference today in London, UK.”

1946: In New York City, “Margot (née Verblow), a singer, and William Warren, a real estate agent whose original surname was "Warrenoff" gave birth to act Academy Award nominated actress Lesley Ann Warren.

1948: Birthdate of Patrick Balkany, the native of Neuilly-sur-Seine, who is a member of the National Assembly of France

1948(11th of Av, 5708): Sixty-seven year old “Yiddish dramatist and novelist Peretz Hirschbein” lost his three year battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s Disease), and passed away today in Los Angeles

http://digifindingaids.cjh.org/?pID=1358887

http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Hirshbeyn_Perets

1948(11th of Av, 5708):  Fifty-five year old Harry Dexter White passed away today after having answered accusations before HUAC that he was a communist and a traitor.

http://spartacus-educational.com/Harry_Dexter_White.htm

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2000/wp00149.pdf

1948: Three months after the establishment of the State of Israel, an agreement was signed between the Bank Leumi and the temporary Government. The official charter appointing the Bank as the Government's financial agent was signed by Hoofien and the Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. On that very day, the official bank notes of the new state, bearing the name of the Anglo-Palestine Bank and the signatures of Hoofien and Barth, were distributed. The Israeli pound becomes legal tender.

1949: Herzl's remains are transferred to Jerusalem and reburied on Mount Herzl.

1949: Netiv HaLamed-Heh ( נְתִיב הַל"ה‎‎,  Path of the 35) a kibbutz in central Israel located in the Valley of Elah, was established today by demobilized members of the Daled Company of the Palmach's Harel Brigade. It was initially named Peled (an acronym for Plugot Daled, lit. Daled Company) It was later renamed after the 35 Haganah soldiers killed in a convoy to resupply the Gush Etzion kibbutzim during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine (Lamed-Heh is 35 in Hebrew numerals).

1950: “No Way Out” a film noir directed by Joseph L. Mankeiwicz with music by Alfred Newman was released in the United States today by 20th Century Fox.

1951: “The Guy Who Came Back” featuring Zero Mostel was released in the United States today by 20th Century Fox.

1956(9thof Elul, 5716): A squad of Fedayeen attacked Egged Bus 391 traveling from Tel-Aviv to Eilat murdering three soldiers and a female civilian passenger and wounding an additional three civilian passengers. (Editor’s Note – Fedayeen was the 1950’s name for the terrorists.  The names have changed over the decades but the deadly attacks remain the same.)

1959(12th of Av, 5719): Harpsichordist and composer Wanda Landowska, who was credited with the 20th-century revival of harpsichord music passed away.

http://jwa.org/thisweek/aug/16/1959/wanda-landowska

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1959/08/17/80543937.pdf

1960: Cyprus gains its independence from the United Kingdom (Great Britain).  Jews have lived on the island of Cyprus since the days of the ancient Greeks.  In modern times, Cyprus provided a haven for Jews trying to escape from Hitler’s Europe.  After the war, the British set up internment camps on the island where they detained Jews trying to run the blockade and reach pre-Israel Palestine.  Israel established diplomatic relations with Cyprus and the Israeli embassy served as focal point for the small Cypriot Jewish community. 

1961: Frank Robinson hit a homer off of Larry Sherry as the Jewish pitcher and the Dodgers came out on the short end of game with the Reds losing 6 to 0.

1965(18th of Av, 5725): Eighty-four year old Russian born NYU Law School graduate Harry Handler, “the principal of the Stone Avenue Talmud Torah in Brooklyn” for 39 years and the husband of “the former Esther Liskowsky” passed away today while “visiting his son Dr. Archie Handler.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1965/08/18/101562176.pdf

1965: David Katz, “the founder of the Queens Symphony Orchestra” and Jeanne Dale Katz, the founder of “the Queens Council of on the Arts gave birth to St. John’s University School of Law trained attorney Melinda R. Katz, the former New York City Councilwoman who went on to serve as the Queens Borough President.

1966: Simon and Garfunkel record “the 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy” as the 6th cut on side one of “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.”

1969(2ndof Elul, 5729): Parashat Shoftim

1969(2ndof Elul, 5729): Portrait painter Henry R. Rittenberg, the 1929 winner of the Thomas R. Proctor portrait prize at the National Academy of Design and husband of Rachel Rittenberg whose best known work may be his paint of “President Harry S. Truman in a group at the Potsdam Conference in 1945” passed away today.

1971(25thof Av, 5731): Seventy-six year old Edward Anthony, the former director of public relations during Herbert Hoover’s successful presidential campaign and magazine editor passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/08/18/archives/edward-anthony-writer-dies-former-colherspublisher-76-also-headed.html

1972: “Two British girls, unaware that the gramophone given them by 2 Arab acquaintances in Rome was booby trapped” carried it on board an El Al Flight bound for Lod” where it exploded in the luggage compartment causing “slight damage.” (Jewish Virtual Library)

1973(18th of Av, 5733): Selman Waksman, Ukrainian-born American biochemist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine passed away.

http://www.jewoftheweek.net/?s=Selman+Abraham+Waksman+&submit=Search

1976: In Washington, the national convention of Hadassah continued for a second day.

1978: Pitcher Ross Baumgarten makes his major league debut with the White Sox.

1978: In Moscow, the government continued its “anti-Zionist trials” today with Alexander Podrabinek as the prisoner in the dock.

1984: Hadassah leader Bernice S. Tannenbaum brought “a five-member delegation” to the White House where they “met with President Ronald Reagan for 40 minutes over tea, coffee and cookies, to lobby against the resolution linking Zionism and racism.” Reagan agreed “to publicly repudiate” “the United Nations resolution defining Zionism as a ‘form of racism and racial discrimination’” and “that the U.S. delegation would walk out of” the U.N. Conference at Nairobi “if the Zionism-equals-racism resolution was included in the final conference declaration.”

1985: Lieutenant General Sidney T. Weinstein, one of the highest ranking Jewish soldiers at that time, began serving “as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Headquarters Department of the Army

1985: Birthdate of Bensiyon Songavkar, the Indian born Jewish professional cricketer.

1988(3rd of Elul, 5748): Auckland City Councillor Harold Goodman, the husband of Dame Barbara Goodman, passed away. 

1988: Ed Koch, the Jewish Mayor of New York City says he plans to wipe out street-corner windshield washers

1988: The New York Times included reviews of Confessions of a Good Arab by Yoram Kaniuk, translated by Dalya Bilu and The Road to Ein Harod by Amos Kenan, translated by Anselm Hollo.

1989: 15th of Av, 5749): Tu B’Av

1989: Today, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a telegram to Israeli security forces warning that Hezbollah terrorists were on their way to Brazil “in order commit attacks on diplomatic representatives of Israel.”

1991(6thof Elul, 5751): Sixty-six year old “Dr. Gerson D. Cohen, chancellor emeritus of the Jewish Theological Seminary” and the husband of scholar Naomi Choen passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/19/nyregion/gerson-d-cohen-is-dead-at-66-ex-chancellor-of-jewish-seminary.html

1992: In Buenos Aires, Ricardo and Silvana Schwartzman gave birth to Tennis Champion Diego Schwartzman known as “El Peque.”

http://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/diego-schwartzman-into-world-top-20-after-winning-rio-open/

1993: The two men who kidnapped Harvey Weinstein, a formalwear manufacturer and chairman of Lord West Formal Wear are arrested in New York when the go to pick up the ransom.  Weinstein survives and lives to the ripe old age of 82. 1993(29th of Av, 5753): Eighty-eight year old grand prix driver Rene Dreyfus passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/19/obituaries/rene-dreyfus-auto-racer-88.html

1994: The first ever Papal Nuncio to Israel presented his credentials in Jerusalem

1994(9th of Elul, 5754): Seventy-two year old Pennsylvania born WW II Army Veteran Alfred Sachs, the longtime employee of the “Maryland Toll Authority’s Harbor Tunnel” and husband of Dorothy Sachs passed away today.

1995(20th Av, 5755): Sixty-six year old newspaper executive Stanley Asimov, the brother of Isaac Asimov passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/17/obituaries/stanley-asimov-66-newsday-executive.html

1995: Seven months after premiering at Sundance, “The Usual Suspects” a dark crime movie directed by Bryan Singer and filmed by cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel was released in the United States today.

1996(1st of Elul, 5756): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1996(1st of Elul, 5676): Forty-seven year old composer Miles Goodman passed away today.

http://america.pink/miles-goodman_3015112.html

1996: “The Fan” a film that takes a dark look at celebrity produced by Wendy Fineman, with music by Hans Zimmer and co-starring Ellen Barkin was released in the United States today by TriStar Pictures.

1998: The New York Timesfeatured a review of The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of Public Relations by Larry Tye.  Bernays is the Austrian born Jew who was the nephew of Sigmund Freud.

2000(15th of Av, 5760): Tu B’Av observed for the first time in the 21st century.

2000(15th of Av, 5760): Rabbi Chanoch Dov Padow, the Galician born son of Toybe Padwa and R’Eleazar Wolf Padwa” the Jerusalem rabbi who led London’s Haredi Jewish community for half a century passed away today.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1368138/Rabbi-Chanoch-Padwa.html

2000:A documentary film entitled “The Ballad of Rambling Jack Elliot” about the life of Brooklyn native Elliott Adnopoz the son of a middle class Jewish doctor who transformed himself into a musical iconoclast opens at the Film Forum.  The film was written and directed by his daughter Aiyana Elliot.

2002: “The Adventures of Pluto Nash” a comedy produced by Martin Bregman released in the United States today.

2002: As proclaimed by Mayor Martin O’Malley and Governor Parris N. Glendening today was observed as Eli Siegel Day.

https://aestheticrealism.org/eli-siegel-day-carrie-wilson-edward-green/

2002(8th of Elul, 5762): Martin Deutsch the American physicist who studied positronium passed away. Positronium is a temporary state in the decay of the positron which is the antiparticle of the electron (and that is more than I really know about this.)

2003: Idid Amin, the former President of Uganda who had been trained as a paratrooper by the Israelis and who provided a safe haven for the Palestinian hijackers in 1976 passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/17/world/idi-amin-murderous-and-erratic-ruler-of-uganda-in-the-70-s-dies-in-exile.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar

2005: The evacuation of Gaza continued for a second day.

2005:  The Jerusalem Post reported that Britain had played a major role in Israel’s development of a nuclear capability in the late 1950’s.  According to the Post, the government of Prime Minister Harold McMillan sold 20 tons of heavy water (necessary for making weapons grade plutonium) in 1958.  The sale was done covertly masked as an arrangement between Norway and Israel.  Reportedly, the Americans were not told about the sale.  Although Israel does not comment about its nuclear capability, reportedly she has around two hundred nuclear devices.  This revelation is fascinating for those who lived through the 1950’s or are students of that period.  Harold McMillan had come to power when the government of Prime Minister Anthony Eden had fallen in 1957 after Britain’s Suez adventure that had included the French and the Israelis.  The Americans had sided with the Soviets in pressuring Israel and its two Western allies to turn the canal back to Egypt and hand victory to the Pan Arab dictator and Soviet client – Gamal Nasser. There were at least two unintended consequences from what the Europeans considered the American betrayal.  First, the French began to develop their nuclear capability which harmed the cause of nuclear non-proliferation and led to a rift between the French and Americans that bedevils the two nations to this day.  Second, as we have now found out, the British devised what some might view as a perfidious and deceptive way of dealing with the United States and the Middle East.  On the surface, the McMillan government played the role of faithful junior partner in the Anglo-American alliance.  Also, the British continued to play the role of staunch supporter of the Arabs in the regions.  But the British did not trust Nasser.  They saw him as a threat and they gave Israel the additional means to deal with that threat.  One of the fascinating things about the study of history is how it keeps re-writing itself.  Each time you think you have it nailed down; another secret revelation pops out and changes everything.  The philosopher said that he who does not know history is condemned to repeat it.  But the question is, “Who really knows the history?”

2006: As part of the cease-fire agreement, Israeli troops turned control of territory in Lebanon over to UNIFL.  At the same time, in one of those many ironies of history, the army of Lebanon returned to the southern part of the country for the first time since the 1970’s thanks to the attacks of the IDF on Hezbollah strongholds. 

2007: Israel and the United States signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the new American defense package for Israel. Under the new aid agreement, the U.S. will transfer $30 billion to Israel over 10 years, compared with $24 billion over the past decade. The aid deal signed at represents a 25 percent rise in U.S. military aid to Israel. Israel is slated to receive the first pay out in October 2008, amounting to $2.55 billion. That sum will grow each year by $150 million, until it reaches $3.1 billion in 2011.

2008: At Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Bar Mitzvah of Daniel Finn.

2008:Today, Itai Magidi will be the first Israeli to take part in the athletics competitions, running the 3000m Steeplechase qualifiers and all seven of Israel's sailors are scheduled to race at the Beijing Olympics.

2008, Martha Nussbaum—University of Chicago professor and Boston Review contributing editor—became a bat mitzvah  “in a service at Temple K. A. M. Isaiah Israel in Chicago's Hyde Park, chanting from the Parashah Va-etchanan and the Haftarah Nahamu, and delivering a D'var Torah about the connection between genuine, non-narcissistic consolation and the pursuit of global justice.”

2009: The Washington Post features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Rashiby Elie Wiesel.

2009: The Massachusetts secretary of state’s office has rejected a proposed settlement by an investment firm to repay nearly $6 million to state investors who lost money in Bernard L. Madoff’s fraudulent investment scheme. A spokesman for the office, Brian McNiff, said today that his agency was not accepting the offer, from the Fairfield Greenwich Group of New York, to make full refund to nearly a dozen investors in the state because officials were still trying to identify all the affected investors. Mr. Madoff, 71, is serving 150 years in prison for defrauding investors in a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. Fairfield Greenwich was one of the so-called feeder funds for Mr. Madoff.

2009: “Can Game Theory Predict When Iran Will Get the Bomb” published today describes Bruce Bueno de Mesquita’s answer to this question.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/magazine/16Bruce-t.html

2009: Led by his widow, Betty Levin, a true Ashish Chayil, the family and friends of Dr. Jacob Levin, of blessed memory, gather to dedicate a classroom named in his honor at North Suburban Beth El Synagogue.  Dr. Levin taught in this room for several years and his time as a Religious School teacher was but one example of his contributions to the Jewish community. He will always be missed.  He will always be remembered.

2010: KlezKanada is scheduled to open in Lantier, Quebec.

2010: An IDF soldier was lightly wounded today in clashes with Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip.



2010: A bomb squad checked out two unattended suitcases outside the Israeli consulate thismorning, the Los Angeles Police Department said. Police cordoned off part of Wilshire Boulevard, where the consulate and other Jewish organizations are located, for several hours. The city's Israeli Consulate has been the target of previous bomb threats.

2011: Today is the release date for The Gift of Rest: Rediscovering the Beauty of the Sabbathby Senator Joe Lieberman

2011: Today, “in a jailhouse interview with Yahoo! Sports, Nevin Shaprio” who was imprisoned for running a huge Ponzi scheme” made good on the promise for the revelations exposing a lack of NCAA-mandated institution oversight at” the University of Miami “which allowed his illegal and unethical behaviors to continue unimpeded for years.”

2011: The 2ndAvenue Deli reopened at its new location on 1st Avenue and 75th Street in the Upper East Side much to the joy of those who enjoy the best kosher meat knishes and tongue sandwiches imaginable.

2011: Wendy Turman, JHSGW Curator/Archivist is scheduled to deliver “an illustrated lecture tracing the history of the Jewish community in the Washington area from the arrival of the first Jewish Washingtonian in 1795 to today, when the region's Jewish community has grown to more than 215,000 people.

2011:Representatives from the National Union of Israeli Students and leaders of the tent city protest movement met this morning with former chief rabbi of Israel and current Head Rabbi of Tel Aviv Yisrael Lau, where they held a discussion on the ongoing social justice protests.

2011: Israel's parliament interrupted its summer recess today to debate popular protests against high living costs but there seemed to be little sense of urgency among the smattering of lawmakers, some of whom tapped away on mobile phones and iPads.

2012: The Knesset is scheduled to convene in a special session during its summer recess to approve Avi Dichter as Home Front Defense Minister (As reported by the Jerusalem Post.)

 2012(28th of Av): Yarhtzeit of Larry Rosenstein – gone to soon but never forgotten

2012(28th of Av): HaRav Akiva Ehrenfeld, president of the Chasam Sofer Institutions in the U.S. and President of Kiryat Mattersdorf passed away tonight at Shaare Zedek Medical Center and was buried that night on Har HaMenuchot near the grave of his father

http://www.chareidi.org/archives5772/shoftim/arehrnfldshf72.htm

2012: Bulgarian police released a computer-generated image and a fake driver's license photo of a man believed to be an accomplice in the bombing of an Israeli tour bus in Burgas that killed six.  (As reported by JTA)

2012: “Shimon Peres, Israel’s president and elder statesman, spoke out against the prospect of a lone Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, a message that contradicts the hawkish, go-it-alone line emanating from the offices of Israel’s prime minister and defense minister.” (As reported by Isabel Kirshner)

2012: Police resumed searching for the remains of Grad rockets in the desert outside Eilat this morning, hours after two loud blasts rocked the resort town.

2013: In Montgomery, AL, the Capri Community Film Society is scheduled to show “Fill the Void,” a cinematic treatment of the life of a Chasidic family from Tel Aviv.

2013: Amir Levy is scheduled to perform at the New York International Fringe Festival.

2013: Seven months after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, “Jobs” a biopic co-starring Jose Gad as “Steve Wozniak” and featuring Brett Gelman and Lesley Ann Warren was released in the United States today.

2013: In Herndon, VA, Congregation Beth Emeth is scheduled to host a special Shabbat Community BBQ where everybody can meet the new Rabbi – Michelle Goldsmith.

2013: In “Israel Keeps a Wary Eye on Turmoil in Egypt” published today, Isabel Kershner describes the Jewish state’s reaction to the violence going on within its neighbor with which it signed a peace treaty that has held for more than three decades.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/world/middleeast/israel-turmoil-in-egypt.html?hp&_r=0&pagewanted=print

2014: In Mandeville, LA, the Northshore Jewish Congregation (NJC) is scheduled to host “Havdalah on the River” to help welcome Rabbi Deborah Zecher who will be leading the congregation’s High Holiday Services.

2014: The Historic 6th& I Synagogue is scheduled to host #NoFilter featuring Grace Helbig, Hannah Hart and Mamrie Hart

2014: “A Hamas official today threatened Israel with a prolonged war of attrition if the group’s terms for a permanent ceasefire agreement, currently being negotiated in indirect talks in Cairo, are not met.” (As reported by Times of Israel)

2014: Following a declaration by Fatah’s military wing to “increase its terror attacks against Israeli citizens” tonight Arab terrorists threw a Molotov cocktail at an Israeli car near Bethlehem inflicting first and second degree burns on the 40 year old driver who was also hit by stones.(As reported byUzi Baruch and Ari Yashar)

2014: “Over ten thousand people assembled in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square tonight for the largest pro-peace rally the country has seen since the start of the war in Gaza in early July.”

2014: By today, the 101st anniversary of the birth of Menachem Begin, the Israel State Archives, the Israel State Archives will have published “a collection of documents on the life the former Prime Minister best known as the leader of the Irgun and the signatory for the 1973 peace accords with Egypt.

http://israelsdocuments.blogspot.com/search/label/1913

2015(1st of Elul, 5775): Rosh Chodesh Elul

2015(1st of Elul, 5775): Eighty-two year old art collector Melva Bucksbaum, whose first hubsband had been Iowa shopping center and real estate mogul Martin Bucksbaum, passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/19/arts/design/melva-bucksbaum-art-collector-and-curator-dies-at-82.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=1

2015(1st of Elul, 5775): Sixty-eight year old Jacob Bekenstein, the “physicist who revolutionized the theory of Black Holes” passed away today.  (As reported by Dennis Overbye)

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/22/science/space/jacob-bekenstein-physicist-who-revolutionized-theory-of-black-holes-dies-at-68.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2015(1st of Elul, 5775): One hundred fourteen year old, “Goldie Steinberg, reportedly the world’s oldest Jew” passed away today.

http://www.chabad.org/news/article_cdo/aid/3035891/jewish/Goldie-Steinberg-Worlds-Oldest-Jewish-Person-Passes-Away-at-114.htm

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/headlines-breaking-stories/336724/goldie-steinberg-worlds-oldest-jewish-person-passes-away-at-114.html

http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/192938/goldie-steinberg-reportedly-the-worlds-oldest-jew-dies-at-114

2015: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Patricia Drucker’s Sophie and the Sibyl in which “a novelist imagines an incident that inspired George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda which portrayed the concepts of what would become Zionism in a positive light and Alice Hoffman’s The Marriage of Opposites, “a novel inspired by the painter Camille Pissarro’s parents.”

2015: UK Jewish Film which “aims to develop a culture where Jewish and Israeli film is recognised and enjoyed by the widest possible audience, and to bring Jewish related film to the heart of British culture” is scheduled to host a screening of “She’s Funny That Way.”

2015: In Kiryas Joel, the school year is scheduled to begin for the children whose parents have signed an affidavit stating “We the parents are confirming in writing that our cellphones/smartphones are in accordance to the rules of the community and yeshiva, according to the guidance of our holy grand rabbi and the judge. We also confirm that we do not possess in our home another cellphone/smartphone except for the ones mentioned above.” (A reported by Brian Shaefer)

2015: The Illinois Holocaust & Education Center is scheduled to present “Soviet Composers Discovering A Jewish Sound” featuring violinist David Lisker, pianist Ani Gogovo and cellist Richard Hirschl.

2015: The Jewish Museum of Maryland is scheduled to show “An American Tail,” the classic animation that “follows the story of Fievel a young Russian mouse, who while emigrating to the United States, gets separated from his family and must relocate them while trying to survive in a new country.”

2016: Today, “The Beth Din of America was added to the list of defendants in a $100 million class action suit against Rabbi Barry Freundel, the prominent Washington, D.C., spiritual leader who was convicted of secretly videotaping women in his synagogue’s ritual bath, and several Jewish institutions.”

2016: In Memphis, TN, Temple Israel is scheduled to host a session of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy! - The Spiritual Wisdom of Judaism in Reducing Stress.”

2016: “Jewish-American gymnast Aly Raisman won the silver medal at the 2016 Rio Games today, competing against teammate and reigning world champion Simone Biles who took gold.”

2016: “The Kind Words” a film by Shemi Zarhin which has been “nominated for 12 Ophir Awards” is scheduled to be shown in Tacoma, Washington.

2017: Avraham Tal, a judge on Voice of Israel is scheduled to host Rishon LeZion born singer and rapper Muki at the Jerusalem Arts and Crafts Fair.

2017: “Jerusalem’s Tower of David is scheduled to host a White Night of music, art, and design in the largest event of its kind in Israel this evening.

2017: In Cedar Rapids, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to discuss Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner.

2017: The “organizers of the March for Racial Justice” issued “a lengthy statement in which it said that the group “was unaware that the September 30 date it chose for its march” was the Jewish Day of Atonement but that the date which has just been announced a few days ago could not be changed.

2017: Stephen Allen Schwarzman, the founder of The Blackstone Group completed his service as the Chairman of the Strategic and Policy Forum today.

2018: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host the final screening of “Through Lotte’s Lens” a documentary that tells the extraordinary story of the ‘Hitler Émigrés’, the refugees – mainly Jewish who escaped the Nazi regime in the 1930s and found refuge in the UK.”

2018: The report of “police officers foiling a stabbing attack in Jerusalem’s Old City last week” “was cleared for publication today.

2018: “At the Security Cabinet Meeting” today “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a document titled "Security model 2030" which outlines the new budgetary additions to the country's security budget, has been formulated by Netanyahu over the past couple of years.” (As reported by Itamar Eichner)

2018: At UIHC, during GI/Hepatology Division Grand Rounds, Dr. Robert Silber was the presenter for “Didactic: ‘Reflective Analysis of Clinical Behavior.’”

2019(15thof Av, 5779): Tu B’Av or in English simply the 15th Day of Av which was “originally a post-biblical day of joy, that served as a matchmaking day for unmarried women in the second Temple period which went virtually unnoticed for almost 2,000 years before being “rejuvenated in recent decades, especially in Israel as Jewish Day of Love which at least one sabra likened to Valentine’s Day but which has “no formal legal status.”

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/tubav.html

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/53680/jewish/15th-of-Av.htm

http://www.israeldailypicture.com/

2019: One-hundred sixth anniversary of the birth of Menachem Begin, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who went from leading the Jewish revolt against British rule to gambling on the promises of the Egyptian President that he would keep his word about peace after he got back the Sinai.

2019: In Tel Aviv, “the Whiskey Bar Milk and Honey” is scheduled to host “a fun-filled romantic Valentine’s evening sipping local whiskey.”

2019: In Seattle, WA, the Crest Cinema is scheduled to host a special screening of “The Spy Behind Home Plate.”

2019: The JCC of Northern Virginia is scheduled to lead a tour of the “Queens of Egypt” at the National Geographic Museum.





This Day, August 17, In Jewish History by Mitchell and Deb Levin

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August 17

986: During the days of the First Bulgarian Empire, the army of Emperor Samuil of Bulgaria and his brother defeat the Byzantines led by Basil II.  The Bulgarian Empire had provided a haven for Jews escaping from the Byzantine Army so the Bulgarian victory was good news for the Jews. 

1236: Pope Gregory IX issued a list of charges against Emperor Frederick II that included a reference to “the matter of Jewish communities of which certain churches were deprived.” (This would appear to be a clash over who “owned the Jews” which would determine who could tax them)

1585: As the British began to colonize Virginia, over hundred men built a fort on Roanoke Island, the failed colony that would be visited by a relief fleet in 1586 whose members included “Joachim Gans, a Jewish metallurgist from Prague who may have been “the first Jew to set foot in that part of North America under the British flag.

1592: The pope prohibited Jews from admitting Christians into their synagogues.

1655: In a patent dated today, Antonio Fernandez Carvajal, a Portuguese-Jewish merchant, and his two sons were granted citizenship as English subjects.  This made them the first naturalized English Jews.

1655: Portuguese born merchant Antonio Fernandez Carvajal and his sons were officially granted denizhenship as English subjects. (As reported by Joseph Jacobs)   Official granting of citizenship of Jews is one that would be debated in England for the next two centuries

1665: The small colony of Surinam recently occupied by the English gave full rights to the Jews (mostly Spanish and Portuguese refugees) to practice Judaism and run their own affairs. This remarkably liberal charter was transferred over to the Dutch when they conquered the colony. They used it as a means of encouraging the Jews to remain.

1629: Birthdate of King John III of Poland.  King John ruled from 1674 until his death in 1696. He ruled in a period when Poland was disintegrating under rebellions from the Ukraine and attacks from Sweden. Like previous Polish monarchs, King John was reasonably well disposed towards his Jewish subjects since he saw them as a valuable economic asset.  But as Poland drifted into chaos his views were increasingly unpopular among the nobles and the Catholic clergy. Denizenship confirmed a limited amount of English rights on foreign born residence.

1692: Jews were forbidden by law to work as peddlers in Berlin.

1740: Beginning of the Papacy of Benedict XIV who authored “Singulari noblis consoldtioni on the topic Christians and Jews Marrying”, Probe te meminesse which set “down the rules for baptizing Jewish children,” Elapso proxime anno which dealt with Jewish heresy despite the fact that “a heretic had to be a Christian to commit the sin” and Beatus Adreas which gave credence to a three hundred year old blood libel involving Andreas Von Rinn.

1762: The Council of 4 Countries (semi-autonomous congress of Polish Jewry) met for the last time. It functioned for almost 200 years before the Polish government ordered its dissolution.

1786: Frederick II (The Great) who had enough problems with Jews living in Prussia but did exploit them for financial gain passed away today. He did keep them at “arm’s length” as can been seen when he overturned the vote that would have admitted Moses Mendelssohn to the Berlin of Academy of Science. After the partition of Poland, he inherited a Jewish population that was too impoverished to offer him gain.  While he found it impractical to expel them from their Polish homes, he would not allow them to move into Prussia, effectively quarantining these “beggar Jews.”  In 1780, he wrote of the Jews that they were “‘usurious vermin who multiply so infamously.’”  Frederick followed in the footsteps by retaining Veitel-Heine Ephraim as court jeweler and mint master. Born in 1703, he was charged by sum of debasing the country’s currency.  Any truth to that charge was covered up when Frederick ordered an end to any investigations into the matter.  He married Elke Fraenkel which made him the brother-in-law of David Frankel, who was elected rabbi of Berlin in 1743.  

1787: The Jews of Budapest, Hungary, received permission from the government to conduct religious services in private homes provided no rabbi officiated.

1790: Julia Asher, a native of London and Raphael Raphael gave birth to Samuel Raphael who died in Amsterdam in 1844.



1790:  President George Washington visits Newport, Rhode Island, where he is given “the address of the ‘Hebrew Congregation of Newport’” that expressed their appreciation for the rights and liberties that the Jews enjoyed in the United States.  It was in response to this document, that Washington wrote his famous reply guaranteeing the Jews religious liberty and promising them that they would be able to sit under their own vine and fig tree and none would make them afraid.

1790: Moses Seixas, the warden of Congregation Kahal Kadosh Yeshuat Israel, better known as the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, penned an epistle to George Washington, welcoming the newly elected first president of the United States on his visit to that city. Newport had suffered greatly during the Revolutionary War. Invaded and occupied by the British and blockaded by the American navy, hundreds of residents fled, and many of those who remained were Tories. After the British defeat, the Tories fled in turn. Newport’s nineteenth-century economy never recovered from these interruptions and dislocations. Washington’s visit to Newport was largely ceremonial—part of a goodwill tour Washington was making on behalf of the new national government created by the adoption of the Constitution in 1787. Newport had historically been a good home to its Jewish residents, who numbered approximately 300 at the time of Washington’s visit. The Newport Christian community’s acceptance of Jewish worship was exemplary, although individual Jews such as Aaron Lopez and Isaac Elizer were unable to obtain full political equality as citizens of Rhode Island. The Jews of Newport looked to the new national government, and particularly to the enlightened president of the United States, to remove the last of the barriers to religious liberty and civil equality confronting American Jewry. Moses Seixas’s letter on behalf of the congregation – he described them as “the children of the Stock of Abraham” – expressed the Jewish community’s esteem for President Washington and joined “with our fellow citizens in welcoming [him] to New Port.” The congregation expressed its pleasure that the God of Israel, who had protected King David, had also protected General Washington, and that the same spirit which resided in the bosom of Daniel and allowed him to govern over the “Babylonish Empire” now rested upon Washington. While the rest of world Jewry lived under the rule of monarchs, potentates and despots, as American citizens the members of the congregation were part of a great experiment: a government “erected by the Majesty of the People,” to which they could look to ensure their “invaluable rights as free citizens.” Seixas expressed his vision of an American government in words that have become a part of the national lexicon. He beheld in the United States “a Government which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance—but generously affording to All liberty of conscience, and immunities of citizenship: - deeming every one, of whatever nation, tongue or language equal parts of the great Governmental Machine: – This so ample and extensive federal union whose basis is Philanthropy, mutual confidence, and public virtue, we cannot but acknowledge to be the work of the Great God, who ruleth the Armies of Heaven, and among the Inhabitants of the Earth, doing whatsoever seemeth [to Him] good.” Seixas closed his letter to the president by asking God to send the “Angel who conducted our forefathers through the wilderness into the promised land [to] conduct [Washington] through all the difficulties and dangers of this mortal life.” He told Washington of his hope that “when like Joshua full of days, and full of honour, you are gathered to your Fathers, may you be admitted into the Heavenly Paradise to partake of the water of life, and the tree of immortality.”





Not surprisingly, it is Washington’s response, rather than Seixas’s epistle, which is best remembered and most frequently reprinted. Washington began by thanking the congregation for its good wishes and rejoicing that the days of hardship caused by the war were replaced by days of prosperity. Washington’s concluding paragraph perfectly expresses the ideal relationship among the government, its individual citizens and religious groups:

“May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while everyone shall sit under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.”

Washington’s letter, a foundation stone of American religious liberty and the principle of separation between church and state, is signed, simply, “G. Washington.” Each year, Newport’s Congregation Kahal Kadosh Yeshuat Israel, now known as the Touro Synagogue, re-reads Washington’s letter in a public ceremony.

1791:Birthdate of Richard Lalor Sheil the Irish politician, writer and orator who spoke out in favor of allowing Jews to sit in Parliament.

1807: In Liverpool, Hannah Woolf and Myer Tobias gave birth to Rebecca Tobias.1807: Robert Fulton's first American steamboat, the Clermont left New York City for Albany, New York on the Hudson River, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world. The copper for the boilers in the Clermont, and many of Fulton’s other ships was supplied a Sephardic Jew named Harmon Hendricks.

1814: Barnett Levy married Bluma Phillips today at the Hambro Synagogue.

1815: In Bavaria, Moses and Brunhilda Morgenthau gave birth to Lazarus Morgenthau.


1816: Four days after she had passed away, Esther (nee Moses) Gomperts, the widow of Joseph Gomperts was buried today at the “Hoxton Old Jewish burial Ground.”

1825: Shumel ben Isaac married Sheina bat Joseph at the New Synagogue today.

1827: In Württemberg, Germany, Bernhard Frankfuter, the son of “Mkrjam and Moses Levi Frankfurter” and his wife Esther Frank gave birth to Bronnet Frankfurter

1838: Eighty-nine year old librettist and Roman Catholic Priest Lorenzo Da Ponte who father had converted him and his three sons from Judaism to Catholicism in 1764 so that he could “marry a Catholic woman” passed away today.

1842: Emanuel Lion married Rosetta Medex at the Great Synagogue today.

1848: Morris Solomons married Caroline Abrahams at the Great Synagogue today.

1856:” One day after she had passed away, Catherine Salaman was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1859: Aaron Abecasis married Esther Brandon at the Bevis Marks Synagogue today.

1859: Joseph Nordon married Rachel Levin today at the Western Synagogue today.

1856: In California, Strasburg native Charles August Lauff, “the youngest child of Jacob and Caroline Ashelmann Lauff and his wife, Mrs. Maria J. Sebran gave birth to their oldest child, Joseph L. Lauff.

1861(11th of Elul, 5621): Parashat Ki Teitzei

1861: Congressional Medal of Honor Winner Abraham Greenawalt and Jane Greenawalt gave birth to Anna Greenawalt, the sister of Harry Greenawalt.

1863: During the Civil War, Isaac Hyneman, was permanently assigned to the United States Signal Corps.  During the next three years he would see combat in such memorable battles as Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and the Wilderness Campaign before being at Appomattox Court House where the war ended.

1863: Birthdate of Odessa born American Socialist Sergius Ingerman, a graduate of “the medical school at the University of Berne, co-founder of the Socialist Party of America with Eugene V. Debs and Morris Hilliquit and the husband of Dr. Anna Ingerman passed away today.

1871:  A dispatch datelined Berlin reported that cases of cholera in Suwalki, Poland which has a population of 60,000 half of whom are Jews are decreasing. 

1872: “The Tribune and the Hebrew Voters” published today reported that the New York Tribune, the newspaper owned by Presidential candidate Horace Greeley, is making “frantic”, “clumsy” attempts to overcome the impact of anti-Semitic story told by James Mitchell Ashley, the former governor of Montana at public meeting with Mr. Greely sitting at his elbow.

1873: In New York, David Lewis Einstein and Caroline Einstein gave birth to Florence Einstein who became Florence Walston when she married Sir Charles Walston.

1875: Baron George de Worms and Louisa de Samuel gave birth to their third child and only daughter Henrietta Emmy Louisa Amelia de Worms.

1878:  A Modern Hebrew Poet: the Life and Writings of Moses Chaim Luzzato by A.S. Isaacs was reviewed today in a column styled “A Jewish Singer.” Luzatto was an Italian Rabbi known as the RaMCHal.

1879: In Warsaw, Aaron David Gelbfisz, a peddler, and his wife, Hannah Reban (née Jarecka) gave birth to Szmuel Gelbfisz (Samuel Goldfish) who gained family as movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn.

http://www.cobbles.com/simpp_archive/samuel-goldwyn_intro.htm

1879: It was reported today that all places of business in White Plains, NY, were closed last Sunday as result of the conviction of a Jew named Adolphe D. Pollock for having previously kept his business open on Sunday.  Barber shops were the only business exempted from the closing ordinance.

1879: An editorial that originally appeared in the Jewish Messenger which was reprinted today said there was something wrong with the laws in White Plains if the government could not find a way to punish Jews who violate “their own and the general Sabbath by transacting business.”  The Messenger has “no sympathy for the hypocrite and money grabber who breaks his own Sabbath, yet claims the privilege of selling goods on Sunday because…he is a Jew.”  On the other hand, there should be some kind of allowance made for the Jew who closes his business on Saturday that would allow him to conduct business on Sunday as long as he “is not conspicuous.

1880: “The Turk and the Greek” published today examined the current conditions in the Balkans including French Prime Minister Michael Waddington’s decision to champion the cause of the Rumanian Jews at the Congress of Berlin despite the counsel from “a few intelligent Jewish politicians” for France to abstain from involvement in “matters in no way affecting French interests.”

1881: It was reported today that the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society is planning to host another excursion for the poor children of the Lower East Side,

1882: It was reported today that Samuel Obreight has been declared sane by the state Supreme Court.  Obreight’s family had had him declared insane and institutionalized because he had married a Christian girl. The judge ruled that the family’s “wounded sectarian pride” should not be the basis for such a charge. The judge said that the marriage was one of the outcomes of the religious liberty enjoyed in this country since the Revolution.

1883: Nathan Gottgetren, alias Nicholas Gilbert, a 35 year old Jew was brought back to New York by two detectives from Putnam County. A married man and confidential bookkeeper, he has been arrested on charges of forgery.

1883: This afternoon, the members of Shaarai Berocho (Gates of Blessing) dedicated their new facility located on East 45th Street in New York.  The congregation was founded in 1858 under the leadership of Rabbi Elias Epstein.

1883: It was reported today that the Jewish World of London has announced “that Count Tolstoi, the Russian Minister of the Interior, has ordered the enforcement of the decree forbidding Jewish manufacturers from employing Christian workmen.”

1883: It was reported today that “a British Jew, representing Raphael Tuck & Sons,” a London business firm has been expelled from Russia despite having a “proper British passport.”

1884: It was reported today that a mobbed attacked seven Jews were killed and an untold number injured by a mob at Dombrovitz, Russia.

1884: Two days after he had passed away, Lewis Moses was buried at “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”

1885: It was reported today that G.A. Heap, the U.S. Consul General in Constantinople has sent a second, more strongly worded protest to the Turkish government  protesting the expulsion of Americans from Jerusalem because they were Jews.  Heap pointed out that the expulsions are in violation of a treaty between the two nations and that he is referring the matter to Washington.

1885: The Book of Psalms translated from the Hebrew and edited by John G. Lansing is among the tomes appearing on today’s “New Books” list

1885: It was reported today that Rabbi Ash will continue serving as the Rabbi of Beth Hamedrash Hagadol after its move into new facility on Norfolk Street. Ash had urged the congregation to buy the building from the Methodists at a cost of $45,000 and to spend the $10,000 necessary to prepare the inside for use by the Jews.

1885: In a speech given to a Jewish literary society whose members were 16, 17 and 18 year old Jewish boys, it was reported that G.A. Ettinger that the recently deceased Sir Moses Montefiore had sought “to free his people from the shackles of prejudice and the evils of persecution” while the recently deceased General U.S. Grant (and former President of the U.S.) had “labored to free 4,000,000 human beings from the shackles of slavery.” As if to dispel any charges past, present or future that Grant was an anti-Semite, a bevy of speakers including Julius Levy, Eugene N. Levy and William Grossman, echoed Ettinger’s sentiments about the recently deceased Giant of Judaism and the General who had saved the Union.

1886: In Philadelphia, PA, “Simon and Theresa Abrahams” gave birth to Helen Abrahams, a student of the /school of Design for Woman” and the Academy of Fine Arts who after marrying Alex Blum became Helen Abrahams Blum the artist, set designed, author and member of the Rodolph Shalom Sisterhood.

1886: “The Jews of Italy” using information that has appeared in the Lunario Israelitico of Leghorn and the London Times provides a snapshot of Jewish society in the middle of the 19th century.  There are approximately 45,000 Jews living in the country which means they comprise about 1 per cent of Europe’s Jewish population.  Rome has the largest Jewish population – 5,600.  Mantua now has the leading rabbinical school while Padua is home “to the greatest Hebrew scholar in Italy, Rabbi Ende Lolli…)

1887: It was reported today that Jonas Heller, who passed away in March, bequeathed gifts of $2,500 to Mount Sinai, the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, the United Hebrew Charities, the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids and the Hebrew Technical Institute. (The list of recipients provides a snapshot of major Jewish institutions in post-Civil War New York City)

1887: “Julius Weisbaden, a miser and monomaniac, was found dying in his room” today “and was taken to Bellevue Hospital”

1887: Temple Emanuel contributed $264 to the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

1888: In a case of Jew versus Jew, Samuel Gompers has testified before Congressman Ford’s Immigration Committee.  Gompers, an English born Jew who professed his loyalty to his adopted country said that the “importation” of Polish and Russian Jews had depressed the wages of cigar-makers.  Gompers said that he had no problem with Jews being brought to the United States for humanitarian reasons but he did have a problem with the current process which was designed to depress wages.  Gompers then went on to decry the conditions in the cigar industry where all workers, regardless of their origins, were exploited by the owners. (The latter information was surely not well received by Congressman Ford)

1890: It was reported today that “Michael Gernsheim & Co, the bankers, have made a new move in their fight against an assessment on the stockholders under the reorganization scheme of the Houston and Texas Central Railway Company.”

1890: Birthdate of bacteriologist Harry Plotz who was a leading physician in the fight against typhus.

http://www.sciencephoto.com/media/227849/view

http://www.scilogs.com/science-extracted/this-week-in-science-100-years-ago-an-unexpected-mystery/

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9801E6DE153EEE3BBC4F53DFB766838C659EDE

1890(1st  of Elul, 5650): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1890: “King of the British Gypsies” published today included information on the origins of the gypsies who, according to some, were “the mixed multitude” that went out of Egypt during the Exodus. According to Ernst Hengstenberg since there is no mention of them during the wanderings in the wilderness or after the entrance into Canaan they must have left the Israelites shortly after the crossing at the Sea of Reeds.

1890: Dr. Bernard Drachman is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Judaism and Ethics” at Cooper Union which is the seventh in a series of public lectures sponsored by the Jewish Theological Seminary.

1890: “Precious Stones” published today compared the “frequent and enthusiastic” references to precious stones in Hebrew literature” with the “paucity of allusion to them in…Greek literature” which the author attributed to the Jewish view of these stones as objects to be used in the creation of art while the Greeks saw them, like all other objects, as potential gods.

1890: “Czar and Kaiser To Meet” published today described the upcoming meeting between the two monarchs during which the condition of Russia’s Jews will be discussed.  Baron Max von Oppenheim who has the backing of the “Jewish financial houses in Germany and Austria” has expressed his concerns as have the Rothchilds who have obtained “the assurance…that the existing condition of the Russian Jews would not be made worse.”

1891: “He Swindled Undertakers” published today described the anger that a number of New York undertakers feel toward a young Jewish man who has been soliciting ads from them for the Jewish Times.  First he tells them about complaints in the community about their services and then tells them that advertising in the paper will defuse the anger since most Jews have a very high opinion of the Jewish Times.

1891: The American Hebrew mourns the recent deaths of poet James Russell Lowell and New York Timesman, George Jones.

1891: “Angry Jews In Boston” published today described the disgust the Jews felt when they came to take possession of the Old Church of the Messiah, which they planned to convert into a synagogue.  The Jews were so repelled by the damage that the Episcopalians had done to the building that they were willing to forfeit their $500 deposit.

1891(13th of Av, 5651): Eighty-two year old Louis Goodheim, who had been living at the Hebrew Home since 1884 took his own life.  Goodheim, who had once been a successful merchant in London, left a note thanking the staff for its kindness.  He had told his brother that he was in such agony that if he had had a gun he would have shot himself

1891: In Peoria, Illinois, “Gussie Woolner Calisch” and “Rabbi Edward Calisch of Congregation Anshai Emeth,” gave birth to Adiran Calisch who would tragically passed away before his first birthday.

1891: “The Russian Refugees” published today described the problems encountered by Jewish colonists who have been settled in New Jersey under the auspices of the Baron Hirsch Fund.

1892: David Flndling, the son of Abraham Findling and Beile Malke FIndling and his wife “Ester Reisell Flndling gave birth Max Marcus Flndling

1893: As the unemployment rate reached 12% and continued to rise during the depression brought on by the Panic of 1893, approximately 5,000 unemployed Jews gathered for a peaceful mass meeting at Walhalla Hall turned violent as the worker vented their frustrations when jobs that were advertised turned out to be nonexistent.

1893: “One of the Czar’s Victims” published today described the arrival of Vladimir Korlenko, who had spent six years in Siberian exile and who has two sympathetic novels on “the Jewish question in Russia, in New York where he is staying at the Astor House.

1894 (15th of Av, 5654): Tu B’Av

1894: One day after he had passed away, Simon Isaac Cohen was buried at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery” on Buckingham Road today

1895: In two days of meetings, Herzl meets Rabbi Moritz Güdemann and Berlin philanthropist Heinrich Meyer-Cohn in München. Güdemann was an Austrian born Rabbi who was sympathetic to the Zionist cause but was concerned about the tendency to downplay the religious component of re-settling the land.  Herzl looked to Gudemann to introduce him to the Rothschilds.

1895: Based on information that first appeared in The London Daily News it was reported today that there are 571, 300 people living in Warsaw of whom 190,300 are Jews.

1896: Birthdate of Lotte Jacobi the Prussian-born photographer whose subjects included Albert Einstein, Marc Chagall and Alfred Stieglitz. She left Germany and settled in New York in September, 1935 “as persecution against Jews increased.”

1896: Birthdate of Johannes Kleiman, the Dutch business associate of Otto Frank who was arrested by the Gestapo for his role in hiding the famous Frank family.

1896: In Clinton Township, NJ. Mrs. Paul Wissen found a body in the barnyard who “had a Hebraic cast to his features” but whom could not be positively identified.

1897: At Rishon Lezion, Reveivel Miransky one of the Bilium who founded Rishon Lezion and his wife gave birth to Joshua Myron. During World War I, Mr. Myron was a Sergeant in “the camel-mounted Zionist brigade that fought with Vladimir Jabotinsky against Turkey in Palestine.”  This unit was part of the Jewish Brigade that was part of the British Army.  When Mr. Myron passed away in 2000, at the age of 102, he was one of the last surviving members of this force that helped lay the groundwork for the creation of the state of Israel and the I.D.F.

1898:The first conference of Russian Zionists is held secretly in Warsaw. Warsaw, like much of Poland was part of the Russian Empire. During the conference, Achad Ha-Am discussed his differences with Theodor Herzl. Achad Ha-Am was the pen name of Asher Hirsch Ginsberg one of the most famous Jewish intellectuals of the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.  Unlike Herzl who believed in a political, semi-assimilationist solution to the creation of Jewish state, Achad Ha-Am saw the Jewish home as being “a national spiritual center.” Ginsberg was area of the practical challenges that the Jewish people faced.  For example at the time of Kishinev Pogroms, he called for Jews to take arms in their own defense.  While Herzl’s dream of a Jewish state has been realized, the Jewish people are still wrestling with the creation of a Jewish homeland that encompasses Jewish values from tradition to the world of the Haskalah.

1898: As of today 715 of the 865 children staying at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum have been taken from the building at 138th Street and Amsterdam Avenue and moved to the facility at Rockaway as officials deal with the epidemic of dysentery.

1899: Pennsylvania Congressman Marriott Brozzius announced the appointment of Frank Eshelman as a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy following the resignation of Rigmund Albert, a young Jew, from West Point.

1899: Philadelphian George M. Appel began serving as a 1st Lt. in the 39thUnited States Volunteer Infantry

1899: Philadelphian Gustav Schlachter, a veteran of the Spanish-American War, transferred from Company F, 3rd Infantry to the 44th U.S. Infantry with the rank of 2nd Lieutenant.

1899: The Court Martial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus resumed today with his attorney making General Roget “squirm in his seat” as he cross-examined him about the Esterhazy’s letters.

1899: “Shot Down By Anti-Semite” published today described the shooting of a locksmith named Bonnet in Paris by an unknown assailant who called out “He looks like one of those dirty Jews” before firing his weapon.

1899: Philadelphian Gustav F. Schlachter, who rose to the rank of Quarter-Master Sergeant during the Spanish American War and who had re-enlisted in Company F of the 3rd Infantry was promoted to the rank of 2ndLieutenant today.

1899: “Is A Warm Champion of Dreyfus” published today described Anton Weiss of Pine Bluff, AR admiration for and personal friendship with Captain Dreyfus.  Weis had met Dreyfus one was working for the Transatlantic Steamship Line at Harve France where Dreyfus was serving with an artillery unit. There were only a few Jews in the city and no house of worship.  Dreyfus “who was greatly respected” because “of his extensive knowledge” of Jewish ritual served as “the rabbi’ and led the services.”

1900: During the siege of Peking which ended today and was part of the Boxer Rebellion U.S.M.C. Private William Zion “distinguished himself in the presence of the enemy” with such bravery that he earned the Congressional Medal of Honor.

1900: Birthdate of San Francisco native and Columbia educated University of Chicago professor and expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/542757?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/marcus-ralph

1903: Birthdate of Abram Chasins “an American composer, pianist, piano teacher, lecturer, musicologist, music broadcaster, radio executive and author.”

1903: Today, while the Sixth Zionist Congress was meeting Jacob de Haas spent the evening touring Paris with Dr. Marmorek and Dr. Nordeau.

1903: In Russia, “Isaac Abramovich Piatigorsky, a frustrated violinist” and his wife Basya Maria Amshislavska gave birth to cellist Gregor Piatigorsky a product of the Imperial Conservatory in Moscow who came to the United States in 1929.

https://books.google.com/books?id=0u_8pNWkGJQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Piatigorsky&hl=en&sa=X&ei=KgVIUeiRGajbmAX94YCADw&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Piatigorsky&f=false

1908: In Galicia, Toybe Padwa and R’Eleazar Wolf Padwa gave birth to “Rabbi Chanoch Dov Padw.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1368138/Rabbi-Chanoch-Padwa.html

1908: Birthdate of Felix Eliezer Bergmann the native of Frankfurt and brother of Rabbi Dr. Adolf Rosenzweig who earned his degrees from the University of Berlin 1933 before he made Aliyah where became Chairman of Pharmacology at the Hebrew University.

1911: Birthdate of Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik Jewish Russian International Grandmaster and long-time World Champion of chess.  He passed away in 1995.

1911: In Russia, arrests continue in Kiev in connection with charges of blood libel.

1914: Two days after he had passed away, sixty-year old Russian born Englishman Isaac Benjamin, the husband of Polly Benjamin with whom he had nine children was buried today at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery.

1914: During WW I, as the Germans continued their march through neutral Belgium the government transferred from Brussels to Antwerp which had gained in its Jewish population when the “diamond trade shifted from Amsterdam to Antwerp.”

1915: Birthdate of Chittagong, Bangladesh native Sir Reginald Michael Hadow and British Diplomat who “Ambassador to Israel from 1965 to 1969.”

1915: In Philadelphia, Jewish academic Max Leopold Margolis and his wife Evelyn Kate Aronson gave birth to Max Leopold Margolis

1915(7th of Elul, 5675): Leo Frank was lynched after having been wrongfully convicted of raping 12 year old in Georgia. “Frank, the manager of a pencil factory in Atlanta, Georgia, was accused of raping and murdering an employee, thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan. Frank was convicted, despite evidence incriminating a janitor at the factory, Jim Conley. The prosecution claimed that Conley only helped Frank dispose of the body, in return for $200. After the trial, further evidence came to light calling Frank's guilt into question. The governor commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment, but Frank was then lynched. Frank's trial was sensationalized in the media, which promoted fantastic stories about orgies and rape at the factory. Populist politician and publisher Tom Watson skillfully manipulated the story in order to inflame public opinion, and succeeded in using it to build support for the creation of a new Ku Klux Klan, the original organization having been dormant since Reconstruction due to federal action; a second Klan was founded in 1915 by a group calling itself the Knights of Mary Phagan. Frank's lynching turned the spotlight on anti-Semitism in the United States and led to the founding of the Anti-Defamation League.”

1915: “Louis Marshall who argued the Frank case before the United States Supreme Court, said tonight that Tom Watson, editor of The Jeffersonian and at one time candidate for President on the Populist ticket was responsible for the lynching of Leo M. Frank.”

1915: Nathan Straus who was raised in Georgia said tonight that “the lynching” of Leo Frank “has brought disgrace to Georgia and the whole country” and that the only way for the state to redeem itself was to bring the killers to justice.

1915: “On the first page of the Jeffersonian, a weekly paper edited by Thomas E. Watson which was issued tonight appears the following” ‘A Vigilance Committee redeems Georgia and carries out the sentence of the law on the Jew who raped and murdered the little Gentile girl, Mary Phagan.’”

1916: During World War I Julius Mendes Price “was the only foreign correspondent present at the capture of Gorizia by the Italian army” during the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo which ended today.

