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This Day, January 22, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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January 22

1167(23rdof Shevat, 4927): Ibn-Ezra passed away at the age of 78 in Calahorra which was on the border between Navarre and Aragon. There is no way that any entry could do justice to this Sephardic writer, philosopher, scientist and most important of all, world traveler.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/IbnEzra.html

1521: Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, opens the Diet of Worms. The Diet of Worms would vote to declare Luther an outlaw, banning his literature, and requiring his arrest” and require that he be punished as a heretic. Ultimately this would lead to warfare between Charles and the rebellious Germanic princes who supported Luther. This outbreak of fighting would determine who “the real Charles was” when it came to dealing with Jews.  Charles wore two hats or should we say, crowns.  As King of Spain, he was the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella, following in the footsteps, the monarchs who brought the inquisition to Spain and expelled the Jews in 1492. But as Holy Roman Emperor “he had issued a letter of protection for Germany’s Jews” and “did not tamper with the privileges extended by previous Emperors to his Jewish subjects.  When the fighting broke out, Spanish troops came to Germany to support Charles against the rebellious Protestant princes. When the Jews complained that the Spanish troops were treating them in the “Spanish manner,” the Emperor issued an order to end the molestation of the Jews. So in this instance Charles worse his “German Hat” and ironically it was a better deal for the Jews of that time and place.

1561: Birthdate of Sir Francis Bacon. According to one “myth” the Earl of Leicester was Bacon's actual father and he had as his physician the magician and Jew Dr. Frederigo Lopez who was the insipiration for “the Jew of Malta.”

1621: William Prynne, the English jurist and political leader who opposed allowing the Jews to return to England graduated from Oxford with a B.A.

1648: Rabbi Shabbetai ben Meir ha-Kohen completed the manuscript for Nekudat ha-Kessef

1689: As the British wrestled with the issue of whether or not James II was still their ruler, the Convention Parliament met today.  By now Jews had been re-admitted to the kingdom but their numbers were small and they played no active role in the meeting. But the ultimate outcome certainly had an impact on their future as citizens of the United Kingdom. 

1714: In Bordeaux, France, Judica Lopes and Raphael Nones gave birth to Aaron Nones, the husband of Sara Pereyre aand the father of Aaron and Benjamin Nones.

1729: Birthdate of Gotthold Lessing, German poet, philosopher and playwright. Although a strong believing Christian, he advocated religious tolerance. His plays, such as “Die Juden” which appeared in 1749, portrayed the Jews as decent, admirable people. Lessing was a close friend of Moses Mendelssohn, who provided the inspiration for the character of Nathan in “Nathan the Wise” a play whose sympathetic portrayal of the Jews earned it the distinction of being banned by 18th century Christians and 20th century Nazis.

1752(6th of Shevat): Talmudist Rabbi David ben Joseph of Breslau, author of Shoresh Yosef, passed away.

1755: Birthdate of Abraham Flesch, father of Moravian born businessman Joseph Flesch who “translated several of the writings of Philo into Hebrew.”

1755: Marshal Oscar von Lubomirski demolished the Jewish homes built on the outskirts of Warsaw in a community called “New Jerusalem”.  After the demolitions were completed, all of the Jews were expelled from Warsaw.

1765: Bordeaux native Jacob Nones and Rose Fernandez gave birth to Selomo Nones.

1775: Pope Pious VI reinforces all existing anti-Jewish legislation as part of his campaign against liberalism.  He passed away in 1781.

1780: In Nemyriv, Ukraine, Chaya Lane and Rabbi Naphtali Hertz Sternhartz gave birth Nathan Sternhartz, known as Nathan of Breslov, “the chief disciple and scribe of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov” whose biography Chayeh Moharan was written by Nathan of Breslov.

1786: In New York City, Zipporah Levy and Benjamin Mendes Seixas gave birth to Abraham Siexas, the husband of Charleston, SC native Rachel Nunez Cardozo and the father of Virginia, David, Benjamin, James and Miriam Seixas.

1812: In Dorsten, Meunster, Germany Julia Isaak and Samson Nathan Eisendrath gave birth to twice married Moses Samson Eisendrath, the father of Sigmund, Rosa, Hannah, Nathan and Levi Eisendrath.

1814(1st of Shevat, 5574): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1814(1st of Shevat): Rabbi Eliezer ben Joseph of Alton, author of Mishnat de Rabbi Eliezer passed away today.

1814(1st of Shevat, 5574): Raphael Bischoffsheim passed away Mayence.  A merchant and prominent philanthropist, he was born at Bischofsheim-on-the-Tauber in 1773.  He went to Mayence during the French Revolution, and from a small merchant became a purveyor to the army. Bischoffsheim was well thought of by his co-religionist and served as was president of the Jewish community of Mayence.

1818(1th of Shevat, 5578): Tu B’Shevat

1832: Birthdate of Alonzo Barton Cornell, who while serving as 27thGovernor of New York appointed Meyer Isaacs to serve as a Justice of the Marine Court.

1837(Shevat 15): Rabbi Jacob Simon Sofer of Cracow, author of Maor Shemesh passed away.

1840: British colonists reach New Zealand. According to Maria Weiss, Jewish merchants began arriving in New Zealand in the 1830’s.  By 1840, there were approximately 30 Jews living in the colony including David Nathan who helped found the Jewish community in Aukland and Abraham Hort who helped found the Jewish community in Wellington.

1840: Two days after he had passed away, Nathan Bennaton Vallentine, the son of Rosa and Benjamin Valentine was buried today in the UK.

1840: In Posen, Marcus Mosse, M.D. and Ulrike Mosse gave birth to Rudolf Mosse

1842: In Lattin, County Tipperary, John Keating O’Dwyer and his wife gave birth to their only son 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.

1850: In London, Catherine Barnett and David Jonas gave birth Louis Jonas.

1851: In NSW, Australia, Julia and Lewis Wolfe Levy gave birth to Benjamin (Benn) Wolfe Levy.

1855: In Schweidnitz, “well known Jewish physician Dr. Mortiz Neisser” and his wife gave birth to Albert Ludwig Sigesmund Neisser a German physician who discovered the causative agent (pathogen) of gonorrhea, a strain of bacteria that was named in his honour (Neisseria gonorrhoeae).”

1856: Twelve Bavarian, Dutch, and Portuguese Jews, who “had originally organized in 1855 as the United Brethren Society, a benefit society that provided members with medical and burial assistance” met today in Brooklyn to discuss plans for the incorporation of their group as a synagogue.  Their efforts would bear fruit in March of 1856 with the founding of Congregation Baith Israel Anshei Emes. (בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל אַנְשֵׁי אֱמֶת‎, "House of Israel – People of Truth"), the first synagogue formed on Long Island and “the oldest continuously operating synagogue in Brooklyn.” Today Baith Israel is “commonly known as the Kane Street Synagogue, an egalitarian Conservative synagogue on Kane Street in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.

1858: Frederick I, who appointed the first Jew to a ministerial position and supported Herzl, became Grand Duke of Baden today.

1861: The New York Tribune expressed its displeasure with the decision of Hiram Ketchum and Professor Samuel F.B. Morse to invite Rabbi Raphael to deliver an address saying that “when men are out of money, they go to the Jews but we never would have expected to find” them “so short of speech as to be obliged to ask Rabbi Raphael to speak for them.”

1863: The January Uprising breaks out in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. The aim of the national movement was to liberate the Polish-Lithuanian-Ruthenian Commonwealth from Russian occupation. It is estimated that 1,000 to 2,000 Jews participated in the uprising.  Approximately 400 of them lost their lives while several hundred more were exiled to Siberia by the Russians when the uprising failed.

1864(14thof Shevat, 5624): In Berlin, 70-year-old Baruch Auerbach “the founder and life-long director of the Jewish Orphan Asylum” who believed that "Orphans are not merely poor children, but children without parents; to raise and bring them up, an orphan asylum should give those children not merely bread and a shelter, but parental love also, and practical training” passed away today.

1867: Birthdate of Indianapolis, Indiana native Louis Paul Dessar, the CCNY and National Academy of Designed trained internationally acclaimed artist.

https://americanart.si.edu/artist/louis-paul-dessar-1233

https://connecticuthistory.org/artist-louis-paul-dessar-dies-today-in-history-february-14/

1868: In Lafayette Parish, LA, William Louis Bendel and Mary Bendel gave birth to Henri Bendel who in 1899 came to New York City where he opened “small millinery shop” that grew into “the women’s specialty shop” that bears his name and is one of the “fashion leaders” in the Big Apple.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1936/03/23/88645384.pdf

 

1870: Rabbi Lewin conducted the first Shabbat morning service at the newly formed Temple Israel.  Services were held in the building owned by the YMCA in Brooklyn.  Dr. Samuel Adler of Temple Emanu-El delivered the sermon.  The service was conducted in English and the sermon was delivered in German.

1870: Ludwig Bamberger co-founded “the Deutsche Bank in Berlin as a specialist bank for foreign trade.”

1871: Birthdate of composer Leon Jessel who died at the hands of the Gestapo in 1942.

http://www.naxos.com/person/Leon_Jessel/24533.htm

1874: New Jersey authorities took Abraham Levy off of the Hamburg steamer Silesiabefore it sailed this afternoon.  The Jewish businessman has been accused by his partner of stealing $2,200 from their Baltimore, MD business.

1875: Birthdate of Cracow native Solomon Z. Prokesch who came to the United States in 1892, earned degrees from NYU, Columbia and JTS after which he served as the Superintendent for the Jewish Children’s Home in Boston and chaplain of the Jewish Protectory and Aid Society in Hawthorne, NY.

1875: Ferdinand Hitzig, the German student of the Bible who spent 28 years writing commentaries published separately on The Psalms (1835–1836; 2nd ed., 1863–1865), The Minor Prophets (1838; 3rd ed., 1863), Jeremiah (1841; 2nd ed., 1866), Ezekiel (1847), Daniel (1850), Ecclesiastes (1847), Song of Solomon(1855), and Proverbs (1858) and who contended that the 5thand 16th chapters of Isaiah were written by the prophet Jonah mentioned in the Book of Kings passed away today.

1876: In Brooklyn, Balbina Rahner (née Bugel) and Gebhard Rahner gave birth to Wilhelmina Beatrice Rahner who gained fame as Bess Houdini, the stage assistant and wife of the great Houdini.

1878: A Jew named William Yandaw was held as a material witness after he accused Annie Walker of stealing $35 from him.

1880(9thof Shevat 5640): Abraham Ashkenazi, the Chief Rabbi of Palestine whom the Sultan named “Hakam Bashi” and who was decorated by Emperor Frank Josef when he visited Jerusalem, passed away today.

1881: In Warsaw, Zelman and Liebe (Blumenthal) Altshiller, gave birth to Nathan Altshiller, who gained fame as Nathan Althsiller Court, the University of Oklahoma mathematics professor and husband of Sophie Ravitch best known for his seminal work, College Geometry - An Introduction to the Modern Geometry of the Triangle and the Circle

1882: The Hearts of Oak Company featuring David Belasco as “Mr. Ellingham” performed for the first time at Leubrie’s Theatre in St. Paul, MN.

1883: In Seligman, Missouri, named for Joseph Seligman, “a fire broke out at the Exchange Hotel which destroyed it completely along with a large part of the town.”

1886: Today, the Prince of Wales and future King Edward VII, formally opened the Mersey Railway tunnel the boring of which was completed under the direction of Samuel Isaac from whom “Queen Victoria accepted a jeweled representation “in which the speck of light at the end of the excavation was represented by a brilliant.

1887(26thof Tevet, 5647): Parashat Vaera

1887(26thof Tevet, 5647): Seventy-seven-year-old Grace Nathan, one of the 14 children of Sarah and Isaac Mendez Seixas Nathan passed away today in her native New York.

1889: Founding of the Ladies’ Hebrew Orphan Aid Society in Newark, NJ, whose members included Rose Marx, Helen Straus and Carrie Kempe.

1890(1st of Shevat, 5650): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1890: Birthdate of Frederick “Fred” Vison the Kentucky Congressman who followed Henry Morgenthau as Secretary of the Treasury and who as Chief Justice served with Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter.

1891: Baron Hirsch signed a deed of trust in the presence of the Consul General of the United States in Paris and the Vice Consul that gave control of $2,400,000 to a group of prominent New York Jewish community leaders who would use the funds to aid recent Russian and Romanian immigrants to the United States.

1891: Birthdate of Budapest native Alexander Ferenc Gabor, the son of “philosopher and theater critic Bernhard Alexander who gained fame as Dr Franz G. Alexander, the psychoanalyst and psychiatrist  who “lived the first 40 years of his life as an upperclass European and the last 33 as a very active. creative American.”

https://www.nytimes.com/1964/03/09/archives/dr-franz-alexander-73-dies-was-pioneer-in-psychosomatics-analyst.html?searchResultPosition=1

 

1891: Birthdate of Polish native, painter Moise Kisling who moved to France in 1910 where he developed his style and gained fame and popularity and was decorated by the French for heroism during World War I. 

1891: The first modern ocean-going cruise, which was personally organized and supervised by Albert Ballin, where the pleasure of the voyage was of paramount importance began today when “he SS Auguste Victoria (named after the German empress) set sail to cruise the Mediterranean for six weeks.”

1892: In Paris, Noemi Allatini Bloch and Adolphe Bloch gave birth to Marcel Bloch, the great French airplane designer who changed his name to Marcel Dassault after suffering the vicissitudes of World War II

1891: Twenty-three-year-old NYU trained attorney William Grossman, the New York City born son of Henry and Katherine (Yasnigi) Grossman and member of the West End Synagogue married Carrie Basch today in New York.

 1891: Birthdate of Budapest born American psychoanalyst Dr. Franz Gabriel Alexander, the husband of “artist Anita Venier with whom he had two daughters, Sylvia and Francesca

https://www.nytimes.com/1964/03/09/archives/dr-franz-alexander-73-dies-was-pioneer-in-psychosomatics-analyst.html

https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1176/appi.ajp.159.8.1305

1892: “Too Much Immigration” published today described the impact of foreign workers arriving in the United States including that in New York, the Russian Jews “had practically crowed the Germans out of the clothing industry by working for lower wages” but who were no in turn were being crowded out by the Italians who were willing to work for even less and that in New England Jews were crowding the “Cannuks” out of the mills by working for less just as the Canadians had crowded out the Irish.

 1893(5th of Shevat): Seventy-four-year-old historian David Cassel who was active in “Wissenschaft des Judentums or Jewish Studies which refers to a nineteenth-century movement premised on the critical investigation of Jewish literature and culture, including rabbinic literature, using scientific methods to analyze the origins of Jewish traditions, passed away today.

1893: It was reported today that Temple Emanu-El has donated “over 3,500 books, pamphlets and manuscripts” to Columbia to serve as the foundation for the schools “library of Hebrew literature, philology and religion.”

1893: John Edelmann, the socialist-anarchist architect who had worked for Dankmar Adler addressed a meeting at the Hebrew Institute in New York City held to protest the Panama Scandal now rocking France

1893: Birthdate of actor Conrad Veidt who is remembered for his role of Major Strasser in the famous World War II film, “Casablanca."

1894(15thof Shevat, 5654): Tu B’Shevat

1894: Professor Knapp of Barnard College was scheduled to give a lecture this evening at the Hebrew Institute.

1894: As economic conditions continued to worsen R.H. Macy & Co which was owned by the Straus family sent $1,355.85 to the Charity Organization in New York for the second week in a row.

1895(26th of Tevet, 5655): Edward “Teddy” Solomon passed away today six months before his 40thbirthday. An accomplished pianist and conductor, Solomon was a noted composer of comic operas in the manner of Gilbert and Sullivan.

1895: Two days after he had passed away, Samuel Lewis Nathan, the husband of the former Eva Joshua and the father of Joshua, Cecil and Percy Nathan was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1896: The Hebrew Orphan Asylum of Brooklyn hosted its 13th annual charity ball which was held this evening at the Academy of Music.

1897(19thof Shevat, 5657): David Orbansky, Civil War veteran and winner of the Medal of Honor passed away today following which he was buried in Columbus, Ohio.

1898: A meeting of anti-Dreyfus and anti-Zola demonstrators is scheduled to be held in Paris’ Latin Quarter today.

1898: Sir Lionel Abrahams and his wife, the former Lucy Joseph gave birth to their only son Arthur Charles Lionel Abrahams, the Oxford Graduate who was killed during WW I while serving as a Lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards.

http://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/fallen-alumni/lieutenant-arthur-charles-lionel-abrahams

1898: Today, “Selah Merrill…a Congressionalist clergyman and  a prolific writer on Palestine and archaeological subjects relating to Biblical lands” who “was formerly Consul at Jerusalem from 1882 to 1886” was nominated today by President McKinley to serve a second term in that position.

1898: In Riga, which at that time was a part of the Russian Empire, architect Mikhail Osipovich Eisenstein, a member of a Jewish merchant family which had convert “to the Russian Orthodox Church and his wife Julia gave birth to Russian and Soviet director Segei Eisnstein best known for the 1925 epic “Battleship Potemkin.”

1898: Rabbi Gustav Gottheil delivered an address about “Jewish Immigration” at dinner tonight at Delmonico’s that celebrated the 22nd anniversary of the Legal Aid Society in New York City.

1898: “Barnato: The Man’s Life and His Fortune in Diamonds” published today provides a review of Barney Barnato: A Memoir by John Ward.

1899: It was reported today that J. Ernest G. Yalden is Superintendent of the Baron de Hirsch Technical Schools and A.S. Solomons is the general manager of the school.

1899: Birthdate of Washington, DC native and National University Law School trained attorney Nathan Cayton who when appointed as a Judge of the DC Municipal Court “was the youngest man ever to be appointed to a judicial position in the District of Columbia.”

1899: Founding of the English Zionist Federation

1899: It was reported today that the Baron de Hirsch Technical Schools, which has limited admission to Russian and Romanian Jewish immigrants are now accepting “Jews of all nationalities.”

1899: Birthdate of Czech born American historian Guido Kisch who specialized in the history of the Jews during the Middle Ages.

1899: The Federated Hebrew Trade Unions sent delegates to today’s meeting of a newly formed labor organization known as the Central Federated Union.

1899: It was reported today that John T. O’Brien who had been supplied with a job and card for free lodging by the United Hebrew Charities claimed that he been the victim of a “badger game”’; a charge for which there was no evidence. (O’Brien had not been asked to provide any proof that he was Jewish when he applied for assistance, indicating that the Jewish charity supplied people who were not their co-religionists.)

1901: Count Boni de Catelane who arrived in the United States from France today responded to reports in Figaro that he had so depleted his own finances by gambling that he was compelled to come to members of the Gould family for financial aid by saying that the paper “has lost half of its circulation and all of its prestige during the Dreyfus trial,” that “it is the synagogue of Paris
and that “it is the organ of the Jews today because the Jews pay the most.”

1901: King Edward VII followed his mother Queen Victoria to the British throne.  Edward counted several Jews among his friends and “inner circle,” something that did not sit well with much of the British aristocracy.  Even more important, was Edward’s willingness to intervene on behalf of the Jews of Russia.  In a state visit, he approached his cousin, Czar Nicholas II, about the matter.  Cousin Nicky ignored “Bertie.” English political leaders expressed dismay at the King’s behavior.  But for the Jews, Edward would become a hero.  His all too short reign came to an end in 1910.

1901: Following the death of Queen Victoria, Winston Churchill wrote to his mother speculating on what changes will take place in the behavior of the Prince of Wales now that he is king. Churchill wonders if King Edward will “scatter his Jews or will Reuben Sassoon be enshrined among the crown jewels and other regalia?” The King would keep his Jewish friends including “the Baghdadi-born Jew Reuben Sassoon.”

1901: In Cincinnati, Ohio, Jacob and Bertha Mack gave birth to Richard Jacob Mack.

1902: It was reported today that Abraham, Felix Adler, Adolph S. Ochs, Oscar Straus and Jacob H. Schiff are among those whom Mayor Seth Low has named to the committee making plans for the entertainment of Prince Henry when he visits New York in February.

1903: Oscar S. Straus was elected President of the New York Board of Trade and Transportation this afternoon at the meeting of the Managing Directors.

1904: Herzl is received by Rafael Merry del Val the Papal Secretary, who promises to take into consideration the matter of supporting the Zionist aspirations.

1905: The Sunday New York Times Magazine publishes the first three chapters of an unfinished novel by the late Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield.

1905: Birthdate of Karola Bloch, the German architect, left-wing political activist and wife of Ernst Bloch.

1906: Today, Jacob Harry Hollander, the son of “Meyer and Rosa Hollander, who became a full professor at his alma mater, Johns Hopkins marred Theresa Gutman Hutzler with whom he had three children.

1906: “Between 5,000 and 6,000 Polish, Romanian, German and Russian Jews gathered at Rutgers Square on East Broadway to mark the first anniversary of ‘Red Sunday’ when thousands of workingmen were shot down in St. Petersburg while endeavoring to submit an appeal to the Czar.”

1906: It was reported today that Illinois Congressman H.T. Rainey had delivered a speech condemning the attacks on the Jews of Russia in which he said, “In the opening years of this the greatest of all the centuries the Grand Dukes and their followers who support the tottering throne of the Romanoffs have resorted to the hold methods and this time they are inflaming the populace against the helpless Jews – and already the blood of 100,000 Jews cries out for vengeance” which means “the time may be near at hand when an instrument may be raised up to execute upon the men who are responsible for these inhuman butcheries the old doctrine – an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”

1907(7thof Shevat, 5667): Seventy-nine-year-old Dr. Joseph Kopp, the Viennese attorney wrote a book “defending the honor of Judaism” in the wake of the rise of anti-Semitism aft the Tisza Eszlar blood libel passed away today.

1907: Salome, Op. 54, an opera in one act by Richard Strauss which he dedicated the opera to his friend Anglo-Jewish financier Sir Edgar Speyer had its New York City premiere.

1908: In Baku, Azerbaijan, petroleum engineer David Lovich Landau and medical doctor Lyubov Veniaminovna Garkavi-Landau gave birth to mathematics child prodigy and physicist Lev Davidovich Landau the winner of the Nobel Prize in 1962.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1962/landau/biographical/

1909: Birthdate of South African born physicist and radiobiologist Tikvah Alper.

https://jwa.org/people/alper-tikvah

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-tikvah-alper-1610123.html

http://cshlwise.org/wise-wednesdays/2017/8/23/tikvah-alper

1909: Birthdate of Holyoke, MA native Morris Sawdish, the University of Chicago and Yale University linguist who was an acolyte of Edward Sapir.

https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1525/aa.1968.70.4.02a00070

1909: Sleah Merrill, the clergyman who worked as an archeologist for the American Palestine Exploration Society, excavating the second wall of Jerusalem and served as the United Counsel in Jerusalem three times between 1882 and 1907 passed away.  “A virulent anti-Semite” he opposed Jewish settlement in Palestine, a view which was adopted by many in the United States State Department.

http://www.shapell.org/manuscript/cart-de-visite-photo-of-jerusalem-consul-selah-merrill

1910: Birthdate of New York City native and University of Pennsylvania graduate Malcom Alan Vendig a U.S. Army Captain who served with 83rd Infantry Division “during WW II and after the war as military governor of Landkreis Dachau, Germany

1911: At the annual meeting of the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society several speakers including Jacob Schiff and Judge Leon Sanders condemned the Gardner Immigration bill, which proposed to add an educational test clause to the exclusion laws and severely criticized the special boards of inquiry on Ellis Island.

1911: In New York City Agnes Elizabeth Meyer, who was Lutheran and Eugene Meyer, who was Jewish gave birth to Florence Meyer who gained famed as Florence Meyer Homolka, the noted photographer who was the wife of actor Oscar Homolka.

1911: Twenty-year old Lily Kronberger won “her fourth consecutive world figure skating championship in Vienna” today. (As reported by Bob Wechsler)

1911:  Birthdate of Bruno Kreisky, the first Jewish Chancellor of Austria.  He died in 1990.

1912: Dr. Harry Friedenwald of Baltimore, Honorary President of the Federation of American Zionists introduced Dr. Benzion Mossinsohn, a representative of the Gymnasium of Jaffa, who delivered a lecture in Yiddish to a very large audience at Cooper Union tonight on the work of that school, the first strictly Jewish school to be established in Palestine for 2,000 years.

1912: “Y.M.H.A.” Dedicates Heinsheimer Annex” published today described the meeting of the National Young Men’s Hebrew Association where the Louis A. Heinsheimer Memorial Building which was a gift from Felix M. Warburg was dedicated along with the unveiling of a tablet memorializing the late Percival S. Menken “which has been placed at the west end of the swimming pool.

1913: In Chicago, Mr. Horace Bridges is scheduled to “deliver a lecture on ‘Eugenics in the Drama’ this evening at the Chicago Hebrew Institue.”

1913: The new Hebrew Union College buildings were dedicated at Cincinnati, Ohio.

1913: Birthdate of London native Hyman Barnett “Harry” Mizler who along with his brothers Moe and Judah worked in the family fish stall “in Watney Street Market” before become becoming a member of Britain’s 1932 Summer Olympics box team and winning “the British Board of Control (BBofC) Lightweight Title.”

1913: The National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods was officially organized today in Cincinnati, Ohio.

1913: Birthdate of Avraham Goldberg, the native of Pittsburgh, PA and graduate of both the University of Pittsburgh and JTS who served as Chaplain in the U.S. military during WW II after which he moved to Israel where he earned a PhD from Hebrew University where he became a Professor of Talmudic Studies.

1914: Bronx resident Solomon Bloomgarden, better as the poet “Yehoash” whose admirers refer to as the “Yiddish Milton” is scheduled to sail today for Palestine where he plans on living “for the benefit of his health” and to participate in “the ‘Jewish Renaissance’ in the ancient land of the Jewish People.”

1915: Birthdate of Samuel J. Popeil, inventor of the Veg-O-Matic.

1915: It was reported today that the Union of American Hebrew Congregations has selected Washington, DC to be the site of their 1917 national meeting.

1915: The Young Men’s Hebrew Association, the Hebrew League of Boston and a delegation of Jews from New York are among those who will be attending the meeting in the East Room of the White House where President Wilson will hear the pros and cons of the proposed immigration bill which the Jews oppose because of the literacy test.

1915: The trial of Dan H. Lehon, C.C. Tedder and Arthur Thurman who have been indicted for subordination of perjury in matters related to the case of Leo Frank which was supposed to have begun today has been postponed.

1915: “Turks and Germans Expelling Zionists” published today described the apparent intention of “Djemel Pasha, the Turkish commander in chief of the army intended for the attack on the Suez Canal” to systematically destroy “the entire of work of Jewish colonization built up by the labors of thirty years and the expenditure of millions of pounds.”

1915: It was reported today that more than 5,000 refugees from Jaffa and other parts of Palestine are in Alexandria where they could be joined by almost 80,000 mostly Russian Jews whom the Central Powers seem determined to drive out of the country.

1915: According to tonight’s announcement “by the Provisional Executive Committee for General Zionist Affairs of which Louis D. Brandeis is Chairman” about 4,000 Jewish refugees from Jerusalem, Jaffa and Beirut have “fled to Alexandria” with about “5,000 more on their way.”

1915: Leo Frank was scheduled to be hung today. (The execution would not take place thanks to a writ issued by the U.S. Supreme Court following arguments by Louis Marshall)

1916: In New York City, Jacob H. Schiff delivered a speech in which he said “war will never cease until we have worldwide free trade and the only way to render preparedness unnecessary is to raze the Custom Houses and the tariff walls and have international free trade,” a view that was fully supported by the President of the American Tariff Reform League, “the first national organization to declare for the re-nomination and re-election of President Wilson.

1916: Birthdate of Michel Haguenauer, the champion of France in singles senior in 1933, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1949 and 1950 who was “arrested by the Gestapo and interned in Montluc Prison” during WWII.

1916: It was reported today that when Governor Martin Brumbaugh of Pennsylvania issued a proclamation setting next Thursday as special day for making donations to aid the Jews suffering war-torn Europe “he paid tribute to the Jewish people” and suggested that contribution be set to the American Red Cross in Washington, D.C.

1916: “The Home Mission Council, which met” in New York “last week was attacked” today “in a sermon by Rabbi Israel Herbert Levinthal of Temple Petach Tikvah…for utterances regarding the conversion of Jews to Christian faiths reported to have been made at the council sessions.”

1916: Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurum announced today that his congregation had pledged $1,500 for the upcoming Jewish Relief Day.

1916: Among the contributors to the American Jewish Relief Committee listed today were congregations in Atlantic City, Atlanta and Minneapolis.

1917: Rabbi Hyman G. Enelow delivered a lecture on “The Jewish Interest in Jesus” this morning at Temple Emanu-El.

1917: President Wilson delivered an address to Congress today which “was intended as an open message to the world of the conditions under which he would urge the United States to enter a world federation to guarantee future peace.”  (Editor’s Note – this is a reference to what would eventually become the League of Nations, the international body that would give Britain its mandate to govern Palestine with all that would mean for the Jewish people.)

1917: The members of the Medical Advisory Board helping Hadassah to send a medical unit to Palestine include Drs. Harry Friedenwald, Isaac A. Abt, Isaac Adler, Emanuel Libman, Milton J. Rosenau and Miss Lillian D. Wald.

1917: Birthdate of Jean-Louis Crémieux, the native of Colombes, France who added Brilhac to his name while serving as a leader of the Free French during WW II.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/french-resistance-propagandist-cremieux-brilhac-dead-at-98/

1918: Birthdate of Idea Weiner, the wife of Manfred Erich Swarsensk who after being imprisoned at Sachsenhausen concentration camp came to the United States in 1940 where he served as “Rabbi for Temple Beth El, a Reform congregation in Madison, Wisconsin.

1918: In Vienna, Ida and Siegfried Reginald Wolf gave birth to Elfriede Julie Wolf.

1918: In London, Lord Reading presided over a banquet celebrating the semi-Jubilee of the Jewish Historical Society which was attended by ambassadors from the United States and China as well as by the Lord Chancellor.

1918: “Hundreds of men and women solicitors” participating in “the drive to get 50,000 new members for the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies” met this evening at the Hotel Biltmore where they were told that despite their efforts, “the federation still faces a material deficit in the current year’s budget for the 89 welfare organizations which compose it.

1918: Moishe Zilberfarb completed an 18-month stint as Deputy-Secretary of Jewish Affairs in the General Secretariat of Ukraine, the main executive institution of the Ukrainian People's Republic.

1919: In Boston, “Ezra Ramin, a window trimmer, and Beatrice D. (Salamoff) Ramin gave birth Sidney Nathan Ramin, the award-winning composer and arranger who was a boyhood friend of Leonard Bernstein. (As reported by Anita Gates)?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/05/arts/music/sid-ramin-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

1919: General Orders No.16 of the US War Department which described the Heroism of William Sawleson which earned him the Medal of Honor was issued today. (“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.”)

1920: In Jerusalem, Dr. Samuel Lewin-Epstein, the “son of Eliyahu Ze'ev (Wolf) Lewin-Epstein and Judith Lewin-Epstein” and his wife Madeline Lewin-Epstein gave birth to Professor Jacob Lewis-Epstein, the brother of Noah Lewin-Epstein.

1921: In Warsaw, Stanislaw Baczyński, an author with “Jewish roots” and school teacher Stefania Zieleńczyk a zealous Catholic whose Jewish roots led the Germans to treat her and her family as Jews, gave birth to Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński the Polish poet who fought in the Home Army as Jan Bugaj  and whose “uncle, Dr. Adam Zieleńczyk, escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto and was killed by Germans in 1943.”

1922: Pope Benedict XV passed away. During World War I in response to the request of American Jews to alleviate the suffering of Polish Jews, Benedict issued a letter which was published in “Civilta Cattolica” denouncing anti-Semitism.  In 1917, he spent 45 minutes with Zionist Nahum Sokolov discussing the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine.

1923: The Golden Jubilee Convention of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations opened at the Hotel Astor in New York City.

1924: When the Labor Party in Great Britain formed its first government, Josiah Wedgwood was named Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster by Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald.

1925: “Find Bronze Age Graves” published described the “investigations of the Department of Antiquities” at “the site in orange grove at Jaffa where…men diffing a cistern accidently uncovered bones, potsherds and bronze sword handles” as well as two graves from the bronze age which may “throw light on a hitherto unknown period of the history of Jaffa.”

1926: The House of Representatives District Committee which effectively governs the District of Columbia “decided not to report” the Kosher Law proposed by Congressman Samuel Dickstein which is similar to a law in his home state of New York.

1927: After losing two straight bouts, featherweight Wilbur Cohen, a native of Washington, DC, scored a victory on points today.

1928:  In "Homeland of Habima,"published today, William Schack described the current state of theatre in Palestine.  According to him "Palestine is as poor as east side tenement" with a population divided into three linguistic groups speaking English, Arabic and Hebrew.  In the past year, the only English performances were by amateurs who stage a few "ace actors."  During the same period, the only Arabic offering was a performance of Carmen.  Other than that, Schack has not hear of "any Arabic theatre in Palestine."

1929(11thof Shevat, 5689): Fifty-seven-year-old David Pofcher, the son of Michael and Rose Pofcher, who with his wife Mamie had five children, passed away today in Boston, MA.

1929: Yehudi Menuhin is scheduled to receive “a Stradivatius and Tourte body” from Henry Goldman, a member of Goldman, Sachs and his wife. (As reported by JTA)

1929: Birthdate of Lotte Therese Newman, the Frankfurt born British physician who “became the first woman and the first Briton to serve as President of the International Society of General Practice” and President of the Royal College of General Practitioners.

1929: Flags flew “at half-mast on many public buildings in Newark, NJ” in honor of “merchant and philanthropist” Felix Fuld whose funeral was held today.

1930: In Winnipeg, Cantor and Mrs. Alexander Steinberg gave birth to Ben Steinberg, the noted Canadian musician who served as director of music at the Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto.

1931: Birthdate of Canadian Doris Giller who went from being “a secretary with a supermarket chain” to a career in journalism.

https://torontolife.com/from-the-archives/for-doris-jack-rabinovitch/

https://web.archive.org/web/20091009104037/http:/www.scotiabankgillerprize.ca:80/about.html

1931: Sir Isaac Isaacs, the son of a British tailor, was sworn in as the first Australian-born Governor-General of Australia.

1931: Silent screen star Alma Rubens, whose father was Jewish and whose mother was not, passed away.

1932: “Prestige” co-starring Melvyn Douglas was released today in the United States by RKO.

1933: Birthdate of basketball star Leonard Robert "Lennie" Rosenbluth, who played forward on the North Carolina team that won the NCAA Championship in 1957 and went on to a pro career with the Philadelphia Warriors.

1934: In the Bronx, Hannah (née Kleiman) and Joshua Charles Azenberg gave birth to Emanuel “Manny” Azenburg, the Bronx native who gained fame as a theatrical producer who worked with playwright Neil Simon for over three decades.

1934: “The d'Avigdor-Goldsmid Baronetcy, of Somerhill in the County of Kent, was a title in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom created today for Osmond d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, the President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and Chairman for the Jewish Agency for Palestine in London” who “was the grandson of Count Henri Salomon d'Avigdor, Duke of Acquaviva.”

1935: Today when the High Commissioner for Palestine, Brig. Gen. Sir Arthur Wauchope, opened a valve that inaugurated the British section of the gigantic enterprise, crude oil that had been pumped 600 mile through the new desert pipe line from the Iraq oil fields flowed into a tanker moored in the Bay of Acre off the coast of Palestine.

1935: Birthdate of American actor Seymour Cassel.

1936(27thof Tevet, 5696): Seventy-one year old Nathaniel Vidaver, the Boston born  son of “Rabbi Falk Vidaver and Anna Vidaver” and the husband of Nellie Vidaver passed away today.

1936: In Berlin, “the ‘Juridical Weekly’ published an article proposing that all marriages between Jews and ‘Germans’ be made the subject of dissolution on the demand of the ‘German’ partner.”

1937: “A Doctor’s Diary” directed by Charles Vidor and produced by B.P. Schulberg was released today in the United States.

1937: “An official communique today states that by command of King George VV, the British High Commissioner” in Palestine “has invited Amin Abdulhadi, a member of the Moslem Supreme Council and Itshak Bensvi, a member of the General[ML1]  Council of Palestine Jew to represent Palestine at his coronation” and that both men have accepted.

1938: An appeal for continued support of the Jewish colonization movement in Palestine in a time of renewed persecution of Jews in Rumania, Germany and Poland was voiced in Washington tonight by speakers before the National Conference for Palestine, meeting in observance of the completion of twenty years of Jewish settlement in the Holy Land.

1938(22ndof Shevat, 5698): Parashat Yitro

1938(22ndof Shevat, 5698): Sixty-year-old Kovno born “wood engraver and painter Henry Bock, the husband of Dora Block and the father of Adolph and Martin Block whose “colored wood engravings are on permanent exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum, the New York Public Library and the Library of Congress in Washington” passed away today in Plainfield, NJ.

1938: Today’s royal decree “whereby the citizenship of Rumania’s 750,000 Jews was called into question” was seen by some as a violation of the Constitution agreed to at the Congress of Berlin in 1878 and “the 1918 Paris minority agreement.”

1939: Dr. Israel Goldstein, the President of the Jewish National Fund is scheduled to be honored this evening for his twenty years of service as the Rabbi of Temple B’Nai Jeshurun by Jews and Gentiles including Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, Episcopal Bishop William T. Manning, Methodist Bishop Francis J. McConnell and “Dr. Thomas S. Gates, president of the University of Pennsylvania, Rabbi Goldstein’s alma mater.”

1940: NBC began broadcasting again “The Guiding Light,” a soap opera created by Irna Phillips which it had cancelled but was forced to bring back to popular demand.

1941: “Drive Slows Down” published today that the “fall off in donations for the $60,000 campaign of the United Talmud Torahs of Montreal is causing grave anxiety on the part of the campaign executives including Councilor Max Seigler.

1941: Dr. Bernard Joseph, legal adviser to the Jewish Agency for Palestine, the executive body that is cooperating with the British Government asserted that Jews in Palestine “are facing the paradox of supporting Prime Minister Churchill's war effort completely and yet being at odds with British administration” over issues related to the establishment of Jewish homeland including immigration and land ownership.

1941: The British army has renewed its recruiting efforts aimed at Palestinian Arabs and Jews.  The new recruits will be used for sentry and other similar guard duties which would release other British infantry regiments for use in active combat roles in North Africa.

1941: In Lublin, Poland; Hans Frank told his fellow Nazis, "We...cannot be asked to have any consideration left for the Jews."

1941: The Iron Guard revolt in Rumania led to the first massacre of Jews there during World War II.

1941: The Law for the Defense of the Nation is imposed by Bulgaria, forcing Jews to give up public posts and forcing Jewish doctors, lawyers, and other professionals to forfeit their jobs. Also, a selective tax is imposed on Bulgaria's Jewish shops and homes.

1942: Today, fifty-year-old Rudolf Propper was transported from his last known home in Pilsen to Terezin, which would be his first stop on the way to Izbic where he was murdered.

1942: The Hungarians continued their slaughter of the Jews of Novi-Sad in Yugoslavia.

1942: “A Time to Kill” a movie version of a Raymond Chandler mystery produced by Sol M. Wurtzel and with music by Emil Newman was released today in the United States.

1943:  This was Rivka Libeskind first Shabbat in Auschwitz-Birkenau where the women, who had just recently arrived at the camp, lit candles and sang Shabbat melodies which led women who had lived there for years too weep and join the prayer session.

1943: During Operation Tiger in Marseilles, France, Nazis seized more than 4000 Jews for deportation over a four-day period. At nearby Les Accates, 29 Jewish children were seized at La Rose Orphanage. Their guardian, Alice Salomon, insisted on remaining with them. Marseilles had had a reputation as being the Jerusalem of the Mediterranean.

1943(16thof Shevat, 5703): Seventy-six-year-old Maximilian Pick was murdered today at Terezin.

1943: The Jewish ghetto at Grodno, Belorussia, is liquidated

1943: A death train that originated in Grodno, Poland, on January 17 erupts in violence at the Treblinka death camp when 1000 Jews armed with boards, knives, and razors attack guards. By morning thousands of Jews who had been on the train are dead, killed by Treblinka SS troops armed with machine guns and grenades.

1944: President Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9417, establishing the War Refugee Board. The Board is committed to enforcing the policies of the U.S. government regarding the rescue and relief of victims of persecution.

1945(8thof Shevat, 5705): German born Herman Jander, the husband or Ray Jander, the father-in-law of Alvin Friedman and the father of Reba Friedman passed away today in Nashville, TN

1945: Crusading journalist Arthur Kasherman was gunned down this evening in Minneapolis in a crime that went unsolved but was always thought to connected with his exposure of the mob control this half of the Twin Cities.

http://www.startribune.com/murder-of-a-minneapolis-muckraker/86628172/

https://niemanstoryboard.org/stories/who-rubbed-out-arthur-kasherman-noir-the-star-tribune-and-a-senior-thesis-combine-for-multimedia-storytelling/

1945(8thof Shevat, 5705): Ralph W. Mack, a leader in the Reform movement and an officer of the American Council for Judaism passed away today in his native Cincinnati.

1945 (8th of Shevat, 5705): Seventy-five year old ElseLasker-Schüler passed away in Jerusalem (As reported by Sigrid Bauschinger)

http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/lasker-schueler-else

1946: Birthdate of Malcolm McLaren, the British born manager of the musical group “The Sex Pistols.”

1946: Following the “blasting of a British installation” the British imposed a stern, tight sunrise-to-sunset curfew on the entire Hadera district of the Palestine coast between Tel Aviv and Haifa.

1947(1st of Shevat, 5707): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1947: At Dachau the Flossenburg War Crimes Trial came to an end with “all but 5 of the defendants were found guilty, 15 of whom were condemned to death, 11 were given life sentences, and 14 were jailed for terms of 1 to 30 years.

1947: Léon Blum completed his term as the 128th prime minister of France.

1947:  The British government decided today that it would turn the Palestine Problem over to the United Nations since it could not get the Jews and Arabs to accept a common solution..  However, the British would not make their decision public for another six weeks. 

1948: Birthdate of London born historian Bernard Wasserstein, who studied with Anna Freud and whose works include The British in Palestine and Britain and the Jews of Europe, 1939-1945.

http://history.uchicago.edu/directory/bernard-wasserstein

1948: Birthdate of Brooklyn born conductor Sir Gilbert Levine.

1949: After renovation The Warner Bros. Hollywood Theatre reopened today with its new name “The Mark Hellinger Theatre.

1949(21stof Tevet, 5709): Parashat Shemot

1949(21stof Tevet, 5709): Fifty year old Henry Ludwig Mond, 2nd Baron Melchett” the Conservative MP, bank director and husband of Amy Gwen Wilson with whom he had two sons and  who “having been brought up in the Church of England” “reverted in the 1930s to his family’s original Judaism and became a champion of Zionism passed away today.

1949: The divorce of David O. Selznick and Irene Mayer Selznick was finalized today.

1949: During a debate in the House of Commons, Winston Churchill, leader of the Opposition, attacked Foreign Minister Bevin for his “astounding mishandling of the Palestine problem” that could only be described as “gross and glaring.”

1950: It was announced today that Representative Louis B. Heller has been named chairman of the Brooklyn League of the American Magen David for Israel” succeeding Municipal Court Justice Daniel Gutman.

1950: Colonel Abdullah el Tel, the commander of King Abdullah’s Legion in Jerusalem during the war in 1948, “split with King Abdullah and now favors the internationalization of Jerusalem.”

1951(15thof Shevat, 5711): For the first time during the Korean War, observance of Tu B’Shevat.

1952: “Israel withdrew from all participation in the United Nations General Assembly today "as an expression of grief and protest" against the hanging of two Jews in Baghdad, Iraq.”

1953: The Arthur Miller drama ''The Crucible'' opened on Broadway

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that East Germany had started probing the 'Jewish descent' of its officials and public figures and that the National Zeitung, an organ of the East German National Democratic Party, warned Jews that they would be punished if they 'ally themselves with American warmongers.'  In Moscow the New Times accused Zionists of being the enemies of the Russian people who sought world domination and claimed that the officials of the American Joint Distribution Committee were 'the lackeys of American imperialism.' 

1954: Physicist Albert Einstein wrote to physicist David Bohm who had left the United States during the height of the McCarthy period and living in Brazil concerning possible places for him to settle including Israel which he says “is intellectually alive and interesting…”

https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2017/06/000_PR060.jpg

1954(18thof Shevat, 5714): Twenty-nine-year-old English painter Theodore Garman, known simple as “Theo” passed away today.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/artists/theodore-garman

http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp59924/theodore-garman

1957: Under massive pressure from the United States and the Soviet Union, Israeli forces withdrew from most of Sinai after the Sinai Campaign. The threat of economic sanctions by the United States presented to great a threat for the Israelis not to give ground.  President Eisenhower and his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, gave new life to President Nassar of Egypt.  Nasser repaid their support by tying the cause of the Arabs even more tightly to the Soviet Bloc.  The promises that the U.N. gave to effect the withdrawal were not honored.  And like all other dishonorable acts of peace, war would again be the result. 

1958: In St. Louis, Goldie Hogan and her husband gave birth racquetball champion Marty Hogan.

http://www.jewishsports.net/BioPages/MartyHogan.htm

1960: In a Jewish comedic double header, Mort Sahl and Eddie Cantor who was making his last television appearance appeared on NBC’s “The Future Lies Ahead.”

1961(5thof Shevat, 5721): Seventy-six-year-old Lt. Gen. Samuel T. Lawton, the Peoria born son of Elizabeth and Isaac Slawitsky and John Marshall Law School trained attorney who “served om France with the 122nd Field Artillery which saw combat duty in the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne campaigns” passed away today.” (Editor’s note – For some unexplainable reason some sources show his death date at as January 29 which the reading of the NYT obit proves is erroneous.)

https://generals.dk/general/Lawton/Samuel_Tilden/USA.html

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1961/01/23/97652228.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1961: In its review of Pamela Frankau’s Road Through the Woods, the New York Times wrote that she “has written a tightly knit novel with fine characterizations and moments of real beauty.”

1962: Three days after its premiere in France “A View From The Bridge” the cinema version of Arthur Miller’s play directed by Sidney Lumet and featuring Harvey Lembeck and Morris Carnovsky was released in the United States today.

1963(26thof Tevet, 5723): Eighty-nine-year-old Lily Montagu one of the first women to take a leading role in the Reform Movement in the UK passed away today.

http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/montagu-lily

1964: Eighty-seven-year-old NYU trained lawyer and federal judge Clarence G. Galston the New York born son of“Sigmund and Linda Mainster Galston” who raised two children with his wife “the former Estelle Elkus” passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1964/01/24/archives/clarence-g-galston-87-dies-federal-judge-from-192956-a-specialist.html

1964(8th of Shevat, 5724): Marc Blitzstein, American composer whose works included “Cradle Will Rock,” passed away at the age of 58.

http://www.marcblitzstein.com/pages/life/chapters/life02.htm

1967 (11th of Shevat, 5727):Robert David Quixano Henriques passed away. Born in 1911, he was a British writer, broadcaster and farmer. He gained modest renown for two award-winning novels and two biographies of Jewish business tycoons, published during the middle part of the 20th century. The following year, he wrote 100 Hours to Suez, and it was around this time, in his late forties, that Henriques began to take an active interest and pride in his Jewish identity. He was won over by the Zionist cause, and made frequent trips to Israel where he bought a small property. In the 1960s, Henriques wrote two biographies. The first one charted the life and career of his wife's grandfather Marcus Samuel, the great oil pioneer and leader of the Jewish community, and the second one described the life of Sir Robert Waley-Cohen

1967: Simon and Garfunkel performed live at Philharmonic Hall in the Lincoln Center, New York City. The recording would not be released until July 16, 2002.

1970(15thof Shevat, 5730): Tu B’Shevat

1971(22ndof Tevet, 5731): Eighty-year-old businessman Henry Guggenheim, the Long Branch, NJ born son of Daniel and Florence Schloss Guggenheim and founder of Newsday which “grew into the largest suburban daily newspaper in the United States who married Alicia Brooks after divorcing Helen Rosenberg passed away.

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/01/23/archives/harry-guggenheim-dead-newsday-founder-was-80-harry-f-guggenheim.html

1973: President Lyndon B Johnson President passed way at his ranch in Stonewall, Texas at the age of 64.  One of LBJ’s closest advisors was Abe Fortas who considered himself “a nominal Jew.”  When LBJ nominated him to serve as a Justice on the Supreme Court, Fortas, who was one of the few people who could speak candidly to the tall Texan, told him that the Jews would not consider this a Jewish nomination. As President, Lyndon Johnson had the courage (both political and personal) and the skill to enact the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. He also enacted many measures such Head Start and Medicare which had a great deal of support among Jewish voters. At the same time, his support of the Viet Nam War cost him a lot of support among these same Jewish voters. More to the point, he supported Israel in the Six Day War of 1967.  Among other things, he kept the Soviets from interfering on behalf of their Arab clients and forced the Russians to quit threatening Israel. Long after he had left the White House, The Associated Press published more information about LBJ’s “personal and often emotional connection to Israel” which is worth reading in its entirety.

Based on newly released tapes of the president’s conversations, the news agency pointed out that during the Johnson presidency (1963-1969) “the United States became Israel's chief diplomatic ally and primary arms supplier.” LBJ is quoted in one conversation, “"I sure as hell want to be careful and not run out on little Israel." Further reports reveal the full extent of Johnson’s actions on behalf of the Jewish people and the State of Israel. Indeed, the title of “Righteous Gentile” is certainly appropriate in the case of the Texan. Most students of the Arab-Israeli conflict can identify Johnson as the president during the 1967 war.But few know about LBJ’s actions to rescue hundreds of endangered Jews 30 years earlier, actions that could have thrown him out of Congress and into jail. The Texas congressman’s district had only 400 Jews, but clearly the Johnson family’s Christian teachings had given him a strong affinity for Jews and their return to the Holy Land. Five days after taking office in 1937, LBJ broke with the “Dixiecrats” and supported an immigration bill that would naturalize illegal aliens, mostly Jews from Lithuania and Poland. In 1938, Johnson was told of a young Austrian Jewish musician who was about to be deported from the United States. With an element of subterfuge, LBJ sent him to the U.S. Consulate in Havana to obtain a residency permit. Erich Leinsdorf, the world famous musician and conductor, credited LBJ for saving his live. That same year, LBJ warned a Jewish friend that European Jews faced annihilation. Somehow, Johnson provided him with a pile of signed immigration papers that were used to get 42 Jews out of Warsaw. But that wasn’t enough. According to historian, James M. Smallwood, Congressman Johnson used legal and sometimes illegal methods to smuggle “hundreds of Jews into Texas, using Galveston as the entry port. Enough money could buy false passports and fake visas in Cuba, Mexico, and other Latin American countries. … Johnson smuggled boatloads and planeloads of Jews into Texas. He hid them in the Texas National Youth Administration…. Johnson saved at least four or five hundred Jews, possibly more.” On June 4, 1945, Johnson visited the Dachau concentration camp. According to historian Smallwood, Lady Bird later recalled that “when her husband returned home, he was still shaken, stunned, terrorized, and ‘bursting with an overpowering revulsion and incredulous horror at what he had seen.’” As President, Johnson met with Israel’s Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and undertook to replace the recalcitrant France as Israel’s principal arms supplier, providing Patton tanks and Skyhawk jets and Phantom jets. Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin once asked Johnson why the United States supported Israel when there are 80 million Arabs and only three million Israelis. “Because it is right,” responded the straight-shooting Texan.

1973: In a move that would please a majority of Jewish women today in Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruled “that a woman’s right to choose an abortion was protected by the privacy rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”

1976: “The Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry charged today that the new Soviet regulations reportedly easing emigration procedures “are merely a smokescreen to cover the new and very real campaign of harassment and terror against Russian Jews seeking freedom.” (As reported by JTA)

1977(3rdof Shevat, 5737): Parashat Vaera

1977(3rdof Shevat, 5737): Eighty-six-year-old Abraham Nowak, the holder of degrees from CCNY, Columbia University and JTS and WW I Army Chaplain who organized two congregations in Cleveland before moving to Beth El in New Rochelle and was the husband of Ann Segal with whom he had two sons – Wellville and Peter – passed away today.

https://case.edu/ech/articles/n/nowak-abraham

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who a week earlier instructed his delegation to break off the Israeli-Egyptian peace negotiations held in Jerusalem, had now announced that he was leaving the door open for renewed talks, but on certain conditions. He demanded that, before any concrete peace negotiations may continue, Israel must agree to a total withdrawal to the pre-1967 frontiers and recognize the Palestinian rights to self-determination. The US sought a new format for political negotiations and urged Israel to resume military talks held in Cairo and postponed by Premier Menachem Begin. Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan warned that Sadat's conditions would lead to a dead end and offered no opportunity for progress.

1979: Ali Hassan Salameh, “the head of Force 17 and an operative of the Black September Organization that carried out the 1972 Munich Massacre” was killed today when “a remote-controlled car bomb” was detonated in Beirut.

1980(4th of Shevat, 5740): Ninety-two year old German-born Israeli historian and an expert in medieval Spanish Jewish history Yitzhak Baer passed away.

1981(17thof Shevat, 5741): Sixty-five-year-old Lili P. Edelman, the educator who translated Elie Wiesel's “A Beggar in Jerusalem” and ''One Generation After'' into English from the French passed away today.

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/edelman-lily

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/27/obituaries/lily-p-edelman-writer-and-b-nai-b-rith-official.html

1981: A revival production of “The Five O’Clock Girl” with music by Harry Ruby and lyrics by Bert Kalmar opened at the Helen Hayes Theatre.

1982: “The Moscow police dispersed a group that gathered for a Hebrew lesson at the apartment of Irina Shchegoleva.”

1984(18th of Shevat, 5744): Sixty-four-year-old Emmy Award winning producer Jerome Toobin, the husband of Marlene Sanders and the husband of attorney and CNN analyst Jeffrey Toobin, passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/23/obituaries/jerome-toobin-64-channel13-s-chief-of-news-programs.html

1984: The New York Times features Paul Johnson’s review of The High Walls of Jerusalem: A History of the Balfour Declaration and the Birth of the British Mandate for Palestine by Ronald Sanders.

1986: “Desert Bloom” a movie set in post-WW II Las Vegas co-starring Ellen Barkin and Allen Garfield was released in the United States today.

1988: The police imposed a curfew tonight on A-Tur, an Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem, invoking special emergency powers in this city for the first time since East Jerusalem was captured from Jordan in 1967.

1989: Birthdate of Nick Simmons, “the son of Israeli-American musician Gene Simmons.”

1990(25thof Tevet, 5750): Ninety-two “Russian American photographer” Roman Vishniac, “best known for capturing on film the culture of Jews in Central and Eastern Europe before the Holocaust” passed away today in New York City.

http://vishniac.icp.org/

1991: El Al Israel Airlines and Tower Air are still flying to Tel Aviv. Sheryl Stein, the manager of public relations for El Al, said it was continuing daily service from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York to Tel Aviv. She said that the carrier had not reduced its schedule and that it had 17 flights yesterday in and out of Tel Aviv to other parts of the world. In addition, she said the airline was bringing in immigrants daily from Hungary and Romania.

1991: After a Scud slammed into a two-story apartment building in a Tel Aviv suburb today, 260 Israelis were forced to move into hotels. Almost 1,000 Israelis, most of whom live in Tel Aviv have already lost their homes because of attack by Iraqi Scuds.

1993: Work was completed today on “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” which was to be used to disrupt the activities of the Japanese whaling fleet.

1994 (10th of Shevat, 5754): Irving B Kahn inventor of the teleprompter passed away at the age of 76

1995(21stof Shevat, 5755): In central Israel, two suicide bombers from the Gaza Strip blew themselves-up at a military transit point killing 19 Israelis. This was just one of the many acts of terrorism that took placed after Rabin and Arafat shook hands on the White House lawn.  Despite, them the Israelis would make a variety of territorial concessions.  The terror would continue.

1996(1stof Shevat, 5756): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1996 (1st of Shevat, 5756): Yisrael Eldad, member of the Stern Gang and leader of right wing political groups after the creation of the state of Israel extremist politician, died at the age of 85

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0006_0_05733.html

1996: When the top awards in children's publishing were announced today, the Margaret A. Edwards Award for Outstanding Literature for Young Adults went to Judy Blume in recognition of lifetime achievement in the field.

1997 (14th of Shevat, 5757): Irwin Levine, composer of “Tie a Yellow Ribbon” passed away at the age of 58.

1998: “A Price Above Rubies” directed and written by Boaz Yakin and co-starring Julianna Margulies was shown for the first time at the Sundance Film Festival.

1999(5thof Shevat, 5759): Eighty year old George L. Mosse, the Berlin born British educated historian who began teaching at the University of Iowa before moving to the University of Wisconsin where he made his mark on the academic world.

http://mosse.huji.ac.il/default.asp

http://mosseprogram.wisc.edu/

http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n80-69015/

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/31/world/george-l-mosse-dies-at-80-authority-on-nazi-germany.html

1999: Steven Grossman completed his chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee

2000(15th of Shevat, 5760): Tu B'Shevat celebrated for the first time in the 21stcentury.

2001: In talks today, Israeli officials unexpectedly revived the idea of some form of joint or international administration for the historic city center of Jerusalem and its holy sites. This trial balloon was simultaneously punctured by the Palestinians, who reiterated their demand for sovereignty over all Arab districts and religious sites in East Jerusalem, and by the Israeli opposition, which objected to any plan for limiting Israeli rule in the city.

2002(9thof Shevat, 5762): A Palestinian gunman carried out a terrorist attack in Jerusalem’s central shopping district, raking the area with semiautomatic gunfire that killed two and wounded 20 before being shot dead by the police.

2002(9thof Shevat, 5762): Ninety-six-year-old Stanley Marcus, the son of Minnie Lichtenstein Marcus and Herbert Marcus, the co-founder along with his sister Carrie and her husband Al Neiman founded Neiman Marcus who went from majoring in English at Harvard to being the second-generation leader of the Dallas store that was synonymous in the minds of many with opulence and class passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/23/business/stanley-marcus-the-retailer-from-dallas-is-dead-at-96.html?searchResultPosition=1

2003: “Across Israel's northern border, Hezbollah guerrillas fired mortar rounds and antitank rockets at Israeli Army positions, prompting return fire from tanks, artillery and helicopters, as well as stern warnings from Israeli officials.

2004: Sicor becomes the wholly owned subsidiary of Israel’s Teva Pharmaceutical Industries.

2004: Two Israeli cabinet ministers said today that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would have to resign if a bribery investigation eventually leads to his indictment.

2004: “A Match Made In Heaven” published today traces the relationship of sculptor Ilan Ashkenazi and his second wife Tirza Moussaieff, the sister of Shlomo Moussaieff.

http://www.haaretz.com/a-match-made-in-heaven-1.111755

2005: The Washington Post published an op-ed column by Samuel Pisar entitled “Will We ‘Never Forget’?”  An international lawyer and author of Of Blood and Hope, Pisar survived Auschwitz.   Pisar expressed his concern that as the survivors reach the autumn of their lives, the world has not learned from the horrors of their experiences nor will they really remember what happened in a meaningful manner. 

2006: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Between You and Me: A Memoirby Mike Wallace with Gary Paul, Maimonides by Sherwin Nuland, The Poems of Charles Reanikoff: 1918-1975, edited by Seamus Cooney and Nicholas Miraculous a biography of Nicholas Murray Butler.  Regardless of how history views him (and the picture is none too flattering) Butler earns low marks in the American Jewish Experience.  As the reviewer says of Butler, “His most creative involvement with the undergraduate college seems to have come in searching for ways to keeps its Jewish enrollment down. He considered having applicants take physicals that would ‘find grounds to eliminate socially unappealing Jews smart enough to have passed the entrance examination,’ and throughout the 1930's he funneled Jewish students into an affiliated two-year college in Brooklyn. Its courses were "taught largely by junior faculty members from Morningside Heights," and the dropout rate was enormous. When it closed after 10 years, Butler at last gave up on ‘the Hebrew problem.’"

2006: The New York Times reported on the “four founding mothers of a large chunk of today’s Ashkenazi Jewish population” in an article entitled “Loy you, K2a2a, Whoever You Are” by Amy Harmon, a “direct descendant” of one of these four “bubbes”

2006: The S. Daniel Abraham Israel Program hosted a career fair at the Renaissance Hotel in Jerusalem to demonstrate how a Yeshiva University education can benefit them.

2007: Representative Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor serving the U.S. Congress moved “to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 52) paying tribute to Reverend Waitstill Sharp and Martha Sharp for their recognition by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority as Righteous Among the Nations for their heroic efforts to save Jews during the Holocaust.”

2007: Stephen Arnoff contended that the future of Jewish survival in the United States, depended, in part on older leaders of the Jewish community paying attention to the generation of young Jewish leaders who created projects like Hadar, Storahtelling, Zeek, jewschool, Hazon, Jdub Records and  similar Jewish enterprises

2007: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz agreed to appoint Major General (Res.) Gabi Ashkenazi as the 19th Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces.

2008(15thof Shevat, 5768): Tu B’Shevat

2008 (15th of Shevat, 5768): Miles Lerman, the Nazi Camp survivor who helped found the U.S. Holocaust Museum, passed away. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/obituaries/24lerman.html?_r=0

2009: The International Astronomical Union named a crater on the moon after American physiologist Joseph Erlanger.

2009: The final five nominees for the Oscar for best documentary are scheduled to be announced today.  Among those being considered is, “Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh”

2009: In Germany the scheduled date for the nationwide release of Adam Resurrectedwhich follows the story of Adam Stein, a charismatic patient at an asylum for Holocaust survivors in Israel, in 1961 starring Jeff Goldblum as Adam.

2009: The Centro Primo Levi and the Yeshiva University Museum present a lecture by Eva Forgacs on the life and work of István Farkas.István Farkas (1887-1944), a modernist of the École de Paris, whose elusive landscapes fascinated writers and painters alike, returned in 1932 to his native Hungary where his mysterious works ultimately presaged his own death at Auschwitz.

2010(7thof Shevat, 5770): One-hundred-two year old pro-choice champion Ruth Proskauer who had followed in the social activist footsteps of her parents passed away today.(As reported by Margalit Fox)

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/nyregion/27smith.html

2010: “Catfish,” a documentary about social interaction on the web and not about the traif fish co-directed and co-produced by Ariel Schulman who co-starred in the film along with Nev Schulman premiered today at the Sundance film festival.

2010: Mishkenot Sha'ananim is scheduled to present a second round of "A Shortcut In Time," part of series of lectures delivered over the course of seven months by the Weizmann Institute's Professor Illem Gross that place “scientists ranging from Isaac Newton to Stephen Hawking  under the microscope.”

2010: The 10thannual Atlanta Jewish Festival is scheduled to present a screening of “Where I Stand: The Hank Greenspun Story,” a “chronicle of the endlessly surprising life of the charismatic newspaperman, Vegas icon and real-life Zelig.

2011: “The Strange Things About the Johnsons” with a screenplay by director Ari Aster premiered today at the Slamdance Film Festival.

2011: The New York Premiere of “Miss You”(Te extraño) is scheduled to take place at The New York Jewish Film Festival. The film depicts the travail of a middle class Jewish Argentinean family and Javier, a 15-year-old boy who left his home because of the political situation in 1970s Argentina.

2011: Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia is scheduled to present the Sixth Annual Comedy Night featuring Dan Adhoot

2011(17thof Shevat, 5771): Frank Lieberman passed away.  A native of New York, Lieberman moved to Los Angeles as a teenager.  He parlayed his work as an entertainment reporter for the Herald-Examiner into a public relations career where he developed a special relationship with Elvis Presley and represented such show business notables as Sammy Davis, Jr., Phyllis Diller and Tony Orlando.

2011: The 2011 Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival is scheduled to present “In Rehearsal – a one woman show by Alison Vodnoy.”

2011(17th of Shevat, 5771):Ninety-one year old Tullia Zevi, a pillar of Italy's Jewish community and an ardent anti-fascist who spent the war years in exile in Switzerland, France and the U.S. passed away  today.

http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=204793

2012: Awkward Moment Productions is scheduled to present “Circumference” written and performed by Amy Salloway at the Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival.

2012: 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 “The Balfour Declaration: the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict” by Jonathan Schneer.

2012: YIVO is scheduled to present the world premiere of “When Our Bubbas and Zeydas Were Young.”

2012: Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) will resign from Congress this week, she announced in a video message posted today

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/22/10211134-giffords-to-resign-from-congress-after-attending-the-state-of-the-union-this-week

2012: Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Shaul Mofaz (Kadima) threatened today to hold up the defense budget until the issue of soldiers traveling on trains is resolved. Today, a new arrangement between the IDF and Israel Railways came into effect, eliminating free rides on most trains between the hours of 6 and 9 a.m. on Sundays. The arrangement is expected to save the IDF money and to reduce overcrowding during those hours. Mofaz criticized the new arrangement, saying it is unacceptable to turn IDF soldiers into "second-class" commuters in order to save money, speaking with Israel Radio.

2012: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu today called on Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein to open an investigation into Jerusalem Mufti Sheikh Muhammad Hussein for incitement after he was recorded quoting a passage by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Hadith that calls for the killing of Jews..

2012: A day after announcing her intention to resign from Congress, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) completed the "Congress on Your Corner" event that was cut short more than a year ago when a gunman opened fire on her and her constituents in a Tucson parking lot. She and a dozen others were injured in the attack; six people were killed.

2013(11th of Shevat, 5773): Ninety-one year old real estate mogul Sherman Cohen passed away. (As reported by Charles V. Bagli)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/26/nyregion/sherman-cohen-who-helped-build-real-estate-empire-dies-at-91.html?hpw&_r=1&

2013: As Israelis are scheduled to vote in today’s election, “the Association of Craft and Industry in Israel is calling for the abolition of the Election Day work holiday, saying it will cost small industrial businesses at least NIS 100 million.”

2013: The JCCNV is scheduled to take representative to Richmond, VA as part of Virginia Jewish Advocacy Day.

2013: Meir Ariel’s Election Tour is scheduled to be shown as part of “Election Day at the Cinematheque.”

2013: Regardless of the outcome of the elections, the big winners today were the country's malls, restaurants, beaches, and parks – with nearly all filled to capacity as Israelis took advantage of a rare weekday off, not connected to a religious celebration, with stores, businesses, and places of entertainment wide open.

2013: In the elections that were held today the Jewish Home won 12 seats

2013: An unlicensed therapist who is a respected member of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn was sentenced today to 103 years in prison for repeatedly sexually abusing a young woman, beginning the attacks when she was 12.

2014: The next SermonSlam is scheduled to be held at Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn, New York

2014: Israel’s Energy and Water Resources Minister Silvan Shalom is scheduled to end his trip to the United Arab Emirates where he has been attending the World Future Energy Summit. (As reported by Stuart Winer)

2014: “Up The Wrong Tree” and “Ukraine Brides: 13 Years Later” are scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival.

2014(21stof Shevat, 5774): Ninety five year old Mary Gordon Shulman who had been married to author Max Shulman, the creator of Dobie Gillis, for 24 years until his death in 1988 passed away today.

2014(21stof Shevat, 5774): Centenarian Psychoanalyst Martin S. Bergmann passed away today.

http://vimeo.com/66440579

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/27/movies/martin-s-bergmann-psychoanalyst-and-woody-allens-on-screen-philosopher-dies-at-100.html

 2014: “Broad City,” “an American television sitcom created by and starring Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson” “premiered today on Comedy Central.

2014: Adina Bar-Shalom, whose father Rabbi Ovadia Yosef was the Shas spiritual leader for over three decades until his death in November 2013, is putting out feelers to see how much support she would have in a bid to replace President Shimon Peres when his term in office ends this year, Maariv reported today.  (As reported by Stuart Winer)

2014: “The Israeli Air Force launched an airstrike in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun early this morning, killing two men, said by Israel to be terrorists behind some of the missile attacks on southern Israeli towns and communities. The air force said it carried out the strike to stop an imminent attack.”

2014: Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is scheduled “to tour Christian sites in Israel’s north before attending a ceremony at Tel Aviv University, where he will receive an honorary doctorate.” (As reported by Spencer Ho)

2015: In Cedar Rapids, Brit Milah ceremony for Amasai Burt, son of Rodney and Queen Burt is scheduled to take place this afternoon.

2015(2ndof Shevat, 5775): Eighty-six year old children’s television advocate Peggy Charren passed away today. (As reported by Bruce Weber)

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/23/arts/peggy-charren-childrens-tv-crusader-is-dead-at-86.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2015: “Federal authorities are expected to arrest New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to on charges of corruption.

2015: “The Zionist Idea” and “Above and Beyond” are scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival.

2016(12thof Shevat, 5776) Ninety-one-year-old Eugene Borowitz one of the most influential Reform Rabbis of the 20th century passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/us/rabbi-eugene-b-borowitz-reform-leader-dies-at-91.html

2016(12thof Shevat, 5776): Eighty-three-year-old Manhattan bookstore owner Arnold Greenberg passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/01/nyregion/arnold-greenberg-whose-manhattan-bookstore-fostered-wanderlust-dies-at-83.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2016: In Pennsylvania, “a three-judge panel in superior court dismiss some of the more serious criminal charges, including perjury, obstruction and conspiracy against Graham Spanier the former President of Penn State who still faces other charges stemming from his “handling of the Jerry Sandusky child molestation scandal.”

2016: David Blatt was fired by the Cleveland Cavaliers of the NBA.

2016: “Happy Ends” featuring “pivotal moments from 10 films presented at previous editions of the New York Jewish Film Festival” is scheduled to be shown at the 2016 New York Jewish Film Festival.

2016: In Cedar Rapids, IA, Hadassah is scheduled to host the Tu B’Shvat Seder at Temple Judah.

2017(24thof Tevet, 5777): On the Jewish calendar yahrzeits of Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler, “an influential philosopher and dean of students at the Ponovezh Yehsiva and Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady and the author the Tanya.

2017(24thof Tevet, 5777): Eighty-eight-year-old “translator and Soviet dissident” Lev Navrozov who in more than one publication claimed that while serving as Israel’s Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Golda Meir “had given Stalin a list of Russian Jews who would fight for Israel” and who then “disappeared at the hands of Stalin’s organs of state security” passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/09/arts/lev-navrozov-dead-soviet-dissident-translator.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&egion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2017: ““Run for Mem,” a non-competitive road race past sites related to the history of the Holocaust in Rome, took place today. (As reported by Rossella TercatinP

2017: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Audacity: How Barack Obama Defied His Critics and Created a Legacy That Will Prevailby Jonathan Chait, Class by Lucinda Rosenfeld and The Afterlife of Stars by Joseph Kertes.

2017: Jewish philanthropist Robert K. Kraft’s New England Patriots are scheduled to take the field this afternoon in quest of yet another AFC Championship which will lead them to the Super Bowl.

2017: In Atlanta, the Breman Museum is scheduled to host “The Carole King Songbook with Liz Callaway” which is part of the 2017 Molly Blank Concert Series that celebrates Jewish contributions to music.

2017: “Who’s Gonna Love Me Now?” is scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival.

2017: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to host Brad Hill, David Fishman, Zachary Baker and Jeffrey Veidlinger who “will discuss the historical importance and context of the Strashun library, its survival during WWII, and its transition to YIVO. Lyudmila Sholokhova and Roberta Newman from YIVO and Lara Lempert from the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania will discuss YIVO’s landmark efforts to steward the Strashun library into the 21st century and beyond.

2018: “The Alienist” a TNT period television series co-starring Matthew Louis Shear premiered today.

2018: Pianist Roman Rabinovich and violinist Asi Matathias are scheduled to join the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players in “Poles Apart.”

2018: The Wine Temple on Emek Raim is scheduled to host “wine flight” featuring beverages made from the Syrah, “the main gape variety of the Rhone region in southeastern France.”

2018: Singer/Songwriter Nathan Goshen is scheduled to perform this evening at Zappa, one of “Jerusalem’s favorite restaurant/bar concert venues.”

2018: JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of an “Act of Defiance” in London.

2018: “Humor Me” is scheduled to be shown this evening at the Washington Jewish Film Festival.

2019:  “A Fortunate Man” is scheduled to be shown this evening making it the final film to be shown at the 2019 New York Jewish Film Festival.

2019: In the UK, the Oxford Jewish Chaplaincy is scheduled to host a dinner followed by a “Mindfullnes Taster Session” “facilitated by Gidon Fineman who trained at The Oxford Centre for Mindfulness.”

2019(16thof Shevat, 5779): Eighty-four year old CCNY and Columbia educated historian Leonard Dinnerstein, the New York born son of Abraham and Lillian (Kubrick) Dinnerstein, whose thesis “The Leo Frank Case” and Anti-Semitism in America established him as an expert on the topic passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts) https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/obituaries/leonard-dinnerstein-84-dies.html

2019(16thof Shevat, 5779): On the Jewish calendar Yahrzeit Rabbi Shalom Mordechai Shwadron.

http://www.aish.com/dijh/Shevat_16.html

2020: Opening statements are scheduled to begin today in the case of Harvey Weinstein who “is charged with five sex crimes including rape and sexual assault” and who has pleaded not guilty while denying all the charges concerning “non-consensual sex.”

2020: “God of the Piano” and “The Birch Tree Meadow” are scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival.

2020: Following yesterday’s capture of Arab terrorists “in a wooded area near Kibbutz Kissfum” Israelis are left to wonder if this infiltration is part of a wider plot connected to recent rocket firings and the launching of incendiary balloons aimed at Jerusalem.

2020:  In San Francisco, the Jewish Community Library is scheduled to host “How Yiddish Changed America and How America Changed Yiddish” during which “Professor-author Ilan Stavans talks about an upcoming anthology he co-edited, exploring the rich interplay of Yiddish and American culture (including Latin American culture).”

2020: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host “Channeling the Masters” with Hershey Felder during which he will discuss some of the composers whom “he has vividly brought to life” including Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, Richard Wagner and Frederick Chopin.

https://www.eightyeightentertainment.com/

2021:Rabbi Michael Lezak of GLIDE, Judy Young, Executive Director, UCSF National Center of Excellence in Women’s Health, Isoke Femi, GLIDE’s Maven of Transformative Learning in the Center for Social Justice, and special guest San Francisco Mayor London Breed are scheduled to discuss via Zoom “Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation at Home.”

2021: Based on data released yesterday, the threat of COVID remains real since 220 Israelis have died since the beginning of the week.

2021: As part of Holocaust Memorial Day Commemoration, the UK Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to begin screenings of “Persian Lessons,” a “film inspired by true events follows a young Jewish man who pretends to be Iranian to avoid being executed in a concentration camp.”

2021: In Palm Beach Gardens, FL, Temple Judea is scheduled to host “Shabbat Under the Stars,” an in-person worship weather dependent experience in the congregations parking lot.

2021: In Pepper Pike, OH, B’nai Jeshurun is scheduled to greet Shabbat with a “Kinder Shabbat” designed for “young families” and a Kabbalat Shabbat services featuring the Zamir Children’s Choir.

 

 


This Day, January 23, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. and Deb Levin Z"L

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January 23

393: Roman Emperor Theodosius I proclaims his nine year old son Honorius co-emperor. “Under the rule of Theodosius and his sons… the Christian church consolidated its position as the sole power in the empire,” became less tolerant and the Jews “suffered in inverse proportion to the strength of the emperor’s personality.”

1002: Otto III, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire passed away. No, Otto was not Jewish. But his passing offers an instructive note when studying history, especially Jewish history. A thousand years ago, Otto was the “George Bush” of his day, a major political and military leader. Otto lived in the same century as Rashi, a guy who sold wine in a small town in France. We remember Rashi. Rashi still speaks to us today infusing our lives in ways in which we are not aware. Who remembers Otto?

1199: Birthdate of Almohad ruler Abu Yusuf who ordered the Jews of the Maghreb to wear dark blue garments with long sleeves and saddle-like caps. His grandson Abdallah al-Adil made a concession after appeals from the Jews, relaxing the required clothing to yellow garments and turbans.

1295: Boniface VIII consecrated as Pope.  During his Papacy he will issue “Unam Sanctam” a Bull that “declares there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church” which means that all Jews are denied a portion in “the world to come.”

1235: False accusations of Ritual Murder at Baden, Germany resulted in a massacre of the Jewish population.

1295: Consecration of Boniface VIII the pope who “objected to the erection of a new synagogue in Trier, Germany,” who in 1297 “praised the queen of Sicily for having expropriated the property of Jewish usurers,” who “in 1300 ordered the expulsion of Jewish and Christian usurers from Avignon” and who made it a matter of Canon Law that “Jews, even minors, once baptized must Christians.”

1350: Birthdate of Vincent Ferrer, the native of Valencia, who was responsible for the conversion of an untold number of Jews by methods that were other than just an appeal to faith and who helped to flame the fires of anti-Semitism in Iberia.

1490: At Naples, the first printed edition of the Ramban’s “Sha’ar ha-Gemul,” The Gate of Reward, was published by Joseph ben Jacob Gunzenhauser. Gunzenhauser and his son Azriel had moved from southern Germany to Italy where “they produced various books, including a Hagiographa with rabbinical commentaries, Avicenna's medical Canon, and Abraham ibn Ezra's commentary on the Pentateuch.” Jacob passed away in 1490, the same that they published the Ramban’s seminal work.

1492: At Brescia. Italy, Gershon Soncino produced the first printed Chumash with Megilot.