1916: “Abram I. Elkus, the newly appointed American Ambassador to Turkey,” “his wife, his two daughter Ethel and Katherine Elkus and his son James Hess Elkus,” set sail today on the steamship Oscar II “for Constantinople via Copenhagen and Berlin”

1917: A tremendous fire swept through the Jewish quarter of Salonica leaving 50,000 Jews homeless. Thirty-two synagogues and fifty Jewish schools were destroyed. The Jews suffered 90% damage to everything they owned.

1917: A movement was made today to “establish a Jewish settlement on the Island of Java.”

1917: During WW I, in which the U.S. was now a combatant,“Ira Nelson Morris, the American Minister” in Stockholm said today “that he had received official advices from Turkey that permission had been granted to about 700 American Jews to leave Palestine for the United States.”

1917: Vilmos Vázsonyi completed his term of Minister of Justice of Hungary.

1918: In Moscow, followers of Lenin “proclaim Jews as a danger to the masses.”

1918: In Brooklyn, a block party featuring “music games and dancing” is scheduled to be held on South 9th Street between Roebling and Driggs Avenue to raise funds for the Red Mogen David (the Jewish version of the Red Cross.

1918: In Riga, “local police refuse to interfere in pogrom agitation.

1918: In Petrograd, “in a demonstration against the Jews,” “anti-Semites among the revolutionaries” tore “up the banner of the ‘Bund.’”

1918: Bolshevik revolutionary leader Moisei Uritsky was assassinated by fellow Jew Leonid Kanegeiser.  Uritsky, like many Bolsheviks traveled a tortuous path from his early idealism.  At the time of his death, he was head the Petrograd Cheka.  The Cheka were the secret police and over time became much for efficient and showed greater cruetly that did those who had served the Czar.

1919(21st of Av, 5679): Thirteen year old Laser Skutelsky was murdered today after which he was buried in the Liepaja Jewish Cemetery.

1920: Birthdate of photographer Lida Moser.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/lida-moser-photographer-of-new-york-and-beyond-dies-at-93/2014/08/30/ea3fb98a-2ec3-11e4-9b98-848790384093_story.html

http://www.hebrew-home.org/site/DocServer/HH_LTimes6_08.pdf?docID=8961

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/arts/lida-moser-photographer-with-an-urban-eye-dies-at-93.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHedThumbWell&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

http://www.artnet.com/artists/lida-moser/past-auction-results

1921: In Tübingen, Germany, Jewish scholars Victor Ehrenberg and Eva Dorothea Sommer gave birth to Sir Geoffrey Rudolph Elton the British historian “who specialized in the Tudor Period.”

1921: In London, The Times published the second in a series of articles by it “Constantinople Correspondent” that “incontrovertibly demonstrated that ‘The Protocols’ consist in the main of ‘clumsy plagiarisms’ from a French political pamphlet directed against Napoleon III and published in Brussels in 1865 by a French Lawyer named Maurice Joly and entitled ‘Dialogues in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu.’”

1922(23rd of Av, 5682): Sixty give year old Ada Rachael Micholls, the English born daughter  of Maurice Moses Beddington and Hannah Maria Beddington and wife of Edward Montefiore MIcholls with whom she had had four children passed away today.

1923: In the Bronx Samuel and Sonya Grossberg gave birth to Yitzroch Loiza Grossberg who gained fame as pop-artist Larry Rivers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/16/arts/larry-rivers-artist-with-an-edge-dies-at-78.html?pagewanted=print

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/aug/17/guardianobituaries.arts

1924: In Zholkiew (which was in Poland at that time) Shlomo and Hayyah Gittel Schachter gave birth to Meshullam Zalman Schachter whom some consider to be “the spiritual father of the Jewish Renewal movement.” (As reported by Paul Vitello)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/09/us/zalman-schachter-shalomi-jewish-pioneer-dies-at-89.html?hpw&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHedThumbWell&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

1927: Birthdate of Bernard Cornfield, the Turkish born son of a Romanian-Jewish actor “who became one of the most flamboyant and controversial figures ever to stride through the American mutual fund industry.”  (As reported by Diana B. Henriques)

1928: “The Patriot” a silent film with “some talking sequences” directed and edited by Ernst Lubitsch was released in the United States today.

1929(11th of Av, 5689): Shabbat Nachamu

1929(11th of Av, 5689): Following yesterday’s attack on Jews at the Wailing Wall, Arabs attack Jews in Jerusalem on Shabbat. A young Sephardic Jew named Abraham Mizrachi was mortally wounded when he was stabbed at the Maccabi grounds near Mea Shearim, in the Bukharan Quarter.

1929(11th of Av, 5689): “Young Jewish boy was stabbed to death by Arabs while retrieving a football.”

1930(23rd of 5690): Seventy-one year old painter Florence Wolf Gotthold, the daughter of Jewish leader Simon Wolf and the wife of Frederick Gotthold, whose most famous work was “A Venetian Lady” passed away today.


1932(15th of Av, 5692): Tu B’Av

1932(15th of Av, 5692): Forty-five year old Mrs. Louise H. Pollak, the wife of Cincinnati, Ohio, City Councilman, a graduate of Bryn Mawr College who was a former president of the League of Woman Voters and a member of the Council of Jewish Women passed away today

1933: In Tel Aviv,The British High Commissioner and other officials participate in the laying of the cornerstone for the Levant Fair which is to be held here in 1934.

1933: “The Private Life of Henry VIII,” a biopic and costume drama directed and co-produced by Alexander Korda and co-staring Binnie Barnes was released today in the United Kingdom

1933: “The Private Life of Henry VII” directed and co-produced by Alexander Korda and featuring Binnie Barnes as “Catherine Howard” was released today in the United Kingdom.

1933:In Saarbrucken, a decision by a court in Berlin stating that a Jew doing business in Germany cannot hold the State responsible for negligence in failing to maintain order and to afford him protection is printed in the Freiheit

1934: Twenty-seven year old pitcher Cyrus Sol “Cy” Malis struck out one batter today in his first and last major league baseball game as a member of the Philadelphia Phillies of the National League.

1935(18th of Av, 5696):  Parashat Eikev

1935(18th of Av, 5696): William Farber, the husband of “Rachel Plocinsky Farber” with whom he had five children – “Nathan, Bluma, Edward, Maurice and Saul – passed away today in Chicago.

1936(29th of Av, 5696): Two Jewish nurses were killed today by Arab snipers in Jaffa.

1936(29th of Av, 5696): “Haya Freud, a lookout on the water tower at Ramath Hakovesh” was killed by
“an Arab during a night raid.”

1936: “Gershon Mosteioff, a student at the Hebrew University” who was acting as a volunteer watchman at Kiryath Anavim was among the thirteen Jews wounded by Arab attackers today.

1936: It was reported today that Louis Lipsky of New York the head of the central council said the completed membership” of the Executive Committee of the World Jewish Congress “would consist of 136 representatives from 32 countries.”

1937(10th of Elul, 5697): Yiddish author Nosn Perlberg, the Polish born son of a shochet who made Aliya in 1936 passed away today.


1937: As Japanese troops moved through Shanghai, the Shanghai Volunteer Corps including its Jewish Company under the command of Major Noel S. Jacobs was activated for a three month tour of duty.

1937: In Geneva, Mr. Ormsby-Gore, the British Colonial Secretary, told the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations that Great Britain definitely considered that she should no longer maintain the Mandate of Palestine, if it has to be applied by violence. He insisted that the whole basis of the Palestine Mandate should be changed. Of course these pious sentiments did not keep the British from holding on to Palestine for another ten years, denying the establishment of a Jewish state and enforcing pro-Arab immigration policies that were a death sentence to the Jews of Europe.

1937: Forty-one congressmen requested that Cordell Hull, the US Secretary of State, advise the British that they were not carrying out the intentions and promises of the Balfour Declaration and of the Palestine Mandate.

1937: While the diplomats debated in Geneva, the Arab terror continued. A long list of sporadic shooting incidents, the wounding of a police agent in Ein Kerem, a bomb explosion in Tiberias and many robberies, all within one week, was announced by the Palestine Police.

1937: At the closing session of the historic, 20th Zionist Congress held in Zurich, Dr. Chaim Weizmann was re-elected the President of the World Zionist Organization.

1937: The New York Times reports that “A remarkable document, purporting to give a confidential report by Dr. Chaim Weizmann, Zionist president, of a conversation he had in London with William G. A. Ormsby-Gore, British Colonial Secretary, on a plan for the partition of Palestine, has been published by The Jewish Chronicle here.”

1938(20th of Av, 5698): Eight-nine year old Adolph Lewisohn, the German-born American banker and philanthropist who was known as a “copper king” because of his mining success, passed away.


1938:In Berlin, the Reich Minister of the Interior signed Reichsgesetz Part I, the second decree on the law concerning the change of first and last names that included the requirement that male Jews adopt the middle name of “Israel” and that the female Jews adopt the middle name of “Sara” – the violation of which led to the imprisonment of Lilli Jahn, “a German-Jewish doctor” was killed at Auschwitz.

1938(20th of Av, 5698): Seventy-three year old CCNY grad and NYU trained attorney Joseph L. Buttenweiser, the President of the Federation for Support of Jewish Philanthropic Society, the President of the Hebrew Technical Institute and a member of both Temple Israel and the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue who with his wife Caroline raised five children passed away today.

1938(20th of Av, 5698): Arab violence continued to spread and grow more virulent. Early this morning, the body of Meyer Gutwird a 21 year old rabbinical student “who used to devote virtually of his time to religious studies and was often seen early in the morning at the Wailing Wall reading a holy” was found in Jerusalem.  Gutwird had been stoned to death and then beaten with an iron rod.  A bomb was thrown at a taxicab in Jaffa and Judah Mosseri, a Yemenite Jew, was wounded in both legs when shots were on the border between Jaffa and Tel Aviv.  Arab terrorist did not limit their activities to attacking Jews.  They attacked eight Arab telephone linemen whom they robbed before they released them.

1939: The 85,000 Jews living in Slovakia were terrified of being robbed and pillaged by the non-Jews, who were encouraged by the Germans.

1939(2nd of Elul, 5699): Seventy-four year old New York native, “the Vice President of the Consolidated Cigar Corporation and Vice President of the S. Elkeles Cigar Box Company” who was survived by four siblings – David, Moses, Julia and Mollie -- passed away today “at his home on East 61st Street after a long illness.


1939: The New York City premiere of “The Wizard of Oz” produced by Mervyn LeRoy with Oscar winning music by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg was held at Lowe’s Capitol Theatre

1940: “The Prefecture of Haute-Garonne issued Leon Blum a new identification card, which indicated that his hair and mustache were grey, his nose “straight,” and his complexion “clear.”

1941(24th of Av, 5701): Three men in Khmelnik, Ukraine, were gathered together and shot dead. The deaths were justified by Einsatzkommando as retaliation for Jewish resistance. Considering how the SS death squads worked, it is surprising that they felt the need to offer an excuse for killing more Jews.

1942(24th of Av, 5701): The Nazis gassed 341 French-Jewish children from the ages of two to ten, as well as 323 girls up to the age of 16, at Auschwitz. Two of the victims are Suzanne Perl, seven, and her sister Micheline, three.

1942: In Chicago, educator Arthur Mordechai Rabinovitz, the Lithuanian born son of Chaya-Leah Levy and Sholem Moshe Rabinovitiz and his wife Anna Dorothy Silverstone gave birth to Marcia Lee Rabinovitz

1942: Over the next 48 hours the Nazis murdered 2500 Jews from Drogobych, Ukraine, at the Belzec death camp.

1942: Birthdate of barrister and campaigner for children’s rights Allan Edward Levy.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/sep/29/guardianobituaries.children

1943: “A survivor from Sabinov in Slovakia, who has remained anonymous, wrote a report in which he described his selection in Sobibór, together with approximately one hundred men and fifty women, upon arrival.”

1943: The latest deportation continued at Bialystok; The Nazis selection 1,200 children for transport to Theresienstadt. Four weeks later, those children still alive were sent to Birkenau where all of them met the fate of death. Fifty-three adults volunteered to join them.

1943: Some 1200 children are taken from the Jewish ghetto at Bialystok, Poland, to Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, and later to Auschwitz, where they will be killed.

1944: Nicholas Winton, the Englishman who rescued almost 700 Jewish children from Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia was promoted to the rank of pilot officer in the RAF.

1944: Premiere of “Cry of the Werewolf” directed by Henry Levin.

1944: Birthdate of Larry Ellison, the co-founder and CEO of Oracle.

1944: The last deportation from Drancy, France, leaves for Buchenwald bearing 51 Jews. Once again we have a reminder of how critical the Final Solution was to the Germans and their allies.  This deportation took place as the Allies were liberating Paris.  While the Germans were preparing to pull out and leave the French capital to the liberators, they had to ship one more load of Jews to their death. 

1945: Animal Farm by George Orwell is first published by Fredric Warburg both of whose parents were Jewish.

1945: It was reported today that the meeting between representatives of the World Zionist Conference and British Colonial Secretary George Hall was “the first known official contact between the Zionists and the new Labor Government.”  In the past the Laborites have pledged their support for the creation of a Jewish homeland so “the Zionists are eagerly awaiting the British Governments action on the request for 100,000 more immigration certificates…”

1946: Birthdate of Drake Maxwell Levin, the Chicago native “who played lead guitar for the teen-idol rock band Paul Revere & the Raiders during their biggest hit-making years in the mid-1960s.” (As reported by Bruce Weber)

1948: Mitchell Flint “took up D-108 for an hour of formation flying, part of an exhibition for Prime Minister Ben-Gurion's visit to Netanya.”

1948: “During today's visit by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to Netanya, Modi Alon scrambled Syd Cohen and four of his B flight pilots, if only for show in front of the prime minister.”

1948: Mordechai Weingarten, a Jewish civilian leader in Old Jerusalem “appeared before a commission investigating events” that had led up to the surrender of the Old City to the Jordanians.

1949: In New York, Ambassador Eliabu Elath and the chief Israeli delegate to the U.N., Aubrey Eban, “addressed a meeting of officials of the Consulate and of various Israeli missions in the United States” as part of the celebration marking the transfer of the remains of Theodore Herzl to Jerusalem. (As reported by JTA)

1949: In New York Norman Bertram Coleman, Sr., and his wife, Beverly (Behrman) gave birth to Norman Bertram "Norm" Coleman, Jr the future Mayor of St. Paul and U.S. Senator from Minnesota.

1949: Premiere of “Jolson Sings Again” the sequel of “The Jolson Story,” biopics about Al Jolson directed by Henry Levin

1950: Premier of “The Petty Girl” a musical comedy directed by Henry Levin.

1951: U.S. Premiere of “The Lost Continent” a science fiction thriller co-starring Sid Melton, the son of Yiddish comedian Isidor Meltzer.

1951:Today, Oswego, NY native and Columbia trained urologist Dr. Clarence Garfield Bandler, the son of William and Eva Fox Bandler married Miriam Zack

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1957/11/17/132854902.pdf

1951: The conflict in the World Zionist Congress on the aims of Zionism now that Israel has been established as a state remained sharp as the delegates adjourned this afternoon for the Sabbath recess.

1952: John Blanford of UNRWA and the government of Jordan signed an agreement that provided eleven million dollars for the resettling of Arab refugees in Jordan. The Arab governments, including Jordan, did all that they could to keep the Palestinian refugees penned up in camps and keep them out of their respective countries.  

1952: Two Jews were sentenced to death for economic crimes in Poland. It was thought that the Polish Communist regime was exploiting anti-Semitism to distract attention for its own, ever-growing economic difficulties.

1956: In Paris, Gaby and Raymond Aghion gave birth to Philippe Mario Aghion the “Robert C. Waggoner Professor of Economics at Harvard University and the co-developer of “Schumpeterian Paradigm.”

1956(10th of Elul, 5716): Sixty-five year old Russian born Yiddish poet Moishe Broderzon passed away today.

http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Broderzon_Moyshe

1957(20th of Av, 5717): Sixty-six year old English painter and “Whitechapel Boy” David Bomberg passed away.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ARTbomberg.htm

1960:  Birthdate of actor Sean Penn.  Penn’s father was Jewish.  His mother was not.  Penn’s father was director Leo Penn who was a victim to the infamous Blacklist.

1960: ITV broadcast the final episode of “The Four Just Men” a television series overseen by Executive Producer Hannah Fisher, with music Francis Chagrin.

1961(5th of Elul, 5721): Seventy-six year old Carlos Salezdo, the scion of two Sephardi families and a leading “French harpist, pianist, composer and conductor” passed away today.

http://www.yourharpist.com/carlos5.html

1962: In a rare loss of control, reliever Larry Sherry hit Red’s lead-off batter Gordie Coleman in the seventh inning.  The Dodgers go on to defeat Cincinnati.

1963: Three days after his death, a friend disclosed the fact that Clifford Odets’ “The Flowering Peach” “had been the Pulitzer Prize jury’s 1955 drama choice” but that it had been overruled by Pulitzer Advisory Board.

1966(1st of Elul, 5726): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1966 (1st of Elul, 5726): Eighty-two year old Des Moines, IA native Ira M. Younker, the husband of Rose Marie Younker with whom he had two children – Herman and Janet – who was the “President of the Jewish Family Service and a trustee of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropics of New York” passed away today.

1966(1st of Elul, 5726): 1967: Yonatan Netanyahu married Tuti today.

1966: Ninety year old, John Spargo, the author of The Jews and American Ideals in which he “attacked the problems of anti-Semitism and exposes the un-American nature and its positive danger to American ideals and institutions” passed away today.

1967: Tuti and Yonatan “Yoni” Netanyahu were married today after which they moved to the U.S. so he could enroll at Harvard.

1967: “The Stranger Returns” a “spaghetti Western film produced by Allen Klein was released in Italy today.

1968(23rd of Av, 5728): Parashat Eikev

1968(23rd of Av, 5728): Sixty-seven year old Joseph Platzker, a life-long resident of New York City and “Commissioner of Housing and Buildings” under Mayor La Guardia who was the husband of Bess Ratner Platzker with whom he had two children – Harold and Doris – passed away today “at the Albert Einstein Hospital.”

1969(3rd of Elul, 5729):  German born physicist Otto Stern who worked with Einstein before World War I and came to the United States in 1933 where he taught and won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1943 passed away today.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1943/stern/biographical/

1970: Sixty-nine year old to Dr. Frederick Lascoff, the recipient of a pharmacy degree from Columbia where he taught for 20 years and a Doctorate in Pharmacy from the Connecticut College of Pharmacy who operated the “Yorkville pharmacy started by his father” and who was the husband of Emmy Lascoff with whom he had one son passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1970/08/18/archives/dr-frederick-lascoff-69-dies-oldtime-yorkville-apothecary.html

1974: Leonard Bernstein conducted the premiere of Dybbuk Variations with NYP in Auckland, New Zealand.

1975(10th of Elul, 5735): Seventy-nine year old painter and actor Sig Arno, the native of Hamburg, who left Germany in 1933 for Hollywood where ‘he appeared in over fifty films” over the next twenty years and also found time two appear in three different shows on Broadway including “Time Remembered’ “for which he was nominated for a Tony Award…in 1958.

1976: Hadassah continues its national convention for a third day in Washington, DC.

1977: A memorial is scheduled to be held this evening at Riverside Chapel for art dealer Hugo Perls who passed away yesterday at the age of 91.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1977/08/16/75296131.pdf

1979: Premiere of “The Seduction of Joe Tynan” a cinematic commentary on the state of American politics directed by Jerry Schatzberg, produced by Bregman co-starring Melvyn Douglas.

1979: “The Concorde ... Airport '79” with a screenplay by Eric Roth, music by Lalo Schifrin and featuring performances by Avery Schreiber and Harry Shearer was released in the United States today by Universal Pictures.

1980(5th of Elul, 5740): Eighty-eight year old Morris Murray Peshkin, the graduate of Fordham Medical School and allergist who was on the faculty of Columbia and an officer of the American Jewish Congress passed away today.

1980(5th of Elul, 5740): In Jaffa, one person was killed and eight were injured during a terrorist car bombing.

1981(17th of Av, 5741): Ninety one year old Jewish historian, author and academic Selma Stern Taebuler passed away.

http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/stern-taeubler-selma

1982(28th of Av, 5742): Fifty-seven anti-apartheid activist Ruth First, the daughter of Latvian Jews who had moved to South Africa in 1906 and the wife of Joe Slovo passed away today.

1983(8th of Elul, 5743): Lyricist Ira Gershwin, brother of the famous George Gershwin, passed away at the age of 86. (As reported by John S. Wilson)

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/08/18/obituaries/ira-gershwin-lyricist-dies-songs-embodied-broadway.html?pagewanted=print

1984: Birthdate of San Mateo, CA native Raphael Bob-Waksberg, the son and grandson of Jewish book and gift store proprietors known for his role in creating original content for Netflix.


1986(12th of Av, 5746) Moses Hadas an American teacher, who was one of the leading classical scholars of the twentieth century, and a translator of numerous works, passed away today. 







                 “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.”

                                                                        Or                                

Moses Hadas passed away. Hadas was 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.

1986: Birthdate of Deborah Feldman, the author who rebelled against her upbringing by “the Hasidic Satmar group in Williamsburg” and wrote her autobiography, Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots.




1987:  Rudolf Hess, the last of Hitler’s inner circle died in a Berlin hospital at the age of 93. He apparently attempted to commit suicide by hanging himself with an electrical cord.  Hess had parachuted into England in 1941 for reasons that to this day are unclear.  Convicted as a war criminal at Nuremberg, he spent the rest of his life at Spandau Prison.

1988:According to an article in the Cedar Rapids Gazette entitled, “A Tale of Two Piggies.” Concrete pigs had replaced pink flamingos as yard ornaments for Temple Judah congregants Terri and Brian Cohen. The 1,100-pound concrete porker showed up in the couple’s front yard at 1290 35th St. NE after a mysterious phone call invited Terri to leave her home. Brian recalled a friend asking what kind of lawn ornament he wanted and when he responded, “no pink flamingos and no Virgin Mary grottoes,” he neglected to mention swine.

1992: Woody Allen admitted to being romantically involved with Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of Allen’s longtime companion, actress Mia Farrow.

1994: Elias Canetti, a novelist, playwright and cultural historian who had won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981 was buried today in Zurich next to James Joyce. 

1960: ITV released the final episode of “The Four Just Men” produced by Hannah Fisher.

1995(21st of Av, 5755): Ninety-three year old screenwriter Howard Koch, who won an Oscar for his work on “Casablanca”, passed away. (As reported by Mel Gussow)

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/18/obituaries/howard-koch-a-screenwriter-for-casablanca-dies-at-93.html?pagewanted=1

1997: Guy Hever disappeared after finishing his stint on guard duty while serving with an artillery unit based in the Golan Heights.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/the-soldier-who-vanished-guy-hever-syria/

1997: In the Gaza Strip a two day celebration was held to celebrate the 25thanniversary of the Gush Katif settlement bloc

1997: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition of Lise Meitner: A Life in

Physics by Ruth Lewin

1998: US President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony that he had an "improper physical relationship" with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

2001: “Rat Race,” a comedy directed by Jerry Zucker, co-produced by Jerry Zucker and Janet Zucer, written by Andy Breckman and co-starring Jon Lovit was released in the United States and Canada today.

2001(28thof Av, 5761): Eighty year old Penn State track star Herman Goffberg who competed in the 1948 Olympics passed away today.

http://old.post-gazette.com/obituaries/20010822goffberg0822p2.asp

2002: “Israeli security forces arrested the Hamas terrorists known as the ‘Silwan Cell’ who were responsible for the attack on the Café Moment coffee shop in Jerusalem that killed 11 Israeli civilians and wounded another 54.”

2002: The end of the two-day dedication ceremony of the Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial in Boise, Idaho.

2003: In Malibu, CA, “at the Saddlerock Vineyards and Ranch,” Rabbi Michael Gotlieb is scheduled to officiate at the wedding of Brandeis graduate and “creative writer” Elisa Tamar Albert and Joel Samuel Farkas, a third year law student at Fordham Law School.

2003: Ariel Sharon completed his term in office as Communications Minister of Israel.

2003: The Sunday New York Times includes reviews of Einstein’s Clocks, Poincare’s Maps: Empires of Time by Peter Galison,Kate Remembered, a biography of Kathryn Hepburn by the Jewish author A. Scott Bergand What Was She Thinking?:Notes on a Scandal, a novel by Jewish author Zoe Holler.

2004(30th of Av, 5764): Rosh Chodesh Ave

2005: In a tribute to the vitality of the Jewish people Hutzot Hayotzer Jerusalem’s largest summer festival celebrating art and various crafts returns to its original location at the Sultan’s Pool when it opened today.  Hutzot Havotzer is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary and is a cultural happening in the truest sense of the word.  With the world fixated on Gaza and terror, this is another reminder of the vitality of Jewish culture even in times of unbelievable stress and hostility.

2005: Sixteen families of “Morag, a moshav in the southwest edge of the Gaza Strip” “were evicted today by the IDF and Israeli police.”

2005: Today, “as the Vikings' morning training camp session ended at Minnesota State University about half a dozen fans approached Zygmunt Wilf -- a New Jersey real estate developer and the new principal owner of the Minnesota Vikings for autographs as he walked off the field.”

2005: In an example of the demise of another Jewish founded department store chain Coles announced that it would decide the fate of Myer, an Australian retail group founded Sidney Myer a Jewish immigrant from Russia.

2006: IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz refused to resign over charges that he had sold off his portfolio because, unlike most Israelis, he knew that his country was faced with the prospect of going to war after two Israelis soldiers had been captured by Hezbollah.

2006: I Was a Child of Holocuast Survivors by Bernice Eisenstein went on sale today.

2006:Israel's Attorney General Menachem Mazuz decided to indict Haim Ramon for indecent assault. Ramon responded by saying: "I am certain of my innocence. The court will prove it."

2007(2nd Elul, 5676): Ninety-one year old Carolyn Goodman, the psychologist turned “civil rights advocate” and mother of murdered Civil Rights worker Andrew Goodman passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/18/us/18goodman.html?_r=1&

2007: “Superbad” produced by Judd Apaow, written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg and starring Jonah Hill opens in movie theatres throughout the United States.Jonah Hill, who plays the socially inept teen, says he's really a nice Jewish boy. "I am not a super lecherous guy. I usually enjoy having a girlfriend as opposed to dating a variety of women. I'm a nice Jewish boy."

2008: In St. Paul, Minnesota,Bais Chana Jewish Women's Weekend Retreat comes to a close.



2008: Services were held at Tifereth Israel Synagogue in Des Moines for Marvin Pomerantz, 78, a friend and adviser of Republican governors and presidents for four decades who twice served as president of the Iowa Board of Regents



2008: The Washington Post book section reported that The D.C. Jewish Community Center is seeking submissions for its third annual writing contest -- short essays or stories that illuminate how humor has been helpful in difficult times. The winning entries will be part of "Laughing for God's Sake: Humor in Jewish Literature," the opening event in the upcoming Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival to be held in September.



2008:The cabinet voted this morning to release some 200 security prisoners as a goodwill gesture to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.



2008: Anna Gostamelsky shattered Israel’s national swimming record the 100-meter freestyle this evening at the Beijing Olympics.   But after six years, Ms. Gostamelsky, one of thousands of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, has not been able to convince the rabbinate that she is Jewish according to halacha.



2008: “The tribute concert Lyrics by Don Black was held at the London Palladium, featuring performances of Black's songs by a selection of guest artists



2008: Opening of the12th Annual Jewish Arts Fest of Dallasfeaturing the deeply Texan and Jewish story of The Immigrant in a musical concert production by Fort Worth's Stage West.

2009: Time magazine features reviews of three books about Bernie Madoff “who hawked his investment fund to a largely Jewish clientele” including Too Good to be True by Erin Arvedlund, Madoff with Money by Jerry Oppenheimer and Betrayal; The Life and Lies of Bernie Madoff by Andrew Kirtzman.

2009: In Washington, D.C. Community organizer Michael Rosen discusses and signs What Else But Home: Seven Boys and an American Journey Between the Projects and the Penthouse at Politics and Prose Bookstore

2009(27th of Av, 5769): Two more Israelis died on today due to complications from the swine flu, becoming the eighth and ninth people in Israel to succumb to the pandemic. The two men, age 76 and 67, died at the Sharon Hospital and Beilinson Hospital, both in Petah Tikva.

2009(27th of Av, 5769): Eighty-four year old Israel Adler founder of the National Sound Archives of the National Library of Israel, founder and former director of the Jewish Music Research Centre of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and one of the co-founders of IASA died today after a prolonged illness.

http://www.jewish-music.huji.ac.il/thesaurus243c.html?cat=9&in=9&id=12&act=view

http://www.iasa-web.org/notice_board/obituary-professor-israel-adle

2009: “New Doubts Raised Over Famous War Photo” published today described challenges to the authenticity of one of the iconic combat photographs Robert Capa’s “Falling Soldier.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/arts/design/18capa.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/08/17/arts/18CAPA_hp_ready.html

2010: The National Jewish Retreat is scheduled to begin at Reston, VA.

2010: Clashes between the IDF and Palestinian terrorists along the Gaza border intensified today, when two IDF soldiers were slightly injured by mortar fire near the security fence in southern Gaza.

2010(7th of Elul, 5770): Harold Shpeen, 87, of Marlton, a longtime dentist and former president of the Jewish Federation of South Jersey, passed away today. 

2010: LAJFF in cooperation with the Anti-Defamation League and Second Generation host an exclusive pre-release screening of “A Film Unfinished” in Encino.

2010: Ryan “Kalish hit his first career grand slam in game against the Angeles in Fenway Park.”

2011: Les Bergen, a JHSGW Board Member, is scheduled to facilitate “a virtual tour of Arlington National Cemetery, where more than 5,200 Jews are buried.  We'll discuss the Confederate Memorial by sculptor Moses Ezekiel and talk about the first Hadassah nurse, a Supreme Court justice, astronauts, four-star admirals, and more.

2011: “Smiley - How about some emotional pornography?” written by Eyal Weiser and directed by Allon Cohen is scheduled to open in New York City.

2011: “The California Supreme Court declined to review the Court of Appeal's decision to affirm Phil Spector’s conviction” for the murder of Lana Clarkson.

2011:  Fighting bad lighting and a spotty internet connection, activists at the Rothschild tent city held a live chat tonight with leaders of the “May 15” anti-government protests that brought hundreds of thousands into the streets across Spain since they began over three months ago.

2011: It was reported today that “The Hebrew University in Jerusalem has been ranked the 57th best university in the world, in a list of the top 500 universities worldwide.

2011: Peter Shumlin became the first sitting governor in the United States to preside over a same-sex wedding ceremony

2012: Among the many choices Washington Metropolitan Areas Jews have for welcoming the Sabbath are the Pre-service wine and cheese social at Beth El Hebrew Congregation in Alexandria and the Shabbat BBQ at Congregation Beth Emeth in Herndon, VA

2012: A final vote is scheduled to take place today when the United Church of Canada's General Council can choose to accept or reject an overall motion that includes recommendations to approve a boycott of products made in Israeli settlements. (As reported by JTA)

2012: The leader of the Lebanese Shiite terrorist Hezbollah said his group will transform the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israelis to “hell” if Israel attacks Lebanon. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said today that the group has a list of Israeli targets that it can hit with few rockets.

2012: South Africa’s chief rabbi has called on the country’s deputy minister of international relations to resign, saying he is unfit to hold public office.

2012(29thof Av,5772): Seventy-seven year old “Samuel H. Lindenbaum, who was widely considered New York City’s top zoning lawyer and who was credited with doing as much as any of the powerful developers among his clients to shape the modern skyline of Manhattan” passed away today.  (As reported by David W. Dunlap)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/nyregion/samuel-h-lindenbaum-lawyer-to-major-new-york-developers-dies-at-77.html?_r=2&hpw&

2013: In Monticello, NY, second and final day of the Bagel Festival attendees can participate in the Best Bagels Contest and the Bagel Triathalon  that includes seeing how far you can roll a bagel, how far you can shot put a bagel and how high you can stack bagels without have them fall.

2013: “Arthur Fields: the man on O'Connell bridge” published today described the “career” Irish photographer Arthur Fields, the Dublin native Abraham Feldman who was the son of Jews from Ukraine.

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/aug/18/arthur-fields-man-oconnell-bridge-photographs

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/galleries/man-on-a-bridge-1.1488230

2013(11thof Elul, 5773): Eight-nine year old historian David Landes author of Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/us/david-s-landes-historian-and-author-is-dead-at-89.html?hpw&_r=1&&pagewanted=print

2013: The Tamarod ("Rebellion") movement in Egypt has joined a campaign calling to stop US aid to Egypt, and to cancel the 1979 Camp David peace treaty with Israel, Daily News Egypt reported today.

2013: The IDF fired a Tammuz surface-to-surface missile at a Syrian army post today, after several Syrian mortar shells exploded in the Golan Heights. (As reported by Yaakov Lappin)

2014: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Kill My Mother: A Graphic Novel written and illustrated by Jules Feifer, Timeless: Love, Morgenthau and Me by Lucinda Franks and “Andrew Lewis Conn’s new novel, O, Africa!, which explores the fictional exploits of two Jewish brothers whose commercial partnership propels them to the forefront of the silent film industry in the years between the World Wars.”

2014(21st of Av, 5774): Ninety-six year old Sophie Masloff, “the first woman and the first Jew to serve as mayor of Pittsburgh” passed away today. (As reported by Robert D. McFadden)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/18/us/sophie-masloff-ex-mayor-of-pittsburgh-dies-at-96.html?hpw&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHedThumbWell&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2014: This evening, the PBS premiere of “Before The Revolution - The Untold Story of the Israeli Paradise in Iran.”

2014: The Baton Rouge (LA) Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “Fiddler on the Roof” complete with a sing-along.

2014: “Israel will not agree under any circumstances to a ceasefire deal that doesn’t meet the country’s security demands, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today, as an Israeli delegation landed in Cairo to discuss an Egyptian proposal aimed at ending hostilities in the Gaza Strip and across the Israeli border.” (As reported by Adiv Sterman)

2014: Israeli security forces are preparing to examine “three openings in the ground…inside communities in the Gaza border area” near homes, kindergartens and playing fields” which are thought to “tunnel entrances dug by Hamas under the border from Gaza into Israel.” (As reported by Stuart Winer)

2014: Elena Kats-Chernin is scheduled to perform “Remembering Bialystok,” “her new work for piano and cello” at “A Concert to Remember Bialystok” at the Melbourne Recital Center.

https://www.jewishnews.net.au/musical-tribute-to-bialystoks-jews/37062

2014: After yesterday’s violent protests at a Tesco supermarket by pro-Hamas demonstrators and the decisions of the grocery chain which was founded by Jewish businessman Jack Cohen to knuckle under to the Bobycott Divestment and Sanctions movement, today another UK grocery chain removed kosher items from their shelves out of fear of violence from pro-Palestinian demonstrators.

2015: The “Seeking Justice: The Leo Frank Case Revisited” is scheduled to open to the public today at the Southern Museum in Kennesaw, GA.

http://historymuseum.kennesaw.edu/events/leo_frank.pdf

2015: As part of program sponsored by the Southern Museum, the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum and the Museum of History and Holocaust Education at Kennesaw State University Congregation Neir Tamid is scheduled to lead a centennial remembrance of Leo Frank’s lynching including the recitation of Kaddish led by Rabbi Tom Liebschutz.

2016(13th of Av, 5776): Ninety-two year old Arthur Hiller, the director who may be best known for the tear-jerker “Love Story” passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/18/movies/arthur-hiller-dead.html?_r=0

2016: “At 8 p.m., violinist Gil Shaham is scheduled tol perform Bach's complete Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin in single recital at Tanglewood.

2016: Rabbi Deborah Silver and Deborah Mintz are scheduled to lead the Summer Learning Series at Shir Chadish, the Conservative synagogue which gave the author of this blog his first teaching job.

2017: The 2017 Daniel Pearl Fellows, Nichals Chang and Samuel Yousafazi are scheduled to participate in “an open discussion” moderated by Rob Eshman at the Steve Allen Theatre in Los Angeles.

2017: “Brig. Gen. Dr. Tarif Bader was sworn in today as the Israel Defense Forces chief medical officer, marking the first time in the country's history that the position is manned by a Druze officer.” (Editor’s note: Does anybody see any sense of irony in this entry given the events of the Summer of 2018?)

http://www.israelhayom.com/2017/08/18/in-idf-first-chief-medical-officer-hails-from-druze-community/



2017: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host an evening with photographer Baron Wolman who “became the first chief photographer of the legendary publication, Rolling Stone magazine.”

2017: “Pawn Sacrifice,” a film about American chess prodigy Bobby Fisher and co-starring Live Schreiber is scheduled to be shown for the last time in London and Manchester.

2017: The Cleveland Jewish News is scheduled to present an evening of comedy featuring Sarge Pickman, “The Black Jew with the Chai IQ” at Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple in Beachwood.

2018: Due to the presence of “high levels of fecal E. coli bacteria” the Health Ministry is not allowing the public to “several streams” including “Zaki, Yehudiya, Meshushim, Zavitan, Jilabun, and Daliyot (at the Majrassa Nature Reserve), as well as the Jordan River (only in the Jordan Park area).” (As reported by Rotem Elizera and Gilad Carmeli)

2018: The Bezalel Art Fair is scheduled to begin at ten this morning in Jerusalem.

https://www.facebook.com/bezalel.fair/videos/1932926923594949/

2019(16th of Av, 5779): Shabbat Nachamu; for more see http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/

2019: Two hundred and twenty-ninth anniversary of President George Washington’s visit to Newport, Rhode Island, a depiction of which is part of the core exhibition at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, PA.

https://www.nmajh.org/religiousfreedom/

This Day, August 18, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. and Deb Levin

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August 18

1201: Founding of Riga, capital of modern day Latvia. The first Jews appeared in Riga three centuries later and despite Czars, Nazis and Commissars continue to live in the city to this day.

1227: Genghis Khan dies.  According to Arthur Koestler’s The Thirteenth Tribe, Genghis Khan wiped out the Khazar Empire.

1307: Jaime II (James) of Majorca expelled the Jews from the provinces of Rousillon and Montpellier. Many escaped to Barcelona where they were welcomed.
1393: King John I, in an effort to prevent "backsliding" by converted Jews, prohibited them from living in the same quarter or even eating together.


1503: The Papacy of Alexander VI known in history as the most profligate of all the popes who “allowed the exiles from Spain to settle in his states, and whose leniency toward the Jews  “was prompted by his greed” came to an end today.

1533: The Queen of Poland granted the Jews of Pinsk all the rights already granted to the Jews of Lithuania.

1559: The Papacy of Paul IV, who issued “Cum Nimis Absurdum”, the Bull that order the creation of the Jewish Ghetto in Rome came to an end today.

1765(1st of Elul, 5525): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1765: Samuel Levy Maduro, son of Moses Levy Maduro married Leah Cohen Peixotto in Curacao

1670: A church called the Leopoldskirche was dedicated today in Vienna.  The church had been a synagogue but it was no longer used as such because the Jews had all been expelled from the Upper and Lower Austria.

1771: Jacob Pinto, the son of Abraham and Sarah Pinto and his second wife Abigail gave birth to Samuel Pinto

1775: The Spanish established a presidio (fort) and the town came to be called Tucson, Arizona. The first openly Jewish settlers did not arrive in Tucson until the 18th century.  They included Nathan Appel, a noted merchant who served as a delegate to the first Arizona Territorial Legislature in 1863 and Chief of the Tucson Police, William Zeckendorf, the Tucson merchant who was the grandfather of the famous real estate magnate and the brewer Alex Levin, founder of Levin’s Park, the three-acre entertainment center that was the site of every important social and communal event in Tucson during Arizona’s territorial days.  Country Singer Linda Ronstadt is one of Levin’s descendants.

1793: Aaron Barrow married Rosetta Benjamin at the Great Synagogue today.

1813: Nathan Phillips married Adolphus Esther at the Great Synagogue today.

1815: Twenty-five year old Meno Burg who “for a long time would be the only Jewish Prussian staff officer” was promoted to the rank of Second Lieutenant of Artillery shortly after which he became “a company officer in the First Artillery Brigade at Gdansk.

1822(1st of Elul, 5582): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1822: Lipman Myers married Rebecca Mordecai at the Hambro Synagogue today.

1822(1st of Elul, 5582): Joshua Zeitlin passed away. Born in 1742, he “was a Russian rabbinical scholar and philanthropist. He was a pupil of the Talmudist Rabbi Aryeh Leib ben Asher Gunzberg who was the author of Sha'agat Aryeh; and, being an expert in political economy, he stood in close relations with Prince Potemkin, the favorite of Catherine II. During the Turko-Russian war Zeitlin furnished the Russian army with various supplies, and managed that business so cleverly that he was afterward appointed imperial court councilor. On retiring from business in civil rank of Court Counsellor, Zeitlin resided on his estate Ustzia, where he was consulted by the rabbis with regard to rabbinical questions. He rendered pecuniary assistance to many Talmudists and scholars, and supported a magnificent beit midrash, in which many Jewish scholars were provided with all the necessaries of life, so that they could pursue their vocations without worries of any kind. Among the scholars who benefited by his generosity: Rabbi Nahum, author of Tosafot Bikkurim; Mendel Lepin, author of Cheshbon ha-Nefesh; and the physician Baruch Schick. Zeitlin was the author of annotations to the Sefer Mitzwot Katan, printed with the text (Kopys, 1820), and supplemented by some of his responsa.”

1823: Birthdate of Phoebe Yates Levy Pember. During the Civil War, Pember served as the chief matron of Richmond’s Chimborazo Hospital. After the War, she wrote her memoirs, which were published as A Southern Woman's Story: Life in Confederate Richmond, in 1879. This book, which details her daily life through anecdotes of the war years, remains one of the best sources for understanding the experiences and ideas of upper-class Southern Jewish women before and during the Civil War. Following the War, Pember maintained her elite social status, and traveled extensively through the U.S. and Europe. She died on March 4, 1913, and is buried in Savannah

http://jwa.org/thisweek/aug/18/1823/phoebe-yates-levy-pember

1824: Lewis Lazarus married Clara Raphael at the Western Synagogue today.

1826: Birthdate of William Isaac Wolf (Ritter von Gutman) who founded the largest coal company in the Austro-Hungarian empires and served as the President of the Jewish Community of Vienna from 1891 through 1892.

1830: Birthdate of Franz Joseph I, the penultimate Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. During his long reign, for whatever reason or reason(s), Franz Joseph improved the conditions of his Jewish subjects to the point that “three years after he celebrated his Jubilee the Jewish Chronicles’ Vienna correspondent wrote “the Jews owe a great deal to their Emperor Franz Joseph” and that they do not blame him for any “retrogressive measures” taken against them.  At the same Franz Joseph’s enemies derisively referred to him as the “Judenkaiser.” 

1830: Birthdate of Henry Strauss, the native of Alsac who moved to Jackson, Mississippi before the Civil War.

1834:  Birthdate of department store owner, Marshall Field.  Marshall Field was not Jewish but his partner Levi Ziegler Leiter was.  In 1865 Field and Leiter bought a dry goods store which they named Field and Leiter. They built and re-built the signature State Street Store.  When Leiter retired, the company was renamed Marshall Field and Company.

1835: Birthdate of Amalia Nathansohn Freud, the mother of Sigmund Freud.

1838: Birthdate of Emil Ganz a Civil War veteran who went West and became a successful businessman and three-time mayor of Phoenix, Arizona.

1838: In Calcutta, R.E. Belilios and his wife gave birth to Regina Sassoon who became Regina Belilos after she married R.E. Belilios of Aleppo.

1839: Birthdate of Edward Lee the “member of the Corporation of the City London” starting in 1886 who chaired the Law and City Courts Committee and the Coal, Corn and Finance Committee and who was named “Chief Commoner of the City Lands Committee” in 1895.

1839: Henry Joel married Sarah Simmons at the Great Synagogue today.

1841: In New York City, Moses Lazarus and Esther Lydia Mary Lazarus, the daughter of Isaac Mendes Seixas Nathan and Sarah Mendes Nathan gave birth to Isaiah Lazarus

1843: Birthdate of Moritz Brasch, the native of Prussia who gained fame as a philosopher and essayist.

1846: The Jewish Oath, originally established by Charlemagne, was abolished in Austria. Until then, a Jew who took oath in a Christian court against a Christian was forced to stand on the skin of a dead animal or be surrounded by thorns and call down the curses of Korach or Naaman if he were not telling the truth. In Romania it was only repealed in the 20th century.

1846: ‘The Religious Opinions Relief Act removed some of minor disabilities which affected British Jews and dissenters from the Established Church; the only state office which still remained closed to Jews was Parliament.”

1854: Starting today M.H. Bresslau began editing The Jewish Chronicle and Working Man’s Friend which under his leadership was re-named The Jewish Chronicle and Hebrew Observer.

1855: The Concordat that went into effect today in Austria led to the exclusion of Jews from such “positions as teachers in elementary and high schools and attempts by the government to exclude Jewish children from the public schools, which were to be exclusively Catholic

1855: The New York Times reported that Solomon Rothschild who died in Paris in July was buried "with a certain degree of financial pomp.  The hearse was followed by a large number of artistic and literary celebrities by the old men supported at the hospital endowed by the deceased and by 1,200 children educated at his school.  Then, in the procession, was the Grand Rabbi and the Israelite Consistory.  The body was buried in the tomb of the Rothschild family, which is in the Jews' corner of Pere La chaise."

1856: In La Porte, IN, Jacob and Henrietta Wile gave birth to Annette Nettie Wile who became Annette Nettie Hamburger when she married Max Mayer Hamburger with whom she had three children – Leon, Amy and Walter.

1856: Birthdate of Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg who gained fame using the Hebrew pan name Ahad Ha'am (אחד העם,). A pre-eminent essayist he was the founder of Cultural Zionism with a vision of a Jewish "spiritual center" in Palestine. Ha'am strived for "a Jewish state and not merely a state of Jews." In what would appear to have been a detour from his intellectual pursuits Ahad Ha’am managed the Anglo-Asiatic tea company established by Kaloniumus Wolf Wissotzky,  the founder of the Wissotzky Tea Company which prior to the Bolshevik Revolution was the largest tea company in the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wissotzky_Tea

https://archive.org/details/at_the_crossroads_0902_librivox

http://www.knesset.gov.il/lexicon/eng/echad_haam_eng.htm

1860: Birthdate of Theodore Lewald, the nephew of “Jewish novelist Fanny Lewald” and loyal servant of the Reich before, during and after World War I who spent his life as a Christian but was removed from leadership role at the 1936 Olympics because his “paternal grandmother was Jewish.”

1860: “Sunday at Newport” published today states that the Jews might teach the current inhabitants “a lesson of reverence; for, although long since departed from Newport, where their social and commercial position was once superior, by ample testamentary provision, their Synagogue and Cemetery are preserved in admirable order -- reproachful to Christian neglect and indifference…It was startling, when the remains of the benevolent Judah Turo were brought here for interment, to hear the Rabbi, who pronounced the funeral discourse -- alluding to his change of abode and the vicissitudes of his life -- say, as a matter of course, "Like his great ancestor, Jacob, he was a pilgrim and sojourner.”

1863: During the Civil War, 1st Lieutenant Michael Rosenstein completed his service with Company K of the 172nd Regiment.

1863: Birthdate of Victor-Guillaume Basch, the native of Budapest who was the son of journalist Raphael Basch and who became a professor at the Sorbonne and a French political leader.

1866: Julie Pollitzer and Henry Morris gave birth to George Henry Morris who would only live for ten weeks.

1869: Henry Fileman, the second son of John Fileman mairred Theresa Clara Leopold, the eldest daughter of Louis Leopold at the Masonic Hall, Bedford Row, Holborn, WC.

1869: Ivan Andreevich Shingarev, a prosperous merchant, and Zinaida Nikanorovna gave birth to Andrei Ivanovich Shingarev, a physician and leader of the Kadets (Constitutional Democrat Party) who in March of 1916 took the unusual position of defending the Jews against charges of destroying the war effort, boldly pointing the disabilities under which Jews lived in the Czar’s Empire.)

1870: During the Franco-Prussian War, the Kaiser’s forces defeated the French Army which included Bernard Abraham, a decorated artillery officer, in what would prove to a strategic victory that helped to seal the fate of the Napoleon with all that that would come to mean in 1870 which would lead to 1914 which would lead to 1939.

1870: The Baltimore American reported that members of the Lloyd Street Synagogue had filed suit against various officers of synagogue in Circuit Court over what they considered violations of the charter as it pertains to matter of ritual and the hiring of a Chazan, among other matters.

1871: It was reported today that a large quantity of diamonds, rubies and other precious stones which had been concealed in the luggage of three French Jews has been seized by Custom House authorities on suspicion that they had been smuggled in to the country aboard the SS Italy.

1872: Birthdate of New York native and University of Wisconsin trained attorney Charles Lehman, the long term Judge Milwaukee County Circuit Court and husband of Des Moines born Rose Sheuerman who was active in the Milwaukee chapter of B’nai B’rith, the ADL and the American Jewish Committee.

1875: In Erie, PA, “Isaac and Bertha (Ernhorn ) Baker gave birth University of Chicago graduate and founder of the Federation of Jewish Charities “Edward Mose (Max) Baker,” the longtime President of the Cleveland Stock Exchange” and a leading Progressive Republican political leader.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/baker-edward-max

1877: Esther Hannah Samuel, the daughter of Maurice Moses Beddington and Hannah Maria Beddington and her husband Henry Sylvester gave birth to Hilda Beatrice Samuel who became Hilda Beatrice Weiner when she married Charles Jacob Wiener, the mother of Eric and Philippe Wiener.

1878: “The Happy Californians” published today described the surprise expressed by Christians in California that Michael Reese, the recently deceased German-Jewish millionaire had bequeathed “large sums to different institutions irrespective of their denomination.”

1878: During the Yellow Fever epidemic that has gripped New Orleans Rabbi J.K. Gutheim, Edward J. Krsheidt and other officers of the Hebrew Benevolent Assoication made the following appeal, “ Sickness, distressand suffering amont the poor are increasing daily.  Our funds are nearly exhaustaed.  In this sad calamity we deem it our melancholy dutry to appeal to the sympathies of our brethern throughout the United States for speedy aid.”

1879: The Notes of Foreign News column reported the Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs has issued a circular to its missions abroad concerning the condition of the Jews living in the country.  On the one hand the government claimes that “In the future every foreigner” Jewish or non-Jewish, will be eligible to become naturalized citizens regardless of religion.  At the same time, the government claimes that “the Jews in Roumania at the present moment have never been Romanian citizens.  The government questions how it can make them citizens “in one day” since it will that Moldavia will be over-run by 300,000 Jews who are “uneducated fanatics, having a different language,  a different language, a different  different customs, different sentiments and whom the” Romanians have always considered foreginers.  Granting the Jews currently living in Romanaia would “stirke a terrible blow to the economic interest of the county…and would drive the population to revolt…”  [The treatment of the Jews living in Romania was a cause that had been taken up by the Great Powers.  The Romanians wanted recognition as an independent state while working tenanciously to avoid improving the lot of its Jewish citizens.

1879: It was reported today that The Pall Mall Gazette (an English publication) “says that a Mr. Austin Corbin has ‘gone so far as to exclude Jews from the Manhattan Beach Railway…’” The columnist concludes that this “will be news to Corbin and the Jews.”  (Apparently, the English author did not know that report of Corbin’s ban was quite true.]

1880: A barge filled with children on an excursion sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children narrowly avoided colliding with a yawl-boat as it came through the Narrows today. 

1880: Mr. Mendel denied recent reports that the Sharon Hotel at Sharon Springs does not accept Jewish guests is false.  He has been staying there for the last three summer seasons as have been several other guests whom the proprietors know are Jewish.  (This comes on the heels of the Saratoga Springs incident)

1881: Two days after he had passed away, Morris Harris, the son of Nathan and Rebecca Harris and the husband of the former Catherine Myers with whom he had five children was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery)

1881: The SS Bellevue will leave for an excursion to Hart’s Island today at 11 am sponsored by the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society

1881: “A Pawnbroker Swindled” published today described the victimization of Ellis Silbertsein, a Jewish pawnbroker who owns a shop on North 9th Street in Philadelphia, PA.

1882: In Chicago, “Louis Ullman and Eleanora Fried” gave birth to University of Chicago graduate and Professor of Latin and Department Chair at the University of North Carolina Berthold Louis Ullman, the husband of Mary Louise Bates and the father of geographer Edward Ullman.

https://classics.unc.edu/about-us-2/departmental-history/b-l-ullman/

1882(3rdof Elul, 5642): Forty-two year Leon Jacob Wetheim the Dutch bank employee turned author who was the brother of A.C. Wertheim and the son of Dina Minden and Carl Wertheim, passed away today.

1883: In Canajoharie (Montgomery County) NY, Judge Thomas W. Bingham officiated at the wedding of New Yorker Joseph P. Joachimsen and Caroline Cohen, “the daughter of the late Marx E. Cohen of Charleston, SC.”

1883: It was reported that “Lord Edmund Fitzmaurice, Under Foreign Secretary stated in the House of Commons…that the government…has asked the Russian government to” explain why a British Jewish businessman who had “a proper British passport” was expelled.

1886: Birthdate of Sholom Schwartzbard a Bessarabian-born Jewish anarchist known primarily for the assassination of the Ukrainian politician Symon Petliura.  Schwartzbard held Petliura responsible for the death of his parents who had been murdered in a pogrom in 1919.

1887(28th of Av, 5647): Julius Weisbaden a miser who has no friends or family in the United States died today Bellevue Hospital

1887: It was reported today that Adolph Stern a commercial traveler who passed away yesterday will be buried by the Hebrew Mutual Benefit Society at the Salem Fields Cemetery.  Stern, who was a member of the society, died alone since his wife and grown daughter still lived in Germany.

1888(11thof Elul, 5648): Parashat Ki Teitzei

1888(11th of Elul, 5648): Prominent New York merchant Marks Laski died suddenly today at his home on West 36th Street.

1888: “Jews in Prussia” published today relied on reports from the London Times to report that in 1880 there were 363,790 Jews living in Prussia which made them 1.33 percent of the population.  Five years later the number of Jews had grown to 366,543 but they were now only 1.29 per cent of the population. 

1889: Jacques Damala, the non-Jewish husband of Sarah Bernhardt, passed away.

1889(21stof Av. 5649): Thirty-seven year old Lewis Arnheim, a member of the Georgia State Legislature passed away today.

1890: Rabbi E.M Chapman of Dallas and Samuel Gompers delivered the eulogies at the funeral for Montague L Marks who was buried at Washington Cemetery on Long Island “according to the practice of the Orthodox Jews.”

1890: “Baron Hirsch, the well-known Jewish financier and philanthropist sent the Hebrew Young Men’s Benevolent Society of Montreal a check for $20,000 after it was discovered that the Canadian society could not participate in the benefits of the American trust fund which he had created.”

1890: Birthdate of Solomon Rosenthal, the Lithuanian born chess master.

1890: Fifty-three year old Samuel Cohen was arrested today on charges that he was falsely representing himself as an agent of the Hebrew Aid Society and was collecting money which was intended to help poor Jews.

1890: Birthdate of journalist and linguist (Hebrew and Yiddish) Daniel Persky, the native of Minsk who came to the United States at the age of 1921 who motto was “Eved L’Ivrith Anokhi” – “A slave unto Hebrew am I.”

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9E0DE1D71539E43BBC4E52DFB5668389679EDE

1890: Sixty-two year old John Cooper Vail, the librarian at Bellevue Hospital and author of the prize winning poem “The Hebrew Gladiator” which was first published in the New York Clipper passed away today.

1891: Solomon Sassoon Benjamin married Fanny Van Nierop at the Bayswater Synagogue.

1891: “City and Suburban News” published today described an appeal that Rabbi William M. Krauskopf made that raised $165 for the Hebrew Sheltering House.

1891: “Brazil Wants Farmers” published today that a large number of Russian Jews have gone to the Brazilian Consul’s office in New York to apply for permission to go that country where they can work as farmers.  Many of those who have already gone there do not know anything about farming and seemed to be more interested in pursuing the profession they know best – peddling.

1892: “The Pope on Jews and Frenchmen” published today provided a summary of Mme. Severine’s interview with the Pope that appeared in Figaro in which he discussed his views about the Jews and anti-Semitism.

1892(25thof Av, 5652): Sixty-one year old German author Elise Henle, the wife of Leopold Levi, passed away today at Frankfurt-on-Main.

1892: Farrer Herschell, 1st Baron Herschell, the son of Ridley Haim Herschell a Jewish convert who founded “the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews” began serving as Lord Chancellor today.

1893: Birthdate of old “Romanian born American businessman, Benjamin Abrams, a “founder of Emerson Radio and Phonography Corporation” and the Jewish communal leader who “was a founder of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Greater New York Committee for State of Israel Bonds.” https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/06/24/83124611.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20100105174830/http://www.ce.org/Events/Awards/441.htm

https://www.hbs.edu/leadership/20th-century-leaders/Pages/details.aspx?profile=benjamin_abrams

1893: The Park Departments has issued a permit to allow the thousands of unemployed Jewish workers to hold a mass meeting in Union Square.

1893: Emma Goldman the wife of the man who shot Chairman Frick of Carnegie Steel delivered “a violent speech’ at a meeting in Golden Rule Hall on Rivington Street.

1894: Seventy-one year old Eugene Lawrence, the author of The Jews and Their Persecutors, passed away in New York City.

1895: “Kesher Shel Barzel” published today traces the history of the organization from its founding in 1860 as a mutual aid society in New York City to becoming one the largest national Jewish benevolent and protective societies in the United States. Kesher Shel Barzel means “Iron Knot.”

1896: The body of the man with the Hebraic features which was found yesterday in a New Jersey barnyard was identified as Arthur Malke of Newark who has been missing for four days.

1896: In Hamburg, Nina J. Loeb, the daughter of Solomon Loeb and Paul Warburg gave birth to James Paul Warburg, a World War I veteran and banker who was “a financial adviser to FDR.”

1897: A crowd of 15,000 heard Mayor Strong when he delivered an address at the Summer Festival given tonight by District Grand Lodge, No.1 Independent Order Free Sons of Israel at Sulzer’s Harlem River Park. 

1897: J. S. Koenigsberg, a leading member of the Jewish community in Denver  received a letter for Edwin Wallace, the American Counsel at Jerusalem “giving an account of gross misappropriation of money sent by American Jewish societies for the relief of their fellow countrymen” living in that city.

1898: All the children living at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum should have been removed today from the facility at 138th Street and Amsterdam Avenue as officials dealt with an epidemic of dystentery.

1899: When the trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus resumed this morning at 7:25 AM in Rennes, “Colonel Picquart, former Chief of the Intelligence Department of the War Office, was called to the witness stand and continued his deposition which was interrupted yesterday by the adjournment of the court.”

1899: The meeting of the Third Zionist Congress comes to an end.

1899: It was reported today that Rigmund Albert, a Jewish cadet, had left the Military Academy at West Point because of he had been persecuted because of his religion.

1899: Thirty-one year old Siegfried Wolf and Ida Wolf gave birth to Alfred Emil Wolf.

1900: Birthdate of Passaic, New Jersey native and Princeton University graduate Berry Pink, the WW I U.S. Navy veteran the head of Berry Pink Industries “which reportedly manufactured about a billion marbles a year” leading to be “known as ‘the Marble King.’”

1902(15thof Av, 5662): Tu B’Av

1902(15thof Av, 5662): Hungarian born Leopold Schenck, “The Austrian Embryologist” passed away today.

https://www.biusante.parisdescartes.fr/ishm/vesalius/VESx2004x10x01x037x037.pdf

1902: Birthdate of Dallas, TX native B. Benedict Glazer the University of Cincinnati grad and HUC trained rabbi who served congregations in New York and Detroit while being an supporter for the fight for equal rights in Michigan.

http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0148/ms0148.html

1903: “The first conference of the Greater New York societies, affiliated with the Federation of American Zionists was held” today “in the Bnei Zion rooms” on Montgomery Street

1903: 1903: Today, while the Sixth Zionist Congress was meeting Jacob de Haas “came in contact with three Jews, one of whom had been a Zionist and was now indifferent; the second was too religious and the third…a Russian Parisian socialist” who “regretted the hold Zionism was taking on the Russian Jewish students.”

1904: Max Factor, Sr. moved to the United States and opened a small perfume and cosmetics concession at the St. Louis World’s Fair.  Over time, this would grow into Max Factor and Company, one of the leading makers of cosmetics in the world.

1904: Birthdate of Max Factor Jr.  Max Factor, Jr. would follow in his father’s footsteps as CEO of Max Factor Cosmetics.  He passed away in 1996.

1908: One day after he had passed away, Russian born Myer Genn, the husband of Annie Genn with whom he had five children was buried at the “Belfast Jewish Cemetery in Northern Ireland” today.

1908: One day after she had passed away, Belfast native Lillie Genn, the daughter of Abraham and Fanny Genn was buried today at the “Belfast Jewish Cemetery in Northern Ireland.”

1908: The New Jersey convention of the American Federation of Labor adopted a resolution endorsing Samuel Gompers and his policies.  The real issue was Gompers’ support William Jennings Bryan’s bid to be elected President in the race against William Howard Taft.

1910: Ossip Gabrilowitsch and his wife Clara Clemens (the daughter of Mark Twain) gave birth to their daughter Nina who turn out to be the last known lineal descendant the great American humorist and author.

1911: In Great Britain, the University of Birmingham conferred an honoree degree on Professor Dr. Hermann Oppenheim, a leading neurologist.

1911: The Alliance Israelite Universelle sends ten thousands francs to relive the suffering resulting from the fires at Constantinople.

1911: Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres awards Captain Raymond Weill a grant of six thousand francs to continue excavations in Egypt. Weill would go on to lead archaeological expeditions in Palestine in 1913-1914 and 1923-1924 that would include exploration of the part of the ancient Jerusalem water system known as the Siloam Channel.

1911: Anti-Semitism took on many faces in Russia as Jewish families were expelled from two more cities that had been part of the Pale of Settlement. The Czar’s government also enforced restrictions on the number of Jewish students attending high schools and confiscated property owned by Jews outside of the Pale.\1911: Founding of Tifereth Israel in Everett, MA.

1911: James Simon, President of Hilfsverein der Deuteshcne Juden, gave one hundred thousand marks to the Technical Institute in Haifa.

1912: In Chicago, Illinois, dedication of Temple Beth Israel.

1912: In New Brunswick, NJ, founding of Avhas Achim synagogue.

1914: Today, “only eighteen days after the outbreak of” World War One, the Jews of the United States “began to take steps for the relief of their brethren whom they knew would be suffers from the conflict.”

1914: “In Trachin, an outbreak of fires as Russian troops marched through the town was immediately blamed on the Jews” whose goal, according to the locals, was to let the Germans know where the Russians troops were located.  In this case 14 Jews were arrested and although they were later released their “pillaged goods” were neither returned nor paid for.  (During August and September, the Jews of Poland were subject to numerous pogroms, usually at the hands of the Cossacks forcing them to flee to Warsaw from which they would later be forcibly be deported eastward (263 As reported by Max Hastings)

1915(8thof Elul, 5675): Schumel Itzig Gordon, the son of Salman Yehuda Gordon, passed away today.

1915: A group of Jewish leaders met at the Wave Crest Manor, at Wave Crest, L.I., “to consider plans for the publication of a number of classics.”

1915: Leo “Frank's body arrived at D.C.'s Union Station on its way to New York for burial. Among the 200 people gathered were local members of B'nai B'rith's Argo Lodge, headed by Rabbi Abram Simon of Washington Hebrew Congregation.”

1915: “The feeling in Marietta over the (Leo) Frank lynching is illustrated by a jeering, sarcastic telegram sent today by the Chief of Police H.H. Looney to Detective William J. Burns who was employed by Frank’s friends and was run out of Marietta after an attempt to lynch him which read ‘Leo Frank lynched here yesterday.  Come quick and help investigate.’”

1915: “Under the title ‘Finis’ an editorial in this morning’s Macon Daily Telegraph” reads in part, “The Frank case has come to an end – climatic, catastrophical, stunning in is conclusiveness, its absolute finality.”

1916(19thof Av, 5676): Eighteen year old Samuel Salomo Israelsohn passed away.

1916: Rabbinical seminaries in Florence and Leghorn, Italy merged due to lack of funds.

1916: It was reported today that “the condition of the Jews in Palestine calls for immediate attention” and that “the Jewish farmers in Syria have been facing a serious economic crisis which threatens the survival of the promising growth of Jewish agricultural industry – an industry on which so many hope throughout the Jewish world have been built.”

1916: After nine days, an Allied force of three French divisions and one British division were defeated by the Bulgarians at the little known Battle of Dorian

1917: Vilmos Vázsonyi completed his term in office as Minister of Justice of Hungary.

1917: A Great Fire in Thessaloniki, Greece destroys 32% of the city leaving 70,000 individuals homeless. The downfall of the Jewish community in Thessaloniki started with a fire in the Jewish quarter in 1917. Prior to the start of the fire Thessaloniki had been one of the two o most important Jewish communities in pre-World War II Greece. In the 1600s, Thessaloniki, a Sephardi community, became one of the largest Jewish communities in the world and was known as "ir v’em beyisral," metropolis and mother of Israel. By 1900, more than half of the town’s population was Jewish, which was about 80,000 Jews. In 1900-1910 Thessaloniki had more than 50 synagogues, 20 Jewish schools and numerous Jewish institutions and associations. It was a center of Torah learning for all of Europe. Business was generally conducted in the Sephardi language of Ladino and, on Friday afternoons, almost all commercial life stopped since most of the city’s workers were Jewish. A sprawling Jewish cemetery that was destroyed during World War II to make room for a new university lay in the center of the city (. The Jewish population was varied and included both Kararites and followers of the false messiah Shabbatai Zevi. The city had a strong Judaeo-Spanish culture. For all intents and purposes, this all disappeared with the Holocaust. 

1917(30th of Av, 5677): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1917: In San Francisco, Herman Weinberger, a native of Bohemia “of Jewish descent” and his wife whose family came from England gave birth Republican leader who held a variety of positions including Secretary of HEW under Nixon and Ford and Secretary of Defense under Ronald Reagan.

1917: It was reported today that nearly 100 Americans Jews who had been living in Palestine have left Constantinople for Switzerland.

1918: Due to massive fires in Salonica, 50,000 Jews are homeless.  This represents nearly the entire Jewish population of the city.

1918: Premiere of “Our Mrs. McChesney” a silent film “based on the 1915 play by Edna Ferber.

1918: Thirty-four year old Russian born American lawyer and Democratic Party leader Benjamin Antin married Dora Polsky today.

1918: Benjamin Antin, “a member of the New York Bar and examiner for the Municipal Civil Service Commission and Miss Dora Polsky a New York public school teacher and the daughter of Morris Polsky were married today at the bride’s home on Fulton Avenue in the Bronx.

1919: An appraisal of the estate of Ludwig Dreyfus filed today shows “that the total was worth $1,305, 318.”

1920: The Tennessee State Legislature approved the Nineteenth Amendment providing “the final ratification necessary to add the Amendment” that gave women the right to vote “to the United States Constitution.

1920 Isaac Rabinowitz of New York City received the Distinguished Service Cross today.

1920: In Holyoke, Vincent and Antoinette D’Addario gave birth to Raymond D’Addario, “an Army photographer whose images of Hitler’s top henchmen during the Nuremberg war crimes trials put their faces before the world as it became increasingly aware of Nazi atrocities.” (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)

1920: Alfred Mond was the subject of a cartoon in Punch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alfred_Mond_cartoon_from_Punch_-_Project_Gutenberg_eText_16707.png

1921: Birthdate of Lydia Litvyak a Soviet fighter pilot during WW II who flew 66 missions before being shot down in 1943.

http://www.jewoftheweek.net/?s=Lydia+Vladimirovna+Litvyak+&submit=Search

1921: In London, The Times published the third in a series of articles by it “Constantinople Correspondent” that “incontrovertibly demonstrated that ‘The Protocols’ consist in the main of ‘clumsy plagiarisms’ from a French political pamphlet directed against Napoleon III and published in Brussels in 1865 by a French Lawyer named Maurice Joly and entitled ‘Dialogues in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu.’”

1922(24th of Av, 5682): Sixty-three year old “dental surgeon and businessman Dr. Hugo Ascher, the husband of Minna Luise Ascher and the father of German artist Fritz Ascher passed away today in Berlin.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/if-not-for-the-nazis-he-may-have-been-the-next-leonardo/

1922: In St. Louis, MO, “Rose (née Winter), a singer with The Muny, and Jonas Schrift, a designer of men's clothing” gave birth to Sylvia Schrift who gained famed as actress Shelly Winters who enjoyed a long and varied career and who,unlike her fellow acting student Marilyn Monroe, was able to make the transition from female leading lady to character actress which made possible a five decades long career in which she made over 130 films.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/14/AR2006011401166.html

1923(6thof Elul, 5683): Parashat Shoftim

1923(6thof Elul, 5683): Fifty-six year old Pauline “Lena” Peyser the daughter of Philip Peyser and Natalie Ann Kilinksi, wife of Morris Gusdorf and mother of Melvin and Florence Gusdorf passed away today after which she was buried at Hebrew  Cemetery in Washington, DC.

1926: Jewish Telegraphic Agency Mail Service reported that “the number of families to be settled in the Ukraine during the years 1927 and 1928 is not to be less than during the present year, that is, not less than 4,000 families each year, the Ukrainian Government Commission for Jewish Land Settlement decided at its meeting here. Since the number to be settled outside the Ukraine during 1927 will not exceed 1,000 families, and in 1928 will be 3,000 families, it has been decided that sufficient land should be allocated in the Ukraine for the settlement in 1927 of 3,000 families and in 1928 of 1,000 families.”

1926: Jewish Telegraphic Agency Mail Service reported that “The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America has this year produced a new form of collapsible Succah, which can be erected within an hour. These Succahs give an opportunity to the Jews of America to have their observance not only in the Synagogue, but at their homes. Applications can be made to the office of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, 131 West 86th St., New York City.”

1926: In Warsaw, “Alina (née Fryszman) Lewinson and Szymon Lewinson , a urologist and Polish Army officer murdered in Katyń” gave birth to journalist Janina (née Lewinson) Bauman, the wife of  “socialist and philosopher Zygmunt Bauman.”

https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2010/jan/26/janina-bauman-obituary

1927: Moselle “Molly” Elias, the Rangoon born daughter of Sassoon and Rachel Ezekiel and her husband Harry Moses Elias gave birth to Mervyn Elias.

1928: In Manhattan, “Abner Millon, a tailor, and the former Mollie Gorkowitz” gave birth to Theodore Millon “a psychologist whose theories helped define how scientists think about personality and its disorders, and who developed a widely used measure to analyze character traits.” (As reported by Benedict Carey)

1929: Arabs, following their attack Friday on the Wailing Wall and on groups of Jews yesterday, today stoned Rabbi Nical of the College of Torah Chaim.

1929(12th of Av, 5689) A young Sephardic Jew named Abraham Mizrachi who was stabbed at the Maccabi grounds near Mea Shearim, in the Bukharan Quarter on Shabbat by Arab rioters died of his wounds today.

1930: In Ploiesti, Romania, Isidor and Mina Librscu gave birth to Holocaust survivor and Israeli professor Liviu Librescu, who was murdered while trying to protect his students during the massacre at Virginia Tech in 2007

https://www.weremember.vt.edu/biographies/librescu.html

1931: Birthdate of political scientist and author of The Political Science of British Politics Jack Ernest Shalom Hayward the native of Shanghai and scion of an Iraqi family that was interred by the Japanese during WW II who served in the RAF and who has been a Professor of Politics at the University of Hull and the University of Oxford.

1932: It was reported today that those left to mourn the Louise H. Pollak of blessed memory include her husband Julian A. Pollak, the Cincinnati City Councilman, her three children – David, Julian R. and Betty – her mother Mrs. David M. Hyman, her brother Mark Hyman and her sister Mrs. Alfred Friedlander.

1932: “The Beautiful Adventure” a romantic comedy directed by Reinhold Schunzel who also co-authored the script was released today in Germany.

1932: In Germany, premiere of “The Bartered Bride” a film based on the comic opera directed by Max Ophüls who also co-authored the script.

 1933: In Paris, Bula (née Katz-Przedborska) and Ryszard Polański, a painter and manufacturer of sculptures gave birth to Rajmund Roman Thierry Polański who gave fame as Roman Polanski.

1933: According to press reports published in Jerusalem, Mrs. Sarah Levi of Singapore has set aside her fortune of £100,000 to rebuild Safed, which suffered during the 1929 riots.

1933: It was reported from Jerusalem that Aba Achimeir, a Revisionist, has been charged with having conspiring to assassinate Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff.

1933: The British High Commissioner issued an order that in all towns of mixed population a third of the wages spent in public works shall be assigned to Jewish labor.

1933: According to the official count, there are a total of 297 accredited Zionists delegates to the Zionist Congress meeting in Prague: 139 are Laborites, 79 General Zionists, 47 Revisionists and 32 Mizrachi.

1933: The meeting of the International Congress of Mizrachi meeting in Cracow, Poland, comes to an end.  Before adjourning delegates the delegates called for the reorganization of the Jewish Agency, expressed opposition to the leadership of Chaim Weizmann and called for a world Orthodox religious congress to be held in Jerusalem no later than 1935.

1933: In Germany, the Ministry of Propaganda and Enlightenment prohibits the filming of a scenario based on Stefan Zweig's "Amok."

1936(30thof Av, 5696): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1936(30thof Av, 5696):  Eighty-two year old Martha Springer Fleisher passed away today after she was interred at Mount Sinai Cemetery in Philadelphia.

1936: “In a statement released today by the National Conference of Jews and Christians, leaders in the Catholic, Protestant and Jewish faiths in American expressed resentment at the speech of Father Charles E. Coughlin in which he challenged the Jews to affirm their belief in the principle of brotherly love” – a belief that he said Christians accepted but which he did not think Jews had demonstrated their belief.

1936: Fifty thousand Jewish residents of Tel Aviv attended the funeral today of two nurses killed by Arab snipers yesterday. “Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope, British High Commissioner in Palestine, expressed his ‘deepest sorrow and abhorrence of the recent brutal murders and attacks on a perfectly innocent people.’”

1937: In Geneva, the Permanent Mandates Commission had completed its sessions and submitted a secret report on the British partition of Palestine scheme to the Council of the League of Nations.

1937: In Zurich, Dr. Chaim Weizmann opened the fifth session of the Jewish Agency Council and announced that it would support the Zionist Congress policy of negotiating with Britain, in principle, the terms of the establishment of a Jewish state. He was opposed by Dr. Felix Warburg, of the council’s non-Zionist representation.

1938: Birthdate of Marcia Lewis who received an RN from the Jewish Hospital School of Nursing in Cincinnati before gaining fame as a Tony nominated actress and singer. (As reported by Bruce Weber)

1938: A British military column was ambushed this afternoon by a gang of well armed Arabs near Acre. The troops assisted by aircraft fought back and in the battle at least twenty-seven Arabs were killed by the fliers and ten more by the troops.

1938: As Arab violence continued, an eight year old Jewish boy was killed and four others were wounded when a bomb was thrown at a crowd on the border between Tel Aviv and Jaffa while another Arab threw a bomb at truck carrying eleven Jewish workers, wounding nine of them.

1938: As Arab violence continued to escalate in Palestine, hundreds of Moslems took to the streets of London shouting “Down with the ignorant Wells” as they protested the publication of A Short History of the World by H.G. Wells.  At the same time a Moslem delegation complained to the High Commissioner of India that the book “insulted the memory of Mohammed and the Koran.” 

1939(3rd of Elul, 5699): Eight year old Walter Bodner passed away today after which he was buried at the Poali Zedek Cemetery in Everett, Massachusettes.

1940: Birthdate of Nelli Abramova the Jewish volleyball player who helped the Soviet Union win a Silver Medal at the Olympics in 1964

1941: The Nazis took over authority of Kovno and sealed off the ghetto. Five hundred Jews were taken from the ghetto to be killed. Looting and killing of the Intelligentsia would soon follow.

1941: Adolf Hitler ordered the end to the systematic euthanasia of mentally ill and handicapped persons due to protests within Germany.  This change in policy at least raises the question as to what effect similar protests by Church leaders and others might have had in averting the Final Solution.

1942: The Nazis deported 998 Jews, including 287 children, to the East from Belgium.

1942(5thof Elul, 5702): Thirty year old Marianne Baum, the wife of Herbert Baum with whom she helped to organize resistance to the Nazis “was executed in Plötzensee Prison” two months after Herbert was murdered by the Nazis.

1942(5thof Elul, 5702): Forty-eight year old Czech composer Erwin Schulhoff who had been “deported to the Wülzburg concentration camp, near Weißenburg, Bavaria” in 1941 died there today from the effects of tuberculosis

1943: Thousands of more Jews were deported from Bialystok to Treblinka. This was last train to ever be sent there. All the Jews were sent to the gas chambers. Afterwards, the camp closed down for good.

1943: The last transport from Salonika arrived in Auschwitz consisting of 1,800 laborers, the last of 48,533 people to be deported from that town. Almost 38,000 of them would be exterminated on arrival.

 1943: The process of destroying the evidence of mass murder that took place at Babi Yar, a suburb of Kiev in the Soviet Ukraine, began. Jewish and Soviet prisoners were set to work, unearthing thousands of bodies and burning them in huge pyres. The Jewish prisoners attended to the horrible task knowing that they too would be shot and burned at the end they tried an escape. During attempt to hide the evidence of genocide, 311 out of 325 Jewish and Soviet prisoners would be killed in their break-out attempt.

1945: A group of refugees in the “Beriha” movement in Komo, Italy were captured by the camera.

http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/august/15.asp

1948: “Hollow Triumph,” a film noir directed by Steve Sekely, with a screenplay by Daniel Fuchs and music by Sol Kaplan premiered in Reading, PA.

1948: Yiftah, a kibbutz in northern Israel located near the Lebanese border “was established today “by demobilized Palmach soldiers who were members of the Yiftach Brigade, after which the kibbutz is named.”

1950: First performance of "The Village I Knew," choreographed by Sophie Maslow.

1950: In Chicago, “Albert Friedlan, who survived three years in Auschwitz” and the former “Ilona Muller,” who worked “as a forced laborer during the Holocaust:” gave birth to Robert Martin Friedland, the Reed College friend of Steve Jobs and international businessman who has been involved in some questionable business dealing.

https://www.forbes.com/profile/robert-friedland/#78267cf33214

https://www.cultofmac.com/125656/this-lsd-love-guru-turned-gold-mining-billionaire-gave-steve-jobs-his-reality-distortion-field/

1951: Dr. Nahum Goldmann, chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive's American section, appealed tonight to the delegates to the twenty-third World Zionist Congress to shelve the ideological debate on whether it was the duty of all Zionists to settle in Israel.

1951: In Ramala, Moshe Moshonov a native of Bulgaria and his wife gave birth to “Israeli actor, comedian and director” Shlomo “Moni’ Moshonov.

1952: The US granted Israel over $73 million for the relief and resettlement of immigrants and for technical cooperation.

1952: Birthdate of comedic talent Elayne Boosler

1954: Today “Jerusalem honored Joseph Carlebach's work, among others at the local Lämel-School, by naming a street, Rekhov Carlebach/Karlibakh רחוב קרליבך, after him in the neighborhood of Talpiot.”

1956(11thof Elul, 5716): Parashat Ki Teitzi

1957(21st of Av, 5717): Sixty-two year English born film composer Louis Levy who composed themes for Alfred Hitchcock passed away today.

1957(21st of Av, 5717): Rabbi Aharon Rokeach the fourth Rebbe of the Belz Hasidic dynasty passed away. Born in 1877, he led the movement from 1926 until his passing in 1957.

http://matzav.com/the-belzer-rebbe-rav-aharon-rokeach-ztl-upon-his-yahrtzeit-today-21-av-5/

http://www.hevratpinto.org/tzadikim_eng/148_rabbi_aaron_rokeach.html

1959: “Wanda Landowska” published today eulogized the great harpsichordist described as “a musician’s musician.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1959/08/18/80599220.pdf

1962: Birthdate of Tel Aviv native Noam Kaniel who “has sold over 8 million records.”

1963: “’55 Pulitzer Jury Chose Odets Play” published today described the decision eight years ago of the Pulitzer Prize Board to over-rule the Pulitzer Prize jury’s choice of “The Flowering Peach,” a play based on the story of Noah by Clifford Odets, as the winner of the drama prize for 1955.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=990CEFDC1F31E63ABC4052DFBE668388679EDE

1968: A funeral service is scheduled to be held in New York for 67 year old, Joseph Platzker, the former Commissioner of Housing and Buildings.

1969: “Take the Money and Run” starring Woody Allen and Louise Lasser and with music by Marvin Hamlisch was released today in the United States.

1969: The Woodstock Music and Art Fair which was held on the land of Max B. Yasgur came to an end.

1970(16thof Av, 5730): Forty-nine year old Louis Pollack the art dealer and historian who founded Peredot Gallery passed away today.

1974: Birthdate of Nicole Krauss, the New York novelist best known for Man Walks Into a Room, The History of Love and Great House who married Jonathan Safran Foer with whom she had two children – Sasha and Cy.

https://www.nicolekrauss.com/

1976: In Washington, DC, the National Hadassah Convention came to an end.

1977: The US formally and publicly rebuked Israel’s decision to extend certain new services to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and to approve, by the Ministerial Committee for Settlement, the three new settlements on the West Bank: south of Tulkarm, at Mevo Horon and between Hebron and Beersheba. The US expressed deep disappointment that Israel ignored President Jimmy Carter¹s appeal to avoid such actions before the reconvening of the Geneva Peace Conference.

1977: The ambassador to the UN, Chaim Herzog, lashed out at UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, who had also expressed regret that Israel set up new settlements. Herzog reminded Waldheim that double standard and discrimination had long been a norm at the UN.

1978: In Berkley, CA, Marjorie and Joe Samberg gave birth to American entertainer David A.J. “Andy: Samberg.

1978(15th of Av, 5738)

1978: “Girlfriends, a comedy directed and produced by Claudia Weill, starring Jewish actress Melanie Mayron “as Jewish photographer Susan Weinblatt” and featuring Eli Wallach and Bob Balaban was released today in the United States.

1978(15th of Av): One person was killed when a terrorist bomb went off in a Tel Aviv market.

1981: Jerry Lewis appears on "Donahue" to defend Telethons.

1983: In Los Angeles Henry Winkler, best known as  “The Fonz” on “Happy Days” and Stacy Furstman Weitzman gave birth to screenwriter and director Max Daniel Winkler.

1983: The Park East Synagogue building at 163 East 67th Street (NYC) which had been established as Congregation Zichron Ephriam by Rabbi Bernard Drachman was [laced on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places today.

1983(9thof Elul, 5743): Eight-one year old Sir Nikolaus Pevsner (Bernhard Leon), the German born son of a Jewish furrier who became the  British art historian “best known for his 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, The Buildings of England“ passed away today.


1986: Morton Abramowitz was commissioned as Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research.

1988: “ABC Suing Israeli Agency for Showing News Tapes” published today described litigation involving the screening of news footage in Jerusalem.


1989: “Let It Ride” a comedy starring Richard Dreyfus and featuring Allen Garfield was released in the United States today.

1990(27thof Av, 5750): Parashat Re’eh

1990(27thof Av, 5750): Ninety-four year old Harvard trained attorney Lee Ferbstein, the husband of Helen Turner Crecilius and the father of “Anne and Froncie Ferbstein passed away today in Akron, OH.

1993: In Israel, the Supreme Court “rejected the petitions” challenging the Attorney-General’s decision to release Demjanjuk  “on the grounds that (1) the principle of double jeopardy would be infringed, (2) that new charges would be unreasonable given the seriousness of those of which he had been acquitted, (3) that conviction on the new charges would be unlikely, and (4) that Demjanjuk was extradited from the United States specifically to stand trial for offenses attributed to Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka, and not for other alternative charges.”

1994: In Copenhagen, the fifth congress of the EAJS came to an end.

1994(11th of Elul, 5754): Latvian born Israeli scientist and philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz passed away. (As reported by Joel Greenberg)http://www.nytimes.com/1994/08/19/obituaries/yeshayahu-leibowitz-91-iconoclastic-israeli-thinker.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm

1995(22ndof Av, 5755): Sixty-six year old author James Maxwell whose works include “The Night Everything Was Simple” in which “Zionist plans for Palestine are viewed with approval”  and “Village Incident” and “Strictly From the Mississippi” in which “the Jewish characters are presented sympathetically” passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1948/03/25/94941819.pdf



1996:Devorah Zlochower, Leora Bednarsh, and Laura Steiner were recognized for completing a three-year program of Talmud study at the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education in New York City


1996(3rdof Elul, 5756):Sixty-six year old Hugo Gabriel Gryn , a leader in the Reform movemtn, passed away.  A native of Berehovo, he survived Auschwitz, trained in America and served as the Rabbi for West London Synagogue for 32 years


1999(6th of Elul, 5759): Fifty-five year old award winning playwright and author Hanoch Levin passed away today.


1999: The Drisha Institute for Jewish Education graduated its first class.  According to its mission statement the Drisha Institute “provides women with the opportunity to engage in traditional Jewish text study in an environment which encourages seriousness of purpose, free inquiry and respect for classical texts. Drisha offers a wide variety of study options for women of all backgrounds and levels.”

2001: Elisabeth Murdoch married Matthew Freud, head of Freud Communications and the great-grandson of Sigmund Freud.

2002: The Sunday New York Times featured a review of Stone Kiss by Jewish mystery writer Faye Kellerman and a printing of the poem “Like a Seal” by Abba Kovner translated from the Hebrew by Eddie Levenston

2003(20th of Av, 5763): Seventy-eight year old bookseller and former “Timesman” Julius Ochs Adler, Jr. passed away today. (As reported by Robert D. McFadden and Eric Pace)


2004:  Eighty-two year old composer Elmer Bernstein passed away. Born in 1922, the Academy Award winning composer gave us memorable scores for many movies including The Magnificent Seven, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Great Escape, The Man With A Golden Arm. (As reported by Adam Bernstein)


2004(1stof Elul, 5764): Rosh Chodesh Elul

2005: Shirat HaYam was evacuated today as part of Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza.

2005: Kfar Darom was evacuated as part of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan.

2006: Congressman Steve Rothman married Jennifer Beckenstein, the community affairs coordinator at the Center for Food Action in Englewood, New Jersey. The couple met through JDate, an online dating website for Jewish singles. Between them, Rothman and Beckenstein have five teenage children and two dogs, who plan to live in Rothman's home, which is being expanded to accommodate the blended family

2006: Haim Ramon resigned as Justice Minister.

2006: “On Sontag: Essayist as Metaphor and Muse” published today provides Holland Cotter’s description of the photography show at the Metropolitan Museum designed to honor the memory of Susan Sontag.


2006: “The Illusionist” produced by Brian Koppelman and Bob Yari and with music by Philip Glass was released today in the United States.

2007: In Jerusalem, "Music in All the Shades" presents "A Musical Trip in the Balkan Countries," featuring Constantine Kitlin on the clarinet, Olga Dshbeski on the flute, Yulia Sinaibeski on the mandolin, and Yuri Pobolotskion on the accordion.

2007:The Shabbat observance of the San Diego Humanistic Jewish Congregation will celebrate Individualism with an investigation of the Essenes, Jews who settled at Qumran and created the Dead Sea Scrolls.

2008: James B. Cunningham presented his credentials as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.

2008(17th of Av, 5768):Ninety-one year old Manny Farber, a painter whose spiky, impassioned film criticism waged war against sacred cows like Orson Welles and elevated American genre-movie directors like Howard Hawks and Sam Fuller to the Hollywood pantheon, died today at his home in Leucadia, Calif.


2008: Time magazine includes an article about the critical swing vote that begins, “The most important demographic for Barack Obama in November might be old Jews in Florida, and the most important old Jew in Florida is my grandmother” and a review of Neillie Hermann’s novel, The Cure for Greif featuring Ruby Bronstein, her “strong, loving family” including her father a “Holocaust survivor father, whose observance of Jewish customs persists despite his professed loss of faith” with whom she visits the camp where he was interred as a young boy

2008: Tzfat [Safed] Klezmer Festival opens.

2008: In an article entitled “Under ‘Kafkaesque’ Pressure, Heir to Kafka Papers May Yield Them,”Ethan Bronner described the fate Franz Kafka’s personal papers which had been rescued by Max Brod and eventually became the property to Esther Hoffe who has now passed away.

2009: “It was reported today that Paula Abdul was negotiating to return to Idol after not taking part in season nine of Dancing with the Stars

2009(28th of Av, 5769): Ninety-eight year old Rose Friedman, the widow of Milton Friedman with whom she was an intellectual and personal soul-mate, passed away today. (As reported by Bruce Weber)


 2009: Dan Zofi and Jack Germany led and evening of Israeli & International Folk dancing at Beit Shalom Synagogue, the Jewish Congregation of Maui.

2009: Today Israeli novelist David Grossman was named a finalist for the only international literary peace prize awarded in the United States. The board of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize announced that Grossman was on its short list of possible award winners for his collection of essays "Writing in the Dark."

2010: "A Film Unfinished" directed by Yael Hersonski is scheduled to be shown at the Film Forum in New York. At the end of WWII, 60 minutes of raw film, having sat undisturbed in an East German archive, was discovered. Shot by the Nazis in Warsaw in May 1942, and labeled simply "Ghetto," this footage quickly became a resource for historians seeking an authentic record of the Warsaw Ghetto. However, the later discovery of a long-missing reel complicated earlier readings of the footage. A Film Unfinished presents the raw footage in its entirety, carefully noting fictionalized sequences (including a staged dinner party) falsely showing "the good life" enjoyed by Jewish urbanites, and probes deep into the making of a now-infamous Nazi propaganda film. A Film Unfinished is a film of enormous import, documenting some of the worst horrors of our time and exposing the efforts of its perpetrators to propel their agenda and cast it in a favorable light.

2010: In Cedar Rapids, IA, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to meet at the home of Andrea Liu where Ina Loewenberg  is scheduled to facilitate a program entitled “Reading Aloud: Poems on Jewish Themes.”

2010: With the mid-August heat showing no mercy on the Holy Land, locals broke an all-time single-day record for electricity use this afternoon, the Israel Electric Corporation announced. The corporation said demand topped 11,200 megawatts, following 19 straight days of unprecedented energy usage

2010(8th of Elul, 5770): Ninety-nine year old Benjamin Kaplan who as an U.S. Army officer played a critical role in the Nuremberg trials and then went to become a Harvard Law Professor and jurist passed away. (As reported by Bruce Weber)


2010(8th of Elul, 5770): Ninety-four year old Martin Dannenberg the man who “found the Nuremberg Laws Document” passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)


2011: David McKenzie, JHSGW Interpretive Programs Manager is scheduled to lead a Walking Tour of Jewish Washington in which participants will learn what it was like to live and worship as a Jew in Washington from 1850 to 1950 in the historic Seventh Street, NW, neighborhood, now known as Chinatown but originally settled largely by German Jews.

2011: The Fourth Annual Pickle eating contest is scheduled to take place at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue.  The pickles are being supplied by Sixth & Rye, a food truck that travels the streets of the Nation’s Capital offering a variety of kosher delights including corned beef on rye. 

2011: Attackers mounted at least three separate strikes on Israeli civilians and soldiers around the popular Red Sea resort of Eilat today, killing seven and wounding at least 20, in what the country’s defense minister called a “grave terrorist incident.”

2011: The IDF attacked terror targets in Rafah in the Gaza Strip today, in response to a three-stage terrorist attack which killed seven Israelis and wounded dozens in the South earlier in the day.

2011: Social justice protests have been canceled for the coming days, including a mass rally planned for Saturday night in Jerusalem, following combined terror attacks in the South of Israel that left seven Israelis dead and over two dozen wounded this afternoon. The National Union of Israeli Students announced the cancellation of the rallies a few hours after the attack and issued a statement saying that it "is lowering its head on this difficult day, joins the families in mourning, and wishes the wounded a speedy recovery."

2011: The New York Times featured a review of Wendy and the Lost Boys: The Uncommon Life of Wendy Wasserstein by Julie Salamon

2011: Members of the Cedar Rapids Jewish community gather at Temple Judah for a Surprise Birthday Party celebrating the birthday of Marianne Bern.

2011(18th of Av, 5771): Eighty-two year old Sally Goodgold, an activist who defied ‘pigeon-holing’ passed away today. (As reported by David W. Dunlap)


2011(18thof Av, 5771): Forty-nine year old “Paskal Avrahami, a member of the YAMAM Counter-terrorism Unit was killed this evening during a firefight with terrorists north of Eilat on the border with Egypt. He was married and had three children.”

2011(18th of Av, 5771): St.-Sgt. Moshe Naftali was killed today while responding to the terrorist attacks near Eilat.

2011(18th of Av, 5771): Fifty-seven Yossef Levy was killed during a terrorist attack and his wife was injured during today’s terrorist attack.

2011(18th of Av, 5771): Ninety-one year old biochemist Maruice M. Rapport passed away today in Durham, NC. (As reported by William Grimes


2012: Nicole Wolf-Camplin  is scheduled to celebrate her Bat Mitzvah at Agudas Achim in Iowa City, IA

2012:In Cedar Rapids, Iowa,  Temple Judah is scheduled to host an open house in honor of Marianne Bern’s 90th birthday.

2012: Kippah-wearing Jews and non-Jews are expected to march today in Sweden as a sign of solidarity with Malmö’s Jews.


2012(30th of Av, 5772): Rosh Chodesh Elul

2012: Amy Schumer’s “standup comedy special Mostly Sex Stuff premiered on Comedy Central” today.

2012: Three Egyptian policemen and a soldier were injured near the Sinai town of Sheikh Zuwaid today when armed men fired a rocket-propelled grenade at their convoy during an operation against militants following the killing of 16 border guards.

2012: A savage fight between Jewish and Arab teenagers in downtown Jerusalem late at night on August 16 that left a 20-year-old Arab man in critical condition, with witnesses calling it a "lynch situation" against the three Arabs. A 19-year-old Jewish Jerusalem man was arrested on this afternoon in connection with the beating. He will be remanded at the Jerusalem Magistrates Court today. Police refused to say whether he had a history of similar incidents, though they expect a number of additional arrests in the coming days.

2013: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies by Jonathan Alter and the recently release paperback edition of Iron Curtain” The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956 by Anne Applebaum 

2013: Starting today the Health Ministry is scheduled to “offer oral polio vaccine to children up to the age of nine-and-a-half years.” (As reported by Judy Siegel-Itzkovich)

2013: In Coralville, Iowa Congregation Agudas Achim under the leadership of Rabbi Jeff Portman is scheduled to host its annual synagogue picnic.

2013: “When Comedy Went to School” is scheduled to shown at the San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

2013: “The campaign to recall Mayor Bob Filner amid accusations of sexual harassment” began gathering signatures today. (As reported by Tony Perry)

2013: “Archaeologists working in Jerusalem have discovered what they say is a 2,700 year-old pottery fragment with an ancient Hebrew inscription possibly containing the name of a Biblical figure.” (As reported by Gavriel Fiske)

2014: Klezkanada, the international festival of Jewish/Yiddish culture and the arts is scheduled to open today.

2014: “Alive Inside, A Story of Music and Memory” and “Alive Inside, A Story of Music and Memory,” a film about “a downed Israeli fighter pilot and a Palestinian boy” are scheduled to be shown at the Berkshire Jewish Film Festival.

2014: The 16th Street Book Club at the Jewish History Center is scheduled to host a discussion of Stations West Allison Amend’s novel about Jewish life in the early days of the Oklahoma Territory.

2014: “British supermarket chain Sainsbury’s apologized today after staff at a central London store removed kosher food from shelves in response to protesters outside demanding a boycott of Israeli goods.” (As reported by JTA)

2014: Egypt confirmed that both Israel and Hamas have agreed to another extension of the current cease-fire.

2014: The number of senior Republican Jewish leaders in the House of Representatives went to zero today as the resignation of Eric Cantor from Congress took effect today following his defeat by a “Tea Party” Republican in the party’s primary.

2015: UK Jewish Film is scheduled to host a showing of “Iris” the “50thand last film of Albert Maysles” in which he pays a wry tribute to Iris Apfel, a quick-witted, highly original 93-year-old New York style icon.”

2015: Docent Training is scheduled to begin at the Breman Jewish Museum in Atlanta, GA.

2015(3rdof Elul, 5775): Eighty-nine year old Bud Yorkin who teamed with Norman Lear to create a string edgy comedies including “All in the Family,” “Maude” and “The Jeffersons” passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/19/arts/television/bud-yorkin-writer-and-producer-of-all-in-the-family-dies-at-89.html?ribbon-ad-idx=4&rref=obituaries&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Obituaries&pgtype=article

2015: As we mark the centennial of Leo Frank’s lynching, “the Anti-Defamation League’s Washington, DC Regional Director, David Friedman” spoke “about the ADL’s fight against ant-Semitism.

2016: In Brooklyn, Halyards bar is scheduled to host a Tu B’Av event this evening where “a group of talented storytellers and comedians will share their tales of love lost, found, and everything in between.”

2016: Today “begin the 100-day countdown to the kickoff” to the start of a year-long celebration marking the creation of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies in Canada.

2016: Finally screening of “Bulgarian Rhapsody” sponsored by the UKJF is scheduled to be shown at the JW3.

2017(26thof Av, 5777): Seventy-two year old campaign strategist and political guru Arthur Finkelstein pas away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/19/us/politics/arthur-finkelstein-innovative-influential-conservative-strategist-dies-at-72.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2017: In Atlanta, GA, The Breman Museum is scheduled to host program where attendees learn “about Josef Skupa, a Czech puppeteer who performed satirical puppet shows during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia.”

2017: The first Sababa NJ Shabbat dinner for young Jewish adults in Union Country is scheduled to take place this evening.

2017: The Modern Dance Theater Istanbul of Istanbul State Opera & Ballet is scheduled to perform tonight as part of Tel Aviv Dance presented by the Suzanne Dellal Centre.

2018: Israeli comedian Naor Zion, “the son of Persian Jewish parents” is scheduled to return to his stand-up comic roots with a show at Beit Shmuel.

2018(7thof Elul, 5778): Parashat Shoftim

2019: Five days after he passed away, funeral services are scheduled to be held this morning at Mt. Zion Temple in St. Paul, MN for 93 year old Dale Cowle, “one of the founding members of the Ames, Iowa, Jewish Congregation” and the husband of Marion Cowle.

2019: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Sarah.”

2019: The JCC of Northern Virginia is scheduled to host “Soccer Day the J with Maccabi Tel Aviv Soccer Coaches.

2019: “Rosenwald” is scheduled to “have a special screening at Temple B’nai Israel in Oklahoma City…followed by a talk about ‘Education and Justice: Understanding and Reawakening the Black-Jewish Partnership’”

2019: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Jacob’s Ladder by Ludmila Ulitskaya and Places and Names: On War, Revolution and Returning by Elliot Ackerman as well as Rutu Modan’s “homage to Lean Goldberg on of Israel’s celebrated poets and children’s authors.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/16/books/the-israeli-childrens-book-writer-who-became-a-witch.html?te=1&nl=books&emc=edit_bk_20190816






This Day, August 19, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. and Deb Levin

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August 19

43 BCE: Octavian later known as Augustus compels the senate to elect him Consul. As the first Emperor of Rome (in fact, if not in name) Augustus would follow the policies of “moderation and accommodation” towards Judea begun by his Uncle, Julius Caesar

14CE: Augustus, Roman Emperor passed away. For the Jews, Augustus was a comparatively benign ruler. He left Judea under a Jewish king (even if it was Herod) and only converted the homeland of the Jews to a province during the turmoil that followed Herod's death.  Under Augustus Roman governors were ordered to follow policies that would not antagonize the Jews including.  They were not to permit pagan altars to be built in Jerusalem and their troops were not to parade through the city carrying standards with the picture of the Emperor. He followed a similarly benign policy towards the Jews in the Diaspora including allowing them to contributions to support the Temple and exempting Jews from appearing in court on the Sabbath, starting with Friday night.

1099: The armies of the First Crusade defeated the Saracens at the Battle of Ascalon (an historic Palestinian city on the Mediterranean), one month after they had captured Jerusalem. Neither the Jews nor the Moslems fared well at the hands of the Crusaders.  They slaughtered the Jews of Europe as they marched away and slaughtered the Jews of Jerusalem when they took the city.  The Crusaders did win the Battle of Ascalon, but they actually did not capture the city of Ascalon due to a quarrel between two of the Crusader leaders.  The city remained in the hands of the Moslems and would become a base from which Jerusalem would be attacked in subsequent campaigns.  This would not be the last time that initial victories by Western armies fighting in the Middle East did not result in long term conquests.

1203: “A fire started by Flemish crusaders burned down the Jewish quarter of Constantinople including the synagogue.” (History of the Jewish People)

1263: King James I of Aragon takes the lead in one of the earliest recorded instances of Christian censorship of Jewish writings.

1270: Today, three months after having “agreed to reconfirm Magna Carta and to impose restrictions on Jewish moneylending” to gain Parliaments permission to levy additional taxes, King Edward I, the king who would later expel the Jews from his realm, sailed from Dover for France on the first leg of what was to become the Ninth Crusade,.

1274: Coronation of King Edward I of England. Under Edward’s reign things went from bad to worse.  For example in “1279 and edict imposed the death penalty on Jews accused of uttering blasphemy about Christianity.  In 1280, “Edward ordered Jews to listen to Cominicans preaching conversion.”  In one of his “last acts of extortion…he arrested the heads of Jewish families and demanded their communities…raise a 12,000 pound ransom payment.”  Finally, in 1290, the King ordered the expulsion of all Jews from his realm.  He would be the last ruler of England to officially deal with the Jewish people until the days of Oliver Cromwell.

1338: Host desecration riots destroyed the Jewish community of Wolfsberg, Austria. The Jews were accused of having stolen the Eucharist, making it bleed, and trying to burn it. Over 70 Jews were burned at the stake and the community destroyed. The community was never revived.

1439: Frederick III, the Holy Roman Emperor passed away today.  “To his last hour” he “protected those outlawed by all the world,” a reference to the Jewish people.  “He had a Jewish physician” and made Jacob ben Yehicel Loans a knight.  On his deathbed, “Frederick is said to have strongly recommended the Jews to his son, enjoining on him to protect them, and not to listen calumnious accusations, whose falsity he had fathomed. (As reported by Graetz)

 1509: The Battle of the Books took place in Frankfurt (Germany): Johann Pfefferkorn, an apostate Jew, convinced Maximilien I to destroy all Jewish books, especially the Talmud. The books were defended by a gentile, Johann von Reuchlin, a noted humanist, scholar and student of the Zohar. The battle was decided in his favor, and the decree was rescinded. Such challenging of the Church by Christian scholars - on its own ground - helped bring about the Reformation and the revolt against the Church. 

1555: First printing of Orech Chaim a section of the Shulchan Aruch in Eretz Yisrael. The Shulchan Aruch (The Set Table in English) is a major compilation of Jewish Law created by Rabbi Joseph Caro.  He began writing the work while living in western Turkey in 1522.  He finished it while living in Safed, the gathering place for scholars and mystics in Eretz Israel.  The Shulchan Aruch is divided into four sections the first of which is Orech ChaimOrech Chaim deals with laws concerning prayer, Synagogue, Shabbat and holiday observances. It would take approximately five years for all subsections to be printed.

1662: French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal passed away.  Unlike some other French philosophers Pascal thought highly of the Jewish people as the following quote proves, "It is certain that in certain parts of the world we can see a peculiar people, separated from the other peoples of the world and this is called the Jewish people…. This people is not only of remarkable antiquity but has also lasted for a singularly long time… For whereas the people of Greece and Italy, of Sparta, Athens and Rome and others who came so much later have perished so long ago, these still exist, despite the efforts of so many powerful kings who have tried a hundred times to wipe them out, as their historians testify, and as can easily be judged by the natural order of things over such a long spell of years. They have always been preserved, however, and their preservation was foretold… My encounter with this people amazes me…."

1629: Rabbi Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller was dismissed from office today and imprisoned at the order of the imperial court of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II for “insulting Christianity” – a charge which led to a fine of being levied on the rabbi, one fifth of which was paid for by Jacob Bassevi von Treuenberg, the financier and “Court Jew” who served three different emperors including Ferdinand II.

1654: Gershon Shaul Yom Tov Lipman Heller, "Tosfot Yom Tov" passed away today. “He served as chief Rabbi of Prague and of Vienna.  His most famous work was a commentary on the Mishnah entitled Tosafot Yom Tov.  The word Tosafot is translated as “additions.”  There are those who contend that the Tosafot are not actually “additions” or commentaries on the Talmud but commentaries on Rashi’s commentary.  Regardless Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller was a great scholar, sage and communal leader.”


1770: Israel Lyons a silversmith living in Cambridge where he taught Hebrew to students at the university, wrote Observation and Enquiries Relating to Various Parts of Scripture History and raise two children - Israel, an “astronomer, botanist and mathematician, and Judith – passed away today.


 1781: George Washington and his French allies under the command of Rochambeau began their secret forced march that would end at Yorktown and lead to the eventual American victory and independence for a nation that provided a home and haven to millions of Jews.

1800: Birthdate of “German poet” Michael Beer “brother of Giacomo Meyerbeer, the composer, and of Wilhelm Beer, the astronomer.”

1803: Six days after he had passed away, Simeon Hart Myers, the son of Naphtali Hart Myers and the former Hester Moses, was buried today at the “Holly Road burial ground.”

1807: Jacob Aaron married Catherine Benjamin today at the Great Synagogue.

1807: Lewis Isaacs married Caroline Pyke today at the Great Synagogue.

1809: In Alsace, Isaac Dreyfus, the son of Jacob Dreyfus and his wife Gertrude “Julie” Dreyfus gave birth to Rosine Dreyfus who became Rosine Picard after she married Louis Picard with whom she had three children – Achille, Caroline and Lucien.

1809: Birthdate of Daniel Joseph Jaffe, the father of Martin, John, Alfred and Otto Jaffe.

1810: Moses Alexander and his wife gave birth to Dinah Alexander, the wife of Jacob David Davis whom she married in London’s “Great Synagogues.”

1818: Joseph Michaels married Rebecca Harris today at the Hambro Synagogue.

1827: One day after he had passed away, 69 year old Nathan Nathan was buried at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery” today.

1835: A Jew Bill (legislation intended to complete the political and civil emancipation of English Jews) passed its first reading in the House of Lords.

1840: Today, Israel B. Kursheedt who had “played a key role in the establishment of Hebra Terumath Hakkodesh, which aided the poor of Israel, chaired a gathering of New York’s Jewish community to protest” the arrest of several Jews living in Damascus on charges of having killed a Franciscan friar so that they could use his blood for Passover in what is called the Damascus Affair.’