1519: Today, Pope Leo X granted the “privilege of awarding eight benefices in five Polish cathedrals to Queen Bona who thirty years later, in 1549 introduced regulations “modifying and defining the rights of the Jewish community in Grodno dealing with taxation and land ownership.

1571: The Royal Exchange opens in London. The first Jewish broker was admitted to the Royal Exchange in 1657; the same year a piece of land was purchased for a Jewish cemetery in London.

1579: The Union of Utrecht a treaty that forms a Protestant republic in the Netherlands and that created the union which guaranteed religious peace under article 13 meaning that the persecuted Jews of Spain and Portugal could turn toward Holland as a place of refuge was signed today.

1634: Trial of the men implicated in the 'Complicidad Grande' (Great Complicity). 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. The man’s possessions were confiscated, more people were implicated, and eventually a total of 81 persons would be locked up and their possessions sequestered. These men were prominent businessmen of the Lima (Peru) community, and their arrests and led to a "widespread commercial crisis" and failure of the community bank.

1639 In Lima, Peru, at an Auto Da Fe, more than eighty New Christians were burned, including Francisco Maldonna de Silva (Elia Nazareno), after the Inquisition discovered that they were holding regular Jewish services. De Silva spent 12 years in prison, during which time he managed to write two books using a chicken bone and charcoal. Each book was about 100 pages. He succeeded in putting together a rope out of corn husks but instead of escaping he used it to visit other prisoners urging them to believe in Judaism.

1656: French Philosopher Blaise Pascal published the first of his Lettres provinciales. Pascal did not radiate the anti-Semitism typical of so many European intellectuals. Over 300 years ago, when King Louis XIV of France asked, the great French philosopher, to give him proof of the supernatural. Pascal answered: "Why, the Jews, your Majesty -- the Jews." The best proof of the supernatural that Pascal could think of was: "The Jews."

1719: Creation of the Principality of Liechtenstein which reportedly provided a refuge for 240 Jews fleeing the Nazis during the Holocaust.

1719(8thof Shevat, 5479): Sarah Ashkenazi, the wife of Zebi Hirsch Ben Jacob Ashkenazi and “the daughter of Meshullam Zalman Mirels Neumark, chief rabbi of Altona, Hamburg, and Wandsbeck” passed away today.

1765: Birthdate of Christian publisher Anton Von Schmid who served as an apprentice to the court printer Joseph Edler von Kurzbeck who provided him with the initial training that enabled him to become a leading printer of Hebrew books.

1769(15thof Shevat, 5529): Tu B’Shevat

1770: Joseph Abrahams, the son of Abraham Abrahams “was admitted as an attorney of the King’s Bench” today.

1776: In Aldingen, Elkele Kahn and Samuel Isaac Wormser gave birth to Isaac Wormser the husband of Sheinle Ephraim and the father of Lewis, Pauline, Ephraim, Simon, Ester and Marianne Wormser.

1777(15thof Shevat, 5537): Tu B’Shevat

1777: Today, as the Jews celebrated the New Year of Trees, “200 New Jersey Continentals” under the command of General William Maxwell defeated two British regiments near Woodbridge in part of campaign to deny the King’s forces food and forage while they were in winter quarters.

1782: Bilhah Polock and Joseph Jacobs gave birth Raphael Jacobs who passed away in New Orleans.

1786(24thof Shevat, 5546): Abraham Landauer, the Austrian born husband of Judith Landauer and father of Judith, Aron and Elias Landauer passed away today.

1789: In Washington, D.C., Georgetown becomes the first Catholic college in the United States. Today approximately 650 of Georgetown’s 6,000 are Jewish and a thousand of its 6,000 graduate students are Jewish. The school offers 35 Jewish studies courses and students can major in Jewish Studies. The university also has an active Hillel Chapter.

1793: Prussia and Russia sign a treaty that is known as the Second Partition of Poland.  Each of these partitions resulted in Russia acquiring large chunks of Poland, which she wanted, and large numbers of Jews which she did not want.

1805: Walter Nathan married Sophia Friedberg at the Great Synagogue today.

1815: In England, Miriam Aaron and Abraham Franklin gave birth to Esther Franklin, the wife of Jacob Liepman Prins with whom she had 13 children.

1822: Avigdor ben Benjamin married Frumat bat Abraham today at the Western Synagogue.

1828: Judah Casper married Rachel Michael at the Great Synagogue today

1831: Birthdate of London native Elisa Berger, the wife of Austrian native Leo Berger and the mother of Eleanor, Philip, Frank, Nanette and Charles Berger all of whom were born in London..

1833: Leman Levi married Elizabeth Meyers at the Great Synagogue today.

1838: David Judah Alberga married Henrietta Delgado today.

1840: Birthdate of Warsaw native William Rudolph Landstein who apparently lived in China since he was buried at the Happy Valley Jewish Cemetery in Hong Kong.

1846: “Samuel and Jeanette Bloch” gave birth to Leopold Bloch who married Klara Bloch after the end of his marriage to Babette Bloch.

1849: In Albany, NY, Joseph Ehrich and Rebecca Sporborg gave birth to Yale educated art dealer and “hard money advocate” Louis R. Ehrich, the husband of Henriette Minzesheimer and founder of the Ehrich Galleries on New York’s Fifth Avenue.

1851: In Leer, Lower Saxony, Germany, Moses and Betty Gans gave birth to Isaac Gans, the husband of Diertjen Jette Fischer and father of Betty Gans; Sophie Gans and Moses Gans

1854: In London, Louis and Rachel Greenbaum gave birth to Samuel Greenbaum, the Columbia trained attorney and husband of Selina Ullman who served three years as an Associate Justice of the Appellate Division in New York while also serving as President of The Educational alliance, Vice President of the Baron de Hirsch fund and trustee of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

http://www.courts.state.ny.us/courts/ad1/centennial/Bios/sgreenbaum2.shtml

1855: In New York City, a complaint was entered today in "The Mayor's Little Black Book" stating that on Chatham Street "a Jewish drummer is stationed in front of his store insulting passengers as they pass along. The latter nuisance is glaring and intolerable...and calls for intervention of the proper authorities." Chatham Street was the heart of the second-hand clothing “industry” and was equated with Jews in a most uncomplimentary way.

1855: Middlesex natives Grace Josephs and Jones Syper gave birth to Solomon Spyer.

1856: In Philadelphia, Morris Rosenthal and Jeanette Wallerstein Ahrndt gave birth to Henrietta Radzinski, the wife of A. Isaac Radzinski and Chicago social activist who served as a member of the national board of the Council of Jewish Women, President of the Baron Hirsch Ladies’ Aid Society and the director of the Chicago Home for Jewish Orphans.

1864(15th of Shevat, 5624): As the United States entered into its first Presidential election campaign during wartime, Jews observe Tu B’Shevat

1871(1st of Shevat, 5631): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1871(1stof Shevat, 5631): Fifty-two-year-old Samuel (Isaac) Henry Gluckstein, the husband of Hannah Coenraad Gluckstein and the brother of Henry Gluckstein with whom he began a cigar making business in England which he later turned into a cigar manufacturing jointly run with his son Isidore and Montague passed away today.

1872: Two days after she had passed away, 30-year-old Caroline Abrahams, the daughter of Myer Myers and the wife of Barnet Henry Abrahams with whom she had had two sons – Joseph and Henry [[ was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”

1873: A large crowd braved a snowstorm to hear a lecture at the Beeckman Street Church by Jewish humorist Raphael De Cordova entitled “The New Clergyman.”

1878: Marcus J. Waldheimer, a partner in the firm of Townsend & Waldheimer, denied reports that his father-in-law, Leopold Bamberger, had disappeared. Waldheimer said that Bamberger who has been holding funds in trust that are related to a messy bankruptcy case, has “merely left…temporarily for recreation.”

1879: Birthdate of CCNY and NYU Law School graduate Dr. Gabriel Davidson, the managing director of the Jewish Agricultural Society, author of Our Jewish Farmers and an active member of the Jewish community as can be seen by his membership in the American Jewish Historical Society and the American Friends of the Hebrew University.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1958/11/09/92655404.pdf

1879: It was reported today that a revised edition of “Hebrew Men and Times from the Patriarchs to the Messiah” by Joseph Henry Allen will be reissued by Roberts Brothers

1882: In St. Paul, MN, the Daily Globe reviewed “Hearts of Oak,” an American melodrama co-authored by David Belasco.

1883: Fifty-one-year-old French artist Gustave Doré who illustrated “The Wandering Jew” passed away today.

http://www.wikiart.org/en/gustave-dore/the-wandering-jew

http://digital.lib.buffalo.edu/news/2014/03/21/the-legend-of-the-wandering-jew-illustrated-by-gustave-dore/

http://www.amazon.com/Legend-Wandering-Jew-Joseph-Gaer/dp/B0000CKZDK

1884: The first four page edition of the Financial and Mining News founded by Harry Marks which became the Financial News appeared today

1888(10thof Shevat, 5648): Max Hoffheimer, a member of the board of Hebrew Union College passed away today.

1888: In Breslau, Jewish businessman Max Bernstein and his wife Franziska Altmann gave birth to Arnold Bernstein, the German American shipowner who was stripped of his assets and imprisoned by the Nazis before making his way to the United States in 1939.

1889: French painter Alexandre Cabanel, who taught and was the greatest influence on the work of, Jewish painter Solomon Joseph Solomon, passed away.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solomon_Ajax_and_Cassandra.jpg

1891: Birthdate of Jonas Bernanke. Born in Boryslav, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he eventually made his way to Dillon, South Carolina where he owned a drug store and raised a son named Ben who would become Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

1891: In New York Harry Sachs and his wife gave birth to Joseph Howard Sachs, Harvard Grad class of 1911, an investment banker with Goldman, Sachs and the husband of Eleanor Burtis Sachs.

1891: The funeral of Lazarus Rosenfeld who had served as Vice President of Temple Emanu El and as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum are scheduled to be held at his home at 139 Madison Avenue starting at 9:30 a.m,

1892: It was reported today that the Russian government is taking a variety of measures to avert the repetition another famine including postponing “the enactment of the laws” aimed at the Jews.

1892: Birthdate of Moritz Neumann one of the last Jewish inhabitants of Kleinsteinach whom the Nazis shipped to either Izbica or Theresienstadt.

1893: The New York Times featured a review of A Visit to Wazan: The Sacred City of Morocco by Robert Spence Watson. Watson used a letter of introduction from Sir Moses Montefiore to the Chief Rabbi of Morocco “as a passport to meeting Jews” wherever he went. Watson reported that Montefiore’s efforts on behalf of the Moroccan Jews had improved their condition including the comment that “the children of the better class of Jews of Tangiers are taught in English” and use English textbooks.

1893: “Heine in his Family Life” published today provides a detailed review of The Family Life of Heinrich Heine written by his nephew, Baron Ludwig von Embden.

1893: It was reported today that while Richard Mansfield’s depiction of Shylock vividly portray “his hatred, his vindictiveness” and “his implacable cruelty in the pursuit of revenge” “he is much more successful than any other actor…in this day, in denoting the affection of the Jew for his kind and the intense mental agony he suffers over Jessica.  His portrayal is deemed as “less theatrical and more human than others.”  (Over the centuries, the portrayal of Shylock has reflected the skill of the actors and, more to the point, the view of Jews in current society.)

1893: It was reported that Emma Goldman spoke at a meeting of anarchists who call themselves the Pioneers of Liberty.

1894: It was reported today that the “stores and fuel yards” that have been provided by Nathan Straus during the current Depression have been “besieged” by the poor and needy.

1895: In Brooklyn, at the Academy of Music Mr. and Mrs. Moses May led the grand march at the charity ball attended by 2,000 people that raise over $10,000 for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.

1895: In New York, the Young Ladies' and Gentlemen's League of the Montefiore Home sponsored a grand ball to raise funds for the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids. The successful fund raiser was attended by members of “the best circles of Jewish society.” The dances for the Montefiore Home have replaced the Purim Balls which up until two years ago were the great fund raising and major winter social events of these prosperous Jewish citizens.

1895: It was reported today that “Congregation Shearith Israel has abandoned the idea of selling the synagogue property on 19th Street between 5thand 6th Avenues.

 1896: It was reported today that the officers of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Society are: Moses May, President; Abraham Abraham, Vice President; Herman Newman, Treasurer.

 1896: Notorious German anti-Semitic agitator Hermann Ahlwardt addressed a meeting at Proesser’s in Jersey City, NJ.

1897: It was reported today that Scribner’s is ready to publish Professor Charles F. Kent’s second volume of the History of the Hebrew People.

1898: An anti-Dreyfus/anti-Zola demonstration was scheduled to take place on the Place de la Concorde in Paris.

1898: Ant-Semitic riots continued today in Algiers when “the mob invaded the Jews quarter and pillaged the shops in the Rue Babaoum, driving the Jewish merchants into the streets.”

1898: It was reported today that Selah Miller, a Congregationalist Minister from Massachusetts has been reappointed to by the President as U.S. Consul at Jerusalem.  He had served in that capacity from 1882 to 1886.

 1898: The annual meeting of the Mount Sinai Hospital Society was held today in the Dispensary building on east 67th Street.

 1898: “A Man Fasts For Twenty Years” published today describes the regiment followed by Morris Fox, a forty year old Jew from Russia who has been living in London for the last twenty years.  During that time he has lived exclusively on a diet of six pints of milk, three pints of beer and half pound of Demerara sugar.  Physicians in Konigsberg provided this “fast” which has proven to be the only way to cope with effects of an illness that “entirely destroyed his digestive organs.”

 1898: One day after he had passed away, 35-year-old Mendel Hoffman was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

 1898: It was reported today that the ant-Dreyfus riots at “Nantes, Bordeaux, Marseilles” and other cities outside of Paris “are frankly anti-Semitic…The mobs have a single purpose which is to outrage, plunder and kill in the Jewish quarters.”  Their cries against Zola are based on their belief that he is a “hired champion” of the Jews. (More for 2014)

 

1898: It was reported today that American correspondent does not think that Sarah Bernhardt will enjoy a successful season this winter when she performs in Paris.

 1898: It was reported today that Justice J.J. Cohen, Isaac N. Seligman and Jacob Schiff were among those who attended Legal Aid Society’s 22nd annual dinner at Delmonico’s. (More 2014)

 1898 (29th of Tevet, 5658): Yehoshua Yehudah Leib Diskin passed away. Born in 1818, this important rabbi, Talmudist and Biblical commentator was also known as the Maharil Diskin,. He served as a rabbi in Łomża, Mezritch, Kovno, Shklov, Brisk and finally Jerusalem after moving there in 1878, where he became the spiritual leader of a part of the Yishuv haYashan. He was part of a family of rabbis. His father, Binyamin Diskin, served as rabbi in Grodno, Volkovisk and later Łomża. His son was Rabbi Yitzchok Yeruchem Diskin.

 1899: Henry Herzberg delivered a lecture at Temple Beth-El tonight in New York entitled “The Soul of Judaism.

1899: Three days after he had passed away, 45-year-old Walter Bertram Phillips the sone of Barnet Samuel Phillips and Philippa Samuel was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1899: The Baron de Hirsch Trade Schools are scheduled to move into a new facility on East Sixty Fourth Street.  The school had outgrown its old facility on East 9thStreet that it had occupied for the last five years.

 1899(12thof Shevat, 5659): Five months before his 50th birthday Bohemian born, University of Vienna trained lawyer Emil Schiff who worked as a journalist while piling up knowledge that he never used for practical purpose including the study of “higher mathematics at Berlin University and graduating from Medical School passed away after which a memorial address was delivered at the Berlin Medical Society.

1899: It was reported today that newly created Central Federate Union which has replaced the old Central Labor Union refused to admit delegates from the Federated Hebrew Trades Unions because “they represented a central body and not individual unions.”

 1899: In Albany, New York state Senator Elsberg introduced a bill that would the Hebrew Infant Asylum of New York to the list of institutions that are entitled to receive public money.

1900(23rdof Shevat, 5660): English born “communal worker” Alfred H. Beddington, a warden of the Central Synagogue and a member of committees devoted to “the Jews’ Free School, the Jews’ College, the Jewish Middle-Class School for Girls and the Jewish Association for the Diffusion of Religious Knowledge.”

1900: The Jewish Agricultural and Industrial Aid Society who members include Alfred Jaretzki, Percy S. Straus, Eugene Meyer, Jr. and Solomon G. Rosnebaum was organized today.

1901: Tonight, at the Educational Alliance on East Broadway “more than 1,000 Hebrews of the east side, together with many wealthier persons actively interested in charitable worked attended the ninth annual meeting of the Hebrew Free Loan Association” which had been “formed on the lines laid down by the late Baroness de Hirsch and which lends money to the worthy poor in sums from $10 to $100 on notes made by themselves and endorsed by a responsible party” which does not make any charge for the service.

1902(15thof Shevat, 5662): Tu B’Shevat

1902: The President of the Equitable Life Insurance Company denied that a combine that included Kuhn, Loeb and Company and Jacob H. Schiff has bought the company.

1902: In Grass Valley, CA, Polish-Jewish immigrants Fannie (Meyer) and Zalkin H. Rubinstein gave birth to Cecilia Rubinstein who as Cecelia Ager, the wife of songwriter Milton Agar, “was the first female reporter for Variety, a movie critic for PMand contributor to the New York Times” while raising their two daughters -- Laurel Bentley and Shana Alexander.

1903: In making comments today about the plans of Charles Frohman, the Ohio born Jewish theatre manager and producer to host “a testimonial for A.M. Palmer,” theatre people said that this “testimonial must be a graceful way of indicating that all past differences between the two managers was at an end.”

1904(6thof Shevat, 5664): Sixty-two-year-old Flaminio Ephraim Servi who had been serving as chief rabbi at Casale-Monferrato (Italy) since 1872, passed away today.

 1904: Herzl was received by the Italian King, Vittorio Emanuele III. The king showed a serious interest in Zionism. But under the Italian political system, the king reigns but does not rule so it will be to Foreign Minister Tittoni to gain political support in Constantinople. Tittoni asked for a memorandum and promised to write to the Italian ambassador in Constantinople.

1905: In Albany, Melvil Dewey, Director of the State Library of the state Library tonight made public the reply which he had sent to the Library Committee’s Board of Regents, in response to a request from the committee for an answer to the charge made against him…that while using his official position to advertise the Lake Place Club he was a party to a rule of the club that Jews should not be received as guests at the club’s hotel in which he stated that the Jews had not been admitted to his Lake Placid Club since its founding in 1895 but while the allegations were true they were not, in his words “serious.”  (Editor’s note – this is the Dewey of Dewey Decimal fame whose anti-Semitism is not something they teach us about in school)

1906: It was reported today that a mass meeting held in New York to celebrate the first anniversary of “Red Sunday” when thousands of workingmen were shot down in St. Petersburg when they tried to deliver a petition to the Czar there were cries of “Down with anti-Semitism” followed later by a denunciation of “the massacre of the Jews.”

1907: It was reported today that “Max Marks has brought…several plots aggregating forty-acres” in Westchester County, NY “for a Hebrew charitable organization.”

1908: “Attacks Immigrant Jews” published today described how a speech delivered by William H. Corbin in which he described Jews as “ignorant an dirty…crowding the schools and high schools” and “crowding their way into the professions to practice them for getting money…while working with low ideals and sordid practices” was received with applause by the 150 members of the Chenango County Society meeting at the Hotel Astor.

1909: Birthdate of Simon W. Gerson, a leader of CPUSA and editor for The Daily Worker.

 1909: In the UK, Blanche Esther Barnett and Lionel D. Barnett, M.A., Ph.D., CB gave birth Richard David Barnett, the British academic, “an authority on archaeology of the ancient world”, President of the Jewish Historical Society of England, Chairman of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society and the husband of Barbara Barnett.

1910: “A benefit performance for the National Jewish Hospital Consumptives at Denver,” a non-sectarian facility that treats patients for “free” is scheduled to take place this evening at the Broadway in Manhattan.

 1910: The Board of Directors of Mount Sinai Hospital held their annual board meeting today at the hospital on 100th Street and Fifth Avenue. During the reading of the annual report Isaac Stern, the President, announced that the plan to establish a federation of the larger Jewish charitable institutions of the city, a plan for some time in contemplation, had failed. Mr. Stern said that there were certain disadvantages to the creation of such a federation without the guarantee of “any permanent advantages.” Therefore, the directors considered it “in the best interest of the community not give their consent” to such a plan. Mr. Stern announced that the children of the late Mayer Lehman had donated $78,528 which was to be used to add two stories to the Dispensary Building as a memorial to their late father. In the past year, almost 89% of the nearly 9,000 patients admitted to the hospital were treated without paying a fee. The hospital’s expenditure of $399,170 exceeded income by almost $15,000. Jacob Schiff, who apparently favored the creation of the federation, gave a speech in which he thanked the board and the medical staff for their efforts in the last year. The board’s decision about joining a federation of charitable institutions doomed the idea at a cost of one million dollars. That was the amount that the late Louis A. Heinsheimer had set aside in his will for such an organization, if and when, it should be created.

 1911: It was reported today that “the Brooklyn Federation of Jewish Charities” showed receipts for 1910 of $90,180 “compared with $81,877 in 1909 for an increase of $8,303.

1912: Hugo Doblin and Herwatch Walden served as best men at the wedding Erna Reiss, a medical student and daughter of a wealthy factory owner to Bruno Alfred Döblin whose works including Berlin Alexanderplatz published in 1929.

 1913(15thof Shevat, 5673): Tu B’Shevat

 1913: The annual meeting of the United States Chamber of Commerce in Washington, DC which S.S. Brill of St. Louis attended as a delegate came to an end.

 1913: The 3-day ceremonies marking the dedication of new buildings at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, came to an end today.

1913: At today’s session of the 23rd Biennial Council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations Simon Wolf of Washington, DC, Chairman of the Board of Civil and Religious Rights delivered a report on his group’s activities which have “dealt with the problems of immigration” and providing clarification for the general public of matters” regarding the unfair discrimination to American citizenship by the Russian authorities in the recent passport legislation.” 

1914: Henry Green, the organizer of the Jewish-American Rumanian Committee which was formed to protest against the Rumanian Government’s policy concerning the Jews is scheduled to attend the International Conference opening today at Berlin.

 

1914: Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson is scheduled to appear for the last time on the New York stage when he plays the starring role in “The Merchant of Venice” at the Manhattan Opera House.

 1915: Among those listed today as contributors to the Red Cross fund of which Jacob H. Schiff is Treasurer is Congregation B’Nai Israel of Natchez, Mississippi.

 1915: “The American Jewish War Relief Committee of which Louis Marshall is President and Felix M. Warburg is a Treasurer issued a statement today showing that since December 13 the committee has sent $200,000 to Europe and Palestine” and that to date “the committee’s relief fund” now totals “more than $378,000.

1916: In New York City, Jewish immigrants Samuel and Bella Price, who would move to San Diego in the 1920’s gave birth to Sol Price, the founder of Price Club which later merged with warehouse giant Costco.

1916: Birthdate of Irwin Witty who played Center for the 1938 NYU basketball team which he led to their first appearance in a “final four tournament” – The NIT.

1916: It was reported today that the American Jewish Relief Committee has received to date $1,236,846 including a contribution of $328.32 from the Provisional Executive Committee “for the relief of Jews in Palestine” and $250 form “Minneapolis Jews.”

1916: At Carnegie Hall, Dr. Stephen S. Wise, rabbi of the Free Synagogue delivered a sermon today in which he defended Zionism from charges that it was un-patriotic and un-American.

1916: “United States Senator Martin of New Jersey, Mayor Mitchell, Commissioner of Immigration Frederick C. Howe, New York Congressman Walter M. Chandler and Isaac Siegel, Louis D. Brandeis, Adolph Lewisohn, Samuel Untermyer and Judge Leon Sanders” are all reported to be among the speakers who will address tomorrow evening’s meeting at Carnegie Hall hosted by the Jewish Congress Organization Committee.

 1917: It was reported today that Dr. H.G. Enelow, the rabbi at Temple Emanu-El told an audience that included Jews and non-Jews that “Jewish interest in Jesus should be aroused…by the fact that Jesus was a Jew” and that while such writers as Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells and George Moore were “brilliant” their views on this topic were “inaccurate” because “they did not know enough about Jesus’ relation to the Jews to fit them for the instruction of others.”

1918: In New York Bertha Cohen and Robert Elion, DDS, gave birth to Gertrude Belle Elion. Elion graduated from Hunter College and then earned a Master in Science from N.Y.U. in 1941. In a classic case of sex discrimination, she was unable to obtain a graduate research job which meant she could not earn a Ph.D. Thus the 1988 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine ended up working as a lab assistant and high school teacher.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1988/elion/biographical/

1918: The list of the newest members of the Executive Committee of the American Jewish Relief Committee published today including William Fox of New York, Moses A. Gunst of San Francisco, Samuel Lamport of New York City, Joseph Michaels of Rochester, NY, H.B. Rosen from the Harrison National Bank of New York City, Abe Rothstein of New York City, Reuben Sadowsky of New York City, Ben Salling of Portland, OR Jacob Sperber of New York City and Judge Edward L. Lazansky of Brooklyn.

 1918: The Chief Rabbi of Algeria plans a community building which will contain a yeshiva, an assembly hall, a library, shelter for strangers, a mikvah and a bakery for matzah.

1919: Birthdate of Patterson NJ native and West Virginia football player Millard Lampell the blacklisted television and movie screenwriter whose first brush with social protest appears to have come from songwriting with Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie,

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/11/arts/millard-lampell-78-writer-and-supporter-of-causes-dies.html 

1919: In Mannville, Alberta, Max Goffman, and his wife, Ann (née Averbach) gave birth to Frances Goffman who gained fame as character actress Frances Bey who played Fonzi’s grandmother on “Happy Days.”

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/17/local/la-me-frances-bay-20110917

 1919: General Lyautey, the resident General of Morocco visits the Mellah (Jewish Quarter) and urges the Jews to contribute towards its sanitation and enlargement.

1920: In New York, Joseph Frederick “Joe” Saphir, the son of Louis and Bessie Saphir and his wife Elsa Saphir gave birth to Lois Saphir Lee.

1921: Birthdate of Gdansk native Justus Rosenberg, a member of Vivian’s Fry’s Emergency Rescue Committee which helped to spirit “intellectuals and artists” out of Vichy France and went on to a career as a Professor at Bard College.

1921: “The Ohel Rachel Synagogue (Tent of Rachel), a Sephardi synagogue in Shanghai, China, built by Sir Jacob Elias Sassoon in memory of his wife Rachel, which was completed in 1920, was consecrated today under the leadership of Rabbi Hirsch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohel_Rachel_Synagogue#/media/File:Ohel_Rachel_Synagogue_old.jpg

1921: The members of the directorate are scheduled to talk about the year’s accomplishment today at the annual meeting of the Bronx Hospital at Temple Adath Israel.

1921: In Shanghai, Rabbi W. Hirsch consecrated The Ohel Rachel Synagogue for worship. This marked the culminating achievement of Shanghai's First Wave of Jewish immigrants and it was built to accommodate the community of Baghdadi Jews which at its peak numbered 700.

1921: Approximately three students are scheduled to receive their diplomas when “twelve of the largest Talmud Torahs and Hebrew Schools in Manhattan hold joint graduation exercises” today “at Stuyvesant High School after which Israel Unterberg, Samuel C. Lamport, Joseph Levy and Harry H. Liebowitz will host a dinner at the Jewish Center.

1923: Birthdate of Dina Gottliebova, the native of Brno who gained fame as Dina Babbit who survived Auschwitz by drawing portraits of Dr. Josef Menegle

1923: “The Stone Rider” a silent film starring Lucie Mannheim was released today in Germany.

 1923 (6th of Shevat, 5683): Max Nordau passed away at the age of 73. http://www.herzl.org/english/Article.aspx?Item=531

 http://www.zionism-israel.com/bio/Nordau_Biography.htm

1924: Laborite Emmanuel “Manny” Shinwell began his first term as Secretary of Mines under Prime Minister MacDonald.

1924: In Paterson, NJ, Sam and Mollie Lautenberg gave birth to Frank Lautenberg who rose to be a United States, a support of the down-trodden and a leader in the Jewish community.

http://www.jta.org/2013/06/03/news-opinion/politics/new-jersey-sen-frank-lautenberg-dies-at-89

 1925: In Rokiskis, Lithuania, Avraham and Devora Harmatz, gave birth to Joseph Harmatz, a Holocaust survivor and comrade of Abba Kovner who plotted to kill German soldiers at WW II passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/30/world/europe/joseph-harmatz-dead.html?_r=0

1925: Birthdate of Yonkers, NY native and Erasmus Hall High graduate Doris Hoffman Scherback who lived with her husband Boris in Danville, VA from 1947 to 1948 “where he  worked wit the Textile Workers Union and she registered minority voters” and who retired as the “Executive Secretary to the Director of the National Center for Health Statistics in 1987 after twenty years of government service” while raising two children – Janet and David.

1926(8thof Shevat, 5686): Parashat Bo

1927: Author Annie Eichberg Lane, the only daughter of composer and musical director Julius Eichberg passed away today.

1927: It was reported today that “the newly-elected officers of the Federal of Jewish women’s Organizations of Greater New York will be installed at the seventh annual convention of the organization” which will take place this at the Hotel Astor.

1928: “The tenth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration…was celebrated” tonight “at the Grand Street Boys’ Association Clubhouse under the auspices of the West End group of Hadassah” during which Dr. Stephen S. Wise “urged Jews to cooperate with England in building Palestine.”

1929: Birthdate of Myron Sidney Kopelman, who, as Myron Cope, would become an American sports journalist, radio personality, and sportscaster best known for being "the voice of the Pittsburgh Steelers."

1930: “A verdict of not guilty was pronounced this afternoon on all twelve Arabs charged with the murder of five members of the Macleff family and their two guests at the Jewish colony of Motzah, five miles outside of Jerusalem, on Saturday, Aug. 24.”

1931: “The Man Who Murdered” a crime film directed by Curtis Bernhardt with a script by Henry Koster and Carl Mayer was released today in Germany.

1931: Sir Isaac Isaacs was sworn in as the first Australian born Governor General.

1931: Ninety-one year old Catholic theologian and author of anti-Semitic polemics August Rohling whose work included Der Talmudjude published in 1871 “which bean a standard work for anti-Semitic authors and journalist” passed away today in Salzburg.

1932(15thof Shevat, 5692): Parashat Beshalach; Tu B’Shevat

1932(15thof Shevat, 5692): Fifty-year-old Australian born, Laborite MP Marion Phillips passed away today.

https://spartacus-educational.com/Amarion_phillips.htm

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/Phillips-Marion

1932: Chief Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo of the Court of Appeals was formally endorsed for associate justice of the United States Supreme Court to fill the seat recently vacated by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes at tonight’s closing session of the annual meeting of the New York State Bar Association at the Hotel Astor

1932: In Manhattan, Sidne Silverman, the son of Sime Silverman the publisher who founded Variety in New York and Daily Variety in Hollywood and former actress Marie Saxon gave birth to their only son Syd who continued the family publishing business.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/31/business/media/syd-silverman-90-who-kept-variety-boffo-for-30-years-is-dead.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

1933: Birthdate of composer Joel Spiegelman.

1933: At 7:30 p.m., the NBC Blue Network broadcast the 9th episode of “Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel, a situation comedy radio show starring two of the Marx Brothers, Groucho and Chico, and written primarily by Nat Perrin and Arthur Sheekman.”

1934: “No More Ladies” a comedy produced by Lee Shubert and co-starring Melvyn Douglas opened on Broadway at the Booth Theatre.

1936: Sir Isaac Isaacs, a native-born Australian who was the son of Polish Jews, completes his term as the 9th Governor-General of Australia.

1936: Senator William H. King of Utah told that the U.S. Senate today “that 600,000 Jews were” being subjected to “ruthless persecution under decrees of the present German regime” and that “Congress must soon face” the need to liberalize the immigration laws of the United States “to permit the admission of Jewish refugees from Germany.”

1937: Today, the United Palestine Appeal released an economic survey on “How Many Jews Can Palestine Hold?” by Joseph L. Cohen, “a British member of the advisor of the committee on social insurance of the International Labor Organization” which show among other things that the “Jewish population” in Palestine had “increased from 17 to 30 per cent of the total population during the last few years” and that today, “there are forty-seven Jews to every 100 Arabs.”

1937: In Moscow, 17 leading Communists went on trial. They were accused of participating in a plot led by Leon Trotsky to overthrow Joseph Stalin's regime and assassinate its leaders. Stalin combined Trotsky’s Jewish parentage with traditional Russian anti-Semitism to demonize Trotsky and destroy those opposing his authoritarian rule. Having branded the “Jew, Trostky” as an enemy of the revolution, or the Communist Party and/or the Soviet Union, Stalin would feel to move against the Jews of the U.S.S.R when it fit his needs or his demonic spirit.

 1938: The Palestine Post reported that two Arabs, implicated in the murder of J.L. Starkey, a noted archaeologist who was excavating in Palestine, were hanged at Acre. The Motza brick and burnt-tile factory was completely gutted by fire. Arson by Arab terrorists was suspected. Ephraim Brin, 19, and Aziz Jacob, 17, both of Jerusalem, were the first Jews to be sentenced, under the newly created Military Courts, to five years' imprisonment for carrying a pistol and a few rounds of ammunition.

1939: “The body of a woman taken from the River Thames was identified today as that of Countess Mari Kageneck, a wealthy Austrian Jew” and wife of a husband who “holds a position in Vienna under the Nazi regime”  who had disappeared in December at a time when she had been separated from her two children and Vienna and was feeling great despair “over the persecution of the Jews in Germany.”

1940: In Perth Amboy, NJ, Philip Kaplan Cheuse who defected from the Russian Air Force and the former Matilda Diamond gave birth to author and critic Alan Stuart Cheuse.

idx=4&rref=obituaries&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Obituaries&pgtype=article

 1941(24thof Tevet, 5701): Ninety-three-year-old Flora Ochs, the Louisville, KY born daughter of Agatha Schwab and Maier Ochs passed away today in Fayette County, KY.

1941: Charles Lindbergh testified before the U.S. Congress and recommended that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler. For those who are perplexed by Roosevelt’s response to the plight of European Jewry, this entry should give you a clue as to the kind of the environment in which he was operating. “The Lone Eagle” was a national monument and, as the leader of the America First Movement, he saw WW II was a European measure. He would only grudgingly give ground on his opposition to war once the bombs were falling on Pearl Harbor. Opposition of this magnitude fashioned all of FDR’s decisions about the war, including how to deal with the Shoah. It is only with the warmth of the myth of America’s Greatest Generation that the United States seems like an ant-fascist monolith in WWII.

 1941: “Lady in the Dark” a product of “3 Jewish Musketeers” - music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ira Gershwin and book and direction by Moss Hart – opened at the Alvin Theatre in New York

 1942(5th of Shevat, 5702): In Novi Sad, Hungary, 550 Jews and 292 Serbs were driven onto the ice and then shelled. All drowned. [Ed. Note: Who says Kaddish for these people?]

http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/january/07.asp

 1942(5th of Shevat, 5702): Paul Levinstein was killed in Hadjerat M'Guil a Nazi concentration camp built in remote part of the Sahara Desert in 1941. Upon hearing of their son's death his parents committed suicide in Britain.

 1942: Hungarian military units began “cleaning up” the region of captured Yugoslavia which included the massacre of the local Jews.

 http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/january/07.asp

1943: Italian authorities refuse to cooperate with Germans in deportations of French Jews living in zones of France under Italian control

1943: The “father, mother and daughter” of Moshe Hans Jahoda who had escaped to Palestine five months before the start of WWII, “were transferred to Auschwitz concentration camp, where all three were murdered.

1943: The last airfield held by the Nazis fell to the Russian cutting any further supply to the 6th Army which brought victory at Stalingrad ever so much closer.

1943: Marcia Davenport, the daughter of Bernard Glick and Alma Gluck was a panelist today on a radio panel show “The People’s Platform: when one of the other panelists had a heart attack and passed away.

1944: "Ode to Napoleon" by the Jewish composer Arnold Schoenberg premieres in New York City

1945(9thof Shevat, 5705): Seventy-one-year-old Annie Edith Landau, the London born daughter of Marcus Israel and Chaja Kohn who settled in Palestine where she played a key role in the development of education and culture for which she was twice honored by King George V passed away today after which she buried “on the Mount of Olives.”

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/landau-annie-edith

1945: Birthdate of Bruce Ratner. Appointed by Ed Koch to the position of Commissioner of Consumer Affairs for New York City in 1978, he became a real estate developer in 1982. He is now the owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, his net worth now several hundred million dollars. Ratner is the developer charged with building the New York Times Tower. He is a member of the board of the Jewish Heritage Museum.

1946: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, a joint British and American committee composed of six Americans and six Englishmen that was charged with examining the “political, economic and social conditions in Mandatory Palestine as they bear upon the problem of Jewish immigration and settlement therein and the well-being of the peoples now living therein” which had been meeting in Washington, D.C. began its meetings today in London.

1923

1947(2ndof Shevat, 5707): Fifty-seven-year-old Russian born and Boston public educated journalist Michael Brown, the husband of Rose Brown and the thee father of Kermit, Jerry and Judith Brown who has been with The Jewish Morning Journalfor twenty years, the last ten of which were as city editor passed away today in Brooklyn.

1947: Diana Dill and Kirk Douglas gave birth to their second son movie producer Joel Douglas.

1947: U.S. premiere of “Johnny O’Clock” directed by Robert Rossen, featuring Lee J. Cob and providing Jeff Chandler (Ira Gorssel) with his appearance in a major motion picture.

1948: It was announced today that “the name of Moshe A Pearlman, a Brooklyn student killed in Palestine” by Arabs on January 16 “will be inscribed on a student’s chair at the projected Hebrew University –Hadassah Medical School” thanks to a one-thousand-dollar contribution made by an anonymous donor.

1949: At the Hollywood Athletic Club the first Emmy Awards are presented. A year later, two Jewish stars would dominate the Emmy Awards. The Texaco Star Theatre starring Milton Berle and The Ed Wynn Show starring Ed Wynn would walk off with top honors while Berle and Wynn would each earn awards in their own right.

1950: The 3rd edition of Famous 1st Facts by Jewish trivia expert Joseph Kane is published

1950: Israeli Knesset resolved that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.

1951(16thof Shevat, 5711): Sixty-year-old Harvard trained attorney and WW I veteran Julius Houseman Amberg, the Grand Rapids, Michigan born son of Hattie Houseman Amberg and David Moses Amberg and the husband of Callie Smith Amberg  who was the son-in-law of Congressman Julius Houseman passed away after which he was buried in the Oakhill Cemetery in Grand Rapids.

1951: “Declaring that a strong and prosperous Israel is the best guarantee of peace in the Middle East, Senator Irving M. Ives today requested that the United States Government give ‘some form of grant-in-aid’ to Israel immediately.” (As reported by JTA)

1951: Seventy-five-year-old Rabbi Judah L. Maimon, Israel’s Minister of Religion arrived in New York today which marks the start of a four weeklong speaking tour in the United States sponsored by “the Mizrachi Organization of America.

1951: It was announced that 42-year-old Dr. Aron Kaminsky has been named chairman of the Department of Dermatology at the Jewish Hospital of Buenos Aires.

1952: Birthdate of Jeanette Ingberman, the Brooklyn born daughter of Holocaust survivors who became a founder of the New York cultural center Exit Art, a hotbed of avant-garde work by artists from around the world. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

http://jwa.org/thisweek/jan/23/1952/this-week-in-history-january-23-1952-jeanette-ingberman-founder-of-exit-art-is

 1953(7thof Shevat, 5713): Zlynka native Solomon Bregman the editor-in-chief of The Book About Jews-Heroes of the War against Fascism who was arrested “with other members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in 1948” passed away today in jail “after surviving several severe beatings.”

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported from New York that the Soviet Union was about to break diplomatic relations with Israel. The first five tons of the copper ore, excavated from Timna mine in the Negev, were sent for industrial tests to Europe.

1954: “Killers from Space” a sci-fi film directed and produced by W. Lee Wilder was released today in the United States.

1955(29thof Tevet, 5715): Fifty-two-year-old New Yorker Fanny Levy, a friend of Dr. William Fernhoff and his wife, the former Tola Schwarz died from injuries from an automobile accident in which all three had been victims two days ago.

1956(10thof Shevat, 5716): Sixty-two-year-old filmmaker Alexander Korda, the Hungarian born son of “Henrik Kellner and Ernesztian Weisz,” the patriarch of the Korda movie family which included his brothers Vincent an Zoltan and  whose colorful career would have made a wonderful biopic like the ones he made about King Henry VIII and Lord Nelson, passed away today. (There is no way that this blog can do justice to his colorful life)

https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-179/alexander-korda-churchills-man-hollywood/

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1956/01/24/86509856.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1959(14thof Shevat, 5719): Terrorists killed a shepherd from Kibbutz Lehavot HaBashan.

1959(14thof Shevat, 5719): Seventy-four-year-old New York born financier, the husband of Ernestine Isaacs and father of Alvin Isaacs and Jeanne Kramer who “was instrumental in the mering of the American Union Banks into the Manufacturers Trust Company” and a member of Temple Israel passed away today in West Palm Beach.

1960(23rdof Tevet, 5720): Parashat Shemot

1960: Birthdate of Sheri Miriam Goldhirsch the Brooklyn native who became the “artistic director of Young Playwrights, Inc.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/theater/sheri-m-goldhirsch-who-nurtured-young-playwrights-dies-at-55.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

1960: Israeli General Yitzhak Rabin sends an aerial reconnaissance across the Suez Canal to ascertain the position of Nasser’s advancing troops. When the troops cannot be found, Rabin correctly assumes they have crossed the Canal. It turned out that the bulk of Egyptian army was almost at the border with Israel where they would only be opposed by force of twenty or thirty tanks.

 1963: The latest installment of the memoirs of Ilya Ehrenberg which describe the Soviet response to the invasion of June of 1941, appeared today. Ehrenbeg depicted a hesitant Stalin whose ever-present picture disappeared from view for months and who did not speak to the nation until November of 1941. This installment also describes how Stalin mobilized Soviet Jews including Ehrenberg, Sergei Eisenstein and Solomon Mikhoels to make broadcasts abroad to gain support for the Soviets in their fight against the Nazis. [After the war, Stalin, like Pharaoh, would know not the Jewish contribution and murdered many of them included Mikhoels.]

1963: Recording session began today at Columbia’s Studio A in New York that would lead to “The Barbra Streisand Album.”

1963: Lew Pollack’s “Charmaine” was released today Decca Records.

1964: Arthur Miller's "After the Fall" premiered in New York City.

 1968: Mapai, Ahdut HaAvoda and Rafi merged into the Israeli Labor Party and ceased to exist as individual entities.

1969: “Hour of the Wolf” the second album of the rock group Hassles whose members included Billy Joel who wrote some of the songs for the LP was released today.

1970(16thof Shevat, 5730): Seventy-four-year-old Annie Stein Lazarus, the wife of Sam Lazarus and mother of Jacob, Leon, Freances, Ralph and Irwin Lazarus passed away today after which she was buried in the Jewish section of the Sunset Hill Cemetery in Valdosta, GA.

 1972: In Caen, France Dr. Jacques Drucker and his wife Martine gave birth to French actress Léa Drucker.

 1973(20thof Shevat, 5773): A Palestinian terrorist murdered Baruch Cohen in Madrid.

1974: “Professor David Azbel announced his intention to hold a hunger strike in support of Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn.”

1974: “Izak Tsudikovich Hochberg of Kishinev, the well-known mathematics professor and Corresponding Member of Moldavian Academy of Sciences, was dismissed from his post as head of Department in the Institute of Mathematics after applying to emigrate to Israel.” 

1975: "Barney Miller" starring Hal Linden premiered on ABC TV.

 1976: It was reported today that even if the Soviet Union is overhauling its emigration procedures, “emigrants to Israel will continue to pay 500 additional rubles ($665) to renounce their Soviet Citizenship…” (As reported by JTA)

1976: It was reported today that the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ) “has learned of a new Soviet Jewish “Prisoner of Conscience,” Lydia Abatorovna Nisanova the 32 year old native of Derbent who applied to emigrate in July 1975 and who was sentenced recently to a year-and-a-half for speculation.” (As reported today by JTA)

1977(4th of Shevat, 5737): Bernard "Toots" Shor passed away. “Toots Shor, a bulky Jewish street kid from Philadelphia, who made and gambled away several fortunes in the big town, was in a sense the original insult comic—crass, coarse, jesting jibes being the prime ingredient of pal ship among all those heavy hitters.” Shor was the premier Saloonkeeper and his New York restaurant was a thing of legend.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/movies/17shor.html

 1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the cabinet decided to postpone the military talks held with Egypt in Cairo, after the Egyptian delegation broke off political negotiations with Israel, held in Jerusalem. It was expected that this step might influence Egypt to moderate its demands, in tone as well as in contents. The US expressed its disappointment with Israel's sharp reaction to President Anwar Sadat's demands for a total withdrawal to the 1967 borders and the recognition of the rights of the Palestinians. Four hundred and twenty-five Israelis flew to the US under the 'Friendly Force' program designed to promote peace through personal contacts.

 1978 (15th of Shevat, 5738): A hundred thousand trees were planted on Tu Bishvat by the Jewish National Fund.

1981: Birthdate of Long Branch, NJ, native and UCLA gymnast Alyssa Erin Beckerman who earned a Gold Medal for her performance on the Balance Beam at the U.S. National Championship in 2000.

https://web.archive.org/web/20110725154600/http://www.uclabruins.com/sports/w-gym/mtt/beckerman_alyssa00.html

1983(9thof Shevat, 5743): Seventy-eight year old Uman, Russia native and University of Pennsylvania trained neurologist Dr. Morris Bender who raised five children – Barbara, Leila, Adam, Barnaby and Victor – with his wife Sarah passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/01/27/obituaries/dr-morris-bender-78-expert-on-brain-tumors.html?searchResultPosition=1

1984(19thof Shevat, 5744): Ninety-two year old Pulitzer Prize winning composer and violinist Samuel Gardner, the husband of Henrietta Holtzman Gardner with whom he had two children – Sally and Herbert – passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/24/obituaries/samuel-gardner-92-is-dead-violinist-and-juilliard-teacher.html

1986: "Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood" opens at Ritz Theater New York City.

 1987: Meir Heth, was appointed today as the new chairman of Bank Leumi L'Yisrael, Israel's biggest commercial bank. The former head of the Tel Aviv stock exchange, Heith was criticized over a 1983 collapse of bank shares. A commission of inquiry last year criticized Mr. Heth for failing to prevent the country's four major banks from manipulating their shares.

 1988: As the Arab uprising called the Intifada brings an increase in violence the representative of the Arab League and three other Arab diplomats met with a senior State Department official today to complain about what they considered inadequate United States pressure on Israel to halt the violence against Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

 1990(26thof Tevet, 5750): Eighty-five-year-old Nathan N. Rosen, a graduate of Yeshiva University and Columbia College who served as an Army Chaplain during World War II before beginning a 25 year career as a chaplain at Brown University where he founded the Hillel chapter, passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/24/obituaries/nathan-n-rosen-rabbi-85.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm

 1991. At a briefing this morning, Israeli officials appeared to play down the deaths that occurred when an Iraqi Scud missile evaded two American Patriot air-defense missiles and slammed into a Tel Aviv suburb on Tuesday night, leaving 3 people dead and 96 wounded emphasizing that the three victims had suffered heart attacks. 

1991: The first episode of the second season of "Seinfeld" debuts on NBC-TV

1994: Coach Marv Levy led the Buffalo Bills to victory over the Kansas City Chiefs which marked his fourth straight victory in the American Football Conference Championship.

1997(15thof Shevat, 5757): Tu B’Shevat

1998: “The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit” co-starring Side Caesar and Howard Morris is scheduled to be released today in the United States.

1998: “Phantoms” the movie version of the novel by the same name produced by Bob and Harvey Weinstein and starring Live Schreiber was released in the United States today.

 1997: Madeleine Albright became the first woman to serve as United States Secretary of State. During her term as Secretary of State, Albright found out for the first time that her family was Jewish.

1999: Today, Gene Siskeil reviewed “The Theory of Flight” which marked his last on-air appearance with co-host Roger Ebert.

2000: The New York Times includes a review of The House of Rothschild: The World's Banker, 1849-1999 by Niall Ferguson.

2001: This afternoon, two Tel Aviv restaurateurs and an Israeli Arab friend sat down for a late lunch in Tulkarm, a battle-scarred town rarely visited by Israeli Jews since the West Bank erupted in riotous protests nearly four months ago. The three were seized by armed men who later let the Israeli Arab go, but shot the two Israeli Jews at point-blank range, Israeli officials said. Hamas, the militant Gaza-based Islamic movement, took responsibility for what it called an ''execution'' and said the shooting had been videotaped.

 2001: The killing of two Israeli civilians by Palestinian militants earlier today interrupted a new round of peace negotiations here, with Prime Minister Ehud Barak condemning the slayings as ''horrendous'' and ordering the three cabinet ministers in the talks to return to Jerusalem. 

2001: Today, in a talk with high school students on the campaign trail, Ehud Barak appeared to disavow proposals for relinquishing control of the ancient city core of Jerusalem. ''Under any settlement, the Western Wall, the Jewish Quarter, and the Mount of Olives, and what is called the holy basin, will remain under Israeli sovereignty,'' Mr. Barak said.

 2002(10th of Shevat, 5762): Bernard Rothman passed away. Cause of death was a stroke. He was better known as Benny Rothman, “a UK political activist, most famous for his leading role in the Mass trespass of Kinder Scout in 1932. He was born in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, in 1911. He is family was so poor that he had to start work at the earliest opportunity rather than take full advantage of a scholarship that he had won. Working as an errand boy in the motor trade, he studied geography and economics in his spare time while his Aunt Ettie introduced him to The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and the works of Upton Sinclair. Increasingly committed to the causes of socialism and communism, Rothman lost his job after getting into some trouble with the law while selling copies of the Daily Worker. During a period of unemployment, with the help of a bicycle salvaged from spare parts, he discovered the nearby wilderness regions of the Peak District and North Wales. The combination of his political activism and interest in the outdoors led to his participation in the mass trespass of 1932, an enterprise that resulted in a spell in prison and further employment difficulties. In 1934, Rothman went to work at Avro in Newton Heath and instantly became an officer of the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU). At Avro's, he met and married fellow communist Lily Crabtree but his political views became increasingly visible to his employer and he was dismissed. Rothman was active in working with Jewish groups in Manchester to oppose the campaigns of Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists. In 1936, he started work at Metropolitan Vickers at Trafford Park and was again soon an AEU official.”

2002: Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and subsequently murdered in Karachi, Pakistan. Based on the tape of his murder, Pearl was killed because he was a Jew.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/daniel-pearls-death-10-years-later-an-interview-with-his-father-judea-pearl/2012/02/21/gIQAKChtRR_blog.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1014311357552611480.html

 2003 (20th of Shevat, 5763): Actress Nell Carter passed away. She had converted from Catholicism to Judaism in 1982.

 2003: The 12th annual Jewish Film Festival comes to an end in New York. 

2003: As of 10 pm, Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri, the holy man of unknown but tremendous age, who was scheduled to visit the Hall of Moses synagogue and then a candlelit graveyard in this Tel Aviv suburb tonight for a rally that mixed mystic ritual with all the grit of Chicago ward politics had failed to make an appearance and the police were forced to disperse the disappointed crowd

 2004(29thof Tevet, 5764): German born photographer Helmut Newton passed away. (As reported by Suzy Menkes)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/26/news/26iht-obits_ed3__23.html

http://www.helmutnewton.com/

 2004: U.S. premiere of “The Butterfly Effect” featuring Logan Lerman which was distributed in Israel by Forum Film.

 2005: The Squid and the Whale, an American comedy-drama film written and directed by Noah Baumbach featuring Jesse Eisenberg as “Walt Berkman” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

 2005: Stanley Fischer, a widely respected American economist and banker, has agreed to leave the United States and a job as a vice chairman of Citigroup to become governor of the Bank of Israel.

 2005: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including recently published paperback editions of Horse People: Scenes from the Riding Life by Michael Korda and Unsettled: An Anthropolgy of Jews, Melvin Konner’s sweeping study that follows a roughly historical outline, from the earliest pre-biblical days to the establishment of the state of Israel, and tracks down far-flung Jewish communities in China, India and Afghanistan.

 2006: The Andrew Carnegie Medal for best children's video was given to the producers of Mordicai Gerstein's "The Man Who Walked Between the Towers," winner of the Caldecott in 2004. Mordicai Gerstein was born in Los Angeles in 1935. He lives in western Massachusetts with his wife, Susan Yard Harris, who is also an illustrator, and their daughter, Risa. The award-winning illustrator, painter and graphics artist has collaborated on numerous books for children including many with a Jewish motif including Queen Esther the Morning Star, Noah and the Great Flood and Jonah and the Two Great Fish

 2006: In “Attorney's Perseverance Yields a Legal Masterpiece” published today Anne-Marie O’Connor described Randol Schoenberg’s struggle to re-gain art looted by the Nazis.

http://articles.latimes.com/2006/jan/23/local/me-schoenberg23

2006(7th of Tevet, 5766): Andrea Bronfman, the wife of Jewish Canadian billionaire Charles Bronfman, was killed in a traffic accident in New York Monday.

2007: “Attorney-General Mazuz announced that he would consider charging Katsav with rape, sexual harassment, breach of trust, obstruction of justice, harassment of a witness and fraud.”

2007(4th of Shevat, 5767): Aharon Uzan passed away at the age of 82. Born in Tunisia in 1924, he made Aliyah in 1949 where he became active in a variety of left-wing political parties. He served in the Knesset and held a variety of cabinet posts included Minister of communications and Minister of Agriculture.

2007: "Two Hands” a short documentary on Leon Fleisher by Nathaniel Kahn was nominated for an Academy Award for best short subject today.

2007: Israel’s “Sweet Mud” and Holland’s “Black Book,” a movie about a Jewish woman serving in the Resistance against the Nazis are among 61 foreign language films that may be nominated for an Oscar.

 

2007: Rabbi Andrew Bossov successfully received a kidney from Methodist minister, Reverend Karen Onesti.

2008: “Lasting Legacy: Al Malnik” published to described Malnik’s rise from St. Louis teenage gangster to millionaire and south Florida trend setter.

http://hauteliving.com/2008/01/lasting-legacy/2109/

2008: It was announced today that Randy Lerner had donated £5 million to the National Gallery, the largest single donation that it has ever received, which may account for the fact that the ground floor galleries will named “The Lerner Galleries.”

 2008: The third and final episode of “The Jewish Americans” airs on PBS. The three-episode series traces the history of the Jews in America starts with the arrival of the first 23 Sephardic Jews in New Amsterdam in 1654 and “ends with Maisyahu, the Chasidic hip-hop star, one of about six million Jews in America today.” For more information see http://www.jewishtvnetwork.com/jewishamericans/

 2008: The New York Jewish Film Festival presents “Labyrinths of Memory, a documentary that draws parallels between two very different women united by a search for identity: Maite Guiteras, Mexican born, adopted at birth, and raised in Cuba; and the film’s director, born in Costa Rica to East European Jewish parents and raised in Mexico. Each defies ethnic and geographic boundaries to travel to her ancestral home to claim a place in the world”; “The Unkosher Truth a short documentary in which the filmmaker must muster the courage to tell her father, an Orthodox rabbi and U.S. Army general, that her boyfriend is German and gentile”; “Film Fanatic, in which Ultra-Orthodox Jew Yehuda Grovais rebels against his religious community, and battles the secular cultural establishment in Israel to make Hollywood-style blockbusters on a budget.”

 2008: In a nighttime attack, two armed Palestinians affiliated with Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades infiltrated a yeshiva at Kfar Etzion wounding three civilians. The two had just been released from an Israeli prison. 

2008 (16th of Shevat, 5768): Rami Zuari, a 20-year-old Border Police officer was killed during a terrorist attack at an East Jerusalem checkpoint. Border Police officer Shoshana Samendayev sustained moderate to serious injuries in the same attack.

 2008: The New York Times featured a review of The Forger: An Extraordinary Story of Survival in Wartime Berlin, the autobiography of Cioma Schonhaus.

 2009: “Lansky,” a one-man play about Meyer Lansky starring Mike Burstyn opens in an off-Broadway production. “Acclaimed American/Israeli actor Mike Burstyn stars as Meyer Lansky in the New York premiere of a new play by Richard Krevolin and Joseph Bologna about the life of the “little man,” known as the “brains behind the mob,” and his efforts to become an Israeli citizen.

 2009: Final showing of “Zion and His Brother,” a family drama set in Tel Aviv, at the Sundance Film Festival.

2009: Shiva ended for Sherwin “Shy” Raiken the Villanova and New York Knicks basketball player who had passed away at the age of eighty.

2009: Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids hosts another creative Musical Shabbat Service.

 2009: In “The End of a Chicago Tradition: Is absolutely nothing sacred?”, published today Susan Berger reports on the demise of the Best Kosher Sausage Company while documenting the history of a small slice of Chicago-based Jewish Americana.

http://www.bukisa.com/articles/72013_bests-kosher-franks-a-chicago-institution-closed-after-123-years

 2010: The 19th annual New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to present the New York premiere of “Eyes Wide Open,” a film whose protagonist is an ultra-orthodox butcher living in Jerusalem.

 2010: The 10th annual Atlanta Jewish Festival is scheduled to present a screening of “Protektor,” “a smart, stylish psycho-thriller about a Prague journalist and his part-Jewish wife whose lives are ravaged by the outbreak of WWII.”

 2010: Israel is looking into adopting Haitians orphaned by January 12's earthquake, Minister of Welfare and Social Services Isaac Herzog told The Jerusalem Post today.

2011: Adam “Richman appeared on Food Network's Iron Chef America as a judge for a battle with Gruyère cheese as the theme ingredient”

 2011: “Another Day” directed by Sam Levinson who also wrote the script and starring Ellen Barkin who also co-produced the film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival today.

2011: Israeli cellist Amit Peled and pianist Eli Kalman are scheduled to perform this afternoon at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater.

 

2011: The 2011 Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival is scheduled to present “Laughter Yoga Workshop with Molly Dworsky” and “An Adult Evening with Shel Silverstein.”

 2011: The Los Angeles Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including J.D. Salinger: A Life by Kenneth Slawenski

 2011: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein and the recently published paperback editions of A Strange Death by Hillel Halkin and Where The God of Loves Hangs Out by Amy Bloom.

 2011(18th of Shevat, 5771): Rabbi Nachum Zev Dessler, a leader at the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland for more than 60 years and a nationally known leader in Orthodox education passed away today at the age of 89. (As reported by The Eulogizer)

 2011(18THof Shevat, 5771): Ninety-year-old 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,” passed away today at his home in Studio City

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/film-television-editor-stanley-frazen-75597

 2012: “Follow Me: The Yoni Netanyahu Story” is scheduled to shown this evening at the New York Jewish Film Festival.

 2012: At Wolfson College, Oxford, Penguin Books celebrated the golden jubilee of The Dead Scrolls in English by Géza Vermes

 2012: Israeli pianist Alon Goldstein and the Jupiter musicians are scheduled to perform Schubert's celebrated Piano Trio in B-flat Major and the Beethoven "Gassenhauer" Trio at Good Shepherd Church in NYC.

 2012: On the secular calendar, 10th anniversary of the kidnapping of Danny Pearl.

 2013(12thof Shevat, 5775): Eighty-eight year old investment banker Edward M. Kresky passed away today. (As reported by Paul Vitello)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/31/nyregion/edward-m-kresky-88-calmed-fiscal-panic.html?hpw

 2013: L'ayla Women's Initiative is scheduled to present a lecture by “The Shmuz” also known as Rabbi Bentzion Shafier.

 2013: The final performance “The Winter’s Tale” sponsored by the Association of Americans and Canadians In Israel is scheduled to take place this evening in Jerusalem. 

2013: The Republican Jewish Coalition is scheduled to sponsor an evening with Lela Gilbert and Jennifer Rubin – “The Real Israel: An American Christian’s Perspective” – at the Park East Synagogue.

 2013: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set out his principles for forming a new government issuing a brief statement in which he listed the needs for a more equitable distribution of the national burden, affordable housing and changing the system of government as his would-be coalition’s three top priorities.

2013: Following the Knesset elections, US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro told Israel Radio today the US government remains committed to preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. He also said that Washington looks forward to continued cooperation with the next Israeli government.

 2014: Artist Dasha Shishkin is scheduled to provide commentary to “Chagall: Love, War and Exile” at the Jewish Museum.

http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/exhibitions/chagall-love-war-exile

 2014: As part of the JPS/Skirball Series, Salo Aizenberg is scheduled to introduce his new book, Hatemail: Anti-Semitism on Picture Postcards.

 2014: The United Nations Department of Public Information is scheduled to present “The 70th Anniversary of the Deportation of the Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust” during which “the participants will learn how the German Security Police worked with Hungarian authorities to systematically deport Jews from Hungary in May of 1944.”

 2014: In an appearance that was not listed on the Mayor’s public schedule, Mayor Bill de Blasio gave an unannounced speech at a Manhattan gala of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, assuring its members that “part of my job description is to be a defender of Israel.”

 2014: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today laid out the dilemma facing his administration when it comes to the Palestinian conflict — the imperative to avoid a binational state encompassing Israel and the Palestinians, but also to prevent a future Palestinian state from becoming an Iranian proxy. “Half of Palestinian society is dominated by Iran’s proxy,” he said in an apparent reference to the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip. (As reported by Lazar Berman and Adiv Sterman)

 

2014: The New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to come to an end.

2014: Four days after his death, a memorial service is scheduled to be at Kehillat Israel Sanctuary in California for ninety-year-old Princeton Graduate and WW II Army Veteran Jay Douglas Levinsohn, the husband of the former Joyce Salton.

2014(22ndof Shevat, 5774): Sixty-three-year-old Tatyana (Tanya) Edelstein, the wife of Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, to whom she had had been married for 33 years, passed away tonight.

 2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to present the next in the “Excellence-The Future Generation Series” featuring performances by Hanan Becher, Piano, Netta Karni, Piano, Liel Kaplyushnik, Piano, Daniel Fenings, Violin, Salmon Markman, Violin,Yael Koldobsky, Piano,  Yael Koldobsky, Piano, Lior Greenwald, Violin, Tom Zalmanov, Piano and  Alon Mamo, Piano   

 2015: “Judy Berlin” is scheduled to be shown at the 92nd St Y as part of the Women on Top series.

2015: In “For Auschwitz Museum, a Time of Great Change” published today, Rick Lyman described plans for the gathering to mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the death camp.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/24/world/europe/for-auschwitz-museum-and-survivors-a-moment-of-passage.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

2015: In Cedar Rapids, the first Musical Shabbat of 2015 is scheduled to begin this evening.

2016: Shabbat Shira

2016: “Rabin in His Own Words” is scheduled to be shown at the Brooklyn Israel Film Festival.

2016: “Benya Kirk” and “Hot Sugar’s Cold World” are scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival.

2016: “Restoring Tomorrow” which tells the story of the restoration of the Wilshire Boulevard Temple, “one of Los Angeles’s architectural treasures and home to the city’s oldest Jewish congregation” is scheduled to premiere at the Skirball Cultural Center.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/filmmaker-chronicles-synagogue-restoration-ends-up-rebuilding-own-jewish-identity/

2017(25thof Tevet, 5777): On the Jewish calendar, Yahrzeit of Moses Levi Ehrenreich the chief rabbi of Rome “who was instrumental in translating part of the TaNaCh into Italian and through whose efforts the Collegio Rabbinico Italiano was reopened in 1887.”

2017: A celebratory Western Wall women’s prayer and Torah reading held by the Original Women of the Wall group this morning tested a recent interim order by the High Court (As reported by Amanda Borschel-Dan)

2017: “Dimona” is scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival.

2017: The annual Jewish Leaders Conference met in Brussels today at which the attendees “called on Israel to help them tackle the rising threat of terrorism and anti-Semitism” by providing “vital security assistance against potential attacks.” (As reported by Raoul Wootliff)

2017: In “German Party Won’t Expel Rightist Who Assailed Holocaust Apology” published today Alison Smale described the decision to discipline Björn Höcke for making a speech that challenged the German atonement for the Holocaust and other Nazi Crimes but to remove him from the Alternative for Germany Party.

to host “An Evening Bernard-Henri Levy” during which the “French philosopher, activist, writer (The Genius of Judaism), and filmmaker Bernard-Henri Lévy offers a special presentation of his two most recent documentaries, Peshmerga and The Battle of Mosul.”

2018(7thof Shevat, 5778): Ninety-two year old University of Texas undergraduate Arnold Gold, “a pediatric neurologist” and the husband of  Sandra Gold with whom he founded the Arnold P. Gold Foundation passed away today. (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

2018: “A Kid Like Jake” co-starring Amy Landecker premiered today at Sundance.

2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg of the New North London Masorti Synagogue who “will be speaking on ‘The launch of the Eco-Synagogue.’”

2018: The final session of “The Jewish Workers’ Bund” taught by Jack Jacobs is scheduled to take place at the YIVO Institute.

2018: The Center for Jewish History and Oxford University Press are scheduled to present Professor David N. Myers speaking on “All Jewish History in Less Than An Hour.”

2019: In Potomac, MD, Beth Sholom Congregation is scheduled to host a presentation of the Silk Road, with an emphasis on its “ancient Jewish Highlights.”

2019: The Oxford University Jewish Student Society is scheduled to host a “Dine and Discuss Event” led by the Chaplains.

2019: The Joyce Theatre is scheduled to host a performance of Jerusalem choreographer Sharon Eyal’s “Love Chapter 2.”  

2019: At the Bender JCC of Greater Washington, Cinema J is scheduled to host a screening of “1945.”

https://forward.com/culture/film-tv/386434/the-last-jewish-writer-in-hungary-returns-to-1945/

2019: In “The Story of Jewish Immigrants to Canada, and How They Prospered” published today Jonathan Kay described a movement that was not a straight line of upward mobility but more of “U” with ups, downs and ups again.

https://www.cjnews.com/living-jewish/the-story-of-jewish-immigrants-to-canada-and-how-they-prospered

2020: The Illinois Holocaust Museum ad Education al Center is scheduled to host author Jack Fairweather as he talks about his newest work, The Volunteer: One Man, an Underground Army and the Secret Mission to Destroy Auschwitzwhich tells “the story of Witold Pilecki, a Polish resistance fighter who worked undercover in Auschwitz to sabotage the camp from within.”

2020: Mohammed al-Issa, the secretary-general of the Mecca-based Muslim World League (MWL) and a former Saudi justice minister, “is slated to visit the Auschwitz death camp in Poland today ahead of the 75th anniversary of its liberation by the Soviet Red Army” “alongside Muslim religious leaders from more than 24 countries and a delegation of American Jewish Committee (AJC) officials.” (As reported by Adam Rasgon)

2020: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host a screening of Israeli director Guy Nattiv’s Academy Award winning short “Skin.”

2020: Following last night’s state dinner at President Reuven Rivlin’s official residence, today Netanyahu, Rivlin, Macron, Putin, Pence, Prince Charles and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier are scheduled to address memorial ceremonies at Yad Vashem which will be attended by dignitaries from forty countries.

2020: “Those Who Remained” and “They Ain’t Ready for Me” are scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival.

2020: Presidents Rivlin and Putin and Prime Minister Netanyahu are scheduled to attend a dedication ceremony for the “Monument in Memory of the Heroism and the Soldiers and Residents who were Killed During the Siege of Leningrad in WWII,” in Jerusalem’s Sacher Park.

2021: The New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to offer a screening of it “Shorts Program” for the last time.

2021: Israel passes 4,000 COVID related deaths amid published reports about “seven Israelis police officers being injured in clashes with Orthodox protesters over COVID-19 restrictions” and police in being called to break up a 400-person wedding party at the Stamford Hill Charedi School.

2021: In Pepper Pike, OH, B’nai Jeshurun is scheduled to host a Tu B’Shevat Baking event during which Hedy Molgrom shows attendees “a receipe that will highlight the carob as she bakes chocolate babka.

2021: The Vilna Shul, “Boston’s Center for Jewish Culture,” is scheduled to present “Persona Non Grata: The Story of Chiune Sugihara a Virtual Screening & Discussion.”

2021(10thof Shevat, 7801): Parashat Bo; for more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/

 

January 23

393: Roman Emperor Theodosius I proclaims his nine year old son Honorius co-emperor. “Under the rule of Theodosius and his sons… the Christian church consolidated its position as the sole power in the empire,” became less tolerant and the Jews “suffered in inverse proportion to the strength of the emperor’s personality.”

1002: Otto III, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire passed away. No, Otto was not Jewish. But his passing offers an instructive note when studying history, especially Jewish history. A thousand years ago, Otto was the “George Bush” of his day, a major political and military leader. Otto lived in the same century as Rashi, a guy who sold wine in a small town in France. We remember Rashi. Rashi still speaks to us today infusing our lives in ways in which we are not aware. Who remembers Otto?

1199: Birthdate of Almohad ruler Abu Yusuf who ordered the Jews of the Maghreb to wear dark blue garments with long sleeves and saddle-like caps. His grandson Abdallah al-Adil made a concession after appeals from the Jews, relaxing the required clothing to yellow garments and turbans.

1295: Boniface VIII consecrated as Pope.  During his Papacy he will issue “Unam Sanctam” a Bull that “declares there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church” which means that all Jews are denied a portion in “the world to come.”

1235: False accusations of Ritual Murder at Baden, Germany resulted in a massacre of the Jewish population.

1295: Consecration of Boniface VIII the pope who “objected to the erection of a new synagogue in Trier, Germany,” who in 1297 “praised the queen of Sicily for having expropriated the property of Jewish usurers,” who “in 1300 ordered the expulsion of Jewish and Christian usurers from Avignon” and who made it a matter of Canon Law that “Jews, even minors, once baptized must Christians.”

1350: Birthdate of Vincent Ferrer, the native of Valencia, who was responsible for the conversion of an untold number of Jews by methods that were other than just an appeal to faith and who helped to flame the fires of anti-Semitism in Iberia.

1490: At Naples, the first printed edition of the Ramban’s “Sha’ar ha-Gemul,” The Gate of Reward, was published by Joseph ben Jacob Gunzenhauser. Gunzenhauser and his son Azriel had moved from southern Germany to Italy where “they produced various books, including a Hagiographa with rabbinical commentaries, Avicenna's medical Canon, and Abraham ibn Ezra's commentary on the Pentateuch.” Jacob passed away in 1490, the same that they published the Ramban’s seminal work.

1492: At Brescia. Italy, Gershon Soncino produced the first printed Chumash with Megilot.

1519: Today, Pope Leo X granted the “privilege of awarding eight benefices in five Polish cathedrals to Queen Bona who thirty years later, in 1549 introduced regulations “modifying and defining the rights of the Jewish community in Grodno dealing with taxation and land ownership.

1571: The Royal Exchange opens in London. The first Jewish broker was admitted to the Royal Exchange in 1657; the same year a piece of land was purchased for a Jewish cemetery in London.

1579: The Union of Utrecht a treaty that forms a Protestant republic in the Netherlands and that created the union which guaranteed religious peace under article 13 meaning that the persecuted Jews of Spain and Portugal could turn toward Holland as a place of refuge was signed today.

1634: Trial of the men implicated in the 'Complicidad Grande' (Great Complicity). 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. The man’s possessions were confiscated, more people were implicated, and eventually a total of 81 persons would be locked up and their possessions sequestered. These men were prominent businessmen of the Lima (Peru) community, and their arrests and led to a "widespread commercial crisis" and failure of the community bank.

1639 In Lima, Peru, at an Auto Da Fe, more than eighty New Christians were burned, including Francisco Maldonna de Silva (Elia Nazareno), after the Inquisition discovered that they were holding regular Jewish services. De Silva spent 12 years in prison, during which time he managed to write two books using a chicken bone and charcoal. Each book was about 100 pages. He succeeded in putting together a rope out of corn husks but instead of escaping he used it to visit other prisoners urging them to believe in Judaism.

1656: French Philosopher Blaise Pascal published the first of his Lettres provinciales. Pascal did not radiate the anti-Semitism typical of so many European intellectuals. Over 300 years ago, when King Louis XIV of France asked, the great French philosopher, to give him proof of the supernatural. Pascal answered: "Why, the Jews, your Majesty -- the Jews." The best proof of the supernatural that Pascal could think of was: "The Jews."

1719: Creation of the Principality of Liechtenstein which reportedly provided a refuge for 240 Jews fleeing the Nazis during the Holocaust.

1719(8thof Shevat, 5479): Sarah Ashkenazi, the wife of Zebi Hirsch Ben Jacob Ashkenazi and “the daughter of Meshullam Zalman Mirels Neumark, chief rabbi of Altona, Hamburg, and Wandsbeck” passed away today.

1765: Birthdate of Christian publisher Anton Von Schmid who served as an apprentice to the court printer Joseph Edler von Kurzbeck who provided him with the initial training that enabled him to become a leading printer of Hebrew books.

1769(15thof Shevat, 5529): Tu B’Shevat

1770: Joseph Abrahams, the son of Abraham Abrahams “was admitted as an attorney of the King’s Bench” today.

1776: In Aldingen, Elkele Kahn and Samuel Isaac Wormser gave birth to Isaac Wormser the husband of Sheinle Ephraim and the father of Lewis, Pauline, Ephraim, Simon, Ester and Marianne Wormser.

1777(15thof Shevat, 5537): Tu B’Shevat

1777: Today, as the Jews celebrated the New Year of Trees, “200 New Jersey Continentals” under the command of General William Maxwell defeated two British regiments near Woodbridge in part of campaign to deny the King’s forces food and forage while they were in winter quarters.

1782: Bilhah Polock and Joseph Jacobs gave birth Raphael Jacobs who passed away in New Orleans.

1786(24thof Shevat, 5546): Abraham Landauer, the Austrian born husband of Judith Landauer and father of Judith, Aron and Elias Landauer passed away today.

1789: In Washington, D.C., Georgetown becomes the first Catholic college in the United States. Today approximately 650 of Georgetown’s 6,000 are Jewish and a thousand of its 6,000 graduate students are Jewish. The school offers 35 Jewish studies courses and students can major in Jewish Studies. The university also has an active Hillel Chapter.

1793: Prussia and Russia sign a treaty that is known as the Second Partition of Poland.  Each of these partitions resulted in Russia acquiring large chunks of Poland, which she wanted, and large numbers of Jews which she did not want.

1805: Walter Nathan married Sophia Friedberg at the Great Synagogue today.

1815: In England, Miriam Aaron and Abraham Franklin gave birth to Esther Franklin, the wife of Jacob Liepman Prins with whom she had 13 children.

1822: Avigdor ben Benjamin married Frumat bat Abraham today at the Western Synagogue.

1828: Judah Casper married Rachel Michael at the Great Synagogue today

1831: Birthdate of London native Elisa Berger, the wife of Austrian native Leo Berger and the mother of Eleanor, Philip, Frank, Nanette and Charles Berger all of whom were born in London..

1833: Leman Levi married Elizabeth Meyers at the Great Synagogue today.

1838: David Judah Alberga married Henrietta Delgado today.

1840: Birthdate of Warsaw native William Rudolph Landstein who apparently lived in China since he was buried at the Happy Valley Jewish Cemetery in Hong Kong.

1846: “Samuel and Jeanette Bloch” gave birth to Leopold Bloch who married Klara Bloch after the end of his marriage to Babette Bloch.

1849: In Albany, NY, Joseph Ehrich and Rebecca Sporborg gave birth to Yale educated art dealer and “hard money advocate” Louis R. Ehrich, the husband of Henriette Minzesheimer and founder of the Ehrich Galleries on New York’s Fifth Avenue.

1851: In Leer, Lower Saxony, Germany, Moses and Betty Gans gave birth to Isaac Gans, the husband of Diertjen Jette Fischer and father of Betty Gans; Sophie Gans and Moses Gans

1854: In London, Louis and Rachel Greenbaum gave birth to Samuel Greenbaum, the Columbia trained attorney and husband of Selina Ullman who served three years as an Associate Justice of the Appellate Division in New York while also serving as President of The Educational alliance, Vice President of the Baron de Hirsch fund and trustee of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

http://www.courts.state.ny.us/courts/ad1/centennial/Bios/sgreenbaum2.shtml

1855: In New York City, a complaint was entered today in "The Mayor's Little Black Book" stating that on Chatham Street "a Jewish drummer is stationed in front of his store insulting passengers as they pass along. The latter nuisance is glaring and intolerable...and calls for intervention of the proper authorities." Chatham Street was the heart of the second-hand clothing “industry” and was equated with Jews in a most uncomplimentary way.

1855: Middlesex natives Grace Josephs and Jones Syper gave birth to Solomon Spyer.

1856: In Philadelphia, Morris Rosenthal and Jeanette Wallerstein Ahrndt gave birth to Henrietta Radzinski, the wife of A. Isaac Radzinski and Chicago social activist who served as a member of the national board of the Council of Jewish Women, President of the Baron Hirsch Ladies’ Aid Society and the director of the Chicago Home for Jewish Orphans.

1864(15th of Shevat, 5624): As the United States entered into its first Presidential election campaign during wartime, Jews observe Tu B’Shevat

1871(1st of Shevat, 5631): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1871(1stof Shevat, 5631): Fifty-two-year-old Samuel (Isaac) Henry Gluckstein, the husband of Hannah Coenraad Gluckstein and the brother of Henry Gluckstein with whom he began a cigar making business in England which he later turned into a cigar manufacturing jointly run with his son Isidore and Montague passed away today.