1843: In Strasbourg, Alsace, France, Louis and Babette Block gave birth to Adolphe Bloch, the husband of Noémie Bloch whose children included Marcel Dassualt, a leader in the French aviation industry.

1845: In the Paris suburb of Boulogne-sur-Seine, Haut-de-Seine, James Mayer Rothschild and Betty von Rothschild gave birth to their youngest child Baron Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild

1848:  The California Gold Rush really gets under way as news of the strike appears in the New York Herald alerting Americans living in the East that “there is gold in them thar hills.”  Jews joined the thousands of others who streamed west looking for fortune.  According to Pioneer Jews by Harriet and Fred Rochlin, local newspapers provided documentary proof of the Jewish presence: “The Cohen claim at Vallecito made another whopping clean-up.”  “Nathan Rhine has one of the best ledges…He expended about $8,000 to develop it.”  “A Jew named Heyman and several others have worked for some weeks some claims on the new ledge.  These claims were jumped by a man named Moore.”  Jews and gentiles discovered that there were more ways to make their fortunes than digging and panning.  Of course the most famous Jew to strike it rich was Levi Strauss whose pants not only won the West but our now a household brand around the world.

1851: Birthdate of Ferdinand-Camille Dreyfus the French journalist and office holder who was not related to Captain Alfred Dreyfus but who ended up fighting a duel with the notorious anti-Semite, the Marquis de Mores at the same time that the embattled French captain was being railroaded.

1852: In Wilkes-Barre, PA, Abraham Strauss and Emilie Bodenheimer gave birth to Joseph Seligman Strauss, the husband of Miriam Weiss, who took time from his legal practice to serve as a member of the Wilkes-Barre School Board and a member of the Executive Committee of B’nai B’rith.

1856: Birthdate of Harold Frederick, the native of Utica, NY, who wrote The New Exodus: A Study of Israel in Russia which displayed a sympathy for the subject – the way in which the Czar’s government treated its Jewish subjects.

1861: Derogatory stereotypes were part of the American linguistic landscape as can be seen in this report published in the Charleston Courier describing an episode among Union prisoners being held at Richmond. A newsboy who had been in the habit of selling his papers at three, suddenly ran his price up to five cents, and on making his accustomed sale in the morning to one of the prisoners, the latter first refused to "come down." The young vender was equally inexorable, and finally carried his point, and received the amount of his demand. This rise in stocks was reported to the Yankee conclave, whereupon the question was raised whether it was right for the man to jew the boy, or the boy to jew the man. The discussion thus commenced in the social circle was carried into the debating society, and after the usual pros and cons, it was finally decided that the boy, being the sole and undisputed owner of the property, and the said property not being contraband of war, and no concatenation of circumstances having arisen to obstruct the right thereby vested in the original possessor of the aforesaid vehicle of information, the right was undoubtedly inherent in the adolescent merchant to determine for himself the incipient value of his goods, and to charge for the same accordingly, ad valorem duties to the contrary notwithstanding.

1861(13th of Elul, 5621): Joseph Oterman, the Dutch born Texas financier married to Rosanna Dyer, the brother-in-law of Major Leon Dyer and the uncle of Dr. Joseph Osterman Dyer was accidently shot today and suffered wounds that would led to his death a few days later. https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fos09

1862: Philadelphian Joseph A. Davidson, who will be killed during the Battle of Fredericksburg, began serving with Company I of the 134th Regiment.

1862: Birthdate of Auguste-Maurice Barrès, the French author and politician who could not be convinced by Leon Blum that was Dreyfus was innocence because, as he wrote in one of his anti-Semitic pamphlets, "That Dreyfus is guilty, I deduce not from the facts themselves, but from his race."

1867: Birthdate of Rumanian born New York “wholesale shoe merchant” Bernard Lebovitz, “one of the founders and a former president of B’nai Jacob Synagogue in South Brooklyn” and “the executive director of the Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital” who was the husband of Hedvig Lebovitz.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1955/09/13/92640182.pdf

1870: Birthdate of Bernard Baruch financier and unofficial adviser to several U.S. Presidents.  He passed away in 1965. Born in South Carolina, Baruch's family moved to New York City.  He graduated from City College of New York.  He began working as an office boy at three dollars a week. However, by the age of 30 he amassed a fortune thanks to successful speculation in the Stock Market.  He was an adviser to President Wilson during World War I and accompanied him to the Paris Peace Conference after the war.  Thanks to shrewd financial skills, including knowing when to get out of the stock market, Baruch's wealth survived the Crash of 1929.  Baruch was a supporter of the New Deal.  He served Presidents Roosevelt and Truman.  He authored the Baruch Plan, which was an attempt to avoid nuclear war by having an international agency control Atomic Energy.  Baruch is credited by some with first using the term "Cold War" to describe the conditions that existed between the Soviets and the United States after World War II. Baruch was one of those truly colorful characters in American whose life is better described by a novelist than a historian. more like it was created by novelist than a historian.

1870: “A Hebrew Church Schism” published today described a case that is being heard  by Judge Pinkney in the Circuit Court which centers around a dispute among the members of the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation on the corner of Lloyd and Watson streets over the introduction of changes in ritual that the plaintiffs claim were not adopted in accord with the charter of the congregation.

1872: In Jerusalem, dedication of Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue which would serve as the Chasidic house of worship until the Arabs demolished it in 1948 that is also known the Nissan Beck Shul in honor of Nisan Beck, the leader of the Chassidic community in Palestine until his death in 1889 who was responsible for the construction of the building under extremely adverse conditions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Beck#/media/File:Synagogue_Tiferet_Israel.jpg

1872: Three days after she had passed away, 61 year old Hannah (Marks) Somers, the widow of Isaac Somers, and mother of Miriam H. Somers, was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery” today.

1872(15th of Av, 5632): Seventy-three year old Karl Feust, the son of the Chief Rabbi of Bamberg who decided to be a lawyer, despite all of the obstacles facing a Jew in that profession,  and who also served as the secretary of the Jewish community passed away today.

1872:“The Bells,” a “one act play that tells the story of a man named Mathias who secretly murdered a Jew 15 years ago and the consequences of his act” opened tonight at Booths Theatre in New York City.

1874: The Grand Lodge of the ancient Jewish Order Kesher Shel Barzel met at Albany, NY, today.  Of the 5,404 members, 4,934 are men and 530 are women. During the past year, Lodge has paid $23,000 to “the heirs or legal representatives of twenty-three deceased brethren.”  The Lodge has $7,000 on hand “to pay the endowment of he next seven deaths.”

1875: Birthdate of Joseph Whyl, the husband of Yorkshire have Rosa Phillips.

1876: Thirty-six year old George Smith, the translator of the Epic of Gilgamesh whose study of ancient Assyrian texts “threw light” on material contained in the Bible passed away at Aleppo, Syria after having suffered from a bout of severe dysentery.

1877:“The Polish Jews and Where They Worship described the dissatisfaction which “some of the prominent Jews of this City, of the class which is represented by the Jewish Messenger, have” expressed because of “the freedom with which certain rabbis and other Hebrews of importance with their people among the Polish Jews, and the other poorer classes of Israelites “ on the lower east side “marry and divorce members of their congregations without regard to the laws of the State of New York.”

1877: It was reported today that many Jewish immigrants from Russia and Poland do not trust the civil courts and look to their rabbis for decisions in legal matters.

1877: It was reported that the Jews in the United States have access to 15 newspapers and magazines devote to Judaism.  One of them is printed in German while others have German departments.

1877: It was reported that there are 15 Jewish newspapers and/or magazines published in the United States.  One of them is printed in German and “others have German departments.”

1878: As New Orleans was in the grip of a Yellow Fever Epidemic, New York City Alderman Lewis received the following telegram from some of the prominent Jewish resident of New Orleans, LA:The following telegram from prominent Hebrew residents of New-Orleans was received today by Alderman Lewis: “Sickness, disease and suffering among the poor increasing daily.  Our funds are nearly exhausted in this sad calamity.  We deem it our melancholy duty to appeal to the sympathies of our brethren throughout the United States for speedy aid.”

1879(30th of Av, 5639): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1879: The Commissioner of Emigration took the three Neumann brothers – Joseph,10; Ignatz,8; Max, 7 – to Justice Flammer to the Police Court in the Tombs.  He “committed them to a Hebrew charitable insitutio to be educated and cared for.”  Peter Groden of Castle Garden had found the three boys huddled together three weeks ago in Battery Park where they were trying to sleep.  They said their mother had died and they had no food and not place to go.  Groden took them to the Emigration Commissioners who found out that that the boys’ father “had abandoned them and gone to the West.” Since there were no other friends or relatives, the court system was the only other alternative.

1879: “Mysteries of the Royal Arch” published today described he connection between the Masons and the ancient Hebrews including the fact that their initiation room “is a representation of the tabernacle erect on the old site of the Temple” built in the time of Haggai, Joshua and Zerubbabel.

1880(12th of Elul, 5640): Fifty-nine year old Herman Bodek, businessman and Hebraist who wrote These Are the Words of Covenant, “a catechism of the ritual signs, allegories, and objects of Freemasonry” passed away today in Leipzig.

1881: It was reported today that based on figures collected in Germany, there are 6,139,662 Jews living in the world.  Of these, over 5 million live in Europe and slightly more than 300,000 live in America.  In Europe Russia, with 2,552,594 has the most Jews and Norway with 34 has the fewest.

1882: Two Russian Jewish girls named Mary and Hannah Rabeteck arrived in New York from Hamburg aboard the SS Cimbria.  The two girls who are aged 6 and 8 respectively, claim they have an uncle with the same last name living in the city, but do not know his first name so they will have to stay at Castle Garden for the time being.

1882: Burglars stole $250 worth of materials from the workshop of Meyer Norden on Broome Street in New York.  Norden is Jewish and his shop is closed on Saturday which appears to be why the thieves chose today to steal the silk and velvet cloth.

1882: “Obreight To Be Released” published today described the travails of Samuel Obreight whose family has had him confined to an asylum because he was “a lunatic” – a contention they based, in part, on “the indignation of his Jewish relatives at his marriage to a Christian woman.”

1883: “Murderer Disappointed” published today described the failed attempt by Theodore Hoffman to escape from prison.  Hoffman is sentenced to die for murdering Zife Marks, a Jewish peddler, who worked the area around Port Chester, NY.

1883: In Constantinople, Annetta and Pinchas Moses Papier gave birth to Emily Papier.

1884(28th of Av, 5644): Seventy-five year old Jacob Strauss passed away.  Born in Frankfort, he has lived in New Orleans for the last 50 years where he engaged in money-lending.  At the time of his death, he lived on Carondolet Street.

1885: In Austria, Shmuel Meyer Stettner and Rachel Stettner gave birth to Nettie Stettner who became Nettie Kinsbruner when she married David (Aubie) Kinsbruner.

1887: Gus Katz and Emanuel Sturm of Clinton, Illinois, each contributed $1.00 to the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

1887: A hearse sent by the United Hebrew Charities took the body of Julius Weisbaden from the morgue to the Marble Cemetery in New York where it was interred without flowers or services.

1888(12th of Elul, 5648: Eighty-year old historian Meyer Isler who earned a doctorate and then began teaching at the school founded by his father Israel Abraham Meyer passed away today in Hamburg.

1889: The funeral of Lewis Arnheim, a member of the Georgia State Legislature took place in Atlanta today. He is survived by his wife, the former Ida Mayer, daughter of David Mayer and two children.

1890: Justice Duffy has ordered Samuel Cohen to be held for trial on charges of falsely representing himself at he received five dollars from Morris Beckwitz who thought he was making a contribution to the Hebrew Aid Society.

1891: In Brussels, the International Socialist Workmen’s Congress adopted a resolution “condemning both anti-Semitism and Jewish financial tyranny.”

1891: “Goldwin Smith and the Tribal God of the Jews” published today included J.S. Moore’s expression of dissatisfaction with Goldwin Smith’s contention that the Jews only worship a tribal God and “that there is no hope for the Jews as to their social position as long as they adhere to this tribal God.’ (Smith was a British born anti-Semitic Canadian history professor)

1892: A hearing will be held today in response to a complaint filed by Meyer Reinherz an agent of the United Hebrew Charities against Edward Pollock who allegedly attacked him.

1892: In, Minneapolis, “Joel Levi and Jennie (Groll) Erman gave birth to Chicago College of Medicine and Surgery trained physician Jacob Martin Erman,  a U.S. Army surgeon assigned to Base Hospital 64 in France during WW I and husband of  Emma Ruth Dobrtin who settled in Omaha where he was a member of B’nai B’rith and the “Omaha Hebrew Elks.”

1892: Leonard Stiebel, the son of Ada and Daniel C. Stiebel was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1892: In Des Moines, IA, “Isaac and Bertha (Meyer) Riegelman gave birth to Cornell alum and Columbia trained attorney who rose to the rank of Major while fighting at “St. Mihiel and The Argonne” after which he married Gladys B. Bleiman and practiced law in NYC.

1893: Throughout the Lower East Side, an area occupied by Russian and Polish Jewish thousands of circulars printed in Hebrew calling on “Workingmen!!  Organized and Not Organized!  All Suffering and Wretched Ones!” to bring their wives and children to attend a mass meeting at Union Square to be held this evening.

1893: Charles Wilfred, a self-described “anarchist-communist” who had worked with Jewish tailors during their strike in London addressed a meeting at Thalia Hall which was held to celebrate the release of Emma Goldman from Blackwell’s Island.

1894: One day after he had passed away, 21 year old Edward Jacobs, the son of Solomon Jacobs and Sarah Cohen was buried today at the West Ham Jewish Cemtery.

1894: In Newburgh, NY, founding of the Newburgh Progress Club which met every Sunday and for which Sigismund Samuels served as President.

1895: Birthdate of “Forestville, CT” native labor organizer Vera Buch Weisbord, whose autobiography A Radical Life was published in 1977, the same year when her radical husband Albert passed away.


1895: Eleven year old Sarah Russell, who had appeared in the Court of Sessions on three charges of pickpocketing, was sent to the Hebrew Juvenile Asylum because she “was not properly cared for at home” and could “receive proper training”

1896: It was reported today that the bands of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum and the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Orphan Asylum will perform at The Summernight’s Festival

1897: Julies Harburger and Raphael Rosenberg of the Independent Order Free Sons of Israel have expressed their support for New York Mayor William Strong to become the first mayor “Greater New York” (what we call New York City).

1897: Birthdate of Roman Vishniac, the Russian born American photographer his many accomplishments included creating a pictorial record of the Shtetl life.



1897: One day after she had passed away 42 year old Sarah Bieberkraut, the wife of Abraham Bieberkraut, was buried today at the Plashet Cemetery in London.

1897: “Charity Funds Squandered” published today described a letter that “J.S. Koenigsberg, the Secretary of the Jewish Society of Denver” received from Edwin W. Wallace the American Consul at Jerusalem  claiming that funds sent for indigent American Jews who have moved to Palestine “to spend their last days”  are being “squandered by the native Jews who live in luxury.”

1897: Two days after she passed away, 34 year old Annie Landau was buried at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.

1899: “Picquart Gives His Evidence” published today described the five hours of the Colonel’s testimony in which he proved details of the plots against Dreyfus and confronts Generals Roget and Mercier.

1899: Joseph Weiler conducted an action today that raised over $200 to aid the Hebrew Sanitarium of Rockaway, New York.

1899: In Rennes, three witnesses, all “enemies of Dreyfus – Major Cuignet, Gener de Bolsdeffre and General Gonse –“testified from 6:30 until 11 A.M.  Their testimony was mainly a reiteration of the evidence they had given before.”

1900:Abe, The Little Hebrew" Attell’s fought his first fight today. He knocked out Kid Lennett in two rounds. His mother, who strongly opposed Attell's idea of being a boxer, later became one of Attell's staunchest supporters, even betting on her son to win. He gained the nickname "The Little Hebrew" in these early fights.

1902(16th of Av, 5662): Sixty-one year old Abraham Mendes Chumaceiro, the native of Amsterdam who “moved to Curaçao in 1856, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1872” passed away today.

1903: Today Jacob de Haas and his fellow Zionists were traveling on train from Paris that would take them straight to Basle.

1905(18th of Av, 5665): Parsashat Eikev

1905(18th of Av, 5665): Eighty year old German born French Orientalist and Astrologist Jules Oppert whose accomplishments included making the first definitive identification of the “site of ancient Babylon” while on expedition to Mesopotamia in 1851.


1906: “The National Anti-Semitic Assembly of Bulgaria met a Philippopolis” today.

1906: The newly formed Hebrew Congregation of Cuba changed its name to the United Hebrew Congregation (UHC) of Cuba, and Robert Diamond was elected treasurer. The pressing need for a Jewish cemetery was unfortunately highlighted a month later when Diamond passed away suddenly. Joseph Steinberg was appointed the new treasurer.

1910: In Asia Minor, Ritual murder charges were raised against Jews in Aiden.

1911(25th of Av, 5671): Parashat Re’eh

1911:Anti-Jewish riots began in Tredegar, New South Wales, Great Britain.  This was the worst outbreak of anti-Semitic violence to take place in the British Isles in modern times.  The riots came at the end of miners’ strike and were so intense that the Home Secretary invoked the Riot Act and called for the military to control the attackers.

1911: It was reported today that Justice Leon Sanders is the head of “a union of Jewish immigrant aid societies in the United States and Canada which has been formed” in New York City.

1913(16th of Av, 5673): Forty-five year old Simon Stein, the Pennsylvania born son of Daniel and Amelia Stein, the brother of Gertrude Stein of literary fame, passed away today.

1914: At the beginning of WW I Albert Einstein, the recently appointed director of the Institute of Physics writes from Berlin, “Europe, in her insanity, has started something almost unbelievable.  In such times one realizes to what a sad species of animal one belongs. I quietly pursue my peaceful studies and contemplations and feel only pit and disgust.

1914: Birthdate of Rose Heilbron who became the first woman judge to sit at the Old Bailey in London.

1915: Practically everybody attending the meeting at Cooper Union tonight voted “in favor of the resolution for” “holding a Jewish Congress” that would unite Jews in an effort to abolish Jewish disabilities in Russia and to establish “a Zionist State in Palestine at the close of the war.”

1915: The Imperial German Chancellor delivered a speech before the Reichstag today in which he described the Russian scorched earth policy in which for once Christians and Jews suffer the same fate as all Russians “are transported to uninhabited regions to the East” or left to “perish in the morasses of Russian roads.”(Editor’s Note – The Germans liked to portray themselves as protectors of Western civilization in the face of the Slavic masses, but as far as the Jews were concerned, in Poland, a year later they were faced with a level of starvation that forced them to seek aid for soup kitchens from Jews in Switzerland and the United States)

1915: Three days after he had passed away, Isaac Levy was buried at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.

1915: It was reported today that when the leader of the lynch mob asked Leo Frank, “We want to know whether you are guilty or innocent of killing little Mary Phagan,” Frank replied “I think more of my wife and my mother than I do of my own life.”  These were the last words he spoke.


1915: It was reported today that after the mob agreed not to mutilate the body of Leo Frank, they cut him down and then vied to get pieces of the rope for souvenirs.

1916: “The Joint Distribution Committee of the Funds for Jewish War Sufferers which is made up of representatives from the American, the Central and the People’s Relief Committees, the three largest organizations for distributing America’s contribution to Jewish relief announced today that between January 20 and August 15, it had sent $3,891,613” overseas which did not include the $342,359.71in remittances that the committee’s Transmission Bureau had sent to friends and relatives living in the War Zone or Palestine.

1916: “Motion Picture Publicity Men Organize” published today described the founding of the Association of Motion Pictures whose original members included Frohman Amusement Company, Paramount Pictures,  Adolph Zukor’s  Famous Players Film Company and Ben Schulberg.

1917(1st of Elul, 5677): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1917: In London, “the Zion Association” adopted a resolution expressing disapproval of the formation of a Jewish Legion because of the “harmful effects” such a move could have on the interest of the Jews in Turkey and Palestine.

1917: Seventy-five year old Edward Thomas O’Dwyer, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Limerick, who after meeting with a delegation led by Saul Goldberg, denounced the anti-Semitic pogrom in that Irish city – a denunciation which had little effect since  Fr John Creagh CSSR, spiritual director of the Arch Confraternity of the Sacred Heart, the leader of the anti-Semitic riots was beyond his ecclesiastical control passed away today.

1917: The Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the War acknowledged receiving gifts of $100 or more including $380 from Congregation B.I.A.S. in Brooklyn, $1,153 from the Young Peoples Hebrew Association in Windsor, Ontario and $115 from Ohave Emnuna in Cleveland, Ohio.

1918: Birthdate of Sy Gomberg, an Oscar-nominated film screenwriter and producer who taught screenwriting to University of Southern California students for over ten years.

1918: “Famous Advocate Slain in Russia” published today described the recent assassination Henry Sliosberg, the jurist and leader of the Jewish community who was an opponent of the Bolsheviks. (Editor’s note – Only problem was that this report was erroneous and Slisoberg would not pass away until 1937.)

1918: Approximately 150 service men are in training to take part in “Yip, Yip, Haphank,” a musical revue written by Sergeant Irving Berlin that is scheduled to begin a week long run in New York City today the proceeds of which will be used “for the erection of a community house at Camp Uptown.

1919: According to summary of the bequests of the late Ludwig Dreyfus the United Hebrew Charities will receive $627,000 and the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies will receive $210,000.

1919: Afghanistan gains full independence from the United Kingdom. Jews have lived in what is now known as Afghanistan for more than two thousand years before the last family fled while the Taliban held sway in Kabul.

1920: In Manhattan Louis and Martha Peskin Wershba gave birth to “Joseph Wershba, who as a CBS television reporter working with Edward R. Murrow revealed the story of Lt. Milo Radulovich, whose dismissal from the Air Force because of his relatives’ leftist leanings became a symbol of the anti-Communist witch hunts of the 1950’s.”  (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)

1921(15th of Av, 5681): Tu B’Av

1921: Birthdate of Gene Rodenberry, the creator of sci-fi cult his “Star Trek” staring those two Jewish spacemen – William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock.

1924: Today, Moe “Berg was loaned to the Toledo Mud Hens, a poor team ravaged by injuries after which he  was immediately inserted into the lineup at shortstop which led Major league scout Mike González sending a telegram to the Dodgers evaluating Berg with the curt, but now famous, line, "Good field, no hit."

1925: In Cracow, Hirsch and Mita (Rosenbaum) Karmel to Ilona Karmel, the Holocaust survivor who rote Stephania and An Estate of Memory

1926:  Birthdate of businessman Arthur Rock, the man who supposedly coined the term “venture capitalism.”

1926(1st of Elul, 5686): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1926(1st of Elul, 5686): Harris Abelow, the son of Sholom and Rachel Bayle Davidson Abelow, who married Sophie Abelow a year after his first wife Hannah had died passed away today in Brooklyn

1928: The conference of the Mizrachi World Organization is scheduled to open in Danzig (As reported by JTA)

1929: Following attacks by Arabs on Jews praying at the Western Wall Erev Shabbat and other attacks on Jews in Jerusalem, a meeting was held last night at the home of Professor Joseph Klausner, the chairman of the Pro-Wailing Wall Committee.  The committee decided to issue an appeal to the Christian world describing the attacks and asking for intervention on behalf of the Jews.  “We ask to be given back what has always been ours, that which saturated with the blood and tears of hundred and thousands of the children of Israel.  Christians throughout the world, you know and realize the meaning of religious sanctity, you who know how to respect century-old traditions and painful longing for sacred religious shrines, please intervene and help us recover the Western Wall, so sacred and holy to us.”

1933: In Toronto, Mayor Stewart forbids display of swastika in the city.

1933: In Santiago, Zionist-Socialist party is organized in connection with the campaign for Labor Palestine that has raised 15,000 pesos.

1933: The Jiidische Rundschau, official organ of the German Zionist Federation, is suspended for six months because it replied editorially to an attack on the Zionist Congress by Alfred Rosenberg, Nazi leader.

1934: A plebiscite in Germany approved the vesting of sole executive power in Adolf Hitler as Fuhrer.

1934: Congressman Henry Thomas Rainey who in 1906 attended a mass meeting held to protest the “atrocities in Russia” and told the audience that the Romanoffs “are inflaming the populace against the helpless Jews – and already the blood of 100,000 Jews cries out for vengeance” passed away today while serving as the 40th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. (Editor’s note – we should always remember those who had the courage to stand with the underground for that is the real “Profile in Courage.;)

1935: More than 2,400 delegates from forty-three countries had registered here tonight for the opening of the nineteenth biennial Zionist Congress being held in Lucerne, Switzerland.

1936(1stof Elul, 5695): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1936(1stof Elul, 5695): Three days after the end of the Olympics, forty year old Captain Wolfgang Fürstner who was identified as “one of the last non-Aryan officers to retain his rank in the new German Army” committed suicide today after he “had learned that according to the Nuremberg Laws he was classified as a Jew and was to be dismissed from the Wehrmacht.

1937: “Confession” directed by Joe May with a script by Julius J. Epstein was released in the United States today by Warner Brothers.

1937: The British government recommended to the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations that if the Royal (Peel) partition plan is accepted, a provisional cantonization of Palestine should be imposed during the transitional period, immediately after the termination of the Mandate. If such an arrangement would not be possible, an alternative was suggested, namely that two separate Mandates should be held, one for the Jewish, and one for the Arab state.

1938: Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, announced today that Great Britain has issued 825 certificates for the immediate transfer to Palestine of Jewish children from Germany and Poland.

1938: “In Strasbourg, France, fifty-one year old Polish born shoe manufacturer” and 27 year old Friederike "Fritzi" Passweg gave birth to Joseph Langerman who gained fame as “off the wall radio personality” Joe Frank.  (As reported by Richard Sandomir)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/19/obituaries/joe-frank-spinner-of-strange-radio-tales-is-dead-at-79.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

1938: Switzerland closes its borders to Jews fleeing Nazi persecution in Austria.

1938: The Swiss Federal Council ordered the closing of their border to refugees from the Third Reich, constituting a death sentence for many Jews. (Editor’s Note - But not all Swiss officials obeyed the ruling. Swiss Police Commander Paul Grüninger—known by many as the “Oscar Schindler of the Swiss-German border region”—used bureaucratic loopholes to allow more than 3,000 Austrian Jews to enter the country. This drama, based on the true story, unfolds like a suspense thriller as we witness the war of wits between the commander and his superiors in the police force of officially neutral Switzerland. It’s almost impossible to watch The Grüninger File and not think about the difficult moral questions around today’s refugee asylum seekers.)

1939: As Stalin seeks to improve relations with Hitler, “the 1939 German-Soviet Commercial Agreement” was signed today – an agreement that would move  the two one step closer to the non-aggression pact that would provide the Nazis with their green light for WW II and give the Communist dictator half of Poland.

1939: In an impassioned speech frequently interrupted by hecklers, Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver of Cleveland, Ohio, appealed today to the delegates attending the twenty-first session of the World Zionist Congress here to do nothing that might bring the Jews in Palestine into conflict with the British Government.

1940(15th of Av, 5700): Tu B’Av

1940(15th of Av, 5700): Thirty-one year old Henry H. Fleisher, Jr. passed away today after which he was interred at Mt. Sinai Cemetery in Philadelphia.

1940: Malvina Parnes, age 11, saw the Statue of Liberty from the deck of the Quanza, a Portuguese cargo ship.  Parnes and her family were fleeing from Hitler’s Europe and were allowed entry into the United States thanks to the personal intervention of Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of the President of the United States.

1941: Einsatzkommando 8 as well as local collaborators in Mogilev, Belorussia, kill more than 3000 Jews.

1942 Twenty-nine year old New York native Aaron Bank enlisted in the Army and despite what some considered an “advanced agent” became a field operative for the Office of Strategic Services.

1942: An allied force crosses the English Channel in what came to be known as the Dieppe Raid. One thousand troops, mostly Canadian perished in this ill-begotten venture.  It proved to the English and the Americans that a cross-channel invasion of Europe was going to be a very difficult task that would take massive amounts of man and supplies.  More importantly for the Jews of Europe whose only hope of survival lay in liberation, such a landing would be at least a year if not more in the making.  In fact almost two years would pass between the disaster at Dieppe and the success at Normandy.  Unfortunately for most of the Jews of Europe this necessary two year hiatus meant death on an unheard of scale.

1942: Nazis murder the children of the Rembertów (Poland) Ghetto. The town's adult Jews, more than 1000, are assembled for deportation to the Treblinka death camp. About 300 of the people are ordered eastward along the road to Wesola. Before they walk a mile, the 300 are murdered. The 700 who remain are ordered to march south, and as the group passes the town of Anin, one woman melts into a crowd of non-Jewish Polish onlookers and escapes. Forty-five others are machine-gunned at Anin, ostensibly because they attempted escape. Hours later the marchers reach the ghetto at Falenica, where Jews already have been forcibly assembled; those who are discovered in hiding are shot. Inside the ghetto, two Jews resist, using an axe to kill the first German who steps through the doors of their apartment.

1942 At the Belzec extermination camp, 700 to 800 Jews herded into a gas chamber wait in torment for nearly three hours until a balky diesel engine can be started and the chamber filled with deadly exhaust. SS gas/disinfectant expert but anti-Nazi Kurt Gerstein is on hand to observe

1942: For four days 17,000 Jews from Lutsk, Ukraine, are taken to Polanka Hill and executed.

1942: Esther "Etty" Hillesum went to visit her parents at Deventer for the last time.

1942: “The first large-scale aktion in the Łuck Ghetto took place today” when “about 17,000 Jews were rounded up by Nazi Orpo police and the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police during a four-day period, assembled at the square by the pharmacy, and taken in lorries along with women and children, to the Górka Połonka forest on the outskirts of Łuck” where] “they were shot into the prepared trenches.”

1942: In Bar, Ukraine, 3,000 Jews were herded together and held without food or water while in a nearby cemetery the Nazis murdered 1,742 Jews. (Jewish Virtual Library)

1942: Fourteen year old Shmuel Shilo, the future Israeli actor, survived today’s action that liquidated the Łuck, Ghetto by hiding “in a cellar with mother and siblings.”

1942: Today, “the remaining 43 Jews” living in Laupheim were transported to Theresienstadt, marking the end of 200 years of Jewish habitation in this German town.

1943: The Treblinka death camp receives its final trainload of Jewish deportees. They come from Bialystok, Poland.

1943: Nir Am “was established today by immigrants from Bessarabia who were members of the Gordonia youth movement.

1944: The Liberation of Paris begins as the Resistance in Paris rises against German occupation with the help of Allied troops. The long nightmare for the Jews of France is about to end.  Jews played an active part in the Resistance.  Contrary to the popular myth, a significant portion of the French population collaborated with the Nazis and the Vichy French worked tirelessly to ship French Jews to the death camps.

1944: Birthdate of Mordechai "Motaleh" Spiegler, the native of Scohi, in the former Soviet Union who became a leading “Israeli footballer and manager.”

1947: Today “His Eminence Haim Nahum Effendi Grand Rabbi of Egypt & Sudan reminded his Alexandria audience that Jews had lived in Egypt for over 2,000 years and that the oldest known synagogue (Ben Ezra) exists in Old Cairo.”

1951: A four year agricultural development plan costing $610,000,000 and designed to feed an Israeli population of 2,000,000 was introduced to the World Zionist Congress today by Levi Eshkol, treasurer of Jewish Agency Executive, Israel...

1952: The Knesset voted by 70 to 11 for an increase in the period of compulsory military service to 30 months.

1952: The S.S. Negba brought 112 immigrants from Hungary and 222 from North Africa to Israel. According to the new arrivals there were some 100,000 Jews left in Hungary, 80 percent of them in Budapest.

1952: Officials in Washington agreed with Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion that the solution of Arab-Jewish difficulties would be of great economic benefit to both sides and certainly help toward strengthening peace in the world. The US State Department had made it clear in numerous background announcements that it did not believe the Arabs could be returned to their former homes in Israel. It felt, however, that some compensation ­ although not complete ­ for the dispossessed might considerably ease the tension.

1953: The Knesset passed a law establishing the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority known as Yad Vashem (a monument and a memorial) which takes it name from a verse from Isaiah

1953: Israel's parliament conferred Israeli citizenship posthumously on all Jews killed by the Nazis during the years of the Holocaust (1933-45) in Europe.

1953: An Arab terrorist from Gaza killed a restaurant owner in Ashkelon severely injured his 25 year old daughter.

1954(20th of Av, 5714): Fifty-one year old Hamburg born American art collector who left Nazi Germany in 1934 and established what became the Curt Valentin Gallery passed away today.

https://www.moma.org/research-and-learning/archives/finding-aids/Valentinf

1954: Today, a press release announced that WNBC would be broadcasting the first radio performance of Maria del Carmen (Granados) and Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra by Nathaniel Shilkret,

1955:  Birthdate of actor Peter Gallagher.”

1955:  “Female on the Beach” a crime film directed by Joseph Pevney and starring Jeff Chandler was released in the United States today.

1956:  In Brooklyn, “actor, director and writer Alan Arkin and his first wife Jeremy Yaffe gave birth to Adam Arkin who has been honored with Tony nominations and Emmy awards for his work as any actor and director.

1957(22nd of Av, 5717):  English born artist David Bomberg passed away.

1959(15th of Av, 5719): Tu B’Av

1959(15th of Av, 5719): Seventy-eight year old Jacob Epstein an American-born sculptor who worked chiefly in England, where he pioneered modern sculpture, often producing controversial works that challenged taboos concerning what public artworks appropriately depict passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1959/08/23/88813259.pdf

http://www.artnet.com/artists/sir-jacob-epstein/

1960: As the U.S. Presidential elections get underway an announcement is made that Senator John F. Kennedy, the Democratic nominee for President will address the upcoming sixty-third annual convention of The Zionist Organization of America.

1960(26th of Av, 5720): Seventy two year old Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier an English historian passed away. http://www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/historians/namier_lewis.html

http://www.britannica.com/biography/Lewis-Bernstein-Namier

1962: Birthdate of Julius Genachowski “an American lawyer and businessman” who became Federal Communications Commission Chairman during the first year of Obama’s presidency.

1963: “Syrian forces murdered two civilians in Almagor,” a moshav north of the Lake Kinneret.

1964: In Boston, MA, “Leo Kahn, co-founder of Staples” and Dorothy Davidson gave birth to Harvard graduate Joseph Kahn, “the managing editor of The New York Times.”

1965(21st of Av, 5725): Seventy-seven year old Austrian born “Rabbi Ezekiel Landau, the spiritual director of the United Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society who came to the United States and was the husband of “the former Helen Greenberg with whom he had three children – Mrs. Lotti Glover, Rabbi Sol Landau and Brooklyn Philharmonia music director Siegfried Landau – passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1965/08/20/101562643.pdf

1965: Rolf Friedemann Pauls began serving as the first German (W. Germany) Ambassador to Israel.

1967(13th of Av, 5727): Shabbat Nachamu

1967(13th of Av, 5727) Eighty-three year old Luxembourg City native Hugo Gernsbach the son “Berta (Durlacher), a housewife and Mortiz Gernsbacher, a wine maker”  “an inventor, author, editor and publisher who has been called the father of modern science fiction passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/08/20/107196605.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Gernsback#/media/File:Science_and_Mechanics_Nov_1931_cover.jpg

1967(13th of Av, 5727): Sixty year old Isaac Deutscher the Galician born Marxist historian who spent most of his life pursuing his career in Great Britain and not in any Communist country and who referred to himself as a “non-Jewish Jew” passed away today.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/sedgwick/1967/xx/deutscher.htm

https://www.marxists.org/archive/deutscher/bio-bibl_deutscher_i.pdf

1968: “Official circles today strongly denied that any deal was in the making between Israel and Algeria for the release of the hijacked El Al jet airliner and its 12 Israeli passengers and crewman.” (JTA)

1968: “The Israel-Jordan border echoed with gun fire today as forces of both sides fought an hour long duel with artillery, mortars and machineguns south of the Sea of Galilee…” (JTA)

1969: Two days after he had passed away, funeral services are scheduled to be held today for fifty-eight year old composer “Morris Goldenberg, the head of the percussion department at the Juilliard School of Music” who was the husband of “the former Isabella Leon” and the father of Lucille and William Goldenberg.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/08/18/78392046.html?pageNumber=35

1969: Two days after he had passed away, funeral services are scheduled to be held “in Sinai Temple” in Mt. Vernon, NY for sixty-two year old “Rabbi Henry Enoch Kagan” the graduate of the University of Cincinnati and HUC who was “the first full-time rabbi to be licensed by New York State as a consulting psychologist” and who was a tireless worker for better relations between Christians and Jews which did not deter him from raising two sons – Jonathan and Jeremy – with his wife “the former Esther Miller.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/08/18/78392037.html?pageNumber=35

.

1969: The hippie happening called Woodstock that was held on the farm owned by Jewish dairyman Max B. Yasgur, came to an end.  [Among the youthful attendees were a Jewish doctor now living in Texas and a Jewish dentist in Arkansas whose name will not divulged as mark of respect for their positions in their respective communities.]

1970: Two days after he had passed away funeral services were scheduled to be held for sixty-nine year old to Dr. Frederick Lascoff, the recipient of a pharmacy degree from Columbia where he taught for 20 years and a Doctorate in Pharmacy from the Connecticut College of Pharmacy who operated the “Yorkville pharmacy started by his father” and who was the husband of Emmy Lascoff with whom he had one son.


1971(28th of Av, 5731): Ninety-one year old “medical economist Michael Davis,” the husband of “the former Alice Taylor” and father of Paul and Michael, Jr. passed away today.



1971: Three days after he had passed away, funeral services are scheduled to be held today for ): seventy-six year old Edward Anthony, the former director of public relations during Herbert Hoover’s successful presidential campaign and magazine editor.

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/08/18/archives/edward-anthony-writer-dies-former-colherspublisher-76-also-headed.html

1975: Hadassah announces that it will increase its youth centers in Israel to integrate Jewish children of Middle Eastern and African backgrounds who pose serious social and educational problems in the Jewish state

1975: Jacob Austin began serving as a Senator from British Columbia.

1976: “Israel said today that it would ignore the demand by President Idi Amin of Uganda for compensation for the Israeli raid on Entebbe airport last month.”

1977(5th of Elul, 5737):  Eighty-six year old comedian Groucho Marx passed away.  When told that he had been rejected for member ship in a club because he was Jewish, Marx replied,“I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.”

http://www.biography.com/people/groucho-marx-594094#career-breakthrough

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9D03E4DD103DE532A25753C2A96E9C946690D6CF

1978: Seventy-eight year old archeologist Max Mallowan who worked several sites in Mesopotamia including Ur, reputed to be the Biblical home of Abraham passed away today.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Max-Mallowan

1979: Andrew Young, who resigned last week as chief United States delegate to the United Nations, “characterized as ‘kind of foolish’ the United States policy of shunning contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organization…”  While being interviewed on Face the Nation, “Young called the Government of Israel ‘stubborn and intransigent’ for their policy concerning negotiations with the PLO.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F40D17FD385D12728DDDA90A94D0405B898BF1D3

1979(26thof Av, 5739): Ninety-two year old “Joel Teitelbaum, the founder and first Grande Rebbe of the Satmar dynasty passed away today at Mt. Sinai Hospital after which he was interred at the Kiryas Joel Cemetery.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/rabbi-joel-teitelbaum

1980(7th of Elul, 5740): Otto Heinrich Frank passed away.  Born in 1889, he gained fame as the father of Anne Frank.

1981(19thof Av, 5741): Seventy-six year old Ukrainian born “Elias Picheny, a former social worker and official of the National Jewish Welfare Board and husband of “the former Dora Werthman” with whom he raised a son, Joel, passed away today in Berkley, CA.

https://www.jta.org/1981/09/01/archive/elias-picheny-dead-at-76

1988(6thof Elul, 5748): Sixty-one year old Sir John Boris Roderick Hazan, the “son of an engineer from Russia” and mother from Poland whose legal career began in 1948 when he was called to the Bar by Lincoln’s Inn and reached its pinnacle when he was appointed to the High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division passed away today.



1990:  Leonard Bernstein conducted his final concert, the Koussevitzky Memorial concert at Tanglewood. The performance included Britten's Three Sea Interludes, LB's Arias & Barcarolles (Carl St. Clair, conductor) and Beethoven's Symphony No. 7.

1990: In “a message broadcast over Baghdad television” President Sadamm said “if President Bush gave an unequivocal, written pledge to pull military forces out of the gulf” and lifted the economic blockade imposed after the takeover of Kuwait” he would release the ten thousand foreigners, including 3,000 Americans trapped in Kuwait and Iraq.”

1991: Around 8:00 p.m. this evening, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the international leader and Rebbe of the Chabad Lubavitch movement was returning to his home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn after a visit to the Old Montefiore Cemetery in adjacent Queens when there was a fatal accident that resulted in the death of seven-year-old Gavin Cato, the son of Guyanese immigrants. Charles Price and other demagogues harangued the angry crowd touching off several days of what can only be described as a race riot.

1991(9th of Elul, 5751): Three hours after seven year old Gavin Cato was killed in automobile accident involving vehicles driven by Lubavitch Chasidim, Yankel Rosenbaum--a 29-year-old Jewish student from Australia--was killed by a group consisting mostly of neighborhood youth, in what would be interpreted as a retaliatory slaying wrapped in the robes of anti-Semitism.

1991: During the “August Coup,” Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is placed under house arrest while on holiday in the town of Foros, Crimea. The coup failed and hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union.  The collapse of the Soviet Union led to a wave of immigration to Israel.  It also made possible the re-vitalization of Jewish Communities throughout most of the republics that had made up the Communist Empire.

1993(2ndof Elul, 5753): Sixty-one year old architect Norman Jaffe passed away today.

https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/6987979

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/23/obituaries/norman-jaffe-61-an-architect-famed-for-home-designs-is-dead.html?mcubz=1

1994:

1995(23rdof Av, 5755): Seventy year old Danny Arnold, born Arnold Rothman, the actor turned creator of sitcoms passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/22/obituaries/danny-arnold-70-creator-of-barney-miller.html

2000(18thof Av, 5760): Parashat Eikev

2000(18thof Av, 5760): Eighty-seven year old Lee Tabor Shalom, the native of Paris, Illinois, who directed more than 1300 shows “including both features and TV episodes” during a 40 year career passed away today in Los Angeles.

2001(30th of Av, 5761): Rosh Chodesh Elul

2001: Israeli premiere of “The Switch” co-starring Jeff Goldblum with a script by Allan Loeb.

2001: The New York Times book section featured reviews of The Darkness and the Light by Jewish poet Anthony Hecht and How Charles Shavers Died And Other Poems by Jewish poet Harvey Shapiro

2001: In “City Lore; The Little Red Summer Camp,” published today, Ivy Meeropol reminisces about her summers at Kinderland a camp that  was founded in 1923 by secular Jews active in the New York City trade union movement, most of whom were Communists or socialists.  

2001: “U.S. Senator Lieberman's office was advised that the Hiram Bingham IV stamp was (again) "on the agenda" of the Citizen's Stamp Advisory Committee.”

2002(11th of Elul, 5762): Eighty-five year old philosopher and author Irving Marmer passed away today

http://archives.starbulletin.com/2002/09/01/news/story11.html

http://forward.com/culture/217470/alice-in-anti-semitic-land/

2003(21st of Av, 5763): A Hamas planned suicide attack on Jerusalem bus #2 kills 23 Israelis, 7 of them children

Twenty-three people, including two small children and two infants, were murdered and 134 wounded when a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated himself on a #2 Egged bus in Jerusalem’s Shmuel Hanavi neighborhood. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. The victims: Avraham Bar-Or, 12, of Jerusalem; Binyamin Bergman, 15, of Jerusalem; Yaakov Binder, 50, of Jerusalem; Feiga Dushinski, 50, of Jerusalem; Miriam Eisenstein, 20, of Bnei Brak; Lilach Kardi, 22, of Jerusalem; Menachem Leibel, 24, of Jerusalem; Elisheva Meshulami, 16, of Bnei Brak; Tehilla Nathanson, 3, of Zichron Ya’acov; Chava Nechama Rechnitzer, 19, of Bnei Brak; Mordechai Reinitz, 49, and Issachar Reinitz, 9, of Netanya; Maria Antonia Reslas, 39, of the Philippines; Liba Schwartz, 54, of Jerusalem; Hanoch Segal, 65, of Bnei Brak; Goldie Taubenfeld, 43, and Shmuel Taubenfeld, 3 months, of New Square, New York; Rabbi Eliezer Weisfish, 42, of Jerusalem; Shmuel Wilner, 50, of Jerusalem; Shmuel Zargari, 11 months, of Jerusalem. Fruma Rahel Weitz, 73, of Jerusalem died of her wounds on August 23; Mordechai Laufer, 27, died of his on September 5; and Tova Lev, 37, died on September 12.(As reported by TIP – The Israeli Project)

2005(14th of Av, 5765): Eighty-seven year old Dutch comedian Abraham ('Appie') Bueno de Mesquita passed away.  Born in 1918, he escaped Auschwitz when he was chosen to play the cello by the Nazi camp commander in Mechelen, Belgium.  This episode provided the title for his autobiography; Cello met één snaar (Cello with one string).

2005(14th of Av, 5765): David Sky, owner of the Rabbi L. Sky Bookstore passed away.  The store was started by his father in Newark in 1904 and was one of the "pioneering Judaica stores in the US where" Jewish New Year’s cards were sold for the first time.  The store moved to Maplewood in 1970.  His widow sold the store in 2008.

2005: Pope Benedict XVI, who was drafted into the German Army during World War II, visited a synagogue in Cologne on Friday that had been destroyed by the Nazis and warned of a growing anti-Semitism that he called a "reason for concern and vigilance."[What follows is a detailed description of this historic event]



"Today, sadly, we are witnessing the rise of new signs of anti-Semitism and various forms of a general hostility toward foreigners," the pope said in a reverent hour-long visit to the Cologne synagogue on his first trip abroad. "The Catholic Church is committed - and I affirm this again today - to tolerance, respect, friendship and peace between all peoples, cultures and religions."

The visit - punctuated by the ancient call of the Shofar, the ram's horn - was freighted with history, with a German who had taken part unwillingly in the Hitler Youth as a boy becoming only the second pope to visit a synagogue. Unlike his predecessor, John Paul II, who often spoke of his own life in Poland during World War II, Benedict did not mention his own experiences during the war, sticking mostly to his prepared text with a notable exception: He inserted the word "love" in a sentence whose text on paper said Jews and Catholics "need to show respect for each other."

But he was greeted with great warmth by 500 people in the synagogue, which was destroyed during the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938, after which 11,000 Jews who lived here were killed. It was rebuilt in 1959, and Jews in Cologne now number 5,000. "If someone told me 45 years ago, 'You are going to be in Cologne, and the pope will visit you in a synagogue,' I wouldn't have believed it," Paul Spiegel, the leader of Germany's Jews, told reporters later. "We have come a long way in mutual support and in mutual understanding and, as the pope said, in mutual love."

Mr. Spiegel called the visit "truly historic," words echoed by the pope's spokesman, Joaquín Navarro-Valls, who said Benedict himself had asked for the meeting. He said it was "an event of historic significance: a German pope, who was on his first official trip, himself took the initiative for the visit." The visit was an interreligious detour on Benedict's four-day visit here as part of the 20th World Youth Day, which has attracted hundreds of thousands of young Catholics from around the world. Benedict, 78, who has pledged to make understanding between religions a centerpiece of his papacy, is also scheduled to visit Muslim leaders in Cologne on Sunday.

Germany is the home to 3.5 million Muslims, most of them Turkish, and since the Sept. 11, 2001attacks, and again after the bombings in London last month, many European Muslims say they are being eyed with increasing suspicion. Although Benedict spoke of "hostility" toward foreigners, he did not elaborate. In his speech at the synagogue, he noted the long history of Jews in Cologne, who have lived here since Roman times. The synagogue is the oldest north of the Alps. He said that while Jews and Christians had at times lived together peacefully, he noted the expulsion of Jews from Cologne in 1424. "And in the 20th century, in the darkest period of German and European history, an insane racist ideology, born of neo-paganism, gave rise to the attempt, planned and systematically carried out by the regime, to exterminate European Jewry," he said. He then spoke of the efforts of John Paul to rebuild relations between Catholics and Jews, many of whom have accused the church of inaction during World War II. Among other steps, John Paul became the first pope to visit a synagogue, in Rome in 1986. Partly quoting John Paul, Benedict said, "The terrible events of that time must 'never cease to rouse consciences, to resolve conflicts, to inspire the building of peace.'"And while he said relations had improved much in recent years, he added: "Much still remains to be done. We must come to know one another much more and much better." He called for a "sincere and trustful" dialogue between Catholics and Jews. One issue of contention between Jews and Catholics rose during the visit: Abraham Lehrer, president of the Cologne congregation, said it would be "a good thing" for the Vatican to open up all its archives from World War II. The Vatican has opened the archives until the year 1939, but many Jewish groups would like to explore the records relating to Pope Pius XII, accused of remaining silent during the Holocaust. There was no mention on either side of a bitter diplomatic spat between Israel and the Vatican: last month, after the London bombings, Israel accused Benedict of deliberately omitting a mention of a suicide bombing against Israelis in a list of terror attacks that the pope had recounted in a sermon. The Vatican fired back, calling some of Israel's retaliatory attacks against Palestinians contrary to international law. Mr. Spiegel said he felt that the problem was a diplomatic one, not important to talk about during the visit.

"This is an issue that has to be settled between the state of Israel and the Vatican," he told reporters at a news conference. Mr. Navarro-Valls, the pope's spokesman, added at the same news conference that the "issue has been settled, more or less."

2005: Former Russian billionaire and oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky announced that he was on a hunger strike in protest at his friend and associate Platon Lebedev's placement in the punishment cell of the jail. According to Khodorkovsky, Lebedev had Diabetes mellitus and heart conditions, and keeping him in the punishment cell would be equivalent to murder

2005: During the evacuation of Israelis from Gaza, the Manchester Guardian reported today “that some settlers had their children leave their homes with their hands up, or wearing a Star of David badge, to associate the actions of Israel with Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.”

2005: “A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin” “a documentary short subject about writer Norman Corwin” was released in the United States today.

2005: “Honoring a ‘Righteous Gentile’: Hiram Bingham IV Commemorative Stamp Planned for Next Year” published today described next year’s honoring of the late Hiram Bingham IV with the issuance of commemorative stamp by the U.S. Postal Service as a celebration of the humanitarian efforts of a so-called righteous gentile who was personally responsible for saving the lives of thousands of Jews during World War II as well as the celebration of an American diplomat who defied U.S. State Department policy in order to do so. (As reported by David Brensilver)

2005: In “Vikings’ Owner Makes a Name for Himself” published today Pat Borzi provides a sketch of NFL owner Zygmunt Wilf, whose parents survived the Holocaust.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/19/sports/football/vikings-owner-makes-a-name-for-himself.html?_r=0

2005: “Wordplay,” an exhibition assembled by curator Tamar Cohen came to a close at the Julie Saul Gallery today.

2006(25thof Av, 5766): Twenty-one year old Staff Sgt. Ro’I Farjoun was killed when terrorists from the Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades attacked a checkpoint he was manning for the IDF.

2006(25th of Av, 5766): Lt. Col. Emanuel A. Moreno of Moshav Tlamim was killed in a daring commando raid designed to stop the shipment of weapons from Syria into Lebanon for use by Hezbollah.  Moreno is survived by his wife Maya, their three children, his parents and three brothers. 

2007: A retrospective of the works of Frida Kahlo which had been mounted to celebrate the centenary of her birth comes to a close at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City.

2007: The Sunday Washington Post book section reviewed Amy Bloom’s new novel Away, featuring Lillian Leyb a desperate young Jewish woman, fresh off the boat who has fled the pogroms of Russia, trying to make her way in New York during the mid-1920s and Jews and Power by Ruth R. Wisse the eighth title in a lively and distinguished series, "Jewish Encounters," that has taken a fresh look at such diverse figures in Jewish history as King David, the 12th-century rabbi and physician Maimonides, the 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza and the U.S. boxer and World War II hero Barney Ross.

2007: The Sunday New York Times book section reviewed The Prince of Darkness by Robert D. Novak, the Washington columnist who was raised Jewish but converted to Catholicism in 1998, Off the Record by Norman Pearlstine and UM by Michael Erard author of “The Geek Guide to Kosher Machines.”

2008: In Little Rock, AR at the Chabad House, third and final session of From Ruins to Glory, a course of study based on a virtual tour of the Holy Temple.2008: President Obama appointed Dan Shaprio as Senior Policy Advisor and Jewish Outreach Coordinator.

2008(19thof Av, 5768): Ninety-one year old Leo Abse, the longtime serving Welsh MP who was the son “Rudolf Abse, a Jewish solicitor and cinema owner” from Cardiff passed away today.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/2590828/Leo-Abse.html

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/aug/20/labour1



2008(19th of Av, 5768): Binyamin Gibli, a sabra born a Petah Tikva in 1919 who served as head of Israeli Military Intelligence passed away.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3584976,00.html

2008: US Airways announced today plans to operate nonstop service between its Philadelphia hub and Tel Aviv, Israel, as the carrier moves to expand its international service.