1872: Two days after she had passed away, 30-year-old Caroline Abrahams, the daughter of Myer Myers and the wife of Barnet Henry Abrahams with whom she had had two sons – Joseph and Henry [[ was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”

1873: A large crowd braved a snowstorm to hear a lecture at the Beeckman Street Church by Jewish humorist Raphael De Cordova entitled “The New Clergyman.”

1878: Marcus J. Waldheimer, a partner in the firm of Townsend & Waldheimer, denied reports that his father-in-law, Leopold Bamberger, had disappeared. Waldheimer said that Bamberger who has been holding funds in trust that are related to a messy bankruptcy case, has “merely left…temporarily for recreation.”

1879: Birthdate of CCNY and NYU Law School graduate Dr. Gabriel Davidson, the managing director of the Jewish Agricultural Society, author of Our Jewish Farmers and an active member of the Jewish community as can be seen by his membership in the American Jewish Historical Society and the American Friends of the Hebrew University.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1958/11/09/92655404.pdf

1879: It was reported today that a revised edition of “Hebrew Men and Times from the Patriarchs to the Messiah” by Joseph Henry Allen will be reissued by Roberts Brothers

1882: In St. Paul, MN, the Daily Globe reviewed “Hearts of Oak,” an American melodrama co-authored by David Belasco.

1883: Fifty-one-year-old French artist Gustave Doré who illustrated “The Wandering Jew” passed away today.

http://www.wikiart.org/en/gustave-dore/the-wandering-jew

http://digital.lib.buffalo.edu/news/2014/03/21/the-legend-of-the-wandering-jew-illustrated-by-gustave-dore/

http://www.amazon.com/Legend-Wandering-Jew-Joseph-Gaer/dp/B0000CKZDK

1884: The first four page edition of the Financial and Mining News founded by Harry Marks which became the Financial News appeared today

1888(10thof Shevat, 5648): Max Hoffheimer, a member of the board of Hebrew Union College passed away today.

1888: In Breslau, Jewish businessman Max Bernstein and his wife Franziska Altmann gave birth to Arnold Bernstein, the German American shipowner who was stripped of his assets and imprisoned by the Nazis before making his way to the United States in 1939.

1889: French painter Alexandre Cabanel, who taught and was the greatest influence on the work of, Jewish painter Solomon Joseph Solomon, passed away.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solomon_Ajax_and_Cassandra.jpg

1891: Birthdate of Jonas Bernanke. Born in Boryslav, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he eventually made his way to Dillon, South Carolina where he owned a drug store and raised a son named Ben who would become Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

1891: In New York Harry Sachs and his wife gave birth to Joseph Howard Sachs, Harvard Grad class of 1911, an investment banker with Goldman, Sachs and the husband of Eleanor Burtis Sachs.

1891: The funeral of Lazarus Rosenfeld who had served as Vice President of Temple Emanu El and as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum are scheduled to be held at his home at 139 Madison Avenue starting at 9:30 a.m,

1892: It was reported today that the Russian government is taking a variety of measures to avert the repetition another famine including postponing “the enactment of the laws” aimed at the Jews.

1892: Birthdate of Moritz Neumann one of the last Jewish inhabitants of Kleinsteinach whom the Nazis shipped to either Izbica or Theresienstadt.

1893: The New York Times featured a review of A Visit to Wazan: The Sacred City of Morocco by Robert Spence Watson. Watson used a letter of introduction from Sir Moses Montefiore to the Chief Rabbi of Morocco “as a passport to meeting Jews” wherever he went. Watson reported that Montefiore’s efforts on behalf of the Moroccan Jews had improved their condition including the comment that “the children of the better class of Jews of Tangiers are taught in English” and use English textbooks.

1893: “Heine in his Family Life” published today provides a detailed review of The Family Life of Heinrich Heine written by his nephew, Baron Ludwig von Embden.

1893: It was reported today that while Richard Mansfield’s depiction of Shylock vividly portray “his hatred, his vindictiveness” and “his implacable cruelty in the pursuit of revenge” “he is much more successful than any other actor…in this day, in denoting the affection of the Jew for his kind and the intense mental agony he suffers over Jessica.  His portrayal is deemed as “less theatrical and more human than others.”  (Over the centuries, the portrayal of Shylock has reflected the skill of the actors and, more to the point, the view of Jews in current society.)

1893: It was reported that Emma Goldman spoke at a meeting of anarchists who call themselves the Pioneers of Liberty.

1894: It was reported today that the “stores and fuel yards” that have been provided by Nathan Straus during the current Depression have been “besieged” by the poor and needy.

1895: In Brooklyn, at the Academy of Music Mr. and Mrs. Moses May led the grand march at the charity ball attended by 2,000 people that raise over $10,000 for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.

1895: In New York, the Young Ladies' and Gentlemen's League of the Montefiore Home sponsored a grand ball to raise funds for the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids. The successful fund raiser was attended by members of “the best circles of Jewish society.” The dances for the Montefiore Home have replaced the Purim Balls which up until two years ago were the great fund raising and major winter social events of these prosperous Jewish citizens.

1895: It was reported today that “Congregation Shearith Israel has abandoned the idea of selling the synagogue property on 19th Street between 5thand 6th Avenues.

 1896: It was reported today that the officers of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Society are: Moses May, President; Abraham Abraham, Vice President; Herman Newman, Treasurer.

 1896: Notorious German anti-Semitic agitator Hermann Ahlwardt addressed a meeting at Proesser’s in Jersey City, NJ.

1897: It was reported today that Scribner’s is ready to publish Professor Charles F. Kent’s second volume of the History of the Hebrew People.

1898: An anti-Dreyfus/anti-Zola demonstration was scheduled to take place on the Place de la Concorde in Paris.

1898: Ant-Semitic riots continued today in Algiers when “the mob invaded the Jews quarter and pillaged the shops in the Rue Babaoum, driving the Jewish merchants into the streets.”

1898: It was reported today that Selah Miller, a Congregationalist Minister from Massachusetts has been reappointed to by the President as U.S. Consul at Jerusalem.  He had served in that capacity from 1882 to 1886.

 1898: The annual meeting of the Mount Sinai Hospital Society was held today in the Dispensary building on east 67th Street.

 1898: “A Man Fasts For Twenty Years” published today describes the regiment followed by Morris Fox, a forty year old Jew from Russia who has been living in London for the last twenty years.  During that time he has lived exclusively on a diet of six pints of milk, three pints of beer and half pound of Demerara sugar.  Physicians in Konigsberg provided this “fast” which has proven to be the only way to cope with effects of an illness that “entirely destroyed his digestive organs.”

 1898: One day after he had passed away, 35-year-old Mendel Hoffman was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

 1898: It was reported today that the ant-Dreyfus riots at “Nantes, Bordeaux, Marseilles” and other cities outside of Paris “are frankly anti-Semitic…The mobs have a single purpose which is to outrage, plunder and kill in the Jewish quarters.”  Their cries against Zola are based on their belief that he is a “hired champion” of the Jews. (More for 2014)

 

1898: It was reported today that American correspondent does not think that Sarah Bernhardt will enjoy a successful season this winter when she performs in Paris.

 1898: It was reported today that Justice J.J. Cohen, Isaac N. Seligman and Jacob Schiff were among those who attended Legal Aid Society’s 22nd annual dinner at Delmonico’s. (More 2014)

 1898 (29th of Tevet, 5658): Yehoshua Yehudah Leib Diskin passed away. Born in 1818, this important rabbi, Talmudist and Biblical commentator was also known as the Maharil Diskin,. He served as a rabbi in Łomża, Mezritch, Kovno, Shklov, Brisk and finally Jerusalem after moving there in 1878, where he became the spiritual leader of a part of the Yishuv haYashan. He was part of a family of rabbis. His father, Binyamin Diskin, served as rabbi in Grodno, Volkovisk and later Łomża. His son was Rabbi Yitzchok Yeruchem Diskin.

 1899: Henry Herzberg delivered a lecture at Temple Beth-El tonight in New York entitled “The Soul of Judaism.

1899: Three days after he had passed away, 45-year-old Walter Bertram Phillips the sone of Barnet Samuel Phillips and Philippa Samuel was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1899: The Baron de Hirsch Trade Schools are scheduled to move into a new facility on East Sixty Fourth Street.  The school had outgrown its old facility on East 9thStreet that it had occupied for the last five years.

 1899(12thof Shevat, 5659): Five months before his 50th birthday Bohemian born, University of Vienna trained lawyer Emil Schiff who worked as a journalist while piling up knowledge that he never used for practical purpose including the study of “higher mathematics at Berlin University and graduating from Medical School passed away after which a memorial address was delivered at the Berlin Medical Society.

1899: It was reported today that newly created Central Federate Union which has replaced the old Central Labor Union refused to admit delegates from the Federated Hebrew Trades Unions because “they represented a central body and not individual unions.”

 1899: In Albany, New York state Senator Elsberg introduced a bill that would the Hebrew Infant Asylum of New York to the list of institutions that are entitled to receive public money.

1900(23rdof Shevat, 5660): English born “communal worker” Alfred H. Beddington, a warden of the Central Synagogue and a member of committees devoted to “the Jews’ Free School, the Jews’ College, the Jewish Middle-Class School for Girls and the Jewish Association for the Diffusion of Religious Knowledge.”

1900: The Jewish Agricultural and Industrial Aid Society who members include Alfred Jaretzki, Percy S. Straus, Eugene Meyer, Jr. and Solomon G. Rosnebaum was organized today.

1901: Tonight, at the Educational Alliance on East Broadway “more than 1,000 Hebrews of the east side, together with many wealthier persons actively interested in charitable worked attended the ninth annual meeting of the Hebrew Free Loan Association” which had been “formed on the lines laid down by the late Baroness de Hirsch and which lends money to the worthy poor in sums from $10 to $100 on notes made by themselves and endorsed by a responsible party” which does not make any charge for the service.

1902(15thof Shevat, 5662): Tu B’Shevat

1902: The President of the Equitable Life Insurance Company denied that a combine that included Kuhn, Loeb and Company and Jacob H. Schiff has bought the company.

1902: In Grass Valley, CA, Polish-Jewish immigrants Fannie (Meyer) and Zalkin H. Rubinstein gave birth to Cecilia Rubinstein who as Cecelia Ager, the wife of songwriter Milton Agar, “was the first female reporter for Variety, a movie critic for PMand contributor to the New York Times” while raising their two daughters -- Laurel Bentley and Shana Alexander.

1903: In making comments today about the plans of Charles Frohman, the Ohio born Jewish theatre manager and producer to host “a testimonial for A.M. Palmer,” theatre people said that this “testimonial must be a graceful way of indicating that all past differences between the two managers was at an end.”

1904(6thof Shevat, 5664): Sixty-two-year-old Flaminio Ephraim Servi who had been serving as chief rabbi at Casale-Monferrato (Italy) since 1872, passed away today.

 1904: Herzl was received by the Italian King, Vittorio Emanuele III. The king showed a serious interest in Zionism. But under the Italian political system, the king reigns but does not rule so it will be to Foreign Minister Tittoni to gain political support in Constantinople. Tittoni asked for a memorandum and promised to write to the Italian ambassador in Constantinople.

1905: In Albany, Melvil Dewey, Director of the State Library of the state Library tonight made public the reply which he had sent to the Library Committee’s Board of Regents, in response to a request from the committee for an answer to the charge made against him…that while using his official position to advertise the Lake Place Club he was a party to a rule of the club that Jews should not be received as guests at the club’s hotel in which he stated that the Jews had not been admitted to his Lake Placid Club since its founding in 1895 but while the allegations were true they were not, in his words “serious.”  (Editor’s note – this is the Dewey of Dewey Decimal fame whose anti-Semitism is not something they teach us about in school)

1906: It was reported today that a mass meeting held in New York to celebrate the first anniversary of “Red Sunday” when thousands of workingmen were shot down in St. Petersburg when they tried to deliver a petition to the Czar there were cries of “Down with anti-Semitism” followed later by a denunciation of “the massacre of the Jews.”

1907: It was reported today that “Max Marks has brought…several plots aggregating forty-acres” in Westchester County, NY “for a Hebrew charitable organization.”

1908: “Attacks Immigrant Jews” published today described how a speech delivered by William H. Corbin in which he described Jews as “ignorant an dirty…crowding the schools and high schools” and “crowding their way into the professions to practice them for getting money…while working with low ideals and sordid practices” was received with applause by the 150 members of the Chenango County Society meeting at the Hotel Astor.

1909: Birthdate of Simon W. Gerson, a leader of CPUSA and editor for The Daily Worker.

 1909: In the UK, Blanche Esther Barnett and Lionel D. Barnett, M.A., Ph.D., CB gave birth Richard David Barnett, the British academic, “an authority on archaeology of the ancient world”, President of the Jewish Historical Society of England, Chairman of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society and the husband of Barbara Barnett.

1910: “A benefit performance for the National Jewish Hospital Consumptives at Denver,” a non-sectarian facility that treats patients for “free” is scheduled to take place this evening at the Broadway in Manhattan.

 1910: The Board of Directors of Mount Sinai Hospital held their annual board meeting today at the hospital on 100th Street and Fifth Avenue. During the reading of the annual report Isaac Stern, the President, announced that the plan to establish a federation of the larger Jewish charitable institutions of the city, a plan for some time in contemplation, had failed. Mr. Stern said that there were certain disadvantages to the creation of such a federation without the guarantee of “any permanent advantages.” Therefore, the directors considered it “in the best interest of the community not give their consent” to such a plan. Mr. Stern announced that the children of the late Mayer Lehman had donated $78,528 which was to be used to add two stories to the Dispensary Building as a memorial to their late father. In the past year, almost 89% of the nearly 9,000 patients admitted to the hospital were treated without paying a fee. The hospital’s expenditure of $399,170 exceeded income by almost $15,000. Jacob Schiff, who apparently favored the creation of the federation, gave a speech in which he thanked the board and the medical staff for their efforts in the last year. The board’s decision about joining a federation of charitable institutions doomed the idea at a cost of one million dollars. That was the amount that the late Louis A. Heinsheimer had set aside in his will for such an organization, if and when, it should be created.

 1911: It was reported today that “the Brooklyn Federation of Jewish Charities” showed receipts for 1910 of $90,180 “compared with $81,877 in 1909 for an increase of $8,303.

1912: Hugo Doblin and Herwatch Walden served as best men at the wedding Erna Reiss, a medical student and daughter of a wealthy factory owner to Bruno Alfred Döblin whose works including Berlin Alexanderplatz published in 1929.

 1913(15thof Shevat, 5673): Tu B’Shevat

 1913: The annual meeting of the United States Chamber of Commerce in Washington, DC which S.S. Brill of St. Louis attended as a delegate came to an end.

 1913: The 3-day ceremonies marking the dedication of new buildings at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, came to an end today.

1913: At today’s session of the 23rd Biennial Council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations Simon Wolf of Washington, DC, Chairman of the Board of Civil and Religious Rights delivered a report on his group’s activities which have “dealt with the problems of immigration” and providing clarification for the general public of matters” regarding the unfair discrimination to American citizenship by the Russian authorities in the recent passport legislation.” 

1914: Henry Green, the organizer of the Jewish-American Rumanian Committee which was formed to protest against the Rumanian Government’s policy concerning the Jews is scheduled to attend the International Conference opening today at Berlin.

 

1914: Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson is scheduled to appear for the last time on the New York stage when he plays the starring role in “The Merchant of Venice” at the Manhattan Opera House.

 1915: Among those listed today as contributors to the Red Cross fund of which Jacob H. Schiff is Treasurer is Congregation B’Nai Israel of Natchez, Mississippi.

 1915: “The American Jewish War Relief Committee of which Louis Marshall is President and Felix M. Warburg is a Treasurer issued a statement today showing that since December 13 the committee has sent $200,000 to Europe and Palestine” and that to date “the committee’s relief fund” now totals “more than $378,000.

1916: In New York City, Jewish immigrants Samuel and Bella Price, who would move to San Diego in the 1920’s gave birth to Sol Price, the founder of Price Club which later merged with warehouse giant Costco.

1916: Birthdate of Irwin Witty who played Center for the 1938 NYU basketball team which he led to their first appearance in a “final four tournament” – The NIT.

1916: It was reported today that the American Jewish Relief Committee has received to date $1,236,846 including a contribution of $328.32 from the Provisional Executive Committee “for the relief of Jews in Palestine” and $250 form “Minneapolis Jews.”

1916: At Carnegie Hall, Dr. Stephen S. Wise, rabbi of the Free Synagogue delivered a sermon today in which he defended Zionism from charges that it was un-patriotic and un-American.

1916: “United States Senator Martin of New Jersey, Mayor Mitchell, Commissioner of Immigration Frederick C. Howe, New York Congressman Walter M. Chandler and Isaac Siegel, Louis D. Brandeis, Adolph Lewisohn, Samuel Untermyer and Judge Leon Sanders” are all reported to be among the speakers who will address tomorrow evening’s meeting at Carnegie Hall hosted by the Jewish Congress Organization Committee.

 1917: It was reported today that Dr. H.G. Enelow, the rabbi at Temple Emanu-El told an audience that included Jews and non-Jews that “Jewish interest in Jesus should be aroused…by the fact that Jesus was a Jew” and that while such writers as Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells and George Moore were “brilliant” their views on this topic were “inaccurate” because “they did not know enough about Jesus’ relation to the Jews to fit them for the instruction of others.”

1918: In New York Bertha Cohen and Robert Elion, DDS, gave birth to Gertrude Belle Elion. Elion graduated from Hunter College and then earned a Master in Science from N.Y.U. in 1941. In a classic case of sex discrimination, she was unable to obtain a graduate research job which meant she could not earn a Ph.D. Thus the 1988 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine ended up working as a lab assistant and high school teacher.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1988/elion/biographical/

1918: The list of the newest members of the Executive Committee of the American Jewish Relief Committee published today including William Fox of New York, Moses A. Gunst of San Francisco, Samuel Lamport of New York City, Joseph Michaels of Rochester, NY, H.B. Rosen from the Harrison National Bank of New York City, Abe Rothstein of New York City, Reuben Sadowsky of New York City, Ben Salling of Portland, OR Jacob Sperber of New York City and Judge Edward L. Lazansky of Brooklyn.

 1918: The Chief Rabbi of Algeria plans a community building which will contain a yeshiva, an assembly hall, a library, shelter for strangers, a mikvah and a bakery for matzah.

1919: Birthdate of Patterson NJ native and West Virginia football player Millard Lampell the blacklisted television and movie screenwriter whose first brush with social protest appears to have come from songwriting with Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie,

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/11/arts/millard-lampell-78-writer-and-supporter-of-causes-dies.html 

1919: In Mannville, Alberta, Max Goffman, and his wife, Ann (née Averbach) gave birth to Frances Goffman who gained fame as character actress Frances Bey who played Fonzi’s grandmother on “Happy Days.”

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/17/local/la-me-frances-bay-20110917

 1919: General Lyautey, the resident General of Morocco visits the Mellah (Jewish Quarter) and urges the Jews to contribute towards its sanitation and enlargement.

1920: In New York, Joseph Frederick “Joe” Saphir, the son of Louis and Bessie Saphir and his wife Elsa Saphir gave birth to Lois Saphir Lee.

1921: Birthdate of Gdansk native Justus Rosenberg, a member of Vivian’s Fry’s Emergency Rescue Committee which helped to spirit “intellectuals and artists” out of Vichy France and went on to a career as a Professor at Bard College.

1921: “The Ohel Rachel Synagogue (Tent of Rachel), a Sephardi synagogue in Shanghai, China, built by Sir Jacob Elias Sassoon in memory of his wife Rachel, which was completed in 1920, was consecrated today under the leadership of Rabbi Hirsch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohel_Rachel_Synagogue#/media/File:Ohel_Rachel_Synagogue_old.jpg

1921: The members of the directorate are scheduled to talk about the year’s accomplishment today at the annual meeting of the Bronx Hospital at Temple Adath Israel.

1921: In Shanghai, Rabbi W. Hirsch consecrated The Ohel Rachel Synagogue for worship. This marked the culminating achievement of Shanghai's First Wave of Jewish immigrants and it was built to accommodate the community of Baghdadi Jews which at its peak numbered 700.

1921: Approximately three students are scheduled to receive their diplomas when “twelve of the largest Talmud Torahs and Hebrew Schools in Manhattan hold joint graduation exercises” today “at Stuyvesant High School after which Israel Unterberg, Samuel C. Lamport, Joseph Levy and Harry H. Liebowitz will host a dinner at the Jewish Center.

1923: Birthdate of Dina Gottliebova, the native of Brno who gained fame as Dina Babbit who survived Auschwitz by drawing portraits of Dr. Josef Menegle

1923: “The Stone Rider” a silent film starring Lucie Mannheim was released today in Germany.

 1923 (6th of Shevat, 5683): Max Nordau passed away at the age of 73. http://www.herzl.org/english/Article.aspx?Item=531

 http://www.zionism-israel.com/bio/Nordau_Biography.htm

1924: Laborite Emmanuel “Manny” Shinwell began his first term as Secretary of Mines under Prime Minister MacDonald.

1924: In Paterson, NJ, Sam and Mollie Lautenberg gave birth to Frank Lautenberg who rose to be a United States, a support of the down-trodden and a leader in the Jewish community.

http://www.jta.org/2013/06/03/news-opinion/politics/new-jersey-sen-frank-lautenberg-dies-at-89

 1925: In Rokiskis, Lithuania, Avraham and Devora Harmatz, gave birth to Joseph Harmatz, a Holocaust survivor and comrade of Abba Kovner who plotted to kill German soldiers at WW II passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/30/world/europe/joseph-harmatz-dead.html?_r=0

1925: Birthdate of Yonkers, NY native and Erasmus Hall High graduate Doris Hoffman Scherback who lived with her husband Boris in Danville, VA from 1947 to 1948 “where he  worked wit the Textile Workers Union and she registered minority voters” and who retired as the “Executive Secretary to the Director of the National Center for Health Statistics in 1987 after twenty years of government service” while raising two children – Janet and David.

1926(8thof Shevat, 5686): Parashat Bo

1927: Author Annie Eichberg Lane, the only daughter of composer and musical director Julius Eichberg passed away today.

1927: It was reported today that “the newly-elected officers of the Federal of Jewish women’s Organizations of Greater New York will be installed at the seventh annual convention of the organization” which will take place this at the Hotel Astor.

1928: “The tenth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration…was celebrated” tonight “at the Grand Street Boys’ Association Clubhouse under the auspices of the West End group of Hadassah” during which Dr. Stephen S. Wise “urged Jews to cooperate with England in building Palestine.”

1929: Birthdate of Myron Sidney Kopelman, who, as Myron Cope, would become an American sports journalist, radio personality, and sportscaster best known for being "the voice of the Pittsburgh Steelers."

1930: “A verdict of not guilty was pronounced this afternoon on all twelve Arabs charged with the murder of five members of the Macleff family and their two guests at the Jewish colony of Motzah, five miles outside of Jerusalem, on Saturday, Aug. 24.”

1931: “The Man Who Murdered” a crime film directed by Curtis Bernhardt with a script by Henry Koster and Carl Mayer was released today in Germany.

1931: Sir Isaac Isaacs was sworn in as the first Australian born Governor General.

1931: Ninety-one year old Catholic theologian and author of anti-Semitic polemics August Rohling whose work included Der Talmudjude published in 1871 “which bean a standard work for anti-Semitic authors and journalist” passed away today in Salzburg.

1932(15thof Shevat, 5692): Parashat Beshalach; Tu B’Shevat

1932(15thof Shevat, 5692): Fifty-year-old Australian born, Laborite MP Marion Phillips passed away today.

https://spartacus-educational.com/Amarion_phillips.htm

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/Phillips-Marion

1932: Chief Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo of the Court of Appeals was formally endorsed for associate justice of the United States Supreme Court to fill the seat recently vacated by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes at tonight’s closing session of the annual meeting of the New York State Bar Association at the Hotel Astor

1932: In Manhattan, Sidne Silverman, the son of Sime Silverman the publisher who founded Variety in New York and Daily Variety in Hollywood and former actress Marie Saxon gave birth to their only son Syd who continued the family publishing business.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/31/business/media/syd-silverman-90-who-kept-variety-boffo-for-30-years-is-dead.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

1933: Birthdate of composer Joel Spiegelman.

1933: At 7:30 p.m., the NBC Blue Network broadcast the 9th episode of “Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel, a situation comedy radio show starring two of the Marx Brothers, Groucho and Chico, and written primarily by Nat Perrin and Arthur Sheekman.”

1934: “No More Ladies” a comedy produced by Lee Shubert and co-starring Melvyn Douglas opened on Broadway at the Booth Theatre.

1936: Sir Isaac Isaacs, a native-born Australian who was the son of Polish Jews, completes his term as the 9th Governor-General of Australia.

1936: Senator William H. King of Utah told that the U.S. Senate today “that 600,000 Jews were” being subjected to “ruthless persecution under decrees of the present German regime” and that “Congress must soon face” the need to liberalize the immigration laws of the United States “to permit the admission of Jewish refugees from Germany.”

1937: Today, the United Palestine Appeal released an economic survey on “How Many Jews Can Palestine Hold?” by Joseph L. Cohen, “a British member of the advisor of the committee on social insurance of the International Labor Organization” which show among other things that the “Jewish population” in Palestine had “increased from 17 to 30 per cent of the total population during the last few years” and that today, “there are forty-seven Jews to every 100 Arabs.”

1937: In Moscow, 17 leading Communists went on trial. They were accused of participating in a plot led by Leon Trotsky to overthrow Joseph Stalin's regime and assassinate its leaders. Stalin combined Trotsky’s Jewish parentage with traditional Russian anti-Semitism to demonize Trotsky and destroy those opposing his authoritarian rule. Having branded the “Jew, Trostky” as an enemy of the revolution, or the Communist Party and/or the Soviet Union, Stalin would feel to move against the Jews of the U.S.S.R when it fit his needs or his demonic spirit.

 1938: The Palestine Post reported that two Arabs, implicated in the murder of J.L. Starkey, a noted archaeologist who was excavating in Palestine, were hanged at Acre. The Motza brick and burnt-tile factory was completely gutted by fire. Arson by Arab terrorists was suspected. Ephraim Brin, 19, and Aziz Jacob, 17, both of Jerusalem, were the first Jews to be sentenced, under the newly created Military Courts, to five years' imprisonment for carrying a pistol and a few rounds of ammunition.

1939: “The body of a woman taken from the River Thames was identified today as that of Countess Mari Kageneck, a wealthy Austrian Jew” and wife of a husband who “holds a position in Vienna under the Nazi regime”  who had disappeared in December at a time when she had been separated from her two children and Vienna and was feeling great despair “over the persecution of the Jews in Germany.”

1940: In Perth Amboy, NJ, Philip Kaplan Cheuse who defected from the Russian Air Force and the former Matilda Diamond gave birth to author and critic Alan Stuart Cheuse.

idx=4&rref=obituaries&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Obituaries&pgtype=article

 1941(24thof Tevet, 5701): Ninety-three-year-old Flora Ochs, the Louisville, KY born daughter of Agatha Schwab and Maier Ochs passed away today in Fayette County, KY.

1941: Charles Lindbergh testified before the U.S. Congress and recommended that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler. For those who are perplexed by Roosevelt’s response to the plight of European Jewry, this entry should give you a clue as to the kind of the environment in which he was operating. “The Lone Eagle” was a national monument and, as the leader of the America First Movement, he saw WW II was a European measure. He would only grudgingly give ground on his opposition to war once the bombs were falling on Pearl Harbor. Opposition of this magnitude fashioned all of FDR’s decisions about the war, including how to deal with the Shoah. It is only with the warmth of the myth of America’s Greatest Generation that the United States seems like an ant-fascist monolith in WWII.

 1941: “Lady in the Dark” a product of “3 Jewish Musketeers” - music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ira Gershwin and book and direction by Moss Hart – opened at the Alvin Theatre in New York

 1942(5th of Shevat, 5702): In Novi Sad, Hungary, 550 Jews and 292 Serbs were driven onto the ice and then shelled. All drowned. [Ed. Note: Who says Kaddish for these people?]

http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/january/07.asp

 1942(5th of Shevat, 5702): Paul Levinstein was killed in Hadjerat M'Guil a Nazi concentration camp built in remote part of the Sahara Desert in 1941. Upon hearing of their son's death his parents committed suicide in Britain.

 1942: Hungarian military units began “cleaning up” the region of captured Yugoslavia which included the massacre of the local Jews.

 http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/january/07.asp

1943: Italian authorities refuse to cooperate with Germans in deportations of French Jews living in zones of France under Italian control

1943: The “father, mother and daughter” of Moshe Hans Jahoda who had escaped to Palestine five months before the start of WWII, “were transferred to Auschwitz concentration camp, where all three were murdered.

1943: The last airfield held by the Nazis fell to the Russian cutting any further supply to the 6th Army which brought victory at Stalingrad ever so much closer.

1943: Marcia Davenport, the daughter of Bernard Glick and Alma Gluck was a panelist today on a radio panel show “The People’s Platform: when one of the other panelists had a heart attack and passed away.

1944: "Ode to Napoleon" by the Jewish composer Arnold Schoenberg premieres in New York City

1945(9thof Shevat, 5705): Seventy-one-year-old Annie Edith Landau, the London born daughter of Marcus Israel and Chaja Kohn who settled in Palestine where she played a key role in the development of education and culture for which she was twice honored by King George V passed away today after which she buried “on the Mount of Olives.”

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/landau-annie-edith

1945: Birthdate of Bruce Ratner. Appointed by Ed Koch to the position of Commissioner of Consumer Affairs for New York City in 1978, he became a real estate developer in 1982. He is now the owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, his net worth now several hundred million dollars. Ratner is the developer charged with building the New York Times Tower. He is a member of the board of the Jewish Heritage Museum.

1946: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, a joint British and American committee composed of six Americans and six Englishmen that was charged with examining the “political, economic and social conditions in Mandatory Palestine as they bear upon the problem of Jewish immigration and settlement therein and the well-being of the peoples now living therein” which had been meeting in Washington, D.C. began its meetings today in London.

1923

1947(2ndof Shevat, 5707): Fifty-seven-year-old Russian born and Boston public educated journalist Michael Brown, the husband of Rose Brown and the thee father of Kermit, Jerry and Judith Brown who has been with The Jewish Morning Journalfor twenty years, the last ten of which were as city editor passed away today in Brooklyn.

1947: Diana Dill and Kirk Douglas gave birth to their second son movie producer Joel Douglas.

1947: U.S. premiere of “Johnny O’Clock” directed by Robert Rossen, featuring Lee J. Cob and providing Jeff Chandler (Ira Gorssel) with his appearance in a major motion picture.

1948: It was announced today that “the name of Moshe A Pearlman, a Brooklyn student killed in Palestine” by Arabs on January 16 “will be inscribed on a student’s chair at the projected Hebrew University –Hadassah Medical School” thanks to a one-thousand-dollar contribution made by an anonymous donor.

1949: At the Hollywood Athletic Club the first Emmy Awards are presented. A year later, two Jewish stars would dominate the Emmy Awards. The Texaco Star Theatre starring Milton Berle and The Ed Wynn Show starring Ed Wynn would walk off with top honors while Berle and Wynn would each earn awards in their own right.

1950: The 3rd edition of Famous 1st Facts by Jewish trivia expert Joseph Kane is published

1950: Israeli Knesset resolved that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.

1951(16thof Shevat, 5711): Sixty-year-old Harvard trained attorney and WW I veteran Julius Houseman Amberg, the Grand Rapids, Michigan born son of Hattie Houseman Amberg and David Moses Amberg and the husband of Callie Smith Amberg  who was the son-in-law of Congressman Julius Houseman passed away after which he was buried in the Oakhill Cemetery in Grand Rapids.

1951: “Declaring that a strong and prosperous Israel is the best guarantee of peace in the Middle East, Senator Irving M. Ives today requested that the United States Government give ‘some form of grant-in-aid’ to Israel immediately.” (As reported by JTA)

1951: Seventy-five-year-old Rabbi Judah L. Maimon, Israel’s Minister of Religion arrived in New York today which marks the start of a four weeklong speaking tour in the United States sponsored by “the Mizrachi Organization of America.

1951: It was announced that 42-year-old Dr. Aron Kaminsky has been named chairman of the Department of Dermatology at the Jewish Hospital of Buenos Aires.

1952: Birthdate of Jeanette Ingberman, the Brooklyn born daughter of Holocaust survivors who became a founder of the New York cultural center Exit Art, a hotbed of avant-garde work by artists from around the world. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

http://jwa.org/thisweek/jan/23/1952/this-week-in-history-january-23-1952-jeanette-ingberman-founder-of-exit-art-is

 1953(7thof Shevat, 5713): Zlynka native Solomon Bregman the editor-in-chief of The Book About Jews-Heroes of the War against Fascism who was arrested “with other members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in 1948” passed away today in jail “after surviving several severe beatings.”

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported from New York that the Soviet Union was about to break diplomatic relations with Israel. The first five tons of the copper ore, excavated from Timna mine in the Negev, were sent for industrial tests to Europe.

1954: “Killers from Space” a sci-fi film directed and produced by W. Lee Wilder was released today in the United States.

1955(29thof Tevet, 5715): Fifty-two-year-old New Yorker Fanny Levy, a friend of Dr. William Fernhoff and his wife, the former Tola Schwarz died from injuries from an automobile accident in which all three had been victims two days ago.

1956(10thof Shevat, 5716): Sixty-two-year-old filmmaker Alexander Korda, the Hungarian born son of “Henrik Kellner and Ernesztian Weisz,” the patriarch of the Korda movie family which included his brothers Vincent an Zoltan and  whose colorful career would have made a wonderful biopic like the ones he made about King Henry VIII and Lord Nelson, passed away today. (There is no way that this blog can do justice to his colorful life)

https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-179/alexander-korda-churchills-man-hollywood/

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1956/01/24/86509856.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1959(14thof Shevat, 5719): Terrorists killed a shepherd from Kibbutz Lehavot HaBashan.

1959(14thof Shevat, 5719): Seventy-four-year-old New York born financier, the husband of Ernestine Isaacs and father of Alvin Isaacs and Jeanne Kramer who “was instrumental in the mering of the American Union Banks into the Manufacturers Trust Company” and a member of Temple Israel passed away today in West Palm Beach.

1960(23rdof Tevet, 5720): Parashat Shemot

1960: Birthdate of Sheri Miriam Goldhirsch the Brooklyn native who became the “artistic director of Young Playwrights, Inc.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/theater/sheri-m-goldhirsch-who-nurtured-young-playwrights-dies-at-55.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

1960: Israeli General Yitzhak Rabin sends an aerial reconnaissance across the Suez Canal to ascertain the position of Nasser’s advancing troops. When the troops cannot be found, Rabin correctly assumes they have crossed the Canal. It turned out that the bulk of Egyptian army was almost at the border with Israel where they would only be opposed by force of twenty or thirty tanks.

 1963: The latest installment of the memoirs of Ilya Ehrenberg which describe the Soviet response to the invasion of June of 1941, appeared today. Ehrenbeg depicted a hesitant Stalin whose ever-present picture disappeared from view for months and who did not speak to the nation until November of 1941. This installment also describes how Stalin mobilized Soviet Jews including Ehrenberg, Sergei Eisenstein and Solomon Mikhoels to make broadcasts abroad to gain support for the Soviets in their fight against the Nazis. [After the war, Stalin, like Pharaoh, would know not the Jewish contribution and murdered many of them included Mikhoels.]

1963: Recording session began today at Columbia’s Studio A in New York that would lead to “The Barbra Streisand Album.”

1963: Lew Pollack’s “Charmaine” was released today Decca Records.

1964: Arthur Miller's "After the Fall" premiered in New York City.

 1968: Mapai, Ahdut HaAvoda and Rafi merged into the Israeli Labor Party and ceased to exist as individual entities.

1969: “Hour of the Wolf” the second album of the rock group Hassles whose members included Billy Joel who wrote some of the songs for the LP was released today.

1970(16thof Shevat, 5730): Seventy-four-year-old Annie Stein Lazarus, the wife of Sam Lazarus and mother of Jacob, Leon, Freances, Ralph and Irwin Lazarus passed away today after which she was buried in the Jewish section of the Sunset Hill Cemetery in Valdosta, GA.

 1972: In Caen, France Dr. Jacques Drucker and his wife Martine gave birth to French actress Léa Drucker.

 1973(20thof Shevat, 5773): A Palestinian terrorist murdered Baruch Cohen in Madrid.

1974: “Professor David Azbel announced his intention to hold a hunger strike in support of Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn.”

1974: “Izak Tsudikovich Hochberg of Kishinev, the well-known mathematics professor and Corresponding Member of Moldavian Academy of Sciences, was dismissed from his post as head of Department in the Institute of Mathematics after applying to emigrate to Israel.” 

1975: "Barney Miller" starring Hal Linden premiered on ABC TV.

 1976: It was reported today that even if the Soviet Union is overhauling its emigration procedures, “emigrants to Israel will continue to pay 500 additional rubles ($665) to renounce their Soviet Citizenship…” (As reported by JTA)

1976: It was reported today that the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ) “has learned of a new Soviet Jewish “Prisoner of Conscience,” Lydia Abatorovna Nisanova the 32 year old native of Derbent who applied to emigrate in July 1975 and who was sentenced recently to a year-and-a-half for speculation.” (As reported today by JTA)

1977(4th of Shevat, 5737): Bernard "Toots" Shor passed away. “Toots Shor, a bulky Jewish street kid from Philadelphia, who made and gambled away several fortunes in the big town, was in a sense the original insult comic—crass, coarse, jesting jibes being the prime ingredient of pal ship among all those heavy hitters.” Shor was the premier Saloonkeeper and his New York restaurant was a thing of legend.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/movies/17shor.html

 1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the cabinet decided to postpone the military talks held with Egypt in Cairo, after the Egyptian delegation broke off political negotiations with Israel, held in Jerusalem. It was expected that this step might influence Egypt to moderate its demands, in tone as well as in contents. The US expressed its disappointment with Israel's sharp reaction to President Anwar Sadat's demands for a total withdrawal to the 1967 borders and the recognition of the rights of the Palestinians. Four hundred and twenty-five Israelis flew to the US under the 'Friendly Force' program designed to promote peace through personal contacts.

 1978 (15th of Shevat, 5738): A hundred thousand trees were planted on Tu Bishvat by the Jewish National Fund.

1981: Birthdate of Long Branch, NJ, native and UCLA gymnast Alyssa Erin Beckerman who earned a Gold Medal for her performance on the Balance Beam at the U.S. National Championship in 2000.

https://web.archive.org/web/20110725154600/http://www.uclabruins.com/sports/w-gym/mtt/beckerman_alyssa00.html

1983(9thof Shevat, 5743): Seventy-eight year old Uman, Russia native and University of Pennsylvania trained neurologist Dr. Morris Bender who raised five children – Barbara, Leila, Adam, Barnaby and Victor – with his wife Sarah passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/01/27/obituaries/dr-morris-bender-78-expert-on-brain-tumors.html?searchResultPosition=1

1984(19thof Shevat, 5744): Ninety-two year old Pulitzer Prize winning composer and violinist Samuel Gardner, the husband of Henrietta Holtzman Gardner with whom he had two children – Sally and Herbert – passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/24/obituaries/samuel-gardner-92-is-dead-violinist-and-juilliard-teacher.html

1986: "Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood" opens at Ritz Theater New York City.

 1987: Meir Heth, was appointed today as the new chairman of Bank Leumi L'Yisrael, Israel's biggest commercial bank. The former head of the Tel Aviv stock exchange, Heith was criticized over a 1983 collapse of bank shares. A commission of inquiry last year criticized Mr. Heth for failing to prevent the country's four major banks from manipulating their shares.

 1988: As the Arab uprising called the Intifada brings an increase in violence the representative of the Arab League and three other Arab diplomats met with a senior State Department official today to complain about what they considered inadequate United States pressure on Israel to halt the violence against Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

 1990(26thof Tevet, 5750): Eighty-five-year-old Nathan N. Rosen, a graduate of Yeshiva University and Columbia College who served as an Army Chaplain during World War II before beginning a 25 year career as a chaplain at Brown University where he founded the Hillel chapter, passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/24/obituaries/nathan-n-rosen-rabbi-85.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm

 1991. At a briefing this morning, Israeli officials appeared to play down the deaths that occurred when an Iraqi Scud missile evaded two American Patriot air-defense missiles and slammed into a Tel Aviv suburb on Tuesday night, leaving 3 people dead and 96 wounded emphasizing that the three victims had suffered heart attacks. 

1991: The first episode of the second season of "Seinfeld" debuts on NBC-TV

1994: Coach Marv Levy led the Buffalo Bills to victory over the Kansas City Chiefs which marked his fourth straight victory in the American Football Conference Championship.

1997(15thof Shevat, 5757): Tu B’Shevat

1998: “The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit” co-starring Side Caesar and Howard Morris is scheduled to be released today in the United States.

1998: “Phantoms” the movie version of the novel by the same name produced by Bob and Harvey Weinstein and starring Live Schreiber was released in the United States today.

 1997: Madeleine Albright became the first woman to serve as United States Secretary of State. During her term as Secretary of State, Albright found out for the first time that her family was Jewish.

1999: Today, Gene Siskeil reviewed “The Theory of Flight” which marked his last on-air appearance with co-host Roger Ebert.

2000: The New York Times includes a review of The House of Rothschild: The World's Banker, 1849-1999 by Niall Ferguson.

2001: This afternoon, two Tel Aviv restaurateurs and an Israeli Arab friend sat down for a late lunch in Tulkarm, a battle-scarred town rarely visited by Israeli Jews since the West Bank erupted in riotous protests nearly four months ago. The three were seized by armed men who later let the Israeli Arab go, but shot the two Israeli Jews at point-blank range, Israeli officials said. Hamas, the militant Gaza-based Islamic movement, took responsibility for what it called an ''execution'' and said the shooting had been videotaped.

 2001: The killing of two Israeli civilians by Palestinian militants earlier today interrupted a new round of peace negotiations here, with Prime Minister Ehud Barak condemning the slayings as ''horrendous'' and ordering the three cabinet ministers in the talks to return to Jerusalem. 

2001: Today, in a talk with high school students on the campaign trail, Ehud Barak appeared to disavow proposals for relinquishing control of the ancient city core of Jerusalem. ''Under any settlement, the Western Wall, the Jewish Quarter, and the Mount of Olives, and what is called the holy basin, will remain under Israeli sovereignty,'' Mr. Barak said.

 2002(10th of Shevat, 5762): Bernard Rothman passed away. Cause of death was a stroke. He was better known as Benny Rothman, “a UK political activist, most famous for his leading role in the Mass trespass of Kinder Scout in 1932. He was born in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, in 1911. He is family was so poor that he had to start work at the earliest opportunity rather than take full advantage of a scholarship that he had won. Working as an errand boy in the motor trade, he studied geography and economics in his spare time while his Aunt Ettie introduced him to The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and the works of Upton Sinclair. Increasingly committed to the causes of socialism and communism, Rothman lost his job after getting into some trouble with the law while selling copies of the Daily Worker. During a period of unemployment, with the help of a bicycle salvaged from spare parts, he discovered the nearby wilderness regions of the Peak District and North Wales. The combination of his political activism and interest in the outdoors led to his participation in the mass trespass of 1932, an enterprise that resulted in a spell in prison and further employment difficulties. In 1934, Rothman went to work at Avro in Newton Heath and instantly became an officer of the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU). At Avro's, he met and married fellow communist Lily Crabtree but his political views became increasingly visible to his employer and he was dismissed. Rothman was active in working with Jewish groups in Manchester to oppose the campaigns of Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists. In 1936, he started work at Metropolitan Vickers at Trafford Park and was again soon an AEU official.”

2002: Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and subsequently murdered in Karachi, Pakistan. Based on the tape of his murder, Pearl was killed because he was a Jew.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/daniel-pearls-death-10-years-later-an-interview-with-his-father-judea-pearl/2012/02/21/gIQAKChtRR_blog.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1014311357552611480.html

 2003 (20th of Shevat, 5763): Actress Nell Carter passed away. She had converted from Catholicism to Judaism in 1982.

 2003: The 12th annual Jewish Film Festival comes to an end in New York. 

2003: As of 10 pm, Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri, the holy man of unknown but tremendous age, who was scheduled to visit the Hall of Moses synagogue and then a candlelit graveyard in this Tel Aviv suburb tonight for a rally that mixed mystic ritual with all the grit of Chicago ward politics had failed to make an appearance and the police were forced to disperse the disappointed crowd

 2004(29thof Tevet, 5764): German born photographer Helmut Newton passed away. (As reported by Suzy Menkes)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/26/news/26iht-obits_ed3__23.html

http://www.helmutnewton.com/

 2004: U.S. premiere of “The Butterfly Effect” featuring Logan Lerman which was distributed in Israel by Forum Film.

 2005: The Squid and the Whale, an American comedy-drama film written and directed by Noah Baumbach featuring Jesse Eisenberg as “Walt Berkman” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

 2005: Stanley Fischer, a widely respected American economist and banker, has agreed to leave the United States and a job as a vice chairman of Citigroup to become governor of the Bank of Israel.

 2005: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including recently published paperback editions of Horse People: Scenes from the Riding Life by Michael Korda and Unsettled: An Anthropolgy of Jews, Melvin Konner’s sweeping study that follows a roughly historical outline, from the earliest pre-biblical days to the establishment of the state of Israel, and tracks down far-flung Jewish communities in China, India and Afghanistan.

 2006: The Andrew Carnegie Medal for best children's video was given to the producers of Mordicai Gerstein's "The Man Who Walked Between the Towers," winner of the Caldecott in 2004. Mordicai Gerstein was born in Los Angeles in 1935. He lives in western Massachusetts with his wife, Susan Yard Harris, who is also an illustrator, and their daughter, Risa. The award-winning illustrator, painter and graphics artist has collaborated on numerous books for children including many with a Jewish motif including Queen Esther the Morning Star, Noah and the Great Flood and Jonah and the Two Great Fish

 2006: In “Attorney's Perseverance Yields a Legal Masterpiece” published today Anne-Marie O’Connor described Randol Schoenberg’s struggle to re-gain art looted by the Nazis.

http://articles.latimes.com/2006/jan/23/local/me-schoenberg23

2006(7th of Tevet, 5766): Andrea Bronfman, the wife of Jewish Canadian billionaire Charles Bronfman, was killed in a traffic accident in New York Monday.

2007: “Attorney-General Mazuz announced that he would consider charging Katsav with rape, sexual harassment, breach of trust, obstruction of justice, harassment of a witness and fraud.”

2007(4th of Shevat, 5767): Aharon Uzan passed away at the age of 82. Born in Tunisia in 1924, he made Aliyah in 1949 where he became active in a variety of left-wing political parties. He served in the Knesset and held a variety of cabinet posts included Minister of communications and Minister of Agriculture.

2007: "Two Hands” a short documentary on Leon Fleisher by Nathaniel Kahn was nominated for an Academy Award for best short subject today.

2007: Israel’s “Sweet Mud” and Holland’s “Black Book,” a movie about a Jewish woman serving in the Resistance against the Nazis are among 61 foreign language films that may be nominated for an Oscar.

 

2007: Rabbi Andrew Bossov successfully received a kidney from Methodist minister, Reverend Karen Onesti.

2008: “Lasting Legacy: Al Malnik” published to described Malnik’s rise from St. Louis teenage gangster to millionaire and south Florida trend setter.

http://hauteliving.com/2008/01/lasting-legacy/2109/

2008: It was announced today that Randy Lerner had donated £5 million to the National Gallery, the largest single donation that it has ever received, which may account for the fact that the ground floor galleries will named “The Lerner Galleries.”

 2008: The third and final episode of “The Jewish Americans” airs on PBS. The three-episode series traces the history of the Jews in America starts with the arrival of the first 23 Sephardic Jews in New Amsterdam in 1654 and “ends with Maisyahu, the Chasidic hip-hop star, one of about six million Jews in America today.” For more information see http://www.jewishtvnetwork.com/jewishamericans/

 2008: The New York Jewish Film Festival presents “Labyrinths of Memory, a documentary that draws parallels between two very different women united by a search for identity: Maite Guiteras, Mexican born, adopted at birth, and raised in Cuba; and the film’s director, born in Costa Rica to East European Jewish parents and raised in Mexico. Each defies ethnic and geographic boundaries to travel to her ancestral home to claim a place in the world”; “The Unkosher Truth a short documentary in which the filmmaker must muster the courage to tell her father, an Orthodox rabbi and U.S. Army general, that her boyfriend is German and gentile”; “Film Fanatic, in which Ultra-Orthodox Jew Yehuda Grovais rebels against his religious community, and battles the secular cultural establishment in Israel to make Hollywood-style blockbusters on a budget.”

 2008: In a nighttime attack, two armed Palestinians affiliated with Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades infiltrated a yeshiva at Kfar Etzion wounding three civilians. The two had just been released from an Israeli prison. 

2008 (16th of Shevat, 5768): Rami Zuari, a 20-year-old Border Police officer was killed during a terrorist attack at an East Jerusalem checkpoint. Border Police officer Shoshana Samendayev sustained moderate to serious injuries in the same attack.

 2008: The New York Times featured a review of The Forger: An Extraordinary Story of Survival in Wartime Berlin, the autobiography of Cioma Schonhaus.

 2009: “Lansky,” a one-man play about Meyer Lansky starring Mike Burstyn opens in an off-Broadway production. “Acclaimed American/Israeli actor Mike Burstyn stars as Meyer Lansky in the New York premiere of a new play by Richard Krevolin and Joseph Bologna about the life of the “little man,” known as the “brains behind the mob,” and his efforts to become an Israeli citizen.

 2009: Final showing of “Zion and His Brother,” a family drama set in Tel Aviv, at the Sundance Film Festival.

2009: Shiva ended for Sherwin “Shy” Raiken the Villanova and New York Knicks basketball player who had passed away at the age of eighty.

2009: Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids hosts another creative Musical Shabbat Service.

 2009: In “The End of a Chicago Tradition: Is absolutely nothing sacred?”, published today Susan Berger reports on the demise of the Best Kosher Sausage Company while documenting the history of a small slice of Chicago-based Jewish Americana.

http://www.bukisa.com/articles/72013_bests-kosher-franks-a-chicago-institution-closed-after-123-years

 2010: The 19th annual New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to present the New York premiere of “Eyes Wide Open,” a film whose protagonist is an ultra-orthodox butcher living in Jerusalem.

 2010: The 10th annual Atlanta Jewish Festival is scheduled to present a screening of “Protektor,” “a smart, stylish psycho-thriller about a Prague journalist and his part-Jewish wife whose lives are ravaged by the outbreak of WWII.”

 2010: Israel is looking into adopting Haitians orphaned by January 12's earthquake, Minister of Welfare and Social Services Isaac Herzog told The Jerusalem Post today.

2011: Adam “Richman appeared on Food Network's Iron Chef America as a judge for a battle with Gruyère cheese as the theme ingredient”

 2011: “Another Day” directed by Sam Levinson who also wrote the script and starring Ellen Barkin who also co-produced the film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival today.

2011: Israeli cellist Amit Peled and pianist Eli Kalman are scheduled to perform this afternoon at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater.

 

2011: The 2011 Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival is scheduled to present “Laughter Yoga Workshop with Molly Dworsky” and “An Adult Evening with Shel Silverstein.”

 2011: The Los Angeles Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including J.D. Salinger: A Life by Kenneth Slawenski

 2011: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein and the recently published paperback editions of A Strange Death by Hillel Halkin and Where The God of Loves Hangs Out by Amy Bloom.

 2011(18th of Shevat, 5771): Rabbi Nachum Zev Dessler, a leader at the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland for more than 60 years and a nationally known leader in Orthodox education passed away today at the age of 89. (As reported by The Eulogizer)

 2011(18THof Shevat, 5771): Ninety-year-old 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,” passed away today at his home in Studio City

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/film-television-editor-stanley-frazen-75597

 2012: “Follow Me: The Yoni Netanyahu Story” is scheduled to shown this evening at the New York Jewish Film Festival.

 2012: At Wolfson College, Oxford, Penguin Books celebrated the golden jubilee of The Dead Scrolls in English by Géza Vermes

 2012: Israeli pianist Alon Goldstein and the Jupiter musicians are scheduled to perform Schubert's celebrated Piano Trio in B-flat Major and the Beethoven "Gassenhauer" Trio at Good Shepherd Church in NYC.

 2012: On the secular calendar, 10th anniversary of the kidnapping of Danny Pearl.

 2013(12thof Shevat, 5775): Eighty-eight year old investment banker Edward M. Kresky passed away today. (As reported by Paul Vitello)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/31/nyregion/edward-m-kresky-88-calmed-fiscal-panic.html?hpw

 2013: L'ayla Women's Initiative is scheduled to present a lecture by “The Shmuz” also known as Rabbi Bentzion Shafier.

 2013: The final performance “The Winter’s Tale” sponsored by the Association of Americans and Canadians In Israel is scheduled to take place this evening in Jerusalem. 

2013: The Republican Jewish Coalition is scheduled to sponsor an evening with Lela Gilbert and Jennifer Rubin – “The Real Israel: An American Christian’s Perspective” – at the Park East Synagogue.

 2013: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set out his principles for forming a new government issuing a brief statement in which he listed the needs for a more equitable distribution of the national burden, affordable housing and changing the system of government as his would-be coalition’s three top priorities.

2013: Following the Knesset elections, US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro told Israel Radio today the US government remains committed to preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. He also said that Washington looks forward to continued cooperation with the next Israeli government.

 2014: Artist Dasha Shishkin is scheduled to provide commentary to “Chagall: Love, War and Exile” at the Jewish Museum.

http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/exhibitions/chagall-love-war-exile

 2014: As part of the JPS/Skirball Series, Salo Aizenberg is scheduled to introduce his new book, Hatemail: Anti-Semitism on Picture Postcards.

 2014: The United Nations Department of Public Information is scheduled to present “The 70th Anniversary of the Deportation of the Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust” during which “the participants will learn how the German Security Police worked with Hungarian authorities to systematically deport Jews from Hungary in May of 1944.”

 2014: In an appearance that was not listed on the Mayor’s public schedule, Mayor Bill de Blasio gave an unannounced speech at a Manhattan gala of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, assuring its members that “part of my job description is to be a defender of Israel.”

 2014: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today laid out the dilemma facing his administration when it comes to the Palestinian conflict — the imperative to avoid a binational state encompassing Israel and the Palestinians, but also to prevent a future Palestinian state from becoming an Iranian proxy. “Half of Palestinian society is dominated by Iran’s proxy,” he said in an apparent reference to the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip. (As reported by Lazar Berman and Adiv Sterman)

 

2014: The New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to come to an end.

2014: Four days after his death, a memorial service is scheduled to be at Kehillat Israel Sanctuary in California for ninety-year-old Princeton Graduate and WW II Army Veteran Jay Douglas Levinsohn, the husband of the former Joyce Salton.

2014(22ndof Shevat, 5774): Sixty-three-year-old Tatyana (Tanya) Edelstein, the wife of Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, to whom she had had been married for 33 years, passed away tonight.

 2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to present the next in the “Excellence-The Future Generation Series” featuring performances by Hanan Becher, Piano, Netta Karni, Piano, Liel Kaplyushnik, Piano, Daniel Fenings, Violin, Salmon Markman, Violin,Yael Koldobsky, Piano,  Yael Koldobsky, Piano, Lior Greenwald, Violin, Tom Zalmanov, Piano and  Alon Mamo, Piano   

 2015: “Judy Berlin” is scheduled to be shown at the 92nd St Y as part of the Women on Top series.

2015: In “For Auschwitz Museum, a Time of Great Change” published today, Rick Lyman described plans for the gathering to mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the death camp.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/24/world/europe/for-auschwitz-museum-and-survivors-a-moment-of-passage.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

2015: In Cedar Rapids, the first Musical Shabbat of 2015 is scheduled to begin this evening.

2016: Shabbat Shira

2016: “Rabin in His Own Words” is scheduled to be shown at the Brooklyn Israel Film Festival.

2016: “Benya Kirk” and “Hot Sugar’s Cold World” are scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival.

2016: “Restoring Tomorrow” which tells the story of the restoration of the Wilshire Boulevard Temple, “one of Los Angeles’s architectural treasures and home to the city’s oldest Jewish congregation” is scheduled to premiere at the Skirball Cultural Center.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/filmmaker-chronicles-synagogue-restoration-ends-up-rebuilding-own-jewish-identity/

2017(25thof Tevet, 5777): On the Jewish calendar, Yahrzeit of Moses Levi Ehrenreich the chief rabbi of Rome “who was instrumental in translating part of the TaNaCh into Italian and through whose efforts the Collegio Rabbinico Italiano was reopened in 1887.”

2017: A celebratory Western Wall women’s prayer and Torah reading held by the Original Women of the Wall group this morning tested a recent interim order by the High Court (As reported by Amanda Borschel-Dan)

2017: “Dimona” is scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival.

2017: The annual Jewish Leaders Conference met in Brussels today at which the attendees “called on Israel to help them tackle the rising threat of terrorism and anti-Semitism” by providing “vital security assistance against potential attacks.” (As reported by Raoul Wootliff)

2017: In “German Party Won’t Expel Rightist Who Assailed Holocaust Apology” published today Alison Smale described the decision to discipline Björn Höcke for making a speech that challenged the German atonement for the Holocaust and other Nazi Crimes but to remove him from the Alternative for Germany Party.

to host “An Evening Bernard-Henri Levy” during which the “French philosopher, activist, writer (The Genius of Judaism), and filmmaker Bernard-Henri Lévy offers a special presentation of his two most recent documentaries, Peshmerga and The Battle of Mosul.”

2018(7thof Shevat, 5778): Ninety-two year old University of Texas undergraduate Arnold Gold, “a pediatric neurologist” and the husband of  Sandra Gold with whom he founded the Arnold P. Gold Foundation passed away today. (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

2018: “A Kid Like Jake” co-starring Amy Landecker premiered today at Sundance.

2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg of the New North London Masorti Synagogue who “will be speaking on ‘The launch of the Eco-Synagogue.’”

2018: The final session of “The Jewish Workers’ Bund” taught by Jack Jacobs is scheduled to take place at the YIVO Institute.

2018: The Center for Jewish History and Oxford University Press are scheduled to present Professor David N. Myers speaking on “All Jewish History in Less Than An Hour.”

2019: In Potomac, MD, Beth Sholom Congregation is scheduled to host a presentation of the Silk Road, with an emphasis on its “ancient Jewish Highlights.”

2019: The Oxford University Jewish Student Society is scheduled to host a “Dine and Discuss Event” led by the Chaplains.

2019: The Joyce Theatre is scheduled to host a performance of Jerusalem choreographer Sharon Eyal’s “Love Chapter 2.”  

2019: At the Bender JCC of Greater Washington, Cinema J is scheduled to host a screening of “1945.”

https://forward.com/culture/film-tv/386434/the-last-jewish-writer-in-hungary-returns-to-1945/

2019: In “The Story of Jewish Immigrants to Canada, and How They Prospered” published today Jonathan Kay described a movement that was not a straight line of upward mobility but more of “U” with ups, downs and ups again.

https://www.cjnews.com/living-jewish/the-story-of-jewish-immigrants-to-canada-and-how-they-prospered

2020: The Illinois Holocaust Museum ad Education al Center is scheduled to host author Jack Fairweather as he talks about his newest work, The Volunteer: One Man, an Underground Army and the Secret Mission to Destroy Auschwitzwhich tells “the story of Witold Pilecki, a Polish resistance fighter who worked undercover in Auschwitz to sabotage the camp from within.”

2020: Mohammed al-Issa, the secretary-general of the Mecca-based Muslim World League (MWL) and a former Saudi justice minister, “is slated to visit the Auschwitz death camp in Poland today ahead of the 75th anniversary of its liberation by the Soviet Red Army” “alongside Muslim religious leaders from more than 24 countries and a delegation of American Jewish Committee (AJC) officials.” (As reported by Adam Rasgon)

2020: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host a screening of Israeli director Guy Nattiv’s Academy Award winning short “Skin.”

2020: Following last night’s state dinner at President Reuven Rivlin’s official residence, today Netanyahu, Rivlin, Macron, Putin, Pence, Prince Charles and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier are scheduled to address memorial ceremonies at Yad Vashem which will be attended by dignitaries from forty countries.

2020: “Those Who Remained” and “They Ain’t Ready for Me” are scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival.

2020: Presidents Rivlin and Putin and Prime Minister Netanyahu are scheduled to attend a dedication ceremony for the “Monument in Memory of the Heroism and the Soldiers and Residents who were Killed During the Siege of Leningrad in WWII,” in Jerusalem’s Sacher Park.

2021: The New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to offer a screening of it “Shorts Program” for the last time.

2021: Israel passes 4,000 COVID related deaths amid published reports about “seven Israelis police officers being injured in clashes with Orthodox protesters over COVID-19 restrictions” and police in being called to break up a 400-person wedding party at the Stamford Hill Charedi School.

2021: In Pepper Pike, OH, B’nai Jeshurun is scheduled to host a Tu B’Shevat Baking event during which Hedy Molgrom shows attendees “a receipe that will highlight the carob as she bakes chocolate babka.

2021: The Vilna Shul, “Boston’s Center for Jewish Culture,” is scheduled to present “Persona Non Grata: The Story of Chiune Sugihara a Virtual Screening & Discussion.”

2021(10thof Shevat, 7801): Parashat Bo; for more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/

 

This Day, January 24, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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January 24

 41: Roman Emperor Caligula is murdered by the Praetorian Guard. Caligula’s treatment of the Jews does not qualify him as an anti-Semite since he was “a certifiable nut case” who murdered several of his family members, reportedly had incestuous relationships with at least of on his sisters and planned to name his favorite horse as a Counsel of Rome. Caligula believed he was a divinity who was to be publicly worshipped. A delegation of Jews from Alexandria, including the famous Philo, went to Rome to plead the Jewish case before Caligula. At first Caligula was hostile to the Jews, but in the end he reportedly dismissed the delegation saying, the Jews are “just a poor, stupid people unable to believe in my divinity.” The real threat came when Caligula took steps to install a statute of himself in Jerusalem that was to be worshipped. Agrippa, King of Judea and Petronious Publius, the Roman governor of Syria were able to stall the Emperor whose subsequent assassination rendered the point moot.

76: Birthdate of Publius A Hadrianus 14th Roman Emperor. Hadrian reigned from 117 through 138. Hadrian banned Torah study, Synagogue worships and led the Romans in the defeat of the Bar Kochba Revolt.

1076: Holy Roman Emperor IV, who had issued an order prohibiting anybody from following in the footsteps of Godfrey of Bouillon who swore to on crusade “only after avenging the blood of the crucified one by shedding Jewish blood and completely eradicating any trace of those bearing the name 'Jew,' thus assuaging his own burning wrath” wrote a letter today “condemning Pope Gregory VII as a usurper.”

1059: Nicholas II who “condemned the persecution of the Jews and who…expressed” his opposition to “compulsory baptism” began his Papacy.

1436: In Aix-en-Provence, a riot ensued after a crowd felt that a Jew who insulted the Virgin Mary received too light a sentence.

1517: Selim I defeated the Mamluks at the Battle of Ridaniya giving the Ottomans control over Egypt leading to “radical changes in the affairs of” Egyptian Jewry including the abolition of the office of nagid, the creation of independent Jewish communities including the one in Cairo head by David ibn Abi Zimra and the appointment of Abraham de Castro as the master of the mint..

1656: Dr. Jacob Lumbrozo, the first Jewish physician in what would be the United States arrived in Maryland.

1678(1st of Shevat): Rabbi Solomon Lichtenstein of Bialystok, author of Kokhmat Shelomo, passed away.

1704: In Metz, France Abraham Schwab found a yeshivah that became the Seminaire Israelite de France
1712: Birthdate of Frederick II, King of Prussia from 1740 until 86. Known as Frederick the Great, the Prussian king’s treatment of Jews was, to say the least, uneven. He did grant special rights to some, including Mendelssohn. However, for the most part, he treated them as an exploitable economic commodity. But what can you expect from a man who wished to be buried with his greyhounds, the only living creatures he really loved?

1729: Frederick William I ordered the elders of the community to appoint Moses Ben Aaron as the chief rabbi of Berlin, a move which upset the Jewish community because they felt he was too young.

1735: “The Sephardic Hamburg merchant Abraham de Lemos sent a petition to the Prussian King Frederick William I” today in when he asked “the King for the abrogation of the marriage between his son, Benjamin de Lemos, a student of medicine at the University.”

https://jewish-history-online.net/source/jgo:source-43

1746: Birthdate of Gustavus III during whose reign “the Jews of Stockholm invited Levi Hirsch” to serve as their rabbi.

1767: In New York City, Abraham Isaac Abrahams and his wife gave birth to Hyman Abrahams who eventually settled in Charleston, SC.

1780: “Jonas Levi, an American Jew who had been captured by the English the previous year and sent back to France” was at the home of Dr. (Benjamin) Franklin today, “who had given him a passport as well as the sum of ninety-six livres…”

1781: Birthdate of Louis-Mathieu Molé who “served as Napoleon’s advisor on Jewish affairs” including the calling of the Grand Sanhedrin in 1807 and “moderated” his original opposition to the Emancipation of the Jews.

1802(21stof Shevat, 5562): Gershom Cohen, who in 1772 came to America where he “fought in the Revolution and settled in Charleston where he married Rebecca Sarzedas with whom he had nine children, passed away today.

1803(1st of Shevat, 5563): Rosh Chodesh Shevat observed on the same day President Thomas Jefferson wrote to Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin about conditions relating to the Mississippi River and New Orleans, just six days before Monroe and Livingston were to sail for France to discuss the possibility of purchase New Orleans.

1804: Presbyterian minister and poet Joseph Fawcett passed away. In 1785, he began a series of Sunday evening lectures at the Old Jewry meeting house the popular meeting house for a Presbyterians that took its name from the fact that the area had been the Jewish quarter or ghetto in the days before Edward expelled them at the end of the 14th century.  There is no record of how these Christians felt about occupying the territory used by the people they had been persecuting and to whom they still denied the full rights of British citizens.

1814: Birthdate of John William Colenso, the native of Cornwall who while serving as Bishop of Natal translated three books of the TaNaCh into Zulu and was convicted of heresy for publicly denying “the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch” and declaring “that Jeremiah was the author of the Book of Deuteronomy.”

1817: Rebecca Mordecai and Jacob Hertz who had been married in Charleston, SC, gave birth to Emma Eger Hertz.

1820: In “York Place Queens Elm,” Sophia and Nathaniel Levy gave birth to Catherine Levy.

1821: Elizabeth Mayers, the daughter of Joseph and Sarah Mayers was married today in the United Kingdom.

1823: In Frankfurt am Main, Zerline Beyfus (Worms) and Meyer (Mayer) Levin Beyfus gave birth to Sigismund Beyfus.

1826(16thof Shevat, 5586): Six-year-old Ann Crawcour, the daughter of David Crawcour and Amelia Barnes was buried at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery after she had passed away this morning.

1828: Birthdate of Ferdinand J Cohn, German botanist who is considered a founder of the science of bacteriology. From his early studies of microscopic life he developed theories of the bacterial causes of infectious disease and recognized bacteria as plants. He aided Robert Koch in preparing Koch's famous work on anthrax. Cohn's writings cover such diverse subjects as fungi, algae, insect epidemics, and plant diseases.

1828(8thof Shevat, 5588): Seventy-three-year-old Abraham Flesch, “the Rabbi at Rausntiz, Moravia, who was the father of Joseph Flesch passed away today.

1829: Birthdate of Yechiel Michel ha-Levi Epstein, the rabbi known as “the Aruch haShulchan” and the father of Rabbi Baruch Epstein.

1830: Birthdate of Jules Worms, the Paris born physician served the French Army as a surgeon during the Crimean War and was on the staff at Rothschild Hospital from 1865 to 1875.

1841: In Canterbury, Fanny Nathan and Joel Abrahams gave birth to Hannah Abrahams, the wife of Joseph Hart and the mother of Eleazer, Fanny, Florence, Evelina, Joel and Morris Hart.

1844: The Second Annual Benevolent Ball of the Israelites of Philadelphia raised $489.79 today.

1847: Three days after he had passed away, Abraham Abrahams, the son of Isaac Abrahams and the husband of Rachel Lazarus with whom he had had ten children was buried today at the “Hope Street old burial ground.”

1848: James Marshall finds gold at mill that is being built for John Sutter near San Francisco, CA. According to historian Hubert Howe Bancroft this event brought “a medley of races and nationalities, including the ubiquitous Hebrews." According to Stephen Mark Dobbs there were thirty Jews at a Rosh Hashanah services in San Francisco and the number grew to fifty for Yom Kippur. Jews mined for gold but they mined the commercial opportunities and by 1853 their number had grown to 3,000 in San Francisco alone.
1850: “The House of Rothschild made a fifty million franc loan to Pope Pius IX on condition that” the walls of Rome’s Ghetto would be taken down. Not only did the Pope fail to remove the walls, he “re-imposed restrictions on Jews living in the Papal States…brought pressure against other rulers to revoke Jewish rights granted in 1848” and ruled that the kidnapped Jewish Edgar Mortara should be raised as a Catholic.

1851: In Cayuga County, NY, Albert Baham was hung for his role in the murder of the Jewish peddler Nathan Adler. After the execution, Albert’s brother John confessed his role which resulted in his death sentence being commuted to life in prison.  In point of fact, he was pardoned by the governor after having served 8 years in prison for his part in the crime.

1852: In “Zary, Poland,” Abraham and Rebecca Glass gave birth to Herman Glass, the cantor at Congregation Chizuk Amunah in Baltimore and the husband of Rachel Glass.

1853: In Furth, Bavaria, Sigmund Max Einhorn, the “son of Karoline and Maier Mendel Einhorn” and his wife, the former Karoline Schloss, gave birth to Max Jakob Einhorn

1855: At Columbia, SC, Jacob M. Wolf of Winnsboro, SC married Ellen Graetz of New York.

1856 (17th of Shevat, 5616): Rabbi Yechezkel of Kuzmir, Polish Hasidic leader passed away. (Ed. Note: This comparatively lengthy note is intended to provide those with limited background an introduction to the richly textured, multi-dimensional world of Chassidic Jewry.) Born in 1755, he was the founder of the) Modzitz or Modzhitz Chassidim. This is the name of a Chassidic group that derives its name from Modzice, one of the boroughs of the town of Dęblin, Poland, located on the Vistula River. Followers of this group are known as Modzitzer Chasidim and they are now based mainly in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem in Israel where their Rebbe lives. They also have a smaller following in Brooklyn, New York. The rabbis who lead them have come from a family by the name of "Taub". Rabbi Yechezkel Taub of Kuzmir established yeshivas and a type of Hasidic teaching that was similar to that of the Seer of Lublin, and distinct from the Hasidism of Ger and Kotzk. Upon his death, his son, Rabbi Eliyahu Taub of Zvolin, Poland succeeded him. He excelled in Torah scholarship and creating Hasidic songs. He was called Menagen mafli pla'os Hebrew for "a wondrous musical talent". His first son Rabbi Moshe Aaron succeeded him as Rabbi of Zvolin. His second son Yisrael went on to found the actual Modzitz Hasidic dynasty. Rabbi Yisrael Taub was born in 1849 and in 1891 founded the Modzitzer Hasidic movement in Modzitz, Poland. He created many melodies that are still sung by Hasidim today. When he passed away on November 24, 1920, he was succeeded by his son Rabbi Shaul Yedidya Elazar Taub. Shaul Yedidya Elazar Taub was born on October 20, 1886. He guided his Hasidim until 1938 when he fled Poland due to Nazi persecution. He made his way to Lithuania, then to Russia, then to China, and then to Japan. Eventually, with the help of some Modzitzer Chassidim, he and some family members reached the shores of San Francisco and then moved to Brooklyn, New York in 1940. It was during his stay in Brooklyn that Rabbi Shaul became popular and helped rebuild Modzitz. He was a gifted songwriter and wrote over 1000 Hasidic melodies. He constantly talked about the coming of the State of Israel. He was unable to see his prediction come true and he passed away on November 29, 1947, the day the UN voted to create the state of Israel. He was succeded by his son Rabbi Samuel Eliyahu Taub. Rabbi Samuel Eliyahu was born in Lublin, Poland on February 9, 1905. Rabbi Shaul and his son Rabbi Samuel were on a trip to the then British Mandate of Palestine in 1935. While they were there Samuel fell in love with Palestine and asked his father if he could stay there. His father agreed and within a year Rabbi Samuel's wife and their child came over to Israel. In 1947 he succeeded his father and became the Modzitzer Rebbe to be known as the Imre Aish ("Words of Fire") as Samuel Eliyahu is called, and continued the traditions of Modzitz both as a composer and Torah scholar. He passed away on May 6, 1984, when he was succeeded by his son Rabbi Dan Israel Taub. Rabbi Israel Dan was born in 1928 in Warsaw, Poland. He came with his mother to Palestine in 1936 to meet up with his father Rabbi Samuel. For a number of years he headed the Modzitz Chasidim in the city of Tel-Aviv where his father had lived. He moved to a new building in Bnei Brak, Israel on Lag Ba'omer 5755 (May 18. 1995). Like his predecessors he also composes Hasidic melodies and many of them have are sung regularly in Hasidic synagogues. His opinion is highly regarded. The Modzitz Hasidim are well-known for their uniquely inspiring melodies and their devotion to serious learning of Torah and Talmud.

1862: In New York City George Frederic Jones and Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander gave birth to Edith Newbold Jones who gained fame as Pulitzer Prize winning author Edith Wharton whose display of anti-Semitism in The House of Mirth which included the depiction Jewish financier name Simon Rosedale has proved to a problem for her at least some of her Jewish fans.”

http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/222681/what-to-do-about-edith-whartons-anti-semitism?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=6c738e3ef2-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_01_25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-6c738e3ef2-206644398

1862:  Bucharest was proclaimed capital of Romania. The Jewish population of Bucharest had grown from 127 families in 1820 to 5,934 persons in 1860. By the turn of the century, the Jewish population would exceed 40,000 people making them almost 15% of the city’s total population.

1864: During the Civil War, Joseph Herzog began his service with Company E of the 29thRegiment.

1866: Charles August Lauff, the German native and California businessman, and his wife, Maris J. Sebran, the daughter of Gregorio and Ramono Briones, gave birth to Caroline  Lauff

1874: Nathan W. Lyman appeared at the Jefferson Market Police Court today and withdrew his complaint that he had been swindled out of $7,000 by a Hungarian born Jew, Dr. Gabor Naphegyi.

1876: Leaders of several New York congregations met at Temple Emanu-El met tonight to discuss the possibility of establishing a college for Jewish students. A committee was established to contact congregations throughout the United States to gain support for the endeavor. Louis May, President of Temple Emanu-El was selected as chairman and Meyer S. Isaacs was selected as Secretary.

1877: Five days after he had passed away, “David Viscount de Stern,” a senior partner in Stern Brothers and the husband of Sophia Goldsmid with whom he had had five children was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1879: Rosa Sonneschein founded "The Pioneers," a Jewish women's literary club in St. Louis, Missouri. “The club, which met in Sonneschein's home, was modeled after similar Christian women's clubs and was devoted to general literary subjects rather than specifically Jewish literature. Perhaps inspired by this literary circle, in the 1880s Sonneschein began publishing stories in Jewish magazines. She also worked as a correspondent for the German-language press in the U.S., a position for which she was prepared by both her German upbringing and her social status as the wife of a prominent St. Louis rabbi. In 1895, after divorcing her husband, Sonneschein moved to Chicago and founded a magazine specifically addressed to American Jewish women, the American Jewess. Though the magazine ran only until 1899, it was the first English periodical specifically addressed to Jewish women. It sought to document and inspire the activism of an emerging network of Jewish women's organizations that expanded upon the model established by the Pioneers.”

1880: Birthdate of New York political leader and Congressman Meyer Jacobstein.

1882: The Hearts of Oak Company featuring David Belasco as “Mr. Ellingham” performed for the thies time at Leubrie’s Theatre in St. Paul, MN.

1887: Birthdate of Alexander Portnoff, the native of the Ukraine who came to America in 1907 where he became a leading painter and sculptor whose models included Sholem Aleichem.

1888: President Moritz Loth chaired a special meeting of the Executive Board at 1:30 p.m. where resolutions were adopted praising Max Hoffheimer, the board member who passed away unexpectedly yesterday.

1888: In Vienna, Mathide (née Donath) and Hermann Baum gave birth to Austrian writer, Hedwig (Vicki) Baum who is considered one of the first modern bestselling authors, and her books are reputed to be among the first examples of contemporary mainstream literature. She attended Vienna Conservatory to study the harp, later playing the harp professionally and teaching music for several years in Darmstadt. After a number of novels in German, a breakthrough novel, Menschen im Hotel, was turned into a play and then at the instigation of producer Irving Thalberg into the highly successful film Grand Hotel directed by Edmund Goulding. The story details one weekend in a posh hotel in minute detail -- Baum had taken a job as maid to yield realism. The film won Best Picture Oscar. Her time in the United States made her realize it was time to leave Germany, emigrating in 1932. From that point Baum wrote many of her novels in English and took citizenship in 1938. Residing in California, she lived in Pacific Palisades, Pasadena, and then Hollywood, where she died of leukemia in 1960. Among two of her most pithy sayings are, "Pity is the deadliest feeling that can be offered to a woman" and "To be a Jew is a destiny.” (Jewish Women’s Archives)

1888: In New York City, over a thousand people attended a benefit performance of "King Solomon" at the Roumania Opera House.  The event was organized by Mrs. M. Rosendorff who will use the funds to buy meat for needy Jews at Passover time.  This is not Mrs. Rosendorff's first foray into fund raising.  In 1887, she hosted a ball at the the Webster Hall that paid for meat Passover time.