2008: The series “Modern Marvels: Jewish Adventures in the Graphic Novel” explores The Rabbi’s Cat by Joan Sfaar “After eating a parrot, an aged Algerian rabbi's cat develops the ability to speak and quickly declares his desire not only to be Jewish, but to have a bar mitzvah. The rabbi engages his pet in a spiraling debate, touching on topics such as spelling, parental love, and the very nature of Jewish identity.” This series explores Jewish literature and culture through scholar-led discussions of contemporary and classic books on the theme of "Modern Marvels: Jewish Adventures in the Graphic Novel." The program is the result of a grant to the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities Libraries, which is partnering with The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library. Local support is provided by the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Minnesota. Let's Talk About It: Jewish Literature, a reading and discussion series has been made possible through a grant from Nextbook and the American Library Association.

2009: Amy Schapiro reads from and discusses Millicent Fenwick: Her Way, her biography of the late New Jersey congresswoman, as part of the United States Capitol Historical Society's "August Brown Bag Lecture Series" at the VFW Building.

2009: Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin is scheduled to convene a special session of the Knesset House Committee to address the recent wave of violence in Israel. Police, government officials and other law enforcement officials are scheduled to attend.

2009(29th of Av, 5769): Eighty-six year old Don Hewitt, the creator of “60 Minutes” passed away today. (As reported by Jacques Steinberg)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/20/business/media/20hewitt.html?pagewanted=print

2010: Tel Aviv native, Paula Valstein, is scheduled to perform at the Highline Ballroom in New York City.

2010: The International Mathematical Union awarded the prestigious Field's Medal to mathematician and Hebrew University professor Elon Lindenstrauss  at its quadrennial International Congress of Mathematics in Hyderabad, India.

2010: Funeral services are to held today for Harold Shpeena longtime dentist and former president of the Jewish Federation of South Jersey, died

2010: “The Switch” a romantic comedy co-starring Jeff Goldblum with a script by Allan Loeb was released in Israel and Russia today.

2011: JCC Maccabi Games are scheduled to come to an end in Philadelphia, PA and Springfield, MA.

2011: As her bat mitzvah weekend begins, Gabriella “Gavi” Thalblum is scheduled to help lead Friday night services at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

2011: The 31stInternational conference on Jewish Genealogy is scheduled to come to an end.

2011: World-renowned solo performer Yael Rasooly is scheduled to present the U.S. Premiere of her award winning show Paper Cut tonight as part of the New York International Fringe Festival.

2011: Friends and family of those killed in yesterday's terror attacks near Eilat gathered to pay their respects today as funerals took place across the country.  Hundreds of people gathered at Mount Herzl Cemetery for the funeral of 49-year-old Paskal Avrahami, a member of the YAMAM Counter-terrorism Unit who was killed yesterday evening during a firefight with terrorists north of Eilat on the border with Egypt. He was married and had three children.

2011: The IAF launched an airstrike late tonight against a terrorist cell in the central Gaza Strip after the cell fired a rocket into Israeli territory, the IDF Spokesman's Office said in a statement.

2012: Susan Katzir is scheduled to facilitate a “Make Your Own Tallit workshop” at Temple Shalom in Auburn, Maine

2012: The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to host a special screening of “Elusive Justice,” a PBS documentary that recounts the decades long struggle to apprehend Nazi war criminals and place them on trial for crimes against humanity.

2012: “Soul Doctor,” a musical about Shlomo Carlebach, is scheduled to have its final performance today at the New York Theater Workshop.

2012: The New York Times featured reviews of two books of special interest to Jewish readers – The General, Jonathan Fenby’s biography of de Gaulle, the French leader who stood against the Nazis and redefined the Franco-Israeli relationship after the Six Day War and The Twilight War, David Crist’s history of the conflict with Iran over the last 30 years.

2012(1st of Elul, 5772): Rosh Chodesh Elul – Sound the shofar for the first time

2012: A musical version “The Nutty Professor” with a score by Marvin Hamlish that was produced and directed by Jerry Lewis was performed for the final time at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville.

2012: Vice Premier Moshe Ya'alon today described two violent attacks against Arabs ​​over the weekend in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem as "hate crimes" and "terrorist acts." He called the attacks "totally unacceptable and outrageous" and ascribed their incidence to a moral and educational failure that goes against Jewish ethics and values.

2012: Police detained four members of the Women of the Wall organization this morning for wearing tallitot (prayer shawls) at the Western Wall plaza. According to a 2001 law, it is illegal for women to perform religious practices traditionally done by men in Orthodox Jewish practice at the Western Wall, such as reading from a Torah scroll, wearing tefillin or a tallit, or blowing a shofar.

2013(13th of Elul, 5773): Wedding anniversary of JewishPress.com Senior Internet Editor Yori Yanover

http://www.jewishpress.com/news/photos/mazal-tov-2/2013/08/04/

2013: The Center for Jewish and the American Sephardi Federation are scheduled to co-sponsor a presentation by Lori Sternfeld, “The Jewish Community In Iran from 1914 until the Revolution”

2013: Michael Fruend of Shavei is scheduled to speak about reconnection lost and hidden Jews to the Jewish people and the Land of Israel this evening at Beit Knesset Ma'alot David in Ma'ale Adumim.

2013: The Oxnard Film Society is scheduled to show “Fill the Void” at Oxnard, CA.

2013: Israeli and Jewish targets all over the world are likely to be sought out by terrorist organizations in the coming weeks, the Israeli government’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau warned in strikingly strident tones today, listing dozens of countries where it said it had “concrete” indications of a terrorist threat.  The threat is connected, in part, to the upcoming Jewish holiday season. (As reported by Gavriel Fiske)

2013: “Leading up to an end-of-the- week court-set deadline to clamp down on businesses operating on Shabbat, the Tel Aviv Municipality’s legal counsel said today it is still working on formulating the city’s official response. (As reported by Ben Hartman and Yonah Jeremy Bob)

2013: “Justice Minister Tzipi Livni announced late tonight that she had appointed renowned Prof. Ruth Gavison to draft a constitutional provision defining the exact dimensions of what it means for Israel to be a “Jewish and democratic state.” (As reported by Yonah Jeremy Bob)

2013: Fifteen days after journalist Steven Joel Sotloff, his fixer and the fixer’s brother and cousins were kidnapped by ISIS terrorist in Aleppo, everybody was released except for the Jewish journalist who would eventually be beheaded.

2013: “The Nazi Hunter: Remarkable story of the Jewish refugee responsible for tracking down the Auschwitz commandant who slaughtered 3million people” published today described the role Hanns Alexander played “in the hunt for Auschwitz commander Rudolph Hoss.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2397354/The-Nazi-Hunter-Story-Jewish-refugee-Hanns-Alexander-caught-Auschwitz-commandant.html

2014: The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide is scheduled to host an Online Resource User-Testing Focus Group as part of its efforts to respond to the digitization of more and more historical archives.

2014: Hamas broke this truce this afternoon with a volley of rockets that “intensified through the nights.” (As reported by Yifa Yaakov and Adiv Sterman)

2014: New Jersey Rabbi David Wax who “pleaded guilty to kidnapping charges as part of a scheme to force an Israeli man to give his wife a get” is scheduled to be sentenced today. (As reported by JTA and The Jewish Daily Forward)

2014:  “The United States views Hamas as responsible for the violation of a renewed temporary truce in the Gaza Strip, and is “very concerned” about the resumption of rocket attacks, a State Department spokeswoman said this afternoon.”

2014: “Israeli police issued a request today for assistance in locating IDF soldier David Menahem Gordon, 21, who was last seen at an army base’s medical facility at the beginning of the week.”

2014(23rdof Av, 5774): Twenty-year old Corporal David Gordon who was reported missing two days ago was found dead not far from the Tzrifin base, east of Rishon Lezion, where he was last seen wearing his uniform and his purple Givati Brigade beret.

2015: The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to host a noontime showing of “Easy Rider.”

2015: A 22 month old Jewish baby and her father “were rushed to Shaare Tzedek Medical Center in Jerusalem” after she was wound tonight by an Arab terrorist “who hurled rocks at the car driven by her father on Highway 443.” (As reported by Hana Levi Julian)

2015: “Why I Killed My Mother” by Dor Zweigenbom is scheduled to open in New York.

2015: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to meet this evening to discuss The Marrying of Chani Kaufman by Eve Harris.

2016(15thof Av, 5776): Tu B’Av – Depending on your point of view, “a Jewish Valentine’s Day” or a “Jewish Sadie Hawkins Day.”

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/tubav.html

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/53680/jewish/15th-of-Av.htm

http://www.israeldailypicture.com/

2016: In Memphis, TN is scheduled to host the L’dor Vador Shabbat Service and Dinner.

2016: “According to filing with the Securities and Exchange” today, “Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, sold company shares valued at nearly $95 million to fund their charitable efforts.”

2016(15thof Av): According to Bav Batra, on the Jewish calendar, anniversary of the death of the last member of the exodus generation that was barred from entering Eretz Israel. (As reported by Abraham P. Bloch)

2016(15thof Av, 5776): Sixty-two year old Louis Jay “Lou” Pearlman, the record producer turned imprisoned felon passed away today

https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/21/entertainment/backstreet-boys-nsync-lou-pearlman-dies/index.html

2016: Oran Etkin is scheduled to perform at the Philadelphia Art Museum.

2017(27thof Av, 5777): Parashat Re-ay

2017: One hundred year old Big Band Singer Beatrice Ruth Wain who turned “radio hostess” when she joined forces with husband Andre Baruch passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/24/arts/music/bea-wain-star-singer-of-the-big-band-era-dies-at-100.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2017: “Our Great Tchaikovsky” Hershey Felder’s one man show about the great Russian composer is scheduled to open today in Hartford, CT.

2017: After a complimentary dairy meal, members of the Queens Jewish Community are scheduled to come together for a beautiful and easy-to-follow Havdalah service followed by ice cream and drinks.

2017: The Modern Dance Theater Istanbul of Istanbul State Opera and Ballet is scheduled to perform for a second final time as part of Tel Aviv Dance 2017.

2017: American singer-songwriter Regina Spektor Regina is scheduled to perform at Ra’anana Amphitheater, at the outskirt of Tel Aviv.”

2017: The Jerusalem Arts and Crafts Fair is scheduled to come to an end.

2017: The Candles Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Terre Haute, IN is scheduled to sponsor its fall workshop today at Indiana State University where middle and high school teachers will learn about “stories of individuals and groups who “chose to participate” in a variety of ways during the Civil Rights movement, specifically the desegregation of Central High School in 1957 and the Freedom Rides in 1961.”

2018: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback editions of Moving Kings by Joshua Cohen and Black Mad Wheel by Josh Malerman.

2018: The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington is scheduled to host Grand Slam Sunday – an end of summer celebration featuring a baseball game between the home town Nationals and the visiting Miami Marlins.

2018: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host a screening of “13 Minutes” which tells the story of Georg Elser’s failed attempt “to kill Hitler on November 9, 1939.”

2019: In New Orleans, Touro Synagogue, one of the Crescent City’s three Reform Congregations, hosts it’s a meeting of its board.

2019: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Sarah” a film version of the book by the same name.

2019: As we mark, 219th anniversary of the birth of Bernard Barcuh, the native of South Carolina the park bench philosopher whose name became synonymous with the term “Wall Street financier” and who was the unofficial advisor to Presidents from Wilson through Truman, it provides a whole raft of people with a variety interests a year’s worth of warning so they can prepare to celebrate his 2020th anniversary.  (Americans seem to love celebrating anniversaries that end in zero of five.)

2019: The McGill/Klezkanada Academic Seminar is schedule to begin this evening with an “orientation meeting for all McGill students.

2019: Klezkanada 2019 is scheduled to open with a concert this evening.




This Day, August 20, in Jewish History by Mitchell A. and Deb Levin

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August 20

430: The Vandals, a Germanic tribe, established a kingdom in North Africa.  The Jews lived there peacefully and flourished until the Almohad conquest in the 11th century.

636: Arab forces defeat the Byzantine Christians at the Battle of Yarmuk.  This battle fought only four years after the death of Mohammed opened the road the road to Damascus.  After seizing Syria, the Arabs under Khalid bin Walid turned south and took Jerusalem and all of the territory that is now Jordan and Israel.  This area had been under control of the Christian Byzantine Empire.  The victory at Yarmuk led to the first great wave of Moslem conquest that would sweep across Egypt, North Africa and across the Mediterranean to Spain. Conditions for the Jews improved compared to life under the Byzantines.  The Golden Age of Spain was the ultimate high point of this change.  But life under Islam was uneven for Jews and they suffered in many different areas depending upon which group of Islamists was in control.

917: Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria decisively defeated a Byzantine army at the Battle of Acheloos. This was a plus for the Jews since Jews had been moving to the Bulgarian Empire since the 7th century to avoid the persecution they were enduring under the Byzantines.

1000: The foundation of the Hungarian state, Hungary is established as a Christian kingdom by Stephen I of Hungary. Archaeological evidence indicates the existence of Jews in Pannonia and Dacia, who came there in the wake of the Roman legions. Jewish historical tradition, however, only mentions the Jews in Hungary from the second half of the 11th century, when Jews from Germany, Bohemia, and Moravia settled there. In 1092, at the council of Szabolcs, the Church prohibited marriages between Jews and Christians, work on Christian festivals, and the purchase of slaves. King Koloman protected the Jews in his territory at the end of the 11th century.

1086: Prince Władysław I Herman and his first wife Judith, daughter of Vratislaus II of Bohemia gave birth to Bolesław III Wrymouth who “recognized the utility of the Jewish in the development of the commercial interests of” Poland and whose “tolerant regime” encouraged them to settle as far east as Kiev passed away today.

1100: Using the Venetian fleet, Tancred and Daimbert conquer Haifa during the first crusade.

1153: Bernard of Clairvaux, the monk known as St. Bernard who laid down principles in how to deal with Jews at the time of the Second Crusade passed away today. He believed that Jews should not physically attacked but were to be punished by being forced to wander the world until they were ultimately converted.  At the same time, he followed the party line when it came to “stealing from the Jews” by agreeing that those who went on Crusade did not have to pay their debts.

1559: Coronation of Frederick as King of Denmark and Norway who barred Jews from his realm when in 1569 he “ordered that all foreigners in Denmark had to affirm their commitment to 25 articles of faith central to Lutheranism on pain of deportation, forfeiture of all property, and death.”

1626: Urban VIII who had issued a Bull a year ago dealing with “heretical Portuguese Jews” today issued Injuncti Nobis a Bull dealing with the privileges granted to the monastery for catechumens, which would have been Jews who had converted to Christianity.

1642: The ashes of Ferdiand Francis, a converted Bohemian Jew whose original name was Chaim or Joachim, were cast into the Danuabe at Vienna.  He was alledged to have been the author of “Toldoth Jeshu” for which he was condemned to be hung.  Just before he was to die, Francis renounced his conversion to Christianity for which he was horribly tortured before he finally died. 

1656: Parliamentary diarist Thomas Burton was re-elected to the House of Commons. Burton’s diary which provided a record of Parliamentary proceedings for three years (1656-1659) includes an entry on the relationship between Cromwell and Jewish merchants including Antonio Fernandez Carvajal

“The Jews, those able and general intelligencers whose intercourse with the Continent Cromwell had before turned to profitable account, he now conciliated by a seasonable benefaction to their principal agent [Carvajal] resident in England.”

1661: The Will of Jacob Atten, a resident of Barbados was dated today.

1671: Leopold I revoked the decree he had issued in April expelling the Jews from the portion Hungary controlled by the Habsburgs.  

1684: A riotous mob attacked the ghetto of Buda (that's the half of Budapest that is on the right bank of the Danube, which was joined with Pest on the left bank in 1873). During the war between Venice and Turkey, the Jews were accused of praying for the Turks in their attack on Budapest. In actuality, it was the 9th of Av and all the Jews were in the synagogue mourning the destruction of the temple. Soon after, the attack on the Jewish ghetto began. When the gates were opened to allow for an emissary to the duke to leave, the crowd of attackers rushed in. As soon as the authorities heard about the disturbances, an order to forcibly curb them was given. That day of the order became a day of thanksgiving. In gratitude to G-d for being spared serious injury, the Jews celebrated Buda Purim on the 10th of Elul. This date became known as Purim Buda – Buda as in Budapest.

1771: Birthdate of Schonche Rothschild, first child of A.M. Rothschild.

1790: In Lorraine, France, Baruch Goughenheim, the Alsace born son of Sara and Jacob Wolff Gugenheim and his wife “Rosel Rosette Rosele Goughenhim gave birth to Thérèse Gougenheim who became Thérèse Aron when she married Isaac Aron with whom she had five children.

1806: The Assembly of Notables presented their collective response to Napoleon’s questions.

1807: Rothschild writes to his son Nathan in England that he has sold all the English goods sent to him at a considerable profit.

1816: In “Clerkenwell,” Eliza and Lewis Solomon gave birth to Henry Solomon who would not live to see his 12th birthday.

1820: Birthdate of Dr. Ferdinand Falkson who “in 1844 was appointed physician to the poor of the Jewish community, a position which he held until his death.

1820: Birthdate of Meyer Abraham Heckscher, the husband of Sara Cohn.

1820: Eliza Israel and Alexander Goldsmid gave birth to Alfred Goldsmid, the husband of Constance Augusta Mocatta

1826: “A new edict from Pope Leo XII forbids Jews from leaving their ghetto in Rome without a written permit from the Criminal Tribunal. While outside the ghetto, Jews are forbidden from speaking in a ‘familiar way’ with Christians.” (As reported by Austin Cline)

1831: Esther and John Nathan gave birth to Hannah Nathan the wife of Isaac Davis.

1833: Birthdate of Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States. As President, Harrison had Secretary of State James G. Blaine issue instructions to the American minister to Russia to “exert his influence” to stop Czar Alexander III from implementing his draconian anti-Jewish regulations.  In 1891, a Christian minster from Illinois named William E. Blackstone “presented a Memorial to” President Benjamin and his Secretary of State “which called upon them to exert their influence with the powers of Europe ‘to secure the holding, at any early date, of an international conference to consider the condition of the Israelites and their claims to Palestine as their ancient home.’”

1834: Lewis Benjamin married Rosetta Meyer at the Western Synagogue today.

1834: Joseph Lamert married Eliza Barnett at the Great Synagogue today.

1839 While relaxing at Boulogne, Giacomo Meyerbeer met for the first time with Richard Wagner for the first time at which time Wagner read to Meyerbeer from the libretto of “Rienzi” and Meyerbeer agreed to look through the score which he subsequently recommended for performance at Dresden

1840: David Pollock married Isabella Hyams at the New Synagogue today.

1845: Thirty three year old author and editor Rufus Wilmot Griswold married Charlotte Myers, a 45 year old Jewess from Charleston, South Carolina.

1845: Michael Aaron married Elizabeth Phillips at the Great Synagogue today.

1845: In “Whitechapel, London,” Phoebe Levy and Aaron Samuel gave birth to Morris Samuel.

1845: Henry Benjamin married Hannah Isaacs at the Great Synagogue today.

1848: Benjamin Woolf Phillips married Dinah Levy today.

1852: It was reported today that "the French counsel is still prosecuting a demand for the satisfaction for the murder of a Roman Catholic priest at Aleppo. It was believed for a long time he was murdered by Jews, but it is now said that the Counsel has evidence that he was murdered by members of the city police for his success in building a Christian church.”  The police were Moslems. The Jews were convenient by-standers. During the notorious Damascus Affair, Isaac de Picciotto, was accused of having offered to sell the priest’s blood to Jews living in Aleppo.  He was the nephew of Elias de Picciotto, a prominent member of the Aleppo Jewish community and the Austrian counsel.  This would be the last involvement of Aleppo with a Blood Libel.  In 1875, an Armenian boy went missing and the charge surfaced again.  Fortunately, he was found in a nearby village.

1852: It is reported that Lionel de Rothschild is planning to resign from the House of Commons since he has not been permitted to take his seat.

1856: In “Pentonville, London,” Caroline Lazarus and Mark George Simmons gave birth to Leonard Simmons

1856: John Davis married Rachel Adelaide Moses at the Great Synagogue today.

1856: In "English Celebrities" a column published today, the author provides a description of Benjamin Disraeli which includes the following, "Nor is his faithfulness to his friendships less remarkable than his devoted attention to his old and silly wife...as Disraeli says 'I owe her everything.  But some men forget these things. Not so Disraeli...at no party is he to be found without fat, middle-age, gray-haired lady, hanging on his arm.  But this domestic love is an essentially Jewish trait."

1856: George Jesse married Amelia Moses at the Great Synagogue today.

1860: Birthdate of Carrollton, Illinois native and future Speaker of the House of Repesentaive Henry Thomas Rainey who in 1906 attended a mass meeting held to protest the “atrocities in Russia” and told the audience that the Romanoffs “are inflaming the populace against the helpless Jews – and already the blood of 100,000 Jews cries out for vengeance”

1860: Birthdate of Raymond Poincaré, the philo-Semitic French political leader who served as President of France during World War I.

1862: David S. Bloom began serving with Company I of the 137th Regiment.

1862: Three days after he had passed away, Moise Brunswick, the husband of the former “Fanny Meyer” with whom he had two children – Annette and Clara – was buried today the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery” today.

1863 Two days after he had passed away, 27 year old John Nathan Raphael, the husband of Hamburg native Josephine Raphael was buried to in the “West Ham Jewish Cemetry.”

1863: The Keystone Battery of the Pennsylvania Light Artillery of which Leon da Silva Solis-Cohen was a member was mustered out of service after having fought at the Battle of Gettysburg.

1864: In Austria, Abraham and Rosa Wohlgemuth Printz gave birth to Fanny Printz,the sister of Emma, Minnie, David, Harry, Bert and Leo Printz who would make her way to America and settle in Ohio before her death 1922.

1868: In Albany New York, “Isaac Hahn and Rose (Stern) Hahn” gave birth to Boston University trained attorney, Joseph Jerome Hahn, a Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court and the husband of Katherine L. Marr.

1871: Birthdate of Gibraltar native and Bevis Marks Rabbi,Solomon Conquy, the rabbi at Bevis Marks the husband of Theresa Spiers and father of Theresa Orovida Conquy.

1871: It was reported today that Rabbi Raphael D.C. Lewin who has served as spiritual leader for Mikveh Israel in Savannah and Temple Israel in Brooklyn, has expressed his displeasure with some of his colleagues in The New Era magazine.  According to Lewin, there is more to being a rabbi than “sermonizing…performing marriages, burying the dead and receiving large salaries and handsome presents.  Rabbis have a duty to educate their congregants about Jewish literature and beliefs.

1871: According to reports published today the Jewish Times contends that that the Chicago synagogue that fired Rabbi Herzman for eating ice cream had every right to do so.  Herzman had been engaged to lead an Orthodox congregation.  It was obvious from his behavior that he did not respect these views and the synagogue was well within its rights to remove the hypocrite.

1872: William Moultrie Moses and Penina Septima Robison gave birth to Captain Stanford E Moses, USN the husband of Agnes Moses

1872: A review panning “The Bells” was published today.  “The Bells” is a one act play imported from France that centers around the consequences suffered by the protagonist for having murdered a Polish Jew.

1874: In London, Zilllah Simon and Samuel Henry Beddington gave birth to Violet Zillah Beddington.

1874: In Indianapolis, Indiana, George C. Harding, editor and proprietor of the Indianapolis Herald fired five shots at Sol Mortiz a prominent Jewish merchant in broad daylight this afternoon. One of the shots shattered his left elbow and another passed through his lung and lodged in his chest.  The shooting took place after Harding found out that Mortiz had taken advantage of his 18 year old daughter.

1875: Birthdate of Shaul Tchernichovsky a Russian-born Hebrew poet considered one of the great Hebrew poets, identified with nature poetry, and as a poet greatly influenced by the culture of ancient Greece.


1879(1st of Elul, 5639): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1880: It was reported today that there “an ugly rumor” in England that “a now well-known firm of Hebrew jewelers emerged mysteriously from obscurity to importance in the trade within twelve months” of Lady Ellesmere being robbed while she en route visit the Queen at Windsor Castle.  The loss totaled $150,000. (Unsubstantiated claims like this were often more inidicative of ant-Semitism, envy or both)

1882: It was reported today that the Hebrew Union of Raleigh, NC, had contributed five dollars to the fund for the Garfield Memorial Hospital.

1884: Unidentified hooligans tried to burn down a building on Clinton Street that housed the grocery story own by Solomon Ellison.  The five story tenement was home to countless Jewish families. 

1885: In Greater Poland Jacobi and Thelka Bornstein gave birth to Gertrude Bornstein who became Gertrude Koeppler when she married Friedrich Koeppler..

1887(30th of Av, 5647): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1887: Abraham Reiter of Greensburg, Indiana and A.B. Frank of San Antonio, TX each contributed $10.00 to the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

1887: It was reported today that “there was tumult” among those who think they have a claim to Julius Weisbaden, the miser who died in Bellevue and was buried without any service.  The estate was thought to be worth $40,000 but it may be only worth $2,800.

1888: In Kansas City, MO, Felix and Matilda Epstein Kander gave birth to newspaperman Allen Kander.


1890: Isadore Loeb, Michel Erlanger, Dr. W. Lowenthal, C.E. Cullen, Colonel Vanivkeroy and Dr. E. Schwarzfeld attended a conference in the Paris residence of Baron de Hirsch to discuss the settlement of Jewish refugees in Argentina at the end of which Cullen, Lowenthall and Vanikeroy were appointed as a commission to visit the country with the expectation that they would submit a report within six months on the feasibility of the project.

1889: Birthdate of Polish-American “trade union official Nathan Schedletzsky,” a member of the “Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America” and the “business agent for the Pants-makers local No 8.

1890: The Sanitarium for the Hebrew Children is scheduled to host their next free excursion today.

1890: In Little Rock, AR, Miss Dora Vorminsky, a prominent Jewish socialite beat Louis Englander a Jew who worked as a clerk at Lasker Brothers’ with a cowhide whip because she had been told that he had made statements damaging to her reputation.

1891: Somebody known only as “E.S.W.” has sent $2 to the New York Times “for destitute Jews.”

1891: “The Socialist Congress” published today described the meeting in Brussels where the delegates discussed labor’s attitude toward the “Jewish question” and anti-Semitism.  The Congress was ready to condemn anti-Semitism but it also deplored the fact that several of the oppressors of labor were Jews and Jewish bankers.

1892: Birthdate of Sir Godfrey Rolles Driver, one of a cadre of English Christians who specialized in Semitic languages including Hebrew which led to his taking the lead in translating the “Old Testament for the New English Bible.”

1893: In St. Louis, MO, Joseph Lazarus Kranson and Caroline Kranson gave birth to Harry Kranson

1893: Sh'chita was banned in Switzerland. In those cantons where there is a small Jewish population, “the Swiss Hebrews” have “unanimously” agreed to “abandon eating meat” and have “put themselves on a vegetarian and poultry diet.”(The ban is still in place and the Jewish community gets its meat from several different countries.)

1893: Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor opened today’s meeting of delegates from 30 labor organizations who looking for means to “relieve the distress among the unemployed workingmen” of New York who were enduring the Depression of 1893.

1893: Joseph Peel was arrested today on charges that he had poisoned the horses of Max Cooper and G. Feinberg, two Orthodox Jewish peddlers with whom he had been partners.

1893: It was reported that a mass meeting of the unemployed, socialists and anarchist Joseph Barondees called for “the abolishment of prison labor” and Mayer Schoenfeld said “that the Jews would have to join with the other trade unions if they wanted to accomplish anything.”

1893: Between 1,500 and 1,800 people responded to the call of the Chicago Tailors’ Union for a mass meeting of the unemployed at Metropolitan Hall.  “The majority of the gathering was composed of Jews” with the rest being “Germans, Poles and Italians, with a few Americans.”

1894: It was reported today that Miss Maria V. Lawrence is the sole survivor of the late Eugene Lawrence, the historian whose work included The Jews and Their Persecutors and who was unmarried.

1895: Two days after she had passed away, 36 year old Helen Micholls, the daughter of “Horatio Micholls” and the former “Rebecca Montefiore” was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Cemetery.

1895: The will of the late Joseph Lewis was filled in the Surrogate’s office today. According to the document, the residue of the estate valued at $20,000 is given to his widow for life and that upon her death the residue will go to his nieces including Julia D. Davis and Leontine Hepner and to his nephews including O.A. Lithauer.

1896: Jessie Mayer and Henry Lipkie gave birth to Albert Liplkie.

1896: Birthdate of Jacob Glatstein, the Polish born American Yiddish poet and literary critic.

1896(OS): Birthdate of fifty-four Odessa born American pianist Simon Barere and husband of Helena Vlashek who survived the Bolsheviks and the Nazis so he could make his Carnegie Hall debut in 1936 and who, “suffered a cerebral hemorrhage while performing the first bars of Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16 in Carnegie Hall with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy, before he suddenly collapsed and died backstage.”


1896: The Summernight’s festival hosted by District Grand Lodge No.1, Independent Order Free Sons of Israel will take place today at Harlem River Park.

1897: Disturbances were begun today “by the fanatical opponents of the Jews in Pilsen, Boehmia.

1897: In New York, Myer S. Isaacs, the Secretary of the Palestine Society said “that he was sure there had been…no misappropriation of funds by Rabbi Salant” in the distribution of funds sent by American Jews to help their co-religionists in Jerusalem because he “is a man of the highest character.”

1898(2ndof Elul, 5658): Parashat Shoftim

1898: In Krakow, “Salomon and Ester Keile Infeld” gave birth to physicist and colleague of Albert Einstin, Leopold Infeld

http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Infeld_Leopold

https://www.amazon.com/Books-Leopold-Infeld/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3ALeopold%20Infeld

1899: “The Chuetas of Majorca” published today traced the history of the Chuetas, a 15th century group of persecuted Jewish refugees who had fled to Majorca for protection” and who appeared to embrace Catholicism.  Calling them Chuetas was a term of derision since that word is the diminutive for ’chuya’ the Majorcan word for bacon.  (Reminds one of the term marrano which means pig)

1899: “Zionists’ Congress Votes Down the Proposal of New York Delegates” published today described the decision of the Third Congress of Zionist to  reject a proposal to by two delegates from New York that Island of Cyprus should be the site of colonization by the Jews.

1900: Birthdate of Ernst Papenek, the native of Vienna who came to the United States in 1940 where he earned a Doctorate in Education from Columbia, served on the faculty of CUNY and served as Director of the Children’s Home and School for Refugee Children.

1901: The First Congress of Caucasus Zionists was held in Tbilisi. Rabbi David Baazov led Georgian Zionism during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1903, Baazov attended the Sixth Zionist Congress in Basel.

1903: Herzl arrives in Basel

1903: Maurice Leon and Jacob de Haas got off the train “in Basle, raised our hats to the Zionist flags waving in front of the Stadt Casino” before setting out to find their hotel.

Today, while the Sixth Zionist Congress was meeting Jacob de Haas spent the evening touring Paris with Dr. Marmorek and Dr. Nordeau.

1903: Barney Pelty pitched his first major league game as a member of the St. Louis Brown

1904: Birthdate of Judikje Simons, later Judikje Themans- Simons, one the Jewish members of the Dutch ladies’ gymnastic team which won the Gold at the 1928 Olympics. She and her husband, as well as her two children were murdered at Sobibor in 1943.

1905: In New York, Abraham Isaac Shiplacoff, the son of Naphthalia Hertz Shiplacoff and Chana Tshipliacov and his wife Yetta Ettel Itta "Henrietta" Shiplacoff gave birth to Frederick Engels Shiplacoff

1906(29thof Av, 5666): Simeon Singer, the rabbi at the New West Synagogue since 1878 where he had also created a new translation of the prayer book and who had married Charlotte Pyke in 1867 with whom he had six children - Jules, Samuel, David, Richard, Freda and historian Charles Singer – passed away today “in the prime of manhood.”

1906: “The Rabbis of Palestine and Russia requested that Jews everywhere observe” today “as a fast and a day of prayer for the Jews of Russia.”

1907: Birthdate of New York City native Herbert Theodore Bergman who gained fame as actor Alan Reed, “the voice of Fred Flinstone.”

1908: Birthdate of Dr. Herbert Kaiser of Breslau who was murder at Terezin at the age of 35.

1911: “The Juvenile Band of the Chicago Home for Jewish Orphans” is scheduled to give an “open air band concert at the Chicago Hebrew Institute” this afternnon.

1911 Ceremonies marking the opening of the Annex for the Orthodox Home for the Aged in Cleveland, Ohio began today.

1912(7th of Elul, 5672): Seventy-four year old Walter Goodman, British painter, illustrator and author who was the son of portrait painter Julia Salaman and Louis Goodman passed away today.

 http://www.mill-race.com/media/MAGWalterGoodmanBook.pdf

1914: During World War I, the Germans occupied Brussels which would lead to a series of depredations that would be visited on the civilian population – both Jewish and non-Jewish.

1914: Copies of a resolution endorsing President Wilson’s “stand on the European War” was taken to Washington by Dr. Carroll of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America and “Dr. H. Pereira Mendes, Chairman of the Committee on Peace and Arbitration of the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations in America.”

1914: Seventy-nine year old Pope Pius X, who had met with Herzl in the Vatican in 1904 and said that “Jews have recognized Our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people” which mean that “Jerusalem cannot be placed in Jewish hands” passed away today.

https://www.ccjr.us/dialogika-resources/primary-texts-from-the-history-of-the-relationship/1253-herzl1904

1915(9th of Elul, 5675): Sixty one year old Nobel Prize winner Paul Ehrlich, the man who discovered the treatment for syphilis, passed away.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1908/ehrlich/biographical/

1915(9th of Elul, 5675: Philanthropist Bernard Baumgarden passed away today in Chicago after which he was buried at Waldheim Cemetery

1915: It was reported today that at the mass meeting held at Cooper Union to consider the plight of the Jews of Russia and the need for the establishment of Zionist State in Palestine after the war “at the suggestion of Joseph Baroness all in the hall rose to their feet as an expression of sympathy for the family of Leo Frank.

1915(10th of Elul, 5675): Seventy-five year old “Yitzchak Yaakov Reines (Isaac Jacob Reines) the Orthodox rabbi whose belief in Zionism led him to found the Mizrachi Religious Zionist Movement” passed away today.

http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Reines_Yitshak_Yaakov

1915: Leo Frank “was buried” today “in the Mount Carmel Cemetery in Glendale, Queens, New York.

1916: Among the contributions reported today to have been received by the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the War was $50 from Congregation Share Torah, $14 from Congregation Emunah Israel and $38 from Congregation Ahavath Chesed.

1916: It was reported today the Joint Distribution Committee has sent $1,800,000 to Russia, $1,454,500 to German Poland, $1,065,000 to Austro-Hungary including Galicia, $403,788 to Palestine, $132,325 to Greece and Turkey, $21,000 to Alexandria, Egypt, $5,000 to Jewish students in Swiss universities, $5,000 to Tunis, Algiers and Morocco and $5,000 to destitute families of Russian Jews in France.

1916: The Independent Western Star Order which had been founded in 1894 and now has 148 Lodges under the leadership of Grand Master Max Levy of Cincinnati, Ohio, held its fourth biennial convention today at Buffalo, NY.

1917: “The Secretary of the Joint Distribution Committee for Jewish Relief Funds announced” tonight “that the committee of which Felix M. Warburg is the Chairman has solved the problem of the distribution of relief money in the war zones, and that a commission which has been accredited by the United States Government has sailed for Europe to put the plan into effect.”  (Editor’s note – the entrance of the United States into the World War meant that the country was no longer a neutral so aid coming from the United States was no seen as part of the Allied war effort.)

1917(2nd of Elul, 5677):Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer, known as Adolph von Baeyer, the first Jew to ever receive the Nobel Prize, passed away today. “Baeyer was a German chemist, acknowledged in 1905 for synthesizing dye indigo. He was also awarded the Davie Medal by the Royal Society of London in 1881, for his work with indigo. Baeyer was born on October 31, 1835, in Berlin, Germany. Initially, at the Berlin University, Baeyer studied mathematics and physics. Nevertheless, he soon discovered his passion for chemistry and transferred to Heidelberg to study with Robert Bunsen in 1856. Bunsen was a famous chemist, who is best known for perfecting the burner. In Heidelberg, Baeyer studied in the laboratory of August Kekule, a famous organic chemist. In 1858, Baeyer received his doctorate in chemistry from Berlin University. In 1871, he became a Professor at Strasbourg and, in 1875, Baeyer became the Chemistry Professor at the University of Munich. In addition to synthesizing dye indigo, some of Baeyer’s other achievements include the discovery of the phthanein dyes, investigation of polyacetylenes, oxonium salts, and uric acid derivatives. Bayer synthesized barbituic acid in 1864. This acid is used in surgery as a sedative or hypnotic. Baeyer is also renowned for his work in theoretical chemistry, developing the ‘strain’ (Spannung) theory of triple bonds and the strain theory in small carbon rings. Baeyer was also the founder of Baeyer Chemical Co”.

1918: Dr. Solf, the German Colonial Secretary delivered a talk today in which he reputed Lord Balfour’s claim to the colonies held by the Central Powers on the ground of superior morality – a claim that took on additional weight due to the success of the Allies and held special meaning for the Jews seeking a commonwealth in Palestine.

1918:Birthdate of Hanna Poznanskia, who as British psychoanalyst Hanna Segal,Hanna Segal, “helped change child psychology in the United States by explaining and popularizing the play therapy techniques developed by her mentor, the seminal psychoanalytic thinker Melanie Klein.:

1918: In Philadelphia, “portrait painter Robert Susan” and “public schoolteacher Rose Jans” gave birth to novelist Jacqueline Susann who produced such bestselling pot-boilers as Valley of the Dolls and The Love Machine,

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/01/04/home/susann-obit.html?mcubz=1

https://jwa.org/thisweek/aug/20/1921/birth-of-novelist-jacqueline-susanne

1918: In Brooklyn “Abraham Fox, a tailor” and his wife Anna gave birth to Gertrude Fox who became Gertrude Mokotoff when she married Dr. Reuben Moktoff and later gained fame as “the first female Mayor of Middleton, NY.” (As reported by Vincent M. Mallozzi)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/23/obituaries/gertrude-mokotoff-ex-mayor-and-a-bride-at-98-is-dead-at-100.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

1919: In Brooklyn, Hannah (née Bistrong) and Louis Bernstein, a teacher gave birth to Walter Bernstein an American screenwriter and film producer who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses in the 1950s.

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/222683/war-and-palestine?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=d16152ea98-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_02_05&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-d16152ea98-206644398

1919(25th of Av, 5679): Sixteen year old Yechiel Bernhard passed away today.

1919(25th of Av, 5679): Mrs. Lttle Lewenstein passed away today.

1920:  Israel publishes its first medical journal, "Ha-Refuah."

1920: It was reported today that “10,000 Jews have already been expelled from” Hungary and that orders are being issued for more deportations.

1920: It was reported today that “the Jewish War Memorial Fund in England has now reached £150,000.”

1920: Birthdate of Melvin Wallace “Mel” Bleekr the Los Angeles born quarterback and track star at USC during the 1940’d who went to play in the NFL for the Philadelphia Eagles and Los Angeles Rams.

1920: “Jews Expelled from Hungary” published today described the expulsion of 100,000 Jews from that country and the warm welcome extended to “a group of Russian officers from General Denikin’s army who are believed to be experts at conducting pogroms.”

1921:Leo "Lindy" Lindermann and his wife Clara opened “Lindy’s”, the iconoclastic New York restaurant, at1626 Broadway, between 49th and 50th Streets

1921: In Philadelphia, portrait artist Robert Susann and public school teacher Rose Susann gave birth to author Jacqueline Susann, the creator of a what, at their team, were a series of “torrid” novels beginning with Valley of the Dolls. (As reported by Laurie Johnston)

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/01/04/home/susann-obit.html?mcubz=1

Editor’s Note – Some sources show her birthdate as 1918 but we’ll go with the NYT version.

1922: Maude Rosenbaum, of the United States won the Bronze Medal in the two-handed shot put at the 1922 Women’s World Games held today at the Pershing Stadium in Paris.

1922: Birthdate of Bernard Sahlins, “a founder of the Second City, the Chicago nightclub that helped to establish improvisational sketch comedy as a rudiment of American entertainment and created a resident troupe that propelled the careers of myriad funnymen and women.” (As reported by Bruce Weber)

1922: Birthdate of Judith Craner Protas the native of Brooklyn with degrees from Barnard and Yale who became a leading advertising executive with Doyle Dane Bernbach and told the world that you don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy “Levy’s real Jewish rye.” (As reported by Margalit Fox)

1923: Birthdate of Chicago native Sheldon Bernard Keller, an Emmy-winning comedy writer whose work included “Caesar’s Hour,” one of the jewels of 1950s television” (As reported by Margalit Fox)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/04/arts/television/04keller.html

1924: Birthdate of Eugene D. “Gene” Alexander the native of Orange New Jersey who was one of the American volunteers who manned the refugee ships that ran the British blockade of Palestine.

http://www.machal.org.il/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=719&Itemid=1129&lang=en

1925:  Two days after he had passed away, 42 year old Sydney Lipkin was buried today at the “Willesden Jewish Cemetery.”

1925: “In Birkenhead,” Joe and May Makin gave birth to “celebrity solicitor” Elkan Rex Makin, whose work with Brian Epstein led to his close association with the Beatles

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/rex-makin-dies-liverpool-lawyer-13244311

https://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/240181/rex-makin-mr-beatlemania-dies-at-91

1926: Middle Augie Ratner ended his ten year long professional ring career by winning his last bout in Long Beach on points.

1927(22nd of Av, 5687): Parashat Ekev

1927(22nd of Av, 5687): Sixty-four year old Austrian born concert pianist Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler, the wife of Sigmund Zeisler passed away today in Chicago.

http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0587/ms0587.html

http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Bloomfield-Zeisler-Fannie.htm

1927: Birthdate of Stanley Anselm Bosworth a self-described “old wizard” who shaped his own Hogwarts in Brooklyn in the form of Saint Ann’s School, which rapidly gained national prominence for its free-form approach to education and its success in sending graduates to top colleges. Born in Manhattan he was the child of Jewish immigrants from Russia who had changed their name from Boscovitz to better assimilate. (As reported by Douglas Martin)

1927: Birthdate of Shraga Feivel Gruberger, the Brooklyn native who gained fame as Rabbi Philip S. Berg, “dean of the worldwide Kabbalah Centre Origination.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/21/us/rabbi-philip-berg-who-updated-jewish-mysticism-dies-at-86.html?hpw&_r=0

1927: “Underworld,” “silent crime film directed by Josef von Stemberg, co-produced by B.P. Shulberg with a script co-authored by Ben Hecht was released today in the United States by Paramount Pictures.

1928: State Supreme Court Alfred Frankenthaler officiated at the marriage of Jascha Heiftiz and Florence Vidor.  The private ceremony uniting the 28 year old violinist and the motion picture actress took place the Mayfair House on Park Avenue in Manhattan.  This is his first marriage and her second.

1929: As the Arab riots continued a late-night meeting initiated by the Jewish leadership, at which acting high commissioner Harry Luke, Jamal al-Husayni, and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi were present, failed to produce a call for an end to the violence.

1929: Premiere of Irving Thalberg’s “Hallelujah!”  “One of the first all-black films by a major studio featuring the music of Irving Berlin.

1929:Haganah leaders proposed to provide defense for 600 Jews of the Old Yishuv in Hebron, or to help them evacuate. However, the leaders of the Hebron community declined these offers, insisting that they trusted the A'yan (Arab notables) to protect them.

1930: Dr. Jacob Levitsky, a math teacher in Jerusalem, has won Yale’s annual $2000 prize Sterling Fund. Levitsky is a graduate of Tel Aviv High School and the University of Goettingen

1930: The General Executive Committee of RSFSR accepted the decree that led to the creation of a Jewish administrative territorial unit in the Asiatic portion of the Soviet Union that would come to be known as The Jewish Autonomous Oblast.

1933: Gabriel Terra, President of Uruguay issued a special decree, permitting 500 Jewish families, fleeing from Germany, to enter the country. The Jewish Immigrant Aid Society had petitioned the President on behalf of the country’s Jewish community.

1933: In Montevideo, Vos Hebres (The Hebrew Voice), defended the Jews against attacks which followed permission being given for the immigration of 500 German-Jewish families.

1933:The Jewish National Fund announced that it has reclaimed 300,000 dunams of land (75,000 acres) in the Emek since 1923, and that 10,000 people are settled on it.

1933:The Keren Hayesod (Palestine Foundation Fund) reported that it has collected in the past two years £400,077; of which the United States contributed one-third (£133,545); during the 12 years of its existence, the Fund has raised £4,821,510 of which the United States contributed one-half (£2,409,392).

1933: American Jewish Congress declared a boycott against Nazi Germany

1935: “A conference of ministers was held today to discuss the negative economic effects of Party actions against Jews during which Hitler argued that such effects would cease once the government decided on a firm policy against the Jews.”

.1935: The world Zionist leader, Dr. Nahum Sokolow, with almost the first words of his presidential speech tonight shattered reports that the nineteenth biennial Zionist congress would sidestep the situation of German Jews, out of deference to delegates from the Reich, who were among the representatives from forty-three nations.

1936: “Germany succeeded in showing the world a well-trained army and a strictly disciplined people during the Olympic Games but did not hesitate to break most of the Olympic commandments, according to four members of the International Committee for the Preservation of the Olympic Ideal who arrived” in Paris today.

1936: It was reported today that “mystery surrounds the death of…Captain Fuerstner, the constructor and organizer of the Olympic village and its officer in command and its administrative official” and the “one of the last ‘non-Aryan’ officers to retain his active rank in the new Germany” who has variously been reported to have died in an automobile accident or in “an accident with a pistol.”  (Editor’s Note – in reality he had shot himself after he realized that under the Nuremberg Laws that would go into effect after the Olympics, he would be classified as a Jew and would be expelled from the Army.)



1936: “Benny Leonard, the former lightweight champion announced” today that “an all-star combination made up of the leading players from the New York State Football Association” will play the Maccabee Palestine champion team in a benefit soccer contest at Yankee Stadium in September.

1936: Premiere of “Romeo and Juliet’ a cinematic version of Shakespeare’s drama directed by George Cukor, produced by Irving Thalberg and starring Leslie Howard (Leslie Howard Steiner) as Romeo and Norma Shearer as Juliet.

1937: At Zurich, “in a calmer atmosphere and with more hope of success, the negotiations continued today for a compromise to prevent a split between Zionists and American non-Zionists in the Jewish Agency on issues raised by the Palestine partition.”

1937: “Broadway Melody of 1938” a musical with lyrics by Arthur Freed, known in his native Charleston, SC, as Arthur Grossman, was released today in the United States.

1938(23rd of Av, 5698): Communist Party loyalist Semyon Dimanstein fell victim to one of Stalin’s purges today. After six months in prison, he was sentenced to death today and then executed.  He was rehabilitated two years after Stalin died.

1938: “Book Notes” published today described plans by Knopf to publish a second collection of short stories entitled The River Breaks Up by I.J. Singer, which likes its predecessor The Brothers Ashkenazi tells tales about Polish Jews “during the period of transition from the beginning of the present century trough the” World War and the Russian Revolution.

1938: Hank Greenberg hits three homers, bringing his total to 41 which puts him ahead of Babe Ruth’s record breaking 1927 pace.

1938: Today Morrie Arnovich and Phil Weintraub of the Phillies hit home runs in an 8-7 win over the New York Giants while Harry Danning, the Giants catcher, also hit one out, which  “according to the Jewish Major Leaguers 2009 card set, marked the only time that three Jewish players accomplished the feat in the same game.” (As reported by Ron Kaplan)

1939: General debate in the twenty-first World Zionist Congress had to be suspended today after an announcement at the morning's meeting of a decision by the court of the congress to reduce the number of mandates allotted to the Palestine delegations from 133 to 127.

1940: Leon Trotsky is attacked by an assassin in Mexico City.  Trotsky is hiding from Stalin who has ordered Trotsky’s execution.  Trotsky will die of his wounds the following day.  According to one version of the story, had moved from a fortress like villa to an unguarded homes because of a dispute over a woman.

1940: “Boomtown” a comedy-adventure film co-starring Hedy Lamar, produced by Sam Zimbalist with music by Franz Waxman was released in the United States today by MGM.

1941:A low-rent United States Housing' Authority development in East St. Louis, Il, has been named in memory of Samuel Gompers, longtime president of the American Federation of Labor.

1941: For the next 48 hours about 4300 Jews are sent from Paris to Drancy, a transit camp in France. These are the first of 70,000 Jews who will be deported to Drancy and then to extermination camps, primarily Auschwitz-Birkenau

1941(26th of Av, 5701): Several Jews were pulled from their homes in Sabac by the Germans, then brought into the street and shot. The Germans made other Jews come carry the dead bodies through the town, and then hang them from electricity poles. This attacked was the beginning of a series of attacks which lasted for 2 months and resulted in several thousands of Jewish murders. 

1942: “The Talk of the Town” a comedy with a screenplay by Irwin Shaw and Sidney Buchman with music by Friedrich Hollaender was released in the United Sates today by Columbia Pictures.

1942: Today, ‘the Council of Protestant Federation, under the signature of its president, Pastor Marc Boegner, wrote to Marsh Petain protesting against the deportation of Jews and the inhuman manner in which orders for these deportations were being carried out.”1942 The ZOB (Jewish Fighting Organization) attempts to assassinate Joseph Szerynski, commander of the Jewish police in the Warsaw Ghetto. Later in the day, other ZOB members set fire to several Warsaw warehouses.

1942(6th of Elul, 5702): The Jewish community from Falenica, Poland, is liquidated at the Treblinka death camp.

1942: The Nazis began deporting the Jews of Kielce, Poland to Treblinka,

1942: For the next four days, nineteen thousand Jews of Kielce, Poland, are deported to the Treblinka death camp.

1942: For the next four days gas/disinfectant expert Kurt Gerstein observes gas executions at the Treblinka, one day after witnessing similar deaths at Belzec.

1943: Pvt. Ed Koch writes in his diary today complaining “about an inspection he called a huge waste of time. “It took about an hour to get everything ready for display and then the (colonel) merely walked swiftly up and down the aisles and glanced at the tents once in a while,” he wrote. “It was the biggest example of a waste of time that I have ever seen in the Army.” (As reported by Forwards staff)

1943(18th of Av, 5703): Three thousand Jews are executed during a revolt at Glebokie, Belorussia.

1944(1stof Elul, 5704): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1944(1stof Elul, 5704): Thirty-two year old Corporal Philipp Henry Samuel, the London born son of Marie Rose and Albert Montefiore Hyamson died today while serving with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve after which he was buried in Golders Green Jewish Cemetery, in “Golders Green, London, England.”

1944: During World War II, Soviet forces “made an all-out attack” on Nazi forces in Romania – an attack that would be successful and help to save a significant percentage of the Jewish population.

1944:  The United States Army Air Force bombs Auschwitz III (oil and rubber plant), three miles from Auschwitz I (main camp) and five miles from Birkenau, the Auschwitz death camp. 127 bombers escorted by 100 fighters (who face only 19 German planes) drop more than 1300 500-pound bombs. Only one bomber is shot down. This puts the lie to the claim that allied airpower could not have knocked out the rails leading to the death camps or to the crematorium.  This had been the plea of many Jewish leaders. The facts of the matter are that allied leaders were not willing to risk planes or men to save Jews. On the morning of August 20, 1944, a group 127 US B-17 bombers, called Flying Fortresses, approached Auschwitz. They were escorted by 100 P-51 Mustang fighter planes. Most of the Mustangs were piloted by Tuskegee Airmen of the 332nd Fighter Group. The attacking force dropped more than 1,000 500-pound bombs on German oil factories less than five miles from the gas chambers. Despite German anti-aircraft fire and a squadron of German fighter planes, none of the Mustangs was hit and only one of the US planes was shot down. All of the units reported successfully hitting their targets. On the ground below, Jewish slave laborers, including 15 year-old Elie Wiesel, cheered the bombing. In his best-selling memoir, Night, Wiesel described their reaction: "We were not afraid. And yet, if a bomb had fallen on the blocks [the prisoners' barracks], it alone would have claimed hundreds of victims on the spot. But we were no longer afraid of death; at any rate, not of that death. Every bomb that exploded filled us with joy and gave us new confidence in life. The raid lasted over an hour. If it could only have lasted ten times ten hours!" But it did not. Even though there were additional US bombing raids on German industrial sites in the Auschwitz region in the weeks and month to follow, the gas chambers and crematoria were never targeted. The Roosevelt administration knew about the mass murder going on in Auschwitz, and even possessed diagrams of the camp that were prepared by two escapees. But when Jewish organizations asked the Roosevelt administration to order the bombing of the camp and the railways leading to it, the requests were rejected. US officials claimed such raids were "impracticable" because they would require "considerable diversion" of planes needed for the war effort. But the Tuskegee veterans know that claim was false. They were right there in the skies above Auschwitz. No "diversion" was necessary to drop a few bombs on the mass-murder machinery or the railways leading into the camp. Sadly, those orders were never given. The decision to refrain from bombing Auschwitz was part of a broader policy by the Roosevelt administration to refrain from taking action to rescue Jews from the Nazis or provide havens for them. The US did not want to deal with the burden of caring for large numbers of refugees. And its ally, Great Britain, would not open the doors to Palestine to the Jews, for fear of angering Arab opinion. The result was that the Allies failed to confront one of history's most compelling moral challenges.

1944: In an unusual move even for the Nazis, 168 aviates from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Jamaica arrived at Buchenwald Concentration Camp today.

1947: In Englewood, NJ, the former Ruth Grodnick and Irving Howard Kudlow, gave birth “media economist” Larry Kudlow the recovering drug and alcohol addict who converted to Catholicism in the 1990’s and replaced Gary Cohn as President Trump’s Director of the National Economic Council.

1948: “In testimony under subpoena before the HUAC, Lee Pressman declined to answer questions regarding Communist Party membership, citing grounds of potential self-incrimination.”

1948: “After an hour in D-117 today, Michael Flint, WW II naval pilot serving with the IAF, had to make a wheels-up landing when his gear wouldn't descend.”



1948: Re-release today  of “Dick Tracy Returns” a film based on the comic strip cop featuring Ned Glass (born Nusyn Glass) as “Kid Stark”

1950(7th of Elul, 5710): Aaron Parsonnet, the Newark, NJ physician who received his M.D. degree from Loyola University and was the husband of the former Julia Lifson passed away today at West Orange, NJ.1952(28th of Av, 5712): Yitzhak Sadeh, the founder of the Palmach and a hero of the War of Independence passed away at the age of 62. While a name unknown to most non-Israelis. Yitzhak Sadeh was a brave man who played a key role in the founding of the state of Israel.  He was the commander for the Palmach units, a soldier, a writer, an educator, and was one of the founders of Tshal. He originally lived in Russia, but he moved to Israel later in his life.  Yitzhak was born in Lubin, Poland in 1890. He began his military career, by fighting for the Russian army in World War One. Later, he was honored for his bravery in the war. During 1917, 1918, and 1919, Yitzhak Sadeh, with the help of Joseph Trumpeldor, established the foundation of “Ha- Halutz”. “Ha- Halutz”, in 1920, made an aliyah to the land of Israel. He moved as soon as he heard of his friend, Joseph Trumpeldor’s death. When Yitzhak arrived in Israel, he became one of the founders of the “Gdud-Ha-Avoda”.  In 1929, Sadeh joined the Hagganah. He was made commander in the Hagganah, in Jerusalem, shortly after he joined. During the 1929 riots, he took part in defending the city of Haifa. When the 1936 riots started, Sadeh established the “Nodedt” in Jerusalem. This organization was the one that confronted the enemy in their villages and in the army bases. Yitzhak introduced a policy for defending settlements by going out to attack the Arab bands, instead of staying behind the fences of their settlements to await the raids.     In the summer of 1937, Sadeh founded the “Fosh”. He also commanded the kibbutz of Hanitah. One of the things that Yitzhak Sadeh is most famous for is founding the Palmach. He served as chief commander for the Palmach until 1945. During 1945, he was appointed to be Hagganah’s Chief of General staff. He was also in charge of planning operations against the British forces. Yitzhak planned many operations involving bringing Jewish immigrants to the Promised Land, Israel. In the beginning of the Independence War in 1948, Yitzhak Sadeh commanded the defense of the kibbutz, Mishmar Ha-Emek. Kibbutz Mishmar Ha-Emek was attacked by Syrian forces, which were trying to divide the country into two parts. After this, Sadeh was promoted to the job of “Aluf”. When he was promoted, he was able to establish the first armored brigade in the IDF. The Israeli Defense Forces, later, led critical battles for the state of Israel.    After the War of Independence, Yitzhak participated in the operation, “Khorev”.  Also, the Palmach was disconnected. Sadeh left the military services in 1949. After retiring from the army, he wrote many books, essays, and even plays. He would write with the pen name, Y. Noded. Sadeh promoted a lot of sports. He was the wrestling champion of St. Petersburg and featured in wrestling performances. He thought of sports being an important part of life and it held important cultural and educational value. He created Hapoel’s slogan, “Alafim and not Alufim”. They wanted many people to take part in sports. Thousands of sports figures and soldiers, to this day, take part in the Run around Mount Tavor, in honor of Yitzhak Sadeh.  Yitzhak Sadeh died in Tel-Aviv in August 1952, and was buried in Kibbutz Givat Brenner. He was a very brave man. Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak and kibbutz Mashabey Sadeh were named after Yitzhak Sadeh


1952: Work started on a number of concrete dams, expected to hold back the rainwater accumulating in the Negev wadis during the winter. This was part of the Zionist dream to make the Negev green.

1952: Birthdate of American singer-song writer Doug Fieger, the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of the band the Knack, whose enduring 1979 hit “My Sharona” has become an emblem of the new wave era in rock and a prime example of the brevity of pop fame.”  His father was Jewish.

1958(4th of Elul, 5718): Pioneering psychoanalyst Adolph Stern, who had been “analyzed by Sigmund Freud in 1920” passed away today.




1960: Larry Sherry pitches the Dodgers past the Cards for his 12thwin of the season.

1964:Atentát is a 1964 black-and-white Czech film directed that “depicts events before and after the assassination of top German leader Reinhard Heydrich in Prague (Operation Anthropoid) which was entered into the 4th Moscow International Film Festival where it won a Golden Prize” was released today/

1964: President Lyndon Johnson signed an anti-poverty bill that would commit almost one billion dollars to the “War on Poverty.”  The measure had the support of numerous Jewish political leaders and Jewish voters.  This was an era when Jewish voters were drawn to politicians who supported a society that sought to care for the “widow, the orphan and the stranger in your midst.”

1965(22nd of Av, 5725): Forty-six year old “Dr. Martin B. Dworkis, the president of the Manhattan Community College and husband of the “former Ida Levine” with whom he was raising their son Charles, suffered a fatal heart attack today.


1966(4th of Elul, 5726): Parashat Shoftim

1966(4th of Elul, 5726): Eighty-two year old New York native and graduate of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University Dr. David John Kaliski, the husband of Kate Mountjoy Kaliski passed away today


1968: It was reported today that plans have been “disclosed in Paris for a West German one-hour television film on the problems of European Jewish communities, which will be shown in West Germany next October” (JTA)

1969(6th of Elul, 5729): Seventy-seven year old Polish native, Simon Federbush, the former Chief Rabbi of Finland, the principal of several yeshivas in the United States and “a founder of the Religious Zionist Labor Movement” who married “the former Miriam Horowitz” with whom he had “two sons, Urieland and Emanuel—passed away today.

1969: After having been released in Italy earlier in the year, “Orgasmo” starring Carroll Baker was released today in New York City.

1971: FBI begins covert investigation of journalist Daniel Schorr.  Schorr would become a member of Richard Nixon’s infamous enemies list.  Earlier in his career, Schoor had been thrown out of the Soviet Union for his news broadcasts.  This makes him one of the few people to be declared an enemy by both the Soviet Communists and right-wing American Anti-Communists.

1971:The Brighton Regency Synagogue was “designated by English Heritage as a Grade II listed building.”

1974: Forty “British radiologists protested the treatment by the Soviets of radiologist Dr. Victoria Poltinikova in Novosibirsk, who had applied for emigration to Israel in 1972 with her parents.”

1975: “Isaac Yilyulitin, a 35 year old Doctor of Mathematics, was sentenced to one year in prison on charges of attempted smuggling, having been arrested at Leningrad airport en route to Israel.”

1976: It was reported today that Uganda President Idi Amin has “set a seven day deadline for a personal reply” from Prime Minister Rabin on his demand for compensation from the Israelis for the raid on Entebbe.

1976: Seventy-five year old Sid Silvers whose career spanned vaudeville, Broadway and the silver screen passed away today.


1976: “The Shootist” a film about an aging, dying gunfighter directed by Don Siegel, co-starring Lauren Bacall and with music by Elmer Bernstein which was the final movie for the legendary John Wayne (who was not Jewish) was released to in the United States.

1977: Despite the initial rejection by both Israel and Jordan, US officials were still hopeful that their idea of establishing a joint Israeli-Jordanian temporary trusteeship over the West Bank could yet get off the ground.

1977: The French government appeared to be reconciled to a new period of chilly relations after Israel rejected its contention that the three new settlements in administered areas hampered peace prospects.

1977: The US Central Intelligence Agency told Congressional investigators that enriched uranium, designed to build atomic bombs, was mysteriously diverted from the privately owned American plant to Israel in the middle 1960s

1979: It was reported today that Yigal Yadin, Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister rejected Andrew Young’s characterization his government as “stubborn and intransigent” and “pursuing and expansionist policy” when he appeared on ABC’s “Issue and Answers.”


1980: The UN Security Council condemns (14-0, US abstains) Israeli declaration that all of Jerusalem is its capital.  The UN Security Council never said or did anything about the illegal occupation of the eastern section of Jerusalem by Jordan that lasted for almost twenty years.  During that same time, the UN was equally silent when it came to the fact that Jews were not allowed to enter the Old City or that the Jordanians had systematically dismembered the physical remains of the ancient Jewish Quarter.  This lack of equivalent concern is but one of a long list of reasons by why many Israelis and as well as others have lost respect for the United Nations.

1981: “An American Werewolf in London,” a “horror comedy film” directed by John Landis, with music by Elmer Bernstein was released in the United States by Universal Pictures.

1982:  During the Lebanese Civil War a multinational force lands in Beirut to oversee the PLO withdrawal from Lebanon.  The Lebanese Civil War was conflict between Christian and Moslem Arabs.  It was part of centuries old struggle for power that flared up periodically.  The PLO had come to Lebanon after having been thrown out of Jordan where it had attempted to overthrow the government.  The PLO was a destabilizing force in Lebanon as its fighters took the side of the Moslems and tried to use Lebanon as a base for terrorist attacks against Israel.  The PLO had to go because of its role in destroying the social fabric of Lebanon which had been an oasis of Western progress and civility in among the violent Arab dictatorships of the Middle East.

1982(1st of Elul, 5742): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1982(1st of Elul, 5742): Sixty-six year old Alfred S. Bloomingdale, the grandson of the founder of Bloomingdale’s department store passed away today in Santa Monica, CA. (As reported by David W. Dunlap)


(Wiki shows the date as August 23 but I will take the word of the NYT Obit writers, a marvelous and trustworthy group of writers.)

1983: In Los Angeles, Lynn and Richard Garfield gave birth to actor Andrew Garfield whose “paternal grandparents were from Jewish immigrant families who had moved to London from Eastern Europe (Poland, Russia, and Romania), and whose family surname was originally "Garfinkel".

1985: Israel ships 96 TOWs to Iran on behalf of the US.  The TOW missiles were shipped as part of an arms deal that became known as Iran Contra.

1985: The New York Times features a review (see below) of Jerusalem: Rebirth of a City by Martin Gilbert, a first rate book by a first rate author and historian. There is no such thing as “a bad” Martin Gilbert book since the works of this author range from very good to great.

No city in the world can have captured more imaginations and stirred more hearts over the centuries than Jerusalem. No city, in the 19th century, was more liable to provoke comments on the dismal contrast between past and present, between the image and the reality. A stream of visitors recorded their impressions of the prevailing torpor, the poverty, the filth, the squalid squabbles between different races and religious communities. In 1838, the year Martin Gilbert chooses to open his chronicle of Jerusalem's reviving fortunes, the American biblical scholar Edward Robinson, one of the earliest archeologists to work in the city, lamented - with good reason - that ''the glory of Jerusalem has indeed departed.'' From its ''ancient high estate'' it had declined into ''the neglected capital of a petty Turkish province,'' with a population of fewer than 16,000 (5,000 Muslim Arabs, 3,000 Christian Arabs, 6,000 Jews, a Turkish garrison, a small colony of European traders and missionaries). At the end of the century, which is where Mr. Gilbert closes his account, guidebooks were still stressing the stagnation and decay, and most travelers were still recording their disappointment or distaste. Theodor Herzl, visiting the city for the first time in 1898, wrote in his diary that ''when I remember thee in days to come, O Jerusalem, it will not be with delight.'' He wished that it were possible to tear down everything except the sacred sites and begin all over again. Yet for over half a century important changes had in fact been taking place in the city, changes that were gradually to draw it back into the mainstream of history. While Mr. Gilbert bases much of his survey on the rich range of literature in which visitors recorded their impressions, his central theme is the slow transformation that was already in progress, but which most visitors underestimated or failed to appreciate. In some ways 1839 would have made a more appropriate starting point. In that year a British vice consul took up residence - the only foreign diplomat in the city, though before long the appointment prompted other powers to show the flag. Russian and French consulates were established in 1841; an Anglican bishopric was created the same year; in due course Germans, Austrians and Italians made their presence felt, the Germans in particular. An American consul was appointed in 1857 and promptly found himself embroiled in a dispute with the local Turkish commander, who refused to arrange a 21-gun salute on the Fourth of July on the grounds that such honors ought to be reserved for monarchies, not mere republics. (The consul eventually carried the day.) The diplomatic campaigns were generally accompanied by an increase in missionary work, which inevitably became a fresh cause of dissension in a city already riven by conflicts - often violent ones - not only between Christian, Moslem and Jew but between a multitude of subgroups and separate denominations. The religious life of the city was both colorful and intense, but it all too often reminds you of Jonathan Swift's remark that we have just enough religion to make us hate, but not to love one another. Of the major religious groupings, it was the Jews who recorded the largest gain in numbers during the period Mr. Gilbert covers. By 1896 Jerusalem had a population of 45,000, of whom 28,000 were Jewish and the rest divided almost equally between Moslems and Christians. Although Sephardi immigrants from many different parts of the world, including Yemen and Bukhara, had settled in the city, the Ashkenazim, who had been in a minority 60 years earlier, now predominated. Most Ashkenazim came from Eastern Europe, most of them were still rigidly orthodox, and heavily dependent on charity from Jews living abroad. But since the days of Sir Moses Montefiore (who had paid his first visit to Palestine in 1827) there had been attempts to introduce social and educational reforms, and by the 1880's change - though it met with bitter resistance - was increasingly in the air. The Alliance Israelite Universelle of Paris played a particularly important part in sponsoring secular education and technical training. Meanwhile modern institutions and inventions had belatedly taken root in the city. The first printing press was established in 1840, the first hotel in 1843, the first bank in 1848. An overland telegraph was opened in 1865 (an Arab who threw his spear at it was sentenced to death for damaging Ottoman property and hanged from one of the posts). In 1892, the railroad finally made its appearance: a narrow-gauge, single-track line that wound its way up from Jaffa. By normal 19th-century standards, none of this progress was exactly spectacular, and contemporaries can surely be forgiven for emphasizing the unchanging, even the apparently moribund aspects of Jerusalem. It is only in retrospect that it is easy to discern in fairly modest developments the shape of major achievements and far-reaching conflicts to come. At the very end of the century, however, two interconnected events should have made it clear, even without the benefit of hindsight that history wasn't standing still. In 1898 Kaiser Wilhelm II visited Jerusalem, riding into the city through a triumphal arch on a black charger, in full ceremonial uniform. Theodor Herzl was there at the same time; he had come specially to meet him. A new and uncertain future was at hand. Mr. Gilbert has written a lively book, full of excellent quotations -roundly outspoken and often eloquent in the 19th-century manner - and providing glimpses of figures as diverse as Herman Melville and the future Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, along with many curious minor characters. It is also a handsome book, decked out with a large number of striking photographs 1988: In Chicago, The pastor of a black church told members of a Jewish congregation Friday night that the common backgrounds of the two groups should be remembered as the two communities reach toward common ground. "We forgot our histories," the Rev. George Riddick, executive vice president of Operation PUSH, told members of Congregation Kol Ami in the first-of-its-kind pulpit exchange.

1991(9th of Elul, 5751): Lenore Strunsky Gershwin widow of Ira Gershwin passed away.  She was 90 years old at the time of her death.

1991(9thof Elul, 5751):About three hours after the riots began, early on the morning of August 20, a group of approximately 20 young black men surrounded 29-year-old Australian Jew, Yankel Rosenbaum, a University of Melbourne student in the United States conducting research for his doctorate. They stabbed him several times in the back and beat him severely, fracturing his skull. Before being taken to the hospital, Rosenbaum was able to identify 16-year-old Lemrick Nelson, Jr. as his assailant in a line-up shown to him by the police. Rosenbaum died later that night. Nelson was charged as an adult with murder and acquitted. Later he was convicted in federal court of violating Rosenbaum's civil rights; Nelson eventually admitted that he had stabbed Rosenbaum

1991:Approximately 500 mostly young blacks returned to the scene” of the accident in Crown Heights where Gavin Cato had died. “Vehicles were set ablaze, a shoe store was ransacked, and reporters and photographers were beaten.

1993: After rounds of secret negotiations in Norway, the Oslo Peace Accords were signed.  A more public signing ceremony would take place in Washington in September of 1993.

1997(17thof Av, 5757): Daniel and Michael Alper, the sons of Marilyn Marcus Alper, an active member of the UJA Federation of New York, passed away today.

1998: “Three days after Clinton testified on the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Operation Infinite Reach launched missiles against al-Qaeda bases in Khost, Afghanistan, and the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, Sudan

1998: Journalist Seymour “Hersh strongly criticized the destruction of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory, the largest pharmaceutical factory in Sudan—providing about half the medicines produced in Sudan—by United States cruise missiles during Bill Clinton's presidency.”

1998(28thof Av, 5758): Eighty-eight year old Fred Sington, an All-American Tackle at Alabama where he was a member of ZBT and an outfielder for the Washington Senators and Brooklyn Dodgers passed away today.
http://www.bhamwiki.com/w/Fred_Sington

1999: The 7thWorld Championships in Athletics in which Aleksandr Valeryevich Averbukh placed third in the Pole Vault representing Israel opened today in Seville, Spain.

2000: The New York Times book section featured reviews of Touching Peace: From the Oslo Accord to a Final Agreement by Yossi Beilin, Cruel Banquet: The Life and Loves of Frida Strindberg by Monica Strauss and Dream Stuff, a collection of nine short stories by David Malouf, the Australian author with the Lebanese Christian father and the Sephardic Jewish mother.

2001(1st of Elul, 5761): Rosh Chodesh Elul

2002: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Hebrew University archeologist Dr. Eila Mazar's 120-page The Complete Guide to the Temple Mount Excavations has just been translated into English. The new comprehensive guide describes the site's 3,000 years of history.

2002(12thof Elul, 5762): Nineteen year old Staff Sargent Kevin Cohen of Petah Tikva was murdered by a Palestinian sniper.

2002(12thof Elul, 5762): Eighty-year old philanthropist Lillian Goldman, the widow of Sol Goldman passed away today. (As reported by Paul Lewis)


2004: The initial public offering by Google which was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin took place today.

2004(3rdof Elul, 5764): Eighty-two year old Safed born prize winning Israeli author and MK Moshe Shamir passed away today. (Editor’s note – The NYT would appear to have been in error.  Shamir died about a month before his 83rd birthday.



2004:A Walking tour today styled ''Emma Lazarus and the Jewish Heritage of Washington Square'' passes the former home of Emma Lazarus, the Triangle Shirt Waist Factory and the Hanging Elm of Washington Square Park.

2005(14th of Av, 5765): Abraham S. Goldstein, an influential scholar of criminal law and former dean of the Yale Law School, died of a heart attack at his home in Woodbridge, Connecticut. Goldstein taught at the Law School for almost 50 years and was, at the time of his death, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law. He was 80.

2005:  The evacuation of settlers and their supporters from Gaza halted because of the Shabbat.  The evacuations which are part of a bold move by Prime Minister Sharon to bring peace to the region while improving the geo-political position of Israel is slated to end on Tuesday.

2006(26thof Av, 5766): Eighty-four year old labor economist and Holocaust survivor Jacob Mincer passed away today. (As reported by Louis Uchitelle)



2006: Today Tower Records, which began in “1960 when Richard Solomon opened his first store in Sacramento:  filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time, in order to facilitate a purchase of the company prior to the holiday shopping season.

2006: The Sunday New York Times book section includes a review of I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman by Nora Ephron.

2006: The Chicago Tribunereported that Clara Ambrus-Baire, a woman whose family shielded Jews in Budapest hadreceived a “Righteous Among the Nations Award.”  The award is presented to people who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. It is the highest honor bestowed on non-Jews by Israel, with 21,310 recipients as of January 2006. Ambrus-Baer was 19 when the Germans invaded Budapest in 1944. Her family turned its home into a haven for Jews hiding from the Nazis. "I never expected this," said Ambrus-Baer, 81 and living in Buffalo. "I didn't want to get praised for what I did. I took it for normal that somebody saves people's lives."

2006: Kohenet, the Hebrew Priestess Institute launched its first training institute in Accord, NY. (As reported by Jewish Women’s Archives)

2007: “The Facebook Effect” is Newsweek Magazine’s cover story.  The story describes how 23 year old “Mark Zuckerberg has already changed the way millions of us connect.  How he’s facing a challenge; how to turn an online obsession into a fixture of he digital age”  If the pundits and prophets are correct, Zuckerberg will join the likes of Einstein and Freud as one who has brought a sea change in the course of Western, if not world, Civilization.

2007: In an article favorably evaluating the performance of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, The New York Timesincluded the following. “But to understand Mr. Bernanke’s worldview, one must go back to his hometown, Dillon, S.C., which sits athwart Interstate 95 about halfway between North Jersey and South Florida. Dillon is known as the home of South of the Border, the Tijuana-themed tourist stop and a Mecca of American roadside kitsch. Mr. Bernanke, 53, grew up in Dillon in the 1950s and ’60s, the son of the local pharmacist and a member of one of the few Jewish families in the largely agricultural region. He says his home was the only kosher household in a 50-mile radius. His mother had meat delivered from a butcher in Charlotte, N.C., where his parents live now. Being a member of a minority taught him about discrimination and prejudice. “There was more than one request to see my horns,” he said years later. He also watched the struggles of small farmers, who drove mule-drawn carts down the main street of town and had trouble paying their bills even in good years. His father granted credit for purchases at the drugstore, keeping records on small cards he kept in a drawer. Many of the debts were never repaid. As Mr. Bernanke grew older, the textile mills that had supported the area closed and moved overseas in search of cheap labor. Mr. Bernanke worked construction jobs and waited on tables at South of the Border during the summer while an undergraduate at Harvard University. “I was impressed by these experiences,” Mr. Bernanke said last fall at a ceremony in his honor on the steps of the neoclassical courthouse in Dillon, “and I think they were an important reason I went into economics, which a great economist once called the study of people in the ordinary business of life.”

2007:A database with millions of documents from more than 50 concentration camps and prisons - which include books recording Jewish deaths, transportation lists and medical reports - was handed over to Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority and Washington's Holocaust Memorial Museum. "These documents reflect the most despicable operations of the Nazi era and constitute an essential part of our archive," said International Tracing Service (ITS) director Reto Meister during the official handover at the Washington museum.

2008:After a disappointing run for Israel in the Beijing Olympics, windsurfer Shahar Zubari finally gave Israelis a reason to cheer. Zubari won the bronze medal at today's Neil Pryde finals, Israel's first medal at the 2008 games, after arriving in second place in the final race.

2008: The New York Times included a review of The Grift by Debra Ginsberg.

 2008: About 50 rabbis in charge of supervising the kosher slaughter and processing of meat at the Agriprocessors Inc. plant in Postville walked off the job today to protest recent pay cuts.

2008: A former Agriprocessors Inc. supervisor pleaded guilty today to helping his employer hire illegal immigrants. Juan Carlos Guerrero-Espinoza, 35, a former upper-level supervisor at the kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids to conspiracy to hire and aiding and abetting the hiring of illegal immigrants.

2008:The decision by Perth Magistrate Barbara Lane today to allow the extradition of Karoly (Charles) Zentai to Hungary to stand trial for the murder of Jewish teenager Peter Balazs in Budapest on November 8, 1944, paved the way for an unprecedented, historic victory for Holocaust justice in Australia.

2009: Rosh Chodesh Elul (First Day)

2009: The final of a 3 part series of security briefings for leaders of Jewish institutions in Northern Virginia sponsored by ADL, JCRC & the Jewish Federation Learn featuring presentations by Local Police District Commanders, FBI Senior Personnel, and national Jewish security experts about the latest threats to Jewish communal security and how to be prepared takes place at Congregation Ahavat Israel (Fairfax Chabad) in Fairfax, VA.

2009: In a video-taped message to be screened today at a rally to be held at Rabbi Reuven Elbaz's Or Hachaim Yeshiva in Jerusalem,  Shas mentor Rabbi Ovadia Yosef lashes out at the Supreme Court for rejecting former minister Shlomo Benizri's appeal to shorten his four-year prison sentence for corruption charges

2009: Today the High Court of Justice rejected a petition accusing the Company for Location and Restitution of Holocaust Victims Assets of breaking the law by allocating funds to organizations that were not solely dedicated to the welfare of Holocaust survivors

2009(30th of Av, 5769): Rosh Chodesh Elul

2009(30th of Av, 5769): Controversial Israeli entertainment personality Dudu Topaz took his own life today.

2010: U.S. premiere of “The Switch” a comedy by Allan Loeb and co-starring Jeff Goldblum

2010: "A Film Unfinished" Directed by Yael Harsonski is scheduled to premiere at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema in New York City.

2010: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have been invited to Washington to begin direct peace talks on Sept. 2, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during a press conference today. The meeting will serve to "re-launch direct negotiations to resolve all final status issues which we believe we can complete in one year," Clinton said.

2010:Harvard University said toay that it had found a prominent researcher, Marc Hauser, “solely responsible” for eight instances of scientific misconduct. Hauser is the son of French Jew who survived the Holocaust.

2011: Senator Joe Lieberman is scheduled to attend Glen Beck’s Restoring Courage rally in Jerusalem. A self-proclaimed supporter of Israel, Beck has also compared Reform Rabbis to Islamic radicals.

2011(20thof Av, 5771): Eighty-seven year old, Dr. William B. Kannel, the cardiologist was the director of the Framingham Heart Study, passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/23/health/23kannel.html?pagewanted=print

2011(20thof Av, 5771): Eighty-seven year old Rafael Halperin who gained fame as “The Rasslin Rabbi” before founding Optica Halperin, “the largest eyeglass store chain In Israel.”

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4111512,00.html

2011: Gabriella Elizabeth Thalblum (Gavriella Elisheva) was called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, IA. This very intelligent and poised young Jewess is the daughter of Rabbi Todd and Sabrina Thalblum.  A lover of music and dance, this seventh grader speaks English with that charming drawl she acquired while living in Texas. She did a marvelous job.

2011: A musical Havdalah service followed by a performance by Emilio Estevez is scheduled to take place at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in Washington, DC.

2011: Hamas announced early today they were no longer committed to a more than two-year de facto truce with Israel since the end of a war in early 2009. The statement was broadcast over a Hamas radio station in Gaza after Israel pounded the Strip for two days with air strikes in response to rocket salvoes and attacks that killed eight people." There is no longer any truce with the enemy," the statement said in a move seen as paving the way for Hamas to escalate the violence with Israel.

2011: A Grad rocket directly struck a home in the southern city of Be'er Sheva tonight, killing one person and seriously wounding four.

2011: Around 4,000 demonstrators participated in a silent march in Tel Aviv  tonight to protest the high cost of living in Israel.

2011: Egypt's ambassador to Israel will remain in the country, Foreign Ministry officials said this evening, as the diplomatic crisis vis-à-vis Cairo in the wake of Thursday's terror attacks appeared to be waning.

2012: The KlezKanada Laurentian Retreat, which this year will be dedicated to the memory of Adrienne Cooper z”l is scheduled to begin today.

2012: The Nazareth Orchestra is scheduled to perform at Hazan Hall this evening. The orchestra, “conducted by Dr. Nizar Raduwan, will celebrate the 100th anniversary of Egyptian diva Asmahane with the beloved songs of Umm Kulthum, Asmahane and Layla Morad performed by orchestra soloist Hiba Battihish and Rula Azar, who will be performing with the orchestra for the first time.”

2012: University heads are seeking the reversal of a July decision in favor of granting university status to Ariel’s academic institute, filing a petition with the High Court of Justice to that effect Monday.

2012: The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and IDF, uncovered and indicted a cell of four terrorists belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Shin Bet released for publication today.

2013: German Chancellor Angela Merkeil is scheduled to visit Dachau today “making her Berlin’s first leader to travel to the former Nazi concentration camp. (As reported Lazar Berman)

2013: The Kraemer and Ciment clans gather in Little Rock, AR as they prepare to celebrate a simcha that will unite two of their young adults in marriage.

2013: Israeli officials criticized UN Secretary-General Ban Kimoon today for backtracking on his admission last week in Jerusalem that “there was bias and discrimination against Israel at the UN.”

(As reported by Herb Keinon)

2013: The United States said today it "strongly condemns" comments from Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan blaming Israel for the military coup and ensuing crisis gripping Egypt (As reported by Michael Wilner)

2013: Tzipi Livini, Israel’s chief negotiator predicted today that peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians “will result in dramatic Israeli decisions.” (As reported by Herb Keinon and khaled Abu Toameh)

2014: “Young Israeli clarinetist and saxophonist, Anat Cohen, celebrated in Brazil as a virtuoso player of "choro" music is scheduled perform at the New York premiere of her "Choro Aventoroso" band at 54 Below.

2014: Hamas's "military wing" warned foreign airlines today against flying into Tel Aviv, threatening to step up its six-week conflict with Israel after firing more than 100 rockets on Israeli civilians and pulling out of peace talks.  "We are warning international airlines and press them to stop flying into Ben Gurion airport from 6 am (0300 GMT) Thursday," Al Qassam Brigades spokesman Abu Obeida stated today, in a televised speech.” (As reported byAFP and Arutz Sheva Staff)

2014: “As a result of the renewed rocket fire, the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon announced new-borns would be transferred to sheltered areas for their protection.”

2014: Shortly after 11:00 p.m., sirens were heard in the vicinity of Ashdod as well as in Sderot and the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council in response to the on-going rocket barrage from Gaza which earlier in the day had included an attack on the Israeli gas installation in the Mediterranean.

2015: Today, “the IDF deployed the Iron Dome missile defense system near the port city of Ashdod.”

2015:  At The Temple Emanu-El Skirball Center, Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman, the editor of the multi-volume series “Prayers of Awe” is scheduled to “the fascinating history of Avinu Malkeinu, one of the best known prayers of the High Holiday liturgy.

2015: Four rockets fired from Syrian “hit Israel this afternoon in the Upper Galilee region in the north near the Lebanese bored after ‘color red’ warning sires were sounded in the area.”

2015: In “Israel’s Other Existential Threat Comes From Within” published today Hilik Bar a deputy speaker of the Israeli Knesset and the secretary general of the Labor Party provided his view of political conditions in his country.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/21/opinion/israels-other-existential-threat-comes-from-within.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=0

2015: The Women’s Leadership Committee of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host the “Intimate Illusions Summer Benefit” in Chicago, Illinois.

2015: A visitation is scheduled to take place at Temple Judah in memory of Joan Lipsky.

http://www.cedarmemorial.com/Obituary/2015/Aug/Joan-M-Lipsky/

2016(16thof Av, 5776): Parashat Vaetchanan – Shabbat Nachamu;

2016(16thof Av, 5776): One hundred one year old composer Irving Fields passed away today.(As reported by Joseph Berger)

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/23/arts/music/irving-fields-dead.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2016: “Murmurs and Incantations” which “tells the story of a gay New York performance artist with creative block who fatefully travels to Poland in an attempt to revive his art career, only to be further confounded by the disapproving ghost of his grandfather, a rabbi killed in the Holocaust” is scheduled to open in New York City.

2016: In Memphis, TN, Temple Israel is scheduled to host a “Pancakes and Prayer Shabbat Service and Breakfast.

2016: In New Orleans, LA, Gates of Prayer is scheduled to mark the end of Shabbat with a Brotherhood Havdalah and Saints Pre-season game watch.

2017(28th of Av): Yarhrzeit for Larry Rosenstein, of blessed memory, husband of Judy Levin Rosenstein, of blessed memory.  Gone to soon but always remembered! 

2017(28thof Av, 5777): Ninety-one year old multi-talented funny man Jerry Lewis passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/20/movies/jerry-lewis-dead-celebrated-comedian-and-filmmaker.html?mcubz=0

https://variety.com/2017/film/people-news/jerry-lewis-dies-dead-nutty-professor-1202533899/

2017: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Wrestling With His Angel: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln, Volume II, 1849-1856 by Sidney Blumenthal, Freud: The Making of an Illusion by Frederick Crews, The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II by Svetlana Alexievich and the recently released paperback edition of The Chosen Ones by Steve Sem-Sandberg.

2017: Cantor Jennifer Bern-Vogel and singer-songwriter Dan Bern along with friends Karla Goettel, soprano, Steve Vosatka, piano; singer-songwriter Sam Weis, Lena Gilbert, actors Megan and Steve Ginsberg and others are scheduled to present a memorial concert featuring music and poetry in memory of Marianne Bern, pillar of the Cedar Rapids Jewish community.

2017: As the school year beings at the University of Iowa, Hillel is scheduled to host a Bagel Brunch.

2018: “The Guy Mintus Tiro,” led by the Israeli band leader…who will mix his originals with Israeli classics” is scheduled to perform at the Rockwood Music Hall.

2018: As part of “The Lunar Legends series” Beit Avi Chai is scheduled to host a performance of “The Tale of Two Cats.”

2018(9thof Elul, 5778): Ninety-four year old Uri Avneri, Israeli author and politician who has traveled the political spectrum from membership in the Irgun to left-wing peace activist passed away today. (As reported by Isabel Kershner)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/20/obituaries/uri-avnery-dead.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2018: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Damascus Cover,” a film centering around Mossad agents.

2019: In Atlanta, GA, Docent Training is scheduled to begin at the Breman Museum.

2019: In New Orleans, the Jewish Community Day School is scheduled to host Curriculum Night.

2019: This evening, Klezkanda is scheduled to host Margot Leverett speaking on the “Art of the Klezmer Clarinet.”

2019: Those attending the McGill/Klezkanda Academic Seminar are scheduled to begin the day with “An Overview of Jewish Music in Eastern Europe.”




This Day, August 21, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. and Deb Levin

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August 21

1165: Birthdate of Philip II Augustus, the French king who first imprisoned his Jewish subjects; then extorted ransom from them before banning them from Paris and its environs.

1321: Jews in France were accused of encouraging lepers to poison Christian wells. This directly led to the graver accusations of the same kind during the Black Plague. This time, five thousand Jews were killed. At Chinon, 160 Jews were burned in a pit on an island outside of town. Eventually the King, Philip the Tall, admitted that the Jews were innocent. The island is still known as Ile de Juifs (Island of the Jews).

1379: In Spain, Fernan Martin, King John’s executioner accompanied by Don Zulema Solmon and Don Zag Isaac, went to the home of Joseph Pinchon, Martin beheaded Pinchon per the order of the king.  Because of the scandal surrounding the event it led to the repeal of Jewish jurisdiction in criminal cases in Castile

1486: Volume II of a Mahzor, using the Roman Rite was printed for the first time at Casal Maggiore, Italy.

http://cojs.org/cojswiki/Mahzor_(Roman_rite),_Soncino/Casal_Maggiore:_Benei_Soncino,_1485/6,_Heb-73,_Vol._2,_fol._117v-118r.

1569: Cosimo I de' Medici, who had invited the Jews to settle in Tuscany but who also gave in to pressure from the Pope to burn the Talmud, became Grand Duke of Tuscany today.

1669: “The priest of the Russian church made a complaint against the Jews of Brest for reconverting to Judaism a baptized Jewess of the name of Judith, whose baptismal name was Anastasia, a daughter of Shemuel, at one time leaseholder of taxes.”

1684: In response to a letter from the Dutch commander of Essequibo and Pomeroon explaining that the trade in vanilla had come to an end because of the death of a Jew named Salomon de la Roche, representatives of the Dutch West India company wrote “As to the vanilla trade, which we recommend you carry on for the company, where you answer us saying this trade has come to an end through the death of a Jew, Salomon de la Roche...a meager and poor excuse.” This correspondence is one example of the important role that Jews played in the vanilla trade.

1770: Marcus Herz, the German Jewish physician and philosopher traveled Berlin to Königsberg so he could as respondent when Emmanuel Kant presented his inaugural dissertation at the University of Königsberg

1775: Daher el-Omar who ruled the Galilee as an autonomous region during the days of the Ottoman Empire passed away today.

1811: Birthdate of Joseph Derenbourg, or Joseph Naftali Derenburg, Franco-German author, historian and a prime mover in the rehabilitation of Jewish education in France

1811: Barnet Joseph married Elizabeth Emanuel at the Great Synagogue today.

1811: In London, Abigail Montefiore and Benjamin Gompertz gave birth to Justina Lydia Gompertz, the wife of Jacob Montefiore.

1820(11thof Elul, 5580): Haim Farhi who known as the Hakham Haim, a prominent Palestinian Jewish leader in the days of the Ottoman Empire passed away.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haim_Farhi

http://www.farhi.org/Documents/HaimFarhi_1.htm

1822: In Badan, marriage of Marx and Henriette Oppenheimer.

1823: Birthdate of “Rosa Hanne.”

1829: Birthdate of Otto Moritz David Goldschmidt “a German composer, conductor and pianist, known for his piano concertos and other piano pieces” who “married the ‘Swedish Nightingale’, soprano Jenny Lind.” He passed away in 1907.

1835: Parliament passes the Sheriff’s Declaration Bill which allowed Jews to hold the ancient and important office of Sheriff. Passage of this bill was an intermediate step in Parliamentary efforts to pass the so-called Jew Bill.

1837: In Wollstein, Dr. Marcus Mosse, the son of Salomon Moses and Henriette (Jette) Marcus Levin and Ulrike Mosse gave birth to Salomon Mosse

1837: “Mr. Hart Lyon presented a Sefer Torah to the Kaal today.

http://web.nli.org.il/sites/NLI/English/library/events/EventsCalendar/Pages/docutext-04.aspx

1839(11thof Elul, 5599): Sixty-year old to Zalegman Phillips the son of Jonas Phillips and Rebecca Machada, a successful lawyer and husband of Arabella Solomon whom he married when she was nineteen years old passed away today.

1840: Persecution of the Jews of Damascus brought together Congregation B'nai Jesheran in New York City to declare: "Resolved, that we do most emphatically and solemnly deny, as well in our own name as in that of the whole Jewish people, that murder was ever committed by the Jews of Damascus, or those of any other part of the world for the purpose of using the blood or any part of a human being in the ceremonies of our religion."   U.S. President Van Buren instructed his officer at Constantinople to help the persecuted Jew of Damascus

1841(4thof Elul, 5601): Parashat Shoftim

1850: David Cohen married Julia Nathan at the New Synagogue today.

1850: John and Adelaide wed today at the West London Synagogue.

1852:  Birthdate of British historian Arnold Toynbee.  Toynbee was baffled by the continued existence of the Jewish people whom he described as a fossil of history.  Not only was he baffled by the Jews continued existence, he did not approve of it either.

1852(6th of Elul, 5612): Marchand Ennery passed away.  Born at Nancy in 1792 he studied Talmud under Baruch Guggenheim and at the rabbinical school of Herz Scheuer, in Mainz. He went to Paris, became teacher in the family of a wealthy coreligionist, and in 1819 was appointed director of the new Jewish school at Nancy. At this time he published his Hebrew-French lexicon, the first of its kind to appear in France. In 1829 he became chief rabbi of Paris; in 1846 chief rabbi of the Central Consistory; in 1850 chevalier of the Legion of Honor. He was succeeded as chief rabbi by Salomon Ulmann.

1852: “Bohemia: A Visit to Prague” published today included a description of the current conditions and history of the Jews living in this ancient central European City.

1859: In “Rose Law Cottage Kennington Oval,” Rebecca Crawcour and Aron Hart gave birth to Bernard Hart.

1859: Birthdate of Westmorland Davis who in 1919, while serving as Governor of Virginia “designated October 14 through October 24 as the days for the Jewish relief campaign and urged “citizens, irrespective of race or creed, to contribute liberally” to the Jewish relief campaign – a move that surely was not motivated by the “large number of Jewish voters in the Old Dominion.

1860: The “Hebrew Son” is scheduled to be performed tonight at the New Bowery Theatre in New York City.

1861: According to a report placed on board the steamer Saladin which is sailing from Kingston, Jamaica tonight for New York City, Commercial matters seem to become worse every day. Fresh failures are announced before people have time to recover the shock occasioned by previous ones. The greatest of all has been that of Mr. Lucas, a prince among the Jews, whose books, it is said, show a very unpleasant state of things for his creditors, and whose self is now non est inventus. There will, doubtless, be very great depression for a time in the trade of the country; but a conviction is felt that a crisis like the present was necessary to correct the fictitious and corrupt business that was for some time done here by a certain class of merchants, and that when the country has passed over the trials of the present ordeal, there will be a healthy state of things, and the prosperity indicated by our agriculture will be permanent and lasting.

1862: Philadelphian Samuel B. Salsburg began serving a three year hitch with Company C of the 138th Regiment during which he was wounded during fighting at Monocacy, MD.

1863: In describing his uneventful trip down the Mississippi River from St. Louis to New Orleans, the New York Times correspondent offers as proof the peaceful conditions that "This circumstance is shown by the crowds of civilians -- Jews and others -- who may be seen besieging the authorities at every point from Cairo to the Gulf, asking only the permission to bring in clothing, drugs, staples, to buy cotton, or, in short, do anything whereby they can realize quick sales and a thousand per cent profits. There are many long faces and much cursing, but all uselessly, for Gen. Grant will, so long as he can influence the matter, refuse to open trade at any point in his Department."

1864(19th of Av, 5624): Isaac J. Levy (CSA) was killed in the trenches at Petersburg, He was 21 years old. Isaac is buried in the Hebrew Cemetery on Shockoe Hill in Richmond, in the Levy family plot.

1864: “Turkey: The Missionary Difficulty at Constantinople” published today recounts the failure of the European missionaries to convert the locals. Citing information supplied by the Times of London correspondent in the Turkish capital the article reports that the efforts of missionaries - both English and American -"The influence of these preachings among the Jews and Greeks, with the exception of isolated cases, some of which do not bear much examination as regards the conviction and good faith of the proselytes, has been comparatively a failure."

1865: As evidence of how the Jew’s Hospital is now serving the general population, a maid named Ellen Murray was rushed to the hospital for treatment after she was burned when trying to start a fire in a stove.  Unfortunately, “she suffered mortal injuries” and died at the hospital. The hospital, which would be re-named Mt. Sinai, came into general use during the Civil War when it was used to treat the Union soldiers wounded during McClellan’s ill-fated Peninsula Campaign in 1862.

1866: In New York City, Esther Hellman Wallenstein and Solomon Wallenstein gave birth to Jennie Wallenstein Kohstamm, the oldest of their four children.

1866: In New York City, Solomon and Jael Belais gave birth to David Belais

1867: At the residence of the bride's parents, John Hart of 7 St Paul's Rd., Canonbury, son of Isaac Hart, married Maria Hannah, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Moses Angel of 1 King St., Finsbury. Moses Angel was the headmaster of the Jews Free School (JFS)

1868(5thof Tishrei, 5629): Sixty-two year old Louis Loew Leopold Affelder, the Bavarian born son of Samuel Lazarus Affelder and Nanni Nanette Affelder and the husband of Regine Rosalie Affelder passed away today in Furth.

1870: One day after he had passed away, three month old Frederick Louis Makower, the son of Moritz Makower and the former Jessie Isaac was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

1870: It was reported today that of the 31 chaplains serving with the Army of the Rhine, 3 of them are Jews.

1871: It was reported today that Rabbi Elkan Herzman has been fired from his position at an Orthodox synagogue in Chicago for eating ice cream on the Jewish fast day of Tish’a B’Av. According to the report first published in the Jewish Times, the issue was not so much one of violating the law about the fast as one of hypocrisy.

1871: It was reported today that of the 21 chaplains serving in the Army of the Rhine, 3 of them are Jews.

1873: The Grand lodge of the Kesher She Barzel reopened this morning at Pythagoras Hall under the leadership of Grand Saar Rosenthal. 

http://forward.com/articles/7288/man-of-the-book-reading-a-life-of-salman-schocken/

1874: It was reported today that Sol Mortiz, a prominent Jewish merchant from Indianapolis, Indiana has denied all the charges that he had an improper relationship with the 18 year old daughter and wife of George C. Harding.  Harding and Mortiz were friends but this did not keep the enraged newspaper proprietor from shooting the merchant several times. Moritz said he will prove his innocence once he has recovered from his wounds.

1875: Birthdate of Karl Neubauer, the Czech born son of Adolf and Klara Neubauer and Helene Neubauer, who died at Treblinka some time “after October 1942.”

1878: The London World published a commentary about the Earl of Beaconsfield’s (Benjamin Disraeli) religious beliefs and his plans for his burial.  According to a Jewish source, Beaconsfield will pull of the greatest surprise of his life by having himself buried beside his father at the “graveyard of the Jews at Mile-end.”  After all he had been baptized by trickery and “no Jew is ever sincere in renouncing” his religion. The correspondent for the World takes the opposite view and is sure that he will be “true to the religion of his knighthood” and will be content to be buried beside his wife instead of beside his father.

1878: In Washington, DC, Simon Wolf served as chairman of a meeting attended by Jews who had gathered to raise money for southerners suffering from the current Yellow Fever Epidemic.  The meeting was poorly attended because of a lack of notice so only $180 was raised.

1879: Justice Flammer sent  5 year old Liba and 2 year old Louis Wildever to a Jewish charitable institution after they were discovered along with their mother Sarah starving in a room on Franklin Street.  According to Mrs. Wildever, an immigrant from Russia, the children’s father (and her husband) and had deserted them.

1879: An assignment for the benefit of creditors by Nathan Mayer, to Isaac D. Einstein, with $16,110 preferences was filed in the County Clerk’s office today

1881: It was reported today that the Young Men’s Hebrew Union is planning to sponsor a concert in New York’s Washington Park.

1882: It was reported today that Florence Templeton, the daughter of the banker John Templeton is engaged to marry Jack Springfield the adopted son of an Anglo-Jewish financier.

1883:

1884(30thof Av, 5644): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1884: Alexander Labotsky, a Polish Jew was arrested today after his Frieda had charged him with abandonment.

1884: It was reported today that Annie Lifcawitz, a young girl living in an apartment above the store owned by Solomon Ellinsohn was the first one to discover the fire that local ruffians had started.  Ellinsohn had complained to the police about these young ruffians terrifying people living on the Lower East Side, but the authorities had taken no action.

1885: Dr. Cyrus Edson, Chief of the Second Sanitary division made another raid on the Jewish owned truck stores on the Lower East Side.  Edson and his staff seized “a half ton of bad fish and some unwholesome meat” along with seven boxes of fruits and vegetables.

1887(1stof Elul, 5647): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1887: Birthdate of Levie Van Praag, the native of Zaandam, Holland and husband of Sabiena Cohen both of whom were murdered at Sobibor.

1887: Three days after she had passed away, 78 year old Miriam Spyer, the widow of Lawrence Spyer with whom she had three children – Rachel, Frederick and Nathaniel – was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

1887: Abraham Trombitsky’s right leg was fractured during a melee that resulted when Patrolman John Etterick moved to disperse a crowd of Polish and Russian Jews at the corner of Hester and Ludlow Streets.

1887: Three year old Ella Hortense Alberga, the daughter of Eugene Alberga and the former Celia Morrice was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

1887: “The Treaty of Berlin” published today described the multiple violations of this agreement including the persistent persecution of the 400,000 Jews of Romania “with the connivance of the Romanian Government”

1887: “Old World News By Cable” published today described a letter from George Blyth, the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem in which he reports that the Jewish population in Palestine has grown from 15,000 to 42,000 in the past few years and “that they are very friendly to him and his church.”

1887(1stof Elul, 5647): In London, Israel Lipski was hanged at Newgate Prison after having been convicted of murdering Miriam Angel.

http://www.whitechapelsociety.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=157:israel-lipski-the-verdict-&catid=1:latest&Itemid=35

1888: Congressman Ford’s Immigration Committee completed its hearings in New York and made plans to move on to Boston.  The thrust of the hearings is that immigrants, especially Jews from Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe, are responsible for depressing wages for American workers.

1888: Henry Russell married Hannah de Lara at Paddington, London.

1888: Funeral services will be held at one o’clock this afternoon for Marks Laski, a prominent Jewish merchant who had passed away unexpectedly with internment in Cypress Hill Cemetery. The 52 year old Laski arrived in New York from Poland in 1850 and entered into the wholesale dry goods business where he enjoyed enough success to become a prominent philanthropist.

1889(24th of Av, 5649): A man thought to be Adolph Cohn a resident of the Hebrew Home for the Aged in New York City appeared to have jumped overboard as the Hoboken ferryboat Hopatcong was pulling into the slip at Christopher Street.  The identification is based on papers and memos that the man placed on the cabin floor just before jumping.

1889: The 9th free excursion sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children is scheduled to leave this morning at 9 o’clock.

1889: Birthdate of Russian native Jacob J. Heller, “a vice president of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and author of two volumes of poetry – My Union, My Life and Moments of Meditation who was the husband of Rose Heller and father of Mrs. Gertrude Adler.

1890(5th of Elul, 5650): Albert (Aaron) Siegfried Bettelheim, Hungarian born American Rabbi died at sea while returning to the United States from a visit to Europe.  Born in 1830, he led a rather colorful life before coming to the United States in 1867 where he had pulpits in Philadelphia, Richmond, San Francisco and finally in Baltimore, MD.  While in Richmond, he studied medicine but accepted a position in San Francisco rather pursue a medical career.  According to one source he was buried at sea under the supervision of two Catholic priests that Bettelheim had met on the voyage.  The clerics reportedly recited the Kaddish as the body was consigned to the depths. (As reported by Isidore Singer, et al)



1891: The United States Commissioner of Immigration Owens visited the SS Slavonia at Lower Canton outside of Baltimore and examined the baggage and tickets of the fifty-one Jews detained by order of Inspector Davis. He decided that twelve of them could land because they had tickets to other parts of the United States and “a few dollars” (which meant they would not become public charges).

1891: At the Barge Office, the Acting Superintendent of Immigration refused to honor the bond that Coroner Levy had come to post for ten Russian Jews who had been detained because it was believed “that they were liable to become public charges.”

1892: The first train belonging to the Jaffa-Jerusalem Railway reached Jerusalem today.

1892: “The Old Dutch Farmhouse” described the fate of agriculture in Holland including that “enterprising Jews” have bought up the “heirlooms of the old “agricultural” families.

1892: “Agriculture in Russia” published today reported that in Russia, “the Jews are blamed for avoiding agriculture and not wishing to live by the sweat of their brow;” but they are not allowed to settle outside of the Pale where there is arable land. 

1893: “Literary Notes” published today described plans for the upcoming publication of The Settlement of the Jews in North America by Judge Charles P. Daly which will soon appear in Hebrew.

1893: The Park Department has issued a permit allowing mass meeting of unemployed Jews to be held tonight in Union Square

1893: “Light On Bible Records” published today provides a detailed review of The Sacred Books of the Old Testament including a Hebrew text and English translation edited by Paul Haput, a Professor at Johns Hopkins University.

1893: Following last night’s meeting of the United Hebrew Trades during which a fight broke out between socialists and anarchists a saloon keeper at 162 Broadway in New York sent out circulars offering free food to unemployed workers.

1893: Joseph Peel was held by authorities today while the veterinarian examined two dead horses owned by his former business partners, Feinberg and Cooper, to determine if they had been poisoned.  The three had been partners in Feinberg, Cooper & Peel, a vegetable peddling firm.  The two Orthodox Jews claimed that Peel threatened to poison the horses after they ended their relationship with him; a relationship that had begun when the two men let Peel join them even though he lacked any capital.

1893: According to the New York Times the custom of throwing a slipper at wedding stems from a custom “ancient Jews had of handing over a shoe to complete a bargain” as demonstrated in the Book of Ruth.

1894(19thof Av, 5654): Twenty-three year old Julius Marcus “a handsome and romantic young” Jews shot 17 year old Juliette Fournier, a French Protestant, through the heart and “then put a bullet in his temple.”

1895: A list of bequests of the late Joseph Lewis published today included $100 for each of the following: Mount Sinai Hospital, Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids, Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society, Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews and the United Hebrew Charities. 

1896: “Successful Festival of District Grand Lodge No. 1 of Free Sons of Israel” published today described the successful fundraiser which raised several thousand dollars “to enlarge the fund of the order devoted to sick and distressed members.”

1897: “In an article on an old Jewish Treasure House” that appeared in today’s issue of The Time’s Saturday Review, “an account was given of what might have been considered a charnel house of decayed literature.” In fact it was a description of the Geniza “of the old synagogue in Cairo.

1897: “The Trouble At Jerusalem” published today described a dispute in that city over the distribution of funds from America.  The amount in question is approximately $500 which Rabbi Salant can given to “worthy poor Jews” regardless of their nationality.  The problem comes from the fact that American Jews living in Jerusalem incorrectly think that the money should be used to help them since it comes from the United States.

1897: Birthdate of Berdichev native Albert Milton Mallin, who came to the United States in 1908 where he earned a bachelor’s degree at CCNY before going on to do post-graduate work at Columbia and teach in the New York City public schools.

1899: Rehearsals of “The Children of the Ghetto” by Israel Zangwill will begin today in New York.

1899” “For A Hebrew Sanitarium” published today described the successful package arranged by the guests of the Cedars that included a “surprise auction” which raised funds for the Hebrew Sanitarium of Rockaway, NY.



1899: A summary of the report showing the July activity of the United Hebrew Charities published today showed 1,623 applications for aid had been received which affected the lives of 5,410 people. The society received donations of $8,640.55 but spend $11,085.58 in providing aid and assistance.