1890: In Charkof, Chaim and Pessy (Lifushitz) Margulis gave birth to University of Pennsylvania graduate and husband of Esther Andrussier who starting in 1922 worked “with the McClintic Marshall Construction Company and who served as President as the President of the Pottstown, PA Y.M.H.A. and was a member of the “Mercy and Truth Congregation” (Hesed Shel Emet)/

1891(15thof Shevat, 5651): Tu B’Shevat

1891: Sarah Bernhardt is scheduled to sail from Harve today so that they can begin performing at the Garden Theatre in New York at the beginning of February.

1891(15thof Shevat, 5651): Dutch born “Belgian engraver and sculptor” Leopold Wiener, the Royal Engraver whose interest in music led to his serving as “vice president of the Conservatoire at Brussels” passed away today.
1892: It was reported today that as the famine worsens in Russia Czar Nicholas II has decided to devote all of his energies to dealing with the crisis which means he has “indefinitely postponed” all of the measures aimed against his Jewish subjects.

1892: It was reported today that the upcoming Hebrew Charity Ball is the last major festivity of the social season in Philadelphia, PA.

1892: It was reported today that in addition to persecuting the Jews, the Czar is now persecuting the Stundists, a Christian sect founded in the 1850’s.

1893: Birthdate of Odessa native, WW I veteran of the Russian Army and Belgium trained engineer Boris Pregel, the hold of the French Legion of Honour who 1940 with his wife Alexandra Avksentiev came to the United States where formed the Canadian Radium and Uranium Corporation with his brother Alexander and later served as “president and board chariman of the New York Academy of Sciences.

https://www.nytimes.com/1976/12/09/archives/dr-boris-pregel-exhead-of-academy-of-sciences.html?searchResultPosition=1

1893(7thof Shevat, 5653): Russian author and Hebraist Isaac Mayer Dick passed away today.

http://www.eilatgordinlevitan.com/vilna/vilna_pages/vilna_stories_mayerdick.html

1895: “A Dance For Charity” published today described the dances sponsored by the Young Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s League of the Montefiore home which have replaced the annual Purim Ball as the leading social event “in Jewish social circles.”  The change took place two years ago but has not had any effect on the ability to raise funds for the charities that benefit from these social events. (more for 2015)

1895: In Portland, Oregon, Ezras Achim which meets on the second Sunday of each month and whose members included Leon Goldenberg and Himan Gertzman was incorporated today.

1895: The officers of the Montefiore Home were today reported to be: President – Jacob H. Schiff; Vice President – Louse Gans; Treasurer – Isidor Straus; and Honorary Secretary – Raphael Ettinger.

1896: It was reported that while giving President Kreuger was giving a sermon during the ceremonies dedicating a synagogue in Johannesburg, he said “And so I consecrate this building to the worship of the Triune God.”  While some Jews minimized this reference to the Trinity, “others maintain that the building has been desecrated and they have built another synagogue…”

1896: It was reported today that in Jersey City, forty or fifty Jews who were sitting in the audience during a speech being given by Herman Ahlwardt, the German anti-Semite “threatened to kill him and burn the hall” when he “made some particularly bitter references to them.”  The Jews “were ejected by the police and order was restored.”

1897: Berlin Zionists Willy Bambus and Theodor Zlocisti addressed a letter to Herzl.

1897: Dr. Lyman Abbott delivered a sermon today on the books of Esther, Daniel and Jonah “all of which he said were fictitious although the book of Esther was based on historical facts and was derived from court records.”

1897: One day after he had passed away, 77-year-old Louis Rozelaar was buried today at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery.”

1898: It was reported today that for the year ending November 30, 1897, Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York treated 2,996 patients with a mortality rate of 9.04 percent. (More for 2014)

1898: It was reported today that leaders of the Jewish community in Algiers have advised their co-religionists to remain indoors and stay away from their businesses following attacks by anti-Dreyfus/ant-Semitic mobs. 

1898: A mob of approximately 3,000 people surged through the streets of Algiers shouting “Down With the Jews.” 

1898: An anti-Jewish riot took place today in St. Malo, a town in Brittany.

1898: “A dispatch received from Algiers late tonight says that at 11 o’clock perfect tranquility prevailed” with the troops having cleared the street of anti-Semitic rioters including 300 of whom have been arrested.

1898: In New York Max and Jane Walcoff Udell gave birth to City College trained business executive and philanthropist Jerome I. Udell, 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.”

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/10/obituaries/jerome-i-udell.html

1899: “The Zionist Movement” published today provided a summary of the report prepared by the U.S. Consul at Beirut that concluded by “saying that the prospects are brighter than ever before for the Jews in Palestine and for the country itself.” 

1899: Sarah Ullmann, the wife of Solomon Ullmann, was buried today at the Edmonton Western Jewish Cemetery

1899: It was reported today that Henry Herzberg believes “that there never was a period in the world’s history when more potent reasons existed why the essential teachings of Judaism should be faithfully observed. Amid the forces of modern civilization…there is vital need for constructive thought which feeds the moral springs of action.”

1899: It was reported today that the population of Palestine is 200,000 of which 40,000 are Jews.  This is an increase of 26,000 Jews in the last twenty years.  There are 22,000 Jews living in Jerusalem “half of whom” have come from Europe.

1899: Birthdate of Robert Leon “Bob” Berman the New York and Fordham University graduate whose major league as a catch and pinch runner consisted of two appearance for the Washington Senators in 1918.

1900: In North Rhine-Westphalia, Gustav Cohn the “son of Levi and Eva Regina Cohn” and his wife Paula, gave birth to “Charlotte (Lotte) Cohn

1900(24thof Shevat, 5660): Seventy-year-old Isaac Artom “Italian patriot, diplomat, financier and author” passed away today at Rome.”

1900: Harry Greenblatt married Fanny Gottliffe at “New Synagogue, Chapeltown Road, Leeds.”

1901: The Industrial Removal Office was formally created as part of the Jewish Agricultural Society at the Society's Executive Committee meeting. The Society rented a store at 34 Stanton Street in New York and named it "The Industrial Removal Office." The philosophy behind the IRO was to assimilate the immigrants into American Society, both economically and culturally. In 1901, following anti-Semitic decrees by the Romanian government, a large wave of Romanian Jews fled to New York. The Rumanian Committeewas quickly formed in New York to distribute the immigrants to other towns where they might find employment. B'nai B'rith lodges in these towns and cities assisted the refugees upon their arrival. The Romanian Committee rapidly evolved into the Industrial Removal Office, which took over the work on a much larger scale and opened its availability to any unemployed Jewish immigrant, regardless of their origin. The process of procuring work for immigrants was done through traveling agents, who also obtained the cooperation of local Jewish organizations. Local committees, organized primarily by B'nai B'rith, obtained orders for workers and assisted the immigrants on their arrival. The New York bureau noted requests received from the traveling agents and local committees and matched up opportunities from their applicant lists. In the first year of the Industrial Removal Office's existence, nearly 2000 individuals were sent to 250 places throughout the United States.

1902: In Skalat, Galicia, Joseph and Hannah Speiser gave birth to “Assyyriologist” Ephraim Avigdor Speiser

https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/ephraim-avigdor-speiser/

1902: Birthdate of economist Oskar Morgenstern who enjoyed a successful career in Europe until the coming of the Nazis forced him to flee to the United States, where he pursued his career.  

1903(25thof Tevet, 5663): Parashat Vaera

1903: The New York Times reports on the growth and development of the Jewish Theological Seminary including the securing of a $500,000 endowment and the election of Justice Greenbaum, the New York state jurist, to the Board of Directors. 

1904: In Bremerhaven, Germany, “Ernest and Helene (Goth) Winn gave birth to Monument’s Man Lt. Col. Eric Ernst Winn

https://www.monumentsmenfoundation.org/the-heroes/first-hand-participants/winn-lt.-col.-eric-ernst

1904: The New York Times “mentioned” today that the second concert of the Russian Symphony Orchestra which had been founded by cellist Modest (Moisei Isaacovich) Altschuler included a performance of Wiensiawski Souvenir de Moscou.

1905(18thof Shevat, 5665): Sixty-two-year-old Edward Einstein, the native of Cincinnati, Ohio who “was elected a Republican from New York’s 7th Congressional District and who ran unsuccessfully for Mayor passed away today.

 1905: Henry S. Morais, journalist, educator and rabbi, writes a letter praising Benjamin Disraeli to the New York Times entitled “Why the People of the United States Should Cherish His Memory” in which he reviews Disraeli’s support for the Union during the Civil War when other English leaders including Gladstone “were known to be in sympathy” with the Confederates and which concludes with the statement that this “scion of the famous Israelis of Jewish history…the offspring of a people as old as the ages, will live in the minds and in the hearts  not alone of his own, but in those of a liberty loving humanity.”

1906: There are reports from Bucharest published today that “massacres of the Jews have taken place in Kishinev and various parts of Bessarabia” and that there are no further details available at this time. 

1907(9thof Shevat, 5667): Ninety-year-old Moritz Steinschneider passed away in Berlin.

http://www.steinschneider.com/biography/msteinsch.htm

 1908(21stof Shevat, 5668): Leopold Wallach a distinguished New York lawyer who is the father-in-law of Max Morgenthau, Jr. passed away today.

1908: In Leipzig, Hans von Halban Sr. a professor of physical chemistry and his wife gave birth French physicist Hans Heinrich von Halban.

1909: It was reported today that according to “annual survey of religious statistics for 1908” there are 143,000 Jews belong to either the “Orthodox or Reform wings.”

1909: “The opening of the Jewish Maternity Hospital at 270 East Broadway” “which is the first of its kind to be established on the east side” is scheduled to take place this afternoon.

1910: “Schiff Would Check Jewish Immigrants” published today described a speech by Jacob H. Schiff, the banker and philanthropist, in which he warned that the east side of New York “could not continue to absorb many more poor Russian, Austrian and Rumanian Jewish immigrants” and urged those attending the annual meeting of the Hebrew Sheltering Aid and Immigrant Society to “deflect the current of Jewish immigration to the South and West.”
1911: Founding of Merchaviya the first Jewish settlement in Emek Yizra'el (Jezreel Valley). Ten years after its founding, Merchaviya would be joined by its most famous member, Golda Meir. The future Prime Minister of Israel would tend chickens.

1911: Birthdate of Albert “Reds” Weiner, the four sport (football, basketball, baseball and track) athlete a Muhlenberg who went on to play professionally with the Philadelphia Eagles of the NFL.
1912: Vladimir Kokovtsoff, the Premier of Russia, admitted in writing today that “Russia has treated American Jews differently” than other Americans but that was no reason for President Taft to have abrogated the Treaty of 1832 since Russia reserved the right to treat American Jews “exactly on the same basis as all other foreign Jews and because it is necessary to treat foreign Jews in a way that is consistent with a “whole range of restrictions” that Russia places on its Jewish subjects.
1913: Franz Kafka stopped working on "Amerika"; it will never be finished

1914: In Leonia, NJ, Yetta and Samuel S. Lefkowitz, “a registered pharmacist and a chiropractor” who “served as the secretary-treasurer of the Amalgamated Chiropractors Association of New Jersey” gave birth to attorney Naftali (Nat) Lefkowitz, the husband of Sylvia Pollock

1914: Dr. Cyrus Adler, president of Dropsie College Isaac Hassler, president of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association and Charles Ellis, the Mayor of Camden, NJ were reported today to be the speakers who address an upcoming meeting designed to launch a fund raising drive to build a communal building for that Camden’s Jewish population.

1915: “Jacob H. Schiff while speaking today at the annual meeting of the Hebrew Free Loan Society to which he and members of his family have been among the largest contributors said he believed there was no other institution who work among Jews was so far reaching and urged that steps be taken to broaden its scope and capital.

 1915: A mass meeting sponsored by the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society to express opposition to the Smith-Burnett Immigration Bill is scheduled to be held this evening at Cooper Union.

 1915: David I. Seiffer will serve as Chairman of the mass meeting scheduled to be held at Adas Jeshurun this afternoon for the purpose of raising funds for the “war suffers in Kalisch, Russian-Polan which has been laid waste and is now in the hands of the Germans.”

1916: A group of “prominent Jewish women” met at the Hotel Astor this afternoon and chose Mrs. Samuel Elkeles, the President of the Federation of the Sisterhoods to serve as the chairwoman of a newly formed organization to raise funds for the relief of Jewish war sufferers whose members also include Mrs. Harry Kraft, Mrs. David Kass and Mrs. L.W. Zwisohn

1916: Chinka Chana Zaid and Yosef Yechiel Zaid, HaKohen gave birth to their daughter Miriam Meir.

1916: “The Jewish Congress Organization Committee is scheduled to hold a mass meeting in Carnegie Hall this evening as a demonstration for the rights of the oppressed Jews in Europe” and which “is intended to emphasize the need of Jewish organization as well as to arouse general public sentiment in favor of the move for the attainments of the rights of Jewish people.”

1916: “Enthusiastic endorsement of the movement for a Jewish Congress to demand equal rights for the Jewish people, particularly in European countries after the war, was expressed” tonight “by more than 3,000 persons who attended a mass meeting in Carnegie Hall under the auspices of the Jewish Congress Organization Committee” an organization that “includes seventeen national Jewish organizations with a membership exceeding 500,000.”

1916: In San Francisco, Elise (née Stern) and Walter A. Haas gave birth Walter A. Hass Jr., the CEO of Levi Strauss and Co., owner of the Oakland A’s, and noted philanthropist who was the husband of Evelyn Danzig Hass with whom he had three children – Robert, Betsy and Walter J.

https://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/22/obituaries/walter-a-haas-jr-79-leader-of-family-behind-levi-strauss.html

1917(1st of Shevat, 5677): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1917: Abraham Isaac “Abe” Shiplacoff, the Socialist New York assemblyman “introduced New York's first birth control bill, which would have allowed ‘the dissemination of printed articles describing means of birth control’” today.

1918: The SS Tuscania a luxury liner that had been converted into a troop ship, departed Hoboken, New Jersey, with 384 crew members and 2,013 United States Army personnel aboard of whom at least six were Jewish.

1918: Birthdate of Newark, NJ, native Bernard Morris “Bernie” Weiner who was an offensive lineman for Kansas State University before playing two years of professional football with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/W/WeinBe20.htm

1918: The Gregorian calendar introduced in Russia by decree of the Council of People's Commissars effective from February 14(NS). This change is one of the impediments to pinpoint accuracy in dating events in Russian history.  Events are marked in different places by Old Style and New Style dates.  Unfortunately, some sources do not tell which they are which leads to added confusion. (Yes, this is an excuse for some of the inaccuracies in this document.)

1919: “Agitation Against Jews” published today described “a campaign against Jewish resident…in several South American cities including Montevideo and Buenos Aires where “billboards have been covered with the inscription ‘Down with the Jews.’”

1920: “Roarin’ Dan,” a western directed by Phil Rosen was released today in the United States.

1920 (29th of Tevet, 5680): Amedeo Clemente Modigliani passed away at the age of 35. http://www.isabel.com/gallery/reproduction/m/modiglia/record.html.
1922: Eskimo Pie patented by Christian K Nelson of Iowa. (Nelson was not an Eskimo and he was not Jewish. But those of who live in Iowa don’t get to brag very often, so just laugh and move on. There is a Jewish connection between Iowa and Ice Cream. Many of the products manufactured by Blue Bunny Ice Cream which is located in La Mars, Iowa, are kosher and delicious)

 1922: Professor Louis Ginzberg presented a paper on “The Question of Fermented Wines in Jewish Religious Observances” to members of the Rabbinical Assembly of the Jewish Theological Seminary who meeting in an executive session today.  Following a lengthy and lively discussion the consensus of opinion was that unfermented grape juice may be used for sacramental purposes.  This decision will be forwarded to the American Jewish Committee which is collecting information on the acceptability of using grape juice instead of wine when reciting Kiddush, etc. Ginzberg’s belief that the use of unfermented grape juice could be used put him at odds with the writings of Rabi Abraham Klausner.  Currently, nobody produces grape juice that meets the standards of Kashrut so adoption of Ginzberg’s view would require the start of a new business venture. [For those of you unacquainted with American History, this issue arose with the start of Prohibition and its attempt to ban the sale and consumption of alcohol in the U.S.]

1923: Today at the “Golden Jubilee convention of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations” Julius Rosenwald recommended “the complete abolition of the ceremonial use of wine by both Orthodox and Reform Jews.

1923: Today, at the Astor Hotel, Rabbi Jonah B. Wise proposed starting “an earnest campaign to put an end to the use of Yiddish in order to retain those who now use it ‘in the fold of Americanism and Judaism.’”

1924: Birthdate of Chaim David ha-Levi, the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv.
1924: In the Bronx, Jacob Raiffa, who sold wool products, and the former Hilda Kaplan gave birth to Howard Raiffa “an economics professor whose mathematical formulas for decision making were applied to the search for a missing nuclear bomb and the siting of a Mexico City airport, and were even suggested as a way to resolve a strike by professional hockey players.” (As reported by Sam Roberts)

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/14/business/howard-raiffa-mathematician-who-studied-decision-making-dies-at-92.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

1924: Birthdate of character actor Marvin Kaplan.

http://www.marvinkaplan.com/meet-marvin

1924: Max L. Pine, Secretary of the United Hebrew Trades was the opening speaker at meeting attended by representatives of 136 Jewish labor organizations where plans were made to oppose the Johnson Immigration Bill which Congressman Fiorello LaGuardia said was not an “immigration program” but an “immigration pogrom” (JTA)

 1924(18th of Shevat): “Z’ev Jawotz, founder of the Mizrachi movement passed away.

1925(28thof Tevet, 5685): Parashat Vaera

1925(28thof Tevet, 5685): Adele Bloch-Bauer the wife of Ferdinand Bloch Bauer, the subject of Gustav Klimts’ “Woman in Gold” passed away today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Adele_Bloch-Bauer_I#/media/File:Gustav_Klimt_046.jpg

1926: In New York City, Louis and Rose Tishman gave birth to John Louis Tishman “a master builder of the 20th century whose Tishman Realty and Construction Company transformed the skylines of Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles and New York.” (As reported by David W. Dunlap)

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/nyregion/john-l-tishman-builder-who-shaped-american-skylines-dies-at-90.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

1929: Eighty-four-year-old Adelaide Brewster Taylor the husband Selah Miller, the American consul in Jerusalem who opposed Jewish settlement in Palestine and was vocal anti-Semite, passed away today.

1931(6thof Shevat, 5691): Parsashat Bo

1931(6thof Shevat, 5691): Ninety-two-year-old Judith Adler the daughter of of Rav Yitzchak Dov Halevi Bamberger, The Würzburger Rav. and Kela Bamberger, the wife of Rabbi Immanuel Menachem Adler and the mother of PInchas Adler passed away today in Bavaria.

1932(16thof Shevat, 5692):  Sixty-four-year-old Paul M. Warburg, the brother of Felix Warburg, passed away at 6:30 this evening at his home in Manhattan. At the time of his death, he was chairman of the boards of the International Acceptance Bank of New York and the Manhattan Company. A native of Hamburg, and a member of one of the most prominent banking family, he was instrumental in providing many of the ideas that culminated in the creation of the Federal Reserve. He was married to Nina Loeb, the daughter of the late Solomon Loeb of the famed financial firm Kuhn, Loeb & Co. 

1932: Celebration of the 70th anniversary of the birth of author Sigmund Dische in Czernowitz, Romania.

1932: Dr. Abraham Schwardon’s gift to Hebrew University was described today as being “A Great Collection of Autographs and Portraits Assembled by the Labors of a Galician Chemist.”

1933: In New Haven, CT, Thelma (Wisan) Frankenberger and Bertram Frankenberger, who as a Lt. Colonel in the Army was the commander of Camp Blanding in Florida, gave birth to University of Connecticut graduate and U.S. Air Force veteran Bertam Frankenberger who pursued a career in the financial services the financial services including six years with Deloitte Haskin and Sells.

 1933 Jüdisches Museum zu Berlin (1933–1938, opened on Oranienburger Straße a street in central Berlin that was the in the heart of Berlin’s Jewish community before the rise of the Nazis 

1933(26th of Tevet, 5693):Charles "King" Solomon a Boston racketeer born in 1884 who controlled New England's bootlegging, narcotics and illegal gambling during Prohibition was killed in Boston's Cotton Club by rival gunmen. http://www.onewal.com/w-solomo.html

 1934: Ghazi bin Faisal, the King of Iraq who became pro-Nazi “as the tide of pubic feeling began turning against Iraq’s Jews” “married his first cousin, Princess Aliya bint Ali” today.
1934: A Lutheran minister (name unknown) opposed to the Reich Church is beaten by Nazi thugs.

 1935: In Haifa Matilda and Yehuda HaCohen gave birth to Nisim Cohen, a crewman on the ill-fated INS Dakar.

1936(29thof Tevet, 5696): Mt. Sinai Hospital medical researched and “WW I aviation instructor” John Cohen passed away today in New York City.

1936: Representatives of all three major faiths including Dr. Samuel H. Goldenson, the rabbi at Temple Emanu-El “issued statements endorsing the aims of Brotherhood Day” which will be observed next month.

1936: Speaking at luncheon today at the Waldorf-Astoria, Ogden L. Mills, the former Secretary of the Treasury “called upon American Jews and Christians to support the one million dollar rehabilitation fund being raised by the Federation of Polish Jews in America” because “we cannot view the starvation of 2,000,000 human beings anywhere on this earth with equanimity.”

1936: Jewish band leader Benny Goodman and his orchestra recorded "Stompin' at the Savoy" on Victor Records

1937: Dr. Stephen S. Wise “praised Roosevelt’s declaration in his inaugural messages that ‘no group in this county will be regarded as superfluous’” while also telling those at the Free Synagogue service that “the President stands ‘almost alone’ in his rebuke to Poland where it was said recently that 3,000,000 Jews were ‘superfluous’ and must be emigrated.”

1938: Birthdate of Hungarian flyweight Gyula Torok who won a Gold Medal at the Rome Olympics in 1960.

1938: Birthdate of author Yoram Taharlev

http://www.taharlev.com/english.asp

1938: The Palestine Post reported that a meeting of the General Council (Va'ad Leumi) of Palestine Jews published a manifesto calling for the immediate opening of the gates of the country to the millions of suffering Diaspora Jews.  

1938: The Palestine Post reported that one Jew was severely wounded when Arabs shot at a group of workers returning from the Givat Shaul quarry to Jerusalem.

 1938: The Palestine Post reported that according to the new Romanian law, all Jews had to appear before the courts in order to prove their citizenship rights.

 1939: Hermann Goring, Hitler’s #2, formally appointed Reinhard Heydrich as head of Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration and ordered him to speed up the process

 1940: Final day of an Aktion begun on January 18 during which 255 Jews were arrested in Warsaw and then murdered in the Palmiry Forest.

1940: In Brooklyn, Arthur Kaminsky, “a furrier” and May Kaminsky, “a homemaker” gave birth to published Howard Kaminsky.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/Obituary/article/74655-obituary-top-exec-at-three-publishers-howard-kaminsky-dead-at-77.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/29/books/howard-kaminsky-publisher-with-a-best-seller-sense-dies-at-77.html

1940: As the Nazi plunder of Poland continues, General Gouvernment ordered registration of all Jewish property.

 1941: Birthdate of Dan Schecthman, the Tel Aviv native who is a professor at the Technion and the winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

 . 1943: During the past three weeks, fifteen trains reached the Auschwitz from Belgium, Holland, Berlin, Grodno and Bialystok. Of the new arrivals, 4,000 were sent to the barracks and 20,000 were killed before their luggage could be sorted. To accommodate the rate of killing, four new crematoriums were constructed.

1943 One thousand Jews from Jasionowka were rounded up and deported to Treblinka.

 1943: The Nazis incinerated Jewish patients, nurses and doctors at Auschwitz-Birkenau

 1943: Hitler ordered Nazi troops at Stalingrad to fight to death. This militarily stupid command helped seal the fate of the German army and marked the beginning of the end for the Nazi juggernaut.

 1944: The SS Meyer London was launched today.  This “liberty ship” was named for the American Jewish leader who was one of only two Socialist Party members to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.  She was sunk by a torpedo off the cost of Lybia.
1944: In Brooklyn Rose (née Rapoport) and Akeeba "Kieve" Diamond, a dry-goods merchant gave birth to singer-songwriter Neil Leslie Diamond who was a classmate of Barbra Streisand at Erasmus Hall High School.

https://www.neildiamond.com/

https://www.biography.com/musician/neil-diamond

 1944: Birthdate of David Gerrold [Jerrold David Friedman] author of the World of Star Trek. There has always been a strange affinity between Jewish writers and science fiction. Maybe it comes from those Biblical chariots of Elijah, Ezekiel and Isaiah.

1946: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, a joint British and American committee composed of six Americans and six Englishmen that was charged with examining the “political, economic and social conditions in Mandatory Palestine as they bear upon the problem of Jewish immigration and settlement therein and the well-being of the peoples now living therein” which had been meeting in Washington, D.C. continued its meetings for a second day in London.

1947: Birthdate of Warren William Zevon, the son of a Russian Jewish immigrant and a Scottish/Welsh Mormon who became a noted singer, song writer and musician.

1948: Julius Ochs Adler was promoted to Major General in the United States Army.

1948: Birthdate Elliott Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State and foreign policy expert.

 1949: France recognized Israel.

 1951: Birthdate of Soviet-born American comedian Yakov Smirfnoff

 1952: Twenty-three-year-old Montreal native Larry Zeidel scored “the winning goal as the Indianapolis Capitals defeated Buffalo in the American Hockey League. (As reported by Wechsler)

1953(8thof Shevat, 5713): Parashat Bo

1953(8thof Shevat, 5713): Seventy-two-year-old boxing promoter Michael Strauss “Mike” Jacobs passed away today.

http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/Mike_Jacobs

1956: German born American composer Stefan Wolpe “was appointed to the faculty at the C.W. Post College” today.

1958(3rdof Shevat, 5718): Sixty-five-year-old Dvinsk native Isidor Kadis who in 1905 came to the United States where he attended the University of Cincinnati and HUC and became a “field director of the JNF” who worked with Chaim Weizmann and raised two children with his wife Jean Price Kadis, passed away today.

1959(15th of Shevat, 5719): Tu B'Shvat

1959: "Party with Comden and Green" closes at John Golden New York City

1960: ABC broadcast “Glory,” an episode of “The Rebel” directed by Irvin Kirshner.

1962: Brian Epstein signed a contract to manage The Beatles.

 1963: Birthdate of Michael Gorlovsky, the native of Dzerzhinsk, who made in Aliyah in 1988 following which he joined Likud and was elected to the Knesset from 2003 to 2006.

1964: Bob Hope hosted an hour-long TV version of “The Seven Little Foys” which had been written by Jack Rose and Melville Shavelson.

1965(23rdof Shevat, 5725): Almost a year to the day after the death of her husband Federal Judge Clarence G. Galston,, 89-year old Estelle Elkus Galston the mother of Clarence E. Galston and Mrs. B. Edward Bensinger passed away today.

1965: In Damascus, Syrian police arrested Kamel Amin Th’abet on charges of being an Israeli spy.  After being tortured he was hung in a public execution.  Th’abet was Eli Cohen who successfully penetrated the highest level of the Syrian government and provided intelligence of immeasurable value.

1965: Ninety-year-old Winston Churchill a supporter who led the fight against Hitler when the rest of the word was busy appeasing him, supporting him or standing by an giving him a free hand passed away today.  Martin Gilbert, his official biographer, is Jewish and has written a slim, fascinating volume entitled Churchill and the Jews.

1965: NBC broadcast the first episode of “Branded” a television western created by Larry Cohen

1971: Ninety-year-old Martha Grassmann, the woman who risked her life to hide artist Fritz Ascher during WW II passed away today.

1971: Author Susan Brownmiller “helped to organize the New York Radical Feminists Speak-Out on Rape” which took place today.

1971:” Zachariah,” a musical directed and co-produced by George Englund was released today in the United States.

1971(27thof Tevet, 5731): Seventy-eight-year-old Chicago native Alvin Robert Cahn, the holder of a “BS from Cornell” and “PhD from the University of Illinois where he served on the faculty  who was stationed at Dutch Harbor for three years during WW II passed away today in Tokyo.

1973: Hussein Al Bashir, he Fatah representative on Cyprus was killed tonight when a bomb “plant under his bed was remotely detonated.’

 1974(1st of Shevat, 5734): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1975: ABC broadcast the first episode of “Hot I Baltimore” a sitcom featuring Charlotte Ray and Richard Masur with music by Marvin Hamlisch.

 1975(12thof Shevat, 5735): Seventy-two year old actor and comedian Larry Fine, one of the Three Stooges passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1975/01/25/archives/larry-fine-of-three-stooges-frizzyhaired-comic-is-dead.html

1976(22ndof Shevat, 5736): Seventy-one-year-old Pinchas Lavon passed away

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Lavon.html

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Prime Minister Menachem Begin told the Knesset that he might reconsider his previous decision and would send a delegation to the Cairo-held military talks, but warned that this would not happen if Egypt continued to issue statements offensive to Jewish dignity. Begin explained that Egypt broke off the political talks held in Jerusalem despite the fact that President Anwar Sadat was well aware, in advance, of Israel's stand on the Rafiah Sinai salient and on the future of Palestine's Arab people. In Cairo Egypt confirmed that the political peace talks had been frozen, but not terminated. The US insisted that both Egypt and Israel should embark on a useful process that should resume whenever possible.

1979(25thof Tevet, 5739): Eighty-five old sculptor Bashka Paeff passed away today in Cambridge.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9B02E0DA1639E732A25755C2A9679C946890D6CF

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bashka_Paeff#/media/File:Lexington_Minute_Man_relief_(Basha_Paeff)_-_Lexington,_MA.JP

1983(10thof Shevat, 5743): Director George Cukor passed away at the age of 83 after a stroke and a heart attack.

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/15/books/the-man-in-the-glass-closet.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/41936%7C58446/George-Cukor/

1984: Birthdate of Tel Aviv native Yotam Halperin, the 6’4” guard for Hapoel Jerusalem of the Israeli Basketball Super League.
1986: In Eilat Laura (née Ehrenkranz), a teacher, and Brian Ullman, a printer gave birth to Ricky Ullman who moved to the United States after his first birthday and became a successful actor and musician.

 1988: After the Israeli Cabinet met today Police Minister Haim Bar-Lev told reporters that reports to contrary, there is no policy to beat Palestinians to stop protests in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.  He said that the using the word beatings “is an unfortunate term.”

1988: Eighty-six-year-old London born Biblical scholar Hugh Joseph Schonfield whose works included A New Hebrew Typography and host of controversial books about Judaism and early Christianity including The Passover Plot and Jesus: A Biography passed away today.

1990(27thof Tevet, 5750): Eighty-six-year-old Milton Kalischer, the son of Sigismund and Helen Teresa Kalischer, who was an Iowa State University trained refrigeration engineer and Westinghouse employee.

 1990: An Israeli court jailed for life plus 40 years a Palestinian known as the ''Tel Aviv Strangler,'' who claimed to have killed seven people to prove he was not a collaborator with the Israelis. Four of his victims were Jews and three were Arabs. Mohammed Halabi, 32 years old, was sentenced today for the murders in October of five women and two men. The Tel Aviv District Court jailed him for 40 additional years for two attempted murders. The police said Mr. Halabi confessed to all the charges. 

1991: Israel said it would not carry out an immediate retaliatory strike against Iraq despite the missile attack on Tel Aviv that killed three people. After that decision, another Iraqi missile was destroyed by one of the American Patriot missiles stationed in Israel over the weekend. And it was disclosed that a Patriot had clipped the missile that hit Tel Aviv.

 1991: Mayor David N. Dinkins, who has repeatedly criticized the American effort in the Persian Gulf, said today that he would travel to Israel next week in a symbolic gesture of support for Israelis and for American troops.

 1991: In the currency market, the dollar's recovery today, which was partly technical, followed comments by Israel's Ambassador to the United States, who said Tel Aviv would be ready to join in regional arms control efforts and possible peace talks with the Palestinians once the Persian Gulf War ended. 

1992: In “A Physical Approach For an Israeli 'Hamlet'” Mel Gussow reviews Rina Yerushalmi's provocative adaptation of "Hamlet" at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

 1993: A “travel advisory” issued to reported that the American Jewish Congress will be sponsoring 4 “family tours of Israel” this year ‘that include the opportunity to celebrate a bar or bat mitzvah at the Western Wall in Jerusalem and at the Zealot's Synagogue in Masada.”

1995(23rdof Shevat, 5755): Seventy-seven-year-old Brooklyn-born southpaw Herb Karpel who pitched in two games for the New York Yankees passed away today.

1995: “Following an official state visit to Israel by Austrian President Thomas Klestil in 1994, which included a side tour of Kiryat Mattersdorf, Klestil hosted Rabbi Akiva Ehrenfeld at an official reception at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna” today.

1996(3rdof Shevat, 5756): In the UK, eighty-one-year-old Bernard Philips, founder of Bernard Phillips and Company, passed away today.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituarybernard-phillips-1317581.html

1996: HBO broadcast the first episode of “Tracey Takes On” starring Tracey Ullman.

1997: After premiering on Christmas Day, “Mother” a comedy directed by Albert Brooks who co-authored the script with music by Marc Shaiman and co-starring Albert Brooks, Rob Morrow and Lisa Kudrow was released today in the United States.

 1999: “Get Bruce!” a documentary that included appearances by Billy Crystal, Bette Midler, Roseanne Barr and Paul Reiser was released in the United States today.

1999: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or topics of special interest to Jewish readers including Primo Levi:Tragedy of an Optimistby Myriam Anissimov, The Conversion by Aharon Appelfeld and Reporting Liveby Leslie Stahl.

2000: RADWARE Ltd., of Tel Aviv is prepared to make an equity offering 2.5 million shares this week.

2000: “Urbania” starring Dan Futterman premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

2001: As the controversy surrounding the pardon of Marc Rich continues to grow, Jack Quinn, former White House counsel under President Clinton, who is now Mr. Rich's lawyer said in an interview today that the president had given every indication in their conversations on January 19th that he had read the petition and piles of testimonials that had been sent the previous month and that he was eager to discuss the case on its merits. Their conversation was strictly about the “legal merits.”  There were no questions about party affiliations or the role of Denis Rich, Mr. Rich's former wife, a prominent Democratic fund-raiser and close friend of the Clintons. But now with the pardon drawing so much criticism, Mr. Quinn acknowledged making mistakes and said that President Clinton had every right to be angry with him. ''He should be upset,'' Mr. Quinn said. ''I'm upset.'' Mr. Quinn faulted himself for failing to go public sooner with the rationale for the pardon. Mr. Clinton has been widely criticized for pardoning Mr. Rich, a financier who lived a wealthy exile life in Switzerland for the last 17 years instead of returning to face charges of tax fraud and trading with Iran in violation of sanctions. ''I didn't anticipate well enough the reaction to this,'' Mr. Quinn said. Beyond his kindling a firestorm of criticism more searing than that surrounding any of Mr. Clinton's other last-minute pardons, Mr. Quinn said he was distressed by the perception that he had used connections gained in the years when he was chief of staff to Al Gore and White House counsel to Mr. Clinton to obliterate much of the case against Mr. Rich.

 2001: Today, Mr. Bush appeared to be directing attention away from the Israeli-Palestinian talks and toward major Arab countries by placing telephone calls to four leaders: King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan.

The White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, described the calls as an effort to ''underscore the strong relations the United States has with these nations.'' He said they were ''introductory'' in nature and declined to be specific about substance.

 2001: In France, premiere of Origine Contrôlée a French comedy starring Ronit Elkabetz the Israeli actress in her first French film. 

2001: The cabinet decided tonight Israel will return to peace talks with the Palestinians here on Thursday, after a nearly two-day suspension prompted by the killing of two Israeli civilians in the West Bank.

 2001: Peter Mandelson completed his term as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

 2002: In New York, the 11th annual New York Jewish Film Festival comes to a close.

2002: Professor Schmuel Noah Eisenstadt of Jerusalem delivered the “2ndSimon Dubnow Lecture” at the Old Exchange in Leipzig.

2002: “An Israeli helicopter assassinated Bakr Hamdan in the Gaza Strip, the leader of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, which Israeli security official said was responsible for "dozens of terrorist attacks carried out against Israeli civilians and soldiers in the Gaza Strip.”

2003: A month after a limited release, “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” a film version of a book by Chuck Barris produced by Andrew Lazar, with a screenplay by Charlie Kaufman, filmed by cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel and featuring Jerry Weintraub was released today in the United States.

2003(21stof Shevat, 5763): Seventy-eight-year-old Auschwitz survivor and French labor leader Henri Krasucki passed away today.

http://articles.latimes.com/2003/jan/26/local/me-passings26.3

2004(1stof Shevat, 5764): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

2004: “A who's who of LA's entertainment world are expected to join Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters in honoring respected entertainment industry executive and producer Mark Canton with the Sydney J. Rosenberg Lifetime Achievement Award at the 12th Annual Dinner & Auction Gala tonight at the Century Plaza Hotel.”

2004: “Metallica” a documentary co-directed and co-produced by Bruce Sniofsky premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

2004: An exhibition entitled “What Does It Mean To Be Jewish?” opens at the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam.

 2005: In “A Bright Diaspora Star Fails to Dazzle Israel,” published today Steven Erlanger describes the Israeli reaction to American economist and banker Stanley Fischer becoming Governor of the Bank of Israel. 

 2005: At Columbia University, the Argentine-Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim “compared Herzl’s ideas to Wagner’s; criticized Palestinian terrorist attacks but also justified them; and said Israeli actions contributed to the rise of international anti-Semitism.” (JTA)

 2005: Daniel Barenboim discusses music as a bridge for peace in the Middle East.

 2006: During the Presidency of Robert A. Iger, The Walt Disney Company announced that it would acquire Pixar for $7.4 billion in an all-stock transaction.

 2006: The Los Angeles Times published a column by Joel Stein under the headline "Warriors and Wusses" in which he wrote that it is a cop-out to oppose a war and yet claim to support the soldiers fighting it. "I don’t support our troops.... When you volunteer for the U.S. military, you pretty much know you’re not going to be fending off invasions from Mexico and Canada. So, you’re willingly signing up to be a fighting tool of American imperialism..."

2006: Ehud Olmert, in his first major policy address since becoming Israel's acting prime minister, said at the Herzliya Conference that he backed the creation of a Palestinian state, and that Israel would have to relinquish parts of the West Bank to maintain its Jewish majority. 

2006: The Antiquities Authority recommended the Meggido Prison be transferred to a new location, after the remains of an ancient church were discovered on the facility's grounds four months ago

2007: In what some considered as a major breakthrough in the history of the Holocaust, Haaretzreported that Khaled Abd al-Wahab, a well-to-do Tunisian farmer who died in 1997, was the first Arab to be named as a candidate for a Righteous Gentile award from Yad Vashem. The nomination was based on testimony of Anny Boukris, a 73-year-old Jewish woman from Los Angeles who survived the Axis occupation of North Africa. In a letter sent to the authorities at Yad Vashaem, she described how Abd al-Wahab rescued her and 24 relatives from their hiding place and hid them on his farm until the end of the German occupation. Boukris, who was 11 at the time, related that al-Wahab risked his life when he stopped a German officer from raping her mother.

 2007, Moshe Katsav held a press conference at which he accused journalists of persecuting him and judging him before all the evidence was in.  

2007: In a talk scheduled minutes after Katsav's speech, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called on him to resign from the presidency. 
2007: At the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA, an exhibition entitled “Morris Louis Now: An American Master Revisited” came to a close. By 1966, kingmaker-critics had anointed Morris Louis, the great Washington abstractionist, the greatest painter since Jackson Pollock.

2008: The New York Jewish Film Festival comes to an end with showings of Orthodox Stance a documentary about “Dmitry Salita a twenty-something Russian immigrant equally devoted to the seemingly disparate worlds of professional boxing and Orthodox Judaism”; Villa Jasmin, a film about “Serge, a Tunisian-born Jew living in Paris, who takes his wife to see the country he remembers fondly from his childhood. It is based on a novel by Serge Moati, also explores Serge’s parents’ courtship and his father’s activities with the anti-fascist movement in the 1930s”; The Film Fanatic and The Unkosher Truth a short documentary, in which the filmmaker must muster the courage to tell her father, an Orthodox rabbi and U.S. Army general, that her boyfriend is German and gentile.”

 2008(17thof Shevat, 5768): Rami Zoari, 20, from Beersheba, a border police officer, was killed and another female officer was seriously wounded after terrorists approached the entrance to Shuafat refugee camp in northern Jerusalem and opened fire on a group of Israelis. The Battalions of Struggle and Return, a previously anonymous offshoot of Fatah's Al Aksa Martyrs' Brigades, claimed responsibility for the attack.

2008: Two terrorists entered the Mekor Hayim High School Yeshiva in Kfar Etzion, south of Jerusalem, and stabbed two students. The terrorists were killed by two of the counselors in the room. The Izaddin al-Kassam's Martyrs Brigades, the Hamas military wing, claimed responsibility for the attack.

2009: “The Pink Panther2,” the 11th of the films in the Pink Panther series, written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber premiered at Alpe d’Huez.

2009: The 5th annual Brooklyn Israel Film Festival continues with Noodle, a comic drama about an El Al flight attendant and a 5-year-old Chinese boy left behind when his illegal immigrant mother is deported. Though they have no language in common, the two build a bond as they search for his mother.

2010:Final performance of The Kosher Cheerleader by Sandy Wolshin at the Paradise Valley Community College in Phoenix, Arizona.

2010: “From Verse to Universe: Reading the People’s Torah” is scheduled to open at the San Francisco Contemporary Jewish Museum. 

2010:An exhibition entitled: “Hyman Bloom: A Spiritual Embrace at the Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to come a close.”

 2010: The 19thannual New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to present the United States premiere of the restored print of Bar Mitzvah, a classic of Yiddish cinema, in which a mother miraculously survives a shipwreck and shocks the family by appearing at her son’s bar mitzvah. The film features “the legendary Boris Thomashefsky in his only film performance.”

 2010: The 10th annual Atlanta Jewish Festival is scheduled to present the East Coast Premiere of “The Yankles,” which tells the story of ex-con who is forced to coach an “upstart Orthodox baseball team” as part of the community service sentence imposed by the Judge for a drunk driving conviction.

 2010: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Listener by Shira Nayman

 2010: The Los Angeles Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Where the God of Love Hangs Out by Amy Bloom.

 2010: “3 Backyards, “ a film written and directed by Eric Mendelsohn premiered today at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Directing Prize as did Mendelsohn's first feature, Judy Berlin, making him the only director to have won the prize twice.”

2011: The 92ndStreet Y is scheduled to present a program entitled “2011: Challenges and Opportunities for American and World Jewry” during which Malcolm Hoenlein and John Batchelor are scheduled to lead “a candid discussion of the dangers and issues facing the Jewish community in the coming year, from delegitimization to the peace process to Iran globalization.”

 2011: The U.S. Premiere of “Convoys of Shame” / “Les Convois de la honte” is scheduled to take place at the New York Jewish Film Festival. “This incisive documentary examines how the SNCF (the French national rail company) used its trains and its extensive infrastructure to transport tens of thousands of Jews, Roma, and members of the resistance from France to Nazi concentration camps from 1940 to 1944.

 2011: Today, Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar defended his decision to approve the military conversions which are undertaken according to orthodox Jewish law.

 2011: Rahm Emanuel should not appear on the Feb. 22 mayoral ballot because he does not meet the residency standard, according to a ruling issued by a state appellate court today. Emanuel told a news conference he would appeal the decision to the Illinois Supreme Court and would ask for an injunction so his name will appear on the mayoral ballot.

 2011(19thof Shevat, 5771): David Frye, whose wicked send-ups of political figures like Lyndon B. Johnson, Hubert H. Humphrey and, above all, Richard M. Nixon, made him one of the most popular comedians in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s, died today in Las Vegas (As reported by William Grimes)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/arts/29frye.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=David%20Frye&st=cse

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jzOQh-LzyE

 2012: “Dressing America: Tales From The Garment Center” – a documentary that explores the post-World War II heyday of the garment district in Manhattan” and “pays tribute to the Jewish immigrant roots of the garment industry” – is scheduled to have its New York Premiere at the New York Jewish Film Festival.

2012: “Footnote” a Hebrew language films about a father, a son, Talmudic studies and the Israel Prize “was nominated” today “for an Academy Awards in the category of Best Foreign Film.”

 2012: YIVO is scheduled to present a lecture by Cur Leviant entitled “The Works of Chaim Grade” one of the 20th century’s leading Yiddish authors.

 2012: In Mt. Vernon, Iowa, Holocaust survivor and education Irving Roth is scheduled to speak at Cornell College as part of “Standing With Israel Event.” 

2012: Israel carried out four airstrikes on the Gaza Strip overnight after Palestinian militants fired about six rockets and mortars over the border over the past week, an Israeli military spokesman said today 

2012: Conflicting reports emerged tonight about an alleged Iranian plot against Israeli and Jewish targets in Azerbaijan 

2013(13thof Shevat, 5773): Eighty-four-year-old Richard G. Stern, “the best American author of whom you have never heard” passed away today.  (As reported by Bruce Weber)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/books/richard-g-stern-a-writers-writer-is-dead-at-84.html

 2013: Professor Dan Michman is scheduled to deliver a lecture “Jewish ‘Headships’ and Nazi Anti-Jewish Policies” at the Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide in London.

 2013: Leo Baeck Institute and Center for Jewish History are scheduled to present a screening of “Kinderbloch 66:  Return to Buchenwald”

 2013: Gerhard Loewenberg, University of Iowa professor emeritus and former dean, is scheduled to read from his new memoir, Moved by Politics, at Prairie Lights Books in downtown Iowa City.

 2013: The Wicked Wit of the West featuring Hank Rosenfield on the subject of Irving Brecher is schedule for performance at the Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival

 2013: Four former Border Policemen, accused of abusing a petrified Palestinian man who appeared to be mentally challenged, were in court today to hear the legal arguments over whether or not their actions constituted abuse, Channel 2 reported. (As reported by Stuart Winer)

2013: The nationalist Jewish Home party has risen to become the fourth-largest Knesset faction, with 12 seats, after officials finished counting the votes of soldiers and others this afternoon. The party had been predicted to take 11 seats before the last votes were counted.

2014 Harris J. Weingarten Tennis Weekend is scheduled to begin at the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center in Houston, TX.

2014: Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa is scheduled to host its first Musical Shabbat of 2014.

2014: “Tatiana (Tanya) Edelstein, wife of Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein was brought to rest this afternoon at the Gush Etzion Cemetery.”

2014: Sixty-three-year-old Tatiana (Tania) Edelstein, wife of Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein who passed away last night was laid to rest this afternoon in the Gush Etzion cemetery

2014(23rdof Shevat, 5774): Eighty-five-year-old Shulamit Aloni passed away today.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/former-minister-shulamit-aloni-dies-at-85-2/

 2015(4thof Shevat, 5775): Seventy-four year old historian Robert Herzstein passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/10/world/europe/robert-herzstein-historian-who-linked-a-un-leader-to-nazi-war-crimes-dies-at-75.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2015: “The Naked City” and “A Child of the Ghetto” are scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival.

2015: “Hannah’s Journey” is scheduled to be shown at the Brooklyn Israel Film Festival.

2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to present “The Essence of Schubert” featuring Eliyahu Schulmann, Shmuel Magen and Shlomi Shem Tov.

2016(14thof Shevat, 5776): Eighty-year-old Turing Award winner Marvin Minsky the Princeton Ph.D. who co-founded MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and husband of pediatrician Gloria Rudisch passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/business/marvin-minsky-pioneer-in-artificial-intelligence-dies-at-88.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2016: The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to host “Yad Day” which will feature an exhibit of the museum’s Torah pointers and chance for children to make their own Yads.

2016: “Sirens sounded in communities in the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council, as a rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip.”

2016: The Atlanta Opera is scheduled to present “Pure vs. Degenerate: The Nazi War on Music” a concert that “will feature cabaret, popular and folk songs, opera, and concert hall music by Jewish composers whose works were declared '"degenerate" by the Nazi propaganda machine.”

2016: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Operation Thunderbolt: Flight 139 and the Raid on Entebbe Airport, the Most Audacious Hostage Rescue Mission in History by Saul David, Groucho Marx: The Comedy of Existence by Lee Siegel and Ronald Regan by Jacob Weisberg.

2017: The Center for Jewish History and Leo Baeck Institute are scheduled to present a lecture by Esther Wrtschko on “The Viennese Café in New York Exile” where she will explore “the history of Jewish Austrian émigrés who transplanted the music of Viennese cafes to New York City.”

2017(26thof Tevet, 5777): Seventy-year-old Allan H. Steinfeld who helped to “modernize the New York City” and followed Fred Lebow as head of the Marathon passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/29/sports/allan-steinfeld-dead-new-york-city-marathon.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2017: Dr. Steve Feller is scheduled to present a one hour “overview of his upcoming Coe College Thursday forum on the novels of Chaim Potok with special emphasis on The Chosen, The Promise, My Name is Asher Lev and The Gift of Asher Lev.

2017: “Israel approved the construction of approximately 2,500 homes in the West Bank, most of them in existing settlement blocs it hopes to keep in any peace deal, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman announced” today.

2017: “Marie Curie, The Courage of Knowledge” and “Stefan Zweig, Farewell to Europe” are scheduled to be shown on the final night of the New York Jewish Film Festival.

2018: The Center for Jewish History and the Jewish Book Council are scheduled to host the “series premiere” of “First Person: Jewish Stories, Jewish Lives” featuring Tova Mirvis, the author of The Book of Separation.

2018: JCC Manhattan is scheduled to a live recording of “Unorthodox” Tablet magazines flagship podcast featuring comedian Judy Gold and Father James Martin.

2018: In Little Rock, AR, the Upshernish of Mendel Kramer, the son of Rabbi Yosef and Mushka Kramer and the grandson of Esther Hadassah Ciment, and Rabbi Pinchas Ciment, the leader of  Lubavitch of Arkansas and the personification of the term “Lamplighter.”

2019(18thof Shevat, 5779): On the Jewish calendar, yahrzeit of Astronaut Judith Resnik who died when the “Space Shuttle Challenger” disintegrated 73 seconds after the launch claiming the lives of all seven of those on board the craft.

2019(18thof Shevat): Ninety-five-year-old Norman Goodman, the New Haven, CT born son of Samuel and Lena Goodman and NYU trained attorney who served as country clerk of Manhattan for 45 years passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/24/obituaries/norman-goodman-dead.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage

2019: A screening of “Rosenwald” is scheduled to take place today at Morehouse College as part of the school’s celebration of the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.

2019: Monica Monica Leo of Eulenspiegel Puppets in West Liberty, Iowa, is scheduled to present her show "Finding Home," a “trilogy dealing with Monica's father's incarceration in a Nazi concentration camp, her parents' eventual immigration to a small town in Texas where her father was a Lutheran pastor, and her mother's work as a metal sculptor and peace activist” at Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, IA.

2019: The Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, the U. of Michigan Hill SHARE and the Copernicus Program in Polish Studies are scheduled to co-sponsor a screening of"The Return,” a film that follows four young Polish women and their experiences discovering their Jewish identity in a place that used to be the center of Jewish society” followed by a discussion with Adam Zucker and Professor Geneviève Zubrzycki, CPPS director.”

2019: The Joyce Theatre is scheduled to host a second and final performance of Jerusalem choreographer Sharon Eyal’s “Love Chapter 2.”

2020: Jerusalem born pianist Benjamin Hochman is scheduled to perform at the 92ndStreet Y’s Buttenwieser Hall.

2020: As eastern Iowa braces for its third straight Shabbat Snow, in Cedar Rapids, Temple Judah is scheduled to host a “Musical Shabbat” weather permitting.

2020: Holocaust survivor and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Ruth Cohen is scheduled to speak for the first time about her experience at Auschwitz today “at the Museum’s commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.”

2020: As the Fifth World Holocaust Forum, “the biggest diplomatic event in Israel’s history” comes to an end President Rivlin and Prime Minister Netanyahu are scheduled to “continue to hold bilateral meetings with foreign leaders until about an before the start of Shabbat.” (As reported by Raphael Ahren)

2020: In Los Gatos, CA, an exhibition titled: “In the Artist’s Studio: The Violin Workshop of Amnon and Avshalom Weinstein” is scheduled to open at the New Museum Los Gatos.

https://violinsofhopesfba.org/event/exhibition-in-the-artists-studio-the-violin-workshop-of-amnon-and-avshalom-weinstein/

2021:KlezKanada, Golden Land Concerts & Connections, Yiddish New York, Center for Traditional Music and Dance, the American Society for Jewish Music, Boston Workers Circle, and National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene are scheduled to co-sponsor a virtual concert celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Klezmer Conservatory Band.

2021: Congregation Sha’ar Zahav is scheduled to present Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz’s lecture about having hope in difficult times and developments in progressive Orthodoxy.

2021: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including American Baby: A Mother, a Child and the Shadow History of Adoption by Gabrielle Glaser and the recently released paperback edition of Fight of the Century: Writers Reflect on 100 Years of Landmark ACLU Cases, edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman.

2021: Via Zoom, “two leaders of Carolina Jews for Justice – founder and board member Debbie Goldstein, and Executive Director Rabbi Salem Pearce – are scheduled to discuss the history of Carolina Jews for Justice, how and why the organization was started, how it had evolved over time, what they are doing now, and how they go about ally-ship and partnership.

2021: The New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “Who’s Afraid of Alice Miller,” a documentary about one of the world’s most famous psychotherapists…who narrowly escaped from Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II.”

2021: “The Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County is scheduled to present a program on “The Gellman American Dream,” a documentary featuring the family of Gary Gellman whose family members were “Jewish immigrant farmers during the first half of the 20th century.”

 

This Day, January 25, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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January 25

41: Claudius is accepted as Roman Emperor by the Senate. “Claudius rescinded Caligula’s provocative decrees affecting Judean and reaffirmed Jewish rights throughout the rest of the Roman world.”  Claudius supported the cause of the Jews when they were attacked in separate incidents by the Greeks of Alexandria and the Samaritans.  He maintained a life-long friendship with the Agrippa the last Jewish king in Eretz Israel.

681: The Twelfth Council of Toledo which approved several canons aimed at punishing the Jews including on that prohibited conversos from returning to Judaism and allowed for the confiscation of Jewish owned goods came to a close.

749: Birthdate Leo IV (the Khazar), the Byzantine emperor from 775 through 780 who was known as “the Khazar” because his mother was a Khazar Princess.  If the Khazars were Jewish, does this mean that at least one Byzantine emperor was Jewish?

750: Caliph Marwan II, whose subjects included “self-proclaimed prophet” and Messianic figure known variously as Abu Isa or Isaac ibn Jacob al-Isfahani , passed away today.

1138: Anacletus II passed away. Known as Pietro Pierleone before his elevation to the Papacy in 1130, Anacletus II was referred to as the Jewish anti-pope because he came from a family that had converted from Judaism to Christianity. “One of his great-great grandparents, Benedictus, maybe Baruch in Hebrew, was a Jew who converted into Christianity.” The appellation of anti-pope is one that is hung on several popes who were elected under controversial circumstances.

1327: Edward III who would re-apply the Edict of Expulsion of 1290 because there were reports of “secret Jews” or conversos who had remained in England and were practicing “the faith of their fathers” became King of England today.

1494: Ferdinand I who had provided refuge for the Jews expelled from Spain “in Apulia, Calabria and Naples” passed away following which Charles VII of France invaded his realm which led to an outbreak of a disease known as “French fly” which was blamed on the Jews which led to them being driven from the realm.

 1494: Alfonso II became King of Naples. Alfonso continued to rely on the services of Don Isaac Abravanal the refugee from the Spanish expulsion who had acted as an advisor to his predecessor on the throne, King Ferdinand. Alfonso also continued the policy of his predecessor of allowing Jews fleeing the Inquisition to settle in his kingdom.

 

1515: Coronation of King Francis I of France who strangely enough for a French monarch showed an interest in the Hebrew language. After all, no Jew had legally lived in France for over a century.  But this King invited August Justiniani, the Bishop of Corsica who was reputed to be a serious student of Hebrew literature to move to France.  He also invited Elias Levita, the renowned Hebrew grammarian and poet, to move to France and accept a professorship in the Hebrew language. Levita declined the offer for obvious reasons.

1533: Henry VIII of England secretly married his second wife Anne Boleyn. Henry had failed in his attempt to enlist the support of Italian rabbis in his futile attempt to get the Pope to annul his first marriage.  His marriage to Anne helped move England into the Protestant camp which proved to be beneficial in the Jews’ attempt to return to the British Isles.

1554: Founding of São Paulo, Brazil.  As was the case in so many other parts of Latin America, the first Jews to inhabit Sao Paulo were New Christians or Conversos. The first openly Jewish residents of the city arrived from Alsace-Lorraine in the 19th century. Today São Paulo is home to the largest Jewish community in Brazil with about 130,000 people,

1569: Phillip II of Spain issued the order to set up an inquisition in the New World. Mexico would be the first five years later.

1648: The Khmelnytsky or Chmielnicki Rebellion against the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania began in earnest when Bohdan Khmelnytsky brought a contingent of 300-500 Cossacks to the Zaporizhian Sich and quickly dispatched the guards assigned by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth to protect the entrance. His defeat of the counterattacking Commonwealth forces coupled with is oratorical skills brought thousands of rebels including the Ruthenians to join his uprising.  Jews, who served as the middle-man and administrators for the absentee Polish landlords were an easy target for the rebels. The bloody uprising will mark the long, slow disintegration of the Polish state.  The slaughter of the Jews was so great that it would not be surpassed until the time of the Nazis. 

1764(21stof Shevat, 5524): Five-month-old Sara Barnet, the New York City born daughter of Sara Barnet passed away today.

1754: Bordeaux native Jacob Nones and Rose Fernandez gave birth to Miriam Nones.

1782(10th of Shevat): Rabbi Shalom Sharabi Kabbalist, author of Emet ve-Shalom passed away today.

1783: Philadelphia native Miriam Simon and Michael Gratz where married in Lancaster, PA gave birth to Rachel Gratz the wife of Solomon Moses with whom she had nine children.

1784: Having passed away on Shabbat. Lezer ben Zelig Rachmonus was buried today at the Alderney Road (Globe Road) Jewish Cemetery.

1800(28thof Tevet, 5560): Parashat Vaera.

1801: In London, Julia Asher and Raphael Raphael gave birth to Jane (Shana) Raphael.

1804: Phineas Moses Samuel married Catherine Jacobs at the Great Synagogue today.

1823: Levi Emanuel Cohen, the husband of the former Hannah Benjamin and the father of Levy, Rosetta and Abraham Cohen, was buried today in the United Kingdom.

1823: In Germany, Gela Weil an Isaac Jacob Bamberger gave birth to Elkan Bamberger the husband of Theresa Hutzler with whom he lived in Baltimore, MD and raised eight children.

1826: In Norfolk, Rabbi Seixas officiated at the wedding of Philip I. Cohen to Augusta Myers, the daughter of Moses Myers.

1839: Birthdate of Amsterdam native Michael Rudelsheim, the husband of Rebecca Hirsch and father of Samuel Rudelsheim.

1841: In Germany, Babette True and Isaac Jacob Bamberg gave birth to Bertha Bamberger, the wife of Baltimore resident Aaron Friedenwald with whom se raised five children – Harry, Julius, Bernard, Norman and Edgar.

1841: In Bridgetown, Barbados, the committee governing the Kaal, agreed to place £ 10 sterling “at the disposal of the London Committee led by Sir Moses Montefiore that is working to alleviate “the suffering of the Jews in the east.”

1844: Congregation Shaarai Shomayim u-Maskil el Dol was chartered today in Mobile, Alabama. “Israel I. Jones (1810–1877), a London Jew who arrived early in the 1830s, was president of the congregation for most of his life; one of his daughters married the well-known New Orleans rabbi, James Koppel Gutheim (1817–1886). An auctioneer and tobacco merchant, Jones was active in politics, served as an alderman, was president of the Mobile Musical Association, and introduced streetcars to Mobile.”

1847: In Kirvany, Comitat Saros, Hungary, Herman Miller and Rachel Friedman gave birth to Morris Miller, the husband of Annie Rich, who came to the United States in 1865, lived in Cleveland, Ohio, Meadville, PA and Kalamazoo, Michigan before moving to Milwaukee in 1881 where he served as the Director of the Milwaukee Agriculture Association and trustee, treasurer, vice-president and president of the Hebrew Relief Association.

1849: The West End Synagogue of British which had been formed by Jews who left Bevis Marks in 1841 dedicated its new facility in Upper Berkeley Street.

1851(22ndof Shevat, 5611): Sixty-nine-year-old Lewis Wolfe Levy, the son of Martha and Benjamin Wolfe Levy and the husband of Julia Levy passed away today in Rockwood, New South Wales, Australia.

http://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/levy-lewis-wolfe-4017

1852: Achille Fould resigned as the French Minister of Finance.

1852: French political leader Achille Fould was appointed as a Senator and later rejoined the government as a Minister of State.

1854(25th of Tevet, 5614): Filosseno Luzzatto passed away. Born at Trieste in 1829; he was an Italian Jewish scholar; son of Samuel David Luzzatto. His name is the Italian equivalent of the title of one of his father's principal works, "Oheb Ger," which was written at the time of Filosseno's birth. “He showed from childhood linguistic aptitude, and having mastered several European languages, he devoted himself to the study of Semitic languages and Sanskrit.” At the age of thirteen he deciphered some old inscriptions on the tombstones of Padua which had puzzled older scholars. Two years later, happening to read D'Abbadie's narrative of his travels in Abyssinia, he resolved to write a history of the Falashas. In addition to writing several original works, he “translated into Italian eighteen chapters of the Book of Ezekiel, adding a Hebrew commentary. Luzzatto contributed to many periodicals, mostly on philological or exegetical subjects.”

1854: “The Will of Judah Touro,” published today described the terms of the late philanthropist and businessman’s final testamentary document.  The will was dated January 6, 1854, 7 days before his death.   The will appointed four executors, three of whom were to receive $10,000 and a four, R.D. Shepperd who is the “residuary legatee.  Touro bequeathed approximately $450,000 to different Jewish and non-Jewish institutions and charities.  Among them were  $20,000 left to the Jew’s Hospital Society of New York; $10,000 left to the New York Relief Society for Indigent Jews in Palestine; $50,000 left for the agent of “a society dedicated to ameliorating the condition of the Jews in the Holy Land and the securing the enjoyment of their religion”  as well as bequests left to Jewish congregations throughout the United States including, but not limited to $5,000 to a Jewish congregation in Boston, $5,000 to a Jewish congregation in  Hartford, $5,000 to a Jewish congregation in  New Haven, $5,000 to a Jewish congregation in New York, $5,000 to a Jewish congregation in Charleston and $5,000 to a Jewish congregation in Savannah

1854: Sir Henry Rawlinson wrote to from Baghdad today that “a number of clay cylinders taken from the ruins of what is ‘Ur of the Chaldees’ of Genesis disclosed the fact that a few years” prior “to the fall of Babylon, Nabonnedus had associated his son Bilsharuzur, the ‘Belshazzar’ of Scripture with him in the government” “thus showing the harmony between the Biblical narrative and secular history.”

1858: The Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn becomes a popular wedding recessional after it is played on this day at the marriage of Queen Victoria's daughter, Victoria, and Friedrich of Prussia. Felix Mendelssohn is the grandson of Moses Mendelssohn.  Felix Mendelssohn was born to Jewish parents in 1809, Felix’s father, Abraham, had the famous composer baptized as a Lutheran in 1816.

1860: In New York City, Gershom Nathan and Rosalie Gomez gave birth to Columbia University trained attorney Edgar J. Nathan, the scion of several the city’s oldest Sephardic families, and partner of Justice Benjamin N. Cardoza who was the husband of Sara N. Solis and the father of Edgar J. Nathan, Jr the Manhattan Borough President.

https://www.jta.org/1929/06/20/archive/funeral-services-today-for-edgar-j-nathan

1861: Charles Dyte laid the foundation stone for the historic Ballarat Synagogue, the oldest surviving synagogue on the Australian mainland.

1861: In a letter that an unidentified resident of New Orleans, LA, wrote to a friend in Boston, he described the voting patterns of various groups in the recent election. If you believe his description, most groups voted for one of the Unionist or Compromise candidates. Only "The Jews voted for secession."

1864: Philadelphian Samuel Rothschild began serving with Company I, Seventy-fourth

1865: Dr. William H. Thomson read a paper entitled "What we have to learn in the East" at tonight’s meeting of the American Ethnological Society.  A longtime resident of Syria, who traveled extensively in throughout the Middle East, Dr. Thomson reported on “the importance of extensive investigations among the innumerable mounds” found in the area.  Examination of similar mounds has provided information about early inhabitants including the Hebrews, Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans.  [Ed. Note – What the doctor was describing are the innumerable “tels” that would become the focal point of archaeological interest in modern day Israel.] 

1865: In Whitechapel London Ignac and Cecilia Pick gave birth to Flora Pick who became Flora Jacobs after marrying Montague Daniel Jacobs with whom she had had five children – Albert, Ella, Gladys, Vera and Victor Jacobs.

1868(1st of Shevat, 5628): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1870: The New York Times published an editorial defending itself against charges by “a Jewish newspaper” that the paper is paying too much attention to the “Reform party within the ancient sect.” The editorial cites the creation of Temple Israel in Brooklyn as proof of that there is a significant segment of the Jews that “are anxious to make great and fundamental changes in their doctrines and faith.”  The editorial finished by saying that it would publish information about any sect within Judaism that are based on “facts.” [Editor’s note: It is significant that a leading metropolitan daily was publishing stories about Jewish culture and religion that were generally informative at a time when the Jewish population was a rather infinitesimal part of the general population.

1870: In Chicago, Cecilie and Alexander Pam gave birth to Hugo Pam who earned his law degree at the University of Michigan in 1892 who served as member of the Superior court “for more than eighteen years” who served as Vice President of the Zionist Organization of American and “headed the Platine Restoration Fund in Chicago.”

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0015_0_15367.html

1872: The United States confirmed M.A. Shaffenburg as U.S. Marshall for the Territory of Colorado.

1873: In Lithuania, David Menachem and Taube Leah gave birth Samuel Nathan Deinard who became “a professor of Semitic languages and literature” at his alma mater the University of Minnesota and the rabbi at Temple Israel the oldest synagogue in the Twin Cities and who raised three children – Amos, Benedict and Miriam – with his wife Rose.

http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/43/v43i06p213-221.pdf

1874: “The second constitutional convention of the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith” opened today in Chicago, Illinois at the Kingsbury Music Hall. Simon Wolf of Washington, D.C. was elected President.  During the afternoon session, a massive gold medal was presented in memory of A.E. Frankland, the Memphis, TN, Jew who worked to ameliorate the suffering in that city’s Yellow Fever Epidemic.

 

1874: Birthdate of San Francisco landscape artist Lionel Louis Edwards who passed away in 1954.

https://earlycal.com/products/lionel-edwards-1874-1954-california-plein-air-canvas

1874: Reverend Samuel Alman was installed today as the pastor of the Second Mission Baptist Church. Before converting, Alman had been a member of the Stanton Street Jewish Congregation

1877: In San Francisco, “Eugene and Josefine Mandelbaum Arnstein” gave birth to Leo Arnstein, the Yale educated Attorney, U.S. Army Lt. Col during WWI and civic leader closely connected with Mayor La Guardia who was the husband of the former Elsie Nathan with whom he had four children – William, Robert, Margaret and Elizabeth.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1944/08/15/87463870.pdf

1879(1stof Shevat, 5639): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1879(1stof Shevat, 5639): In Berlin, Harry and Caroline Bresslau gave birth to Hélène Mariane Schweitzer

1879: In New York City, “Julius Sachs, an educator” and “Rosa Goldman, the daughter of Goldman Sachs’s founder Marcus Goldman gave birth to Harvard undergraduate and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine trained neurosurgeon Ernest Sachs, the husband of playwright and poet Mary Parmly Koues with he had two son and one daughter.

https://www.societyns.org/society/bio.aspx?MemberID=7660

1879: The Pioneers, a St. Louis literary club for Jewish women, meet for the first time today.

1880: Birthdate of Columbia University graduate Meyer Jacobstein who taught economics at the University of North Dakota and the University of Rochester before serving as member of the House of Representatives for three terms.

http://www.irwincollier.com/columbia-economics-phd-alumnus-meyer-jacobstein-1907/

https://history.house.gov/People/Detail/15741

1881: Birthdate of Emil Cohn the native of Breslau who gained fame as journalist and author Emil Ludwig who specialized in writing biographies and who re-identified as a Jew when Walther Rathenau was murdered in 1922.

1882 (5th of Shevat): Bilu was founded at Kharkov.

1882: The Hearts of Oak Company featuring David Belasco as “Mr. Ellingham” performed for the last time at Leubrie’s Theatre in St. Paul, MN.

1885: Five days after he had passed away at Frankfurt, fifty-one-year-old Abraham Seligman, the husband of Elenore Seligman with whom he had had five children was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1885: Herman Ahlwardt wrote a letter today in he said, "Antisemitism is illogical; I have always condemned it and shall continue to condemn religious intolerance until my last breath." (Ahlwardt would change his views when he failed to find political success among the Conservatives and become notorious anti-Semitic pamphleteer, agitator and member of the Reichstag.

1885: In Odessa, Julius and Henrietta (Katz) Melkiner gave birth to Columbia trained attorney Aaron Melniker, the resident of Bayonne, NJ, combat veteran of the A.E.F and Republican Party Leader who was the husband of Gladys Witt.

1886(19thof Shevat, 5646): Ninety–one year old Elias Mayer, the French born husband of Abby Mayer with whom he had 13 children passed away today in Philadelphia.

1887: Birthdate of Berl Katznelson the Russian native who “was 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.”

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/katznelson.html

1889: En route from Russia, Louis A, and Katherine (Golman) Gitlow gave birth to Columbia trained physician and biochemist Samuel Gitlow, the husband of Judith Leonora Rosenblum who among other things taught biochemistry at his alma mater, “worked on alum baking powders in bread” and was the director of the laboratory at the Bronx Hospital starting in 1926.

1890: In Louisville, KY, “David and Frieda (Weiss) Mann gave birth to Louis Leopold Mann, the holder of a BA and MA from the University of Cincinnati, a B.H.L. from Hebrew Union College and Ph.D. from Yale University and the Rabbi of Sinai Congregation in Chicago who was active in numerous cultural and educational organizations including the National League of Woman Voters and the Jewish Chautauqua Society and was the husband of Ruth Cohen with whom he had two children – Mary Louise and Arthur Horace.

1890: Birthdate of Latvia native Milton Kahn, who in 1904 came to Boston where he earned a B.S. from M.I.T. and became a successful paper company executive while rising to serve as the National Chairman of the Brandeis University Associates.

1891: Rabbi Gustav Gustav Gottheil delivered an address entitled “An Earnest Word To Christians” at Temple Emanu-El in New York.

 

1891: Based on information that first appeared in the London Daily Telegraph it was reported today that Baron Hirsch has donated £500,000 for education of “indigent Jews” in various parts of Austria, including Lemberg and Czernowitz.  Although intended to provide education for Jewish children, “the Hirsch school will...be open to Christian children” as well.

1891: Birthdate of Lazarus Joseph, the native of the Lower East Side and grandson of Rabbi Jacob Joseph, who served as State Senator and New York City Comptroller.

1891: In Berlin, Albert Mosse, the of Dr. Marcus Mosse and Ulrike Mosse and Caroline (Lina) Mosse gave birth to Eric Peter Mosse

1892: It was reported today that the delegates from the Hebrew Trades Union would join with others in calling for all labor organizations in the United States “to send delegates to an international labor congress” scheduled “to be held in Chicago in 1893.” 

1893:  In Arras (Pas-de-Calais) Protestant mining engineer Paul-Louis Weiss and Jeanne Javal a member of an Alsatian Jewish family gave birth to “Louise Weiss was an influential voice in French and international affairs from the 1920s until her death in 1983.”

http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/weiss-louise

1894: Isaac Bergman, a 30-year-old homeless tailor was arrested and imprisoned after he attempted to commit suicide today at the offices of the United Hebrew Charities because he had been told “that there was no work” available for tailors.

1895: The Young Ladies and Gentlemen's League of the Montefiore Home hosted a ball at the Carnegie Music Hall to raise fund for the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids. 

1895: The Monte Relief Society, a charitable and social organization founded by a small group of Jewish women under the leadership of Mrs. Sofia Monte-Loebinger two years ago, is scheduled to host a party at the Terrace Garden designed to raise funds to relieve “distress among the Hebrew poor.”

1896: A sub-committee of Board of Alderman in New York met today to discuss whether or not to accept a fountain dedicated to the memory of Heinrich Heine.

1897: Aloe Alfred, began his military today as a Private in the United States Army.

 

1897: Starting today and lasting for the rest of the week Civil Service examinations were administered in New York for the position of Court Interpreter.  Hebrew was one of the six languages in which applicants could be tested. (The test for Hebrew would seem to have been a misguided attempt to cope with the large surge of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.  In reality, most of these immigrants spoke Yiddish, not Hebrew.)

1898: Birthdate of Polish native Henry Earl J. Wojciechowski, the Chicago mobster whose moniker of Earl “Hymie’ Weiss led people to think that this Catholic whose burial site is topped by a large cross was Jewish.

1898: Cleveland, Ohio, liquor dealer Saul Jacobs was convicted of larceny in the first degree for his part in a scheme to swindle Max Bernstein.

1898: It was reported today that troops were called out to help the police respond to anti-Jewish riots in St. Malo. (This was part of the on-going anti-Dreyfus violence sweeping France)

1898: It was reported today that in Algiers, “the Governor General narrowly escaped a chair which was thrown at him” as he tried to disperse anti-Jewish mobs.  The mob now included “a number of natives” whose only interest was looting and pillaging.

1898: At least one hundred people went trial today for their part in the anti-Jewish riots in Algiers, the capital of Algeria which was a French colony. “Eighty of the rioters were condemned to terms of imprisonment varying from three months to year…One who was caught in the act of pillaging was sentenced to five years in prison.”

1899(14thof Shevat, 5659): Eighty-seven-year-old Adolphe d'Ennery the French dramatist who converted some of his plays into successful novels passed away today in Paris.

1899: Birthdate of Worcester native Carl Pack, the Brooklyn Law School trained attorney and the Bronx Democratic State Senator from the 22ndDistrict who was “vice president of Temple Beth Elhoim and the husband of “the former Henrietta Langbert” with whom he had two children.

1899:  Birthdate of Goodman Ace. Born Goodman Aiskowitz, Kansas City, Missouri, he was a writer and comedian who created Easy Aces.  The scripts for this long running radio hit would be the source for television shows in the 1970’s.  He also created the “You Are There,” the pseudo-news show that helped to launch the career of Walter Cronkite.

1900(24thof Shevat, 5660): Seventy-year-old Piedmont native, patriot and financer Senator Isaac Artom who took part in the battles of Curtatone and Montanara and served as secretary to Italian leader Count Camillo Cavour, passed away today in Rome.

 

1901(5thof Shevat, 5661): Seventy-two-year-old Baron Wilhelm Carl von Rothschild the son of Baron Carl Mayer von Rothschild of Naples and the husband of Mathilde Hannah von Rothschild, the second oldest daughter of Anselm von Rothschild, a chief of the Vienna House of Rothschilds passed away today in Frankfurt where he was head of the Frankfurt House of Rothschild.

1902: Herzl proposes to Franz Oppenheimer the creation of a model cooperative colony in El Arish.

1903: The Eighth Annual Convention of the Progressive Order of the West opened today in St. Louis, MO.

1904: Herzl met Pope Pius X and tried to convince him to support the vision of Zionism without any success. The pope totally rejected the idea that Jerusalem would be in Jewish hands.  (The papacy still clings to this notion.) Herzl is received by Pope Pius X, who declares, he cannot support the return of the infidel Jews to the Holy Land. ("If you come to Palestine and settle your people there, we want to have churches and priests ready to baptize all of you.")

1904: Birthdate of Morris Ploscowe, the native of Libachin, Russia, who came to the United States in 1907 after which he earned a law degree from Harvard and pursued a career that included serving as executive director of the American Bar Association Commission on Organized Crime and an “active member of the American Jewish Community”

1905: “To Teach Jews to Farm” published today described plans by The Jewish Argicultural Society which is supported by the Barron Hirsch Fund to erect model buildings on the recently purchased Jeffery Smith farm near  Kings Park, L.I. which will be “used to give practical instructions to Hebrews in farming” which will help “lead” the Jews from such crowded areas as the East Side and Brownsville.

1906: Jews in the United States were absorbing reports coming from Bucharest through Berlin that “massacres of Jews have taken place in Kishinev and various parts of Bessarabia” for which “details are lacking.”