1901(5thof Elul, 5661): Fanny Brooks, the wife of Julius Gerson Brooks and the mother of George, Eveline, Edgar and Milton Brooks passed away today in Salt Lake City after which she was buried
“Bnai Israel Cemetery.”


https://jwa.org/thisweek/aug/21/1901/this-week-in-history-death-of-pioneer-fanny-brooks

http://www.jmaw.org/brooks-jewish-slc-utah/

1903: Herzl reported on the Uganda offer and the Russian journey to the Greater Actions Committee at Basle

1905(20th of Av, 5665): French-German Assyriologist Julius Oppert passed away. Born in 1825 at Hamburg, he studied at Heidelberg, Bonn and Berlin, before graduating at Kiel in 1847. In 1848, Oppert went to France, where he was teacher of German at Laval and at Reims. In his spare time he continued his Oriental studies which he had begun while living in German. In 1851, he joined the French archaeological mission to Mesopotamia and Media under Fulgence Fresnel. On his return in 1854, he was naturalized as a French citizen in recognition of his services. He occupied himself with analyzing the results of the expedition, with special attention to the cuneiform inscriptions he had collected. During 1855, he published Écriture Anarienne, advancing the theory that the language spoken originally in Assyria was Turanian (related to Turkish and Mongolian), rather than Aryan or Semitic in origin, and that its speakers had invented the cuneiform writing system. Although the classification of the "Casdo-Scythian" inscriptions as Turanian would later be rejected by scholars, research would confirm Oppert in his identification of the distinctness of the Sumerian language (as he renamed it in 1869) and the origin of its script.During 1856 he published Chronologie des Assyriens et des Babyloniens. During 1857, he was appointed professor of Sanskrit and comparative philology in the school of languages connected with the National Library of France, and in this capacity he produced his Grammaire Sanscrite (1859). But his attention was chiefly given to Assyrian and cognate subjects. His account of the Fresnel mission and the results of his consequent study were published as Expédition Scientifique en Mésopotamie (1859-1863), with the second volume entitled Déchiffrement des inscriptions cunéiformes. During 1865 he published a history of Assyria and Chaldaea (Histoire des Empires de Chaldée et d'Assyrie) in the context of new archaeological findings. His Assyrian grammar, Éléments de la grammaire assyrienne, was published in 1868. During 1869 Oppert was appointed professor of Assyrian philology and archaeology at the College de France. During 1876, Oppert began to focus on the antiquities of ancient Media and its language, writing Le Peuple et la langue des Médes (1879). During 1881, he was admitted to the Academy of Inscriptions and in 1890, he was elected to its presidency.

1906(30thof Av, 5666): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1906:  Birthdate of Kansas City native Fritz Frelang one of the great cartoon animators who worked at Warner Brothers for over thirty years and was the man behind such icons as Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and Yosemite Sam to name but a few and was also the husband of Lily Freleng

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-friz-freleng-1621602.html

https://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/28/obituaries/isadore-friz-freleng-dies-creator-of-cartoons-was-89.html

1911: Following the outbreak of anti-Semitic riots in New South Wales, the British Home Secretary assured local Jewish leaders that no precautions would be overlooked by the civil and military authorities to prevent a recurrence of such outbreaks.

1911: Dedication of Temple Ahavath Israel in Trenton, NJ.

1911: The invitations for the wedding of John Nathan Levine of Waterville, Maine, a former Yale football player “were received” in New York City today.

1913: Closing arguments in the Leo Frank case began today.

1914: In Vienna Dora Angel and her first husband Otto Soyka gave birth to Hedwig Soyka

1915: Birthdate of Sir Joshua Abraham Hassan, the first mayor and chief minister of Gibraltar.

1915: According to a report received in London from Petrograd, “owing to the occupation by the Germans of a great part of the pale of Jewish settlements and the inclusion of the remainder in the sphere of military operations, the condition of the Jews is critical.”

1916: The Jewish Academicians of America whose members included Bernard Drachman, David I. Macht, Georges Bacarat, J.D. Eisenstein and Meyer Waxman was organized today in New York City.

1917: After winning his two professional bouts featherweight Danny Frush lost for the first time today.

1917: It was reported today that the “Committee of Dutch Jews that has been formed in Amsterdam under the Chairmanship of Frederick Solomon Van Nierop, President of the Amsterdamsche Bank in Amsterdam” will work with Dr. Boris Bogen and Max Senior, American representatives the Joint Distribution Committee to distribute funds “transmitted from America for the relief of Jews in the warring countries. (Editor Note – the Netherlands was neutral in WW I which made them a good conduit for sending money to European Jews from the United States now that the U.S. was a belligerent)

1917: Birthdate of Leonid "Leo" Hurwicz the Polish born American economist and mathematician who won the Nobel Prize at the age of 90 – making him the oldest person to do this.

1918: The Second Battle of the Somme, the offensive that would lead to the end of WW I and in which Sir John Monash played a leading role began today.

1918: It was reported today the Secretary of Navy has issued a general order granting furloughs to Jewish sailors so that they can observe the high holy days which fall on September 7, 8, 14 and 15 which “a similar order has been issued by the War Department granting furloughs to Jewish soldiers in this country, in the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Panama and when possible on the Western Front.

1919: Today, The Committee on Public Information for which Walter Wanger made short propaganda films designed “to combat anti-war or pro-German sentiment in Allied Italy” and for which Edward Bernays served of its Latin News Service “was formally disestablished by an act of Congress”

1920(7thof Elul, 5680): Parashat Shofteim

1921: Birthdate of Reuven Feuerstein the Romanian born Israeli clinical, developmental, cognitive psychologist who is renowned for his theory of intelligence which states “it is not ‘fixed’, but rather modifiable”.

http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Professor-Reuven-Feuerstein-A-personal-remembrance-from-a-very-grateful-mother-350876

1921: Birthdate of Ruth Charlotte Barcan Marcus, “a philosopher esteemed for her advances in logic, a traditionally male-dominated subset of a traditionally male-dominated field…” (As reported by Margalit Fox)

1921: A Sephardic organization which was to include all Sephardic Jews from around the world was founded in Madrid. It planned to defend Jewish interests everywhere.  

1922: “Luise Millerin” a “silent historical film” featuring Fritz Kortner (born Fritz Nathan Kohn) and Reinhold Schunzel was released today in Germany.

1922: An appeal signed by Samuel Gompers, President, and eight Vice Presidents of the American Federation of Labor was issued today to organized labor, urging the fullest moral and financial support of the railroad shopmen now on strike.

1924: Birthdate of County Cork native David Marcus, “the Irish Jewish Editor” and husband of Ita Daly who described their life in I’ll Drop You a Line: A Life With David Marcus.1925:Tumultuous scenes occurred at the Zionist Congress when Vladimir Jabotinsky, founder of the Jewish Legion, which fought together with the British Army in Palestine during the war, took the floor. When the majority gave Jabotinsky permission to continue his speech after his time limit had expired, the Labor groups renewed their protest.”

1926: In Gelsenkirchen, Germany, Dawid Buschell and Miriam-Manya Zuckermann gave birth to Ben-Zion Büschel who has family moved to Palestine in 1933 where he gained fame as Israeli composer Ben-Zion Orgad

1928: Twenty-five year old banker Herman F. Hahn, the Chicago born son of “Harry W. and Daisy (Kohn) Hahn” married Louise Getz with whom he had four children – Mary, Peter, John and Ann Hahn.

1928: “The Big Pond” the first play to be produced by Edwin H. Knopf” with a cast that included Kenneth MacKenna was scheduled to open at the Bijou Theatre today.

1928: Two days after they had passed away, Fanny (Jacobs) Michaels and her husband Max Michaels were buried at the Wilesden Jewish Cemetery.

1929: “A funeral cortège, taking the form of a public demonstration for the dead Jewish boy, wound its way through the old city, with the police blocking attempts to break into the Arab quarters.”

1932: Birthdate of Menashe Kadishman, the native of Tel Aviv who became a renowned, award winning sculptor and painter.

http://new.menashekadishman.com/

http://www.timesofisrael.com/famed-israeli-artist-menashe-kadishman-dies-aged-82/

1933:Dr. Nahum Sokolow, president of the World Zionist Organization, asserted in opening the eighteenth world Zionist congress in Prague tonight that as a result of the persecutions in Germany the Jewish question must be brought before the international forum and fugitives must find a refuge in Palestine.

1935: Speaking in Lucerne, Switzerland, David Ben-Gurion, Palestine labor leader, accused the British Government today of having committed "robbery" by artificially cutting the immigration quota of Jews seeking to enter Palestine.

1935: The “swing era” of the Big Band Sound starts when Jewish Jazz clarinet player performs at the Palomar Theatre in Los Angeles.

1936: “Sing, Baby, Sing” a musical staring Gregory Ratoff, Tony Martin and the Ritz Brothers was distributed today in the United States by 20th Century Fox.

1936: “Synagogues and Jewish Temples in St. Paul announced special prayers would be said tonight” for the recovery of Governor Floyd B. Olson who has been hospitalized at Mayo Clinic.

1936: It was reported today that “the whole story of the sudden death of Captain Wolfgang Fuerstner has come to light and that contrary to the original reports he had actually committed suicide in his home “after he had been informed of his dismissal from active military service because he had Jewish Blood.”

1936: Tel Aviv Mayor Meier Dizengoff charged the British government with “playing a ‘diabolical game’ in handling its mandate over Palestine.  He told the British High Commissioner for Palestine that evidence showed the (British) administration was blocking the Jewish National Home.”  He was especially critical of the government’s behavior during the latest wave of Arab violence which has “introduced demoralization, anarchy and lawlessness into the country…”

1936: Thirty-nine year old Louis Billig a native of London, “a noted Islamic scholar and lecturer in Arabic was found shot to death at his home where authorities believe he was murdered “by terrorists as he sat as his study table.”

1936(3rd of Elul, 5696): Arab gunmen attacked a car filled with five Jews traveling towards Tel Aviv.  Seventeen year old Shoshana Laznicki was wound in the attack and three other Jews were killed by the Arabs.

1937: The Toronto Daily Star reported that Lou Herman will be appearing on a new program, the “Jewish Variety Hour” along with his three sisters who perform as a trio.

1937: The General Zionist Council Executive meeting in Zurich composed of both Zionist and non-Zionist members authorized the Jewish Agency's Executive to seek the establishment of a Jewish state and to try to arrange a Jewish-Arab conference to discuss the matter.

1937(14th of Elul, 5697): Sixty-six year old Élie Halévy the French historian who was part of a distinguished Franco-Jewish family passed away today.

1937: A watchtower was built at Sha’ar Ha-Golan today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shlomo_Gur#/media/File:Sha%27ar_Ha_Golan_003.jpg

1937: The Hon. Cyril Asquith, in a letter to The Times of London wrote that the pledges given to Jews by the British government explicitly promised to establish a Jewish state in the whole of Palestine. He explained that after the separation of Transjordan, the offer made to Jews under the Royal (Peel) Commission Report granted them less than 10 percent of the country's territory.

1938: Italy banned Jews from teaching in public and high-schools.

1938: Thirty Jewish refugees from Austria arrived in Shanghai today, amidst reports that untold numbers more were on their way which would swell the Chinese city’s growing refugee population that include a large number of Jews from “Greater Gerrmany.”

1939: As Stalin maneuvers between the Germans on the one hand and the Poles, Brits and French, he ended talks with the latter about military cooperation and secretly agreed to the German’s “proposed non-aggression pact that would place half of Poland (east of the Vistula river), Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and Bessarabia in the Soviets' sphere of influence.” (The War and the Shoah were almost upon us.)

1939: When the World Zionist Congress reconvened its plenary session this morning Joshua Suprasky, leader of Group B of the General Zionists, one of the minority parties, announced that his party had decided to abstain from further participation

1940: Aaron Jean-Marie Lustiger, the son of Ashkenazi Jews who would become Archbishop of Paris was baptized today.

1940: Junior Hadassah, the Young Women's Zionist Organization of America will award gold keys to forty-one members at the seventeenth annual convention which begins this evening in Chicago

1940(17th of Av, 5700): Leon Trotsky dies as a result of wounds suffered on August 20that the hands of an assassin working for Stalin. Born Lev Davidovich Bronstein in 1879, Trotsky was the son of a Jewish farmer from Odessa (Russia). Believing there was no future for the Jewish people as a people, he became a contemporary of Lenin's, helping him with his publication of Iskra (Spark). He was exiled and arrested many times before the revolution. Trotsky played an important role in the Communist government and only after Lenin's death did Stalin expel him from the party. He was exiled in 1928 first to Turkey, then Norway, and finally Mexico. Trotsky’s Jewish origins helped buttress the claims of anti-Semites that Communism was part of Jewish conspiracy.  At the same time, Trotsky Jewish origins were used by Stalin to demonize his opponents in the Soviet Union.

1940: Those being held at Gurs because they were sympathetic to the Nazis were released today, the same day on which the German inspection team arrived at what would become a French concentration camp for Jews.

1940: Étienne Szabo, an officer with the Free French married Violee(Bushnell) Szabo, an agent with SOE who would eventually be murdered at Ravnsbruck, a fate met by many non-Jewish as well as Jewish women.

1941: In Brooklyn, Abraham Block, a certified public accountant, and Ruth Block, a paralegal, gave birth to economist Walter Edward Block who holds a Ph.D. from Columbia and “is best known for his 1976 book Defending the Undefendable.”

https://mises.org/library/defending-undefendable

1941:  The authorities send 5,000 Jews to Drancy, the detention camp outside Paris.  This will be their last stop as the move to “the East” for “Re-settlement.”

1941: The German Army occupied the Black seaport city of Kherson which had a large Jewish population since the 19th century.

1941: “The Jadovno concentration the “first of 26 concentration camps operation by the Independent State of Croatia in which thousands of Serbs and Jews were imprisoned was closed today and turned over to the Italians.

1941(28th of Av, 5701): The Nazis murdered 3500 Jews from Minsk Mazowiecki, Poland, at Treblinka.

1941(28thof Av, 5701): Sixty-three year old Hadassah leader and Zionist Bella Pewsner leader passed away today.

http://www.jta.org/1941/08/22/archive/bella-pewsner-noted-zionist-dies-after-accident

1941: “Sun Valley Serenade” a musical produced by Milton Sperling and starring Milton Berle

1942(8th of Elul, 5702): The Jewish community at Ozorków, Poland, is destroyed.

1942: At Siedlce, Poland, “400 Ukrainians, joined by the Polish police and SS troops, surrounded the ghetto” as they prepared to ship the Jews to Treblinka and/or slaughter the rest of them. (Yad Vashem)

1942: Etty Hillesum returned to Westerbork.

1943: While serving in the U.S Army, Ed Koch, the future Mayor of New York, snapped after being taunted with the anti-Semitic epithet ‘Yiddy’ by a fellow soldier named LaRue. He challenged the bigot to a fight, which went down in full view of the entire company. According to Koch, “(The lieutenant) wanted to stop the fight but I wouldn’t let him. Even though I took the beating, I’m glad I fought.” (As reported by Forwardstaff)

1943: “The Seventh Victim” a horror film directed by Mark Robson and produced by Val Lewton was released in the United States by RKO.

1943: “Someone to Remember,” directed by Robert Siodmak and with music by Walter Schart was released today in the United States.

1944: “Song of Norway” a musical with a book co-authored by Milton Lazarus and featuring a performance by Siegfried “Sig” Arno opened today at the Imperial Theatre in New York where it ran for 860 performances.

1944: Rudolf Kastner “travelled from Budapest under German escort to the Swiss frontier and acted as intermediary for the first conversation between Kurt Becher and Saly Mayer, Swiss representative of the Joint D.C to discuss the price of abandoning the gassing.

http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/nazioccupation/kastner.html

1944: Photo-journalist Julia Pirotte participated in the Marseille Uprising which began today.

http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/1134/features/faces-and-hands/

1944(2nd of Elul, 5704): Sarah Vasen, first Jewish woman doctor in L.A. and first superintendent and resident physician of Kaspare Cohn Hospital (later Cedars-Sinai Hospital) passed away.

http://home.earthlink.net/~nholdeneditor/Sarah%20Vasen.htm

1944(2ndof Elul, 5704): Private Irwin Handled “perished” today “when U.S. Army Air Corps YB-29 Superfortress #41-36966 flew into ground 25 miles northeast of Alamagordo Army Airfield, New Mexico, on a training flight during

World War II.

1945: At the urging of Lt. Colonel Judah Nadich, the rabbi serving as senior Jewish chaplain in Europe, General Eisenhower issued an order reversing the policy that would have required Jewish displaced persons to return to their native countries. 

1946: The cornerstone for Beit Berl, which has named after Berl Katznelson, was laid today.

1948: Mitchell “Mike” Flint, a WW II naval combat pilot who had volunteered to fly with the IAF  transferred out of squadron 101 to a dive bombing squadron where he would be the most experienced pilot in this form of aerial combat.

1949: Gertrude Samuels describes the story of one group of participants in the seventh aliyah to Israel who are traveling from Munich, the home of Nazism, to Haifa. Of all the aliyot -- waves of immigration to Palestine -- the present is the most dramatic and, in terms of numbers and ultimate goals, perhaps the most important. To the desperate and the idealistic streaming in the new State of Israel is a miracle born of years of longing

1950: “My Daughter Joy” a film version of a novel by Irène Némirovsky, produced and directed by Gregory Ratoff and starring Edward G. Robinson was released today in the United Kingdom.

1959(17th of Av, 5719): Eighty-one year old Publisher and businessman Salman Schocken passed away. 

http://forward.com/articles/7288/man-of-the-book-reading-a-life-of-salman-schocken/

1959(17thof Av, 5719): Seventy-eight year old Sir Jacob Epstein, the American born British sculptor passed away.

http://www.academia.edu/732537/Carving_a_Legacy_The_Identity_of_Jacob_Epstein_1880-1959_

1959: President Eisenhower signs an executive order proclaiming Hawaii the 50th state of the union. Today Hawaii has a Jewish population of 10,000 out of a total population of about 1.2 million people.  In 2002, Linda Lingle, 49, won the Hawaii governor's race.  Lingle was the first Republican to win the job in forty years and she was the first Jewish governor of the state. “Lingle says her Jewish heritage has aided her political career in Hawaii because it has given her a better understanding of diversity, helping her connect with citizens of different religious and ethnic backgrounds. Lingle is a member of a Jewish congregation on the island of Maui and attends Lubavitch services in Honolulu on the island of Oahu. There also are a Reform synagogue and a Conservative synagogue in Honolulu.”

1960(28th of Av, 5720): Seventy-four year old CCNY and Columbia educated award winning structural engineer David Barnard Steinman, the husband of Irene Hoffman and New York born son of “Louis Kelvin and Eva (Scollard) Steinman” passed away today.

https://www.asce.org/templates/person-bio-detail.aspx?id=11213

https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/0,4616,7-151-9623_11154-126386--,00.html.

1961: In what may have been some sort of record two Jewish hurlers, Sandy Koufax and Larry Sherry, pitch their team to defeat as the Griants beat “the Bums.”

1964: In New York, Rabbi Seymour Fox who would become a professor of Jewish education at Hebrew University and Sara Kaminker-Fox who would become head of the Jerusalem City Council gave birth to Israeli director Eytan Fox who made Aliyah at the tender age of two.

1969: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today for Rabbi Simon Federbush, the former chief rabbi of Finland.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/08/21/89023110.pdf

1969, Michael Dennis Rohan, a tourist from Australia and a member of the "Church of God," a Protestant sect, set fire to the mosque on the Temple Mount in an attempt to hasten the coming of the Messiah. He was judged insane and deported by Israel.

1971(30th of Av, 5731): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1971(30thof Av, 5731): Sixty-seven year old St. John’s University trained attorney Milton J. Goell, the holder of a BA from Harvard and Ph.D. from Yeshiva University and son Jacob Goel and Mary Samowitz who raised two children – James and Martha – with his wife Amy passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/08/23/archives/milton-j-goell.html

1973: In Moscow, evgenia and Mikhail Brin, both graduates of Moscow State University (MSU) gave birth to Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google.

1974(3rdof Elul, 5734): Sixty-three year old Dr. Edward R. Schlesinger, who earned his M.D. at Columbia and Masters of Health Degree from Johns Hopkins before going to “head the maternal and child health programs at the University of Pittsburgh and who was the husband of Sylvia Schlesinger and the father of Doctors Stephen Schlesinger and Ann Louise Silver, passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1974/08/22/archives/e-r-schlesinger-63-child-health-expert.html

1974: Today, Abraham Hirschfeld, one of three candidates in the Democratic primary seeking to unseat Senator Jacob Javits in November, “attacked President Ford’s nomination of Nelson A. Rockefeller for the Vice Presidency.”

1977: A small group of young West Bank intellectuals tried to set up a political faction aimed at challenging the Palestine Liberation Organization’s claim of being the sole representatives of the Palestine Arabs in the administered territories. The group vehemently opposed Yasser Arafat and blamed him for plunging Palestine into bloody strife and for the failure to safeguard the Arab people's political interests. (Sounds an awful lot like what some of Arafat’s critics are saying 25 years later.)

1977: In Washington the US State Department announced that the current disagreements on the question of the settlements in the administered areas did not harm the long-standing Israeli-American friendship.

1977: Moshe Dayan met secretly with King Hussein in London marking the first time that any member of the Begin government had direct talks with any Arab leader.

1979(28th of Av, 5739): “Department store executive” David W. Davidson passed away today.

1980(9th of Elul, 5740): Ninety-six year old Walter E. Sachs, who has been a partner in Goldman-Sachs since 1910 and who married actress Katharine Williamson in 1939 passed away today.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=990CE1DF1E3BE732A25750C2A96E9C94619FD6CF

1981: “An American Werewolf in London,” a “horror comedy film” directed by John Landis, with music by Elmer Bernstein was released in the United States by Universal Pictures.

1981: “Honky Tonk Freeway” a comedy directed by John Schlesinger, with music by Elmer Bernstein and co-starring Daniel Stern was released in the United States today by Associated Film Distribution.

1982: Palestinian terrorists are dispersed from Beirut.

1983La Cage aux Folles opened on Broadway at the Palace Theatre today. It could be seen as “Jewish affair” since the book was by Harvey Fierstein, the music and lyrics were by Jerry Herman and the director was Arthur Laurents

1983: Eighty-six year old Sir Francis Edward Evans, the Belfast native who served as the United Kingdom’s Ambassador to Israel from 1951 to 1954, passed away today.

1987: In Santa Monica, Jody and Taylor Kasch gave birth to actor Cody Kasch the brother of Max Kasch.

1987: “The Big Easy” a crime movie set in New Orleans starring Ellen Barken was released today in the United States by Columbia Pictures.

1988(8th of Elul, 5748): Seventy-eight year old H.G. Adler who survived three different concentration camps, escaped from the Communists and became an award winning author passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/24/obituaries/hans-g-adler-78-survived-nazis.html

1988(8th of Elul, 5748): Eighty-seven year old Lena Shimshak, the wife of Morris J. Clurman and the mother of Bernice and Herman Clurman passed away today after which she was buried in the Montefiore Cemetery in Springfield Gardens, Queens.

1990(30th of Av, 5750): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1991: As violence continued for another day following a traffic accident that had resulted in the death of a seven year old boy, hundreds of marchers led by Al Sharpton gathered at 770 Eastern Parkway--Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters, carrying anti-Semitic signs, attacking police with bricks, bottles and bullets while burning an Israeli flag. Lubavitchers took to the streets in response. Groups of blacks and Jews assailed each other with bottles.

1991: After premiering at Cannes in May, “Barton Fink” directed, produced and written by ty Joel and Ethan Coen and starring Michael Lerner was released today in the United States.

1992: “Lightsleepers” featuring Victor Garber as “Tis Brooke” was released today in the United States by Fine Line Features.

1994(14th of Elul, 5754): Seventy-two year old legal scholar Albert P. Blaustein passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/08/23/obituaries/albert-p-blaustein-a-drafter-of-constitutions-dies-at-72.html

1994(14th of Elul, 5754): German born American sociologist Rose Laub Coser passed away.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0005_0_04652.html

1995(25th of Av, 5755):Five Israelis – 26 year old Rivka Cohen, 56 year old Hannah Naeh, 46 year old Joan Davenney, 35 year old Police Chief Superintendent Noam Eisenman - were killed and at least 100 injured including 38 year old Yona Peter Malina who would die ten years later,  when an Arab bomb ripped apart a bus in a residential neighborhood of Jerusalem.

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/22/world/bus-bombing-kills-five-in-jerusalem-100-are-wounded.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

1996: “Waiting for Guffman” with a screenplay co-authored by Eugene Levy who also co-starred in the comedy along with Bob Balaban premiered today at the Boston Film Festival.

1998(29thof Av, 5758): Ninety year old Wanda Toscanini Horowitz, the daughter of Conductor Arturo Toscanini and the wife of pianist Vladimir Horowitz passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1998/08/22/473278.html?pageNumber=13

1998: “The Blade” a film based on the Marvel comics character created by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan, produced by Avi Arad, written David S. Goyer and co-starring Stephen Dorf whose father was Jewish was released today in the United States.

1999(9th of Elul, 5759): Ninety-one year old Leo Castelli, the son of a Jewish family from Trieste, who became a leading New York art dealer passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/23/arts/leo-castelli-influential-art-dealer-dies-at-91.html

2000: “Remembering Kunianksky, A Loyal Friend” published today provided a tribute to Harry P. Kuniansky, a standout on the University of Georgia Bulldog football team.

http://onlineathens.com/stories/082100/dog_0821000032.shtml#.V7fJS4-cF9B

2001: Hamas claimed responsibility for today’s bombing in downtown Jerusalem during which one person was injured.

2001: Palestinian terrorists exploded at least one bomb in the Russian Compound neighborhood in Jerusalem.

2003: “Because Roy Moore, Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, refused to remove his Ten Commandments monument by the August 20th deadline, the associate Justices of Alabama Supreme Court unanimously overrule Moore and order the monument removed by the building's manager.” (Anybody who remembers Governor Wallace and his ilk know that officials in Alabama have a lot of trouble with the Constitution and obeying the law)

2005: The Sunday edition of the Washington Post featured a review of A History of the Jews in the Modern World by Howard M. Sachar that covers events from the 18thcentury to present times. 

2005: The New York Timesfeatured a review of The Tatoo Artist by Jill Ciment and Redemption: The Life of Henry Roth by Steven G. Kellman.  Roth is best known as the author of Call It Sleep which is now considered a classic in Jewish-American Literature.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/books/review/the-tattoo-artist-an-illustrated-woman.html

2005: Israeli poet Dahlia Ravikovitch was found dead in her apartment. Initial reports speculated the cause of death to be suicide, but the autopsy determined the cause to be sudden heart irregularities.A literary celebrity in Israel, Dahlia Ravikovitch who was born in 1936 is barely known in the United States, and far too small a presence in the English-reading world. Ravikovitch is not only one of the towering figures of 20th-century Israeli poetry, but also one of the strongest female poets in the history of Hebrew verse; she was so present here that she used to make frequent appearances on television, in which she was asked for her views on political or military developments. Long active in the peace movement, she often mixed the contemporary with the ancient and the biblical in her poetic responses to the news. While Ravikovitch is not an easy poet or a simple one, there is an approachability to the best of her work, and also, fortunately, to the best of a new translation entitledHovering at a Low Altitude: The Collected Poetry of Dahlia Ravikovitch; translated by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld. One of her strongest poems “Like Rachel” is quoted below.

Like Rachel

To die like Rachel

when the soul shudders like a

bird,

wants to break free.

Behind the tent, in fear and

dread,

Jacob and Joseph speak of her,

a-tremble.

All the days of her life

turn head over heels inside her

like a baby that wants to be

born.

How grueling. How

Jacob's love ate away at her

with a greedy mouth.

As the soul takes leave now,

she has no use for any of that.

Suddenly the baby screeches,

Jacob comes into the tent -

but Rachel does not even sense

it.

Rapture washes over her face,

her head.

* * *

Then did a great repose descend

upon her.

The breath of her nostrils would

not stir a feather.

They laid her down among

mountain stones

and made her no lament.

To die like Rachel,

that's what I want.

2006 (27 Av, 5766): Yahrzeit of Mathilde Schechter. Schechter “was the United States founder of the US National Women's League of Conservative Judaism in 1918. She was married to Rabbi Dr. Solomon Schechter, a prominent rabbi who was Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary. She founded and taught at the Columbia Religious and Industrial School for Jewish Girls. After assisting Henrietta Szold in creating Hadassah, Schechter later served as its national chairwoman of education. The Mathilde Schchter Residence Hall (MSRH), named for Schechter, contains undergraduate housing for students of the Jewish Theological Seminary's List College.” She passed away in 1924.

2006 (27 Av, 5766): Yizhar Smilansky passed away. Known by his pen name S. Yizhar or Samech Yizhar, he was an Israeli writer and a great innovator in Modern Hebrew literature. His pen name S. Yizhar was given to him by the poet and editor Yitzhak Lamdan, when in 1938 he published Yizhar's first story Ephraim Goes Back to Alfalfa in his literary journal Galleons. From then on, Yizhar signed his works with his pen name.

2006: On the 100th anniversary of the birth of Friz Feleng, Dan Miller remembered the great animator in “Puttin’ On the Friz.”

http://danmiller.typepad.com/dan_millers_notebook/friz-freleng.html

2006: The New York Times reported that Dina Najmin aged 38, a wife; mother of three and an expert in Jewish bioethics will become the spiritual leader of Kehilat Orach Eliezer.  As the Times said, “The appointment is a milestone for advocates of an expanded role for women Orthodox Judaism, but one bursting with the kind of contradictions and tensions that come with trying to reconcile modern egalitarian impulses with fidelity to ancient religious texts that often defy them.” “Kehilat Orach Eliezer is a non-denominational synagogue on Manhattan's Upper West Side
The congregation traces its roots to 1983 when Rabbi Rabbi Louis (Eliezer) Finkelstein, former chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, became unable to leave his home to attend Shabbat and holiday services. At that time, a small group of people dedicated to the mitzvah of bikkur cholim (visiting the ill) and interested in serious prayer began to meet at his apartment. This practice continued for nearly eight years until Rabbi Finkelstein's death in 1991.
At that time, under the guidance of Rabbi David Weiss Halivni, the group decided to continue meeting in a new place of prayer, the Jewish Home and Hospital for Aged on 106th Street, and with a new name, chosen in Rabbi Finkelstein's memory. The minyan has continued to grow throughout the years and in 1998 moved to the American Youth Hostel at 103rd Street and Amsterdam Avenue.”
Rabbi David Weiss Halivni is a scholar of Talmud and a Holocaust survivor, originally of Sighet, Romania, who would have been a contemporary of Elie Weisel.


2006: Starting today, Max, Kellerman did at least two nights of audition shows at 7 PM for WEPN (1050) 1050 ESPN Radio in New York City, hosting one night with Sid Rosenberg

 Rabbi David Weiss Halivni is a scholar of Talmud and a Holocaust survivor, originally of Sighet, Romania. ...2007: The man accused of stalking Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel and dragging the Holocaust scholar out of a hotel elevator earlier this year was ordered to stand trial for hate crimes. A San Francisco Superior Court judge ruled there was enough evidence to try 23-year-old Eric Hunt on six felony charges including attempted battery, stalking, kidnapping, false imprisonment, elder abuse and false imprisonment of an elder. Each charge carries a hate crime allegation.

2007: Fatah’s armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades announced that it would no longer honor understandings reached with Israel and called on its members to carry weapons to defend themselves against the IDF.  The announcement was seen as a challenged to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ efforts to dismantle the Aksa Martyrs Brigades and other Fatah-linked armed groups in the West Bank.  In other words, this more internecine Arab feuding camouflaged as part of the war against the Zionist entit2008: The New York Timesincluded a review Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight Over Presidential Power by

Jonathan Mahler managing editor of The Forward

2008 (20 Av 5768):President Shimon Peres is spending his 85th birthday in southern Israel's Negev desert as part of his crusade to promote growth in the sparsely-populated arid region. Peres is celebrating his birthday based on the Hebrew Calendar, not the secular calendar.  He was born on August 2, 1923 which was 20 Av.

2008:Today the state of Israel informed the High Court of Justice that it will shift the route of the separation barrier in the Judean desert so that 4,000 dunams of the roughly 70,000 dunams that were until now to be located on the "Israeli" side will now be on the West Bank side. At the same time, it made clear that the settlement of Kedar would remain on the "Israeli" side of the barrier in accordance with the original route.

2008: The Beaux Arts Trio with Menahem Pressler on piano performed its final American concert today at Tanglewood.

2009: In Cedar Rapids, Temple Judah hosts a Special Welcoming Friday Night Service for Rabbi Todd Thalblum as he settles in to his new pulpit.

2009: Today The London Beth Din ordered the board of an Orthodox synagogue in Sydney to make a six-figure payout to a prominent rabbi it tried to lay off. The ruling by the rabbinical court ends a bitter dispute between the Mizrachi Synagogue in Bondi and Rabbi Moshe Gutnick, who won an injunction in the New South Wales Supreme Court in March to stop synagogue members from voting on a resolution to lay him off.

2009(1st of Elul, 5769): Rosh Chodesh Elul

2009(1st of Elul, 5769): Edward René David Goldsmith widely known as Teddy Goldsmith, an Anglo-French environmentalist, writer and philosopher passed away. The eldest son of Major Frank Goldsmith, and elder brother of the financier Sir James Goldsmith, Edward Goldsmith was the founding editor and publisher of The Ecologist. Known for his outspoken views opposing industrial society and economic development, he expressed a strong sympathy for the ways and values of traditional peoples.  His father was Jewish.  His mother was not.

2009: “My One and Only” a comedy biopic starring Logan Lerman was released in the United States today.

2009(1st of Elul, 5769): Ninety-three year old Robert Bendheim, “the former president and chairman of he textile company M. Lowenstein Corporation and the president of the Leon Lowenstein Foundation, a charity named for his uncle passed away today after having led a full life that included graduating from Princeton, attending the Harvard Business School and serving as an officer in the U.S. Navy during WW II.

2010: A revival of Ira Levin’s “Deathtrap” opened at the Noel Coward Theatre in London.

2010: Adam Burstain, son of Todd and Jennifer Burstain, was called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, IA.

2010: During today’s national elections in Australia, Joshua Frydenberg, became Australia’s first Jewish lawmaker for the federal Liberal Party.

2011: Beth El Hebrew Congregation in Alexandria, VA, is scheduled to host its Perspective Members Brunch

2011:Israeli and New York-based choreographer Deganit Shemy& Company are scheduled to present a Work-in-Progress Performance of 2 Kilos of Sea at LMCC’s Arts Center at Governors Island.

2011: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Submission by Amy Waldman

2011:Members of Knesset from Israel's leading opposition party, Kadima, urged the cabinet today to launch a military campaign in the Gaza Strip, following the barrage of rockets that struck Israel over the weekend and the deadly terrorist attack that had taken place on August 18.

2011:The escalation in southern Israel continued this morning when six rockets and a barrage of mortars hit near the city of Ashkelon. The Iron Dome system successfully shot down three rockets

2011:Over a thousand people crowded a Kfar Saba cemetery today, to bid farewell to four people gunned down during Thursday’s combined terror attack near Eilat that left eight Israelis dead. Moshe Gez, 53, and Flora Gez, 52, as well as Dov Karlinski, 58, and Shula Karlinski, 54 were on their way to Eilat for a holiday on August 18 when they came under fire from terrorists who had infiltrated Israel from the Sinai Peninsula

2011: Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly was among those who spoke at the funeral of Sally Goodgold, the civic leader who lobbied for affordable housing. (As reported by David Dunlap)

2011: The annual ceremony commemorating “George Washington’s famed letter to the Jews of Touro Synagogue was held today in Newport, RI.

http://forward.com/articles/141627/pressure-grows-to-display-george-washingtons-famed/

2012:Shlomo Bar, Dan Shtag, Sharona Elimelech and the Desert Drummers are scheduled to perform songs by Uzi Hitman, Yoni Rechter, Nurit Hirsh, Miriam Yellin Shteklis, Nahum Vardi and Leah Goldberg in Hazan Hall as part of the Oud Festival.

2012: Fifty-seven year old legal scholar Cass Sunstein completed his three years of service as Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

2012: “Israel is “troubled” by the entry of Egyptian tanks into the northern Sinai Peninsula without coordination with Israel, a violation of the terms of the 33-year-old peace treaty between the two countries, and has asked Egypt to withdraw them, an Israeli government official said today.”

2012:For the first time, criminal charges have been pressed against a German rabbi for performing circumcisions, a Jewish weekly reported today.

2012:More than 600 rabbis displayed their support for US President Barack Obama's reelection bid today joining a campaign initiative called Rabbis for Obama. Obama for America announced today that Rabbis for Obama is designed to “engage and mobilize grassroots supporters.”

2013: A letter, of questionable authenticity  which describes the transportation of 5,000 Jews daily to the Treblinka extermination camp is scheduled to be auctioned off today in London (As reported by JTA)

2013: The Washington, DC JCC is scheduled to host “Atonement: Stories about Confession, Redemption and Making Amends” in which 8 “morally challenged individuals tell true stories about holding themselves accountable for their mistakes and wrong-doings.

2013(15th of Elul, 5773): Ninety-five year old Sid Bernstein who played a key role in the early American visits of the Beatles passed away today.(As reported by Allan Kozinn)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/arts/music/sid-bernstein-who-helped-import-the-beatles-dies-at-95.html

2013(15th of Elul, 5773): Seventy-two year old Eddie Goldstein – “little Honest Joe King Edward” – who “opened the first swap shop in Dallas, TX passed away today.

http://andersonclaytonbrosterrell.tributes.com/our_obituaries/Eddie-King-Edward-Goldstein--96298719

2013: In “Hasidic Jews Turn Up Pressure on City to Accommodate Their Traditions” published today, Joseph Berger examines the growing power of the Ultra-Orthodox in New York City while offering no differianation in the use of the term “Hasidic.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/nyregion/hasidic-jews-turn-up-pressure-on-city-to-accommodate-their-traditions.html?hpw&_r=0&pagewanted=print

2013: “Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Israel’s chief envoy to peace talks, met clandestinely this morning with Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel, Israeli officials said. A second meeting, which took place Tuesday evening at an undisclosed location in Jerusalem, included Washington’s point man Martin Indyk, the officials said.

2014: L.A.’s Yiddish Tango Club which “infuses klezmer with the fresh sensuality of Argentine tango” is scheduled to perform this evening in Los Angeles.

2014: Two days after the latest cease fire was broken Hamas rockets, “Israel approved the call-up of 10,000 IDF reservists today.”

2014(25th of Av, 5774): Eighty-nine year old Helen Bamber, “the comforter of torture victims” passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/world/helen-bamber-therapist-to-torture-victims-dies-at-89.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHedThumbWell&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2014:The armed wing of Hamas announced today that three of its senior commanders - Mohammed Abu Shamalah, Raed al-Attar and Mohammed Barhum - were killed in a pre-dawn Israeli air strike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.(As reported by Uzi Barach)

2015: In Atlanta, Timothy Frilingos the Berman Museum’s Director of Exhibitions is scheduled to lead a tour of the museum’s latest Southern Jewish History Exhibition “Eighteen Artifacts: A Story of Jewish Atlanta.”

2015: “Jewish American singer Matisyahu confirmed his participation in a Spanish music festival” today “two days after organizers apologized for canceling his appearance following an uproar by pro-Palestinian groups.”

2015: “A former Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, revealed new details to his biographers about how close Israel came to striking Iran’s military facilities in 2010, 2011 and 2012 and why it did not despite his and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s desire to do so, according to interview excerpts aired on Israeli television” tonight. (As reported by Jodi Rudoren)

2015: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the funeral of Joan Lipsky is scheduled to take place at Temple Judah followed by burial at Eben Israel Cemetery.

http://www.cedarmemorial.com/Obituary/2015/Aug/Joan-M-Lipsky/

2016: “From The Deep” a play “inspired by the story of Gilad Shalit and Ilan Shaliach” is scheduled to be performed for the last time at The New York International Fringe Festival FringeNYC.

2016: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Euro: How a Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europeby Joseph E. Stiglitz

2016: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center a performance by Dwight Sora who is playing the role Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara saved thousands during the Holocaust by issuing visas that allowed them to leave Lithuania.

2016: The UKJF is scheduled to host a screening of “We’ll Never Have Paris” directed by Simon Helberg at the JW3 Cinema.

2016: “One Crown Heights,” a neighborhood festival “sponsored by civic groups and elected officials including the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Children’s Museum” but disapproved of by Norman Rosenbaum whose brother Yankel was killed during the riots is scheduled to be held today to commemorate the 25thanniversary of what one source euphemistically described as “the racial unrest that tore through the Brooklyn neighborhood.”

2016: The Chicago production of “War Paint, a “musical focuses on the lives and rivalry between Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubenstein” came to an end today.

https://www.goodmantheatre.org/warpaint

2016: In Newport, RI, The Annual Meeting of the Touro Synagogue Foundation is scheduled to be held this morning at the Levi Gale House followed by the annual reading of George Washington's historic letter "To the Hebrew Congregation at Newport" 1:00 pm.

http://www.tourosynagogue.org/

2017: The Hillel at the University of Iowa is scheduled to host and evening of hot dogs, hamburgers and whole lot more for incoming freshman and returning Hawkeyes.

2017 Five police officers were lightly injured overnight as dozens of ultra-Orthodox demonstrators who do not want to serve in the IDF pelted them with stones and bottles during rioting in Jerusalem, police said in a statement today

2017: In Louisiana, “The East Jefferson Interfaith Clergy Association (EJICA), a group of Metairie and Kenner clergy men and women representing a number of denominations and faith groups including Congregations Beth Israel (Orthodox), Gates of Prayer (Reform) and Shir Chadash Conservative Congregation” is scheduled to held a prayer vigil tonight “in order to denounce the white nationalists, anti-Semites and neo-Nazis who marched last week in Charlottesville, which resulted in the overflow of violence and the death of a counterprotestor as the hands of one of the so-called alt-right.” (As reported by CCJN the source for everything Jewish on the Louisiana Gulf Coast.

2017: In response to poplar demand, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Dough” in London

2017: American University graduate Ross B. Levinsohn, the “son of Joyce (née Salton) and WW II veteran Jay Douglas Levinsohn” “was named the publisher and CEO of the Los Angeles Times by tronc” today.

2018: Following yesterday’s skirmish on the Gaza border that began when a terrorist fired “live rounds” at IDF troops in Israel, “talks on a long-term ceasefire between Israel and Hamas” appeared to be stalled with no end in sight.

2018: Yad Vashem is scheduled to continue hosting its newest exhibition “Flashes of Memory – Photography During the Holocaust.”

2018: The Penultimate session of “the four annual Docu. Text festival” is scheduled to take place at the National Library of Israel.

2019: Two days after he had passed away funeral services are scheduled to held for Sol Maikon, “the dean of traditional Judaism” in Cedar Rapids and one of the last surviving members of Beth Jacob at Eben Israel Cemetery.

2019: Klezkanada is scheduled to host an evening of dancing preceded by the presentation “Yiddish Glory – The Lost Songs of World War II.

2019: Those attending the McGill/Klezkanada Academic Seminar are schedule to being their day study “The Music of the Hasidim” and end with an “interview with Irena Klepfisz.”

2019: In the morning the JCC of Northern Virginia is scheduled to off Intermediate Bridge Lessons” following in the evening by a dinner theatre performance of “Rogers and Hammerstein’s ‘South Pacific”

2019: “Carry/jump/catch by Club Guy & Roni‘s Poetic Disasters Club” is scheduled to open in Amsterdam.

https://aicf.org/event/carry-jump-catch/



August 21

1165: Birthdate of Philip II Augustus, the French king who first imprisoned his Jewish subjects; then extorted ransom from them before banning them from Paris and its environs.

1321: Jews in France were accused of encouraging lepers to poison Christian wells. This directly led to the graver accusations of the same kind during the Black Plague. This time, five thousand Jews were killed. At Chinon, 160 Jews were burned in a pit on an island outside of town. Eventually the King, Philip the Tall, admitted that the Jews were innocent. The island is still known as Ile de Juifs (Island of the Jews).

1379: In Spain, Fernan Martin, King John’s executioner accompanied by Don Zulema Solmon and Don Zag Isaac, went to the home of Joseph Pinchon, Martin beheaded Pinchon per the order of the king.  Because of the scandal surrounding the event it led to the repeal of Jewish jurisdiction in criminal cases in Castile

1486: Volume II of a Mahzor, using the Roman Rite was printed for the first time at Casal Maggiore, Italy.

http://cojs.org/cojswiki/Mahzor_(Roman_rite),_Soncino/Casal_Maggiore:_Benei_Soncino,_1485/6,_Heb-73,_Vol._2,_fol._117v-118r.

1569: Cosimo I de' Medici, who had invited the Jews to settle in Tuscany but who also gave in to pressure from the Pope to burn the Talmud, became Grand Duke of Tuscany today.

1669: “The priest of the Russian church made a complaint against the Jews of Brest for reconverting to Judaism a baptized Jewess of the name of Judith, whose baptismal name was Anastasia, a daughter of Shemuel, at one time leaseholder of taxes.”

1684: In response to a letter from the Dutch commander of Essequibo and Pomeroon explaining that the trade in vanilla had come to an end because of the death of a Jew named Salomon de la Roche, representatives of the Dutch West India company wrote “As to the vanilla trade, which we recommend you carry on for the company, where you answer us saying this trade has come to an end through the death of a Jew, Salomon de la Roche...a meager and poor excuse.” This correspondence is one example of the important role that Jews played in the vanilla trade.

1770: Marcus Herz, the German Jewish physician and philosopher traveled Berlin to Königsberg so he could as respondent when Emmanuel Kant presented his inaugural dissertation at the University of Königsberg

1775: Daher el-Omar who ruled the Galilee as an autonomous region during the days of the Ottoman Empire passed away today.

1811: Birthdate of Joseph Derenbourg, or Joseph Naftali Derenburg, Franco-German author, historian and a prime mover in the rehabilitation of Jewish education in France

1811: Barnet Joseph married Elizabeth Emanuel at the Great Synagogue today.

1811: In London, Abigail Montefiore and Benjamin Gompertz gave birth to Justina Lydia Gompertz, the wife of Jacob Montefiore.

1820(11thof Elul, 5580): Haim Farhi who known as the Hakham Haim, a prominent Palestinian Jewish leader in the days of the Ottoman Empire passed away.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haim_Farhi

http://www.farhi.org/Documents/HaimFarhi_1.htm

1822: In Badan, marriage of Marx and Henriette Oppenheimer.

1823: Birthdate of “Rosa Hanne.”

1829: Birthdate of Otto Moritz David Goldschmidt “a German composer, conductor and pianist, known for his piano concertos and other piano pieces” who “married the ‘Swedish Nightingale’, soprano Jenny Lind.” He passed away in 1907.

1835: Parliament passes the Sheriff’s Declaration Bill which allowed Jews to hold the ancient and important office of Sheriff. Passage of this bill was an intermediate step in Parliamentary efforts to pass the so-called Jew Bill.

1837: In Wollstein, Dr. Marcus Mosse, the son of Salomon Moses and Henriette (Jette) Marcus Levin and Ulrike Mosse gave birth to Salomon Mosse

1837: “Mr. Hart Lyon presented a Sefer Torah to the Kaal today.

http://web.nli.org.il/sites/NLI/English/library/events/EventsCalendar/Pages/docutext-04.aspx

1839(11thof Elul, 5599): Sixty-year old to Zalegman Phillips the son of Jonas Phillips and Rebecca Machada, a successful lawyer and husband of Arabella Solomon whom he married when she was nineteen years old passed away today.

1840: Persecution of the Jews of Damascus brought together Congregation B'nai Jesheran in New York City to declare: "Resolved, that we do most emphatically and solemnly deny, as well in our own name as in that of the whole Jewish people, that murder was ever committed by the Jews of Damascus, or those of any other part of the world for the purpose of using the blood or any part of a human being in the ceremonies of our religion."   U.S. President Van Buren instructed his officer at Constantinople to help the persecuted Jew of Damascus

1841(4thof Elul, 5601): Parashat Shoftim

1850: David Cohen married Julia Nathan at the New Synagogue today.

1850: John and Adelaide wed today at the West London Synagogue.

1852:  Birthdate of British historian Arnold Toynbee.  Toynbee was baffled by the continued existence of the Jewish people whom he described as a fossil of history.  Not only was he baffled by the Jews continued existence, he did not approve of it either.

1852(6th of Elul, 5612): Marchand Ennery passed away.  Born at Nancy in 1792 he studied Talmud under Baruch Guggenheim and at the rabbinical school of Herz Scheuer, in Mainz. He went to Paris, became teacher in the family of a wealthy coreligionist, and in 1819 was appointed director of the new Jewish school at Nancy. At this time he published his Hebrew-French lexicon, the first of its kind to appear in France. In 1829 he became chief rabbi of Paris; in 1846 chief rabbi of the Central Consistory; in 1850 chevalier of the Legion of Honor. He was succeeded as chief rabbi by Salomon Ulmann.

1852: “Bohemia: A Visit to Prague” published today included a description of the current conditions and history of the Jews living in this ancient central European City.

1859: In “Rose Law Cottage Kennington Oval,” Rebecca Crawcour and Aron Hart gave birth to Bernard Hart.

1859: Birthdate of Westmorland Davis who in 1919, while serving as Governor of Virginia “designated October 14 through October 24 as the days for the Jewish relief campaign and urged “citizens, irrespective of race or creed, to contribute liberally” to the Jewish relief campaign – a move that surely was not motivated by the “large number of Jewish voters in the Old Dominion.

1860: The “Hebrew Son” is scheduled to be performed tonight at the New Bowery Theatre in New York City.

1861: According to a report placed on board the steamer Saladin which is sailing from Kingston, Jamaica tonight for New York City, Commercial matters seem to become worse every day. Fresh failures are announced before people have time to recover the shock occasioned by previous ones. The greatest of all has been that of Mr. Lucas, a prince among the Jews, whose books, it is said, show a very unpleasant state of things for his creditors, and whose self is now non est inventus. There will, doubtless, be very great depression for a time in the trade of the country; but a conviction is felt that a crisis like the present was necessary to correct the fictitious and corrupt business that was for some time done here by a certain class of merchants, and that when the country has passed over the trials of the present ordeal, there will be a healthy state of things, and the prosperity indicated by our agriculture will be permanent and lasting.

1862: Philadelphian Samuel B. Salsburg began serving a three year hitch with Company C of the 138th Regiment during which he was wounded during fighting at Monocacy, MD.

1863: In describing his uneventful trip down the Mississippi River from St. Louis to New Orleans, the New York Times correspondent offers as proof the peaceful conditions that "This circumstance is shown by the crowds of civilians -- Jews and others -- who may be seen besieging the authorities at every point from Cairo to the Gulf, asking only the permission to bring in clothing, drugs, staples, to buy cotton, or, in short, do anything whereby they can realize quick sales and a thousand per cent profits. There are many long faces and much cursing, but all uselessly, for Gen. Grant will, so long as he can influence the matter, refuse to open trade at any point in his Department."

1864(19th of Av, 5624): Isaac J. Levy (CSA) was killed in the trenches at Petersburg, He was 21 years old. Isaac is buried in the Hebrew Cemetery on Shockoe Hill in Richmond, in the Levy family plot.

1864: “Turkey: The Missionary Difficulty at Constantinople” published today recounts the failure of the European missionaries to convert the locals. Citing information supplied by the Times of London correspondent in the Turkish capital the article reports that the efforts of missionaries - both English and American -"The influence of these preachings among the Jews and Greeks, with the exception of isolated cases, some of which do not bear much examination as regards the conviction and good faith of the proselytes, has been comparatively a failure."

1865: As evidence of how the Jew’s Hospital is now serving the general population, a maid named Ellen Murray was rushed to the hospital for treatment after she was burned when trying to start a fire in a stove.  Unfortunately, “she suffered mortal injuries” and died at the hospital. The hospital, which would be re-named Mt. Sinai, came into general use during the Civil War when it was used to treat the Union soldiers wounded during McClellan’s ill-fated Peninsula Campaign in 1862.

1866: In New York City, Esther Hellman Wallenstein and Solomon Wallenstein gave birth to Jennie Wallenstein Kohstamm, the oldest of their four children.

1866: In New York City, Solomon and Jael Belais gave birth to David Belais

1867: At the residence of the bride's parents, John Hart of 7 St Paul's Rd., Canonbury, son of Isaac Hart, married Maria Hannah, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Moses Angel of 1 King St., Finsbury. Moses Angel was the headmaster of the Jews Free School (JFS)

1868(5thof Tishrei, 5629): Sixty-two year old Louis Loew Leopold Affelder, the Bavarian born son of Samuel Lazarus Affelder and Nanni Nanette Affelder and the husband of Regine Rosalie Affelder passed away today in Furth.

1870: One day after he had passed away, three month old Frederick Louis Makower, the son of Moritz Makower and the former Jessie Isaac was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

1870: It was reported today that of the 31 chaplains serving with the Army of the Rhine, 3 of them are Jews.

1871: It was reported today that Rabbi Elkan Herzman has been fired from his position at an Orthodox synagogue in Chicago for eating ice cream on the Jewish fast day of Tish’a B’Av. According to the report first published in the Jewish Times, the issue was not so much one of violating the law about the fast as one of hypocrisy.

1871: It was reported today that of the 21 chaplains serving in the Army of the Rhine, 3 of them are Jews.