1907: Eduard Bernstein, a leading German social democrat whose “Jewish parents, who were active in the Reform Temple on the Johannistrasse where services were performed on Sunday” competed his first terms of service as a “Member of the Imperial Reichstag from Silesia.”

1908: “Because of imitators, Houdini put his "handcuff act" behind him” today, and “began escaping from a locked, water-filled milk can.”

1909(3rdof Shevat, 5669): Idudowitz Schore-Riewe drowned today.

1909: In Sioux City, IA, Kate Sandwina and her husband birth to heavyweight boxer Theodore “Teddy” Sandwina.

1909: German composer Richard Strauss' opera “Elektra” receives its debut performance at the Dresden State Opera. Strauss was born in 1864 and passed away in 1949 which means that his last years as an active composer coincided with the rise and fall of Hitler and the Nazis.  Many have been critical of his close association with the Third Reich.  His defenders claim that Strauss’ behavior was determined by his need to protect his son and daughter-in-law who was Jewish, In fact, the couple was arrested in Vienna during the war and it took all of Strauss’ best efforts to save them.

1910(15thof Shevat, 5670): Tu B’Shevat

1910(15thof Shevat, 5670): Sixty-seven-year-old Sarah Lazarus, the daughter of Moses and Esther Lazarus passed away today in New York City.

1912: The Savannah Section withdraws from the Council of Jewish Women.

1913: It was reported today that, “in a dispatch from Jerusalem” The London Daily has said “that the Palestine Exploration Fund workers, Mckenzie and McAllister have unearthed Bethe Sehmesh” the town mentioned in the Sixth Chapter of the First Book of Samuel “in the ruins thirty miles from Jerusalem.

1913(17thof Shevat, 5673): Parashat Yitro

1913(17thof Shevat, 5673): Wilhelm Bacher, a Hungarian rabbi and scholar passed away in Budapest.  Born in 1850, he was “a major contributor” to the “Jewish Encyclopedia” as well as close friend of many Jewish intellectuals notably Chaim Nachman Bialik

1913: Birthdate of Chicago native Armand Deutsch, the son Adele Deutsch Levy, the grandson of Sears CEO Julius Rosenwald and the stepson of Dr. David M. Levy whose friendship with the Reagans led  to his appointment as a member of the “Presidential Task Force on the Arts and Humanities.”

1913: “Yiddish star Boris Thomashefsky and his all-star company” are scheduled give two performances one of which will be a matinee of the new play “Breach of Promise” at the Haymarket Theatre.

1913: In Camden, NJ, J.F. Kantor, the head of the of Young Men’s Hebrew Association presided over a meeting attended by more than a thousand at the Broadway Theatre where he delivered a speech designed to impress the audience with ‘the importance and necessity of a Jewish communal building.”

1913: Birthdate of Harlem native Moe Frankel who played basketball for the Harlem Hebrew Institute, DeWitt Clinton High School and New York University before playing professional for ABL teams from 1936 through 1947.

http://probasketballencyclopedia.com/coach/moe-frankel/

1914: “More than a thousand persons crowded into the Broadway Theatre” in Camden, NJ, this afternoon and heard Isaac Hassler of Philadelphia tell them of the importance of constructing the “Jewish communal building” which was being championed by the Young Men’s Hebrew Association of Camden.

1915: A list of contributors to the Hebrew Free Loan Society provide President Julius J. Dukas published today included Jacob Schiff, $1,000; Mortimer L. Schiff, $1,000; Felix M. Warburg, $1,500; Adolph Lewisohn, $500 and Maxwell Guggenheim $100.

1915: “Fulton Brylawski, of counsel of Leo M. Frank, under sentence of death for murder in Atlanta, today moved in the Supreme Court of the United States for the advancement of argument in Frank’s appeal for a writ of habeas corpus.”

1915: The trial of Dan H. Leon, the southern representative of the W.J. Burns Detective Agency, C.C. Tedder and Arthur Thurman who have been indicted for subordination of perjury that resulted in false testimony being given in the case of Leo Franks is scheduled to begin in Atlanta, GA.

1916: “The various committees having a hand in the collections of money for the relief of the Jews perfected arrangements” today for the upcoming “observance of he days especially set apart by the Presidential Proclamation when all may assist Jews in distress in war-stricken countries.”

1916: Mayor Mitchel did not attend last night’s meeting of the American Jewish Congress but was reported today to have a sent a message of regret “in which he said: ‘The Christian peoples of Europe and America ought to be as one in demanding for Jews equality for the law, no more, no less.”

1916: In Boston, Massachusetts Governor McCall issued a proclamation “asking the people of the State to contribute on January 27 to the aid of Jews stricken by the European war in accordance with the recent proclamation by President Wilson?

1917: As Americans debate the wisdom of entering the war (with all that will come to mean for the Jewish people) conflicting reports were published today about the deportation of Belgian civilians by the Germans who have been occupying the country since 1914.

1918: As the day turns into evening and Jews begin to observe Shabbat Bo, ‘in synagogue throughout” the United States” rabbis are scheduled to “devote their sermons to the impending re-establishment of the Jewish State in Palestine to donate the offering to the Palestine Restoration Fund, the first one million dollars of which is now being raised in the United States.

 1918: In New London, Annie Rifkin and Barnett Lubow gave birth to Sylvia Lubow who became Sylvia Lubow Rindskopf when she married future Admiral and decorated war hero Maurice Rindskopf.

1918: Vilmos Vázsonyi, the Hungarian leader who fought to gain “official recognition for the Jewish religion” began serving his second term as Minister of Justice.

1918: In Bendery, Bessarabia, the municipality intervened “in favor Jewish students enrolled by the heads of local Railway Institute where refused admittance by the other students.

1918: In Warsaw, the Jewish Socialist Labor Party (Paole-Zion) held its fifth conference adopted “resolutions respecting Jewish municipal life.”

1919(24thof Shevat, 5679): Parashat Yitro

1919: In New York City, Myron Newman, a credit manager and Rose (née Parker) Newman gave birth to NBC newsman Edwin Harold “Ed” Newman, the brother of reporter M.W. Newman and the husband of Rigel Grell.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/business/media/16newman.html

1919: Awni Abdul Hadi and Ahmad Qadri met with an unnamed Zionist representative at the Hotel Meurice

1919: The League of Nations was founded.  British control over Palestine would take its legal form from a Mandate by the League of Nations.  The failure of the League to halt the aggression of Japan in China, Italy in Abyssinia and the fascists in Spain is listed as one of the causes of World War II and therefore the Shoah.  The League failed as a peace keeper, in part, because the United States refused to join, a mistake it would not repeat at the end of WW II when it joined the United Nations.

1920: In Brooklyn, produce merchant Milton Mollen and Esther Mollen gave birth to Milton Mollen, the WW II veteran and head of the Mollen Commission which investigated charges of police corruption in the 1990’s.

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

1920: “Asserting that the suspension of the Socialist Assemblymen is an attack on liberty by political action which has been well prepared through the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment, Rabbi Samuel Schulman, preaching at the Temple Beth-El” this “morning on ‘The Dangers to American Liberty,’ said that the present tendency toward paternalism in Government is on which the framers of the Constitution could dream of as possible for free men.”

1921: In Brooklyn, Lazarus and Jenny Cohen gave birth to Samuel Theodore Cohen, the Father of the Neutron Bomb.

1922: A committee chaired by Rabbi Louis Feinberg of Cincinnati, Ohio, will deliver a report to Rabbinical Assembly of the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) on the acceptability of using unfermented grape juice for sacramental purposes.

1922: Temple Beth El held its 10th Annual Ball at the Elmwood Music Hall in Buffalo, New York.

1924: The Hebrew Standard Review of Israel reported that “the combined sports meeting held at the Love Cove” on January 20th was a “success” which established “the new spirit and ideal of Sydney’s Jewish youth…”

1925: The former Hahambashi of Turkey, Rabbi Haim Nahoum was elected Chief Rabbi of Cairo, Egypt.

1925: Birthdate of John Livingston Weinberg, American banker and businessman.

1926: “Tartuff” a film version of the French play photographed by Karl Freund with a script by Carl Mayer was released in Germany today.

1927(22ndof Shevat, 5687): Forty-three-year-old, Dr. Julius Lawrence “Mortimer” Mogulesko, a graduate of Columbia University School of Medicine and specialized in the field of Bacteriology passed away today.

1927: Birthdate of Yitzhak Hofi, the native of Tel Aviv who began his career as a member of the Palmach, reached the rank of General in the IDF before serving as the head of Mossad.

1927: Birthdate of New York native and NYU graduate Jay Smolens Harrison, the music editor of the New York Herald Tribune

https://www.nytimes.com/1974/09/13/archives/jay-s-harrison-47-music-editor-dead.html

1928: Birthdate of Rabbi Sherwin Wine, founder the Birmingham Temple in suburban Detroit in 1963. He also was the driving force behind the creation of the Society for Humanistic Judaism in 1969.  He died in auto accident at the age of 79 in 2007.

1929: In Surrey, England, Jessica Hay Aitken and Robert Faurisson gave birth toRobert Faurisson who denies the suffering of Elie Weisel, the Diary of Anne Frank and the reality of the Final Solution. (As reported by Adam Nossiter)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/22/obituaries/robert-faurisson-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

1930: Pinky Silverberg lost a non-title bout to the reigning NBA World Bantamweight Champion in Havana, Cuba.

1931: In Brooklyn, attorney and some-times Broadway producer Emil Katzka and his wife gave birth to Gabriel Katzka whose production included the anti-war and very humorous “Kelly’s Heroes” and the original version of “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.”

1931: Jewish leaders are scheduled to meet “at the Hotel Astor to plan the first independent campaign in America of the Jewish Agency for Plaestine”

1932: “Warburg a Leader in Banking Reform” published today provided a detailed account of the financier’s life and accomplishment including his criticism of “the present orgies of unrestrained speculation” months before the Crash of 1929 and his role as trustee of Tuskegee College, the “all black college” which was an educational beacon of hope to African-Americans in the days of Segregation.

1932(17thof Shevat, 5692): Sixty-eight-year-old University of Michigan trained attorney Judge Charles Bechhoefer, the Somerset County, PA born son of Rebeca and Abraham Bechhoefer who married Caroline Goldman after the death of his first wife and her sister Helen Goldman and who settled in St. Paul, MN where he served as Judge of the District Court passed away today after which he was buried in Mt. Zion Temple Cemetery in St. Paul.

http://www.minnesotalegalhistoryproject.org/assets/Bechhoefer,%20Charles-MM.pdf

1932: Degrees were awarded to 13 graduates at the first commencement exercises of Hebrew University which was opened in 1925.

1933(27thof Tevet, 5693): Seventy-one-year-old Samuel Edgard, the Liverpool born son of Harriet and Walter Samuel and the husband of Ethel Julia Edgard passed away today in London.

1934: In Tarnow, Galicia, Israel Mendel Keller and his wife gave birth to Naphtali Keller the short-lived author who wrote in Hebrew.

1936(1stof Shevat, 5696): Parashat Vaera and Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1936(1stof Shevat, 5696): Sixty-five-year-old gynecologist Dr. George Gellhorn, the husband suffragette and social reformer Edna Gehllhorn and the father of famed correspondent Martha Gellhorn passed a way today in St. Louis.

1936: “New anti-Jewish rioting broke out today in Krakow, Wilno and Warsaw universities…”

1936: “A plan to get as many Jews out of Germany as possible was outlined publicly” tonight in St. Louis “by Sir Herbert Samuel, the first British High Commissioner for Palestine and Felix M. Warburg, a partner in Kuhn, Loeb and Co.”

1936: Twenty-five year old Ben Kramer, lead LIU to victory today over St. John’s.

1937: In another attack on the economic well-being Jews, “the Reich University of Agriculture issued a decree tonight enable it to revoke the licenses of horse or cattle dealers who are to be ‘personally unfitted’ for their business.

1937: As of today, “no evidence has been discovered of any incident or development to account for the suspension” by the secret police of a majority of Jewish organizations in Germany including “the Jewish League of World War Veterans, Jewish sport groups, Jewish cultural groups and various occupational schools organized to help Jews prepare for emigration.”

1938:  Conde Nast, the published of Vogue, “announced today that he had accepted the resignation of of Cecil Beaton, British photographer and artist from the staff of the magazine” because he had submitted a drawing for the February 1 issue that Nast said appeared to contain “comments that were critical of the Jews race” and that he “was particularly distressed that these slurring comments should have been printed in Vogue, especially during these days of cruel, vicious and unreasoning persecution of Jews.

1938: In “Miami’s Anti-Semitic Jews” published today Robert Gessner describes a resort where “eighty-percent of all its hotels are owned and operated by Jews” and where “it’s almost impossible for a Jewish boy to get a job.”

http://www.unz.org/Pub/NewMasses-1938jan25-00015?View=PDFPages

1939: “Roberto Farinacci and Julius Streicher, the leading Jew-baiters, respectively, of Italy and Germany, made speeches tonight in the Sportspalast” in Berlin on "the Jewish problem."

1939: George Rublee, the chairman of the Inter-governmental Committee on Refugees met with Helmuth Wohlthat, “the specialist for Aryanization problems” to discuss “ways and means for the evacuation of Jew from Germany.”

1940: Birthdate of Lt. Col. Avraham "Avi" Lanir one of the most accomplished and bravest pilots in the IAF.  On the first day of the Yom Kippur War, Lanir joined with Colonel Oded Marom flew their Mirage jets to the Golan where they engaged four MiGs, shooting down one a piece.  Tragically, Colonel Lanir would be shot down by the Syrians who tortured him to death.

1940: The Nazi decreed the establishment of Jewish ghetto in Lodz, Poland.

1941: Warsaw diarist Chaim Kaplan wrote today “Will we be able to survive?  This question is on everyone’s tongue.”

1942: Hungarian military units under the command of General Feketehalmi-Zeisler, General Bajor-Bayer and Captain Zoldi completed “cleaning up the southern region captured from the Yugoslavs” which included the murder of 1,500 Jews in Novisad.

1943: Hans Frank, the Governor-General of occupied Poland delivered a “speech on the need to exterminate Poles.” (Eugene Davidson)

1944: Hans Frank, governor-general of Occupied Poland, notes in his diary that approximately 100,000 Jews remain in the region under his control, down by 3,400,000 from the end of 1941.

1945: U.S. premiere of “The Thin Man Goes Home” with a story by Harry Kurnitz and Robert Ruskin who also co-authored the screenplay.

1945: U.S. premiere of “I Love A Mystery” directed by Henry Levin.

1945(11thof Shevat, 5705): Eighty-five-year-old Bert H. Prinz, who came to the United States in 1864 with is parents Abraham and Rose Wohlgemuth Prinz where he owned several clothing stores the most successful of which was Printz Company Men’s Clothing and Furnishing with headquarters in Youngstown Ohio, passed away today.

1945: Today, two separate recordings of Harold Arlen’s "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive" reached the Billboard magazine charts today.

1945: Labor camp prisoners from Blechhammer began their five-day march to Bergen-Belsen during which about 20% of them died.

1945: The Nazis begin the evacuation of the Stutthof concentration camp. In yet another Death March prisoners were sent westward in the middle of driving snow storm. Many would die from freezing. Others were shot or thrown into the icy Baltic Sea.

1946: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, a joint British and American committee composed of six Americans and six Englishmen that was charged with examining the “political, economic and social conditions in Mandatory Palestine as they bear upon the problem of Jewish immigration and settlement therein and the well-being of the peoples now living therein” which had been meeting in Washington, D.C. met for a third day in London.

1946: “My Reputation” a love story directed by Curtis Bernhardt, co-produced by Jack L. Warner and with music by Max Steiner was released in the United States today.

1946: “Whistle Stop” a crime film directed by Léonide Moguy, with a script by Philip Yordan was released in the United States today

1947: Today “Tel Aviv was placed out of bounds to British offduty troops today as part of precautions to meet expected new outbreaks on behalf of Dov Gruner, Irgun Zvai Leumi member sentenced to be hanged for complicity in an attack on a police station last April.”

1948: Mishmar, a paper first published by Hashomer Hatzair in 1943, changed its named to Al HaMishmar (On Guard) today.

1948: In Vancouver, British Columbia, Congregation Schara Tzedeck which had been founded in 1907 as “Benei Yehuda” dedicated its new facility which had been completed in September of 1947.

1949: Nathan Yellin-Mor and Matityahu Shmuelevitch both of whom were members of Lehi were found guilty of having been leaders of a terrorist organization today.

1949: On the same day that he was found guilty Lehi leader Nathan Yellin-Mor, the founder of the Fighters List, was elected to the first Knesset

1949: Ben-Gurion's Mapai party was the top vote getter in Israel’s first election after the creation of the Jewish state. However, the party only gained 35.7% of the vote which translated into 46 seats in the Knesset leaving Ben-Gurion 15 seats short of the majority he would need in the parliament that has 120 seats.  This would necessitate the formation of a coalition. This would set the stage for a joining of strange bedfellows which some see as detrimental to the long term stability of the Jewish state.

1951: Charles Shulman, the Ohio of Northern University trained attorney who traded in his shingle to become a Reform rabbi in 1927 and who was “the first Jewish cha;oaind and the only rabbi among 225 chaplains in the Seventh Fleet in the last year of WW II was honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy today

1951: “The Enforcer” co-starring Zero Mostel premiered in New York City.

1952: “The Sellout” with a story by Matthew Rapf who also co-produced the film was released today in the United States.

1954: In Jerusalem, Michaella and Yitzhak Grossman gave birth to Israeli author David Grossman whose work included Her Body Knows, a collection of two novellas.

1956: The West End production of “Plain and Fancy” a musical comedy with a book by Joseph Stein opened at the Theatre Royal in London.

 

1958: In New York City, actress, director, and writer, Lee Grant (née Lyova Rosenthal), and screenwriter Arnold Manoff gave birth to actress Dinah Manoff

1959:  Pope John XXIII proclaims Second Vatican Council. This would lead to the greatest improvement in relations between the Church and the Jewish People since the days of Constantine.

1959: Contributions of $132 were received by the annual appeal of the New York Times Neediest Cases Fund from the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York.

1960: Yitzhak Rabin flew to IDF Southern Headquarters to ascertain the military situation as Egyptian forces stood on the border with Israel.  The crisis would pass since neither side was prepared for war.  But the crisis of 1960 did help to set the stage for Israel’s response to Egypt’s next foray into the Sinai in 1967.

1960(25thof Tevet, 5720): Seventy-four-year-old Hungarian born and Rush Medical College trained surgeon Max Thorek passed away today in Chicago.

https://www.bmj.com/content/1/5170/431.3

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1943/11/07/85131581.pdf

1960: David Susskind produced, and Henry Kaplan directed two plays by August Strindberg – “Miss Julie” and “The Stronger” – as part of the Play of the Week.

1961 (8thof Shevat 5721):  Bar Mitzvah of Yissachar Dov Rokeach. Born in 1948 he is the fifth and present Rebbe of the Hasidic dynasty of Belz. He has led Belz since 1966.

1962: In London, June Flewett and Sir Clement Freud, the grandson of Sigmund Freud gave birth to UK broadcaster and social commentator Emma Vallency Freud.

1963: The recording sessions that would eventually produce “The Barbra Streisand Album” next month came to an end today.

1965: Sheldon Cohen began serving as Commissioner of Internal Revenue.

1965(22ndof Shevat, 5725): Ninety-one-year-old Frankfurt born economist Moritz Julius Born, the descendant of a family started in the sixteenth century by Aaron Jacob Bonn, who was distinguished academic as well as an advisor to the Weimar government passed away today.

http://ieg-ego.eu/en/mediainfo/moritz-julius-bonn-187320131965

 

1966(4thof Shevat, 5726):  Seventy-seven-year-old Dr. Saul Adler, the expert on parasites who translated Darwin’s The Origin of Species into Hebrew, passed away today in Jerusalem.

http://english.israelphilately.org.il/articles/content/en/000462

http://www.boeliem.com/content/1994/492.html

1966(4thof Shevat, 5726): Sixty-three-year-old University of California Professor of Physiology Dr. Israel Lyon Chaikoff passed away today in Berkeley, CA.

http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb629006vt;NAAN=13030&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=div00007&toc.depth=1&toc.id=&brand=calisphere

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9D01E7DC113CEF34BC4F51DFB766838D679EDE

1967: After having premiered in the United Kingdom, “Prehistoric Women” co-starring Steven Berkoff was released in the United States today.

1967: “The Reluctant Astronaut,” a comedy written by Everett Greenbaum premiered in Houston, TX today.

1968: Last transmission is received from the Israeli submarine, Dakar

1970: Birthdate of Israeli high jumper Itay Margalit.

https://www.iaaf.org/athletes/israel/itay-margalit-8330

1971: Idi Amin led a coup deposing Milton Obote and became Uganda's president. In his younger days, Amin was favorably disposed towards the Israelis who trained him as a paratrooper.  However, in 1976, he would prove himself to be a strong supporter of the PLO as he gave refuge to the terrorists who landed their high jacked aircraft at Entebbe.

1974: “KGB stopped Moscow UPI correspondent G.P. Joseloff on a Moscow street after his interview with a group of Jewish activists and seized written replies to questions he posed to them. “

1975: Birthdate of Canadian actress Mia Kirshner, granddaughter of Holocaust survivors and the daughter of a Canadian Jewish journalist.

1976(23rdof Shevat, 5736): Eighty-four-year-old German-born English historian Victor Ehrenberg, the brother of Hans Ehrenberg and the nephew of Victor Ehrenberg passed away in London.

1977(6thof Shevat, 5737): Eighty-five-year-old motion picture actor, agent and producer Edward Small passed away today.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0806448/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

1978: As part of its “Great Performances series,” PBS broadcast “Verna: USO Girl” co-starring Howard Da Silva and featuring theme music by Jerome Kern and George Gershwin.

1978: Thirty-three-year-old David Pleat began managing Luton Town.

1981: In New Orleans, LA, Al Davis’ Oakland Raiders defeated the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl XV.

1981: In “Words of a Fallen Soldier,” Hillel Halkin reviewed Self-Portrait of a Hero: The Letters of Jonathan Netanyahu (1963-1976).

http://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/25/books/words-of-a-fallen-soldier.html?scp=1&sq=The%20Letters%20of%20Jonathan%20Netanyahu&st=cse

1983: Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie arrested in Bolivia

1985: Release date for “The Falco and the Snowman” directed by John Schlesinger, the product of a middle-class Anglo-Jewish family.

1986(15thof Shevat, 5746): Parashat Beshalach and Tu B’Shevat

1986(15thof Shevat, 5756): The curtain came down on the fifty-year acting career of Lilli Palmer who passed away today at the age of 71.

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/palmer-lilli

http://www.nytimes.com/1986/01/29/obituaries/lilli-palmer-actress-on-tv-stage-and-screen-for-50-years.html

1987: Neil Diamond sang the national anthem at Super Bowl XXI.

1987: Seventy-four-year-old composer and conductor Henry Krips whose “father was a Jewish convert to Catholicism” which made him Jewish under Nazi racial laws and thus gave him reason to flee his native Austria after the Anschluss, passed away in Australia his haven from the Holocaust.

1987: It was announced today that Allison Pines, the daughter of Isidore Pines, the “president of National Foods, Inc.” a company whose divisions include Hebrew National Kosher Foods” which “was founded by the late Isidore Pinckowitz, great-grandfather of the future bride” is engaged to second year med school student Kenneth Klein, the son of Dr. and Mrs. Alan Klein of Chicago.

1988: As the latest round of Arab terrorism escalates, Yehuda Genyan, a tailor, seems to be expressing the frustration of many Israelis when he said today of the terrorists, “They walk around here like kings, but a Jew goes to pray at the wall and he gets stabbed.'' In the wake of international criticism over Israel’s response to Palestine protesters, Prime Minister Shamir seems to echoing Genyan when he states, ''We are not allowed to kill, we are not allowed to expel, we are not allowed to beat,'' Prime Minister Shamir said. What are Jews allowed to do - Only to be killed, only to be wounded, only to be defeated.''

1991(10thof Shevat, 5751): Seventy-two-year-old David Hirsh Panitz the rabbi emeritus at Temple Emanuel in Paterson who had previously served as rabbi at Adas Israel in Washington, DC where, among other things he officiated at the Shabbat morning service where Avraham Elimelch ben Yosef Dov was called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/27/obituaries/rabbi-david-h-panitz-educator-is-dead-at-72.html

1992: Singer Ofra Haza and the Amka Oshrat Yeminite Dance Troupe appear in concert as part of “Israel: The Next Generation.”

1993: Robert Rubin began serving as the 1st Director of the National Economic Council under President Clinton.

1993: The New York Times reported that a United States Senator from Hawaii, the Brooklyn-born chief rabbi of an Israeli West Bank community, and an organization of disabled Israeli war veterans will receive the 10th annual Defender of Jerusalem Awards. The $100,000 prize that will be divided among the recipients will be presented by the Jabotinsky Foundation Thursday at the Plaza Hotel. The foundation is named for Vladimir Jabotinsky, a Zionist, philosopher and mentor of many Israeli leaders. Being honored this year are Senator Daniel K. Inouye, Democrat of Hawaii, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, founder of the settlement of Efrat on the West Bank, where he is described as a peace-keeper and arbitrator between Jews and Palestinians, and the Zahal Disabled Veterans Organization, which operates two sports, rehabilitation and social centers in Tel Aviv and Haifa and is building a facility in Jerusalem. The purpose of the prize, said Eryk Spektor, founder and chairman of the Jabotinsky Foundation, "is to honor people who have stood up in the defense of Jewish rights."

1995: “The Usual Suspects” a dark crime movie directed by Bryan Singer and filmed by cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel premiered at Sundance today.

1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of interest to Jewish readers including Hitler’s Banker: Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht by John Weitz and Shadows on the Hudson by Isaac Bashevis Singer; translated by Joseph Sherman.

1999: Yitzhak Mordechai completed his service as Minister of Defense.

2000: U.S. premiere of “The Songcatcher” a fascinating movie about the Hill people of North Carolina and their music co-starring Emmy Rossum as “Deladis Slocumb.”

2001: Israel's state-owned power utility said today that it planned to buy more than half of its $3 billion supply of natural gas over the next decade from Egypt, after receiving an offer that was 20 to 30 percent lower than domestic prices.

2001: In Toronto, the Al Waxman Fan Club, which had over a thousand members, held a wake for their hero complete with “a New Orleans-style funeral march including a jazz band.

2001: After a 48-hour hiatus, Israelis and Palestinians resumed their peace talks today still hoping for a diplomatic breakthrough, though increasingly dubious about a full-fledged agreement before the Feb. 6 election in Israel.

2002: A Palestinian suicide bomber wounded more than two dozen people when he blew himself up today in a pedestrian mall in a Tel Aviv neighborhood of populated largely by immigrant workers.

2002: In response to today’s terrorist attack in Tel Aviv, “an Israeli F-16 attacked the Palestinian security headquarters in Gaza located near Yasser Arafat's compound.”

2003: On the first day of his trial, an Israeli Arab student denied that he had tried to hijack an El Al jetliner and force it to slam into a skyscraper in Tel Aviv. Tawfiq Foqara, 23, told the court that during the November 17 flight from Tel Aviv to Istanbul he had a dispute with a flight attendant who yelled at him.

2003: The Guardian published an article entitled “Solzhenitsyn breaks last taboo of the revolution; Nobel laureate under fire for new book on the role of Jews in Soviet-era,” in which Nick Paton reviews Two Hundred Years Together by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/jan/25/russia.books

 [Ed. Note: The article is reproduced in its entirety to provide a sense of what one of the most acclaimed writers of the 20th century had to say about Jews. He seemed to comprehend the fact that Communists like Trotsky had rejected Judaism and to remind us that for Jews, Russia is a good place “to be from” regardless of who is in charge]

 

 “Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who first exposed the horrors of the Stalinist gulag, is now attempting to tackle one of the most sensitive topics of his writing career - the role of the Jews in the Bolshevik revolution and Soviet purges. In his latest book Solzhenitsyn, 84, deals with one of the last taboos of the communist revolution: that Jews were as much perpetrators of the repression as its victims. Two Hundred Years Together -a reference to the 1772 partial annexation of Poland and Russia which greatly increased the Russian Jewish population - contains three chapters discussing the Jewish role in the revolutionary genocide and secret police purges of Soviet Russia. But Jewish leaders and some historians have reacted furiously to the book, and questioned Solzhenitsyn's motives in writing it, accusing him of factual inaccuracies and of fanning the flames of anti-Semitism in Russia. Solzhenitsyn argues that some Jewish satire of the revolutionary period” consciously or unconsciously descends on the Russians" as being behind the genocide. But he states that all the nation's ethnic groups must share the blame, and that people shy away from speaking the truth about the Jewish experience. In one remark which infuriated Russian Jews, he wrote: "If I would care to generalize, and to say that the life of the Jews in the camps was especially hard, I could, and would not face reproach for an unjust national generalization. But in the camps where I was kept, it was different. The Jews whose experience I saw - their life was softer than that of others.” Yet he added: "But it is impossible to find the answer to the eternal question: who is to be blamed, who led us to our death? To explain the actions of the Kiev cheka [secret police] only by the fact that two thirds were Jews, is certainly incorrect.” Solzhenitsyn, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970, spent much of his life in Soviet prison camps, enduring persecution when he wrote about is experiences. He is currently in frail health, but in an interview given last month he said that Russia must come to terms with the Stalinist and evolutionary genocides - and that its Jewish population should be as offended at their own role in the purges as they are at the Soviet power that also persecuted them.” My book was directed to empathize with the thoughts, feelings and the psychology of the Jews - their spiritual component," he said. "I have never made general conclusions about a people. I will always differentiate between layers of Jews. One layer rushed headfirst to the revolution. Another, to the contrary, was trying to stand back. The Jewish subject for a long time was considered prohibited. Zhabotinsky [a Jewish writer] once said that the best service our Russian friends give to us is never to speak aloud about us.” But Solzhenitsyn's book has caused controversy in Russia, where one Jewish leader said it was "not of any merit". "This is a mistake, but even geniuses make mistakes," said Yevgeny Satanovsky, president of the Russian Jewish Congress. "Richard Wagner did not like the Jews, but was a great composer. Dostoyevsky was a great Russian writer but had a very skeptical attitude towards the Jews. "This is not a book about how the Jews and Russians lived together for 200 years, but one about how they lived apart after finding themselves on the same territory. This book is a weak one professionally. Factually, it is so bad as to be beyond criticism. As literature, it is not of any merit." But DM Thomas, one of Solzhenitsyn's biographers, said that he did not think the book was fuelled by anti-Semitism. "I would not doubt his sincerity. He says that he firmly supports the state of Israel. In his fiction and factual writing there are Jewish characters that he writes about who are bright, decent, anti-Stalinist people." Professor Robert Service of Oxford University, an expert on 20th century Russian history, said that from what he had read about the book, Solzhenitsyn was "absolutely right”. Researching a book on Lenin, Prof Service came across details of how Trotsky, who was of Jewish origin, asked the politburo in 1919 to ensure that Jews were enrolled in the Red army. Trotsky said that Jews were disproportionately represented in the Soviet civil bureaucracy, including the cheka."Trotsky's idea was that the spread of anti-Semitism was [partly down to] objections about their entrance into the civil service. There is something in this; that they were not just passive spectators of the revolution. They were part-victims and part-perpetrators.

"It is not a question that anyone can write about without a huge amount of bravery, and [it] needs doing in Russia because the Jews are quite often written about by fanatics. Mr Solzhenitsyn's book seems much more measured than that." Yet others failed to see the need for Solzhenitsyn's pursuit of this particular subject at present. Vassili Berezhkov, a retired KGB colonel and historian of the secret services and the NKVD (the precursor of the KGB), said: "The question of ethnicity did not have any importance either in the revolution or the story of the NKVD. This was a social revolution and those who served in the NKVD and cheka were serving ideas of social change "If Solzhenitsyn writes that there were many Jews in the NKVD, it will increase the passions of anti-Semitism, which has deep roots in Russian history.”

2004: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Bubble of American Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power by George Soros,Rape: A Love Story by Joyce Carol Oates, Collect Poems by Paul Auster and a newly released paperback edition of A Saint, More or Lessby Henry Grunwald.

2004: Today Israel's high court suspended for 30 days the state's efforts to expel the Palestinian father of an Israeli soldier, pending a hearing on granting him the right to remain in Israel.

2004: Elyakim Rubinstein completed his service as Israel’s Attorney General.

2005(15th of Shevat, 5765): Tu B'Shevat

2015: A year after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival “Metallica” a documentary co-directed and co-produced by Bruce Sniofsky was re-released in the United States.

2005: As plans are made for a Broadway revival of Neil Simon’s “Sweet Charity” today, “the show went into production at the Historic Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis.”

2005: In the U.S. of Representatives Congressman Pete Session rose today “to pay tribute to Mr. Joel David Brooks” who is retiring as the Executive Director of the Southwest Region for the American Jewish Congress after forty years of service.

2005: French debut of “To Take a Wife” (VeLakahta Lekha Isha) co-directed by Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz who also co-authored the script

2006:The Tenafly Jewish community has won a six-year battle with local officials over the right to place symbolic plastic strips on utility poles to create an enclosure that would allow them to perform certain restricted activities on the Sabbath.  

2007(6th of Shevat, 5767): Sydney Simon Shulemson, DFC, died today in Florida. Born in 1915, he “was a Canadian fighter pilot, and Canada's highest decorated Jewish soldier, during World War II. Growing up in Montreal, Shulemson attended McGill University. He enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force on September 10, 1939 and graduated from flight school in 1942. He joined RCAF 404 Squadron in Wick in Scotland, flying a Bristol Beaufighter. Shulemson downed a German flying boat on his first sortie. He pioneered techniques for rocket attacks on Axis ships in the North Atlantic. After the war, Shulemson located aircraft and recruited pilots for Israel's growing Israeli Air Force.”

2007: In Derby, UK, Holocaust Memorial Day Service

2007: Speaker of the Knesset Dalia Itzik became acting President of Israel when President Moshe Katzav took a three month long leave of absence.

2008: In Iowa City the funeral is held for orthopedic surgeon Dr. Webster B. Gelman, recipient of the 1985 University of Iowa Alumnae Association’s Distinguished Alumni Award who passed away at the age of 89.

2008: First Musical Shabbat Service at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

2008: Rami Zuari, a 20-year-old Border Police officer killed during a terrorist attack at an East Jerusalem checkpoint was buried in the military cemetery at Be’er Sheva, his home town.

2008: In Great Britain at Friday Prayers the community of Ahmadi Muslims in the UK say the following prayer in commemoration of Holocaust Memorial Day. "Sunday 27 January is Holocaust Memorial Day in UK. We pray that people learn to recognize, accept and respect their differences. People of all races and faiths are God’s people. May everyone accept this truth so that the world can look forward to a peaceful future. May God enable people to remain close to their Creator, follow His teachings of peace, and avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. Amen."

2009: Politics and Prose Bookstore hosts a reading from Words that Burn Within Me: Faith, Values, Survival, a collection of notebooks by Hilda Stern Cohen containing poetry and recollections of life in 1930s Germany, which was discovered by her husband, Werner Cohen, after her death in 1997.

2009: Canadian Sharon Fichman defeated her American opponent in a clay court match at Lutz, Florida.

2009: The 5th annual Brooklyn Israel Film Festival closes this evening with a showing of “Children of the Sun,” written and directed by Ran Tal and the winner of Israel's Academy Award for Best Documentary.

2009: The New York Times includes reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Benjamin Disraeli by Adam Kirsch and Ballet’s Magic: Selected Writings on Dance in Russia, 1911-1925by Akim Volynsky; edited and translated by Stanley J. Rabinowitz. Akim Volynsky was the pen name of Chaim Leib Flekser who was born in 1861 into an Orthodox Jewish family of booksellers in Ukraine.

2009: The New York Times reports that the kosher symbol, intended to show consumers that the contents adhere to Jewish dietary laws, was mistakenly left off 14 million boxes of Thin Mints, the variety that accounts for roughly 25 percent of Girl Scout cookie sales, said Raymond Baxter, president and chief executive of Interbake Foods, the parent company of ABC Bakers of Richmond, Va., one of two approved manufacturers of the cookies. Proofreaders missed the mistake. But a customer noticed in November that the symbol — a circled U accompanied by a D for dairy — was missing, said Brian Crawford, an executive at the Scouts’ New York headquarters. (Some troops sell cookies in the fall, though most sales are held January through March.) ABC Bakers quickly sent letters explaining the oversight (and showing proof of kosher certification from the Orthodox Union) to Scout councils. Rabbi Yisroel Bendelstein of the Orthodox Union, who has fielded perhaps a half-dozen calls about the cookies, said he hoped the letters would “obviate any concerns.” Thin Mints, the rabbi said, are his favorite Girl Scout cookie.

2009 (29 Tevet 5769):Rabbi Leon Klenicki, a pioneer in interfaith relations passed away today according to an announcement from the Anti-Defamation League, where he served as director emeritus of interfaith affairs. A leading figure in efforts to promote Jewish-Christian understanding, Klenicki was made a Papal Knight by Pope Benedict XVI in 2007 in recognition of his historic contributions to improving relations between Catholics and Jews. He worked for the ADL for 28 years before his retirement in 2001. Klenicki, a renowned scholar and theologian, wrote numerous books and articles on Catholic-Jewish issues. A native of Argentina, Klenicki was ordained at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati and earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Cincinnati. He was a member of an Argentine government commission to investigate Nazi activities in Argentina from 1933 to 1945.  

2010: The 19thannual New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to present the New York premiere “Leap of Faith,” a documentary about the difficulties that four families face when they abandons their traditions and embrace Judaism.

2010: The Brooklyn Israel Film Festival is scheduled to close this evening with a screening of the 2008 Israel Academy Award for Best Documentary, ‘Children of the Sun.”

2010 (10th of Tevet): Yahrzeit of Rabbi Yoseph Yitzchok Schneersohn, sixth Rebbe of the Chabad Lubavitch movement who was also known as the Friediker Rebbe or "Previous Rebbe."

One year later, to the day, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Rebbe assumed the leadership position of the worldwide Chabad-Lubavitch movement.

2010: At the Sundance Festival the first screening of “A Film Unfinished.”

2010: The week after Miep Gies, passed away, Elie Wiesel wrote the following about her in Time magazine.

 Miep Gies entered history without wanting to. She did what many others were too afraid to do: she risked her freedom, her life, in her determination to save Jews from deportation and death.From 1942 to '44, Gies, who died Jan. 11 at 100, helped shelter and feed Anne Frank and her family in an attic in Amsterdam, where at that time Jews were being branded, humiliated and condemned just because they were Jews. Her life remains a moral example for millions to follow. I met Gies much later and was impressed by her sincerity, the simplicity of her comments and the moving quality of her smile. Calm, soft and reserved, she radiated nobility and strength of character. She talked little and quietly, reflecting on the significance of every word. When speaking of the past, she seemed to relive it. Naturally, I knew much about her life. Anne's immortal diary, which Gies found and gave to Otto Frank after the war, was filled with praise for her devotion and sacrifice.I asked her where she had found the courage to defy the Gestapo during the dark days of the occupation, and she protested. "I did nothing heroic or extraordinary," she said. "Human beings were in peril, and I had to care for them." But for the Franks, she represented all that is good and generous. She was the incarnation of hope.

2011: The New York Premiere of Black Bus, which “tells story of two young women who chose to leave their close-knit Haredi communities in Israel and are, as a consequence, estranged from their families” is scheduled to take place at The New York Jewish Film Festival.

2011:David Makovsky and Ghaith al-Omari with Jane Eisner are scheduled to lead a discussion entitled “Israelis and Palestinians: Poised Between Crisis and Opportunity” at the 92nd Street Y.  

2011:To mark Holocaust Memorial Day 2011, the Wiener Library is scheduled to hold a special lecture by Prof Clare Ungerson on The Kitchener Camp, a largely forgotten camp established in 1939 for 4000 male Jewish refugees situated near Sandwich in East Kent.

 2011: Police Commissioner David Cohen said today that he was concerned by the possibility of ideology-based murders against public officials in Israel.

2011: The international department of the prosecution services failed to obtain the extradition from Peru of former judge Dan Cohen, wanted in Israel on charges of bribery, fraud, breach of trust and obstruction of justice, the government informed the department today.

 2011: After a preliminary hearing today determined that the issue should be handled in the courts, the Jerusalem Labor Court will be deciding over the next few months whether rabbinic ordination should be recognized as equivalent to a bachelor’s degree, vis-à-vis the Civil Service Commission’s prerequisites for the position of a supervisor in the haredi educational system.

2011: Nominations for the 83rd annual Academy Awards, announced this morning, were good for the Jews. Shoo-ins Natalie Portman (“Black Swan”) and Jesse Eisenberg (“The Social Network”) got Best Actress and Actor nods, respectively. James Franco, whose mother is Jewish, also scored a Best Actor nod for his role in “127 Hours.” “Black Swan” director Darren Aronofsky earned a Best Director nomination, along with “True Grit” helmers Joel and Ethan Coen. “The Fighter” director David O. Russell, son of a Jewish father and Italian-American mother, also got a Best Director nomination. Jews also ruled the screenwriting categories. Debra Granik scored a nod in the Best Adapted Screenplay category for the brutal “Winter’s Bone,” while Hollywood vet Aaron Sorkin earned his for Facebook docudrama “The Social Network,” as did fellow A-lister Scott Silver for scrappy Boston epic “The Fighter.” In the same category, the Coen Brothers won the Academy’s attention for their highly acclaimed adaptation of Charles Portis’ 1968 novel “True Grit.” British improv-drama icon Mike Leigh was nominated in the Best Original Screenplay category for “Another Year,” his sobering look at happiness — and the lack thereof — among the British chattering classes. And British-born, Long Island-raised David Seidler got his first Oscar nomination — in the Original Screenplay slot — for “The King’s Speech”. Semites didn’t fare as well in the Best Supporting Actor or Actress categories, though 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld — reportedly the daughter of a Jewish dad and black/Filipino mom — got a nod for her widely lauded turn as vengeful tween Mattie Ross in “True Grit.”

2011: Misaskim reported that Nazi-era RIF soap was handed over to the organization for burial.

2011: Twenty-three-year-old Jason Bailey, a Jewish hockey player, has sued the National Hockey League's Anaheim Ducks for religious discrimination and harassment based on religion. Jason Bailey, 23, in a lawsuit filed today in California's Orange County Superior Court, accused the coaches of one of the Ducks' affiliate teams of making anti-Semitic remarks and harassment. Bailey said he was subjected to "a barrage of anti-Semitic, offensive and degrading verbal attacks regarding his Jewish faith" by Martin Raymond, head coach of the Bakersfield Condors. The suit says assistant head coach Mark Pederson also made anti-Semitic remarks about Bailey.The suit claims that Bailey was the victim of religious discrimination, harassment based on religion, intentional infliction of emotional distress and retaliation. It asserts that he lost income, benefits and suffered humiliation, according to CNN. Bailey was drafted by the Ducks in 2005 but has not played in the NHL. He was traded last year and now plays right wing for the Binghamton Senators, a farm team for the Ottawa Senators. (As reported by JTA)

2011(20th of Shevat, 5771): Ninety-one-year-old Daniel Bell, the writer, editor, sociologist and teacher who over seven decades came to epitomize the engaged intellectual as he struggled to reveal the past, comprehend the present and anticipate the future, died today at his home in Cambridge, Mass. He was 91. (As reported by Michael T. Kaufman)

2012: The David Harris & David Harris Comedy and Variety Show with Special Guests, The Chosen Few are scheduled to appear at the Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival.

2012: At the New York Jewish Film Festival “The Silent Historian” is scheduled to have its U.S. Premiere and “Joann Sfar Draws From Memory” is scheduled to have its World Premiere.

2012(1st of Shevat, 5772): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

 

2012: Palestinian Authority officials said today that a fifth meeting between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in Amman scheduled for later in the day would be the final meeting.

2012: Hackers attacked the websites of two Israeli hospitals today, managing to bring down the sites for several hours in the latest round of the ongoing cyber war between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian hackers

2012: Representative “Gabby” Giffords officially resigned from the House of Representatives.

2013: The Walt Disney Studios and Lucasfilm officially announced that Jeffrey Jacob “J.J.”Abrams would be the director and producer of Star Wars Episode VII, the latest entry in the Star Wars film saga

2013: “Yossi,” a sequel to Eytan Fox’s “Yossi and Jagger” is scheduled to open in New York City.

2013: The Alexandria Kleztet is scheduled to perform at Old Town Hall in Fairfax, VA.

2013: As an indication of the vitality of Yiddishkeit in the Heartland, the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City Hadassah Chapter is scheduled to sponsor a Tu B’Shevat Seder and Soup Supper preceding Shabbat Services at Temple Judah

2013(14thof Shevat, 5573): Ninety-two-year-old American diplomat Max Kampelman passed away today. (As reported by William Yardley)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/world/europe/max-kampelman-who-led-arms-talks-with-soviet-union-dies-at-92.html?hpw&_r=0

2013: Austrian parliamentarians and invited guests gathered today to watch the premiere of an opera depicting how Nazis methodically killed mentally or physically deficient children at a Vienna hospital during World War II.

2013: Rabbis in Winnipeg have criticized a decision by the Jewish community center in the Canadian city to open earlier on Shabbat.

2013: “Jobs” a biopic co-starring Jose Gad as “Steve Wozniak” and featuring Brett Gelman and Lesley Ann Warren premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

2014: The Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center of Houston is scheduled to host the Houston Choreographers X6 Concert.

2014: In Rockville, MD, Congregation Tikvat Israel is scheduled to show “Hunting Elephants” as part of its Israeli Film Festival.

2014: Dozens of residents of the city of Lod protested today against the slashing of some 15 car tires in a religious neighborhood in the city over the weekend.

2014: Boxes containing pigs’ heads were sent to the Israeli embassy in Rome and the city’s synagogue, Italian media reported today.

2014: “According to two Israeli researchers” – Dr. Eran Elhaik and Professor Dan Grauer – “the first human walked on earth 209,000 years ago; 9,000 years earlier than what scientists previously thought.”

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4480857,00.html

2015: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Ben-Gurion: Father of Modern Israel by Anita Shapira and Mr. Mac and Me by Esther Freud.

2015: Bud Selig completed his served as 9th Commissioner of MLB began serving as Commissioner Emeritus of Baseball

2015: “Judy G. Russell, well-known as The Legal Genealogist, is scheduled to speak about the ethical considerations underlying genealogy, from privacy issues-how to handle family secrets, what to say about living people - to the courtesies we should extend to other researchers.”

2015: “The Green Prince” is scheduled to be shown at Brooklyn Israel Film Festival.

2015: “Cry of the City” and “Forbidden Films” are scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival.

2015: “To commemorate the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the camps and Holocaust Memorial Day, the Jewish Museum of London” is scheduled to host Zdenka Fantlova who will speak about her experiences after the Nazis invaded her native Czechoslovakia in 1939.

2015: In Atlanta, GA, the Breman Museum is scheduled to host a workshop that explores “the work and techniques of Maurice Sendak.”

2016: At Tempe Solel, in Cardiff, CA, Dr. Claudia Tornsäufer is scheduled to lecture on “Mendelssohn, Music and the Jews.”

2016: The family and friends of Sir Martin Gilbert, led by Lady Esther Gilbert are scheduled to attend the stone setting at Eretz Hachaim Cemetery, Beit Shemesh which is part of the memorialization of Sir Martin Gilbert, of blessed memory.

2016: Weather permitting Matan Porat is scheduled to perform “Variations on a Theme by Scharlatti” at Butenwieser Hall.

2016(15thof Shevat, 5776): Tu B’Shevat

2016(15thof Shevat, 5776): Ninety-one-year-old “Howard Kaslow, apainter and illustrator who for more than four decades designed many of the most recognizable stamps issued by the United States Postal Service, including a 1994 series depicting famous blues and jazz musicians and 30 stamps depicting coastal lighthouses” passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/02/arts/design/howard-koslow-dies-at-91-artist-designed-stamps-for-40-years.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

http://www.lighthousekeepers.com/uploads/files/dhannum@sbcglobal.net/HLStampSet.pdfa

2016: Today, “US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro responded to criticism of his charge last week that Israel appears to institute “two standards of adherence to the rule of law: one for Israelis and another for Palestinians” in the West Bank.”

2017: Today “German authorities carried out dawn raids against far-right suspects accused of plotting attacks on Jews, refugees and police, federal prosecutors said.”

2017(27thof Shevat, 5777): On the Jewish calendar Yahrtzeit of 19th century German Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch.

2017(27thof Shevat, 5777): Seventy-one year old Canadian born professor Stephen P. Cohen “who secretly brokered peace talks between Arab and Israeli officials for three decades” passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/26/world/middleeast/stephen-cohen-dead-mideast-negotiator.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2017: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today that the 2,500 new West Bank settlement homes approved a day earlier were just a “taste” of things to come now that Barack Obama is no longer in the White House, and said he would discuss the issue with US President Donald Trump.”

2017: Following a screening of “Cloudy Sunday” today “film critic Bergson is scheduled to join JKJF Film Programmer Ni Cohen” in a discussion of the film.

2017: “Experience History at its Source” a tour exploring the permanent collection of the High Museum ranging from biblical themes to featured Jewish artists” is scheduled to take place in Atlanta, GA.

2018: The Young Professional Committee of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to a “live performance by singer/songwriter and actor Tyler Hilton.”

2018: Peter G. Weintraub is scheduled to present another session of “Introduction to Judaism
 at the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center.

2018: “Despite the fact that Labour MPs were asked not to support by their leadership,” “both Labour and Conservative parliamentarians led calls” “to designate all of Hezbollah as a terrorist group.”

2018: Comedian Judy Gold, best known for “The Judy Gold Show: My Life as a Sitcom” is scheduled to appear at the Buckhill Brewery in Blairstown, NJ.

2018: Research was published today “in the prestigious Science magazine” which described the discovery of a “Jawbone fossil in an Israeli cave that resets the clock for modern human evolution.” (As reported by Amanda Borschel-Dan)

https://www.timesofisrael.com/jawbone-fossil-found-in-israeli-cave-resets-clock-for-modern-human-evolution/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=bfcfb699e7-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_01_25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_adb46cec92-bfcfb699e7-53921877

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/science/jawbone-fossil-israel.html?hpw&rref=science&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2018: “The leading European human rights assembly today endorsed a resolution that called on Ramallah to stop paying salaries to the families of Palestinian terrorists” while also condemning the American decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and calling for an increased European role in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.” (As reported by Dov Lieber)

2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host “the Gemara shiur which will be on mesechet Megillah.”

2018: Today “President Donald Trump said Palestinians disrespected Vice President Mike Pence when they snubbed him this week and threatened to cut off assistance to the Palestinians unless they returned to the negotiating table.”

2018: In Davos, Switzerland, “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed” today “that Israel would retains control over Jerusalem’s holy sites in any peace deal while ensuring ‘complete religious rights for those of all faiths.’” (As reported by Jacob Magid)

2018: Stephanie Halpern is scheduled to teach the final class of “The American Jewish Family Drama” at the YIVO Institute.

2019 (19thof Shevat, 5779): Ninety-five-year-old financier and Ohio State University trained mathematician Meshulam Riklis, the Istanbul born son of Pinahs and Batya Riklis and WW II veteran of the British Army passed away today. (As reported by Richard Sandomir)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/27/obituaries/meshulam-riklis-dead.html?rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Frichard-sandomir&action=click&contentCollection=undefined&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=collection

2019(19thof Shevat, 5779): On the Jewish calendar, yahrzeit of the Jews of Basle, Switzerland “who were burned alive today in a wooden house erected for that purpose” in what was purported to be the Christian community’s way of responding to the Black Plague.

2019: In Memphis, TN, Rick Recht is scheduled to lead a Friday night “Shabbat Alive” service.

2019: In Cedar Rapids, IA, Shir Yehudah is scheduled to lead the Musical Shabbat service.

2019: Parent’s Shabbat weekend is scheduled to begin at Oxford University.

2019 The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is scheduled to host it “2019 International Holocaust Remembrance Day Commemoration” in Washington, DC and on-line.

2020: “God of the Piano” and “An Impossible Love” are scheduled to be show at the New York Jewish Film Festival.

2020: Today the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) “released a 94-page document detailing it case against” the Beth Oloth Charitable Organization whose charitable it had stripped because of “its support Israel’s armed forces, the funding of projects in the Palestinian territories and sloppy administration.”

2020: As part of its “survivor series” the Illinois Holocaust Museum is scheduled to host Felix Weil as he talks about how he “escaped Germany on the second to the last kindertransport.”

2020(28thof Tevet, 5780): Parashat Va-ayrah;

2021: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host the third session in which artist Tobi Kahn and Rabba Wendy Amsellem as they “explore Rabbi Yehuda haNasi’s story in both the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds” which is part of “The Barbara C. Freedman Artists’ Beit Midrash” lectures

2021: In London, the Jewish Museum is to host “Race in Religion: A Black Virtual History” led by Learning Officer Shereen Hunte.

2021: The Jewish Family and Children’s Service is scheduled to present online a performance by Tremble Clefs, “therapeutic signing group for people with Parkinson’s disease and their care partners.”

2021: J-Loft is scheduled to host an online “Tu B’shevat Celebration” that will include a brief teaching and discussion with the rabbis “followed by a creative workshop led by Sasha Kopp.

2021: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host an evening with Bryan Cranston the star of Showtime’s series “Your Honor,” based on the Israeli television show “Kvodo.”

2021: Based on yesterday’s report by the Health Ministry, Israelis now have to worry the spread of “a coronavirus variant originally detected in the state of California.

 

 

 

This Day, January 26, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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January 26

 1531: Three tremors shake Portugal and numerous houses are destroyed in Lisbon by an earthquake which the Pope and others believe confirm the prediction of suffering made by Solomon Molcho who was seeking relief for Jews and Marranos.

1654: MAJOR DATE IN THE HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN JEWISH COMMUNITY.  With the capture of Pernambuco (Recife) from the Dutch, Portugalretook Peru and Brazil. The Jews, (numbering approximately 5,000) having fought on the side of the Dutch, fled for the most part to Amsterdam. Hundreds also escaped to North America, with 23 eventually arriving in New Amsterdam

1664(28th of Tevet): Rabbi Berechiah Berakh ben Isaac Shapiro of Cracow author of Zera Beirakh passed away

1689:Jean Racine's "Esther" premieres in Saint-Cyr.Racine's last plays, “Esther” (1689) and “Athalie” (1691), each of which were based on Biblical figures were commissioned by King Louis XIV's wife.

1724: Abraham and Sarah Pinto gave birth to Jacob Pinto who fathered seven children with his two wives Thankful and Abigail Pinto.

1715: In Haverford, PA, Abraham Lewis, Sr., the son of Mary and John Lewish, Sr and his wife Mary Lewis gave birth to Lieutenant Abraham Lewis II

1736: As the Kingdom of Poland continues to unravel, Stanislaus I abdicated his throne during a period of increasing anti-Semitism.  Twenty eight years after the abdication, the Austrians, Prussians and Russians would begin to partition Poland much to the detriment of the Jewish people who had originally been “invited” to settle in Poland.

1755 (14th of Shevat, 5515): Rabbi Yaakov Yehoshua Falk Katz passed away. Born in 1680, he was the author of the Talmudic work "P'nei Yehoshua." He served as rabbi of Lemberg (Lvov) in 1718, Berlinin 1730, Metz in 1734 and Frankfurt in 1740.

1756: Sixty-three-year-old Groningen native and University of Leiden trained Dutch Orientalist and theologian Albert Shulten “who has been called the father of modern Hebrew grammar” whose chief works of interest to Hebrew students were editions of Job and Proverbs passed away today.

1761(21st of Shevat): Rabbi Judah Navon, author of KIryat Melekh Rav passed away.

1788: The British First Fleet arrived at Port Jackson, Australia with the goal of establishing the first permanent English settlement in “the land down under.” According to at least one source there 15 Jews on board including Esther Abrahams.

1799(20th of Shevat, 5559): Parashat Yitro

1799: Birthdate of Samuel Gobat, the native of Crémines, Canton of Bern, Switzerland who became the second “Protestant bishop of Jerusalem who supported many noteworthy projects in Palestine including an “orphanage on Mount Zion” and reversed the policy of his predecessor and devoted his efforts to “proselytizing among Christians” instead of trying to convert Jews.

1804: Birthdate of Eugane "Marie Joseph" Sue France, novelist and author of The Wandering Jew. It is a tale of good and evil. This time the villain was a Jesuit clerk, Rodin, who is after the Wandering Jew's treasure, which has been gathering interest over the centuries. The descendants of a man, who once aided the cursed wanderer, are summoned to Paris to receive the fortune. Rodin represents the oppression of Church, the Jew stands for dispossessed laborers and his female counterpart Herodias for downtrodden womankind.

1808: In Australia, the Rum Rebellion began today when troops under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel George Johnston deposed Governor William Bligh. Esther Abrahams, who had come to the land down under as part of the First Fleet was Johnston’s common-law wife. (Bligh was the captain of the infamous HMS Bounty)

1809(9thof Shevat, 5569): Sixty-nine-year-old “butcher Levi Sheftall, the Savannah, GA born sone of Hannah Solomons and Benjamin Sheftall and husband of Sara De LA Mottta with whom he had fourteen children who was, along with his brother Mordecai and ardent supporter of the Revolution and who while served as President of Mikveh Israel “wrote a congratulatory letter to President George Washington” passed away today.

1814: Edmund Kean opened in the role of Shylock at Drury Lane Theatre rousing “the audience to almost uncontrollable enthusiasm.”

1821: Birthdate of Moravian native Adolf Schmiedl, the rabbi and author who began his career by serving the Jews of the town of Gweitsch and then served several other communities before reaching Leopoldstadt, the second of district of Vienna at the turn of the century.

1828: In Germany, Dorothy and Abraham Kohn gave birth to Joseph Kohn, the husband of Julia Levi and the father of Cora, Jennie, Nellie, Florence, Maude, Emanuel and Albert Kohn

1828: Dr. Daniel Moses Levy Maduro Peixotto, the Amsterdam born son of Cantor Moses Levy Maduro Peixotto and Judith van Samuel Peixotto and his wife Rachel Lopes Mendes Peixotto who was one of the founders of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University gave birth to Sarah Naar Peixotto who became Sarah Naar Cardozo when she married Abraham Hart Cardozo

1835: In Middlesex, Elizabeth and Jacob Lyons gave birth to Edward Lyons.

1837:  Michigan is admitted as the 26th state in the Union.  By the time Michigan joined the union, Jews had been living there for at least three quarters of a century.  The first known Jewish settler, Ezekiel Solomon arrived in what is now Mackinaw city in 1761. Chapman Abraham arrived in Detroit a year later.  Abraham was a Loyalist who fought on the side of the British during the Revolutionary War.  Other early Jewish residents of what would become the Wolverine state were Louis Benjamin who suffered a loss during Detroit’s great fire in 1805 and Frederick E. Cohen, the portrait painter, who had arrived in Michigan by 1837. In reality there were only a handful of Jews living in Michigan at the time of statehood.  . The real growth of the Michigan Jewish community began in the 1840’s with the arrival of German Jews the most prominent group of which was the forty-eighters. The first synagogue would be formed in 1850, as Congregation Beth El.  For more about the Michigan Jewish community, you might consider reading Jews In Michigan by Judith Levin Cantor.

1840: Sixty-eight-year-old English clergyman Lewis Way, “the founder, in 1808, of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews” who was “convinced that the Jewish nation would again arise, return to its ancestral home, embrace Christianity, and convert the Gentiles” passed away today.

1841: British forces occupy Hong Kong.  Hong Kong would not formally become a possession of the crown for another year at which time Jewish merchants including members of the Sassoon and Kadoorie families, opened offices and established a community that would build a Jewish Club and the Ohel Leah Synagouge.

1851: Birthdate of Rachel Baron, the wife of Russian born Bernhard Baron and the mother of Louis Baron.

1851(23rd of Shevat, 5611): Trieste native Leon Vita Saraval a bibliophile and author born in 1771 whose “entire library” was purchased for the Breslau seminary in 1853 passed away today.

1855(NS): Birthdate of Vladimir Jochelson, the native of Vilnius, the scion of a wealthy Jewish family and student of the Vilna Rabbinical Seminary who became a socialist and a member of Narodnaya Volya before pursuing a career as an ethnographer.

http://archives.nypl.org/mss/1565

1856: “Charitable Bequest of the Late Baron Rothschild” an article published today described the fortune of the Rothschild family, paying special attention to the spending habits and will of the late Amschel Mayer Rothschild, the second child and oldest son of Mayer Amschel Rothschild, the founding father of the banking dynasty.  While Rothschild’s personal habits “were extremely simple” he shared his wealth with Jews and Gentiles.  During his lifetime he distributed at least 50,000 florins per year to 2,600 Christian families.  While his mother was alive, he visited her daily in the original family home on “The Street of the Jews’; a home he was never able to convince her to leave so she could take up residence in a dwelling more fitting with her economic status.  The Baron’s will which was written in 1849, was intended to dispose of a fortune calculated at sixty million florins when he passed away in 1855.  Among other bequests, he left 1,200,000 florins for the establishment of a foundation for the poor of Frankfort intended “to keep up the weekly distribution of alms at the ‘Old Rothschild ‘house in the Street of the Jews,” 25,000 florins for Jewish hospitals, 5,000 florins for Jewish schools and 20,000 florins “for various Christian charitable institutions.”  Two of his bequests have special meaning for those aware of Jewish laws and customs.  In an apparent attempt to follow the rules of Maimonides on charity he gave 10,000 florins “to the society for encouraging Jewish traders and workmen.  And in an echo of the morning prayer which says that “participating in making a wedding” is one of the things to be done while waiting for the World-to-Come,  he bequeathed the interest on 50,000 florins to be used as perpetual fund “to furnish dowers to Jewish maidens.”  Baron Rothschild was not the only member of his family to know financial success.  According to the article, Baron Charles left an estate of 17 million florins and Baron Solomon left an estate of 48 million florins.

1859: The U.S.S. Brooklyn on which Adolph Marix, the first Jewish graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, would serve on starting in 1882, was commissioned today.

1861(15thof Shevat, 5621): Parashat Beshalach; Tu B’Shevat

1861: As Jews on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line celebrate the New Year of the Trees, Louisiana’s Secessionist Convention voted to leave the Union which lead to Judah P. Benjamin serving Jefferson Davis’ cabinet for the next four years.

1862: An Imperial ukase was published in St. Petersburg, Russia, “permitting Jews to enter every branch of the State service; permitting Jewish merchants to reside anywhere, and granting other concessions to the Jews.”

1863: In Chicago, Joseph and Mary (Hoffman) Foreman gave birth to Lt. Gen. Milton J. Foreman.

http://knowlescollection.blogspot.com/2011/11/lt-gen-milton-j-foreman-military-hero.html

1863(6thof Shevat, 5623): A. Robinson, a soldier serving with the 15thGeorgia passed away today. His passing was later commemorated by the Hebrew Ladies Memorial Association of Richmond, VA.

1863: London natives Rebecca and Israel Marks gave birth to Moses Marks.

1865: During the Civil War, Philadelphian Isaac W. Phillips began his service with Company K of the 29th Regiment.

1866(10thof Shevat, 5626): Twenty-two-year-old Sophie “Rosalie” Waldstein, the daughter of Ephraim and Lea Koppel Waldstein and the sister of Zadok Waldstein passed away today in Bavaria.

1868(2nd of Shevat, 5628): Jacob Raphael De Cordova, Texas land agent and colonizer passed away.

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fde03

1871: Julia Gottheimer, the daughter of Levy and Leah Zachariah, the wife of Berton Gottheimer and mother of Lavinia and Maurice Gottheimer was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

1873:  In Albany, NY, founding of the Adelphi Club that meets on the “second Wednesday in January, April, July and October” and whose members included Myer Mandelbaum, Norman Mendleson, Milton Stark and Charles M. Friend.

1873: Three days after he had passed away, 52-year-old Samuel Henry Gluckstein, the son of Lehman Meyer Gluckstein and Helena Horn and the husband of the former Hannah Joseph with whom he had had eleven children was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”

1879: Birthdate of conductor and violinist Hugo Riesenfeld, the native of Vienna who from 1917 to 1925 was the director of music for the Rivoli, Rialto and Criterion Theares and in 1937 “earned an Academy Award nomination for “Make A Wish.”

https://musopen.org/composer/hugo-riesenfeld/

1879: Birthdate of Sir Alfred Eckhard Zimmern, the Christian Oxford trained professor of “Jewish Descent” and Laborite who became a supporter of Zionism.

https://web.archive.org/web/20041029213157/http://www.aber.ac.uk/interpol/history/history_2.html

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/38730

1881: In Leadville, CO, Morris and Rosa Altman were married.

1881: In Lodz, Poland, “Zelman Salmonowicz and the former Hinda Silberberg gave birth University of Zurich trained physician Arthur A. Salvin, who in 1923 came to the United States where he later became an attending surgeon at Sydenham Hospital in New York.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1947/11/20/104377097.pdf

1884: Birthdate of Edward Sapir, German-born anthropologist and linguist.  He was on the faculty of the University of Chicago and Yale until his death until 1939.

1884” In Cincinnati, OH, Solomon and Caroline Fox gave birth to Edgar Fox

1885: Rachel and David Haskell gave birth to Edward Haskell, who like his mother, passed away while living in China.

1885: In Minsk, Rabbi Moses Leo and Martha Perelman (Disraeli) Alpert gave birth to University of Moscow trained physician Nathan Alpert the husband of Fannie Coleman and internal medicine specialist who settled in Baltimore, MD.  (Some sources show his d.o.b. as July 25, 1882.)

1886(20thof Shevat, 5646): Eighty-three-year-old Julia Levy, the New York City born daughter of Rebecca Eve Hendrick and Solomon Levy and wife Joseph Lyons Moss with whom she had eight children – William Rebecca, Florian, Frank, Estelle, Laura, Charles and Helen – passed a way today in Philadelphia, PA, her husband’s hometown.

1887: Birthdate of Newark, NJ native and JTS ordained Rabbi, Eugene Kohn a disciple of Mordecai Kalan and leader of the Reconstructionist movement.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/kohn-eugene

1887: In Jassi, Roumania, Abram and Ida (Berkowitz) Abelman gave birth American trained banker Max Abelman, the husband of Bessie Schwartz who was the Executive Director of the Brooklyn Federation of Jewish Charities

1887: Rachel and Waldemar Benscher gave birth to Claude Alfred Benshcer who passed away four days after his first birthday.

1890: The annual convention of the Grand Lodge of District No. 1, of the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith will open this morning at New York in Vienna Hall.

1891: It was reported today that a story persists that the Jews’ desire to buy the Vatican’s copy of the Hebrew Bible goes back to the 16thcentury.  In 1512, the Jews offered to buy the book from Pope Julius for a sum equivalent to $100,000 and may have recently made an offer of $200,000 for the holy book. (More for 2014)

1891: Birthdate of Ilya G Ehrenburgprolific Russian writer and journalist.  Born into a middle class Jewish family living in Kiev, Ehrenburg was able to navigate the treacherous waters of the Soviet Union pursuing his career even during the days of Stalin’s anti-Semitic outbursts and dying peacefully in 1967. 

1891: It was reported today that Rabbi Gustav Gottheil had delivered an address in which he noted “the absence of any united effort on the part of Christendom…to prevent…the persecution of the Jews of Russia.” (more for 2014)

1892: A charity ball sponsored by the Jews of Philadelphia, PA is scheduled to take place tonight. The ball is the third and final of the city’s annual charity balls and “has for years been marked by the lavish display of feminine finery and jewelry of the most gorgeous description.”

1892: Four thousand people attended the ball sponsored by the Hebrew Orphan Asylum which was held at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

1892: “To Aid Russian Refugees” published today described efforts by the Jews of Pittsburg to form a branch of the New York Relief Association which is connected to the Baron Hirsch Fund. The Jews in Pittsburgh plan on collecting sums ranging from $10 to $20 which will help to create a fund to help settle Jewish immigrants in “Western cities” away from New York.

1893: The members and patrons of the Hebrew Technical Institute held their annual meeting tonight at Temple Emanu-El.

1894: “The committee appointed by the Trades and Labor Conference to make arrangements for the upcoming mass meeting at Madison Square Garden’ which will be addressed by Samuel Gompers on the subject of find work for the unemployed during the current economic depression” is scheduled to meet today.

1894: Isaac Bergmann, an unemployed tailor, is being held today after tried to slit his own throat

1895: During his speech at the monthly meeting of the Democratic Club of the City of New York, Senator David B. Hill acknowledged the growing importance of Jewish voters when in his call for party unity he included “Hebrew Democrats” among the other ethnic groups making up the party’s coalition including the Irish, the Italians, the Germans and those living in Harlem

1896: The members of the Hebrew Infantile Asylum Association met today at the synagogue on east 86th Street.

1896: It was reported this week that Sarah Bernhardt who is returning to the New York stage is “still the same great actress.”

1896: It was reported today that Sarah Bernhardt will play the role of Marguerite in an upcoming theatrical production in New York.

1896: Rabbi Gustav Gottheil delivered an address this morning at Temple Emanu-El entitled “The Safe Monroe Doctrine.”

1896: New York University Law School professor Isaac Franklin Russell delivered a lecture to members of the Russian-American Hebrew Association at the Hebrew Institute.

1896: “Another Heine Chapter” published today described the History of the Heine Memorial Fountain which has been rejected by “the cities of Mayence and Dusseldorf…for political reasons” and may now be denied a “home” in New York’s Central Park. At least one opponent, Paul Dana denied that “Heine’s works or religion ever figured” in the opposition.

1897: Aaron H. Appel was promoted from Captain and Assistant Surgeon to the rank of Major and Surgeon in the U.S. Army today.

1897(23rd of Shevat, 5657): Fifty-eight-year-old Pauline Hirschfeld, the daughter of Simon Ausch and Rachel Ausch and wife of Dr. Jacob Jacques Heinrich Hirschfeld with whom she had four children passed away today.

1898: It was reported today that in Algiers a mob attacked Jews who were riding on an omnibus.

1898: It was reported today that Mrs. Saul Jacobs fainted outside of a New York court room following her husband’s conviction for having been part of scheme to swindle Max Bernstein out of $13,192.75 by passing off a load of painted brass as gold from Siberia.

1899(15th of Shevat, 5659): Final celebration of Tu B’Shevat in the 19th century.

1899: Birthdate of catcher Robert “Bob” Leon Berman whose major league career consisted of appearing in two games for the Washington Senators.

1900(26th of Shevat): Erev Shabbat and Observance on the Jewish calendar of the yarhrtzeit of Rabbi David b. Samuel Halevi who passed away in 5427.

1901(6th of Shevat, 5661): Parashat Bo

1901: Prinzessin Victoria Luise “the first purposed built cruise ship” which part of the fleet of Albert Ballin’s Hamburg-American Line left New York for the West Indies on what was “her first cruise.”

1902: Rabbi Emit G. Hirsch of Mount Sinai Temple in Chicago, spoke to a packed house today at Temple Beth-El in New York on “Is Judaism A Memory or a Message?”

1903: The Eighth Annual Convection of the Progressive Order of the West continued for a second day in St. Louis.

1904(9th of Shevat, 5664): Fifty-five-year-old Austrian born novelist Karl Emil Franzos passed away.

http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Franzos_Karl_Emil

1904: Theodor Herzl had an audience with Pope Pius X in the Vatican to seek his support for the Zionist effort to establish a Jewish state in Palestine

http://www.ccjr.us/dialogika-resources/primary-texts-from-the-history-of-the-relationship/1253-herzl1904

http://www.bunyanministries.org/books/israel_and_millennialism/22_app_l_herzl_meets_pope_pius.pdf

1904: Twenty-year-old Gertrude Cohen, the Boston born daughter of Meyer Joseph and Ida (Freedman) Cohen and Boston University Law School student became Gertrude Cohen Mann today when she married William Mann with whom she raised five children while living in Roxbury and being a leader in the Jewish community as can be seen by her serving as President of the New England Regional conference of Hadassah and vice president of the Boston chapter of Hadassah.

1905: The New York Times publishes a letter from Henry S. Morias reminding readers of Benjamin Disraeli’s support for the Unionduring the Civil War. Rabbi Morias, the son of Sabato Morais was a well-known Jewish journalist who served in the pulpits of numerous east coast congregations.

1906: It was reported today that Shapiro, Levy and Starr have purchased the five-story tenement at 81 Allen Streets to which they plan on making extensive alterations.

1907: A law establishing national quotas in the 515 seat Austrian Parliament would lead to five Jewish deputies (4 Zionist and 1 Jewish Democrat) being chosen in the next national elections.

1908: In Chicago, Aaron Halperin, a Jewish immigrant from Kiev and Julia Halperin gave birth to Robert Sherman “Buck” Halperin who went from playing football for Notre Dame, the University of Wisconsin and the professional Brooklyn Dodger to becoming a medal winning yachtsman after having served gallantly in the U.S. Navy during WW II.

1908: The funeral for Leopold Wallach, who studied law at Harvard, was a “senior member of the law firm of Wallach & Cook and the husband of Theresa Lichtenstadter is scheduled to take place at his resident at 9:30 this morning.

1908: Birthdate of Johannesburg native and Bronze Medal winning bantamweight boxer Harry Isaacs.

https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/is/harry-isaacs-1.html

1908: President Isaac Stern presided over the annual meeting of the board of directors and members of the Mount Sinai Hospital where he “submitted his yearly repot which told in detail the work accomplished in 1907.

1910(16th of Shevat, 5670): Mrs. Freide Katz and Hirsch Storch passed away today after which both were buried in the cemetery at Liepāja.

1911(26th of Shevat, 5671): Eighty-two-year-old Simon Illich, the husband of Celia Illich and the father of Hannah, Amson and Julius Illich passed away today after which he was buried in the Beth Emeth Cemetery in Loudonville, NY.

1912:Aaron Hahn, a delegate from CuyahogaCounty to Ohio Constitutional Convention, suggests a provision be made in the state constitution for prohibition of sectarian religious instruction. A Rabbi named Aaron Hahn had served as the spiritual leader of Cleveland’s Tifereth Israelbut we can find no verifiable evidence that these are one and the same person.

1913(18th of Shevat, 5673): Seventy-year old Civil War and New Orleans, LA merchant passed away today.

1913: Dr. Emil G. Hirsch is scheduled to deliver a sermon this afternoon at services held by the People’s Synagogue Association at the Ziegfeld Theatre.

1913: In Chicago, Dr. Gerson B. Levi officiated at the wedding of “Louis Levy of Gooding, Idahlo” and Rose Alice Nathan.

1913: In Boston, Anshe Slavita dedicated a new facility.

1913: “Yiddish star Boris Thomashefsky and his all-star company” are scheduled to give a matinee and evening performance of the new play “Breach of Promise” at the Haymarket Theatre.

1913: The New York Times reviews The Romance of the Rothschilds by Ignatius Balla a book which the great bankers whose name adorns its title-page allegedly are endeavoring to suppress in Englandand which shortly will be published in this country by G.P. Putnam's Sons. According to Balla, “A passion for old coins and skill as a chess player formed the basis for the most colossal fortune ever conceived in the brain of a romancer or recorded among the facts of history.”

1914: According to a list published today the members of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association of Camden, NJ, included J.F. Kantor, Dr. William M. Lashman, Benjamin Natal, Max Goldich, Mark Obus Jacob L. Furor, Arnold Weis and Bertrand Schneeburg each of whom was playing a key role in raising funds for a communal building that would include space for a place of prayer a Talmud Torah and “a Sabbath School.

1914: In New York, Louis and Kate (née Lautkin) Wolkind gave birth to Phoebe Wolkind who married Henry Ephron in 1934 and gained game as writer Phoebe Ephron the mother of Nora, Delia, Hallie and Amy Ephron.

1915: The Raid on the Suez Canal, an attempt by a German led Ottoman military force to cross the waterway that was Britain’s lifeline to the East began today.

1916: In Leeds (UK) Lithuanian immigrants Tilly Cohen Newman and Joseph Newman gave birth to Isidore “Izzy” Newman who served with SOE in WW II.

http://nigelperrin.com/isidorenewman.htm#.UuMbM2fnapo

1916: In New York, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Finkelstein gave birth to “Jerry Finkelstein, who made a fortune in business, real estate and newspapers, including The New York Law Journal and The Hill, and for many years was a self-styled Democratic power broker” (As reported by Robert D. McFadden)

1916: Jewish Socialist political leader Morris Hillquit was part of a three person delegation to President Wilson to advocate part of the Socialist Party's peace program, which proposed that "the President of the United States convoke a congress of neutral nations, which shall offer mediation to the belligerents and remain in permanent session until the termination of the war." [Editor’s note: For those of you not acquainted with U.S. history, at this point the United States was not a participant in the Great War and most of her citizens wanted it to stay that way.  In the fall, Wilson would be re-elected on a platform of He Kept Us Out of War.  It was only after America entered the war and during the Red Scare of 1919 that what Hillquit and others like him expounded would come to be consider ‘un-American’ or treasonous.)

1916: The Governor of Massachusetts has reportedly requested “that all contributions” being collected for Jewish Relief Day “be addressed to the American Red Cross in Washington.”

1916: The Women’s Proclamation Day Committee of the Central Committee is scheduled to announce “the list of the 100 women who will work to make Jewish Relief Day a success”

1916: The Business Men’s League of the American Jewish Relief Committee announced that Salt’s Textile Company and the firm of Victor and Achelis have each contributed $1,000 to the funds being raised as part of the upcoming Jewish Relief Day.

1916: The Central Relief Committee of the American Jewish Relief Committee announced today that “Charles L. Huston of Coatesville, PA, Vice President of the Lukens Iron and Steel Company has contributed $1,000” to aid the suffering Jews of war-torn Europe and Palestine.

1916: “San Francisco opened tonight a campaign to raise $250,000 with twenty four hours for destitute Jews in the European war zone with a mass meeting at the new Civic Exposition Auditorium.”

1917: As World War I drags on for a third year it is reported that not one home in the Jewish quarter of Belgrade remains standing undamaged. Large numbers of Jews have immigrated to Greece from various areas in the Balkans. The Americans sent $55,000 to help with relief in Serbia and Greece, after receiving a cablegram for help from the Chief Rabbi of Salonica, Jacob Meir.

1917: Seventy-five years after the opening of the Burton Street Synagogue, The Jewish Chronicle said today that “virtually all the bitterness of the Reform controversy has – Heaven be praised! – passed”, but added a sting in the tail that “Reform has made no important constructive contribution to the religious life of the community”.

1917: The Italian government sent twelve thousand Lire ($2,400) to the Governor of Tripoli for the Jewish poor.

1918: Birthdate of right-hand batsman Louis Collins Jacobson, the native of Dublin who “played twelve times for the Ireland cricket team between 1947 and 1959” and who represented “a British and Irish side at the Maccabean Games.”

1918: President Bernstein of the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society of New York which “has received the names of person in this country who are sought by friends and relatives in Russia” from the Jewish Relief Committee of Petrograd, said today. That it was important that those sought be found as in many cases the inquirers were in want.”

1918: Birthdate of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Regardless of his other "shortcomings" from a Jewish point of Ceausescu is memorable for his refusal to break diplomatic relations with Israelafter the June, 1967 War.  Romania was the only Eastern European country to defy the Soviets which had ordered all of her client states to break relations with Israel.

1919: In Poland, Jewish parties receive about 10% of the votes during the election for the constituent assembly.  But the under the electoral system in use, they get only 11 out of 394 seats.

1920:Amadeo Modigliani's mistress jumps out of a window.

1920: Birthdate of Albert Abraham Davidoff, the native of the Brownsville section of Brooklyn who gained fame welterweight boxer Al “Bummy” Davis.

1920: It was reported today that Cooper Union trained engineer and successful Socialist Party candidate for the State Assembly who had been suspended from his position did not address a meeting of Socialists at the Astoria Casino “on advice of counsel.”

1921: Austrian born violinist Erika Morini made her American debut in New York City.

1922: It was reported today that “Magistrate Alexander H. Geismar” had “attacked the immigration restriction law saying that he believed that it was passed as a direct slap at the Jews.

1923: Final session of The Golden Jubilee Convention of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations was held at the Hotel Astor in New York City.

1924: In Houston, TX, Edith and J.B. Greenfield gave birth to Annette Greenfield, the Phi Beta Kapp graduate of the University of Texas and holder of an MA from Columbia who became Annette Greenfield Strauss when she married Theodore Strauss with whom she moved to Dallas where she became the first Jewish female mayor, the second woman elected to be elected to the position and the second Jew to serve in that capacity.

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/strauss-annette-greenfield

1925:  In Shaker Heights, Ohio, Theresa and Arthur Sigmund Newman, the son of Simon Newman and Hannah Cohn who were Jewish immigrants from Hungary and Poland gave birth to actor Paul Newman who “described himself as a Jew, saying ‘it’s more of a challenge.’”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/movies/28newman.html

1926: Birthdate of Stuart Etz Hample, a humorist who entertained children (and adults) as an author, playwright, adman, performer and cartoonist.

1927: “The newly-elected officers of the Federation of Jewish Women’s Organizations of Greater New York” are scheduled to be installed today “at the seventh annual convention of the” meeting at the Hotel Astor.

1928: In Trieste, Italy, an insurance executive named Ottocaro Weiss and the former Ortensia Schmitz, a violinist and a niece of the novelist Italo Svevo, gave birth to Piero Weiss. Weiss fled fascist Italy and came to America in 1940 where he gained fame as a concert pianist and recording artist before turning to musicology where he became an author and co-author of books in the field, including a widely used textbook, and founded the music history department at the Peabody Conservatory. (As reported by James R. Oestreich

1929(15thof Shevat, 5689): Final Tu B’Shevat celebration of the “roaring 20’s.” (For the next 15 years the holiday would be observed in a period of Depression and World War)

1929: In the Bronx, David Feiffer and Rhoda (née Davis) Feiffer gave birth to cartoonist and writer Jules Feiffer whose cartoons ran in Playboy and The Village Voice for decades. Feiffer's work appeared often in The New Yorker, Esquire, and The Nation, and was nationally syndicated. In 1986, Feiffer won a Pulitzer Prize for political cartoons, and from 1997-2000 he drew monthly op-ed comics in The New York Times.

http://forward.com/articles/126786/jules-feiffer-a-permanently-enraged-jewish-cartoo/

https://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/08/interview-cartoonist-jules-feiffer-kill-my-mother/

1930: Birthdate of A. N. Solomons chairman of Singer & Friedlander.

1931: “Cimarron,” the movie of version of Edna Ferber’s 1929 novel that had music by Max Steiner premiered in New York City.

1933:The Jack Benny Program is broadcast for the last time on CBS Radio.

1934: Germany and Poland sign a ten-year nonaggression pact. This was one of the first steps of acceptance of the Hitler regime by the governments of Europe. Five years later, the Poles would find out that Germans did not really mean it.

1934 Josef Pilsudski signed a ten-year peace pact with Hitler. That same year the Warsaw authorities, observing the impotence of the League of Nations in dealing with the German problem, decided to repudiate the Minorities Treaty signed under duress at Versailles.

1935: In a speech before 3,800 people at the MeccaTemple, Vladimir Jabotinsky, Zionist Revisionist leader urged his listeners to put the development of a Jewish national state in Palestineahead of all other issues related to economic and political development.

1936: “The intermarriage of Jews and persons of other religions is ‘completely indefensible’ and, from the viewpoint of the Jewish people, ‘a dangerous thing,’ Rabbi Milton Steinberg said this morning at the Park Avenue Synagogue” adding that since Judaism is a minority the sanctioning of intermarriage would result in the “complete extinction of Jewish values.”

1936: Dr. Israel Goldstein, Morris Rothenberg and Simon W. Goldsmith were among the speakers who addressed “an all-day meeting at the Astor Hotel” attended by “representatives of 600 Jewish groups” working to increase “reconstruction activity in Palestine to facilitate the absorption of refugees from Germany and other European countries.”

1936: In Minneapolis, MN celebration of the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Minneapolis Talmud Torah.

1936: Five hundred leaders “representing sixty-seven local communal agencies from more than fifty cities” meeting at the Chase Hotel in St. Louis “as the National Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds” voted unanimously to adopt “the proposal outline by Sir Herbert Samuel and Felix M. Warburg to finance the emigration of the younger generation of Jews from Germany together with as many of the older generation as might be able to exist elsewhere.” 

1936: “The American Jewish Joint Distribution” with headquarters at 7 Hanover Street in New York City, announced today :that religious schools in 130 cities” through the United States had made contributions in 1934 and 1935 “toward the rehabilitation work” designed to aid Jews in Germany, Poland and other part of Eastern Europe.

1937(14thof Shevat, 5697): Eighty-six-year-old sculptor Ephraim Keyser, the of Moses Keyser and Betty Preiss whose works included “busts of Sidney Lanier, Cardinal Gibbons, Dr. Daniel Gilman, and Henry Harland” and a “statute of Major-General Baron De Kalb” for the United States Government which was “erected at Annapolis, MD” passed away today.

http://famousamericans.net/ephraimkeyser/

1937: “Dr. Jonah B. Wise, the rabbi of the Central Synagogue and co-chairman of the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee campaign issued a special plea today to ‘all men and women who are interested in human rights and saving human life’ to contribute to the immediate assistance of the Jews in Poland in response to their ‘frantic requests for aid.’”

1938: The Palestine Post reported that Mordecai Uhana, the sole Jewish resident of Ramallah, a cobbler who lived had there for 34 years, was shot while at work and badly wounded. The driver and a passenger of a Givat Shaul bus were shot and hit on their way to Jerusalem. Nissim Dorani, a lorry driver, was killed by a bomb, thrown at him at Km. 5 on the Jaffa-Jerusalem Road. Twenty children, eight women and two men, all of them Jewish, were arrested as illegal immigrants at Safed. Three Arab terrorists were executed at Acre.

1938: It was reported today that British photographer and artist had apologized to publisher Conde Nast for sneaking a sketch that contained “comments that were critical of the Jewish race in the February 1st issue of Vogue” saying that it was an “ill-mannered expression of my irritation and annoyance caused by some bad films I had just seen” and he knows that none of his “many Jewish friends will think that” his “silly little joke had any bearing on the standing of their great community.”

1938: A majority of the 2,500 delegates attending the convention of the Federation of Jewish Women’s Organization at the Hotel Astor voted in a favor of adopting the Ludlow Amendment, a proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States which called for a national referendum on any declaration of war by Congress, except in cases when the United States had been attacked first.” (For those who have made a fetish out criticizing FDR’s response to the Jewish condition in Europe might want to consider the support of a major Jewish organization for this Isolationist Amendment.)

1938: In Rumania, “the Bucharest and Jassy bar associations decided to suspend the activities of all Jews admitted after 1918” which means “that at least 800 Jewish lawyers will be unable to practice during the coming months.”

1939: In light of the news that German scientists in Berlinhad split the uranium nucleus, Leo Szilard wired the British Admiralty, the keeper of his 1935 patent on chain reactions, to disregard his earlier letter telling them to cancel his patent. 

1940: Five days before his 70th birthday German author Dr. Eduard Fuchs whose works included Jews in Caricature and who was “violently attacked by the Nazi regime” and forced to flee Germany “because his second wife, the former Grete Alsberg was a Jewess” passed away today in Paris where he had found refuge at Hitler’s rise to power.

1940: At a prison camp in Siberia, Isaac Babel is found guilty of belonging to an anti-Soviet Trotskyite organization and with spying for France and Austria after a twenty-minute trial. He is condemned to death and will be shot tomorrow.

1940: Following today’s raid by British police of the Ben Shemen Youth Village where weapons belong to the Haganah were found, the principal, Dr. Siegfried Lehman “and others were arrested and sentenced to terms from 3 to 7 years.” (As reported by The History of the Jewish People)

1940: Nazis denied Polish Jews the right to travel on trains. One cannot help but see a note of irony in this decree.

1941: Today, Warsaw diarist Chaim Kaplan wrote “He who does not believe in the eternity of the Jewish people could say that the end of Polish Jewry is at hand.  But even the Gentiles are awed by our giving strength…But the guardian of Israel neither sleeps nor slumbers and good news comes from the dunes of Africa.”  (Editor’s note – this indicates that those inside the Ghetto did have some sources of news from the outside world since this entry would seem to indicate a knowledge of Axis setbacks in North Africa at the hands of the British.)

1942: Seventy-six year old Leopold Bloch was transported today from Pilsen to Terezin where he was murdered.

1942 (8th of Shevat, 5702):  At Stari Becej, Hungary, 200 Jews and Serbs were slaughtered. At Titel, 35 Jews killed. At Teofipol, 300 Jews marched naked for three miles and then are shot.

1943: During one the Battle of Stalingrad, a major turning point in WW II, “German forces inside the city “were split into two pockets

1943:230 women of the French Resistance began “began their internment at Birkenau, the main women’s camp at Auschwitz” (For more see A Train In Winter by Caroline Weber)

1944(1st of Shevat, 5704) Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1944(1st of Shevat, 5704): Seventy-eight-year-old CCNY grad and Columbia trained diagnostician Dr. Morris Magnes who was a Professor of Clinical Medicine at NYU and consulting physician at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum and the husband of Julia Hirschhorn Magnes passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1944/01/28/87443068.pdf

1944: Birthdate of Denise Eisenberg who gained fame as Denise Rich who played a key role in obtaining the “mid-night” pardon for her ex-husband Marc Rich by donating millions to charities controlled by William Jefferson Clinton.

1944: As the Germans continue to pursue the Final Solution despite reversals on the battlefield “a handwritten from Heinrich Himmler’s speech today in Posen to Generals of fighting troops reads: ‘Largest stabilization in the G.G. since the solution to the Jewish question. Total solution. Not allowing avengers to rise against our children. (G.G. refers to the Poland and Ukraine, areas which had the largest pre-war Jewish population.  “Avenger” is a euphemism for Jews, who if left alive would pose a threat the Aryans.”

1945: In England, Derek and Iris du Pré gave birth to classical cellist Jacqueline Mary du Pré who married Daniel Barenboim at the Western Wall.

1945: In Newark, NJ, “a chemical technician for Shell Oil” and “a legal secretary” gave birth to Syracuse and Parsons School of Design trained artist and “collagist” Barbara Kruger.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2000/07/barbara-kruger-ad-industry-heroine.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Kruger#/media/File:Barbara_Kruger_at_ACCA,_Melbourne.jpg

1945(12th of Shevat, 5705): Abba Berditchev was murdered by the Nazis. A native of Romania, he was detained by the British when he entered Palestine illegally.  He volunteered for service in the British army and he “parachuted into Yugoslavia with Chana Senesh, Reuven Dafni and Yonah Rosen. Berditchev’s mission was to assist the Jews, gather intelligence and help rescue members of the air forces who were captured or had parachuted into Romania. . After two months of fighting in the mountains, Berditchev was captured by the Germans and transferred in December 1944 to Mauthausen along with other captives, where he was brutally tortured before he was murdered by the Nazis.” (As reported by Yad Vashem)

1945: The Virgin Island Daily News reported that Peter de Hemmer Gudme, journalist, Oriental scholar and author of two philo-semtic tomes “From Nebuchadnezzar to Hitler” and “A Sketch of the History of Zionism” died while in the hands of the Gestapo in Copenhagen.  Born in 1897, he was the brother of Sten Gudme who has been working in London on behalf of the Free Danish government.  [Ed note: The Gudmes were not Jewish; they were just decent human beings.]

1945: One thousand Jewish women interned at the Neusalz, Poland, slave-labor camp are set on a month-and-a-half-long forced march to the concentration camp at Flossenbürg, Germany, about 200 miles to the southwest. Along the way, 800 are beaten and shot.

1946: Birthdate of noted Anglo-Jewish historian Jonathan Irvine Israel.

https://www.ias.edu/scholars/israel

1946: In Chicago, Russian Jewish immigrants Ida (née Kalis) and Nathan William Siskel gave birth to movie critic, Gene Siskel who was part of the television duo of Siskel and Ebert.

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/21/nyregion/gene-siskel-half-of-a-famed-movie-review-team-dies-at-53.html

1947: Joseph B. Levin was assigned to the Office of Opinion Writing at the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.  Mr. Levin had joined the SEC in 1942 while it was still located in Washington, DC.  At the time of his appointment, the Commission had not returned to Washington from its wartime headquarters in Philadelphia, PA.

1948(15th of Shevat, 5708): Tu B’Shevat

1948 (15th of Shevat, 5708): Composer, Ignaz Friedman passed away at the age of 65. Born in 1882, Ignaz Friedman (also spelled Ignace or Ignacy) was a Polish pianist and composer famous for his Chopin interpretations

http://forward.com/articles/117873/ignaz-friedman-great-jewish-pianist/

1949: Switzerland recognized Israel.

 1950: “The Blue Lamp” produced by Michael Balcon was released today in the United Kingdom.

1951: Temple Beth Israel of Meridian, Miss.became the first Jewish congregation to allow women to perform the functions of a rabbi.

1952: In New York City, “Etyl, a classical pianist, and Paul Leder, a director, producer, actor, writer, and editor of such films as My Friends Need Killing, Attack of the Giant Horny Gorilla, and Dismember Mama” gave birth to “the first female graduate of the AFI Conservatory,” Miriam Leder whose directorial stint at DreamWorks included “Deep Impact” and “Pay It Forward” and who is the wife of “actor Gary Werntz” with whom she has had one daughter – Hannah.

1952: In Cairo, the main Cicurel Department Store was destroyed by a fire set either by the Muslim Brotherhood or militant nationalists. The store was part of chain started in 1909 by Moreno Cicurel an Egyptian Jew who was both active in Jewish and Egyptian community affairs.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the unexpected delay in the ratification of the Reparations Agreement with West Germany upset the Ministry of Finance budget calculations.

1954: Prime Minister Churchill urges the members of his cabinet to support a policy of open navigation through the Suez Canal, which is another way of saying he was calling on the British government to support all measures to force the Egyptian government to open the waterway to ships traveling to and from Israel. 

1954: David Ben-Gurion steps down as Minister of Defense, a position he had held since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

1954: Pinchas Lavon becomes the second person to hold the position of Minister of Defense

1955(3rdof Shevat, 5715): Six after being in an automobile accident that claimed the life of wife Tola and a friend, Fanny Levey, William Fernhoff, the Vienna trained doctor and son of Isaac and Sarah Fernhoff who came to the United States in 1924 died of the injuries sustained in the same traffic wreck.

1955: Sid Gilman was named coach of the Los Angeles Rams.

1958: ABC broadcast the first episode of “Sid Caesar Invites You” starring Sid Caesar.

1959: “An Evening with Fred Astaire” with music by David Rose and his Orchestra and produced by Bud Yorkin was re-broadcast this evening.

1959: Rabbi Marc Schneier and Elisabeth Nordman Schneir gave birth to Yeshiva University graduate Marc Schneir the multiply married rabbi and founder of The Foundation of Ethnic Understanding whose rating as one “one of the top most influential American rabbis by Newsweek” and “one of the 50 most prominent Jews in the United States by Forward” might lead one to assume that 21st century Judaism has drifted a long from such rabbis as Telushkin and Heschel.

1965(23rd of Shevat, 5725): Eighty-nine-year-old “Mrs. Estelle Elukus Gaston, the widow of Clarence G. Galston, a former Federal judge of the Eastern District of New York passed away today in her home at 853 Keene Lane, Woodmere, L.I.

1968: The film version of Up the Junction starring Maureen Lipman was released today in the United Kingdom.

1968 (25th of Tevet, 5728): The British Admiralty reported the Dakar, an Israeli submarine, was missing and gave the last known position as 100 miles (160 km) west of Cyprus

1969: American businessman and music publisher Allen Klein met with John Lennon today who retained “Klein as his financial representative” in attempt to avoid going broke.

1970: “Can You Top This?” “was briefly revived in syndication by Four Star Television” today featuring “Morey Amsterdam as Executive Producer and regular panelist” along with Paul Winchell and Jack Carter.

1972: “The Hot Rock” the movie version of the novel with same name with a screenplay by William Goldman and co-starring George Segal, Ron Leibman and Zero Mostel was released in the United States today.

1973 (23rd of Shevat, 5733): Famed actor Edward G. Robinson, born Emanuel Goldenberg, passed away.

http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/163201%7C45179/Edward-G-Robinson/

1975: “Day School Funds for Jews Urged” published today described plans laid out by Rabbi Milton H. Polin, a leader of the Rabbinical Council of America to meeting to meet the “absolutely urgent need “for a “massive infusion of funds” to sustain the network of 473 Hebrew day schools maintained by Orthodox Jews in the United States and Canada” in which approximately “82,000 youths are enrolled.”

http://www.nytimes.com/1975/01/26/archives/day-school-funds-for-jews-urged-direct-grants-to-students-proposed.html

1976: Israelopened the "Good Fence" to Lebanon. 

1976: David Mamet's "American Buffalo" premiered in New York City.

1976: Birthdate of William “Willie” Adler, guitarist who played with the Lamb of God.

1977: Birthdate of Livingston, NJ, native Justin Jeremy Gimelstob, the Davis Cup tennis player.

http://www.atpworldtour.com/en/players/justin-gimelstob/g354/overview

1978: In Cairo, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat announced that serious negotiations were going on behind the scenes on the stalled peace talks and that the US officials expressed hope that the current rift with Israel will soon be over.

1980: Israeland Egypt established diplomatic relations

1981:Finance Minister Yigal Hurvitz and two other Likud members of the Knesset broke away from the Likud to form Rafi - National List.

1986(16th of Shevat, 5746): Nineteen year old Judah Benjamin Pushkin passed aw ay today after which he was buried in the B’nai Jacob Eternal Home Cemetery in Ruth, W.Va

1986: Nine days after Spain and Israel established full diplomatic relations, Jerusalem designated Shmuel Hadas, “its unofficial envoy in Madrid to become its first ambassador to Spain.”  The Madrid government had already designed Pedro Lopez Aguirrebengoa, its former ambassador to Greece “to head the new Spanish Embassy in Tel Aviv.”

1986:''Between the Wars: The Bronx Express, a Portrait of the Jewish Bronx'' comes to a close at the Bronx Museum of the Arts

1988: In “The Day He Caught Walter Johnson” Ira Berkow describes the highlight of 19 year Bob Berman who formed a battery with The Big Train.

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/26/sports/sports-of-the-times-the-day-he-caught-walter-johnson.html

1989: This Boy’s Life, a memoir by Tobias Wolff who did not find out that his father was Jewish until he was an adult, was published today.

1991: Flaws are becoming apparent in the Patriot air defense system deployed against Iraqi Scud missiles, with some warheads exploding and wreaking damage even though the missiles themselves are shot down. Those flaws were evident today, after Iraq fired four more Scud missiles at Tel Aviv and Haifa. The Israeli military said that Patriot defense missiles destroyed the four Scuds, but that at least one Scud warhead survived the midair collisions and exploded on the ground, causing some damage and slightly wounding two Israelis.

1992: Final performance of in Rina Yerushalmi's adaptation of "Hamlet" at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

1995: ABC broadcast the last episode of “My So-Called Life” a television series created by Winnie Holzman and produced by Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz

1996: In Fort Lauderdale, FL, “attorneys Ellen and Roy Oppenheim” gave birth to documentary filmmaker  Lance Oppenheim, the holder of a degree in visual and Environmental Studies from Harvard who made his cinematic debut with “Some Kind of Heaven,” “a documentary exploring life inside The Villages” which is an “age restricted community in Florida.

1996: “Rent” with Idina Menzel in the role of Maureen Johnson, moved from the New York Theatre Workshop (off-Broadway) to Broadway’s Nederlander Theatre “due to its popularity.”

1996(5th of Shevat, 5756): Thirty-six-year-old Gold Medal winning wrestler David L. Schultz passed away today.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sports/olympics/longterm/wrestlng/tribute.htm

1997: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Moses Mystery: The African Origins of the Jewish People by Gary Greenberg and The Creation of Dr. B: A Biography of Bruno Bettelheimby Richard Pollak and Girls Onlyby Alex Witchel.

1997: The New York Times published “The Antagonist as Liberator” by Amos Elon

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/06/28/specials/goldhagen-elon.html?_r=2

1997: In “The Man He Always Wanted to Be” Susan Boxer provides a detailed review of The Creation of Dr. B: A Biograph of Bruno Bettelheim by Richard Pollak.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/01/26/reviews/970126.boxer.html

1997: The Unlikely Spy, the first novel by Daniel Silva who had converted to Judaism when he married Jamie Gangel, which he had begun writing three years ago, “debuted on the New York Times best-seller” today where “it remained for five weeks, rising to number 13.

1998: During what will become known as the Monica Lewinsky Scandal U.S. President Bill Clinton appeared on national and denied having had "sexual relations" with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

2000: “Prime Minister Ehud Barak showered praise on the Syrian president's character today, issuing a statement seemingly aimed at luring the Syrians back to the negotiating table.”

2001:''Voyages'', Emmanuel Finkiel's film that deals with the Holocaust opens today at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center.

2001(2nd of Shevat, 5761): Eighty-one year old American political scientist Murray J. Edelman passed away. (As reported by Paul Lewis)

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/03/nyregion/murray-edelman-81-professor-and-pioneer-in-political-science.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm

2002: “A Palestinian suicide bomber wounded more than two dozen people when he blew himself up today in a pedestrian mall in a neighborhood of immigrant workers here” after which Israel began retaliating with airstrikes in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,

 

2003: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish author and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush by David Frum, AMERIKA (The Man Who Disappeared) by Franz Kafka; translated by Michael Hofmann. An Amazing Adventure: Joe and Hadassah's Personal Notes on the 2000 Campaignby Joe Lieberman and Hadassah Lieberman with Sarah Crichton and newly released inpaperback Einstein’s’ Unfinished Symphony: Listening to the Sounds of Space-Time, by MarciaBartusiak. The author, a freelance science writer with a breezy yet careful style, tells of the efforts by scientists to detect and measure gravitational waves, which Einstein predicted would ripple through the fabric of space-time. Her account is ''informative and easy to read,'' DavidGoodstein wrote here in 2000. ''When a gravity wave is first detected, the reader of this book will feel like a participant in the great event.''

2003: “After 45 performances and 28 previews, the curtain came down on a Broadway revival of “Dinner at Eight,” “a 1932 American play by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber.”

2004: “In the Garden of Verses, Revenge Grows Like a Weed” published today, provides a complete review of Apprentice to the Flower Poet Z. by Debra Weinsterin.

https://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/26/books/books-of-the-times-in-the-garden-of-verses-revenge-grows-like-a-weed.html?searchResultPosition=4

2005: On the day before the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, “at a Berlin gathering that included survivors of the Auschwitz death camp, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder called for vigilance to counter anti-Semitism and pledged to use the full force of the state to combat neo-Nazis.

2006: As part of events leading up to Holocaust Memorial Day observances in Poland, Holocaust survivors mixed with the young at the memorial to the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto.

2006: The Fifteenth Annual Jewish Film Festival comes to an end in New York.

2006: Hamas, an organization committed to the creation of a Palestinian state in all of the territory stretching from the Jordan to the Mediterraneanwon 76 of the 132 seats in the first parliamentary elections held in the PA in ten years.  The Hamas victory means that the terrorist organization can form a government without any coalition partners.  For many Israelis who had continued to look for an Arab partner for peace, the election results seemed to doom any hopes of peace.

2006:  The board of directors of Hudson’s Bay Co., Canada’s largest chain of department stores, agreed to sell the venerable institution to Jerry Zucker.  Born in Israel, Zucker graduated with a triple major from the University of Florida. He is a resident of Charleston, South Carolinaand ranks #346 on the Forbes Four Hundred List of Richest Americans.

2007: In a sign of growing acceptance of an expanded role for Israelis in international organization, The Jerusalem Post reported that Dr. Margaret Chan, the new director-general of the World Health Organization, has invited Israeli health professionals to contribute their experience and skills to the UN organization. The Chinese born, Canadian educated Chan told the Post that she welcomes from any member country including Israel.

2007: “A reading” of “Bar Mitzvah Boy” was held at the Chelsea Studios in New York City.

2008: Shabbat Yitro – The Giving of the Ten Commandments

2008: In New York City, the 92nd St Y hosts Israeli Folk Dance: Winter Marathon, an “all-night dancing, guaranteed to chase your winter chills away”   as part of the Israel at 60 Celebration.

2009:The American Jewish Historical Society and the Center for Jewish History present:
 “Stella in the Bois de Boulogne” a dramatic reading of a new play by Jane Wood and Tara Prem that brings alive the historic conflict between Stella Adler of the influential Jewish-American Adler acting dynasty and the controversial artistic director Lee Strasberg, and her subsequent meetings in Paris with Russian director Constantine Stanislavsky in 1934.

2009: Rosh Chodesh Shevat, 5769.

2009: Sports Illustratedreports that Maverick’s owner Mark Cuban was fined $25,000 for what the NBA called “improper interactions with Denver Nuggets players” during and a game on January 13.  Cuban has been fined 14 times by the league for fines totaling almost $1.5 million.

2009: Brad “Ausmus agreed to a 1-year, $1 million deal (plus incentives) to be a back-up catcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers

2009:Faced with a decline in their operating budget and a shrinking endowment, the trustees of Brandeis University voted unanimously today to close the Rose Art Museum and sell its collection to help shore up the university’s finances.

2009:Brazilian Jack Terpins was unanimously re-elected president of the Latin American Jewish Congress. A longtime activist in Brazil, Terpins, 61, recently finished his term as president of the Brazilian Israelite Confederation, Brazil's Jewish umbrella organization.

2009: In an Agriprocessor Doubleheader Leah Rubashkin, 36, wife of former Agriprocessors CEO Sholom Rubashkin, testified in a bail appeal hearing Monday that cash found in their home during a search was used for living expenses, not to escape the country while Soglowek Nahariya Ltd an Israeli food company has made a $40 million  offer for the Postville kosher meatpacking company, which became mired in legal and financial troubles after an immigration raid in May snared about one-third of its work force.

2010: “Bad Biology” a horror film that includes an appearance in front of the camera by James Glickenaus who as a director is usually on the other side of the camera was released in the United States today.

2010: The 92nd Street Y in New York is scheduled to present a program entitled “The Future of Islam” featuring John L. Esposito and Mahmoud Mamdani.

2011: The U.S. Premiere of “Inventory,” a film that tells the story three explorers, who painstakingly deciphered inscriptions on gravestones in the lushly overgrown Jewish cemetery in Warsaw, is scheduled to take place at The New York Jewish Film Festival.

2011: Yona Avrushmi, who was convicted of murder after throwing a grenade into a Peace Now rally killing Emil Grunzweig “was granted parole and released from Rimonim Prison” today.

2011:In Columbus, Ohio the Cultural Arts Committee Meeting of Tifereth Israel is scheduled to meet at the home of Cantor Chomsky.

2011: Historian Lisa Jardin appeared in a BBC documentary investigating her the life of her father Jacob Bronowski the history of science in the 20th century.

2011:Today, the Jerusalem District Police released details regarding its investigation into a cell of Palestinian militants suspected in two murders and 19 other security incidents since 1997.

2012: “Welcome to Kutsher's: The Last Catskills Resort” is scheduled to have its world premiere on the closing night of the New York Jewish Film Festival.

2012: Comedian Jeff Applebaum and Ari Hoptman are scheduled to appear at the Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival.

2017: “For A Good Time, Call…” a comedy starring Ari Graynor premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

2012: Israeli hackers brought down Iran's Press TV website and two websites belonging to the Ministry of Health and Medical Education today.

2013: “My Australia” is scheduled to be shown at the 9th annual Brooklyn Israel Film Festival

2013: Rabbi Sim Glaser is scheduled to entertain audiences at the Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival with “Material I Can’t Use In Sermons.”

2013(15thof Shevat, 5773): Tu B’Shevat

2013: Six incoming members of the 19th Knesset will have to give up their foreign citizenship before they are sworn in as new MKs on February 5.

2013(15thof Shevat, 5773): Two Ashdod refinery workers were killed this morning after they were exposed to a lethal dose of highly toxic gas.

2014: Meretz chairman and former Education Minister Shulamit Aloni who passed away on January 24 will be laid to rest this morning at the cemetery in Kfar Shamaryahu (As reported by Tova Dvorin)

2014: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Why I Read by Wendy Lesser, My Age of Anxiety by Scott Stossel and Leaving the Sea by Ben Marcus

2014: “The Light Ahead,” a 1939 cinematic version of Fishke der krumer by Mendele Moyker Sforim is scheduled to shown at the Westside Neighborhood School in Los Angeles.

2014: In New York Temple Israel is scheduled to host “The Complete Guide to the Arab Israeli Conflict” presented by Jonathan Cummings.

2014: If her health permits, Clair Moncreif will appear in “Golda’s Balcony” at Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carré which will be a benefit for the Jewish Foundation of Louisiana. (As reported by the Crescent City Jewish News)

2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “America’s Enduring Cantorate” featuring Cantors Jack Mendelsohn and Barbara Ostfeld-Hortowitz.

2014 “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not intend to uproot Jewish settlements anywhere in the West Bank, and will not force any settlers to leave, even under a permanent peace deal with the Palestinians, a well-placed official in the Prime Minister’s Office told The Times of Israel today” (As reported by Raphael Ahren)

2014: An Israeli documentary, “The Green Prince” (directed and written by Nadav Schirman), won the Sundance Film Festival award in the category of Audience Award for World Cinema: Documentary in Park City, Utah today. The film is loosely based on the bestselling memoir “Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices” by Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of senior Hamas member Sheikh Hassan Yousef. (As reported by Marissa Newman)

2015: In “Lone Soldiers’ from Kansas City Serve in Israel’s Army” published today Eric Adler described the life of Jake Fichman who is serving with the IDF.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article8206623.html

2016: Matan Porat is scheduled to open 92Y’s Seeing Music festival by providing a live, improvised accompaniment to Buster Keaton’s cinematic masterpiece, The General.

2016(16thof Shevat, 5766): Ninety-four-year-old character actor Abe Vigoda passed away.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/27/arts/television/abe-vigoda-actor-of-godfather-fame-dies-at-94.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2016: The Hadassah Mission to Jerusalem and the Blooming Desert led by Marlene post is scheduled to being today.

2017:According to IDF data published today, in the 15 months between October 2015 and the end of 2016, 281 terrorist attacks originating in the West Bank were reported throughout the country. Those attacks include 143 stabbing attacks, 89 shooting attacks, 39 vehicular attacks and 9 attacks utilizing explosive devices

2017: The Jerusalem Artichoke Festival which “is being celebrated by more than 50” the capital city’s restaurants is scheduled to come to an end today.

2017: Funeral services are scheduled to be held this morning at Beth Tzedec Synagogue for Hyman Belzberg, one of Canada’s wealthiest citizens who along with his brothers, Samuel and William, had controlled First City Financial Corp. Ltd., First City Trust Corp. and numerous real estate and development companies across North America.

2017(28th of Tevet, 5777): On the Jewish calendar “Yahrtzeit of David Nieto the Venetian born physician and rabbi, who led the London Sephardic community from the pulpit of Bevis Marks Synagogue.

2017: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to observe Holocaust Memorial Day today with a screening of “Son of Saul” followed by a short discussion.

2017: The Intown Jewish Academy in partnership with the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum, Eternal Life-Hemshech and Mt. Scopus, Hadassah Greater Atlanta are scheduled to host “Behind Enemy Lines” during which ninety-six year old Holocaust survivor Marthe Cohn who became a member of the intelligence service of the French First Army and was able to retrieve inside information about Nazi troop movements by slipping behind enemy lines will tell her incredible story of courage, faith and espionage.

2018: OPERATION UNDERSTANDING DC is scheduled to host a virtual luncheon with Aviva Kempner, Director of "Rosenwald"

2018: In Wyoming, The Jackson Hole Jewish Community Center is scheduled to host a “‘Tuba’ Shevat Holiday Dinner.”

2019: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host the second a final day of “Parent’s Shabbat.”

2019: “Aviva Kempner” is scheduled to screen “the work-in-progress of The Spy Behind Home Plate this afternoon as “part of the SABR-Bob David's Chapter 48th Annual meeting in Rosslyn, VA

2019: In Memphis, TN, “artist in-residence” Rich Recht is scheduled to lead a special “Tot Havdalah service” this evening followed by a congregational pizza dinner.

2019: In Rockville, MD, Tikvat Israel Congregation is scheduled to host a screening of “Redemption,” “the story of Menachem, a former front man for a rock band, who has become religious and is the father to a 6-year-old girl” whose daughter is diagnosed with cancer.

2019:” Rabbi Aaron Rozovsky, a Chaplain/Captain in the U.S. Army Reserves is scheduled to describe the opportunities and challenges facing Jewish chaplains based on his own experiences in Israel, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay Cuba and other domestic and foreign posts during “the annual Men’ Club-sponsored Military Shabbat at Congregation Olam Tikvah in Fairfax, VA.

2019(20th of Shevat, 5779): Parashat Yitro.

2020: “The Windermere Children,” a  “2020 biographical drama film written by Simon Block and directed by Michael Samuels based on the experience of child survivors of the Holocaust which follows the children and staff of a camp set up on the Calgarth Estate in Troutbeck Bridge, near Lake Windermere, England” was released today on BBC Two.

2020:  The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including American Oligarchs: The Kushners, the Trumps and the Marriage of Money and Power by Andrea Bernstein

2020: The New Century Chamber Orchestra is scheduled to play “The Violins of Hope” at the Osher Marin JCC.

2020: The Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County, NJ is scheduled to present a screening of “Rosenwald.”

2020: “Some Kind of Heaven, “a documentary about The Villages, a Florida retirement community was released today on the 24th birthday of the director, Lance Oppenheim.

2020: “Ma’abarot: The Israeli Transit Camps” and “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis” are scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival.

2020: In Palo Alto, CA, the Oshman Family JCC is scheduled to host “Is Art the Future of Jewish Practice?” during which Aaron Henne of L.A.-based Theatre Dybbuk discusses the ways art is connected with and excluded from Jewish practice.

2020(29th of Tevet, 5780): Ninety-four-year Hamilton, Ontario born mathematician Louis Nirenberg, the winner of the 2015 Abel Prize passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/science/louis-nirenberg-dead.html

2020: The Jewish Genealogical Society is scheduled to “The Sugihara Refugee Story: Survivors and Those Without Whom This Story Would Not Be Told.”

2020: The East Bay International Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “Europa Europa.”

2021: The Cleveland Jewish Book Festival is scheduled to host Mimi Lemany, the author of What We Will Become: A Mother, A Son and Journey of Transformation which is “a mother’s memoir of her transgender child’s odyssey.”

2021: The Striecker Center is scheduled to host Natalie Portman as part of the “Who Inspires the Women Who Inspire Us” series.

2021: The Jewish Review of Books is scheduled to host a “conversation with poet and literary critic Adam Kirsh whose latest book is The Blessing and the Curse: The Jewish People and Their Books in the Twentieth Century.

2021: In Chicago, Anshe Emet Synagogue is scheduled to host a screening of “Rosenwald” which tells “the remarkable story of a Jewish Partnership with African American communities followed by a panel discussion that includes Rabbi Michael Siegel and movie director Aviva Kempner.

2021: Moment Magazine is scheduled to present “North Africa’s Forgotten Holocaust with Sarah Abrevaya Stein and Aomar Boum

2021:  The New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “Irmi,” a documentary that tells the story of Irmi Silver as its closing film.

2021: The London School of Jewish Studies is scheduled to begin a series that examines the books of the Tanach, starting with an analysis of the later prophets in “Prophets of Despair and Hope.”

2021: MALA: Muslim American Leadership Alliance, the American Sephardi Federation, and the Center for Interreligious Understanding are scheduled to present a screening of “Nobody Wants Us.”

 

 

 

This Day, January 27, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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January 27

 98: Trajan becomes Roman Emperor after the death of Nerva. The second of the three Jewish revolts against Roman authority took place at the end of Trajan’s reign.  This second revolt took place in the Diaspora.  It started in 115 and lasted until 117.  The revolt began in Egypt and then spread to other parts of North Africa including Libya, Cyrenaica and the Island of Cyprus.  The revolt angered Trajan because it took place while he was campaigning in the East and he saw it as an act of treachery aimed at his rear.  Just as the Jews of the Diaspora remained passive during the two revolts that took place in the land of Israel, so the Jews of Israel took no part in this bloody action which resulted in the destruction of the Cypriot Jewish community and the start of the decline of the Egyptian Jewish community.

661: The Rashidun Caliphate ends with death of Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad. Begun in 632, the Caliphate marked a period of conquest that gave Islam control over a large swath of North Africa, the old Persian Empire and the modern Middle East.  It was during this period that the forces of Islam defeated the Byzantines thus giving them control over Jerusalem.

681: The 28 canons adopted by the Twelfth Council of Toledo which contained a series of “diverse measures against the Jews” were read for the fir time in the Church of Santa Maria in Toledo, Spain.

1164(1st of Adar): Poet and philosopher Abraham ibn Ezra passed away

1186: Henry VI, the son and heir of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, married Constance of Sicily. During Henry’s reign Jews would be massacred from the Rhine districts all the way to the Vienna.

1197(6th of Adar): Rabbi Samuel ben Natronai, a tosafist, was broken on the wheel and martyred today.

1343: Pope Clement VI, who had portions of Levi ben Gershon’s (Gersonides) Sefer Milhamot Ha-Shem, ("The Wars of the Lord"), translated into Latin today “issued the Bull Unigenitus Dei filius to justify the power of the pope

1349: The Jews were driven out of Burgundy and escorted as far as Montbozon.

1449: New Christians or Conversos were the targets of a riot in Toledo, Spain. The Conversos especially the wealthy ones, were attacked during a revolt against taxation. Three hundred of them decided to band together and defend themselves. During the attack one Christian were killed. In response, 22 Marranos were murdered and numerous of their houses were destroyed.

1571: Birthdate of Abbas I of Persia, “the 5th Safavid Shah of Iran during whose early reign the “Jews prospered throughout Persia and were encouraged to settle in Isfahan, the new capital.”  As the years wore on, the conditions of the Jews worsened and among other things, they “were forced to wear a distinctive badge on their clothing and headgear.

1659: Cornelis Janss Plavier and his wife Geertje Andriesz, who were about to leave for New Amsterdam borrowed 1625 guilders, insurance included, from Amsterdam merchant Abraham Cohen Henriquez. The loan was to be repaid with the sale of beaver shipped in the autumn to Amsterdam. Merchandise and bills of lading for the beaver were to be kept by Asser Levy, or in his absence by Joseph d' Acosta, until proper security could be given by the couple for the shipment for which they were obligated. The borrowers were not Jewish; the others involved were.

1695:  Mustafa II becomes the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul on the death of Amhed II. Ahmed II had been born in 1643.  During his reign he imprison Doctor Hayati Zadi in the Yedikule prison where he died. During the reign of Mustafa II, Belgrade was reconqured and the Jews were allowed to return to the city in 1690. Also, Doctor Nuh efendi, Doctor Levi, Doctor Tobias Cohen and Doctor Israel Koenigland were appointed palace doctors. Mustafa ruled until 1703.

1725: Mr. and Mrs. Michael Hays gave birth to Jacob Hays, the husband of Hetty Adolphus with whom he had seven children.

1755: In Jamaica, Sir Mannasseh Masseh Lopses who converted to Christianity so that he could become a Member of Parliament, was born into “a wealthy family of Portuguese Jews.”

1766: In Jamaica, Abigail and Gotchal Levien gave birth to Joicey Levien.

1773: Birthdate of Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, the 6th son of George III who(the one who lost the 13 colonies) who “became a Patron of the Jews' Hospital and Orphan Asylum, later to become the charity known as Norwood” and who supported legislation to remove “the civil liabilities of Jews” passed away today.

1774: Two days after his death at the age of 63, Abram ben Tov was buried at the “Alderney Road (Globe Rd) Jewish Cemetery.

1775: in the town of Leonberg in the Duchy of Württemberg (now Baden-Württemberg), of Joseph Friedrich Schelling and his wife Gottliebin Marie gave birth to German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling who was a major influence on Rabbi Sekl Loeb Wormser, Talmudist and Kabbalist who was a follower of Rabbi Nathan Adler.

1748: One day before his 31st birthday, Benjamin Mendes Seixas, the Newport born son

Rachel Franks Levy and Isaac Menes Seixas, married  Zipporah Levy in Philadelphia, PA after which they reportedly had 18 children.

1779: Zipporah Levy married Benjamin Mendes Seixas today in Philadelphia, PA.

1780(20thof Shevat, 5540): Amsterdam native Rebecca bat Rab Meir passed away today in the United Kingdom

1781: As the United States garnered allies in its fight for independence, British Admiral Sir George Rodney was informed that Britain was now at war with the United Provinces (Holland) and recommended as "first objects of attack St. Eustatius and St. Martin” attacks that would lead to the worst outbreak of anti-Semitism during the American Revolution

1785: Founding of the University of Georgia. According to the January, 2005 issue of “The Jewish Week,” the University of Georgia is emerging as one of the new “hot campuses” for Jewish students. “In 1993 the state of Georgia began paying full tuition to students with a 3.0 average or better in high school who kept a B average or better in college. So now the University of Georgia, which the Chronicle of Higher Education said had been considered a party school 10 years ago, is now a popular destination for in-state Jewish students. It’s 58th on this year’s U.S. News and World Report ranking of state schools for undergraduates, right below Maryland. Now the University of Georgia Hillel gets as many as 130 students at a Shabbat dinner, according to its director Shawn Laing.”

1787: In Lancaster, PA, Reyna Simon and Solomon Etting gave birth to Miriam Etting, the wife of Jacob Myers

1788: “The first of England’s flotilla of convict transports dropped anchor at Sydney harbor, New South Wales.”  There were eight Jews among the eight hundred prisoners one of whom was sixteen-year old Esther Abrahams of London, sentenced to an Australian penal farm for stealing a piece of lace. 

1788: Sarah Cohen, and New York native David Nunez Cardozo gave birth toe Frances Cardozo.

1790: In France, active citizenship was extended to the "well born" Sephardic Jews of Bordeaux, who promptly bowed out of the fight for equal rights. They looked upon their poorer brothers in Alsace-Lorraine with contempt.

1791: The National Assembly grants civil rights to the Jews of Alsace and Lorraine completing the process of emancipation for French Jews.

1806: Birthdate of “German philologist and lexicographer” Wilhelm Freund whose four volume Latin dictionary became “the basis for the standard English-Latin dictionaries in the 19th century” Lewish and Short’s A Latin Dictionary

1806: Birthdate of Devon native Barnet Jonas.

1808: Birthdate of German theologian and author David Friedrich Strauss who was a leader of those studying Jesus as a historical figure, which would have included his Jewish origins.

https://www.westarinstitute.org/resources/the-fourth-r/david-friedrich-strauss/

1808: Jerome Bonaparte granted full civil rights to the Jews of Westphalia

1811: Abraham Lima Lamert married Elizabeth Abrahams at the Great Synagogue.

1813: Birthdate of Heinrich von Friedberg who became a Protestant and enjoyed a successful legal career in Prussia.

1813: Solomon Meyer married Sarah Samuel at the Great Synagogue today.

1814: Seventy-two-year-old Philip Astley, “the father of the modern circus” who in 1786 hired Jacob de Castro, the son of a Hebrew teacher, to perform in “Amphitheatre and Ambigu-Comique” for several years and a group of whose performers were known as “Astley’s Jews” passed away today.

1814: Fifty-one-year-old Johann Gottlieb Fichte the German philosopher who in 1793 “singled out Jews and Judaism as constituting a ‘state-within-a-state’ that was ‘predicted on the hatred of the entire human race’ and ‘spreading thought almost all lands of Europe and terribly oppressing its citizens” yet whose Addresses to the German Nation shows “few traces of such Jews-hatred.”

1818(21st20th of Shevat, 5578): Fifty-five-year-old Rachel Heilbron, the New York born daughter of Sara and Moses Benjamin and sister of Revolutionary War hero Colonel Isaac Franks who married David Heilbron after having been married to Chaim Moses Salomon Sr. passed away today in New York.

1824: In Groningen, Netherlands, Hartog Abraham Israels and his wife gave birth to Dutch painter Jozef Israëls. “Descended from a poor Jewish family, Jozef Israëls started taking drawing lessons in 1835 at the Academy Minerva in Groningen….In addition to fishermen scenes and portraits, he expanded his subject matter with peasant scenes, and later in his career he returned to the subject of death and old age, as well as treating Jewish and biblical themes.He traveled extensively and was much honored at home and abroad. Israëls was the most acclaimed Dutch painter in his time, eagerly sought after by collectors in Great Britain, the United States, and other countries. Hailed as a second Rembrandt, he participated in many exhibitions, and his work was disseminated through reproductions.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jozef_Israëls#/media/File:Jozef_israels_solo_en_mundo.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jozef_Israëls#/media/File:Josef_Israels_001.jpg

1829: Two days after he had passed away, 84 year old Benjamin Zeev Coster was buried today at the “Lauriston Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1832: In Alsace, Alexander Aron and his wife, the former Charlotte Ascher Lower, gave birth to Clara Aron.

1836: Benjamin Marks married Abigail Garcia today at the Hambro Synagogue.

1836: Birthdate of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch the Austrian author whose works included Jews and Russians and New Jewish Stories.  “He faithfully described the manners of the Polish Jews but he feared that his affection for them might give the impression that he was an Israelite.”

1840: One day after she had passed away, Hannah Chapman, the wife of Benjamin Chapman, was buried today at the “Lauriston Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1842: During the consecration of the first Reform Synagogue in London, Rabbi David Woolf Marks shocked the traditional Anglo-Jewish community by declaring. “We solemnly deny that a belief in the divinity of those traditions written in the Mishnah and the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmud is of equal obligation to the Israelite with the faith in the divinity of the Laws of Moses… These books are human compositions; and, though we are content to accept with reverence, advice and instruction from our post-biblical ancestors, we cannot unconditionally accept their laws. For Israelites there is but one immutable Law – the sacred volume of the Scriptures commanded by God to be written down for the unerring guidance of His people until the end of time.” Every Hebrew congregation must be authorised to take such measures as shall bring the divine services into consonance with the will of the Almighty, as explained to us in the Law and in the Prophets.”

1843(26thof Shevat, 5603): Sixty-nine-year-old Levy Salomons, the son of Shiphra Levy Salomons and Solomon Salomons passed away today in the United Kingdom

1743(26thof Shevat, 5603): Abraham Hyman, the son of Samuel and Elizabeth Hyman passed away today in New Orleans.

1847: A ball was held at the Museum Building to raise funds for the establishment of Hebrew school in Philadelphia, PA. Among those in charge of the event were M.H. De Young, Moses Nathans, Isaac Nathans, Benjamin Pincus, S.M. Klossser, and David Van Beil.

1848: In York Place Queens Elm, Sophia and Nathaniel Levy gave birth to Lewis Levy.

1850: Birthdate of Samuel Gompers, first president the American Federation of Labor.  When asked what does the American working man want, Gompers responded, “More!”

http://www.aflcio.org/About/Our-History/Key-People-in-Labor-History/Samuel-Gompers-1850-1924

1854: In London, Caroline Lazarus and Mark George Simmons gave birth Henry Frederick Simmons.

1859(22nd of Shevat, 5619): Rabbi Menahm Mendel of Kotsk passed away.

1859(22ndof Shevat, 5619): Seventy-nine-year-old Mozes Abraham Verveer, the Amsterdam born son of Abraham Salomon passed away today in The Hague.

1859: Birthdate of Kaiser Wilhelm II who served as German emperor from 1888 until his abdication in 1918. Wilhelm played many complex roles in the lives of the Jews of Europe.  He missed one opportunity to alter Jewish history by not supporting Herzl when he sought the Kaiser’s help in creating a Jewish state in Eretz Israel. Despite the thousands of Jews who fought and died in his Army, Wilhelm was an anti-Semite who blamed the Jews for Germany’s defeat helping to give rise to the canard about Germany having been defeated by “the stab in the back,” a stab delivered by the Jews.

1860: Birthdate of Sir Charles Solomon Henry, an Australian merchant and businessman who lived mostly in Britain and sat as a Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons from 1906-1918.

1861: Three days after he had passed away, 64-year-old Philip Benjamin, the husband of Frances Benjamin and the father of Deborah Benjamin was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”

1863: Sixty-eight-year-old Edward Robinson, the American biblical scholar who is considered the “Father of Biblical Geography” passed away.  The American Protestant journeyed to Palestine with Reverend Eli Smith where they identified many of the sites described in the Bible.  Among them was the tunnel dug during the reign of King Hezekiah.  An arch dating back to Herod’s rebuilding of the Second Temple was named Robinson’s Arch in his honor. In 1839, Robinson became the first person to describe Tell el-Hesi., a site later excavated by Flinders Petrie.

1864: During the American Civil War, the Richmond (VA) Examiner published an article today about those who have are deserting the southern Confederacy for the safety of the North with Jews being the only group identified by their religion.  According to the paper, a “great underground route to the North is now open through to Washington, D.C, via the track of the York River Railroad.  This route, so generously left open by the Confederate Government, is patronized daily by scores of the principal of substitutes in search of more healthful localities -- Jews and blockade-runners carrying out gold and running in goods…”

1869(15thof Shevat, 5629): Tu B’shevat

1869: Twelve-year-old Jacob Bibo, the younger brother of Isaac R. Bibo, who had been placed in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in March 1867 after his mother died, “left the institution” today “and went to work with a pawnbroker on the Bowery.

1872: Birthdate of Weaverville, CA native Julius C. Lang who was one of the delegates from Seattle Washington at the 1919 convention of the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society of America.

1873: In Russia, the recently promulgated Ukase concerning recruiting sailors and soldiers for the Czar’s military went into effect.  Among the change in the new law was the termination of the exemption from service that had been given to Jews who had converted to Christianity. This is one of dozens of exemptions that were terminated.  Now an exemption may be purchased upon payment of 800 silver rubles to the government.

1876(1stof Shevat, 5636): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1878: President Henry S. Herman presided over the opening session of District Grand Lodge No. 1 of the Independent Order of the B’nai Brit which was being held at the Nilsson Hall in New York City.  District 1 includes New York States, all the states of New England and the Dominion of Canada.

1879: A Commission of Investigation was established to examine charges of immoral contact by Monsignor Thomas John Capel.  Capel’s behavior would lead to his being sent to the United States where he became a popular speaker who delivered an address on patriotism to the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.

1879(3rdof Shevat, 5639): Schiee Jaffe, the native of Gnesen, who was the son of Samuel and N.N. Jaffe, passed away today in Berlin

1880(14thof Shevat, 5640): Eighty-five-year-old German born pianist Jacques-Simon Herz passed away today.

1880: Birthdate of Baltimore native and HUC graduate Eli Mayer whose thesis on “War and Religion” earned him his Doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania and who served at congregations in Helena, AR, Patterson, NJ, Philadelphia, PA, before settling in at Temple Beth Emeth in Albany, NY while serving on the board of the NAACP and wring Joshua and Ruth.

1880: Three days after she had passed away, 37-year-old Fanny Milligan, the daughter Charles and Sarah (Barnet) Milligan was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”

1882: In Austria, Solomon and Edith Bodenstein gave birth to Columbia University trained physician and Health Commissioner of New York City Dr. Louis Israel Harris who led the fight against the outbreaks of typhoid fever and influenza while serving as the director of the “Committee for the Care of the Jewish Tuberculous” while raising to children – Sophia and Carl—with his wife the former Bertha Adler Harris.

1883: In New Orleans, Judge H.L. Lazarus and his wife gave birth to Tulane trained Attorney Eldon Spencer Lazarus who was a member of the ADL for forty years and President of Temple Sinai while a son and a daughter with his wife Hilda Lazarus.

1884(29thof Tevet, 5644): Sixty-nine-year-old Rabbi Gutmann Gumpel Klemperer, the husband of Julie Klemperer, whose intellectual accomplishments included writing “a history of the Prague rabbinate from the death of Yehudah Leib ben Betsal’el (Maharal) through the period ending in 1879” passed away today.

1885: Birthdate of Jerome (David) Kern, one of America's foremost composers of music for the theatre and screen. He is best known as the composer of Broadway musicals like The Cat and the Fiddle (1931) and Roberta (1933). http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/exhibits/C67

1885: Birthdate of musician and composer Harry Ruby.

http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/exhibits/C308

1886: In Atlanta, GA, Joseph L. Loeb of Charleston SC, married Stella Jackson the “youngest daughter of the late J.J. Cohen of Rome, GA” at the “residence of her brother, L.L. Cohen.”

1887: Henry M. Stanley, the leader of the expedition to save Emin Pasha, the apostate Jew turned Christian, turned Moslem, arrived in Cairo.

1888:  Birthdate of mineralogist and petrologist Victor Moritz Goldschmidt

1888: Birthdate of Sacki Gustav one of the many German Jews from Kleinseinach who died while serving in WW I.

1890: In St. Louis, Rabbi Rosentretter presided at the wedding of Fannie Miller, the daughter of A.A. Miller and Morris Elman.

1890: In Albany, NY, Davis S. Mann, a Jewish teller, was denied a promotion to cashier of the Albany County Banks.

1891(NS): Birthdate of Russian and later Soviet author, journalist and activist, Ilya Ehrenburg.

1891: Joseph Kline, the President of a Hebrew Cemetery Society “was put on trial” today “in the Union County charged with larceny and obtaining money under false pretenses from John Leece

1892: Birthdate of Ernst Lubitsch “a German-born Jewish film director” whose “urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director” which led critics to say that his films had “the Lubitsch touch".

1892: It was reported today that the recent charity ball hosted at the Brooklyn Academy of Music raised approximately $6,000 for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.

1893(10thof Shevat, 5653): Russian journalist Nachum Cohen author of “In A Dull Townlet” which “appeared in book form in 1895” passed away today.

1893: It was reported today that the average attendance during 1892 at the Hebrew Technical Institute was 138.  Seventy-five percent of the 32 students who graduated “have obtained desirable positions.

1894: Approximately 200 delegates attended the opening session of the annual meeting of District Lodge No. 1 of B’nai B’rith at the Lexington Avenue Opera House where they heard an address from the retiring President, Judge Goldfogle of the Fifth Judicial District.

1895(2ndof Shevat, 5655): Forty-eight-year-old Gustavus Thalhimer, the Richmond, VA, born son William Thalhimer, the German born founder of Richmond, VA, Thalheimer Brothers, Inc. and Mary Millhiser Thalhimer and the husband of Pauline Thalhimer passed away today after which he was buried in the Hebrew Cemetery in Richmond.

1895: It was reported today that the 2,000 people who attended a charity ball in Brooklyn last week raised over $10,000 for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.

1895: Birthdate of Bristol, RI native Leo Isaacson, the husband of Esther Isaacson.

1895: Birthdate of Joseph Rosenstock, the native of Cracow who conducted orchestras in Poland, Japan, Germany and the United States.

1895: “The Navigator Prince Henry” published today provides a detailed review of Prince Henry The Navigator: The Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery in which the author C. Raymond Beazly draws on the accounts of Benjamin of Tudela.

1896: It was reported today that Mrs. Wallenstein has been re-elected as President of the Hebrew Infantile Asylum Association.  Mrs. Reiser has been re-elected as Vice President.

1896: Sarah Bernhardt appeared in the role of Marguerite in “La Dame aux Cemelias” at the Abbey Theatre.

1897: Opening session of the Fifth Annual meeting of the American Jewish Historical Society took place in Baltimore, MD.

1897: The Jewish Messenger published a complete report about Henry Herzberg’s speech, “The Soul of Judaism.”

1897(24thof Shevat, 5657): Dr. Solomon Deutsch, a leading philologist, passed away today in New York.  Deutsch was born in Silesia in 1816 and came to the United States in 1857 after completing his education. He served as a rabbi in several cities including Philadelphia and Hartford before retiring to purse an academic career that included the authorship of Hebrew Grammar, Medical Germanand Biblical History.

1897: The Hebrew Union Veteran Association held its annual reception at the Lenox Lyceum in New York City.

1897: “Condition of the Poor” published today included Superintendent N.S. Rosenau’s of the United Hebrew Charities description of the “suffering among the poor Jewish people on the east side” which is made all the worst with the combination of bad weather and economic depression. The Jewish fund is “broke” having provided half a million dollars to the destitute “In the three years from October 1893 to the close of 1896.”

1897: During today’s debate on the proposed Immigration Bill being considered by the House of Representatives, Ohio Congressman Henry Grosvenor said “he would not vote for a measure framed specialty to restrict the Russian Jews” because such a vote would leave him open to charges that he had voted “against a man on account of his religion.”

1898: Two days after he had passed away, 64 year old Isaac Hart was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1898: It was reported today that a lady was wounded by accident when a Spaniard fired at a French non-commissioned officer during today’s anti-Jewish riots in Algiers.

1899: A trial opened in the Assize Court in Paris today Mme. Henry, has sued Joseph Reinach, a member of the Chamber of Deputies and the editor of the Republic Fracaisefor libeling her late husband by calling him “a traitor.”  Mme. Henry is the widow of the late Lt. Col. Henry who committed suicide after having confessed to forging documents used against Alfred Dreyfus.

1899: In Detroit, Leo Franklin “preached his first sermon as Rabbi of Bethel at the Washington Boulevard Temple” today.

1899: Birthdate of football player and manager Béla Guttmann the native of Budapest who “moved to Vienna to escape the anti-Semitism of the Admiral Horthy regime and joined the all-Jewish club SC Hakoah Wien which won the all-league title in 1926.

1900(27thof Shevat, 5660): Parashat Mishpatim

1900: Birthdate of Nova Scotia native Jacob Lighter who in 1917 came to Seattle, WA where he became a C.P.A. formed the accounting firm of Friedman and Lighter, married Esther Marshin and helped to establish the Hillel chapter at the University of Washington. (As described by Esther Lighter)

1900: In Przasnysz, Russian Poland, Abraham Rickover and the former Rachel Unger gave birth to Chaim Godalia Rickover who gained fame as U.S. Naval Academy graduate, Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, the father of the atomic and later nuclear-powered Navy.  He, more than any other single individual, was responsible for the creation of the submarine fleet that gave America its strategic edge over the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

http://www.nytimes.com/1986/07/09/obituaries/rickover-father-of-nuclear-navy-dies-at-86.html?pagewanted=all

https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/hyman-g-rickover

1900: This mornings sermon at the Temple Israel of Harlem “will be on ‘Subserviency.’”

1901: Birthdate of Abraham Cantarow, the native of Hartford, CT, who served on the faculty of Jefferson Medical College.

1902:Shaare Zedek Hospital opened today in Jerusalem “with 20 beds, an outpatient clinic, and a pharmacy.”

1902: Birthdate of Yosef Sapir, the native of Jaffa who served as mayor of Petah Tikva , an MK and a member of the government that guided Israel through the Six Day War.

1902: Birthdate of Alberto Carlos de Liz-Texeira Branquinho, Portugal’s Chargé d'Affaires in Budapest in 1944 who risked his life to save thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust.

http://vidaspoupadas.idiplomatico.pt/en/

1903: The Eighth Annual Convention of the Progressive Order of the Western, which has 1,721 members, continued for a third day today.

1904: In Mulhouse, Baruch Kahn and Constance Lange gave birth to Edmond Kahn.

1904: Herzl received a telegram from Leopold Greenberg that described a definitive offer from the British Government that would allow for a Jewish homeland in Nandi, a territory in the colony of Kenya. Greenberg advised immediate acceptance and the sending of an expedition. Greenberg was a British Zionist and publisher of the Jewish Chronicle.

1905: The large East End resort, "Wonderland," which is notorious as a prize-fight arena, was the scene tonight of a remarkable revolutionary demonstration attended by an audience numbering 3,000, and “which was composed largely of Russian Jews.”

1906(1stof Shevat, 5666): Parahsat Vaera; Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1906: “Joseph Hartigan, President of the senior class” presided over “a mass meeting and conference held by the New York University Relief Association” tonight ‘at the Educational Alliance in East Broadway” where “the massacres of the Jews in Russia were denounced and a protest was ordered to be sent President Roosevelt.”

1906: “In Law and the Facts of Life,” published today Washington C. Ford points out that in feudal times “the King oppressed or protected the Jews according to his own interests.”

1907(12thof Shevat, 5667): Ninety-year-old Moritz Steinschneider who overcame anti-Semitism to become a noted bibliographer and Orientalist

http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Steinschneider_Moritz

1908: It was reported today that public can now “view the Isaac Wallach memorial bust” on display at Mt. Sinai Hospital which was commissioned to show recognition for his services to the hospital.

1908: “Ein Walzertraum (A Waltz Dream),”an operetta by Oscar Straus opened today at the Broadway Theatre in New York City.

1909: Birthdate of boxer Lou Halper.

1909: Eight days after she had passed away at Nice, Emily Isaacs, the daughter of Samuel and Ann Isaacs and the widow of David Falcke and John Nathaniel Whitmore was buried today at the “Balls Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1910(17thof Shevat, 5670: Mrs. Chaie Schore Schaker passed away today in Liepaja

1911: Birthdate of Blanche Margaret Meagher, who served as the Canadian ambassador to Israel from 1958 to 1961 making her the first woman to serve as a Canadian ambassador.

1912: In New York City, President Taft attended a ball sponsored by the Daughters of Jacob, an organization established in 1895 to fund a home for aged Jewish citizens.

1913: Twenty-four-year-old Alvah Myer who won a Silver Medal at the 1912 Olympics ran what he thought was “a world-best time in the 100 meters at the Lyceum Games in New York” which the AAU would later disallow. (As reported by Bob Wechsler)

1913(19thof Shevat, 5673): Fifty-three-year-old City Magistrate Moses J. Harris passed away today in Brooklyn.

1915: During a series of campaigns that would result in the British holding Palestine, one part of the German-led Ottoman troops cut the road between El Arish and Qantra Road while another unit attacked “near Qantara in the northern sector of the Suez Canal and near the town of Suez in the south”

1915: Birthdate of basketball player Edward L. “Ed” Keller who played for Duquesne before turning professional and playing two seasons with the NBL.

1915: Among those listed today as contributors to the American Jewish Relief Committee were the Sewing Circle of Memphis, TN, the B’nai B’rith Lodge of Meridian, Mississippi, the House of Israel, Hot Springs, Arkansas and Temple B’nai Israel, Natchez, Mississippi

1916: Citizens of the United States responded generously today, which President Wilson and several governors had officially proclaimed as Jewish Relief Day as a way of aiding the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the War reach their 1916 fund raising goal of five million dollars. In response to a Congressional Resolution asking him to do so, President Wilson had issued a proclamation proclaiming January 27 as Jewish Relief Day and urged people to donate to the committee or send contributions to the American Red Cross to aid the Jews in war-torn Europe and Palestine.

1916: As a twenty-four-hour fund-raising effort that began last night in San Francisco continued today, Governor Hiram W. Johnson of California urged “Californians to aid in the work” of raising money for Jewish Relief Day.

1916: In response to the fund-raising efforts on Jewish Relief Day, “employees in factories have contributed their dinner money” to the cause including a large number of Italians working on the East Side.

1916: In Richmond, VA, Governor Henry Carter Stuart, Mayor George Ainslie and Right Revered Dennis J. O’Connell, the Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Richmond were among the speakers at meeting attended by Jews and Christians under the auspices of the Jewish War Relief Committee during which almost $17,000 was raised

1916: Across the United States, “many workmen are giving their day’s pay and many business men are contributing a part of their proceeds on Jewish Relief Day.

1916: As part of Jewish Relief Day, in Cincinnati, $50,000 has been contributed and another $50,000 pledged to the American Jewish Relief Committee.

1916: As part of Jewish Relief Day, the Fruit and Produce Merchants’ Committed raised $8,207 at a fruit auction today.

1916: Nobody was exempt from the thousands of volunteers participating in the Tag Day fundraising event today including President Wilson who bought two tags – one from Dr. David S. Sola Pool and one from Miss Ruth V. Kahn.

1916: Albert Lucas, the Executive Secretary of the Central Committee sent the following telegram to President Wilson: “The Central Committee for the Relief of Jews suffering Through the War respectfully desires to express its grateful appreciation of your action in proclaiming today as Jewish Relief Day.  Entirely apart from the immense sum of money which will doubtless be raised through the efforts of thousands of volunteers of all sects and creeds that are devoting to for the aid of the stricken Jewish people your Excellency has the assurance that we are convinced that day be reckoned as the dawn of another Emancipation Day.”

1916: The American Jewish Relief Committee announced today that, to date, it has received $1,262,700.78 of which “$1,070,748.56 was in cash and $191,952.22 in pledges.”

1917: As World War I drags on for a third year it is reported that not one home in the Jewish quarter of Belgrade remains standing undamaged. Large numbers of Jews have immigrated to Greece from various areas in the Balkans. The Americans sent $55,000 to help with relief in Serbia and Greece, after receiving a cablegram for help from the Chief Rabbi of Salonica, Jacob Meir.

1917(4thof Shevat, 5677): Eighty-year-old Rabbi Moses Samuel Zuckermandl, a student of Samson Raphael Hirsch, passed away today in Breslau.

1918: “At the annual meeting of the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies held tonight at the Manhattan Opera House, officers reported great success during the first year of the federation and the members cheered the announcement of full victory for the two week’s drive to get 50,000 new members, pledged to the maintenance of the 89 welfare bodies embraced in the organization.”

1919: “Oh, Joy!” the English version of the Jerome Kern musical “Oh, Boy!” opened in London at the Kingsway Theatre.

1920: The Palestine Military Railways, the British operator of the Jaffa-Jerusalem Railway began rebuilding the line today, widening to “standard gauge” today.

1922(27thof Tevet, 5682): Baltimore native Moses Crystal, the President of the Fabian Construction Company and a trustee of the West End Synagogue passed away today in his hometown.

1922: Two days after she had passed away, 83-year-old Rachel (Toms) Kaufmann, the wife of Jacob Kaufman with whom she had had four children was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”

1923: Walter James, 2nd Baron Northbourne the Liberal political leader who in 1906 called on the British government to make public “any consular or other reports concerning the anti-Jewish outrages in Russia” because “he thought the publication of any such reports might indirectly have some effect in inducing the Russian Government to do its best to remedy conditions that outraged the civilization of the twentieth century” passed away today. (Editor’s note - I have not been able to find a reason why this member of the British aristocracy spoke out on behalf of the Jews during the Pogroms in Russia.)

1924: Birthdate of Harvey Irwin Shapiro, the Chicago born poet who became an editor of the New York Times (As reported by Margalit Fox)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/08/books/harvey-shapiro-poet-of-new-york-and-beyond-dies-at-88.html?_r=0

1925: London born, American featherweight David “Danny” Frush who fought under the name “Seaman Clarke” lost his bout today in Paris by a Knockout.

1926: Birthdate of journalist, broadcaster and humorist Fritz Spiegl.  Born and educated in Austria, Spiegel and his family fled when the Nazis annexed Austria.  He settled in England where he lived and worked until his death in 2003.

1929: Rabbi Israel Efros, the “Dean of the Baltimore Hebrew college was formally installed as the rabbi of Temple at banquet attended by “Saul Tschernichowsky, one of the greatest of contemporary Hebrew poets, Solomon Goldman, one of America's outstanding rabbis” and toastmaster Charles Dautch

1929: Birthdate of German-born American chess champion Hans Berliner.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/16/business/hans-berliner-master-chess-player-and-programmer-dies-at-87.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=1

1929: “Marquis Preferred” a comedy featuring Mischa Auer was released in the United States today.

1929: Birthdate of Richard Ottinger, a New York Democratic Party leader who served in the House of Representatives and then pursued a career with the Pace University School of Law.

1930: According to reports published today, “there are more than 213,000 volumes in the Hebrew University Library.”  During 1929, 22,000 volumes were added to the library’s collection. The library includes the ‘only medical library of note in the entire region.’” The Library has expanded its locations as well as it collection.  Based on the demand of physicians in Palestine, the library has established a branch medical library at the Nathan Straus Health Center in Jerusalem and another such facility in Tel Aviv.

1931: Birthdate of author Mordecai Richler.  A native of Montréal many Americans know him as the author The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz which was later turned into a film of the same name. His first novel, The Acrobats (1954), is about a young Canadian painter in Spain with a group of expatriates and revolutionaries. Richler was a sharp cultural critic, and his books The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1959), St. Urbain's Horsemen (1971), and Joshua Then andNow (1980) all deal with greed and success. He wrote a collection of humorous essays titled Notes on an Endangered Species and Others (1974), and a series of children's books. He said, "Coming from Canada, being a writer and Jewish as well, I have impeccable paranoia credentials."

1934(11thof Shevat, 5694): Parashat Beshalach

1934(11thof Shevat, 5694): Forty-six-year-old “Mrs. Nadezhda Fingerhood, the wife of Boris Fingerhood, the superintendent of the Israel Zion Hospital in Brooklyn, passed away today after being ill for three weeks.

1934: “Bedside,” drama produced by Samuel Bischoff was released in the United States today.

1936: Supreme Court Justice McCook, who had been hearing a suit brought S.S. & B Live Poultry Corporation to restrain the Kashruth Association of New York from proceeding against it for failing to use leg band, “handed down a decision” today “upholding the right of the association, a semi-official organization of laymen and orthodox rabbis to declare a ban against all poultry not killed under the supervision of the organization and not bearing leg-bands or seals sold by it.”

1936: The National Conference of Jewish Federations and Welfare Fund ended its annual meeting today after having agreed that American and British Jews were committed “to the withdrawal of the younger generation of Jews from Germany” after “it was revealed that” the plans involved “no incidental benefits to Germany such as withdrawal of Jewish property in the form of German goods to be sold and accepted by Jews in abandonment of the boycott” already in place.

1937:  Delegates to the annual convention of the Federation of Jewish Women’s Organizations who represented 125,000 women engaged in a variety of Jewish communal activities “pledge their support to the Child Labor Amendment which was designed to that children are “not called upon to do the work of adults.”

1937: While discussing “the problems facing the Jews of the world” today Rabbi Stephen S. Wise “decried the threat recently made by the government of Poland ‘to compel 3,000,000 Jews to emigrate from that country’” which “he added was in violation of the covenant under which that country” had been created “under the Treaty of Versailles.”

1938: A special issue of the Stuermer, the anti-Semitic newspaper published by Julius Streicher – a favorite of Hitler – on sale today included a demand that Jewish men and Aryan woman “found guilty of having relations” should be subject to the death penalty.

1938: The Palestine Post reported on the plight of the Jews in Romania. Under the new restrictions over 200,000 Jews had lost their trading licenses and one hundred thirty Jewish lawyers at Yassy had been expelled from the bar.

1938: In a greeting to the National Council for Jewish Women meeting in Pittsburgh, Albert Einstein urged the attendees to remember that “Mutual assistance is” the “one weapon” in the “bitter struggle” of the Jews “for existence” and that although “weakened through dispersion in countless factions” the Jews ‘remained united through this fairest of all duties – the duty of selfish mutual aid.”

1938: The Palestine Post reported that Tel Aviv Mayor Israel Rokach opened a picturesque garden on the seven-dunam oval island at Zina Dizengoff Circle.

1939: It was announced from Berlin today that “the negotiations between George Rublee, American chairman of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees and Dr. Helmuth Wohlthat of Germany regarding the evacuation of Jews from” Germany “are progressing satisfactory.” (Editor’s Note – These words, have, to say the least, a hollow ring to them as we observe Holocaust Memorial Day.)

1940 (17th of Shevat, 5700): Based on information that became public in the 1990’s, today is the day on which author Isaac Babel was shot to death after being found guilty of belonging to an anti-Soviet Trotskyite organization and with spying for France and Austria during a 20 minute trial that had been held the day before. Babel had been arrested by Stalin’s NKVD in 1939 and shipped off to a Siberian labor camp. Two of Babel’s more famous works were Red Cavalry based on his experiences as a cavalry officer fighting against the Whites and Odessa Tales which describes the richly textured Jewish society of Odessa.  Babel was rehabilitated in the 1950’s by Khrushchev.

1941: The fund-raising campaign of the United Talmud Torahs of Montreal is scheduled to come to a close tonight.

1942: In New Haven, CT, Michael Weinberg who would change the family name to “Wynn” and his wife gave birth to Stephen Alan Weinberg, the University of Pennsylvania graduate who gained fame as luxury hotel developer and Republican Party leader Steve Wynn whose reputation was “tarnished” following charges of “sexual misconduct.”

1942: Gussie Schwebel and her son Jack delivered three dozen of her knishes to Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt at her house located at 49 East 65th Street in Manhattan.

1943: Simon Attali, “a self-educated person who achieved success in perfumery ("Bib et Bab" shop) in Algiers” and Fernande Abécassis, the parents of French economist Jacques Attali and his sister Fabienne were wed to in the French North African colony.

1943: Members of the 'Amitié Chrétienne’ held an emergency meeting at the home of Swiss Protestant pastor Roland de Pury to try and find a way to warn Jews that the Gestapo was watching the offices of the Union Générale des Israélites de France (UGIF),where they were going to get false documents.  They decided to have Germaine Ribière pose as a cleaning lady, who, while cleaning the stairs would warn the Jews not to end the building. Germaine Ribière was a Catholic member of the French Resistance who was recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem for her efforts to save Jews from the Nazis. The 'Amitié Chrétienne’ was founded in Lyon, France, in 1941 with the goal of saving Jews and others from the Nazis and the Vichy Governments

1944: SS Morris Hillquit, a liberty ship named after the Jewish Socialist who opposed the United States entering World War I, was launched today. Like so many other supply vessels that survived the war, it would be sold to a private entity in 1947 and finally be scrapped in 1968.  Not bad for a ship that was built in 34 days.

1945(13thof Shevat, 5705): Parashat Beshalach

1945(13thof Shevat, 5705):  Fifty-seven-year-old “Dr. Karl Elias Landuer, a colleague of Sigmund Freud, who after seeking refuge from the Nazis in Sweden and the Netherlands ended up being murdered at Bergen-Belsen today.

1945: The Soviet army entered Auschwitz and liberated more than 7,000 remaining prisoners, who were mostly ill and dying. It is estimated that at minimum 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945; of these, at least 1.1 million were murdered

http://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-features/special-focus/liberation-of-auschwitz

http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/january/14.asp

1945: The Red Army entered Birkenau and found it almost entirely empty of human inhabitants. One survivor found in the hospital was Anne Frank's father, Otto. Anne had died there months earlier from decease. (Otto would return to Amsterdam to find the famed diary.) Though most of the storage facilities were already destroyed, the Russians discover 836,255 women's dresses, 348,000 sets of men's suits and 38,000 pairs of men's shoes.

1945: After Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz today Salamo Arouch, a Greek-born Jewish boxer who survived the death camp by winning fight after fight against fellow prisoners, began searching other liberated camps for any family members who might have survived. During the search he found Marta Yechiel, a girl from his home in Greece.  The two moved to Palestine, married and raised a family that included four children and 12 children at the time of his death.