1873: The Grand lodge of the Kesher She Barzel reopened this morning at Pythagoras Hall under the leadership of Grand Saar Rosenthal. 

http://forward.com/articles/7288/man-of-the-book-reading-a-life-of-salman-schocken/

1874: It was reported today that Sol Mortiz, a prominent Jewish merchant from Indianapolis, Indiana has denied all the charges that he had an improper relationship with the 18 year old daughter and wife of George C. Harding.  Harding and Mortiz were friends but this did not keep the enraged newspaper proprietor from shooting the merchant several times. Moritz said he will prove his innocence once he has recovered from his wounds.

1875: Birthdate of Karl Neubauer, the Czech born son of Adolf and Klara Neubauer and Helene Neubauer, who died at Treblinka some time “after October 1942.”

1878: The London World published a commentary about the Earl of Beaconsfield’s (Benjamin Disraeli) religious beliefs and his plans for his burial.  According to a Jewish source, Beaconsfield will pull of the greatest surprise of his life by having himself buried beside his father at the “graveyard of the Jews at Mile-end.”  After all he had been baptized by trickery and “no Jew is ever sincere in renouncing” his religion. The correspondent for the World takes the opposite view and is sure that he will be “true to the religion of his knighthood” and will be content to be buried beside his wife instead of beside his father.

1878: In Washington, DC, Simon Wolf served as chairman of a meeting attended by Jews who had gathered to raise money for southerners suffering from the current Yellow Fever Epidemic.  The meeting was poorly attended because of a lack of notice so only $180 was raised.

1879: Justice Flammer sent  5 year old Liba and 2 year old Louis Wildever to a Jewish charitable institution after they were discovered along with their mother Sarah starving in a room on Franklin Street.  According to Mrs. Wildever, an immigrant from Russia, the children’s father (and her husband) and had deserted them.

1879: An assignment for the benefit of creditors by Nathan Mayer, to Isaac D. Einstein, with $16,110 preferences was filed in the County Clerk’s office today

1881: It was reported today that the Young Men’s Hebrew Union is planning to sponsor a concert in New York’s Washington Park.

1882: It was reported today that Florence Templeton, the daughter of the banker John Templeton is engaged to marry Jack Springfield the adopted son of an Anglo-Jewish financier.

1883:

1884(30thof Av, 5644): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1884: Alexander Labotsky, a Polish Jew was arrested today after his Frieda had charged him with abandonment.

1884: It was reported today that Annie Lifcawitz, a young girl living in an apartment above the store owned by Solomon Ellinsohn was the first one to discover the fire that local ruffians had started.  Ellinsohn had complained to the police about these young ruffians terrifying people living on the Lower East Side, but the authorities had taken no action.

1885: Dr. Cyrus Edson, Chief of the Second Sanitary division made another raid on the Jewish owned truck stores on the Lower East Side.  Edson and his staff seized “a half ton of bad fish and some unwholesome meat” along with seven boxes of fruits and vegetables.

1887(1stof Elul, 5647): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1887: Birthdate of Levie Van Praag, the native of Zaandam, Holland and husband of Sabiena Cohen both of whom were murdered at Sobibor.

1887: Three days after she had passed away, 78 year old Miriam Spyer, the widow of Lawrence Spyer with whom she had three children – Rachel, Frederick and Nathaniel – was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

1887: Abraham Trombitsky’s right leg was fractured during a melee that resulted when Patrolman John Etterick moved to disperse a crowd of Polish and Russian Jews at the corner of Hester and Ludlow Streets.

1887: Three year old Ella Hortense Alberga, the daughter of Eugene Alberga and the former Celia Morrice was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

1887: “The Treaty of Berlin” published today described the multiple violations of this agreement including the persistent persecution of the 400,000 Jews of Romania “with the connivance of the Romanian Government”

1887: “Old World News By Cable” published today described a letter from George Blyth, the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem in which he reports that the Jewish population in Palestine has grown from 15,000 to 42,000 in the past few years and “that they are very friendly to him and his church.”

1887(1stof Elul, 5647): In London, Israel Lipski was hanged at Newgate Prison after having been convicted of murdering Miriam Angel.

http://www.whitechapelsociety.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=157:israel-lipski-the-verdict-&catid=1:latest&Itemid=35

1888: Congressman Ford’s Immigration Committee completed its hearings in New York and made plans to move on to Boston.  The thrust of the hearings is that immigrants, especially Jews from Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe, are responsible for depressing wages for American workers.

1888: Henry Russell married Hannah de Lara at Paddington, London.

1888: Funeral services will be held at one o’clock this afternoon for Marks Laski, a prominent Jewish merchant who had passed away unexpectedly with internment in Cypress Hill Cemetery. The 52 year old Laski arrived in New York from Poland in 1850 and entered into the wholesale dry goods business where he enjoyed enough success to become a prominent philanthropist.

1889(24th of Av, 5649): A man thought to be Adolph Cohn a resident of the Hebrew Home for the Aged in New York City appeared to have jumped overboard as the Hoboken ferryboat Hopatcong was pulling into the slip at Christopher Street.  The identification is based on papers and memos that the man placed on the cabin floor just before jumping.

1889: The 9th free excursion sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children is scheduled to leave this morning at 9 o’clock.

1889: Birthdate of Russian native Jacob J. Heller, “a vice president of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and author of two volumes of poetry – My Union, My Life and Moments of Meditation who was the husband of Rose Heller and father of Mrs. Gertrude Adler.

1890(5th of Elul, 5650): Albert (Aaron) Siegfried Bettelheim, Hungarian born American Rabbi died at sea while returning to the United States from a visit to Europe.  Born in 1830, he led a rather colorful life before coming to the United States in 1867 where he had pulpits in Philadelphia, Richmond, San Francisco and finally in Baltimore, MD.  While in Richmond, he studied medicine but accepted a position in San Francisco rather pursue a medical career.  According to one source he was buried at sea under the supervision of two Catholic priests that Bettelheim had met on the voyage.  The clerics reportedly recited the Kaddish as the body was consigned to the depths. (As reported by Isidore Singer, et al)



1891: The United States Commissioner of Immigration Owens visited the SS Slavonia at Lower Canton outside of Baltimore and examined the baggage and tickets of the fifty-one Jews detained by order of Inspector Davis. He decided that twelve of them could land because they had tickets to other parts of the United States and “a few dollars” (which meant they would not become public charges).

1891: At the Barge Office, the Acting Superintendent of Immigration refused to honor the bond that Coroner Levy had come to post for ten Russian Jews who had been detained because it was believed “that they were liable to become public charges.”

1892: The first train belonging to the Jaffa-Jerusalem Railway reached Jerusalem today.

1892: “The Old Dutch Farmhouse” described the fate of agriculture in Holland including that “enterprising Jews” have bought up the “heirlooms of the old “agricultural” families.

1892: “Agriculture in Russia” published today reported that in Russia, “the Jews are blamed for avoiding agriculture and not wishing to live by the sweat of their brow;” but they are not allowed to settle outside of the Pale where there is arable land. 

1893: “Literary Notes” published today described plans for the upcoming publication of The Settlement of the Jews in North America by Judge Charles P. Daly which will soon appear in Hebrew.

1893: The Park Department has issued a permit allowing mass meeting of unemployed Jews to be held tonight in Union Square

1893: “Light On Bible Records” published today provides a detailed review of The Sacred Books of the Old Testament including a Hebrew text and English translation edited by Paul Haput, a Professor at Johns Hopkins University.

1893: Following last night’s meeting of the United Hebrew Trades during which a fight broke out between socialists and anarchists a saloon keeper at 162 Broadway in New York sent out circulars offering free food to unemployed workers.

1893: Joseph Peel was held by authorities today while the veterinarian examined two dead horses owned by his former business partners, Feinberg and Cooper, to determine if they had been poisoned.  The three had been partners in Feinberg, Cooper & Peel, a vegetable peddling firm.  The two Orthodox Jews claimed that Peel threatened to poison the horses after they ended their relationship with him; a relationship that had begun when the two men let Peel join them even though he lacked any capital.

1893: According to the New York Times the custom of throwing a slipper at wedding stems from a custom “ancient Jews had of handing over a shoe to complete a bargain” as demonstrated in the Book of Ruth.

1894(19thof Av, 5654): Twenty-three year old Julius Marcus “a handsome and romantic young” Jews shot 17 year old Juliette Fournier, a French Protestant, through the heart and “then put a bullet in his temple.”

1895: A list of bequests of the late Joseph Lewis published today included $100 for each of the following: Mount Sinai Hospital, Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids, Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society, Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews and the United Hebrew Charities. 

1896: “Successful Festival of District Grand Lodge No. 1 of Free Sons of Israel” published today described the successful fundraiser which raised several thousand dollars “to enlarge the fund of the order devoted to sick and distressed members.”

1897: “In an article on an old Jewish Treasure House” that appeared in today’s issue of The Time’s Saturday Review, “an account was given of what might have been considered a charnel house of decayed literature.” In fact it was a description of the Geniza “of the old synagogue in Cairo.

1897: “The Trouble At Jerusalem” published today described a dispute in that city over the distribution of funds from America.  The amount in question is approximately $500 which Rabbi Salant can given to “worthy poor Jews” regardless of their nationality.  The problem comes from the fact that American Jews living in Jerusalem incorrectly think that the money should be used to help them since it comes from the United States.

1897: Birthdate of Berdichev native Albert Milton Mallin, who came to the United States in 1908 where he earned a bachelor’s degree at CCNY before going on to do post-graduate work at Columbia and teach in the New York City public schools.

1899: Rehearsals of “The Children of the Ghetto” by Israel Zangwill will begin today in New York.

1899” “For A Hebrew Sanitarium” published today described the successful package arranged by the guests of the Cedars that included a “surprise auction” which raised funds for the Hebrew Sanitarium of Rockaway, NY.



1899: A summary of the report showing the July activity of the United Hebrew Charities published today showed 1,623 applications for aid had been received which affected the lives of 5,410 people. The society received donations of $8,640.55 but spend $11,085.58 in providing aid and assistance.

1901(5thof Elul, 5661): Fanny Brooks, the wife of Julius Gerson Brooks and the mother of George, Eveline, Edgar and Milton Brooks passed away today in Salt Lake City after which she was buried
“Bnai Israel Cemetery.”


https://jwa.org/thisweek/aug/21/1901/this-week-in-history-death-of-pioneer-fanny-brooks

http://www.jmaw.org/brooks-jewish-slc-utah/

1903: Herzl reported on the Uganda offer and the Russian journey to the Greater Actions Committee at Basle

1905(20th of Av, 5665): French-German Assyriologist Julius Oppert passed away. Born in 1825 at Hamburg, he studied at Heidelberg, Bonn and Berlin, before graduating at Kiel in 1847. In 1848, Oppert went to France, where he was teacher of German at Laval and at Reims. In his spare time he continued his Oriental studies which he had begun while living in German. In 1851, he joined the French archaeological mission to Mesopotamia and Media under Fulgence Fresnel. On his return in 1854, he was naturalized as a French citizen in recognition of his services. He occupied himself with analyzing the results of the expedition, with special attention to the cuneiform inscriptions he had collected. During 1855, he published Écriture Anarienne, advancing the theory that the language spoken originally in Assyria was Turanian (related to Turkish and Mongolian), rather than Aryan or Semitic in origin, and that its speakers had invented the cuneiform writing system. Although the classification of the "Casdo-Scythian" inscriptions as Turanian would later be rejected by scholars, research would confirm Oppert in his identification of the distinctness of the Sumerian language (as he renamed it in 1869) and the origin of its script.During 1856 he published Chronologie des Assyriens et des Babyloniens. During 1857, he was appointed professor of Sanskrit and comparative philology in the school of languages connected with the National Library of France, and in this capacity he produced his Grammaire Sanscrite (1859). But his attention was chiefly given to Assyrian and cognate subjects. His account of the Fresnel mission and the results of his consequent study were published as Expédition Scientifique en Mésopotamie (1859-1863), with the second volume entitled Déchiffrement des inscriptions cunéiformes. During 1865 he published a history of Assyria and Chaldaea (Histoire des Empires de Chaldée et d'Assyrie) in the context of new archaeological findings. His Assyrian grammar, Éléments de la grammaire assyrienne, was published in 1868. During 1869 Oppert was appointed professor of Assyrian philology and archaeology at the College de France. During 1876, Oppert began to focus on the antiquities of ancient Media and its language, writing Le Peuple et la langue des Médes (1879). During 1881, he was admitted to the Academy of Inscriptions and in 1890, he was elected to its presidency.

1906(30thof Av, 5666): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1906:  Birthdate of Kansas City native Fritz Frelang one of the great cartoon animators who worked at Warner Brothers for over thirty years and was the man behind such icons as Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and Yosemite Sam to name but a few and was also the husband of Lily Freleng

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-friz-freleng-1621602.html

https://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/28/obituaries/isadore-friz-freleng-dies-creator-of-cartoons-was-89.html

1911: Following the outbreak of anti-Semitic riots in New South Wales, the British Home Secretary assured local Jewish leaders that no precautions would be overlooked by the civil and military authorities to prevent a recurrence of such outbreaks.

1911: Dedication of Temple Ahavath Israel in Trenton, NJ.

1911: The invitations for the wedding of John Nathan Levine of Waterville, Maine, a former Yale football player “were received” in New York City today.

1913: Closing arguments in the Leo Frank case began today.

1914: In Vienna Dora Angel and her first husband Otto Soyka gave birth to Hedwig Soyka

1915: Birthdate of Sir Joshua Abraham Hassan, the first mayor and chief minister of Gibraltar.

1915: According to a report received in London from Petrograd, “owing to the occupation by the Germans of a great part of the pale of Jewish settlements and the inclusion of the remainder in the sphere of military operations, the condition of the Jews is critical.”

1916: The Jewish Academicians of America whose members included Bernard Drachman, David I. Macht, Georges Bacarat, J.D. Eisenstein and Meyer Waxman was organized today in New York City.

1917: After winning his two professional bouts featherweight Danny Frush lost for the first time today.

1917: It was reported today that the “Committee of Dutch Jews that has been formed in Amsterdam under the Chairmanship of Frederick Solomon Van Nierop, President of the Amsterdamsche Bank in Amsterdam” will work with Dr. Boris Bogen and Max Senior, American representatives the Joint Distribution Committee to distribute funds “transmitted from America for the relief of Jews in the warring countries. (Editor Note – the Netherlands was neutral in WW I which made them a good conduit for sending money to European Jews from the United States now that the U.S. was a belligerent)

1917: Birthdate of Leonid "Leo" Hurwicz the Polish born American economist and mathematician who won the Nobel Prize at the age of 90 – making him the oldest person to do this.

1918: The Second Battle of the Somme, the offensive that would lead to the end of WW I and in which Sir John Monash played a leading role began today.

1918: It was reported today the Secretary of Navy has issued a general order granting furloughs to Jewish sailors so that they can observe the high holy days which fall on September 7, 8, 14 and 15 which “a similar order has been issued by the War Department granting furloughs to Jewish soldiers in this country, in the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Panama and when possible on the Western Front.

1919: Today, The Committee on Public Information for which Walter Wanger made short propaganda films designed “to combat anti-war or pro-German sentiment in Allied Italy” and for which Edward Bernays served of its Latin News Service “was formally disestablished by an act of Congress”

1920(7thof Elul, 5680): Parashat Shofteim

1921: Birthdate of Reuven Feuerstein the Romanian born Israeli clinical, developmental, cognitive psychologist who is renowned for his theory of intelligence which states “it is not ‘fixed’, but rather modifiable”.

http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Professor-Reuven-Feuerstein-A-personal-remembrance-from-a-very-grateful-mother-350876

1921: Birthdate of Ruth Charlotte Barcan Marcus, “a philosopher esteemed for her advances in logic, a traditionally male-dominated subset of a traditionally male-dominated field…” (As reported by Margalit Fox)

1921: A Sephardic organization which was to include all Sephardic Jews from around the world was founded in Madrid. It planned to defend Jewish interests everywhere.  

1922: “Luise Millerin” a “silent historical film” featuring Fritz Kortner (born Fritz Nathan Kohn) and Reinhold Schunzel was released today in Germany.

1922: An appeal signed by Samuel Gompers, President, and eight Vice Presidents of the American Federation of Labor was issued today to organized labor, urging the fullest moral and financial support of the railroad shopmen now on strike.

1924: Birthdate of County Cork native David Marcus, “the Irish Jewish Editor” and husband of Ita Daly who described their life in I’ll Drop You a Line: A Life With David Marcus.1925:Tumultuous scenes occurred at the Zionist Congress when Vladimir Jabotinsky, founder of the Jewish Legion, which fought together with the British Army in Palestine during the war, took the floor. When the majority gave Jabotinsky permission to continue his speech after his time limit had expired, the Labor groups renewed their protest.”

1926: In Gelsenkirchen, Germany, Dawid Buschell and Miriam-Manya Zuckermann gave birth to Ben-Zion Büschel who has family moved to Palestine in 1933 where he gained fame as Israeli composer Ben-Zion Orgad

1928: Twenty-five year old banker Herman F. Hahn, the Chicago born son of “Harry W. and Daisy (Kohn) Hahn” married Louise Getz with whom he had four children – Mary, Peter, John and Ann Hahn.

1928: “The Big Pond” the first play to be produced by Edwin H. Knopf” with a cast that included Kenneth MacKenna was scheduled to open at the Bijou Theatre today.

1928: Two days after they had passed away, Fanny (Jacobs) Michaels and her husband Max Michaels were buried at the Wilesden Jewish Cemetery.

1929: “A funeral cortège, taking the form of a public demonstration for the dead Jewish boy, wound its way through the old city, with the police blocking attempts to break into the Arab quarters.”

1932: Birthdate of Menashe Kadishman, the native of Tel Aviv who became a renowned, award winning sculptor and painter.

http://new.menashekadishman.com/

http://www.timesofisrael.com/famed-israeli-artist-menashe-kadishman-dies-aged-82/

1933:Dr. Nahum Sokolow, president of the World Zionist Organization, asserted in opening the eighteenth world Zionist congress in Prague tonight that as a result of the persecutions in Germany the Jewish question must be brought before the international forum and fugitives must find a refuge in Palestine.

1935: Speaking in Lucerne, Switzerland, David Ben-Gurion, Palestine labor leader, accused the British Government today of having committed "robbery" by artificially cutting the immigration quota of Jews seeking to enter Palestine.

1935: The “swing era” of the Big Band Sound starts when Jewish Jazz clarinet player performs at the Palomar Theatre in Los Angeles.

1936: “Sing, Baby, Sing” a musical staring Gregory Ratoff, Tony Martin and the Ritz Brothers was distributed today in the United States by 20th Century Fox.

1936: “Synagogues and Jewish Temples in St. Paul announced special prayers would be said tonight” for the recovery of Governor Floyd B. Olson who has been hospitalized at Mayo Clinic.

1936: It was reported today that “the whole story of the sudden death of Captain Wolfgang Fuerstner has come to light and that contrary to the original reports he had actually committed suicide in his home “after he had been informed of his dismissal from active military service because he had Jewish Blood.”

1936: Tel Aviv Mayor Meier Dizengoff charged the British government with “playing a ‘diabolical game’ in handling its mandate over Palestine.  He told the British High Commissioner for Palestine that evidence showed the (British) administration was blocking the Jewish National Home.”  He was especially critical of the government’s behavior during the latest wave of Arab violence which has “introduced demoralization, anarchy and lawlessness into the country…”

1936: Thirty-nine year old Louis Billig a native of London, “a noted Islamic scholar and lecturer in Arabic was found shot to death at his home where authorities believe he was murdered “by terrorists as he sat as his study table.”

1936(3rd of Elul, 5696): Arab gunmen attacked a car filled with five Jews traveling towards Tel Aviv.  Seventeen year old Shoshana Laznicki was wound in the attack and three other Jews were killed by the Arabs.

1937: The Toronto Daily Star reported that Lou Herman will be appearing on a new program, the “Jewish Variety Hour” along with his three sisters who perform as a trio.

1937: The General Zionist Council Executive meeting in Zurich composed of both Zionist and non-Zionist members authorized the Jewish Agency's Executive to seek the establishment of a Jewish state and to try to arrange a Jewish-Arab conference to discuss the matter.

1937(14th of Elul, 5697): Sixty-six year old Élie Halévy the French historian who was part of a distinguished Franco-Jewish family passed away today.

1937: A watchtower was built at Sha’ar Ha-Golan today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shlomo_Gur#/media/File:Sha%27ar_Ha_Golan_003.jpg

1937: The Hon. Cyril Asquith, in a letter to The Times of London wrote that the pledges given to Jews by the British government explicitly promised to establish a Jewish state in the whole of Palestine. He explained that after the separation of Transjordan, the offer made to Jews under the Royal (Peel) Commission Report granted them less than 10 percent of the country's territory.

1938: Italy banned Jews from teaching in public and high-schools.

1938: Thirty Jewish refugees from Austria arrived in Shanghai today, amidst reports that untold numbers more were on their way which would swell the Chinese city’s growing refugee population that include a large number of Jews from “Greater Gerrmany.”

1939: As Stalin maneuvers between the Germans on the one hand and the Poles, Brits and French, he ended talks with the latter about military cooperation and secretly agreed to the German’s “proposed non-aggression pact that would place half of Poland (east of the Vistula river), Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and Bessarabia in the Soviets' sphere of influence.” (The War and the Shoah were almost upon us.)

1939: When the World Zionist Congress reconvened its plenary session this morning Joshua Suprasky, leader of Group B of the General Zionists, one of the minority parties, announced that his party had decided to abstain from further participation

1940: Aaron Jean-Marie Lustiger, the son of Ashkenazi Jews who would become Archbishop of Paris was baptized today.

1940: Junior Hadassah, the Young Women's Zionist Organization of America will award gold keys to forty-one members at the seventeenth annual convention which begins this evening in Chicago

1940(17th of Av, 5700): Leon Trotsky dies as a result of wounds suffered on August 20that the hands of an assassin working for Stalin. Born Lev Davidovich Bronstein in 1879, Trotsky was the son of a Jewish farmer from Odessa (Russia). Believing there was no future for the Jewish people as a people, he became a contemporary of Lenin's, helping him with his publication of Iskra (Spark). He was exiled and arrested many times before the revolution. Trotsky played an important role in the Communist government and only after Lenin's death did Stalin expel him from the party. He was exiled in 1928 first to Turkey, then Norway, and finally Mexico. Trotsky’s Jewish origins helped buttress the claims of anti-Semites that Communism was part of Jewish conspiracy.  At the same time, Trotsky Jewish origins were used by Stalin to demonize his opponents in the Soviet Union.

1940: Those being held at Gurs because they were sympathetic to the Nazis were released today, the same day on which the German inspection team arrived at what would become a French concentration camp for Jews.

1940: Étienne Szabo, an officer with the Free French married Violee(Bushnell) Szabo, an agent with SOE who would eventually be murdered at Ravnsbruck, a fate met by many non-Jewish as well as Jewish women.

1941: In Brooklyn, Abraham Block, a certified public accountant, and Ruth Block, a paralegal, gave birth to economist Walter Edward Block who holds a Ph.D. from Columbia and “is best known for his 1976 book Defending the Undefendable.”

https://mises.org/library/defending-undefendable

1941:  The authorities send 5,000 Jews to Drancy, the detention camp outside Paris.  This will be their last stop as the move to “the East” for “Re-settlement.”

1941: The German Army occupied the Black seaport city of Kherson which had a large Jewish population since the 19th century.

1941: “The Jadovno concentration the “first of 26 concentration camps operation by the Independent State of Croatia in which thousands of Serbs and Jews were imprisoned was closed today and turned over to the Italians.

1941(28th of Av, 5701): The Nazis murdered 3500 Jews from Minsk Mazowiecki, Poland, at Treblinka.

1941(28thof Av, 5701): Sixty-three year old Hadassah leader and Zionist Bella Pewsner leader passed away today.

http://www.jta.org/1941/08/22/archive/bella-pewsner-noted-zionist-dies-after-accident

1941: “Sun Valley Serenade” a musical produced by Milton Sperling and starring Milton Berle

1942(8th of Elul, 5702): The Jewish community at Ozorków, Poland, is destroyed.

1942: At Siedlce, Poland, “400 Ukrainians, joined by the Polish police and SS troops, surrounded the ghetto” as they prepared to ship the Jews to Treblinka and/or slaughter the rest of them. (Yad Vashem)

1942: Etty Hillesum returned to Westerbork.

1943: While serving in the U.S Army, Ed Koch, the future Mayor of New York, snapped after being taunted with the anti-Semitic epithet ‘Yiddy’ by a fellow soldier named LaRue. He challenged the bigot to a fight, which went down in full view of the entire company. According to Koch, “(The lieutenant) wanted to stop the fight but I wouldn’t let him. Even though I took the beating, I’m glad I fought.” (As reported by Forwardstaff)

1943: “The Seventh Victim” a horror film directed by Mark Robson and produced by Val Lewton was released in the United States by RKO.

1943: “Someone to Remember,” directed by Robert Siodmak and with music by Walter Schart was released today in the United States.

1944: “Song of Norway” a musical with a book co-authored by Milton Lazarus and featuring a performance by Siegfried “Sig” Arno opened today at the Imperial Theatre in New York where it ran for 860 performances.

1944: Rudolf Kastner “travelled from Budapest under German escort to the Swiss frontier and acted as intermediary for the first conversation between Kurt Becher and Saly Mayer, Swiss representative of the Joint D.C to discuss the price of abandoning the gassing.

http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/nazioccupation/kastner.html

1944: Photo-journalist Julia Pirotte participated in the Marseille Uprising which began today.

http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/1134/features/faces-and-hands/

1944(2nd of Elul, 5704): Sarah Vasen, first Jewish woman doctor in L.A. and first superintendent and resident physician of Kaspare Cohn Hospital (later Cedars-Sinai Hospital) passed away.

http://home.earthlink.net/~nholdeneditor/Sarah%20Vasen.htm

1944(2ndof Elul, 5704): Private Irwin Handled “perished” today “when U.S. Army Air Corps YB-29 Superfortress #41-36966 flew into ground 25 miles northeast of Alamagordo Army Airfield, New Mexico, on a training flight during

World War II.

1945: At the urging of Lt. Colonel Judah Nadich, the rabbi serving as senior Jewish chaplain in Europe, General Eisenhower issued an order reversing the policy that would have required Jewish displaced persons to return to their native countries. 

1946: The cornerstone for Beit Berl, which has named after Berl Katznelson, was laid today.

1948: Mitchell “Mike” Flint, a WW II naval combat pilot who had volunteered to fly with the IAF  transferred out of squadron 101 to a dive bombing squadron where he would be the most experienced pilot in this form of aerial combat.

1949: Gertrude Samuels describes the story of one group of participants in the seventh aliyah to Israel who are traveling from Munich, the home of Nazism, to Haifa. Of all the aliyot -- waves of immigration to Palestine -- the present is the most dramatic and, in terms of numbers and ultimate goals, perhaps the most important. To the desperate and the idealistic streaming in the new State of Israel is a miracle born of years of longing

1950: “My Daughter Joy” a film version of a novel by Irène Némirovsky, produced and directed by Gregory Ratoff and starring Edward G. Robinson was released today in the United Kingdom.

1959(17th of Av, 5719): Eighty-one year old Publisher and businessman Salman Schocken passed away. 

http://forward.com/articles/7288/man-of-the-book-reading-a-life-of-salman-schocken/

1959(17thof Av, 5719): Seventy-eight year old Sir Jacob Epstein, the American born British sculptor passed away.

http://www.academia.edu/732537/Carving_a_Legacy_The_Identity_of_Jacob_Epstein_1880-1959_

1959: President Eisenhower signs an executive order proclaiming Hawaii the 50th state of the union. Today Hawaii has a Jewish population of 10,000 out of a total population of about 1.2 million people.  In 2002, Linda Lingle, 49, won the Hawaii governor's race.  Lingle was the first Republican to win the job in forty years and she was the first Jewish governor of the state. “Lingle says her Jewish heritage has aided her political career in Hawaii because it has given her a better understanding of diversity, helping her connect with citizens of different religious and ethnic backgrounds. Lingle is a member of a Jewish congregation on the island of Maui and attends Lubavitch services in Honolulu on the island of Oahu. There also are a Reform synagogue and a Conservative synagogue in Honolulu.”

1960(28th of Av, 5720): Seventy-four year old CCNY and Columbia educated award winning structural engineer David Barnard Steinman, the husband of Irene Hoffman and New York born son of “Louis Kelvin and Eva (Scollard) Steinman” passed away today.

https://www.asce.org/templates/person-bio-detail.aspx?id=11213

https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/0,4616,7-151-9623_11154-126386--,00.html.

1961: In what may have been some sort of record two Jewish hurlers, Sandy Koufax and Larry Sherry, pitch their team to defeat as the Griants beat “the Bums.”

1964: In New York, Rabbi Seymour Fox who would become a professor of Jewish education at Hebrew University and Sara Kaminker-Fox who would become head of the Jerusalem City Council gave birth to Israeli director Eytan Fox who made Aliyah at the tender age of two.

1969: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today for Rabbi Simon Federbush, the former chief rabbi of Finland.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/08/21/89023110.pdf

1969, Michael Dennis Rohan, a tourist from Australia and a member of the "Church of God," a Protestant sect, set fire to the mosque on the Temple Mount in an attempt to hasten the coming of the Messiah. He was judged insane and deported by Israel.

1971(30th of Av, 5731): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1971(30thof Av, 5731): Sixty-seven year old St. John’s University trained attorney Milton J. Goell, the holder of a BA from Harvard and Ph.D. from Yeshiva University and son Jacob Goel and Mary Samowitz who raised two children – James and Martha – with his wife Amy passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/08/23/archives/milton-j-goell.html

1973: In Moscow, evgenia and Mikhail Brin, both graduates of Moscow State University (MSU) gave birth to Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google.

1974(3rdof Elul, 5734): Sixty-three year old Dr. Edward R. Schlesinger, who earned his M.D. at Columbia and Masters of Health Degree from Johns Hopkins before going to “head the maternal and child health programs at the University of Pittsburgh and who was the husband of Sylvia Schlesinger and the father of Doctors Stephen Schlesinger and Ann Louise Silver, passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1974/08/22/archives/e-r-schlesinger-63-child-health-expert.html

1974: Today, Abraham Hirschfeld, one of three candidates in the Democratic primary seeking to unseat Senator Jacob Javits in November, “attacked President Ford’s nomination of Nelson A. Rockefeller for the Vice Presidency.”

1977: A small group of young West Bank intellectuals tried to set up a political faction aimed at challenging the Palestine Liberation Organization’s claim of being the sole representatives of the Palestine Arabs in the administered territories. The group vehemently opposed Yasser Arafat and blamed him for plunging Palestine into bloody strife and for the failure to safeguard the Arab people's political interests. (Sounds an awful lot like what some of Arafat’s critics are saying 25 years later.)

1977: In Washington the US State Department announced that the current disagreements on the question of the settlements in the administered areas did not harm the long-standing Israeli-American friendship.

1977: Moshe Dayan met secretly with King Hussein in London marking the first time that any member of the Begin government had direct talks with any Arab leader.

1979(28th of Av, 5739): “Department store executive” David W. Davidson passed away today.

1980(9th of Elul, 5740): Ninety-six year old Walter E. Sachs, who has been a partner in Goldman-Sachs since 1910 and who married actress Katharine Williamson in 1939 passed away today.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=990CE1DF1E3BE732A25750C2A96E9C94619FD6CF

1981: “An American Werewolf in London,” a “horror comedy film” directed by John Landis, with music by Elmer Bernstein was released in the United States by Universal Pictures.

1981: “Honky Tonk Freeway” a comedy directed by John Schlesinger, with music by Elmer Bernstein and co-starring Daniel Stern was released in the United States today by Associated Film Distribution.

1982: Palestinian terrorists are dispersed from Beirut.

1983La Cage aux Folles opened on Broadway at the Palace Theatre today. It could be seen as “Jewish affair” since the book was by Harvey Fierstein, the music and lyrics were by Jerry Herman and the director was Arthur Laurents

1983: Eighty-six year old Sir Francis Edward Evans, the Belfast native who served as the United Kingdom’s Ambassador to Israel from 1951 to 1954, passed away today.

1987: In Santa Monica, Jody and Taylor Kasch gave birth to actor Cody Kasch the brother of Max Kasch.

1987: “The Big Easy” a crime movie set in New Orleans starring Ellen Barken was released today in the United States by Columbia Pictures.

1988(8th of Elul, 5748): Seventy-eight year old H.G. Adler who survived three different concentration camps, escaped from the Communists and became an award winning author passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/24/obituaries/hans-g-adler-78-survived-nazis.html

1988(8th of Elul, 5748): Eighty-seven year old Lena Shimshak, the wife of Morris J. Clurman and the mother of Bernice and Herman Clurman passed away today after which she was buried in the Montefiore Cemetery in Springfield Gardens, Queens.

1990(30th of Av, 5750): Rosh Chodesh Elul

1991: As violence continued for another day following a traffic accident that had resulted in the death of a seven year old boy, hundreds of marchers led by Al Sharpton gathered at 770 Eastern Parkway--Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters, carrying anti-Semitic signs, attacking police with bricks, bottles and bullets while burning an Israeli flag. Lubavitchers took to the streets in response. Groups of blacks and Jews assailed each other with bottles.

1991: After premiering at Cannes in May, “Barton Fink” directed, produced and written by ty Joel and Ethan Coen and starring Michael Lerner was released today in the United States.

1992: “Lightsleepers” featuring Victor Garber as “Tis Brooke” was released today in the United States by Fine Line Features.

1994(14th of Elul, 5754): Seventy-two year old legal scholar Albert P. Blaustein passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/08/23/obituaries/albert-p-blaustein-a-drafter-of-constitutions-dies-at-72.html

1994(14th of Elul, 5754): German born American sociologist Rose Laub Coser passed away.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0005_0_04652.html

1995(25th of Av, 5755):Five Israelis – 26 year old Rivka Cohen, 56 year old Hannah Naeh, 46 year old Joan Davenney, 35 year old Police Chief Superintendent Noam Eisenman - were killed and at least 100 injured including 38 year old Yona Peter Malina who would die ten years later,  when an Arab bomb ripped apart a bus in a residential neighborhood of Jerusalem.

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/22/world/bus-bombing-kills-five-in-jerusalem-100-are-wounded.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

1996: “Waiting for Guffman” with a screenplay co-authored by Eugene Levy who also co-starred in the comedy along with Bob Balaban premiered today at the Boston Film Festival.

1998(29thof Av, 5758): Ninety year old Wanda Toscanini Horowitz, the daughter of Conductor Arturo Toscanini and the wife of pianist Vladimir Horowitz passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1998/08/22/473278.html?pageNumber=13

1998: “The Blade” a film based on the Marvel comics character created by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan, produced by Avi Arad, written David S. Goyer and co-starring Stephen Dorf whose father was Jewish was released today in the United States.

1999(9th of Elul, 5759): Ninety-one year old Leo Castelli, the son of a Jewish family from Trieste, who became a leading New York art dealer passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/23/arts/leo-castelli-influential-art-dealer-dies-at-91.html

2000: “Remembering Kunianksky, A Loyal Friend” published today provided a tribute to Harry P. Kuniansky, a standout on the University of Georgia Bulldog football team.

http://onlineathens.com/stories/082100/dog_0821000032.shtml#.V7fJS4-cF9B

2001: Hamas claimed responsibility for today’s bombing in downtown Jerusalem during which one person was injured.

2001: Palestinian terrorists exploded at least one bomb in the Russian Compound neighborhood in Jerusalem.

2003: “Because Roy Moore, Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, refused to remove his Ten Commandments monument by the August 20th deadline, the associate Justices of Alabama Supreme Court unanimously overrule Moore and order the monument removed by the building's manager.” (Anybody who remembers Governor Wallace and his ilk know that officials in Alabama have a lot of trouble with the Constitution and obeying the law)

2005: The Sunday edition of the Washington Post featured a review of A History of the Jews in the Modern World by Howard M. Sachar that covers events from the 18thcentury to present times. 

2005: The New York Timesfeatured a review of The Tatoo Artist by Jill Ciment and Redemption: The Life of Henry Roth by Steven G. Kellman.  Roth is best known as the author of Call It Sleep which is now considered a classic in Jewish-American Literature.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/books/review/the-tattoo-artist-an-illustrated-woman.html

2005: Israeli poet Dahlia Ravikovitch was found dead in her apartment. Initial reports speculated the cause of death to be suicide, but the autopsy determined the cause to be sudden heart irregularities.A literary celebrity in Israel, Dahlia Ravikovitch who was born in 1936 is barely known in the United States, and far too small a presence in the English-reading world. Ravikovitch is not only one of the towering figures of 20th-century Israeli poetry, but also one of the strongest female poets in the history of Hebrew verse; she was so present here that she used to make frequent appearances on television, in which she was asked for her views on political or military developments. Long active in the peace movement, she often mixed the contemporary with the ancient and the biblical in her poetic responses to the news. While Ravikovitch is not an easy poet or a simple one, there is an approachability to the best of her work, and also, fortunately, to the best of a new translation entitledHovering at a Low Altitude: The Collected Poetry of Dahlia Ravikovitch; translated by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld. One of her strongest poems “Like Rachel” is quoted below.

Like Rachel

To die like Rachel

when the soul shudders like a

bird,

wants to break free.

Behind the tent, in fear and

dread,

Jacob and Joseph speak of her,

a-tremble.

All the days of her life

turn head over heels inside her

like a baby that wants to be

born.

How grueling. How

Jacob's love ate away at her

with a greedy mouth.

As the soul takes leave now,

she has no use for any of that.

Suddenly the baby screeches,

Jacob comes into the tent -

but Rachel does not even sense

it.

Rapture washes over her face,

her head.

* * *

Then did a great repose descend

upon her.

The breath of her nostrils would

not stir a feather.

They laid her down among

mountain stones

and made her no lament.

To die like Rachel,

that's what I want.

2006 (27 Av, 5766): Yahrzeit of Mathilde Schechter. Schechter “was the United States founder of the US National Women's League of Conservative Judaism in 1918. She was married to Rabbi Dr. Solomon Schechter, a prominent rabbi who was Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary. She founded and taught at the Columbia Religious and Industrial School for Jewish Girls. After assisting Henrietta Szold in creating Hadassah, Schechter later served as its national chairwoman of education. The Mathilde Schchter Residence Hall (MSRH), named for Schechter, contains undergraduate housing for students of the Jewish Theological Seminary's List College.” She passed away in 1924.

2006 (27 Av, 5766): Yizhar Smilansky passed away. Known by his pen name S. Yizhar or Samech Yizhar, he was an Israeli writer and a great innovator in Modern Hebrew literature. His pen name S. Yizhar was given to him by the poet and editor Yitzhak Lamdan, when in 1938 he published Yizhar's first story Ephraim Goes Back to Alfalfa in his literary journal Galleons. From then on, Yizhar signed his works with his pen name.

2006: On the 100th anniversary of the birth of Friz Feleng, Dan Miller remembered the great animator in “Puttin’ On the Friz.”

http://danmiller.typepad.com/dan_millers_notebook/friz-freleng.html

2006: The New York Times reported that Dina Najmin aged 38, a wife; mother of three and an expert in Jewish bioethics will become the spiritual leader of Kehilat Orach Eliezer.  As the Times said, “The appointment is a milestone for advocates of an expanded role for women Orthodox Judaism, but one bursting with the kind of contradictions and tensions that come with trying to reconcile modern egalitarian impulses with fidelity to ancient religious texts that often defy them.” “Kehilat Orach Eliezer is a non-denominational synagogue on Manhattan's Upper West Side
The congregation traces its roots to 1983 when Rabbi Rabbi Louis (Eliezer) Finkelstein, former chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, became unable to leave his home to attend Shabbat and holiday services. At that time, a small group of people dedicated to the mitzvah of bikkur cholim (visiting the ill) and interested in serious prayer began to meet at his apartment. This practice continued for nearly eight years until Rabbi Finkelstein's death in 1991.
At that time, under the guidance of Rabbi David Weiss Halivni, the group decided to continue meeting in a new place of prayer, the Jewish Home and Hospital for Aged on 106th Street, and with a new name, chosen in Rabbi Finkelstein's memory. The minyan has continued to grow throughout the years and in 1998 moved to the American Youth Hostel at 103rd Street and Amsterdam Avenue.”
Rabbi David Weiss Halivni is a scholar of Talmud and a Holocaust survivor, originally of Sighet, Romania, who would have been a contemporary of Elie Weisel.


2006: Starting today, Max, Kellerman did at least two nights of audition shows at 7 PM for WEPN (1050) 1050 ESPN Radio in New York City, hosting one night with Sid Rosenberg

 Rabbi David Weiss Halivni is a scholar of Talmud and a Holocaust survivor, originally of Sighet, Romania. ...2007: The man accused of stalking Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel and dragging the Holocaust scholar out of a hotel elevator earlier this year was ordered to stand trial for hate crimes. A San Francisco Superior Court judge ruled there was enough evidence to try 23-year-old Eric Hunt on six felony charges including attempted battery, stalking, kidnapping, false imprisonment, elder abuse and false imprisonment of an elder. Each charge carries a hate crime allegation.

2007: Fatah’s armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades announced that it would no longer honor understandings reached with Israel and called on its members to carry weapons to defend themselves against the IDF.  The announcement was seen as a challenged to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ efforts to dismantle the Aksa Martyrs Brigades and other Fatah-linked armed groups in the West Bank.  In other words, this more internecine Arab feuding camouflaged as part of the war against the Zionist entit2008: The New York Timesincluded a review Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight Over Presidential Power by

Jonathan Mahler managing editor of The Forward

2008 (20 Av 5768):President Shimon Peres is spending his 85th birthday in southern Israel's Negev desert as part of his crusade to promote growth in the sparsely-populated arid region. Peres is celebrating his birthday based on the Hebrew Calendar, not the secular calendar.  He was born on August 2, 1923 which was 20 Av.

2008:Today the state of Israel informed the High Court of Justice that it will shift the route of the separation barrier in the Judean desert so that 4,000 dunams of the roughly 70,000 dunams that were until now to be located on the "Israeli" side will now be on the West Bank side. At the same time, it made clear that the settlement of Kedar would remain on the "Israeli" side of the barrier in accordance with the original route.

2008: The Beaux Arts Trio with Menahem Pressler on piano performed its final American concert today at Tanglewood.

2009: In Cedar Rapids, Temple Judah hosts a Special Welcoming Friday Night Service for Rabbi Todd Thalblum as he settles in to his new pulpit.

2009: Today The London Beth Din ordered the board of an Orthodox synagogue in Sydney to make a six-figure payout to a prominent rabbi it tried to lay off. The ruling by the rabbinical court ends a bitter dispute between the Mizrachi Synagogue in Bondi and Rabbi Moshe Gutnick, who won an injunction in the New South Wales Supreme Court in March to stop synagogue members from voting on a resolution to lay him off.

2009(1st of Elul, 5769): Rosh Chodesh Elul

2009(1st of Elul, 5769): Edward René David Goldsmith widely known as Teddy Goldsmith, an Anglo-French environmentalist, writer and philosopher passed away. The eldest son of Major Frank Goldsmith, and elder brother of the financier Sir James Goldsmith, Edward Goldsmith was the founding editor and publisher of The Ecologist. Known for his outspoken views opposing industrial society and economic development, he expressed a strong sympathy for the ways and values of traditional peoples.  His father was Jewish.  His mother was not.

2009: “My One and Only” a comedy biopic starring Logan Lerman was released in the United States today.

2009(1st of Elul, 5769): Ninety-three year old Robert Bendheim, “the former president and chairman of he textile company M. Lowenstein Corporation and the president of the Leon Lowenstein Foundation, a charity named for his uncle passed away today after having led a full life that included graduating from Princeton, attending the Harvard Business School and serving as an officer in the U.S. Navy during WW II.

2010: A revival of Ira Levin’s “Deathtrap” opened at the Noel Coward Theatre in London.

2010: Adam Burstain, son of Todd and Jennifer Burstain, was called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, IA.

2010: During today’s national elections in Australia, Joshua Frydenberg, became Australia’s first Jewish lawmaker for the federal Liberal Party.

2011: Beth El Hebrew Congregation in Alexandria, VA, is scheduled to host its Perspective Members Brunch

2011:Israeli and New York-based choreographer Deganit Shemy& Company are scheduled to present a Work-in-Progress Performance of 2 Kilos of Sea at LMCC’s Arts Center at Governors Island.

2011: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Submission by Amy Waldman

2011:Members of Knesset from Israel's leading opposition party, Kadima, urged the cabinet today to launch a military campaign in the Gaza Strip, following the barrage of rockets that struck Israel over the weekend and the deadly terrorist attack that had taken place on August 18.

2011:The escalation in southern Israel continued this morning when six rockets and a barrage of mortars hit near the city of Ashkelon. The Iron Dome system successfully shot down three rockets

2011:Over a thousand people crowded a Kfar Saba cemetery today, to bid farewell to four people gunned down during Thursday’s combined terror attack near Eilat that left eight Israelis dead. Moshe Gez, 53, and Flora Gez, 52, as well as Dov Karlinski, 58, and Shula Karlinski, 54 were on their way to Eilat for a holiday on August 18 when they came under fire from terrorists who had infiltrated Israel from the Sinai Peninsula

2011: Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly was among those who spoke at the funeral of Sally Goodgold, the civic leader who lobbied for affordable housing. (As reported by David Dunlap)

2011: The annual ceremony commemorating “George Washington’s famed letter to the Jews of Touro Synagogue was held today in Newport, RI.

http://forward.com/articles/141627/pressure-grows-to-display-george-washingtons-famed/

2012:Shlomo Bar, Dan Shtag, Sharona Elimelech and the Desert Drummers are scheduled to perform songs by Uzi Hitman, Yoni Rechter, Nurit Hirsh, Miriam Yellin Shteklis, Nahum Vardi and Leah Goldberg in Hazan Hall as part of the Oud Festival.

2012: Fifty-seven year old legal scholar Cass Sunstein completed his three years of service as Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

2012: “Israel is “troubled” by the entry of Egyptian tanks into the northern Sinai Peninsula without coordination with Israel, a violation of the terms of the 33-year-old peace treaty between the two countries, and has asked Egypt to withdraw them, an Israeli government official said today.”

2012:For the first time, criminal charges have been pressed against a German rabbi for performing circumcisions, a Jewish weekly reported today.

2012:More than 600 rabbis displayed their support for US President Barack Obama's reelection bid today joining a campaign initiative called Rabbis for Obama. Obama for America announced today that Rabbis for Obama is designed to “engage and mobilize grassroots supporters.”

2013: A letter, of questionable authenticity  which describes the transportation of 5,000 Jews daily to the Treblinka extermination camp is scheduled to be auctioned off today in London (As reported by JTA)

2013: The Washington, DC JCC is scheduled to host “Atonement: Stories about Confession, Redemption and Making Amends” in which 8 “morally challenged individuals tell true stories about holding themselves accountable for their mistakes and wrong-doings.

2013(15th of Elul, 5773): Ninety-five year old Sid Bernstein who played a key role in the early American visits of the Beatles passed away today.(As reported by Allan Kozinn)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/arts/music/sid-bernstein-who-helped-import-the-beatles-dies-at-95.html

2013(15th of Elul, 5773): Seventy-two year old Eddie Goldstein – “little Honest Joe King Edward” – who “opened the first swap shop in Dallas, TX passed away today.

http://andersonclaytonbrosterrell.tributes.com/our_obituaries/Eddie-King-Edward-Goldstein--96298719

2013: In “Hasidic Jews Turn Up Pressure on City to Accommodate Their Traditions” published today, Joseph Berger examines the growing power of the Ultra-Orthodox in New York City while offering no differianation in the use of the term “Hasidic.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/nyregion/hasidic-jews-turn-up-pressure-on-city-to-accommodate-their-traditions.html?hpw&_r=0&pagewanted=print

2013: “Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Israel’s chief envoy to peace talks, met clandestinely this morning with Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel, Israeli officials said. A second meeting, which took place Tuesday evening at an undisclosed location in Jerusalem, included Washington’s point man Martin Indyk, the officials said.

2014: L.A.’s Yiddish Tango Club which “infuses klezmer with the fresh sensuality of Argentine tango” is scheduled to perform this evening in Los Angeles.

2014: Two days after the latest cease fire was broken Hamas rockets, “Israel approved the call-up of 10,000 IDF reservists today.”

2014(25th of Av, 5774): Eighty-nine year old Helen Bamber, “the comforter of torture victims” passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/world/helen-bamber-therapist-to-torture-victims-dies-at-89.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHedThumbWell&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2014:The armed wing of Hamas announced today that three of its senior commanders - Mohammed Abu Shamalah, Raed al-Attar and Mohammed Barhum - were killed in a pre-dawn Israeli air strike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.(As reported by Uzi Barach)

2015: In Atlanta, Timothy Frilingos the Berman Museum’s Director of Exhibitions is scheduled to lead a tour of the museum’s latest Southern Jewish History Exhibition “Eighteen Artifacts: A Story of Jewish Atlanta.”

2015: “Jewish American singer Matisyahu confirmed his participation in a Spanish music festival” today “two days after organizers apologized for canceling his appearance following an uproar by pro-Palestinian groups.”

2015: “A former Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, revealed new details to his biographers about how close Israel came to striking Iran’s military facilities in 2010, 2011 and 2012 and why it did not despite his and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s desire to do so, according to interview excerpts aired on Israeli television” tonight. (As reported by Jodi Rudoren)

2015: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the funeral of Joan Lipsky is scheduled to take place at Temple Judah followed by burial at Eben Israel Cemetery.

http://www.cedarmemorial.com/Obituary/2015/Aug/Joan-M-Lipsky/

2016: “From The Deep” a play “inspired by the story of Gilad Shalit and Ilan Shaliach” is scheduled to be performed for the last time at The New York International Fringe Festival FringeNYC.

2016: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Euro: How a Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europeby Joseph E. Stiglitz

2016: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center a performance by Dwight Sora who is playing the role Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara saved thousands during the Holocaust by issuing visas that allowed them to leave Lithuania.

2016: The UKJF is scheduled to host a screening of “We’ll Never Have Paris” directed by Simon Helberg at the JW3 Cinema.

2016: “One Crown Heights,” a neighborhood festival “sponsored by civic groups and elected officials including the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Children’s Museum” but disapproved of by Norman Rosenbaum whose brother Yankel was killed during the riots is scheduled to be held today to commemorate the 25thanniversary of what one source euphemistically described as “the racial unrest that tore through the Brooklyn neighborhood.”

2016: The Chicago production of “War Paint, a “musical focuses on the lives and rivalry between Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubenstein” came to an end today.

https://www.goodmantheatre.org/warpaint

2016: In Newport, RI, The Annual Meeting of the Touro Synagogue Foundation is scheduled to be held this morning at the Levi Gale House followed by the annual reading of George Washington's historic letter "To the Hebrew Congregation at Newport" 1:00 pm.

http://www.tourosynagogue.org/

2017: The Hillel at the University of Iowa is scheduled to host and evening of hot dogs, hamburgers and whole lot more for incoming freshman and returning Hawkeyes.

2017 Five police officers were lightly injured overnight as dozens of ultra-Orthodox demonstrators who do not want to serve in the IDF pelted them with stones and bottles during rioting in Jerusalem, police said in a statement today

2017: In Louisiana, “The East Jefferson Interfaith Clergy Association (EJICA), a group of Metairie and Kenner clergy men and women representing a number of denominations and faith groups including Congregations Beth Israel (Orthodox), Gates of Prayer (Reform) and Shir Chadash Conservative Congregation” is scheduled to held a prayer vigil tonight “in order to denounce the white nationalists, anti-Semites and neo-Nazis who marched last week in Charlottesville, which resulted in the overflow of violence and the death of a counterprotestor as the hands of one of the so-called alt-right.” (As reported by CCJN the source for everything Jewish on the Louisiana Gulf Coast.

2017: In response to poplar demand, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Dough” in London

2017: American University graduate Ross B. Levinsohn, the “son of Joyce (née Salton) and WW II veteran Jay Douglas Levinsohn” “was named the publisher and CEO of the Los Angeles Times by tronc” today.

2018: Following yesterday’s skirmish on the Gaza border that began when a terrorist fired “live rounds” at IDF troops in Israel, “talks on a long-term ceasefire between Israel and Hamas” appeared to be stalled with no end in sight.

2018: Yad Vashem is scheduled to continue hosting its newest exhibition “Flashes of Memory – Photography During the Holocaust.”

2018: The Penultimate session of “the four annual Docu. Text festival” is scheduled to take place at the National Library of Israel.

2019: Two days after he had passed away funeral services are scheduled to held for Sol Maikon, “the dean of traditional Judaism” in Cedar Rapids and one of the last surviving members of Beth Jacob at Eben Israel Cemetery.

2019: Klezkanada is scheduled to host an evening of dancing preceded by the presentation “Yiddish Glory – The Lost Songs of World War II.

2019: Those attending the McGill/Klezkanada Academic Seminar are schedule to being their day study “The Music of the Hasidim” and end with an “interview with Irena Klepfisz.”

2019: In the morning the JCC of Northern Virginia is scheduled to off Intermediate Bridge Lessons” following in the evening by a dinner theatre performance of “Rogers and Hammerstein’s ‘South Pacific”

2019: “Carry/jump/catch by Club Guy & Roni‘s Poetic Disasters Club” is scheduled to open in Amsterdam.

https://aicf.org/event/carry-jump-catch/


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