1945: Tzipora Shapiro, whose “father, grandfather, brothers, aunts, and uncles all died in the Lodz Ghetto,” and whose mother was gassed at Auschwitz “walked out of the gates” that same death camp today. (As reported by Yardena Schwartz)

1945: “Up in Central Park” a music with a book by Herbert and Dorothy Fields and a score by Sigmund Romberg and Dorothy Fields, choreographed by Helen Tamiris opened on Broadway at the New Century Theatre where it ran for 504 performances.

1946: Four hundred people marched 15 miles in the snow to the town of Celle to attend the wedding of Holocaust survivors Lilly and Ludwig Friedman’s wedding.  Lily wore a wedding gown that had been created from a parachute acquired from a former Nazi pilot by an unknown seamstress.  For Lilly “the dress symbolized the innocent, normal life she and her family had once led before the world descended into madness.”  The dress would eventually go on display at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

1947: As part of “Aliya Bet,” the Chaim Arlozoroff set sail from Trelleborg, Sweden, carrying 664 survivors of the European death camps.  Most of those on board, who were labeled illegal immigrants by the British, were women.  When the ship finally arrived in Haifa, a struggle ensued at the end of which the British transferred the former camp inmates to detention camps at Cyprus.

http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/february/14.asp

1948: "British troops fought a two-hour skirmish with Arabs on the Haifa-Tel Aviv highway this morning after both Arabs and Jews had broken a tacit truce in that area.”

1949: In a letter published today Randolph Churchill lamented that “Henry Melchett who was a good Jew and a good Englishman” passed away just before “his own country was about to recognize the state of Israel.

1952: Birthdate of Brian Gottfried, Baltimore born tennis star who won the Wimbledon Doubles in 1976

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that over 2,000 frightened refugees, including many Jews, escaped the purges in East Germany and crossed over from East to West Berlin. Israel got an urgently needed one-year loan of $16 million from an American group of banks, headed by the Bank of America.

1955: At the Boston Medical Library an exhibit of Jewish medical leaders, including medieval manuscripts and awards presented to Jewish physicians.

1955: “Plain and Fancy,” a musical comedy co-authored by Joseph Stein opened at the Mark Hellinger Theatre for the first of 461 performances.

1956: “The Court Jester,” a musical comedy directed and produced by Melvin Frank who also co-wrote the script and starring Danny Kaye was released in the United States a month after it had premiered in Japan.

1957(25th of Shevat):  Yiddish poet Zishe Weinper passed away

1958: Birthdate of Rabbi Judith Z. Abrams.

http://www.jta.org/2014/10/24/news-opinion/united-states/rabbi-dr-judith-abrams-pioneering-online-talmud-teacher-dies-at-56

1959: Birthdate of Keith Olbermann former TV sportscaster and former MSNBC host.

1961: "Sing Along with Mitch" featuring Mitch Miller premiered on NBC TV

1960: Sixty-five-year-old Brazilian statesman Osvaldo Aranha the “President of the United Nations General Assembly in 1947 during the UNGA 181 vote on the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, in which he postponed the vote for three days to ensure its passage” and for which he was nominated for a Noble Prize passed away today.

1962(22ndof Shevat, 5722): Parashat Yitro

1962(22ndof Shevat, 5722): Forty-eight-year-old Cologne born Brooklyn Law School graduate Hugo Rothschild, a WWII veteran of the Foreign Legion who was the author of How To Make Money In Real Estate Syndicates passed away today in New York.

1962: “A Family Affair” a musical about Chicago Jewish wedding with a book by James Goldman and William Goldman, lyrics by James Goldman and John Kander, and music by Kander all of whom share a suburban Chicago Jewish upbringing opened on Broadway today at the Billy Rose Theatre with a cast that included Shelly Berman, Larry Curt, Morris Carnovsky and Linda Lavin

1964: A memorial service is scheduled to be held today 87-year-old Charles G. Galston the retired Federal Court Judge for the Eastern District of New York in Courtroom 214 in the Federal District Courthouse in Brooklyn.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1964/01/24/97163988.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1964: Red Buttons married Alicia Pratt, his third and last wife today.

1964(13th of Shevat, 5724): Lieb Glantz, famed chazzan and composer, passed away at the age of 65

https://www.milkenarchive.org/artists/view/leib-glantz/

1965(24thof Shevat, 5724): Eighty-six-year-old Siberian born American Modernist painter Abraham Walkowitz who may be best known for his drawings of Isadora Duncan passed away today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Walkowitz#/media/File:Brooklyn_Museum_-_Isadora_Duncan_29_-_Abraham_Walkowitz.jpg

http://www.askart.com/artist/Abraham_Walkowitz/30115/Abraham_Walkowitz.aspx

https://americanart.si.edu/artist/abraham-walkowitz-5214

1965: Up the Down Staircase, a best-selling novel written by Bel Kaufman was published today. Writing must be in her blood since she is the granddaughter of Shalom Aleichem, something not mentioned in any of the education classes that I took where this book was mandatory reading. 

1966: “Morgan – A Suitable Case for Treatment” a comedy starring David Warner in the title role was released today in the United Kingdom.

1966(6thof Shevat, 5726): Sixty-five-year-old New York real estate executive and philanthropist Solomon N. Petchers, who served on the board of the American Association for Jewish Education and helped to fund the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Central Library for the Blind in Jerusalem passed away today.

1968(26thof Tevet, 5728): Parashat Vaera

1968: Sixty-three-year-old Norman Gerstenfeld, the British born long-time rabbi at Washington Hebrew Congregation and husband of the former Louise Mundheim with whom he had four children passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/01/28/89318887.pdf

1968: A radio station in Nicosia, Cyprus, received a distress call on the frequency of the INS Dakar's “emergency buoy, apparently from south-east of Cyprus, but no further traces of the submarine were found.”

1968: Congregation Shaar Hashomayim began the dedication of its new chapel with a Sabbath Service.

1969(8th of Shevat, 5729): Nine Jews were publicly executed in Damascus Syria

1969(8thof Shevat, 5729): Seventy-eight-year-old Leon Pines, the native of Vilna who moved to the United States in 1907 where he pursued a career in manufacturing and who was a member of several Jewish organizations including the American Friends of Hebrew University passed away today in Miami Beach.

1969: A day after Beatle John Lennon retained Allen Klein as his new financial representative in an attempt to stave impending economic ruin, the two met with the other Beatles who opted to remain with their own money managers.

1970(20thof Shevat, 5730): Eighty-three-year-old Maurice Samuel Calman, the Romanian born American oral surgeon who served on the Board of Alderman passed away today.

1971(1st of Shevat, 5731) Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1972: “The Winter Soldier,” a documentary co-created by Barbara Kopple was released today in the United States.

1972: Birthdate of Knoxville, TN native and University of Tennessee graduate Alan Gratz, the author of “novels for young adults.”

1972(11thof Shevat, 5732): Eighty-four-year-old mathematician Richard Courant, co-author of What is Mathematics?  who was forced to flee Germany even though he had fought for the Kaiser, passed away today. (As reported by Harry Schwartz)

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=940DE2DC103DEF34BC4151DFB7668389669EDE

1973(24th of Shevat, 5733): Actor John Banner passed away.  Best known for his portrayal of Sgt. Schultz in the television hit “Hogan’s’ Heroes,” Banner was born on this date in 1910.

1974: “Lorelie” a musical with “lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Jule Styne” which was based on “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” opened at Broadway at the Palace Theatre.

1975: “The Main in the Glass Booth” a film adaptation of a novel and play that old the story of bringing Adolf Eichmann to justice, directed by Arthur Hiller, produced by Ely Landau and featuring Luther Adler was released today in the United States.

1976(25thof Shevat, 5736): Seventy-eight-year-old Benjamin Tietelbaum the Yiddish novelist who used the pen-name “B. Demblin” and who with his wife Sylvia had one daughter, Miriam passed away today.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/demblin-benjamin

http://www.yivoarchives.org/index.php?p=collections/controlcard&id=32521

1976:  ABC broadcast the first episode of “Laverne and Shirley” a sitcom featuring David Lander and Phil Foster.

1977: Broadcast of the first episode of “Lanigan’s Rabbi” based on the novels of Harry Kemelman featuring the character of “Rabbi David Small.”

1977:Operation Thunderbolt,” known in Israel as Mivtsa Yonatan, (literally "Operation Jonathan"), a 1977 Israeli film based on an actual event – the hijacking of a flight and the freeing of hostages (Operation Entebbe) at Entebbe Airport in Entebbe, Uganda, on July 4, 1976, directed by Menahem Golan and starring Klaus Kinski, Yehoram Gaon, and Sybil Danning was released in Israel today.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Egypt embarked on a massive diplomatic effort to explain why it had broken off peace talks with Israel.

1978(18thof Shevat, 5738): Seventy-nine-year-old Viennese actor Oscar Holmoka who, among other things was nominated for an Oscar for his role in “I Remember Mama” which was a reprise of the same part he played in the Broadway version of the play.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9A02E1DE1E3EE632A2575AC2A9679C946990D6CF

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that The Jerusalem Municipality had begun the installation of a sewerage network at the Anatot Refugee Camp, despite UNRWA's objections that this would violate the camp's protected status as a "refugee camp of implicitly temporary nature." UNRWA had previously objected to the installation of such a network, despite the 1970 cholera outbreak. (This should provide a slightly different slant on the "refugee problem" and how these poor souls are being exploited.)

1982:  In an example of “The Bible on Broadway,”  "Joseph and the Amazing Dreamcoat" opened at the Royale in New York City for the first of what would be a total of 747 performances. 

1982(3rdof Shevat, 5742): Seventy-nine year old Alexander Abusch who joined the  Communist Party of Germany in 1918 and survived the Nazi years by living in Mexico and returned to serve as the Minister of Culture of East Germany passed away today

1986(17thof Shevat, 5746): Eighty-one year old American artist Edward Biberman passed away.

http://www.lacma.org/art/installation/edward-biberman

1988: After having been finally granted an exit permit, “refusenik” Alexander Lerner, “his son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter” emigrated to Israel today.

1989: “Parents,” a “black comedy horror film directed by Bob Balaban” was released today in the United States.

1991: In the midst of Iraqi attacks on Israel 74 year old Alexander Goldberg, a retired aeronautical engineer from Hempstead, Long Island,  will join more than 100 other Americans, both Jews and Christians, for a flight tonight to Israel, where they will be put to work at army bases, hospitals and collective settlements, or kibbutzim. Some will pick fruit or help maintain army tanks; others will work in a factory that makes protective gear for chemical warfare.  In the midst of Iraqi attacks on Israel

1992: Singer Ofra Haza and the Amka Oshrat Yemenite Dance Troupe appear in concerted at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

1993: During the Intifada, Israeli troops killed a Palestinian terrorist.

1994(15th of Shevat, 5754): Tu B'Shevat

1994(15thof Shevat, 5754(: Eighty-one-year Ruben Mattus, the Jewish immigrant who along with his wife Rose created “Haagen-Dazs ice cream” passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/29/obituaries/reuben-mattus-81-the-founder-of-haagen-dazs.html

1994: The second season of “Homicide: Life on the Street” produced by Barry Levinson and co-starring Yaphet Kotto and Richard Belzer came to an end this evening.

1995: U.S. premiere of “Miami Rhapsody” written and directed by David Frankel with a cast that included Sarah Jessica Parker, Paul Mazursky, Jeremy Piven and Ben Stein.

1996(6thof Shevat, 5756): Eighty-six year old Israel Eldad the native of Galicia who became a leading member of the Irgun and winner of the Bialik Prize passed away.

1996:  Germany observed its 1st Holocaust Remembrance Day

1997(19thof Shevat, 5757): Ninety-six year old Saginaw, Michigan born composer Gerald Marks best known the hit “All of Me” passed away today in New York.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-gerald-marks-1278362.html

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/gerald-marks-mn0000653199

1997: FOX broadcast the final episode of “Ned and Stacey” a sitcom starring Debra Messing.

1997: It was revealed today that French museums had nearly 2,000 pieces of art that were stolen by the Nazis.

1999: Moshe Arens begins serving as Defense Minister.

1999: An e-mail sent today that “ultimately reached White House adviser Sidney Blumenthal” detailed “a Dartmouth College Jewish studies professor’s defense of” charges that President Clinton had committed adultery because “According to classical Jewish law, President Clinton did not commit adultery; adultery is defined as a married man having intercourse with a married woman, and Monica Lewinsky is single,” (As reported by Lazar Berman)

2000: An off-Broadway revival of “The Time of the Cuckoo” by Arthur Laruents opened at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater today.

2001: “Manic” starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt was released today at the Sundance Film Festival.

2001: Survivors of Auschwitz have gone on a poignant march past the gas chambers which claimed their fellow prisoners as Europe marked Holocaust Memorial Day. Today, Shabbat, 700 people, including camp survivors and local Jewish leaders, walked from the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp's Gate of Death to its giant memorial wall, past the remains of the gas chambers and the crematoria. The Nazis killed 1.5 million people in Auschwitz, the highest number at any camp, before hastily retreating from an advancing Soviet army which liberated Auschwitz on January 27, 1945. The Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, regarded as the world's largest Jewish burial ground, now houses a museum and is little changed from the day Red Army troops freed its last inmates. Polish Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek told the participants in a letter that they were the "guardians of this tragic heritage of mankind." Ceremonies from London to Lithuania marked the 56th anniversary of the Auschwitz death camp's liberation. Britain and Italy held their first-ever Holocaust memorial days, while survivors, spiritual leaders and politicians across the continent pledged to remember a grim historical lesson about the consequences of intolerance.

"Not everyone who survived has the strength to share," said Auschwitz survivor Hedi Fried, speaking at a forum in Stockholm, Sweden. "We who can have an extra obligation. We owe it to our murdered parents, the 6 million Jews, 500,000 Gypsies and countless homosexuals, Russians and Poles who died." Britain observed its first national Holocaust Memorial Day with ceremonies across the country and a London service that also honours victims of other 20th-century genocides. The guest list for the memorial at Westminster Central Hall in London included Prince Charles, Prime Minister Tony Blair, the archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster and Britain's chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks. The ceremony included tributes to survivors of violence in Cambodia, Bosnia and Rwanda. In Germany, where a sharp rise this year in violent attacks on minorities gave the annual Day of Remembrance for Victims of Nazism added resonance, Parliament president Wolfgang Thierse issued a warning about the dangers of neo-Nazism. Germans must show "commitment to democracy and against raging right-wing extremism," he told Deutschland Radio. "This isn't about remembrance without consequences."

Six million Jews and five million others, including communists, homosexuals, gypsies and the mentally retarded, perished under the Nazi regime. Italy also marked Holocaust Memorial Day for the first time, with a ceremony in Milan organised by Italian unions and a moment of silence during evening soccer games. Padua, in northern Italy, was honoring Giorgio Perlasca, a butcher credited with saving more than 5,000 Italian Jews by pretending to be a Spanish diplomat. Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi acknowledged Italy's blame in the Holocaust, calling Benito Mussolini's racial laws a betrayal of the country's founding principles.

"But numerous Italians knew how to further the demands of their conscience against the violence of the dictator," he said. About 7,000 Jews were deported from Italy during the Holocaust, and 5,910 of them died. Lithuanian Jews gathered in Vilnius to mark the anniversary, and in Sweden, Prime Minister Goeran Persson was attending a ceremony at a Stockholm synagogue. The Jewish Museum planned a lecture, music and a reading from Anne Frank's diary.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan was to give the keynote speech in Sweden on Monday at an international conference on ethnic and religious intolerance.

2002: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish author and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Responseby Bernard Lewis and Beyond the Last Village: A Journey of Discovery in Asia's Forbidden Wilderness by Alan Rabinowitz.

2002: In Great Britain, a Holocaust event, organized by the Holocaust Education Trust, takes place in Bridgewater Hall. Extracts of the event will be broadcast by the Granada group of television companies during the week following the event. The second UK Holocaust Memorial Day takes place in Manchester involving the participation of survivors from the Holocaust and victims of contemporary racism and prejudice, young people and a range of community representatives.

2002(14thof Shevat, 5762): Ninety-five-year-old Nettie Konigsberg, the widow of Martin Konigsberg and mother of Allan Stewart Konigsberg better known as Woody Allen passed away today.

2002(14thof Shevat, 5762: Eighty-one-year-old Pinhas Tokalti was murdered and more than a hundred were injured today when a female terrorist “worked for he Palestinian Red Crescent in Ramallah” “detonated a 22 pound explosive device at the entrance to a “shoe store located on Jaffa Street in Jerusalem

2003: In the United Kingdom the main Holocaust Memorial Day event took place in Edinburgh with a theme of “Children and the Holocaust.

2003: Polls published today affirmed that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel is likely to retain his post in elections on Tuesday, and then to face the complex challenge of assembling a durable coalition from a fragmented Parliament.

2004: An event establishing January 27 as memory day for Greek Jews and Holocaust victims was held at the Athens Concert Hall's convention center today, under the auspices of the foreign ministry. 

2004:Israel honored 9 Greeks for their efforts to save Jews during WWII. Today, Israel’s ambassador to Athens presented that country’s influential “Righteous Among the Nations” award to nine Greek nationals who saved persecuted Jewish compatriots during the Nazi occupation of Greece (1941-44). Ambassador Ram Aviram presented the awards the same day as the recently enacted Greek Holocaust Memorial Day (Jan. 27), with a relevant event held at the Athens Concert Hall (Megaron) as well. According to a press release by the Israeli embassy in Athens, the “Righteous among the Nations” awards are given by “Yad Vashem”, an institute created by the Israeli state to perpetuate the memory of the six million victims of the Holocaust. They are bestowed to individuals who risked their lives to save Jews during the Second World War. More than 200 Greek citizens have been honored by the Yad Vashem Institute, including the late Archbishop of Greece during the occupation, Damaskinos, the Greek chief of police at the time, Angelos Evert, the Metropolitans of Zakynthos and Dimitrias at the time, Chrysostomos and Loakeim, respectively, the one-time mayor of Zakynthos, Loukas Karrer, and many other unsung Greek heroes of World War II. This year’s awardees are Dimos and Theodora Vevelekos, Michalis and Eleni Mavridis, Smaragda Sarafianou, Ioannis and Tasia Spentzos as well as Ilias and Angeliki Kazantzis. The president of the Central Board of Greek Jewish Communities, Moses Konstantinis, also participated at the ceremony.

2004, Modena Municipality, the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena, the Istituto Storico di Modena and the Jewish Community of Modena and Reggio Emilia organized a Study Convention in memory of Angelo Donati and an exhibition with photos

2005: The Fourteenth Annual New York Jewish Film Festival comes to an end.

2005: Arno Lustiger, the historian who documented “Jewish resistance under Nazi rule” and Wolf Bierman whose father was a member of the resistance who was murdered because he was Jewish spoke before the German Bundestag.

2005: At a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the former Foreign Minister of Poland Władysław Bartoszewski delivered a speech in which he paid honor to Jan Karski when he said, "The Polish resistance movement kept informing and alerting the free world to the situation. In the last quarter of 1942, thanks to the Polish emissary Jan Karski and his mission, and also by other means, the Governments of the United Kingdom and of the United States were well informed about what was going on in Auschwitz.” (While his comments about Karski are true, there are those who would say he provided a distorted picture of the Polish Resistance movement’s treatment of the Jews.)

2005: Holocaust Memorial Day in Great Britain. Holocaust Memorial Day is a national event in the United Kingdom dedicated to the remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust. It was first held in January 2001 and has been hold on 27 January every year since. The chosen date is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp by the Soviet Union in 1945. This year’s major event took place in London with a theme of “Survivors, Liberation and Rebuilding Lives.

2006: The following column in the Jerusalem Post explains the importance of the First annual "International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.

 

Last November the United Nations General Assembly designated January 27 as an annual "International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust." With 104 co-sponsors, including Israel, the historic UN resolution selected that date as it is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. During the 1950s the Knesset debated which date to establish as Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Chief Rabbinate had already designated the 10th of Tevet - an existing fast day marking the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem that culminated in the destruction of the Temple - as the date of "General Kaddish" for Holocaust survivors who did not know the date of death of their fallen family members. The ultra-Orthodox rabbinate suggested adding - as had been done to signify the destruction of Jewish communities by marauding Crusaders - additional piyyutim (liturgical poems) relating to the Holocaust to the lamentations recited on Tisha B'Av itself, the solemn fast day commemorating the destruction of the first and second Temples. While incorporating the Holocaust within existing fast days marking national calamities reflected the traditional view that the Holocaust was yet another chapter in a long story of Jewish suffering through the ages, others argued that the Holocaust needed to be commemorated on its own.After long debate, the Knesset established the 27th day of Nisan as "Yom Hashoah Ve-Hagevura," literally "Holocaust and Heroism Day." The date marks the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which in fact began on the 15th day of Nisan (April 19, 1943). Since the actual beginning of the uprising coincided with Pessah, the Knesset, as a compromise, chose a date that falls a week after the end of Pessah and a week before Yom Hazikaron, our Memorial Day for fallen soldiers, and Independence Day - but within the span of the nearly month-long uprising. As a further compromise, the legislation provided that if the 27th day of Nisan impinged upon Shabbat (i.e. fell on a Friday or a Saturday), the commemoration would be moved to the following Sunday. In effect, both sides of the debate in Israel in the 1950s wanted to place the Holocaust within an established context, either the traditional suffering of the Jew or the heroic Zionist model of the "new" Jew. Neither wanted to face the enormity and senselessness of the tragedy, especially in the first decade after World War II.In its infancy, Israel could not bear the image of Jews as victims being "led like sheep to the slaughter" and, accordingly, latched on to the heroic (if doomed) resisters in the Warsaw Ghetto as the proper "Israeli" model on which to base Holocaust remembrance. Moreover, the placement of Holocaust Memorial Day as a prelude to Independence Day conveyed the "Israel-centric" message that the Holocaust was a stepping stone in the founding of the State of Israel, the proverbial "darkness before the light" of national redemption. But this focus on the perceived heroic aspects of the Holocaust to fit our tough (but vulnerable) sabra self-image, together with the implicit message that the Holocaust's true significance lies in its happy ending - Israel's establishment - has had unfortunate repercussions. Sadly, most Israelis don't mark Yom Hashoah in any meaningful way.

For its part, the ultra-Orthodox community has always opposed, on halachic grounds, the imposition of a day of mourning during the joyous month of Nisan, which commemorates the birth of the Jewish nation and its exodus from bondage in Egypt. Sandwiched between Pessah and, to most Israelis, the more significant Remembrance Day for the Fallen of Israel's Wars and Independence Day, Holocaust Memorial Day has traditionally not been given the undivided attention it deserves. The Holocaust deserves to be viewed honestly and in depth as a unique historic event. Adopting January 27 as Israel's Holocaust Memorial Day would:

  signify Israel's appreciation of the unusual step taken by the UN;  ensure that the worldwide Holocaust Memorial Day will not be a passing fad since Israel's annual ceremonies can serve as the focus of global attention and as a model for other national commemorative events;·  indicate that Israel has "grown up" since the 1950s to appreciate that Jewish victimhood in the Holocaust is not something shameful that must be obscured in the celebration of Jewish heroism;·  unite the Jews in Israel, both observant and secular, to commemorate, discuss and ponder in an unhurried and thoughtful manner the manifold aspects of a tragedy that does not easily fit into any previous category of Jewish or world history. The UN has finally acknowledged the global historical significance of the Holocaust. Israel should support this development for its own good as well as that of the world.

2006: In Poland, as part of Holocaust Memorial Day observances a 1940’s tram marked with the Star of David - like the ones that used to travel through the ghetto - is seen again on the streets of Warsaw.  It is empty, with nobody getting on or off. It will be empty. Nobody will get on or off.

2006:Rick Recht takes Cedar Rapids by storm as he leads the Jewish Community in a celebration of “Shabbat Alive.”

2006(27thof Tevet, 5766): Ninety-year-old solicitor Lord Mischson, the Brixton Rabbi Arnold Mishcon passed away today

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/jan/30/guardianobituaries.mainsection

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1509163/Lord-Mishcon.html

2006: “Author Howard Jacobson described his new novel Kalooki Nights as ‘the most Jewish novel that has ever been written by anybody, anywhere.’”

http://www.somethingjewish.co.uk/articles/1730_howard_jacobson_talk.htm

2006: “The New World” a historic drama filmed by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and edited by Saar Klein was released today in the United Kingdom.

2007: “Dirty Girl,” a play based on the experiences of Ronnie Koenig, the former editor in chief of Playgirl Magazine, finished its initial run in New York City.

2007: In the UK, the main National Holocaust Memorial Day event is hosted at Newcastle with a theme of “The Dignity of Difference.”

2008: In “The Capa Cache,” published todayRandy Kennedy describes the fate of “the suitcase — actually three flimsy cardboard valises — that contained thousands of negatives of pictures that the Hungarian born Jew Robert Capa, one of the pioneers of modern war photography, took during the Spanish Civil War before he fled Europe for America in 1939, leaving behind the contents of his Paris darkroom. Capa assumed that the work had been lost during the Nazi invasion.” The negatives were in fact hidden for more than half a century until last month… they made what will most likely be their final trip, to the International Center of Photography in Midtown Manhattan, founded by Robert Capa’s brother, Cornell.”  

2008: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Alfred Kazin: A Biographyby Richard Cook

2008: International Holocaust Memorial Day – light a light, kindle a candle – Holocaust Memorial Trust website http://www.hmd.org.uk/

2009: In Manhattan’s East Village, third part of a four-part seriesThe Comedy and Kabbalah of Relationships”featuring Rabbi YY Jacobson

2009:As part of Holocaust Remembrance Day, The Centro Primo Levi, the Consulate General of Italy and the Italian academic institutions in NY under the auspices of the United Nations present Giorno della Memoria (Day of Memory) including a reading the names of the Jews deported from Italy and the Italian territories on Park Avenue at 68th Street in front of the Consulate General of Italy and a discussion of the Fascist Racial Laws and the socio-political conditions, the indifference, and collaborationism that allowed their promulgation in 1938.

2009: In his new book We Must Rise From Its Ashes, Avraham Burg advocates commemorating the Holocaust three times during the year. “By observing it on January 27, the international day of Holocaust remembrance, Israelis would never lose sight of the fact that the Shoah was a crime against humanity, not just against the Jews, and that preventing further genocide is the business of the entire world. Commemorating it May 9, the day on which the former Soviet republics — and Israel’s immigrants from those countries — mark the victory over Nazi Germany, would symbolically embrace the many immigrants from the former Soviet Union who are not Jewish under Jewish law. Finally, celebrating it on the Ninth of Av would express the Jewish particularity of the genocide, while incorporating the Shoah into that day’s remembrance of the destruction of the Temples would place it within the historical continuum of Jewish suffering rather than consider it wholly unprecedented.

2009: The Massachusetts attorney general’s office said today that it planned to conduct a detailed review of Brandeis University’s surprise decision to sell off the entire holdings of its Rose Art Museum, one of the most important collections of postwar art in New England. The decision to close the 48-year-old museum in Waltham, Mass., and disperse the collection as a way to shore up the university’s struggling finances was denounced by the museum’s board, its director and a wide range of art experts, who warned that the university was cannibalizing its cultural heritage to pay its bills

2010: Sara Hurwitz was given the title of “rabbah,” (sometimes spelled “rabba”) the feminine form of rabbi

http://jwa.org/thisweek/jan/27/2010/sara-hurwitz

2010: Dorit  “Beinisch was moderately hurt when a 52-year-old man named Pinchas Cohen hurled his sneaker at her during a hearing on medical marijuana, hitting her between the eyes, breaking her glasses and knocking her off her chair.”

2010:The recently discovered 29 blueprints depicting the layout of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz in chilling detail, with gas chambers, crematoria, delousing facilities and watch towers drawn to scale are scheduled to go on display in Jerusalem today.

2010:Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is scheduled to be at Auschwitz to take part in a ceremony marking the 65th liberation of the death camp by the Soviet Red Army.

2010: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to meet at Temple Judah where attendees will discuss Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. De Rosnay's novel is set against a backdrop of the 1942 Paris roundups and deportations, in which thousands of Jewish families were arrested, held at the Vélodrome d'Hiver outside the city, and then transported to Auschwitz.

2010: International Holocaust Memorial Day.

2010: Alan D. Solomont, the holder of B.A. from Tufts and nursing degree from the University of Massachsettes and the husband of Susan Solomont began serving as U.S. Ambassador to Spain today.

2010:Bundled tightly against the cold and snow, elderly Auschwitz survivors walked among the barracks and watchtowers of Auschwitz and Birkenau on today, many clad in scarves bearing the gray and blue stripes of their Nazi prison garments decades ago

2010(12 Shevat, 5770):J. D. Salinger, who was thought at one time to be the most important American writer to emerge since World War II but who then turned his back on success and adulation, becoming the Garbo of letters, famous for not wanting to be famous, died today at his home in Cornish, N.H., where he had lived in seclusion for more than 50 years. He was 91.

2010 (12 Shevat, 5770):Howard Zinn, historian and shipyard worker, civil rights activist and World War II bombardier, and author of “A People’s History of the United States,” a best seller that inspired a generation of high school and college students to rethink American history, died today in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 87 and lived in Auburndale, Mass.

2011: The Seventh Annual Brooklyn Israel Film Festival is scheduled to open tonight “with three episodes from Season 2 of Srugim, the very popular Israeli television series about the lives and loves of five young Jewish singles living in the hip Katamon neighborhood of Jerusalem, as they navigate the frequently contradictory worlds of contemporary Israeli romance and traditional observance.”

2011: ASF is scheduled to present “Behind the Scenes: An Intimate Video Visit to Morocco”which is part of the year-long series, "2,000 Years of Jewish Life in Morocco: An Epic Journey", presented Under the High Patronage of His Majesty Mohammed VI, King of Morocco, and made possible through the generous support of the Edmond J. Safra Philanthropic Foundation.

2011: A program entitled The Holocaust and Justice: How Do You Prosecute Unprecedented Crimes is scheduled to be held at the University of Iowa Law School.  The program will included a screening of the film “Night and Fog” followed by a discussion by UI Law Professor Mark Osiel

2011: International Holocaust Memorial Day

http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=205541

2011: In Italy, observance of Giorno della Memoria (Day of Memory)

2011: Holocaust Memorial Day (UK)

2011:The memory of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis during World War II was honored around the world today, the day which marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day. German President Christian Wulff paid his respects on a visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the site of the biggest Nazi concentration camp, where about a million Jews were murdered during the war, accompanied by World Jewish Congress President Ron Lauder and his Polish counterpart Bronislaw Komorowski. "On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Jewish community and the survivors of the Shoah welcome the fact that President Wulff - who has only been in office for a few months and has already been to Israel - is visibly giving the issue of the Holocaust remembrance such a high political priority,” Lauder declared ahead of the ceremonies in Auschwitz and Birkenau2011: “Copenhagen”a (high) drama with considerable comedy concerning the two Nobel physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg and Bohr's wife Margrethe, opened tonight at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  The play features performances by Steve and Barbara Feller, pillars of the Temple Judah community.

2011:Four hundred rabbis will submit a letter today, demanding Fox News sanction host Glenn Beck for his repeated airing of Nazi and Holocaust imagery, and for putting on his show attacks on WWII survivor George Soros, Reuters reported.

2011:In excerpts of Ehud Olmert’s new memoirs that were published today, the former Jewish leaders says that he and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, were very close to a peace deal two years ago, but Mr. Abbas’s hesitation killed the deal.  According to Olmert, at their last meeting, Abbas “said that he could not decide and that he needed more time.” (As reported by Ethan Bronner)

2011(22ndof Shevat, 5771): Ninety-year old Joseph Lefkowoitz a native of Patterson, NJ, a World War II veteran who had retired from the Social Security Administration passed away today in Crossville, TN.

2012: “With a French Flavor” featuring the wind and string Ensembles from the Buchmann Mehta Music School at Tel Aviv University is scheduled to begin at noon in the Ein Kerem Music Center.

2012: Jack Lew completed his service as Director of the OMB began serving as the 25thWhite House Chief of Staff

2012: Today, "I Honor Wall" - Online virtual event on Yad Vashem's Facebook page, invites people to honor the Righteous Among the Nations. When particpants agree to attend the online event, their names and Facebook profile pictures will be automatically connected to the name and story of a Righteous Among the Nations.

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Anti-Semitism+and+the+Holocaust/Documents+and+communiques/Posters_International_Holocaust_Remembrance_Day-Jan_2012.htm

2012: International Holocaust Memorial Day

2012: Today, Malcolm “Glazer and his family hired long-time Rutgers University head coach Greg Schiano” making him the ninth head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers

2012:Defense Minister Ehud Barak said today the world must quickly stop Iran from reaching the point where even a "surgical" military strike could not block it from obtaining nuclear weapons

2012:Israeli officials and academic experts think that Iran’s threats of retaliation to a possible strike against it are a bluff, the New York Times reported today

2012: Today, authorities leveled additional charges against a teenager accused in the fire-bombings of two New Jersey synagogues, saying he had plotted a similar attack on a Jewish community center and had conducted Internet searches for building Molotov cocktails and instructions on blowing up buildings.

Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said investigators found multiple Molotov cocktails this week in a wooded area near the Jewish Community Center of Paramus, and they traced the evidence to a foiled attack they said suspect Anthony Graziano was planning for January 7. Graziano, 19, was charged today with aggravated arson, bias intimidation and other charges for the planned attack on the Paramus Jewish community center.

2013: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Insurgents: David Patraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War by Fred Kaplan and the recently released paperback edition of  Shalom Auslander’s first novel, Hope: A Tragedy

2013(16thof Shevat, 5773): Eighty-seven-year-old Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and historian Stanley Karnow passed away today. (As reported by Robert D. McFadden)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/arts/television/stanley-karnow-historian-and-journalist-dies-at-87.html

2013: “The Jews of Algeria,” an exhibition that retraces the history of the Algerian Jews since Antiquity, is scheduled to come to a close at the Musée d'art et d'histoire du Judaïsme

2013: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to sponsor “Superman at 75: Celebrating America’s Most Enduring Hero” who was the creation of Joe Shuster and Jerry Seigel.

2013:In Recognition of the International Day of Holocaust Remembrance, the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to present “I’m Not Leaving: The Power of Presence, Our Most Valuable Weapon.”

2013: Rabbi Sidney Kleiman of Congregation Adereth El in Murray Hill turned 100

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/legendary-rabbi-turns-100-article-1.1249022

2013: The World Zionist Organization’s Department for Activities in Israel & Countering Anti-Semitism is scheduled to mark the International Day for Countering Anti-Semitism (International Day for Commemorating the Holocaust) with a special conference on countering Anti-Semitism which will take place at the Mediatheque Theater in Holon.

2013: International Holocaust Remembrance Day

http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/ihrd/comment_post.php

2013: In the UK, observance of Brent Holocaust Memorial Day.

http://www.brent.gov.uk/arts.nsf/Festivals/LBB-21

2013:The IDF confirmed the deployment of Iron Dome missile defense batteries in the North today, amid an escalation in the Syrian civil war and concerns over Syria’s sizeable chemical weapons falling into radical Islamic hands.

2013: Former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi triggered outrage from Italy's political left today with comments defending fascist wartime leader Benito Mussolini at a ceremony commemorating the victims of the  Holocaust. Speaking at the margins of the event in Milan, Berlusconi said Mussolini had been wrong to follow Nazi Germany's lead in passing anti-Jewish laws but that he had in other respects been a good leader.

2014: While she celebrates the arrival of her grandchild, the friends and family of Debbie Rosenbloom including her husband David Levin celebrate the natal day of the Director of Programs for Jewish Woman International

2014: As it has every year since 2006, the United Nations is scheduled to remember the Holocaust that affected many people of Jewish origin during World War II on the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.

2014: As part of the 2014 observance of the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust” is promoting “The Path to Nazi Genocide” a film “using rare footage that examines the Nazi’s rise and consolidation of power in Germany and explores their ideology, propaganda and persecution of the Jews.

2014: “Documents from the Nuremberg Trials recently found in a flea market in Israel are to go on display at the Chabad Jewish Educational Center in Berlin as part of events marking the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.” (As reported by JTA and Times of Israel)

2014: “The largest ever delegation of Knesset members will convene overseas, on the grounds of Auschwitz-Birkenau, together with Holocaust survivors, for a historic gathering on combating anti-Semitism and preservation of death camps.

2014: As a way to observe International Holocaust Memorial Day, the Reform Movement recommends visiting The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to Some Were Neighbors: Collaboration and Complicity in the Holocaust,”

2014: “Hackers attacked Israeli computers, including one used by the Defense Ministry department dealing with civilians in the occupied West Bank, an Israeli data protection expert said today.”

2014: “The UN commemorated the 69th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Nazi death camp, with honorees such as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, and filmmaker Steven Spielberg speaking before the United Nations assembly.” (As reported by Yitzhak Benhorin)

2015(7thof Shevat, 5775): Journalist Maurice David Landau who had been the managing editor of the Jerusalem Post and editor-in-chief of Haaretz passed away today.

http://forward.com/news/israel/213602/david-landau-provocative-israeli-editor-dies-at-67/

2015: As record snow covers her east coast stomping grounds, Debbie Rosenbloom’s friends and family (including her husband David Levin) send her the warmest of best birthday wishes.

2015: “Voices of Auschwitz” is scheduled to air on CNN

http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2015/01/08/cnns-wolf-blitzer-to-host-voices-of-auschwitz-jan-27-at-9pm-et/

2015: The Czech Republic observes Memorial Day for the Victims of the Holocaust and Prevention of Crimes against Humanity

2015: German observes Memorial Day for the Victims of National Socialism

2015: In honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is scheduled to show “Liberation and Return Life” a film that “shows liberation and its immediate aftermath through the eyes of the American soldiers who first entered Nazi concentration camps in the spring of 1945, and amateur footage that shows the rebuilding of the personal, political, and religious lives of Holocaust survivors in displaced persons’ camps."

http://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-features/special-focus/liberation-of-auschwitz

 2016: In an example of de ja vu all over again, friends and family (including her husband David Levin) gather to settle the birthday of Debbie Rosenbloom as the east coast digs out from a record snow fall.

2016: Professor Michael Wildt is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Antisemitism, 'Volksgemeinschaft' and Violence: Inclusion and Exclusion in Nazi Germany” at the Institute of Historical Research in London.

2016: In a Radio 4 program on scheduled to be broadcast cast today BBC journalist Gavin Esler will tell the “story of Albert Goering — the brother of Nazi minister and air force chief Hermann Goering — who is said to have saved hundreds of Jews and political dissidents during World War II.”

http://www.timesofisrael.com/top-israeli-honor-eludes-goerings-brother-who-heroically-saved-jews/

2016: At the Israeli Embassy in Washington, President Obama echoed the words of the late Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds who told his German captors that “We are all Jews here” when they sought to murder his Jewish comrades when he spoke at ceremonies making Robbie “the first American service member to be named Righteous Among the Nations.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/28/world/middleeast/obama-honor-americans-effort-to-save-jews-the-holocaust.html?_r=1

2016: The Tel Aviv Cinematheque is scheduled to host screening of “Into the North,” “a Czech-Israeli co-production” sponsored by the Czech and Danish ambassadors to Israel as part of the observance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

http://www.go2films.com/Family-Social-issues/Into-the-North

http://www.timesofisrael.com/chance-discovery-gives-new-life-to-little-known-tale-of-shoah-salvation/

2016: In a quirk of the calendar International Holocaust Remembrance Day falls on the 100thanniversary of Jewish Relief Day – an event where the people of the United States under the leadership of the President raised funds to provide funds to ameliorate the suffering of the Jews of Europe and Palestine. (Editor’s Note – the irony is that some of the Jews saved by this generosity would perish in the Holocaust.)

2017: While others mark the anniversary of the liberation at Auschwitz, the friends and family of Debbie Rosenbloom including her husband David Levin are preparing to celebrate a double portion of nachas – Shabbat and her birthday.

2017: Observance of Holocaust Memorial Day which coincides with the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviets.  For Jews there is a certain irony in the decision to use this date because what the Soviets actually “liberated” were the ashes of a people that the world had turned its back on.

2017: In a moment of irony Bruhilde Pomsel, “the personal stenographer of Goebbels” and survivor Hitler’s bunker passed away on International Holocaust Memorial Day.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/world/europe/brunhilde-pomsel-dies-obituary-goebbels.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2017: In London, “Denial” is scheduled to be shown for the first time at JW3.

2017: As part of Interfaith Week, the Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to open its Friday night dinner to anybody “who wants to come and experience JSoc.”

2017: “And the Waters Subsided,” an exhibition marking the 50th anniversary of the Arno Flood featuring Jewish books and Judaica objects is scheduled to come to an at the National Library of Florence, Italy.

2017: Observance of Holocaust Memorial Day which coincides with the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviets.  For Jews there is a certain irony in the decision to use this date because what the Soviets actually “liberated” were the ashes of a people that the world had turned its back on.

http://hmd.org.uk/page/why-mark-27-january-holocaust-memorial-day

2017: While Holocaust International Holocaust Remembrance Day is being observed right wing anti-Semitism in on the rise in Poland and Germany while left wing anti-Semitism is on the rise from London, England to Knoxville, TN.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/diaspora-ministry-reports-surge-in-anti-semitism-links-it-to-far-right/

2018(11thof Shevat, 5778): “Shabbat Shirah”; for more see http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/

2018: In addition to hearing the Song of the Sea, Debbie Rosenbloom will hear the song “Happy Birthday To You” as offered by her friends and family including most importantly, her husband, David Levin.

2018: “The Testament,” directed by Amicahi Greenberg is scheduled to be shown at the Brooklyn Israel Film Festival today.

2018: Holocaust Memorial Day – The Power of Words

http://www.martingilbert.com/blatt/sword-pen-jewish-experience-esther-gilbert/

http://www.yadvashem.org/27th/about_27th.asp

2018: In the UK, Britain’s Channel 4 is scheduled to show “Holocaust: Revenge Plot,” a “documentary featuring long-lost tapes describing how a Jewish group sought to exact revenge for the murder of 6 million.”

https://www.timesofisrael.com/film-to-show-new-details-of-jewish-post-war-revenge-plot-to-poison-german-cities/  

2019: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity and Love by Dani Shapiro and the recently released paperback editions of Eternal Life by Dara Horn and Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress by Steven Pinker

2019: International Holocaust Remembrance Day is scheduled to be observed at a number of venues and locations including Auschwitz. (Editor’s note – The date was chosen because in 1945 it was the date on which Auschwitz was liberated.  Surely somebody has written about the fact that January 27, 1945 was Shabbat and the Torah portion included the description of the drowning of Pharaoh’s chariots in the Red Sea, marking the final act of the Exodus from Egypt)

2019: “The world premiere of The ‘Night’ Concert took place in the Baltic Sea city of Kaliningrad Russia today.

2019:  Patrice Bensimon who has served as Research Director for Yahad-In Unum, a French association founded by Father Patrick Desbois “who has interviewed close to 2,000 eyewitnesses” is scheduled to update” those attending the Holocaust Remembrance Day event at the Illinois Holocaust Museum “on Father Desbois' Holocaust-related work and describe Yahad-In Unum's efforts to raise awareness of this piece of Holocaust history and to fight against genocide.”

2019: In Arlington, VA, Noam Vinokur is scheduled to lecture on “Jewish History: The Last 175 Years Part 2” which “will cover the first half of the 20th century” including the rise of Zionism and the Jewish-Socialist Bund Movement at Etz Chayim Congregation.

2019: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst are each scheduled to host a screening of “Who Will Write Our History?”

2019: Today, “Israel's cabinet approved a law to allow exports of medical cannabis in a move expected to boost state revenues and the agriculture sector, and which frustrates critics who fear it could lead to more recreational use of the drug. (Reuters)

2020: International Holocaust Memorial Day

2020: The Yeshiva University Museum, American Sephardi Association and YIVO are scheduled to present “A Holocaust Remembrance Day performance of Yehuda Poliker’s celebrated 1988 album “Ashes and Dust,” a tribute to children of survivors, by Israeli singer Gilad Paz..”

2020: “Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz” is scheduled to meet with President Trump privately today in which where the President will unveil his “administration’s long-awaited Middle East peace plan.”

2020: In San Francisco, The Commonwealth Club is scheduled to host “Violins of Hope: A Journey of Heroism, Healing and Humanity” during which Avshalom Weinstein, co-founder of Violins of Hope, talks about the collection of 70+ violins played by Jewish musicians during the Holocaust.

2020: Prince William is scheduled to “give a reading” during the Holocaust Memorial Day commemorative ceremony in Westerminster.

2020: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Educational Center is scheduled to host “the live stream from Auschwitz-Birkenau commemorating the 75th anniversary of its liberation.

2021: In commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, The Thaler Holocaust Memorial Fund is scheduled to sponsor a Zoom event with Deborah Levison, author of The Crate: A Story of War, a Murder and Justice who will tell the true story of Holocaust survivors, her parents, who were forced to confront present-day evil.

2021: In Palm Beach Gardens, FL, Temple Judea is scheduled to a Noon Lunch and Learn during which Rabbi Feivel Straus will lead a discussion on Chaim Nachman Bialik as part of the series on “Great Jewish Leaders.”

 2021: In commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Vilna Shul is schul and its partners are scheduled to host a screening “Finding Matilda: The Anne Frank of Lithuania” followed by a panel which will “discuss the search for a little-known Holocaust victim, Matilda Olkin, and her extended family who were killed in an isolated location in northern Lithuania in the beginning of Holocaust in 1941.”

2021: The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience presents award winning author Gila Green discussing her new work White Zion

2021: The US Holocaust Memorial Museum is scheduled to host “Eisenhower’s Foresight: Protecting the Truth of the Holocaust” during which Susan Eisenhower, the author of How Ike Led will talk about her grandfather dealt with his wartime realization that a day could come “when the horrors of the Holocaust might be denied.”

2021: The Breman Museum is scheduled to host “a special virtual reading of excerpts from 18 young writers' diaries from the Holocaust to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 76th anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz.”

2021: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host a performance of by survivor and Klezmer band leader Saul Dreir followed by a by discussion with Tod Lending who made the film “Saul and Ruby’s Holocaust Survivor” and Saul’s “bandmate Ruby Sosnowicz.

2021: “Eva Fogelman, psychologist, writer, filmmaker and a pioneer in the treatment of psychological effects of the Holocaust on survivors and their descendants, is scheduled to moderate a panel of second- and third-generation survivors as they explore how their lives have been impacted by the Shoah.”

2021: As the landscape fills with events marking the observance of Holocaust Remembrance Day, nobody seems to have made the connection that this Shabbat, January 30, the Jews will be reading the same Torah portion that was read on January 27, 1945, a Torah portion that includes the end of Pharaoh’s legions and the battle with Amalek and is known as Shabbat Shira.

2021: In this time of Pandemic darkness, the friends and family of Debbie Rosenbloom, including her husband David Levin prepare to bring a bright light into the world with the celebration of a “milestone” birthday. 

 

 

This Day, January 28, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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January 28

 814: Charlemagne passed away. The grandson of Charles Martel was one of the greatest European rulers during the Dark Ages.  There was nothing Dark about his treatment of the Jews.  For the most part, he ignored canon law and the wishes of the Pope and treated the Jews of his realm rather decently. 

1077: As a result of an event called the “Walk to Canossa,” Pope Gregory VII lifted he excommunication of Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor. This was part of the struggle between the Church and the temporal rulers as to who would be the final voice of authority in Europe. Jews could not have taken comfort in this apparent success of Gregory over Henry. Gregory was hostile to Jewish interest.  This can be seen in his letter to King Alfonso forbidding Jews to hold public office or to “have power over Christians.”  Furthermore, he ordered the King to have the Jews pay special “Jew Taxes” throughout his kingdom.  Henry was protective of his Jewish subjects. He issued charters to the Jews of Speyer and Worms allowing them to trade in these cities and to practice their religion according to their laws and practices. Furthermore, during the Crusades, he defied Christian doctrine and the Pope, by supporting the right of Jews who had been forced to convert “to disregard their baptism and return to Judaism.”

1167(4927):Poet and philosopher Abraham Ibn Ezra, hero of the golden age of Spain, passed away. There is some disagreement about when this sage actually passed away.  Some say he passed away in 1164.  Others say that he passed away on January 23.  Although specificity as to the date of his death may not be possible, there is no doubt about his greatness.  This brief blog cannot do him justice so here are two sites where you can at least gain a nodding acquaintance with the life and work of this sage.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/IbnEzra.html  http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=11&letter=I

1225: Birthdate of Thomas Aquinas, the Catholic Saint who expressed his views on Jews in a “Letter on the Treatment of Jews” written in 1271.

http://thomistica.net/letter-to-margaret-of-flanders/

http://www.ccjr.us/dialogika-resources/primary-texts-from-the-history-of-the-relationship/268-aquinas

For more, see Aquinas and the Jews by John Y.B. Hood and Thomas Aquinas on the Jews Steven C. Boguslawski

1467: Consecration of Giovanni Battista Cybo who as Pope Innocent VIII passed away when his Jewish doctor’s last-ditch attempt to save his life by providing him with a transfusion of human blood failed.

1547: King Henry VIII of England passed away.  When seeking to divorce his first wife and marry Anne Boleyn, Henry sought to make use of Biblical law in his fight with Rome. He thought that Rabbis, learned in the matter, might be of some help.  Since Jews were not supposed to be living in England, Henry was forced to seek out Rabbis living in Italy.  While the Rabbis offered some help, they were loathe to give too much assistance to a monarch in faraway England lest they offend and anger the Pope who could make miserable for the Jews of Italy.

1573: Articles of the Warsaw Confederation are signed, sanctioning freedom of religion in Poland. The primary beneficiaries of the document were competing Christian groups – Catholic, Lutheran and Orthodox. Jews continued to enjoy the benefits of The General Charter of Jewish Liberties known as the Statute of Kalisz that had been promulgated at the end of the 13th century.

1594(5354): Seventy-nine year old Elia Levita  who was “also known as Elijah Levita, Elias Levita, Eliahu Bakhur ("Eliahu the Bachelor") and “was a Renaissance-period Hebrew grammarian, poet and one of the first writers in the Yiddish language” passed away today in Venice. He was the author of the Bovo-Bukhthe most popular chivalric romance written in Yiddish, which, according to Sol Liptzin, is ‘generally regarded as the most outstanding poetic work in Old Yiddish.’”

1600: Birthdate of Giulio Rospigliose who as Pope Clemente IX modified the custom of having the Jews run through the streets of Rome as part of the carnival festivities by allowing them to pay heavy fines to avoid the race. This ended two hundred years of humiliation that had been introduced by Pope Paul II in the 15th century.

 1668: Pope Clement IX canceled the humiliating forced races known as the Palio. During the Plaio near naked Jews were forced to run through the streets of Rome during carnival time. In return for the revocation the Jews of Rome had to pay a special cancellation tax of 200 ducats. This tax was paid for almost 200 years.

1717: Birthdate of Mustafa III. During his reign, the Ottoman Empire continued to decline as a world power and became less accepting of non-Moslems. Mustafa personally helped to enforce the decrees regarding clothing that could be worn by his subjects. “In 1758, he was walking incognito in Istanbul and ordered the beheading of a Jew and an Armenian seen dressed in forbidden attire.”

1721: A fire broke out in the Judengasse at Frankfort which destroyed over a hundred homes. Christian looters took advantage of the situation and it took the intervention of Emperor Charles VI for the Jews to be compensated for their losses.  The fire gave Jews a chance to legally live outside of the Ghetto for 8 years.  By 1729, they had all been forced back into their narrow confines.

1739: In Savanah, GA, Esther Nunez and Abraham de Lyon gave birth to Isaac de Lyon the husband of Rinah Tobias whom he married in Charleston, SC and with whom he had four children – Abraham, Esther, Judith and Hannah.

1748: In Newport, RI, Rachel Franks Levy and Lisbon native Isaac Mendes Seixas gave birth to Benjamin Mendes Seixas, the husband of Zipporah Levy whom he married in Philadelphia and with whom he had eighteen children.

1764: Today, Frederick the Great ordered Daniel Itzig and Veitel Heine, “the chairman of the Jewish congregation in Berlin” who the Mintmaster in Saxony and Prussia as well as a “Jeweler to the Prussian Court” to “invest the great assets they had earned in the Prussian economy.”

1771: Judith and Joseph Tobias, Jr. gave birth to Isaac Tobias and Leah Tobias who was the husband of Lyon Levy.

1780: One day after she had passed way, Rebecca Leib was buried today in the “Hoxton Old Jewish burial Ground.”

1781: In Germany, Golies and Loeb Samuel Doerzbacher gave to Samuel Loeb Doerzbacher, the husband of Riele Rosenthaler and the father of Hindle Doerzbacher.

1783: Birthdate of Korb, Germany native Judith Jacobs, the wife of Samuel Ottenheimer and the mother of Jette Ottenheimer.

 1788: In Smyrna, which at that time was part of the Ottoman Empire, Rabbi and kabbalist Jacob Pallache “and Kali Kaden Hazan” gave birth to Haim Palachi, the author of works in Hebrew and Ladino and the Chief Rabbi of Smyrna who married Esther Palacci with whom he had three sons all of whom were Rabbis – Abraham Palacci, Isaac Palacci and Joseph Palacci.

1789: Lieutenant Colonel David Salisbury Franks, one of the highest ranking Jewish officers to serve in the American Army during the revolution was granted four hundred acres in recognition of his military service. Franks was one of the founders of the Society of the Cincinnati, an organization of Revolutionary war veterans.

  1790: The French National Assembly granted full and equal citizenship to the Portuguese and Avignonese Jews. The Jews of Alsace would have to wait until 1791 to be granted these same rights. France was the first European country to pass such liberal legislation.

1790: When Joseph II revoked the decrees protecting the Jews, “the citizens of Pesth, Hungary, took measures to expel the Jews because they were business competitors.

1791: Birthdate of Bavarian native Jesajas Simon Schulein, the husband of Ann Seuchtwagner with whom he had four children – Nathan, Alexander, Simon and Benjamin

1793: Lord George Gordon, the English nobleman who converted to Judaism and took the name Yisrael bar Avraham Gordon was returned to his prison cell today because would not accept his character witnesses at the hearing where he should have been freed because they were Jewish.

1795: Richea Myers and Joseph Marx gave birth to Louisa Marx, the wife of Samuel Myers and the mother of Moses, Joseph and Virginia Myers, each of whom was born in the United States.

1796: In Lorraine, France, Mayer Lippmann and Madeleine Lippmann gave birth to Isaïe Lippmann, the “husband of Esther Julie Lippmann.”

1800 (2nd of Shevat, 5560): Chasidic Master Rabbi Meshulam Zusha of Anipoli passed away.  While there is much to say about this sage, most know him because of the following story or one of its variants. “Reb Zusha was on his deathbed surrounded by his disciples. He was crying and no one could comfort him. One student asked his Rebbe, "Why do you cry? You were almost as wise as Moses and as kind as Abraham."  Reb Zusha answered, "When I pass from this world and appear before the Heavenly Tribunal, they won't ask me, 'Zusha, why weren't you as wise as Moses or as kind as Abraham,' rather, they will ask me, 'Zusha, why weren't you Zusha?'”

1802(25thof Shevat, 5562): Four days after his 35th birthday, Hyman Abrahams, the son of Abraham Isaac Abrahams, passed away today in Charleston, SC.

1803: In Frankfurt am Main Caroline Stern and Freiherr Salomon Mayer von Rothschild gave birth to Anselm Salomon von Rothschild the founder of the Viennese bank Creditanstalt.

 

 

 

1805: In Savannah, GA, Divinah Cohen and Isaac Minis gave birth to Philip Minis the husband of Sarah A. Livingston who settled in Baltimore, MD.

1807(19thof Shevat, 5567): Revolutionary War veteran Israel DeLien, the Bohemian born resident of Charleston, the husband of Hannah (Levy) Hart, the widow of Hyman Hart and member of Beth Elohim, passed away today.

https://mappingjewishcharleston.cofc.edu/1788/map.php?id=1008

1809: Birthdate of Theodor Benfey, “the son of a Jewish trader from Nörten in Lower Saxony who chose a career as a philologist over being a doctor.

1810: Birthdate of Aron Mendes Chumaceiro, the native of Amsterdam who became Ḥakam of Curaçao, Dutch West Indies and who was the father of four prominent sons -- Abraham Mendes Chumaceiro: Attorney at law; Cantor Benjamin Mendes Chumaceiro; Dayyan Jacob Mendes Chumaceiro and Rabbi Joseph Chayyim Mendes Chumaceiro.

1814(7th of Shevat, 5574): Rabbi Dovid of Lelov passed away. He was the first Grand Rabbi of the Lelover Dynasty.  The Lelovers moved from Poland to Jerusalem in the late 1840’s or early 1850’s.

1842: Today The Jewish Chronical “carried the letter from Sir Moses Montefiore, President of the Board of Deputies, to the wardens of all the London synagogues conveying the resolutions of a meeting of the Board, synagogue wardens and the Chief Rabbi” that “ordered the reading of the cherem promulgated by the Chief Rabbi…”

1848: In New York, Benvenida Solis and Leon Ritterband gave birth their sixth child, Moses Maness Ritterband.

1849: Isaac Noah Mannheimer delivered a speech in the Austrian Reichstag on the abolition of capital punishment.

1851: Emma and Philip Salomons gave birth to Sir David Lionel Goldsmid-Stern-Salomons, who gained fame as an author, scientist and barrister.  

1851: Northwestern University becomes the first chartered university in the state of Illinois. For our family, the two most famous graduates of Northwestern are Dr. Jacob Levin of blessed memory who earned his masters and Ph.d. from the Evanston institution and Betty Levin. 

http://www.jewishstudies.northwestern.edu/

1852: Birthdate of Landstuhl, Germany native Gideon Wolff.

1853: Birthdate of Vladimir Solovyov the 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 force that could help reconcile the peoples of Eastern Europe and revitalize Christianity”

1856: Birthdate of Russian painter Isaac Lvovich Asknazi whose works included “The Poet Jehuda Halevi,” “Sabbath Eve,” “The Bridegroom Examined by the Rabbi” and “Bad News,” “a picture of Jewish life.”

1857(3rdof Shevat, 5617): Eighty-four-year-old German born Isaiah Moses, who had 12 children with his first wife Rebecca Phillips and 4 children with his second wife passed away today in Charleston, SC.

1857(3rdof Shevat, 5617): Fifty-seven-year-old Rachel N. Cardozo, the Easton, PA born daughter of Sarah Hart and Isaac Nunez Cardozo who married Joseph Phillips after she had been married to Simon Kaufman passed away today in New York

1860: Fifty-year old Joseph Addison Alexander the Princeton University Professor a Hebraist whose works including The Earlier Prophecies of Isaiah (1846), The Later Prophecies of Isaiah (1847), and The Psalms Translated and Explained passed away today.

1860: The community of Kingston, Jamaica, “which is composed chiefly of Jews” have been making contributions for the relief of their suffering brethren of Morocco. They have managed to collect large sums in spite of the prevailing poverty.

1860: “Relief of the Jews in Austria” published today reported that “from Austria, amid the echoes of Hungarian dissatisfaction, and Tyrolese boldness, come the reports of promised reform. It is stated as a certain fact that in a few days the Emperor will issue a decree, relieving the Jews from many disabilities under which they now lie. The law which forbade a Jew to have a Christian servant is already repealed; and the emancipated Israelite can now rejoice in the possession of a cook who hasn't a conscientious objection to getting up and making a fire, of a Saturday morning. The expected decree will abolish the old law, by which no one of the three witnesses required for a Christian's will could be a Jew -- a blind provision, which has been the source of more trouble to Christians than Jews. Then the rule, still on the statute-books in Austria, that a Jew's evidence in a civil case against a Christian should be considered as "doubtful," will be done away; as also the present prohibition, which prevents any but a Christian from filling the office of Notary. This last provision is no older than 1855. Before that year Jews were allowed to be Notaries, and it is said that there is a Jewish Notary in Prague, who was appointed under the old law, and holds his office still. It is proper that the Government should concede these rights to an oppressed class; but one cannot but notice how, through these reforms, it hopes to escape more pressing and important demands from its subjects. Hungary demands her constitutional rights, and the Emperor grants a couple of reforms to Venice. Tyrol desires her ancient and guaranteed privileges, and he emancipates the Jews at Prague! No matter -- the day is coming.”

1862, Joachim Kohn and his son from švihov received a permit to build a leather factory (today this is the establishment Bruml, Bloch & Waldstein).

1862: In New York, Herman S. Bachman and Fanny S. Obermeyer gave birth to Hannah Bachman who married William Einstein and became Hannah Bachman Einstein an activist for child welfare in both Jewish and secular settings. Einstein “was raised in New York City's Temple Emanu-El, a German Reform congregation. As an adult, she remained active in the Temple, and in 1897, she became president of the sisterhood, a position she held for twenty-five years. One of Einstein's activities as sisterhood president was visiting the homes of recent immigrants. She soon became convinced that the private relief provided by the Temple would never be sufficient to alleviate the problems of this group. Only government action, she decided, could address the myriad social problems that immigrants and other impoverished people faced. Joining with other activists, Einstein lobbied the New York State legislature for widowed mothers' pensions, which would enable widowed women to care for their children without working outside the home. In 1913, she was appointed chair of the state committee to investigate the issue. Her committee wrote what became the Child Welfare Law of 1915, which became the national model. By 1920, nearly all the states had passed similar legislation. In the wake of her committee's success, Einstein became president of the New York State Association of Child Welfare Boards, served as the first woman on the board of the United Hebrew Charities, and helped found the National Union of Public Child Welfare Officers. Einstein died in New York City in 1929.

1864: Henry Samuel Joseph, “a preacher in the synagogue at Bedford” who converted to Christianity and was ordained as a literate in the Church of England” and who “became a traveling secretary to the London Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews” passed away today in Strasburg.

1865(1stof Shevat, 5625): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1865: Birthdate of Emma Eckstein, the native of Vienna who was a patient of Sigmund Freud and who became the first female psychoanalyst.

http://drvitelli.typepad.com/providentia/2015/11/dr-fliess-patient.html

 

1867(22ndof Shevat, 5627): Seventy-year-old Philip Salomons, the eldest son of Levi Salomons passed away today.  A resident of Brighton, he married Emma Montefiore, the daughter of Jacob Montefiore, one of the leaders of the Sydney Jewish community.

1867: Birthdate of Reggio Emilia native Angelo Modena, the decorated Italian officer rose from the rank of second lieutenant of the Alpine troops in 1887 to the rank of general in 1927 after having served as a Colonel during WW I.

1868: In London, Sara Isaac Monis and Isaac Mozes Pereira Mendoza gave birth to Elizabeth “Betsy” Mendoza

1868: In Frankfort on the Main, Germany, Bertha Bendheim and Leopold Stern gave birth to Frankfort and St. Louis trained medical doctor who served as a Professor of Diseases of Metabolism at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in St. Louis and a Professor of Internal Medicine at the New York School of Clinical Medicine while being married to Selma Hellenberg.

1871: Leo Frankel was among those serving as a member of the National Guard when Paris surrendered to the Prussians today…..  This marked the end of the Franco-Prussian War.  From the point of view of history, this was the first of a three-act play.  The second act was World War I and the third act was World War II, including the Holocaust. 

1872: Four days after he had passed away, Abraham Crawcour, the son of “Isaac Crawcour and his wife Simha” and the husband of Charlotte Florance Levy and then Catherine Rebecca Hart was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1873: Lewis J. Cohen and Henry Lehman, the Jewish proprietors of a store on Chatham Street, were sentenced to a month in the Blackwell’s Island Penitentiary after having been convicted of verbally abusing a visitor to their shop named Robert J. Quinlan.

1873: B’nai B’rith held its annual meeting at Masonic Hall in Manhattan tonight.  According to the treasurer’s report, the society has $58, 961.76 in assets. Founded 14 years ago, the society has 6,096 members.

1874: Rabbi S.M. Isaacs officiated at the wedding of Jacob Schnizter and Cordelia Menken, the daughter of the late Solomon Menken.

1874: In Chicago, Illinois, The B’nai B’rith adjourned the third day of its national convention at 7 o’clock this evening.

1874(10thof Shevat, 5634): Sixty-nine-year-old Joseph Lyons Moss, the Philadelphia born son of Rebecca Lyons an John Moss, the husband of Julia Levy with whom he had eight children passed away today in his hometown.

1874: In Chicago, Illinois, delegates to the national B’nai B’rith convention attended a banquet at the Sherman House.

1875: Gratz Nathan, a prominent 30-year-old New York lawyer who had served as the Assistant Corporation Attorney, attempted to commit suicide in his office tonight.  Nathan gained a certain kind of unwanted notoriety when his uncle, Judge Cardozo, was impeached.

1876: In Cincinnati, OH, Solomon and Caroline Fox gave birth to Jessie Fox who became Jessie Mack when she married San Francisco born jurist Julian William Mack,

1876: Birthdate of Irving Lehman, New York lawyer and jurist.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F00617FC3B55177A93C1AB1782D85F418485F9

1877: The New York Times featured a review of John Peter Lange’s “Commentary of the Holy Scriptures” which focuses on the period of Persian rule when the exiles returned from Babylonia.  The commentaries are tied to the books of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther.

1878: The annual convention of the District Grand Lodge No.1 of the Independent Order of B’nai B’rit came to a close today after a second day of meetings. The delegates will attend a banquet at Nilsson Hall this evening to mark the end of the event.

1880(15thof Shevat, 5640): Tu B’Shevat

1880: Birthdate of Herbert Max Finlay Freudnlich, the German chemist who served the director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry from 1919 until his forced retirement in 1933. His father was Jewish.  His mother was not. He passed away in 1941 in Minneapolis, MN.

1881: Birthdate of Berlin born theatre critic and author Siegfried Jacobsohn.

1884(1stof Shevat, 5644): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1886: In Cincinnati, Ohio, “Louis and Hattie Goodhart Falk gave birth Harry Louis Falk, the husband of “Miriam Martha Danziger.”

1887: In Lodoz, Polish city which at that time was part of the Russian empire “Felicja Blima Fajga (née Heiman) and Izaak Rubinstein,” the owner of a textile factory gave birth to pianist Arthur Rubinstein.

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/arthur-rubinstein-mn0000681511/biography

http://movies2.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0128.html

 

1888(15thof Shevat, 5648): Tu B’Shevat

1888: Birthdate of mathematician and recipient of the Royal Society’s Sylvester Medal Louis Joel Mordell, the native of Philadelphia who became a naturalized British citizen after completing his studies at Cambridge.

1889: In Cincinnati, Ohio, “William S. and Rose Lowenstein” gave birth to Robert S. Marx, the captain of the University of Cincinnati Football team, the school where he earned his law degree who served as a Captain in 357th Regiment of the AEF, was general counsel for Schenley Distillers, a Superior Court Judge and the co-founder and first commander of the Disabled American Veterans.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1960/09/07/99869403.pdf

https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/ucinlr29&div=23&id=&page

 

1890: Rabbi Mendes of Shearith Israel officiated at the wedding of Corinna Friedman, the daughter of Colonel Max Friedman to Leo Strassburger, the son of the former Mayor of Montgomery, Alabama.

1890: Rabbi Gottheil of Temple Emanu-El officiated at the wedding of Belle Strouse, the daughter of Abraham Stouse and Hugo H. Hahlo which took place this evening at Delmonico’s.

1890: Several hundred thousand dollars in deposits, including $180,000 belong to the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company will be withdrawn from the Albany County Bank today in response to the Board of Directors decision to choose a local lumber deal over Davis S. Mann as Cashier of the bank.  Mann has worked for the bank and his supporters attribute his rejection to the fact that he is Jewish.

1890: It was reported today that David Saltzman, a Jew who converted to Christianity, refused to A.A. Miller’s demand that he leave his daughter’s wedding.  The enraged father responded by beating him with his fists and his cane.

1891: In New Jersey, the trial of Joseph Kline, the President of a Jewish cemetery society, who is charged with larceny and obtaining money under false pretenses entered into its second day.

1891: Birthdate of Barney Sedransky, the basketball player who shortened his name to Barney Sedran and was nicknamed “Mighty Mite.”

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Sedran.html

 

1892: Three days after he had passed away, 81 year old Samson Wertheimer, the Bavarian born husband of Helena Cohen and father of Charles and Asher Wertheimer was buried at the West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”

1893: Birthdate of St. Joseph native Rose S. Goldman, the wife of Samuel Leo Goldman and member of Hadassah who was a delegate to the American Jewish Congregation.

1893: Birthdate of Abba Hillel Silver, the native of Lithuania, who became a leading Reform Rabbi, Zionist and champion of the rights of the American working man.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/abba-hillel-silver

http://www.clevelandjewishhistory.net/silver/

1894: In “Chrzanów, Małopolskie, Poland,” Hyman and Fannie Gerstner gave birth to Harold Solomon Gerstner, the first husband of Sarah Blumberg Parnes whom he pre-deceased.

1894: The annual meeting of District Lodge No.1 of B’nai B’rith was scheduled to end today.

1894:  It was reported today that the new officers for B’nai Brith are: President – Samuel D. Sewards; First Vice President – Joshua Kantrowitz; Second Vice President – Bernard Metzgar; Treasurer – Solomon Sulzberger.

1894: A musical competition designed to raise money for charities including the United Hebrew Society that will include John Phillips Sousa’s band will take place today at the Madison Square Garden.

1896 “Bernhardt as Marguerite” published today described Sarah Bernhardt’s performance in “La Dame Aux Camelias” as “a veritable triumph….Bernhardt has rarely given a more careful or more inspired portrayal in this great role.”

1896: Three days after she had passed away, Florence Caroline Cantor, the daughter of Simeon and Alice Cantor was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

1896: “New Theatrical Bills” published today described the successful performance of “A Woman’s Reason” produced by Charles Frohman which is now appearing at the Empire Theatre in New York.

1897: It was reported today that Mindel Brown, acting on behalf of the Ladies’ Auxiliary Corps, has presented a set of colors to the Hebrew Union Veteran Association.

1897: It was reported today that the newly elected officers of the Hebrew Mutual Benefit Society are

President – Morris Goodhartz; Vice President – Maurice A. Herts; Treasurer – Isaac K. Cohn;

1897: “Oldest Benefit Society” published today provides a brief history of the early Jewish community in New York and the Hebrew Mutual Benefit Society which was organized in 1826 when there approximately 300 Jewish families living in the city most of whom “lived below Canal Street and east of the Bowery.”

1897 The closing session of the Fifth Annual meeting of the American Jewish Historical Society to place today in Baltimore, MD.

1897: Using information that first appeared in The Hebrew Journal, “Too Much Reform” published today described what is seen as a retreat from “the work of iconoclasm” by the reformers and turn towards “preaching and teaching what they consider good and praiseworthy in rabbinical Judaism.”

1897: Two days after she had passed away, fifty-eight-year-old Pauline Hirschfeld, the daughter of Simon Ausch and Rachel Ausch and wife of Dr. Jacob Jacques Heinrich Hirschfeld with whom she had four children was laid to rest today in Vienna.

1898: Two day after he had passed away, 58-year-old Joseph Symons was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery.”

 

1899: As of today, the entire 6thVirginia Volunteer Infantry had been mustered out of U.S. Service including Matthew N. Levy, Jr. of Norfolk who had been mustered into U.S. Service on August 8, 1898.

1899: Private Ehrenberg, a bandsman with the 2nd Louisiana Volunteer Infantry from New Orleans was discharged today.

1899: Governor Theodore Roosevelt addressed today’s meeting of the University Settlement Society today.  During his speech TR said that “there is nothing better than the way in which the Jew and Gentile…are striving together to accomplish just such things as this society set out to accomplish.”  Roosevelt’s positive view of Jews stands in stark contrast with the European experience (anti-Semitic riots in France and the anti-Jewish policies of the Czar) and are all the more significant since within the next couple of years he would be Vice President and then President of the U.S.

1899: It was reported today that in his recently published Story of France, Thomas Watson includes a description of the Christian massacre of the Jews in response to “the frightful ravages of the bubonic plague in 1348.”

1899: It was reported today that Monsieur Guerin, the President of the Ant-Semite League led a mob that entered the Place Dauphine at the back of the Palace of Justice where the libel trial brought by Mme. Henry was being heard.  The mob roared with shouts of “Death to the Jews!” After being dispersed by the police the mob re-formed on the Place du Chatelet where it howled “Spit on the Jews!” (All of this stemmed from the attempts to reverse the conviction of Dreyfus)

1899: A proposal was made today in the Chamber of Deputies “to have the Dreyfus Cased heard by a Supreme Court of Appeals, with all three chambers sitting jointly.”

1900: Rabbi Joseph Silverman is scheduled to deliver a talk on “Progress in Religion and Liberalism” this morning at Temple Emanu-EL

1900: “A Novel ‘Jewish Question’” published today described the attempts of “Dr. Grankgrug, a young doctor of Jewish ancestry” to be recognized for bravery for service in the “Russo-Turkish War of 1877.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1900/01/28/101047450.pdf

 

1901: Count Ioseif (Joseph) Gurko, who while serving as the military commander of the region around Warsaw in the 1890’s sought permission to expel the Jews from the western zones of Poland, passed away.

 

1902: Herzl authorized Leopold Kessler’s leadership of the expedition to El Arish where he and others including Dr. Selig Soskin an agricultural expert, Dr. Hillel Joffee and Colonel Albert Goldsmid would consider the possibility of this area of the Sinai Peninsula as a possible site for Jewish colonization

1903: Herzl appoints Leopold Kessler as leader of the commission "for the exploration of the feasibility of settling in the northern half of the Sinai Peninsula.

1903: The Eighth Annual Convention of the Progressive Order of the West whose officers included Grand Master Dr. M.I. De Vorkin and First Deputy Grand Master Michael Goldwasser came to an end today in St. Louis.

1904(11th of Shevat, 5664): Fifty-five-year-old Austrian novelist Karl Emil Franzos, passed away today.

http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Franzos_Karl_Emil

1905: Birthdate of Barnett Newmann, an American artist who is seen as one of the major figures in abstract expressionism and one of the foremost of the color field painters

http://www.barnettnewman.org/

http://www.philamuseum.org/micro_sites/exhibitions/newman/index.html

1906: The protest letter drawn up at conferenced held by the New York University Law School Russian Relief Association which is to be sent to President Roosevelt published today read, “We the undersigned students of law of the New York University, feeling that it is our just privilege and sacred duty to do so, do appeal to and petition you, as the protector of our country, to use your good offices to bring about a cessation of Russia’s policy of prescription and persecution against her defenseless Jewish subjects.”

1906: A full report of the speeches exchanged between the Czar and a deputation of the reactionary League of Russian Men…published today” quoted one speaker as saying “the league’s watchword was orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality” which that “Jews, even converts were rigorously excluded” from the league.

1907: “Word was received” in New York City today of the arrest on January 24 “in Vilna of nineteen members of the Election Committee of the Jewish Committee” who were meeting in home of Dr. Lewin, “formerly a member of the Duma.”

1907: “Immigration from Russia to the United States means more than a mere journey of 3,000 miles, according to statements made by Alexarder Harkavy at the Hebrew Educational Alliance tonight in a special report to the Hebrew Immigrant Society, which sent him abroad to investigate conditions in Europe.”

1907: Dr. Judah L. Magnes, the rabbi of Temple Emanu-El and Secretary of the Federation of American Zionists said tonight that a meeting would “probably held by New York Jews” who had expressed their indignation over the “wholesale arrests” of Jewish leaders in Vilna.

1908: “Reports of a sub-committee presented” today “at a meeting of the Committee of 250 appointed recently by the council of Jewish Communal Institutions to solicit funds for the United Hebrew Charites, showed that more than $29,000 has been obtained in new memberships and donations.”

1909(6th of Shevat, 5669): Seventy-year-old chess expert Jacob Elson passed away today.

https://www.chessgames.com/player/jacob_elson.html

1910: In New York City, Mayor Gaynor has reappointed Samuel B. Hamburger, “one of the founders and a director of the Jewish Protectory, a Vice President of the Educational Alliance and President of Congregation Ahawath Chesed” as Commissioner of Parole of the City Reformatory which is an acknowledgement of Hamburger’s interest “in the work of the reclamation of young offenders.”

1911(28th of Tevet, 5671): Parashat Vaera

1911: Ten thousand people are expected to attend the “annual masquerade ball” in Madison Square Garden “under the auspices of The Forward Association, publishers The Jewish Daily Forward.”

1912: A description of President Taft’s appearance as guest of honor at The Daughter of Jacobs Ball was published today. The President was greeted by a throng of between 12,000 and 15,000 who had come together to raise funds for the Infirmary of the Daughters of Jacob on East Broadway. In his speech, Taft praised the Jewish people for “their perfect system of charitable institutions to look after their poor and infirm.”  The President left the ball as the band played Boola-Boola. 

1912: Birthdate of comedian “Professor” Irwin Corey

1912: “Dr. Herbert Friedenwald, Secretary of the American Jewish Committee” returned to New York tonight from Washington “and reported to his organization the present status of the Dillingham immigration bill which would exclude “all immigrants except those who could read and write the English language.”

1913: In Chicago, “the K.A.M. Auxiliary” is scheduled to “observe ‘photography studio day’ this afternoon at the William Koehne Studio under the leadership of Mrs. Samuel Flitz.

1914(1st of Shevat, 5674): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1915: Jacob Schiff of New York wrote a letter to Max Warburg today in which he mentioned Bernhard Dernburg, the liberal German politician and banker whose father Friedrich Dernburg had become a Lutheran and who had married Luise Stahl, the daughter of a Lutheran minsters and Bernhard’s motherl

1915: In New York, Florence Worms married Abraham Sachs.

1915: “The Reverend C.B. Ragsdale testified today that he signed a false affidavit in which he swore he overheard the negro “Jim” Conley confess to killing Mary Phagan; that after signing this affidavit $200 was paid to hum through Arthur Thurman and C.C. Tedder and that a voice over the telephone, ‘like the voice’ of Dan S. Lehon promised him $10,000 more ‘if the thing went through.’”

1915: An act of Congress merged the Revenue Cutter Service with the Life-Saving Service creating 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 carrer. 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."

1915: The total contributions received by the American Jewish Relief Committee as of today totaled $412,658.66.

1916: President Woodrow Wilson appointed Louis D. Brandeis to the Supreme Court.  Brandeis was the first Jewish member of the court.  Although there was opposition to a Jewish justice in some quarters, Brandeis was followed by two more distinguished Jewish Supremes - Benjamin Cardozo and Felix Frankfurter.  Brandeis was an active member of the American Jewish Community.  He was an early an ardent Zionist.  Unfortunately he did not live to see the creation of the modern state of Israel.

1916: Workers using adding and coin counting machines under the direction Treasurer Harry Fischel, Albert Lucas, Mrs. Samuel Elkeles and Mrs. Harry Kraft are busy tabulating the contributions that were received yesterday, Jewish Relief Day, include $200,000 from San Francisco, $65,000 from Cincinnati and $10,000 from Richmond, VA.

1916: A check was received in the mail today at the headquarters for Jewish Relief Day for $100 from Douglas Robinson, the brother-in-law of Former President Teddy Roosevelt.

1916: During the trial of a Jews in Galicia, the Polish Assistant Public Prosecutor alleged “that the Jewish religion teaches that revenge on non-Jews is justified” which will lead the Zionist organiations protesting to the government against this libel and demanding a inquiry into the matter.

1917: Among the gifts acknowledged by the American Jewish Relief Committee were $10,000 from the Chicago Committee and $1,000 each from committees in Louisville, KY, Indianapolis, Indiana, Des Moines, Iowa and Corsicana, TX.  (Editor’s note: the list of Committees outside of the Northeastern United States should serve as a reminder that there were thriving Jewish communities in a wide variety of locations.)

1917: James Malcom, an Armenian businessman and advocate for an independent Armenian state, introduced Chaim Weitzman to Sir Mark Sykes.  Sykes was a protégé of Lord Kichner and a dominant, if not the dominant, force in forming British policy in the Middle East.  Weitzman was seeking Sykes’ support for the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine after World War I

1917: Dr. Schmarya Levin is scheduled to “address the Harlem Forum in the Wadleigh High School” this morning.

1917: The Commissioner of Foods and Markets is scheduled to “speak at the Evening Forum of the Free Synagogue” this evening.

1917(5thof Shevat, 5677): Rabbi Avraham Eliezer Alperstein the native of Belarus who was of the teachers at REITS and was one of the founders of Agudath Harabbonim passed away today in New York.

http://www.crcweb.org/rabbis/Alperstein%20Avraham%20Eliezer%201853-1917.pdf

1918(15th of Shevat, 5678): Tu B'Shvat

1918(15thof Shevat, 5678): Seventy-five-year-old Mrs. Jacob Panken, the mother Jacob Panken, the Socialist-pacifist Judge of the Municipal Court, passed away suddenly tonight after suffering a heart attack which was thought to have been “brought on by the excitement” stemming from upcoming appearance before a draft board in the Bronx where she was going to plead for a military exemption for her 25-year-old son Novie.

1918 In Jerusalem, the cornerstone is laid for Hebrew University.

1918: Birthdate of New York native Hilliard Goldsmith who gained fame as lyricist Bob Hillard who gave us the words to such well-known hits as “Our Day Will Come,” “My Little Corner of the World” and “Dear Hearts and Gentle People.”

https://www.songhall.org/profile/Bob_Hilliard

 

1918: In the United Kingdom, a special conference of the labor movement is scheduled to consider a special memorandum recommending “that Jews in all countries enjoy the common elementary rights of tolerance, freedom of residence and trade and equal citizenship and that Palestine be set free from the oppressive government of the Turk and formed into a free State, under international guarantee, to which such of the Jewish people as desire to do so may return.”

1918: Leon Trotsky (born Lev Davidovich Bronstein) became leader of “the Reds.”

1919: Beatty v. Guggenheim Exploration Co., a US trusts law case, concerning the test for the imposition of a constructive trust best known for a quote from the leading opinion by Justice Cardozo -“The constructive trust is the formula through which the conscience of equity finds expression. When property has been acquired in such circumstances that the holder of the legal title may not in good conscience retain the beneficial interest, equity converts him into a trustee” was decided today.

1920: A mass meeting of Socialists including Louis Waldman is scheduled to take place this evening in Madison Square Garden to show support for those who were suspended from the New York State Assembly.

1922: It was reported to that the directors of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association adopted a resolution praising the late Moses Crystal for “his years of valuable work for the Jewish youth of” Baltimore, MD.

1922: The Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company of Govan in Glasgow launched the SS Athenia, the first British passenger vessel sunk by a German U-boat in World War II which counted among the survivors was Kalmen Kaplansky.

http://www.historyofrights.com/bios/kaplansky.html

1923: The First "Reich’s Party" (NSDAP) forms in Munich.  These are the Nazis.

1924: In the Bronx, Charles Ledner, “a furniture salesman” and “the former Beulah Levy gave birth to

Albert Charles Ledner, the WW II veteran and graduate of the Tulane School of Architecture.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/obituaries/albert-ledner-architect-with-a-quirky-sense-dies-at-93.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=region&region=region&WT.nav=region

 

1924: Charley Phil Rosenberg, who had spent part of his childhood in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, suffered a rare defeat on his way to winning the Bantamweight World Championship in 1925.

1925: Birthdate of Russian born Australian trained physician who became a leading cancer researcher and professor of Medicine at Oxford University in England.

1926(13th of Shevat, 5686): Kaufman Kohler, the German born American leader who was one of the great leaders of Reform Judaism, passed away today in New York at the age of 83.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F70913FB395D13738DDDA00A94D9405B868EF1D3

1927: “A conference celebrating Brooklyn Jewish Women’s Day” is scheduled to be “held today at the Union Temple at Eastern Parkway and Plaza Street in Brooklyn

1928: Birthdate of Hal Prince, American stage producer and director.

1929: The British government is reportedly planning on building a road to the Megiddo Excavation which is being funded by John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

1929: Today mobster Bugsy “Siegel married his childhood sweetheart Esta Krakower, the mother of his two children – Millicent and Barbara.

1930: Today, Albert Einstein sent a letter to Issa El-Issa, the editor of Falastin, “a Palestinian newspaper based in Jaffa founded in 1911” in which he said, in part, “I am convinced that the devotion of the Jewish people to Palestine will benefit all the inhabitants of the country, not only materially, but also culturally and nationally” and “I believe that the Arab renaissance in the vast expanse of territory now occupied by the Arabs stands only to gain from Jewish sympathy.”

1932: In Chicago, Jackie Fields won a ten round decision “to regain the world welterweight title he had lost last year.” (As reported by Bob Wechsler).

1934 (12th of Shevat, 5694): German Chemist Fritz Haber passed away at the age of 65.  Haber won the Nobel Prize in 1918.

1934: Morris Margolies and Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein are scheduled to speak at a “symposium on ‘Zionist Policies in Palestine’ at the Jewish Fellowship” today.

1934: In St. Louis Joseph and Zelma Bosse Feldman gave birth to Tulane grad Martin Feldman who began serving as a Judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in 2010.

1935: Barney Ross won a ten round decision in Miami today “to retain his world junior welterweight title.” (A reported by Bob Wechsler)

1936(4thof Shevat, 5696): Thirty year old Richard Loeb, of Leopold and Loeb infamy, was murdered today by fellow convict James E. Day at Stateville Penitentiary after having spent the day with fellow killer and prison pal Nathan Leopold.

1936: German mathematician Issai Schur, who had been dismissed from his position because he was Jewish accepted an invitation to lecture in Switzerland.

1936: Fearing an outbreak of rioting that authorities in Prsytyk, Poland, “suspended the holding of market days for four weeks” as a result of the anti-Semitic Enek party’s campaign to boycott Jews.

1936: A reception was held tonight at Temple Emanu-El by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in honor of Sir Herbert Samuel and Simon Marks where the attendees had pledged “to supply its share of fifteen million dollar fund to be raised throughout the world” as long there are no plans to “aid or facilitate the export of German goods” which some had been pushing as a quid pro quo for improving the conditions for Jews living under the Nazis.

1936: As Poland continues in the grip of a wave of anti-Semitism, almost 100 Jews in Truskolaz were beaten today “following rumors that a Jew had committed a sacrilege in a church.

1937: In Chicago, “Sam Sotonoff, a machinist, and Jessie Berger, a homemaker” gave birth to Bette Lee Sotonoff who gained fame as author Bette Howland whose works included Blue in Chicago

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/17/obituaries/bette-howland-author-and-protege-of-bellows-dies-at-80.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

1937(16thof Shevat, 5697): Agnes Foreman, the Chicago born daughter of Mary Hoffman and Joseph Foreman, a leader in the social, civic and business and youngest sister of the Chicago political leader and National Guard Major General Milton J. Foreman who “was chairman of the woman’s division of the war savings organization and vice chairman o the women’s division of the State Council of National Defense
during WW I passed away today.

1937: In an open letter to Dr. Stephen S. Wise and Dr. Samuel Margoles, editor of The Jewish Day, Felix Poplawski, president and Thomas Jachimiak, secretary of the New York District of the Guild of Polish Newspapermen in America took the two Jewish leaders to task today for their recent criticisms of Poland’s policy toward her Jewish citizens saying that “they considered it unjust to hold the Polish Government responsible for anti-Jewish acts and sentiment.”

1937: “For the first time an Austrian court adopted the Third Reich’s anti-Semitic ‘race’ principles today when Judge Mifka decreed a divorce between two German nationals – a Protestant and a Jewess – both Austrian residents on the husband’s plea that the difference in ‘race’ between a German Protestant and a German Jewess was itself grounds for divorce.”

1937: Jewish students attempting to enter Warsaw University grounds today were turned back Fascist pickets and those “who insisted on entering were pushed out and beaten.”

1938: Collier’s magazine published “The Fall in America 1937” H.G. Wells’ laudatory article about “I’d Rather Be Right “a musical with a book by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, lyrics by Lorenz Hart, and music by Richard Rodgers.

1938: In Geneva, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and Viscount Cranborne, the Under-Secretary of Foreign Affairs brought pressure to bear on Rumania’s Foreign Minister, Istrate Micescu to improve the condition of the country’s Jews by reminding him of the clauses of the Treaty of 1919 that guaranteed that Jews would be treated as full-fledged citizens.

1938: The Palestine Post published a major study on the extent of the 'Octopus of Nazi Propaganda in Syria.' There were two major German propaganda centers in the Middle East: one in Cairo for Egypt, Sudan, Palestine and Transjordan, and the second in Baghdad, for Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. The Germans proved to be masters in the art of propaganda and anti-Semitic incitement spread by their well-trained agents and maintained a number of exclusive, influential clubs in major cities. Large bribes were handed over for the 'Arab victims of the Jewish aggression in Palestine. 

1939(8thof Shevat, 5699): Parashat Bo

1939: Rabbi Samuel H. Goldenson is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “What Our Synagogue Should Be Today” at Temple Emanu-El.

1939: Rabbi Jonah B. Wise is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Jesus ben Sirah” at the Central Synagogue.

1939: Rabbi Nathan Stern is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Vision of the Beautiful” this morning at the West End Synagogue.

1939: Rabbi Alexander Segel is scheduled to deliver a sermon “Does God Harden Human Hearts?” this morning at the Fort Washington Synagogue.

1939: Rabbi Harold H. Mashioff is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “We Have Not constituted Ourselves the Messiahs” this morning at the Temple of the Covenant.

1939(8th of Shevat, 5699): Louis Cohen a New York mobster who murdered labor racketeer "Kid Dropper" Nathan Kaplan and was an associate of labor racketeer Louis "Lepke" Buchalter was killed today shortly before he was to testify against Buchalter.

1939: U.S. premiere of “They Made Me A Criminal” starring John Garfield, with music by Max Steiner and produced by Benjamin Glazer and Hal Wallis

1939(8thof Shevat, 5699): Irving Friedman, alias Danny Field, a New York mobster, was murdered shortly before he was to testify against Louis “Lepke” Buchalter as part of deal with D.A. Thomas Dewey.

1940: “Likening modern dictators to Julius Caesar, an inveterate hater of Jews, the Rabbi M.L. Perlzweig of London, England, “the head of the North Western London Reform Synagogue, “declared in a sermon this morning at the Free Synagogue in Carnegie Hall that the increasing dominance of totalitarianism throughout the presents a definite threat to Jews and Christians alike.”

1940: Publication of a review As A Driven Leaf, “an historical novel describing the clash between the Greek and Hebrew Cultures” by Milton Steinberg.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1940/01/28/112739715.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

 

1940: According to a dispatch from Kaunas today. “Lithuania is…understood to be discussing the matter of the final disposal of” ten thousand refugees from Poland “four thousand of whom are Jews with Germany.

1941: Edward L. Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud and one of the “fathers of modern public relations,” writes a letter to the New York Times opposing a proposal by Dr. Harwood L. Childs of Princeton University that the U.S. should create a national propaganda ministry. 

1941: “Quiet City” a “composition for trumpet, cor anglais, and string orchestra by Aaron Copland” which had its root in “the incidental music” for Irwin Shaw’s “Quiet City” which premiered in 1939, “was premiered” today by “the Saidenberger Little Symphony in New York City.

1942: 1942, Gussie Schwebel appeared on the front page of the Forverts the day after she had delivered “three dozen knishes” to Eleanor Roosevelt ‘at her house, 49 East 65th Street.”

 

1942: In a sign of its increasingly closer ties with the Allies, Brazil severed diplomatic relations with all three Axis powers – a move that would eventually lead to a declaration of war that in turn would result in Lt. Col. Waldemar Levy Cardoza commanding a battalion of Brazilian artillery in the Italian campaign.

1943(22ndof Shevat, 5703): Sixty-six-year-old Vincennes, Indiana native and Vincennes University graduate Jacob Gimbel who in 1910 “financed an expedition which explored rivers of British Guiana and studied the life habits of the symnotide, cell-like fish” passed away today in Santa Monica, CA.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1943/01/30/87410740.pdf

 

1943: Over the next 3 days, ten thousand Jews from Pruzhany, Belorussia, are deported to Auschwitz.

1944: Leonard Bernstein's "Jeremiah" premiered in Pittsburg.

1945: The weekly internal report of the War Refugee Board, states that the United States would permanently close its War Refugee office in Turkey. The outgoing representative stated, "Inadequate sources of information and communication channels render impossible the orderly organization or direction from Turkey of any rescue activities...."

1945: The USS Everglades, a destroyer tender, on which Paul L. Krinsky, the future superintendent of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, served as navigator when he went on active duty with the U.S Navy, was launched today.

1946: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, a joint British and American committee composed of six Americans and six Englishmen that was charged with examining the “political, economic and social conditions in Mandatory Palestine as they bear upon the problem of Jewish immigration and settlement therein and the well-being of the peoples now living therein” which had been meeting in Washington, D.C. began its second week of meetings today in London.

1947: Arlene Francis and Martin Gabel gave birth to Dr. Peter Gabel the associate editor of Tikkun.

1948: Birthdate of Shimon Ullman the Jerusalem born professor of computer science and co-founder of Orbotech

1948: Birthdate of Laurence Moody, the Cambridge graduate who became an English television director.

1949: Israel was recognized (diplomatically) by Australia, Belgium, Chile, Great Britain, Holland, Luxembourg, and New Zealand.

1949: “Admiral Broadway Revue” “an American live television variety show” created and directed by Max Liebman who wrote for the show along with Mel Brooks and Mel Tolkin and starring Sid Caesar was broadcast for the first stime

1950: Birthdate of Barbara Klein who gain fame as Barbi Benton, friend of Hugh Hefner, Playboy Bunny and regular on the television country comedy hit, “Hee Haw.”

1950 (10th of Shevat, 5710): On the secular calendar the date on which Joseph Isaac Schneersohn (Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn or Friyerdikker Rebbe ("Previous Rebbe" in Yiddish) or Rayatz) passed away.  There is no way that this blog can do justice to his life of accomplishments.

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/425/jewish/The-Rebbe-Rayatz.htm

http://www.whoislog.info/profile/joseph-isaac-schneersohn.html

1952(1st of Shevat, 5712): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1952: Birthdate of writer and director Richard Glatzer. (As reported by Ashley Southall)

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/12/movies/richard-glatzer-co-director-of-still-alice-dies-at-63.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=1

 

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Soviet-controlled Hungarian regime was deporting Jews to work camps in a Soviet-inspired anti-Semitic campaign, resembling that of the Nazi era. In a similar manner Czechoslovakia started purging Jewish doctors in order 'to prevent the threat of a repetition of the murder of Soviet leaders.' The Knesset approved vastly increased customs duties on a series of commodities, including the food parcels sent to Israelis by their relatives from abroad. This increase was expected to cover at least a part of the budget deficit, which stood at IL 5.6 million, as claimed by the government, or IL 25m. as claimed by the opposition

1956: “Ghost Goes West Re-Materializes” published today described plans to make the “Ghost Goes West, a film produced by the late Sir Alexander Korda into a Broadway musical.

1958:Dore Schary's "Sunrise at Campobello" premieres in New York City.

1958(7thof Shevat, 5718): Seventy-year old author Elma Ehrlich Levinger passed away today.

http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/levinger-elma-erlich

 

1959: Sixty-two-year-old Johannes Kleiman, “one of the Dutch citizens who helped hide Anne Frank and her family during the Nazi occupation of the Nethrlands” passed away today in Amsterdam.

1959 (19th of Shevat, 5719): Joseph Sprinzak,Speaker of Israel Knesset from 1949 until 1959, passed away. A dedicated Labor Zionist Sprinzak was one of the unsung founders of the early Zionist movement who dedicated their lives to creation of the Jewish homeland.

1960(28thof Tevet, 5720): Eighty-eight year old Orientalist Lionel David Barnett, the son of Baron Barnett and Adelaide Barnett and husband of Blanche Esther Barnett with whom he had two children passed away today.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/93E11399C980BEE964D977602A5660FC/S0041977X00151286a.pdf/div-class-title-lionel-david-barnett-div.pdf

1961(11thof Shevat, 5721): Parashat Bo

1961(11thof Shevat, 5721): Seventy-two-year-old Hadassah leader and founder of the National Council Loula Lasker, the Galveston born daughter of Nettie Heidenheimer Davis and Morris and the sister of philanthropist Albert Lasker and sister of former Hadassah president Etta Lasker Rosensohn passed away today

1962: David Morgenstern, prominent Hebrew scholar and president of the Herzliah Hebrew Teachers Training Institute, was honored tonight at a dinner in the Pierre Hotel in recognition of his 25 years of “dedicated service to the furtherance of Hebrew education.” (JTA)

1964(14thof Shevat, 5724): Sixty-four year old Kiev trained cantor and Zionist who lived in the United States before settling in Israel in 1954 where he continued his literary career passed away today.

http://yleksikon.blogspot.com/2015/08/leyb-glants-leib-glantz.html

 

1965: Three days after the death of Winston Churchill, “Halina Neuman, a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, wrote to The New York Times” expressing her feelings about Britain’s war time leader.  To Neuman, for those trapped in the darkness of Nazi Europe, Churchill’s speeches and the sound of his voice were a light, a beacon of hope and proof “that the world was not coming to an end.”

1967(17thof Shevat, 5727): Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit, the native of Tiberias  who was the only Sabra to sign the Israeli declaration of independence and who has served as the Minister of Police since 1948 passed away today.

1967(17thof Shevat, 5727): Forty-five year old virologist Alick Issacs passed way today

1967: The dedication of the nave windows created by Marc Chagall which were described as “the most successful and beautiful exhibition of his genius in this country” took place today at “Union Church, in the Hudson Valley hamlet of Pocantico Hills.”

http://forward.com/culture/353658/rediscovering-marc-chagalls-least-known-american-windows/

 

1968: Following yesterday’s Shabbat services, the new chapel at Shaar Hasomayim was formally dedicated today.

1968: Ya’acov Ra’anan, commander of the INS Dakar, had wanted to enter his home port today but was told to stick to the original schedule and dock the boat on January 29 as planned.

1969: In the ever shifting sands of Israeli party politics, the Labor Party and Mapam created a political alliance called the Alignment.

1970: “The Molly Maguires” directed by Martin Ritt who co-produced the film with the scriptwriter Walater Bernstein was released today in the United States.

1972: Clifford Irving and his wife Edith confessed that the “biography of Howard Hughes” was a fraud.

1976(26thof Shevat, 5736): Seventy-one year old Shreveport native and Harvard School trained attorney, Joseph Harrison, the former lecturer at Rutgers University Law School and Republican political leader who served as a “judge of the Essex County Court” and who married “former Francis Boehm Ginsberg” after the death of his first wife “the former Amy Harvey” passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1976/01/30/75570470.pdf

 

1977: “Cross of Iron” a WW II movie set on the Eastern Front with a screenplay by Julius Epstein was released in Germany today.

1983(14thof Shevat, 5743): Forty-eight year old Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan passed away today.http://bible.ort.org/books/help.asp?action=displaytext&type=1&id=2

1984: A month-long show featuring 43 painting by expressionist Chaim Soutine is scheduled to come to an end at the Galleri Bellman in New York City.

1986 (18th of Shevat, 5746): The space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, killing all seven crew members: flight commander Francis R. "Dick" Scobee; pilot Michael J. Smith; Ronald E. McNair; Ellison S. Onizuka; Judith A. Resnik; Gregory B. Jarvis; and schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. “Among the seven crewmembers killed was Judith Resnik, the first American Jewish astronaut in space. Resnik joined the space program in 1978 after graduating from Carnegie-Mellon with a B.S. in electrical engineering and the University of Maryland with a Ph.D. in electrical engineering. Prior to the 1986 Challenger tragedy, Resnik served as the mission specialist on Discovery's maiden voyage in 1984, logging 144 hours 57 minutes in space. Resnik was the second American woman in space (after Sally Ride) and the fourth worldwide. Before joining the space program, Resnik worked in the radar division of RCA, as a biomedical engineer in neurophysics at the National Institute of Health, and finally for the Xerox corporation. She was accepted into the NASA program, along with five other women, in 1978. An Akron, Ohio, native, Resnik was a classical pianist and a gourmet cook, and also enjoyed running and bicycling. She was active in the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the IEEE Committee on Professional Opportunities for Women, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Association of University Women.”

 1979(29thof Tevet, 5739): Two were killed and thirty-four more were injured when terrorists set off a bomb in a Netanya market.

1983(14thof Shevat, 5743): Forty-eight-year-old year old New York native Aryeh Kaplan, the physics researchers who changed his life when he became “a practicing rabbi” in 1965 passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/02/obituaries/rabbi-aryeh-kaplan-48-dies-wrote-books-on-jewish-topics.html

1986(18thof Shevat, 5746): Ninety-year-old Yetta A. Wirtschafter Salzman, the daughter of Frank and Rose Klein Wirtschafter and the wife of Samuel Salzman passed away today after which she was buried in the Glenville Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio.

1986(18thof Shevat, 5746): The first Jew and second woman to travel to space, Judith Resnik lost her life in the tragic explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986, in which six other astronauts were killed.

https://jwa.org/thisweek/jan/28/1986/judith-resnik

 

1987: Valerian Trifa, the Iron Guard leader who later served as archbishop of the Romanian Orthodox Church in America and Canada died today. Trifa was exposed and brought to justice thanks to the efforts of Zev Gola

 1988: The BBC broadcast the final episode of “Yes Minster” a satirical political sitcom co-created and written by Jonathan Lynn.

1991: Iraq fired another missile with a conventional warhead at Tel Aviv tonight, the seventh attack in 12 days. But this time the army said the Scud was defective and disintegrated as it fell back to earth. No one was hurt, and there was no property damage. The missile had fallen apart even before any Patriot air-defense missiles could be fired at it.

1992: As part of “Israel: The Next Generation,” a performance is given of “‘Jabar’s Head,a cabaret show presented in Arabic, Hebrew, and English by the Beit Hagefen Theatre”

1992(23rd of Shevat, 5752): Eighty-six year old Israeli archaeologist Nahman Avigad who led the team that found the Cardo in the Jewish Quarter passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/14/world/nahman-avigad-an-archeologist-and-biblical-scholar-dies-at-86.html

 

1992: In New York, Laurie Simmons and Carroll Dunham gave birth to actress and poet Grace Dunham.

1993: At New York’s Plaza Hotel, Senator Daniel K. Inouye, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin and the Zahal Disabled Veterans Organization, which operates two sports rehabilitation and social centers in Tel Aviv and Haifa and is building a facility in Jerusalem, receive the 10th annual Defender of Jerusalem Awards from the Jabotinsky Foundation.

1993(6thof Shevat, 5753): Seventy-six year old New York native, Yale trained banker and WW II veteran Richard M. Lederer, Jr. “a former national treasurer of the ADL and author of two highly regarded tomes – The Place Names of Westchester County and Colonial American English.

https://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/03/obituaries/richard-lederer-76-scarsdale-s-historian.html

 

1993(6thof Shevat, 5753): Fifty-two year old Hannah Wilke an American painter, sculptor, photographer, video artist and performance artist passed away today in New York.

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/30/arts/art-view-an-artist-s-chronicle-of-a-death-foretold.html

1996 (7th of Shevat, 5756): Jerry Siegel noted cartoonist and creator of Superman passed away at the age of 81. Whether it is highbrow (see next entry) or lowbrow, there always seems to be a Jew somewhere creating American Culture.

1996(7th of Shevat, 5756):  Joseph Brodsky passes away at the age of 55.  Born in Russia in 1940, the famed poet would survive persecution in his native and exile to the United States to win the 1987 Nobel Prize for Literature and become Poet Laureate of the United States in 1991.

1996: A revival of David Merrick’s “Hello Dolly” closed at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre after 116 performances.

2000: “The Three Faces of Eva” published today described the challenge Eva Moskowitz, a member of the City Council is having to do with a check from “her mother Anne, who fled Europe during the Holocaust.”

http://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/the-three-faces-of-eva/

 

2000: “Isn’t She Great” a biopic directed by Andrew Bergman, “with a screenplay by Paul Rudnick based on a 1995 New Yorker profile by Michael Korda” starring Bette Midler, with music by Burt Bacharach was released today in the United States.

2000(21stof Shevat, 5760): Seventy-seven-year-old London born actress Joy Shelton who converted to Judaism after she married actor Sydney Tafler passed away today in Richmond upon Thames.

2001: In Chicago, “Roman Vishniac: Children of a Vanished World” featuring 50 pictures taken by the photographer “during the years 1935 through 1938” in which he “turned his camera lens on Jewish life in Eastern Europe, in the hope of focusing worldwide attention on its declining condition at the brink of destruction” opened at the Spertus Museum.

2001: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Newest Place in the World by Suzanne Ruta, Rethinking the Holocaust by Yehuda Bauer and the Jewish Confederates by Robert N. Rosen.

2002(15th of Shevat, 5762) Tu B'Shevat

2002(15thof Shevat, 5762): Today Mark Sokolow, who escaped without injury from the second tower of the World Trade Center during the attack on September 11, was walking with his family in the scarred central shopping district here when a Palestinian bomber set off an explosion that resounded throughout Jerusalem, killing herself and an 81-year-old man and wounding 113, most of them slightly. ''I was a lot luckier last time,'' Mr. Sokolow, a 43-year-old lawyer from Woodmere, N.Y., said as he recovered in a hospital here from shrapnel wounds to his face and leg. ''This one involved my whole family.'' After a frantic search for his wife and two of his daughters, he learned at the hospital that most of their wounds were also slight, though one girl, Jamie, 12, had shrapnel in her right eye. She was likely to retain her sight, doctors said. The blast scattered burning body parts across Jaffa Road and sent a cloud of swirling dust and circling pigeons into the air, witnesses said. The attack was steps from where a Palestinian gunman raked the area with semiautomatic gunfire last week, killing two and wounding 20 before being shot dead by the police. If the bomber in the attack today intended to die, she would be the first female suicide bomber to strike in Israel since such attacks began here in 1994, the police said.

2003: Ariel Sharon emerges victorious in Israeli elections today which included the defeat of Amram Mitzna, the leader of the Labor Party. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his rightist party, Likud, crushed Israel's Labor Party in parliamentary elections, as voters vented their doubts about any prompt, secure end to the bitter conflict with the Palestinians.

2004: Soviet dissident Alexander Podrabinek was summoned by the FSB to come for interrogation today, but refused to answer the questions

2004: In northern Greece, in the presence of US Ambassador to Athens Thomas Miller, Nobel peace prize winner Elie Wiesel and representatives of the city's political and cultural sectors, the memory day for Greek Jews who lost their lives in the Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau was honored by the Jewish community in Thessalonica.

2005: “Barenboim Comments Sparks Anger As Controversy at Columbia” published today described the behavior of Argentine-Israeli conductor Barenboim and the environment which some Jewish students have to deal with at Columbia University.

http://www.jta.org/2005/01/28/archive/barenboim-comments-spark-anger-as-controversy-at-columbia-builds

2006(28th of Tevet, 5766): Kabbalah sage Rabbi Yitzhak Kedouri passed away at the Bikur Holim hospital in Jerusalem. His precise age was unknown, but estimated to be somewhere between 106 and 113 years old. Rabbi Kedouri was born in Iraq at the turn of the 20th century. He began his studies in Jewish mysticism in his youth, before coming to Israel in 1923. Kaduri, known as "the senior Kabbalist," is the last of a generation of Sephardic Jewish mystics. His close circle of friends and family say he was one of the few known living Kabbalist who used "practical Kabbalah," a type of Jewish magic aimed at affecting a change in the world. More rational schools of Judaism are skeptical about Kaduri's powers. Nevertheless, few doubted Kaduri's righteousness and vast knowledge of both conventional and more esoteric Jewish thought and law. For most of his life Kaduri was unknown to the general public. He led a modest life of study and prayer and worked as a bookbinder. During the past decade and a half he served as the head of Nahalat Yitzhak Yeshiva in Jerusalem's Bukharan quarter.

2006: The Hallmark Channel broadcast “Hidden Places” featuring Tom Bosley and co-produced by Larry Levinson.

2006: “Nothing Lasts Forever” a comedy produced by Lorne Michaels in 1984 that was not released to the public, co-starring Mort Sahl, Sam Jaffe and Eddie Fisher with music by Howard Shore was screened today at the Eastman House's Dryden Theatre in Rochester, New York.

2007: Maccabiah U.S.A. (MUSA) held its annual meeting in Newark, New Jersey.

2007: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present by Michael B. Oren.

2007: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for Godby the late Carl Sagan.

2007: Raleb Majadele was appointed Minister without Portfolio making him Israel’s first Muslim cabinet officer.

2007: The Los Angeles Times book section featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Little Book of PlagiarismbyJudge Richard A. Posner.

2007: The Times of London featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including of Imposture by Benjamin Markovits.

2008:An American adaptation of the Israeli television series “BeTipul” or “In Therapy” entitled In Treatment premiered today on the American cable network HBO

2008: In Seattle, Washington, the final performance of “The Westerbork Serenade.” “The Westerbork Serenade” is a one-person play which tells the true story of Jewish cabaret performers held by the Nazis in the Dutch transit camp of Westerbork. From 1942-1944, some of Berlin's greatest stars performed at Westerbork, thereby delaying their transport to death camps. Most, however, were killed before the end of the war. The play contains period songs, sketches and accounts. “The Westerbork Serenade” is the title of an acerbic love song about camp life written by Dutch singing duo, Johnny and Jones, in 1944, just months before their deportation to Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen death camps.

2008: U.S. News & World Report features an article entitled “New Taste for Kosher Food” that begins “Not only Jews look for the kosher symbol on food these days. In a surprising turn of events, "kosher" has become the most popular claim on new food products, trouncing "organic" and "no additives or preservatives," according to a recent report. A noteworthy 4,719 new kosher items were launched in the United States last year—nearly double the number of new "all natural" products, which placed second in the report, issued last month by Mintel, a Chicago-based market research firm. In fact, sales of kosher foods have risen an estimated 15 percent a year for the past decade. Yet Jews, whose religious doctrine mandates the observance of kosher dietary laws, make up only 20 percent of those buying kosher products. What gives? "It's the belief among all consumers that kosher food is safer, a critical thing right now with worries about the integrity of the food supply," says Marcia Mogelonsky, a senior analyst at Mintel a Chicago based market research firm.

2008: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama saidPalestinian refugees belong in their own state and do not have a "literal" right of return to Israel. "The outlines of any agreement would involve ensuring that Israel remains a Jewish state.” His statements of support for the Israeli position on refugees came on the heels of scurrilous charges that Obama is secretly a Muslim who received a radical Wahabi education.

2008: Israeli officials said today that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak held talks in Paris last week with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf even though their countries have no diplomatic relations. The two men first met by chance in the hotel where Barak was staying and spoke briefly, a spokeswoman from his ministry told AFP.

2008 (21 Shevat, 5768): In Iowa City Dr. Michael Balch, Associate Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Iowa and a longtime member of the Jewish community passed away. Michael earned a BS in Engineering Science from Pratt Institute in 1960 an MS from New York University in 1962 and a PhD in Mathematics from New York University in1965.  His areas of expertise were Economic behavior under uncertainty and Theories of deterrence, arms control, and war.

2009: Jack Lew began serving as Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources. 

2009:The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research presents a lecture by Yedid Kanfter entitled: “The Lodz Towers of Babel: Industry and Religious Politics in Lodz Before the First World War” in which the Yale University professor  explores the link between Lodz and religious infrastructure, between industry and Orthodox politics. 

2009: The Jerusalem Conference “the unique annual forum co-sponsored by Arutz Sheva for the discussion of Israel's national priorities, social values, and aspirations” hosts its concluding session.

2009: “Stumbling Stone,” a documentary study of the artist Gunter Demnig and his continuing Holocaust memorial project is shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival.

2009: James Steinberg began serving as the 16th United States Deputy Secretary of State.

2009: “Blessed is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh” opens today in Manhattan.

 2009:Israel's chief rabbinate severed ties with the Vatican today to protest a papal decision to reinstate. Bishop Richard Williamson, who told Swedish TV in an interview broadcast last week that evidence "is hugely against 6 million Jews being deliberately gassed." He said 300,000 Jews were killed at most, "but not one of them by gassing in a gas chamber."

2010: In New York City, closing day of "Laba’s Guests" at Laba Gallery, New York 

2010: Walter Isaacson is scheduled to discuss and sign his new book, American Sketches: Great Leaders, Creative Thinkers, and Heroes of a Hurricane, at Barnes & Noble in Bethesda, Md.

2010:  Novelist Myla Goldberg, author of Bee Season and Wickett's Remedy, is scheduled to “chat” about "The Story Behind the Stories" at the D.C. Jewish Community Center. This event, co-sponsored with George Washington University, is the launch of the JCC's new series, "Authors Out Loud."

2010: Elisa New is scheduled to discuss and sign her new memoir, "Jacob's Cane: A Jewish Family's Journey from the Four Lands of Lithuania to the Ports of London and Baltimore," at Barnes & Noble in Rockville, Md.

2010: “Thunder Out of China” published today examines the importance of work of Theodore White, who was a reporter in China who was a victim of the “Red Scare” long before he gained fame as the author of “The Making of a President” series.

https://ucsdmodernchinesehistory.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/112/

 

2010:Israeli drip irrigation giant Netafim opened a new factory in Turkey today despite recent diplomatic tensions between the two countries.

2010(13th of Shevat, 5770)Seymour Bernard Sarason, professor emeritus of psychology at Yale University passed away in New Haven, Connecticut, at the age of 91. (As reported by William Grimes)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/education/08sarason.html

2011: The 92nd St Y is scheduled to host its Shababa Bakery where children of all ages can “squish, roll and braid” their own challah to take home and bake for Shabbat.

2011: Ezra Rosenfeld is scheduled to lead a guided tour of “the amazing mountain palace and fortress of Herodion” that many consider King Herod's "Piece de Resistance."

2011: Rabbi Edward Feld, the senior editor of the new Rabbinical Assembly (Conservative) High Holy Day Mahzor was not able to deliver his lecutre about “Why Words?”—a discussion of how we relate to words in a prayer book at Congregation Olam Tikvah in Fairfax, VA because of a snow storm and power outage.

2011:Paraguay joined a string of South American nations in recognizing an independent Palestinian state.

2011(22ndof Shevat, 5771):Gerry Faier, a longtime gay activist in New York who returned to Jewish practice in her later years, passed away today at 102. http://jwa.org/weremember/faier-gerry

2012: “Ahead of Time: The Extraordinary Journey of Ruth Gruber” is scheduled to be shown at the Brotherhood Film Festival sponsored by Congregation Rodeph Sholom in New York and the Virginia Peninsula Jewish Film Festival in Williamsburg, Va.

2012:Rachel Feinstein is scheduled perform on the final night of the Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival.

2012: In Iowa City, IA, Agudas Achim is scheduled to host “Support Mitzvah Day 2012” a fund raiser sponsored by the Tikkun Olam Committee.

2012:Opposition leader and Kadima party head Tzipi Livni called for tougher sanctions against Iran today, saying that it is the responsibility of the entire world to stop Tehran’s quest for the bomb.

2012:Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said today that “Israeli intransigence” was behind the failure of the January Israeli-Palestinian talks in Jordan.

2012(4thof Shevat, 5772): Fifty-four-year-old Steven Leiber, a San Francisco art dealer and collector who became an expert in artists’ ephemera and built an archive that became an important resource for scholars and curators” passed away today. (As reported by Roberta Smith)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/arts/design/steven-leiber-dealer-in-artists-ephemera-dies-at-54.html?_r=0

2013: The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to present “Laughing All the Way to Freedom” featuring Professor Emil Draitser, author of Taking Penguins to the Movies.

2013: This evening “a suspicious object” was found on the road leading to Erfat, which turned out to be “a fake bomb” that “had been planted on the road.

2013: Jerusalem expressed "surprise and astonishment" today at a decision by Iran and Argentina to set up a "truth committee" to investigate the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish community center that killed 85 people.

2014: “When You Listen to a Witness, You Become a Witness,” an exhibition that “documents the experiences of students while visiting the former Nazi concentration camps established in Poland during WW II, is scheduled to open at the Dag Hammarskjöld Library

2014: “Yitzhak Bergel, the 47-year-old Jerusalem resident who allegedly spied for Iran on behalf of extreme anti-Zionist Neturei Karta sect, was sentenced by the Jerusalem District Court today to 4.5 years in prison.” (As reported by Tova Dvorin)

2014: Twenty-three-year-old Abur Sara and 30 year old Abu Nagma were indicted today on charges that they “were planning a terror attack on Binyanei Hauma in Jerusalem and the American Embassy in Tel Aviv.” (As reported by Aris Yashar)

2015: Showtime broadcast the last episode of “Web Therapy” starring Lisa Kudrow.

2015: Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism in collaboration with the Institute for Historical Research, supported by the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology, Birkbeck, University of London are scheduled to present “Remapping Survival: Jewish Refugees and Rescue in Soviet Central Asia, Iran and India.”

2015: The United Nations commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day which had been postponed due to predictions of an unprecedented snow storm which had cause the Mayor to “close down” New York is scheduled to take place today.

2015: A celebration of the release of “Toyznt tamen: A Thousand Flavors, a new recording by Yiddish singer and songwriter Miryem-Khaye Seigel” is scheduled to take place the Museum at Eldridge Street.

2015: A verdict is expected to be rendered today in the case of three defendants who are trial for an arson attack on the Wuppertal Synagogue last July. (As reported by JTA)

2016: In Tel Aviv the five day long “360 degrees music festival” is scheduled to come to an end.

2016: The 92ndStreet Y is scheduled to host an evening with former CBS News anchor Michelle Gielan, the author of Broadcasting Happiness.

January 28, 2017(1st of Shevat, 5777): Rosh Chodesh Shevat; Parashat Va-ayrah;

2017: “Stormy weather washed several dozen explosive fuses up onto beaches in Tel Aviv and Herzliya today, police said warning the public to exercise caution.”

2017: An exhibition “WOMEN: New Portraits Annie Leibovit” is scheduled to continue its ten city tour with an opening in Zurich.

2017: Russ and Daughter’s is scheduled to host its first “Lox Without the Lines” a pre-paid Shabbat brunch at the Jewish Museum that is both kosher and in keeping with Jewish Sabbatical laws.

2017: After years of service to the Jewish Community of Iowa City and the University of Iowa, Agudas Achim is scheduled to host a farewell Kiddush for Jerry Sorkin.

2017: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host the Seudah Shlishit featuring a talk by Chaplain Michael Rosenfeld-Schueler

 2018: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “International Ladino Day: A Celebration of Story and Song.”

https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3132932

2018: Sara Aharaon is scheduled to lecture on The Jews of Afghanistan: History, Culture and Muslim-Jewish Relations at the Hudson Yards Synagogue.

2018: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to co-host a presentation by Murry Sidlin, President and Creative Director of the Defiant Requiem Foundation that provides an overview of about twenty composers who created many works at Terezin, the "model" ghetto/concentration camp established by the Nazis outside of Prague.

 

2018: This “evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Polish counterpart, Mateusz Morawiecki, held talks and “agreed to immediately open a dialogue between staffs of the two countries, in order to try and reach an understanding over the legislation…”

2018: The final screening “An Act of Defiance,” the winner of the Dorfman Best Film Award in 2017 is scheduled to take place today at Reel Borehamwood

2018: The curtain is scheduled to come down “A Sick Day for Morris McGee” which Yedioth Ahronoth described as “a work full of charm and ingenuity” at the New Victory Theatre.

2018: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic by David Frum, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff and The Last Man Who Knew Everything: The Life and Times of Enrico Fermi, Father of the Nuclear Ageby David N. Schwartz

2018: Final day for registering for Tablet’s January Book Giveaway.

http://www.tabletmag.com/giveaways/january-2018-book-giveaway?lucky=22230

2019: The American Sephardi Federation and Associate are scheduled to present the second day of “The Jewish Africa Conference: Past, Present and Future.”

2019: The Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to host “curator Jacob Wisse as he leads a tour of ‘Lost and Found,’ exploring the remarkable story of a pre-war family photo album that was owned by a woman who was deported from the Kovno Ghetto in 1943.”

2019: Following yesterday’s approval by Israel’s cabinet of “a law to allow exports of medical cannabis” supporters such as Shai Babad, the director-general of the finance ministry, will have their chance to that “the new law would ‘lead to the development of the economy, agriculture, industry and medicine in Israel.’”

2019: “Houston-Tiillotson University in Austin, TX” is scheduled to host “a screening of ‘Rosenwald’” today followed by “a panel discussion with Aviva Kempner” and two historians from the school.

2019(22ndof Shevat, 5779): On the Jewish calendar, yahrzeit of Rabbi Meanchem Mendel of Kotzk.

http://www.aish.com/dijh/Shevat_22.html

 

2020: Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is under indictment for criminal activity, and President Trump whose impeachment is being tried in the United States, are scheduled to meet today in Washington, along with “four major settler leaders” to discuss the administration’s new peace plan which is being made public today in what some might say is a “wag the dog moment.”

2020: In San Francisco, Congregation Ner Tamid is scheduled to host “Gandhi, Buber and Krstallnacht” during which Howard Simon, the board president of HAMAQOM talks about the overlapping philosophies of Ghandi and Buber.”

2020: YIVO is scheduled to host “Ten Years Without Avrom Sutkever,” a remembrance of “the greatest poet of the Holocaust,” Yiddish poet Avrom Sutzkevrer who was also “a partisan fighter and book smuggler.”

2020: In Cambridge, MA, Mamaleh’s Delicatessen is scheduled to host:” a live, interactive podcast recording about the history and evolution of Israeli food.”

2020: “Crescendo” is scheduled to the last film shown at this year’s New York Jewish Film Festival.

2021(15thof Shevat, 5781): Tu B’Shevat

2021: In Cedar Rapids, despite the lingering effects of the derecho and the on-going Pandemic, thanks to the efforts of the Ritual and Tikkun Olam committees the Jewish community is enjoying the home delivered Tu B’Shevat “goody bags” and looking forward to a Tu B’Shevat Seder.

2021: The Natan Fund, Jew­ish Book Coun­cil, and three Natan Book hon­orees—Susie Lin­field, Nan­cy Sinkoff, and James Loef­fler are scheduled to host a dis­cus­sion of how Hannah Arendt and Lucy Dawidowicz wres­tled with the mean­ing of the Holo­caust, Jew­ish polit­i­cal vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, and Zion­ism.

2021: The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience is scheduled to present: Seder Tu BiShevat, “a wonderful gathering of Sephardi communities around the world in honor of Tu BiShevat.”

2021: Yiddishkayt is scheduled to host a screening of “I Walked with a Zombie” online via Facebook and YouTube.

2021: The Breman Museum's Atlanta Jewish History Talks, a six parts series, is scheduled to begin today.

2021: The Hebrew College is scheduled to present online “Rabbinical Training and Jewish Leadership in an Era of Climate Crisis.”

2021: As part of a virtual “All-Star Tu B’Shevat Celebration” the “PJ Library, JCC East Bay, Edah Studio 70 and Urban Adamah are scheduled to present a family concert featuring no fewer than seven musicians and song leaders.”

2021: The Jewish Bar Association of San Francisco is scheduled to co-present “ADL regional director Seth Brysk, Stan Levy of the Western Center on Law and Poverty and author-lawyer Marlene Trestman talking about the history of Jewish lawyers in social-justice movements.”

2021: In Palm Beach Gardens, FL, Temple Judea is scheduled to host a Tu B’Shevat Seder this afternoon followed this evening by a service honoring “Debbie Friedman on her 10th Yahrzeit with an evening of song and memory – Sing Unto God.”

2021: The Jewish Climate Action Network is scheduled to present online “Climate Goals Now: What Will Your Synagogue’s Carbon Impact Be in Seven Years?”

2021(15th of Shevat, 5779): On the Jewish calendar Yahrzeit of Sir Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Sir Winston Churchill – a marvelous historian who had the writing skills of novelist – but who always had time to answer the questions of the most inconsequential of his readers.  If you have never had the pleasure of reading his work you might want to start with Israel: A History or Jerusalem in the Twentieth Century or In Ishmael’s House or… well the list is almost endless.

https://www.martingilbert.com/blatt/in-honour-of-martin/

 

 

This Day, January 29, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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January 29

904: Sergius III began his papacy during which Jews first began settling at Mayence, Germany in 906.

1258: “The Mongols under Chinese general Guo Kan laid siege to” Baghdad today as part of a successful invasion Persia which led to the abolishment of “the inequality of dhimmis” which meant that all religions, including that of the Jews “were declared equal.”

1421(17th of Shevat, 5181):The Jews of Sargossa, Spain were spared from slaughter at the hands of King Alfonso V, thanks to the fact that a handful of synagogues beadles had acted on the advice given to them by the Prophet Elijah in a dream  shared by each of them.  The resulting salvation on the 17th of Shevat was celebrated by Saragossan Jews and dubbed "Purim Saragossa." A Hebrew Megillah (scroll) was penned, describing the details of the miraculous story. To this day, this scroll is read in certain communities on Purim Saragossa.

1478: “The Washington Haggadah,” the creation of Joel Ben Simeon was completed today. “In addition to the full text of the Passover night liturgy, the Washington Haggadah features stunningly intricate illuminated panels and a series of Passover illustrations that include depictions of "The Four Sons,""The Search for Leaven," and "The Messiah Heralded." The enduring popularity of Joel ben Simeon's miniatures is reflected in the many reproductions of his work that have appeared over the years in anthologies of Jewish art and manuscript painting. In 1991, the Library of Congress published a facsimile edition of the Washington Haggadah, accompanied by a companion volume with a detailed scholarly description, analysis, and assessment of the manuscript.”

1482: Pope Sixtus V addresses a “severe letter” to Ferdinand and Isabella censuring the conduct of the Inquisition.  “In this letter the pope admitted that he had issued the bull for the institution of the Inquisition without due consideration.”

1581: Baptism of Sir Rowland Cotton, the English MP who learned Hebrew from Hugh Broughton.

1676(OS): Tsar Alexis I of Russia passed away. “During his reign a considerable number of Jews lived in Moscow and the interior of Russia. In a work of travels, written at that time, but published later, and bearing the title, Reise nach dem Nordenthe author states that, owing to the influence of a certain Stephan von Gaden, the czar's Jewish physician, the number of Jews considerably increased in Moscow. The same information is contained in the work, The Present State of Russia by Samuel Collins, who was also a physician at the court of the czar. From the edicts issued by Alexis Mikhailovich, it appears that the czar often granted the Jews passports with red seals (gosudarevy zhalovannyya gramoty), without which no foreigners could be admitted to the interior; and that they traveled without restriction to Moscow, dealing in cloth and jewelry, and even received from his court commissions to procure various articles of merchandise. Thus, in 1672, the Jewish merchants Samuel Jakovlev and his companions were commissioned at Moscow to go abroad and buy Hungarian wine.” Another edict “instructed a party of Lithuanian Jews to proceed from Kaluga to Nijni-Novgorod, and as a protection they received an escort of twenty sharpshooters.” The Czar’s attitude towards the Jews was a mixed bag as can be seen from his expulsion of “the Jews from the newly acquired Lithuanian and Polish cities” – Mohilev, Wilna, and Kiev. Altogether, taking into consideration the hatred of foreigners among the Russian population of his time, it is evident that Alexis was kindly disposed toward the Jews.”

1689: The Convention Parliament adopted a resolution declaring England to be “a Protestant Kingdom” and that only a Protestant could be King.  This effectively removed James II from the throne and paved the way for William and Mary to come to the throne. The Jews had already returned to the British Isles, but the Protestant monarchs would prove to be sympathetic to their cause which helped with the peaceful growth of the nascent Anglo-Jewish community.

1735: Sixty-eight-year-old George Granville, the British playwright adapted “The Merchant of Venice” into the “Jew of Venice” in 1701 passed away today.

1754: In St. Croix, Virgin Islands, Sara and Isaac de la Motta gave birth to Sarah de la Motta, the wife of Savanah, GA native Lei Shefattal whom she married in 1768 and with whom she had fourteen children.

1764: In Germany, Jettle Oppenheimer gave birth to Behle Ottenheimer, the wife of Mayer Loeb Kaufman with whom she had three children and Simon Kaufman with whom she had three children.

1777(21stShevat, 5537): Long Island merchant and New York City shochet Aaron Hart, the husband of Richa Simson passed away today in New York City.

1779: Figlah Levy and Joseph Simons gave birth to Gershon Simons.

1780: Today, “Jonas Levi, an American Jew who had been capture by the English the previous year and sent back to France” and who had been given a passport by Benjamin Franklin so he could return to America along with “ninety-six livers” appeared before a notary today where he gave a deposition describing how three French soldiers had attacked him at inn at Trappes and stolen his money after which members of the Swiss Guard told him to go to Versailles and pursue his complaint.

http://americanjewisharchives.org/publications/journal/PDF/1975_27_01_00_doc_roseman.pdf

1789: Rebecca Franks and English born Lucius Levy Solomons gave birth to Fanny Solomons

1790: "The Jews of Paris obtained a certificate, couched in most flattering terms, and testifying to their excellent reputation, from the inhabitants of the district of the Carmelites, where most Jews dwelt at this time.”

1791: During the French Revolution, a Jewish delegation dressed in their uniforms as National Guardsmen and bearing certificates of ‘good behavior’ from the Christian citizens of Paris appeared before the Commune seeking support for their demand to be granted full rights as citizens of France.

1794: Ezekiel Hart, one of the early leaders of the Canadian-Jewish community married Frances Lazarus. She was the niece of Frances Noah and her husband Ephraim Hart, a successful New York merchant.

1800: “In a joint patent issued today in Vienna, the Habsburg Emperor Franz II appoint Rothschild and Amschel his Imperial Crown Agents.”

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1803(6th of Shevat, 5563): Jonas Phillips passed away. Born in Germany in 1736, he was the first of the Phillips family to settle in America. A founder of Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia, Phillips was the father of twenty-two children and the grandfather of Uriah Phillips Levy, the first Jewish Commodore in the United States Navy.

1803: In Frankfurt am Main, Germany to Baron Salomon Mayer von Rothschild and his wife Caroline gave birth to Anselm Salomon von Rothschild, an Austrian banker and a member of the Vienna branch of the Rothschild family.

1808:  Ezekiel Hart was elected to the Canadian parliament but was prevented from taking his seat because as a Jew he could not take the oath "on the true faith of a Christian." Though reelected in May 1808, and in April 1809, he was again prevented from being seated. Only in 1832 was legislation passed allowing Jews to hold public office and giving them full civil rights. Born in 1767, Hart passed away in 1843.

1815(18thof Shevat, 5577): Benvenida de Isaac Solis, the daughter of Isaac Henriques Henriques Valentine and Simha Mandil and wife of Solomon da Silva Solis passed away today in London

1817(12thof Shevat, 5577): Sixty-year-old Abraham Furtado, the President of the Assemblee des Notables and assistant of the Mayor of Bordeaux passed away in Bordeaux.

1817: Israel Helbert married Adeline Cohen at the Hambro Synagogue.

1819: Sir Stamford Raffles establishes at a post at Singapore. By 1830, there at least 9 Jewish traders living at the British outpost and by 1840, the Sassoon family with all that that meant for the growth of the colony and the Jewish community.

1820: King George III, whose life had been saved by a Jew in 1800 and who had his first conversation with a Jew when he spoke to boxer Daniel Mendoza passed away

1821: In London, Hannah and Abraham Harris gave birth to Isaac Harris.

1830: The date for the congregation charter for Nidce Israel, in Baltimore which became the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation.

1832: In St. Petersburg, Maria Ivanovna Maltsova and Captain Pavel Nikolayevich Ignatyev gave birth to Count Nikolay Pavlovich Ignatyev who was appointed Minister of the Interior by Alexander III who fomented pogroms and who was the driving force behind the issuance of the infamous May Laws.

1835: Philadelphia natives Julia Levy and Joseph Lyons Moss who were married in New York City in 1828 gave birth to Rebecca Moss.

1839: Hannah Levy, the Philadelphia born daughter of Sarah and Daniel da Silva Solis and her husband Isaac Abraham Levy gave birth Abraham Isaac Levy in Richmond, VA.

1842: Rosa and Benjamin Valentine gave birth to Julia Valentine.

1843: In Niles, Ohio, William and Nancy (née Allison) McKinley gave birth to William McKinley, Jr. who appointed Oscar Straus to serve as United States Minister to the Ottoman Empire.

1847(12thof Shevat, 5607): Eight days after celebrating his sixty-second birthday Liverpool native Henry Solomon, the husband of Julia Levy and the father of Rachel, Simon, Louis and Isaac Solomon passed away today in Savanah, GA.

1848: In a speech at the annual Thomas Paine Dinner, suffragist and anti-slavery activist Ernestine Rose declared "superstition keeps women ignorant, dependent, and enslaved beings. Knowledge will make them free."http://jwa.org/thisweek/jan/29/1848/ernestine-rose

1849: Isaac Noah Mannheimer delivered a speech in the Austrian Reichstag where he called for the abolition of capital punishment.

1849: Birthdate of Odessa native Adolph Zederbaum, the Berlin trained physician who served on the Board of Trustees of the Jewish Consumptives’ Relief Society headquartered in Denver, CO.

1851: In Charleston, SC, Leopold Cohen married Elizabeth Cohen, “the eldest daughter of Nathan A. Cohen.’

1852: Birthdate of Frederick Hyman Cohen, the native of Kingston Jamaica, who would gain fame as the Composer, Conductor, and Pianist, Sir Fredrick H. Cowen.

1856: Birthdate of Elisheba (Bathshebabai) Wargharkar, the wife of Moses Shalom Bapuji Israel Wargharkar with whom she had 11 children.

1856:  Queen Victoria institutes the Victoria Cross. Frank de Pass was the first Jew to be awarded Britain’s highest award for valor.  He earned it for action on the Western Front on November 24, 1917.  The award was made posthumously since he was killed the next day.

1857(4thof Shevat, 5617): Forty-year-old Jane L. Theiss Sheftall, the wife of Emanuel Sheftall and mother of William, Hannah, Josephine, Caroline, Louisa, Jane, Edward James, Mary and Sarah Sheftall passed away today after which she was buried at the Laurel Grove Cemetery North in Savanah, GA.

1859 (24th of Shevat, 5619):Passing of Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk. Born in 1787, he was renowned Chassidic leader, and forerunner of the "Ger" Chassidic dynasty.

1860: German historian Ernst Moritz Arndt, who “played a crucial part in the development of German nationalism, with a corollary of hostility to, and fear of, the Jews” whom believed “had become ‘a depraved and degenerate people,…unfit to be full citizens of a Christian state’” passed away today.

1860: Birthdate of Russian author Anton Chekhov. Unlike other Russian literary lions, Chekhov fully opposed anti-Semitism.  He was a supporter of Dreyfus, publicly declaring his innocence and supporting Zola when he came to the defense of the French Colonel.  When Alexsi Suvorin, his longtime friend and literary colleague, attacked Zola as an agent of the Jews, Chekhov ended their professional and personal relationship.

1861: Kansas became the 34th state of the Union. One of the unique aspects of the history of the Jews of Kansas was the Jewish agricultural colonies that were established on the High Plains during the 1880’s. The Jewish Agriculturists' Aid Society of America seven Jewish agricultural colonies in places with such Biblical and or Jewish names as Beersheba, Montefiore, Lasker, Leeser, and Touro, Gilead and Hebron. For more about this interesting attempt to create what Zionist would come to call The New Jew in America’s heartland see "Jewish Farming Communities Enriched Kansas Cultural Heritage" at http://www.kshs.org/features/feat1201.htm. Today there is a thriving Jewish Community in Kansas, much of it centered in Overland, Kansas, a Kansas City suburb.

1866: Philadelphian Aaron de Haan completed two years of service with Battery A of the 112th Regiment –Second Artillery.

1869: Birthdate of 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.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1933/08/07/99837292.pdf

1872(19th of Shevat, 5632) Fifty-four-year-old Jacob Israel passed away today after which he was buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Natchitoches, LA.

1872: Two days after she had had passed away 37-year-old Sara (Kosman) Lang, the wife of Jacques Lang and the mother of Judith, Alice and Charles Lang was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”

1873: In Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, Sophie and Nathan and Baruch Rothschild gave birth to “Ike” Rothschild who would only live for a week.

1874: In Elgin, Illinois, Charles and Leonora (Goldman Bachrach gave birth to Benjamin Charles Bachrach, the holder of an A.B. from Notre Dame and an LL. B from Kent College of Law in Chicago and the husband of Martha Hartman whose success as a criminal lawyer can be seen by his successful defense of accused murders Alderman Thomas O’Malley, Baron von Biedenfeld and David Rosenbaum as well as his representation of Heavyweight Champion Jack Jackson and “thrill killers” Leopold and Loeb.

1874: Two days after she had passed away, 49-year-old Leah Moses, the wife of Moses Moses with she had had five children was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1874: Birthdate of Arthur Lenz who would die in Nazi held Berlin in 1944.

1875: Two days after he had passed away, William Phillip De Jongh, a native of Amsterdam, was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1876: In Patterson, NJ, Gustave Theodor Ernst Zittle and Bertha Morganthau Zittle, the husband of the former Martha Beatrice Bernstein with whom he had two children – Madeline and Carl -- known as Zit who worked for a number of Hearst publications, “owned the Central Park Casino during the administration of Mayor Jimmy Walker” and published Zit’s Weekly, a show biz weekly, for over twenty years.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1943/01/31/88513430.pdf

1877(15thof Shevat, 5637): Tu B’Shevat

1877: After studying at the Jewish Theological Seminary at Breslau, David Kaufmann was ordained as a Rabbi.  He had received his Ph.D. from the University of Leipzig 3 years before his ordinated.

1877: It was reported today that according to an unconfirmed rumor, the Ottoman government is so desperate for money that it has offered to sell the Pashaluk of the Holy Land, which is effectively Palestine, to any candidate acceptable to the Jews in return for a loan.  If the Jews are not interested, the Turks might make a similar offer to Brigham Young since agents of the Mormon have been reported making similar inquiries during the past year.

1878: Three days after he had passed away Stephen Joseph Spyer, the son of Joseph and Sophia Spyer who was the husband of Rosetta de Metz and Eliza Nathan was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1878: Birthdate of Dr. Alexander Marx, the native of Elberfield, Germany who became the director of libraries and Jacob H. Schiff Professor of History at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

1880(16thof Shevat, 5640): Twenty-eight-year-old Elias Abendana passed away after which he was buried at the New Jewish Cemetery in London.

1882: Twenty-two year old Hart Blumenthal, the Philadelphia born son of David and Eva (Baum) Blumenthal, a trustee of the Jewish Publication Society, chairman of the Keneseth Israel Free Library and a noted collector of Lincolniana” married Ida Ratwich , the mother of author Walter Hart Blumenthal.

1882: Seventy-one-year-old General Alfred von Henikstein, “the youngest son of the Jewish banker Ritter Joseph von Henikstein, who was baptized as a child” and who was” chief of staff before the battle of Königgrätz in the Austro-Prussian War” passed away today.

1883: In Austria, Aron and Charlotte (Licht) Brandler gave birth to European trained diamond cutter Samuel Brandler, the husband of Sarah Gutwirth who in 1915 came to the United States where he founded a pearl and diamond importing business was active in numerous Jewish organizations including the ZOA and HIAS and “enjoyed” a bit of notoriety when three young men stole $100,000 worth of uncut diamonds from him while he was eating in Chicago restaurant in 1926.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1926/05/12/98376982.pdf

1884: Birthdate of Austrian native Dr. Samuel Barbash, a graduate of the Medico-Chirurgical College of Philadelphia, the husband of the “former of Rae Alper” and “medical director of the Atlantic City Hospital.”

1888: Two days after she had passed away Floretta Maria Ascher, the daughter of “Joseph Ascher and Maria Carter” was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1888: In New York City, Isaac and Bertha (Jaros) Wise gave birth to Columbia trained chemist Louis Wise Elsberg, the university professor and researcher with a main interest “in organic chemistry as applied to cellulose and wood who worked in the science and research division of the Bureau of Aircraft Production during WW I and then briefly for DuPont while being married to the former Ethel Brand.

https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/wise-louis-elsberg

1890: It was reported today that Professor Felix Adler officiated at the wedding of Gertrude Hiller and Gustave Leve in New York City.

1890: Forty-year-old Mrs. Basche Gersohnfeld a Russian Jewess and her four children ranging in age from eleven to two arrived at Castle Garden where she was met by her husband Moses who had come to American before her with their son Joseph and was working as butcher.

1890: Commissioner Stephenson denied Basche Gershonfeld and her young children the right to leave Castle Garden because even though her husband Moses was earning $12 a week as a butcher and her son Joseph was earning $9 a week he was not sure that they would not become public charges.

1891: It was reported today that the 200 year old Wells Mansion which is believed to be the oldest house still standing in Boston, MA, has been purchased by a Jewish millionaire named Ratchesky. (This may be Abraham “Cap” Rashesky who founded the A.C. Ratchesky Foundation.

1892: Two days after he had passed away, Solomon Isaacs, the son of Isaac Isaacs and Elizabeth Davis, and the husband of Esther Hart and then Jane Abrahams and then Esther Abrahams was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”

1892(29thof Tevet, 5652): Sixty-three-year-old Benjamin Russak, a partner in Harris and Russak, a “fur-manufacturing house” passed away today.  A native of Posen, he came to the United States in 1848 and opened a retail hat, cap and fur store with his brother-in-law, Henry Harris. The firm prospered and was one of the first to enter into the fur-seal trade.  Russak was active in several organizations including the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, the United Hebrew Charities and the Hebrew Technical Institute.

1892(29thof Tevet, 5652): Eight year old Liebmann Adler, the native of Lengsfeld, Germany who came to the United States in 1854 to lead a congregation in Detroit, MI, before becoming the Rabbi at the Ḳehillath Anshe Ma'arabh ("Congregation of the Men of the West"), of Chicago in 1861 passed away today.

1892: Birthdate of German –born American director Ernst Lubitsch.

http://www.lubitsch.com/

1894: Twenty-two-year-old NYU trained attorney Simon Berg, the Kiev born son of Henry and Frieda (Uselow) Berg married Rose Berliner today in New York, five years before he was admitted he was admitted to the bar and six years before he established “the law firm of Simon Berg” which specialized “in all phases of real estate work.”

1895: It was reported today that the mid-year exams, including tests in Hebrew, will begin this week at Columbia College in New York,

1896: It was reported today that the American Jewish Historical Society will be holding its fourth annual meeting in Philadelphia.

1897: Captain Ferdinand Forzinetti, the commandant of military prison, who was “one of the first to be convinced of the innocent of Dreyfus” received a letter of commendation from the Ministry of War “for having taken part in a panel that reviewed the regulations concerning the serving of military justice.” Later in the year, he would be relieved of duty when his support for Dreyfus became a matter of public record.

1897: “Our Jewish Population” published today included a summary of paper presented by Philadelphian David Sulzberger at the annual meeting of the American Jewish Historical Society which described the growth of Jewish population in the United from 3,000 in 1812 to its present level of 500,000 “of whom 140,000” live in New York City. 

1897: Rabbis Kohler and Kleeberg will co-officiate today at the funeral of Dr. Solomon Deutsch, the author of Essays on the Talmud

1898: Lucien Millevoye delivered an anti-Dreyfus speech tonight in Bordeaux.

1898: “Fortunes in Antiquity” provided a review of The Art of Getting Rich in which Henry Hardwicke uses the story of Cain and Able as evidence that “the first occupations of mankind were sheep industry and tillage.”  Furthermore, as can be seen from the fact that “the wealth of the patriarchs…consisted principally in their flocks” the “pastoral life…seems to have been more…profitable among the Hebrews than tillage.” 

1899: Birthdate of Harold W. Carmely, the native of Wolkowysk, Poland, who came to the United States in 1922 where he served as the Superintendent of the Daughters of Israel Home in New York and Director of Keren Hayesod.

1899: “Homer and Jewish Rites” published today noted the similarity between the Jewish rituals concerning the washing of the hands and the prayer uttered in the Iliad, “Now pray to Jove what Greece demands: Pray in deep silence and with the purest hands.”

1899:The meeting of the Zionist Actions Committee in Vienna came to an end.

1899: Mr. Green introduced a bill in Albany today that would exempt “the real property of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association of New York City from all taxes commonly known as ‘land taxes.’”

1899: It was reported today that Governor Theodore Roosevelt has chosen Jastrow Alexander to serve as State Inspector of Gas Meters.  “In Mr. Alexander, the Governor believed he had found another Maccabee – a Jews who had come to this country from Germany while a young man, had become thoroughly imbued with the American spirit, had enlisted when the civil war broke out, and by reason of conspicuous courage had been advanced to be an Adjutant General.”

1900: It was reported today that Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, was one of several clergymen who had attended the non-denominational memorial service for Father McGlynn of whom he said “that if all the world were made up of Father McGlynns there would be no persecution of the Jews such as prevails in Europe” and he also “told of how twenty years ago Father McGlynn from his own depleted purse furnished the wherewithal to complete a synagogue on East 29th Street that the Jews were building and found they could not finish for lack of funds.”

1902: In “Work for Able-Bodied Men” published today, Lee Frankel, the manager of the United Hebrew Charities of the City of New York said, in response to efforts by Roumanian Jews to find working for their co-religionists, “the United Hebrew Charities is prepared to find work through its employment bureau for any able-bodied man who will apply” at their offices.

1903: Herzl and the Actions Committee in Vienna work out the outline of a Charter which is taken to Cairo by the expedition and delivered to Leopold Greenberg.

1903: In New York, Ike ("Charlie Hoey") and Jennie A. Guerin Croter gave birth to Alvina Croter who gained fame as Viña Delmar “the American playwright and screenwriter” who “was nominated for an Academy Award for 1937 for her screen adaptation of the Arthur Richman play, “The Awful Truth.”

1903: Birthdate of Yeshayahu Leibowitz, the Riga born intellectual who made Aliyah in 1935 and whose career both in depth in breadth is beyond my ability to even begin to describe.

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/08/19/obituaries/yeshayahu-leibowitz-91-iconoclastic-israeli-thinker.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/08/19/obituaries/yeshayahu-leibowitz-91-iconoclastic-israeli-thinker.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/yleib.html

1904: In Warsaw Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof, the originator of Esperanto and his wife gave birth to their youngest daughter Lidia Zamenhof who died in Treblinka.

http://bahai-library.com/dale_lidia_zamenhof

1904: Two days after he had passed away, Abraham Bermon was buried at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1905: Carl Jung made an entry in the records of the Burgholzli Hospital in which he described his treatment of Sabina Spielrein whom he described as “oriental” and “voluptuous.”  The young Jewess went from being a patient of Freud and Jung to being a pioneer in the field of psychoanalysis. (As reported by Karen Hall)

1905: Three days after he had passed away, 64-year-old Isaac Gabriel, the husband of Sophia Morris and then Julia Gabriel was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”

1906: It was reported today that when “a deputation of the reactionary League of Russian Men” told the Czar, “We are convinced that the present sedition is the work of the Jews’ hands” and “therefore entreated the sovereign not to grant equality before the laws to the Jews” the Emperor replied “I shall think it over.”

1906: As of today, Louis S. Brush is President of the Choral Society for Ancient Hebrew Melodies and Mrs. Solomon Schechter, the wife of the President of the Jewish Theological Seminary and the founder of the society is the vice president.

1906: “A special international congress of Jews” meeting under the auspices of the Zionists which will discuss action to be taken to protect the Jews of Russia is scheduled to open today in Brussels and will be attended by a delegation selected by the Federation of American Zionists.

1907: It was reported today that Dr. Judah L. Magnes, the rabbi of Temple Emanu-El and Secretary of the of the Federation of American Zionists” has said that there will probably be a public meeting in New York to protest the arrest of Jewish political leaders in Vilna.

1908: It was reported today that the United Hebrew Charities will need at least another forty-thousand dollars so that it can continue to perform its function until its fiscal year which ends in September.

1909(7thof Shevat, 5669): Sixty-year-old Sarah Nathan the New York born daughter of Canadian Rebecca Solomons and Simon Mendes Nathan passed away today in her hometown.

1910(19thof Shevat, 5670): Parashat Yitro

1910: It was reported today that “the enormous Jewish population of the east side asking for kosher meat
 which for the most part comes from the less expensive cuts such as chuck steak has introduced a whole element in the business of exporting meat because it means that the prime cuts are more available for sale in places such as England where prices are much lower than in the United States.

1910: The New York Section of the Council of Jewish Women acknowledged that contributions total $43, including one for $25 from “A Friend” have been received following an appeal made recently to help two unnamed girls.

1911: “Denouncing the American people for their patience with immoral leader, and declaring that an end to our "moral breakdown" can come only "through the determined leadership of the religious and moral forces of the nation," the Rev. Dr. Stephen S. Wise of the Free Synagogue preached today before a congregation that filled every corner of Carnegie Hall.”

1912: It was reported today that Louis Marshall who was chairman of Governor Hughes’s State Immigration Commission, Abram Elkus, the president of the National Jewish Immigration Council, Dr. Herbert Friedenwald, the Secretary of the American Jewish Committee and Max K. Kolhler, representing the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the Order of B’nai B’rith are working members of the Senate Immigration Committee including Senators O’Gorman, Penrose and Lodge to modify the Dillingham immigration bill especially as it pertains to literacy requirements and deportation.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1912/01/29/100514296.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1913: The British Consul in Jerusalem, P.J.C. McGregor wrote a dispatch assuring his government that he had talked to one of the leading Zionists in Palestine who denied reports in some British papers that the Palestinian Jews were pro Turk and pro German. This un-named leader assured the British diplomat that the Zionist sought the protection of the Union Jack since it was the only force that would support their goal of a Jewish home in Palestine.

1913: Birthdate of Daniel Taradash, the Louisville native and graduate of Harvard Law School before becoming a director and screenwriter who won the 1953 Oscar for writing the script for “From Here to Eternity.”

1913: Birthdate of Nina Zimet Schneider, anative of Antwerp, Belgium, who grew up in the United States where she combined forces with her Husband Herman to write dozens of books for children “that deftly explained the intricacies of stars, plants, the human body and even the networks of pipes and cables below the city streets…” 

1913: In Chicago, Samuel Kadish and his wife gave birth to American sculptor Reuben Kadish. (As reported by Roberta Smith)

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/09/22/obituaries/reuben-kadish-79-a-sculptor-of-works-evoking-the-ancient.html

1913(21stof Shevat, 5673): Ninety-one year old “communal worker” Louis Lewengood passed away in New York City.

1913: Churchill sends a letter to the Reform Club announcing his resignation because Baron de Forest, his Jewish friend and Member of Parliament had been blackballed in his bid for membership.

1914: Leading members of the AZK (the Anti-Zionist Committee which had been established by the Association for Liberal Judaism) including Bernhard Breslau, Hermann Coehn, Eugen Katz, James Simon and Hermann Veit Simon were asked to prepare a declaration “to be published in the most prestigious papers” on the “danger of Zionist activity in German

1915: “With the evidence of the negro Jim Conley, the principle witness against Leo M. Frank when the latter was convicted of the murder of Mary Phagan and that of Herbert Hass, of counsel for Frank, Solicitor Hugh Dorsey, late this afternoon rested the case of the State against Dan S. Lehon, C.C. Fedler, and Attorney Arthur Thurman, representatives of the W.J. Burns Detective Agency, who are accused of subornation of perjury in the effort to get a new trial for Frank.”

1915: Following his death last week, Louis Sulzbach who “was the first continental American appointed as Associate Justice of the newly created Supreme Court of Puerto Rico” was honored by the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico in a Memorial Resolution” today.

1915: In Philadelphia, PA, Arthur Kaufman and Henrietta Berkowitz Stern gave birth to historian and rabbi, Malcolm H. Stern.

http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0626/ms0626.html

1916: Four years after having originally premiered in the United Kingdom, “The Miracle” a British silent film based on a play by Max Reinhardt premiered in Argentina.

1916: The opposition in the Senate yesterday to the nomination of Louis D. Brandeis of Boston to the Supreme Court of the United States appears to have been softened overnight. One Democratic Senator, who is especially well placed for knowing the drift of sentiment on the subject, said today that twenty-four hours ago he would have estimated that two-thirds of the Senate was against Mr. Brandeis.

1916: In Argentina, premiere of “The Miracle” a British silent film treatment of Max Reinhardt’s play of the same name.

1916: As of today, the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the War has “received $1,746.588 of which $1,104,966.24 was in cash and $641,621.76 in pledges.

1917: At Temple Emanu-El in New York, Dr. H. G. Enelow is scheduled to deliver a lecture today entitled “The Jewish Heritage of Jesus.”

1917: “A roof garden, built as a memorial to Mrs. Louis Marshall, for the use of children is scheduled to be dedicated this afternoon at the Lenox Hill Settlement.

1917: “Daniel Goldberg, Secretary of the Brooklyn Jewish Volunteer Relief Committee announced today that $5,000, mostly in $5 to $25 contribuitons had been added to the $50,000 subscribed and pledged at the meeting that had been held at the Academy of Music.

1917(6thof Shevat, 5677): Esther Kantrowitz, the mother of Meta Itskowitz, who raised her grandson Eddie Cantor from the time he was two because both of his parents had passed away died today.

1918: Hugo Guttman, a German-Jewish Lieutenant in the Kaiser’s Army began serving as “Adolf Hitler’s direct superior.”

1918: Birthdate of Morton Schindel the Wharton School graduate who turned books into animated films.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/25/business/media/morton-schindel-dead.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

1918: A letter dated November 27, 1917, from David Fenik to Rabbi Jacob Bernstein of Newport, RI, excerpts of which were published today said that “the day before the British entered” one of the Jewish settlements in Palestine, “Turkish troops” armed with knouts “drove out most of the inhabitants and robbed and pillaged the homes of the refugees.”

1918: Two days before his death, Zionist leader Dr. Jechiel Tchlenow wrote a letter to the convention of the English Zionist Federation which was to take place four days later in which he stated that the convention was of the greatest historical importance; that Great Britain is the traditional friend of the small nations and that history would record in letters of gold the English promise to assist in the establishment of the Jewish national homeland in Palestine.

1919: It was announced today that that one million dollars has already been raised during the campaign of the ZOA whose goal is to raise three million dollars for aid to Palestine.

1920: “First Zion Ship Launched” published today described the launching, at Jaffa, of the first Jewish vessel in the Mediterranean, “owned by Jews, manned by Jews and flying the Jewish flag” during which the wife of Major John English, the commandant at Jaffa” raised the flag and expressed “the hope that next year the Jewish people might possess a large merchant marine on the Mediterranean.”

1921: Harold Brand was “appointed second lieutenant in the United States Army” today.

1921: Alexander Berkowitz was “appointed captain in the medical administrative corps of the United States Army” today.

1921: Ralph Eli Fleischer was “appointed lieutenant in the quartermaster corps of the United States Army” today.

1921: Sidney Ginsberg was “appointed a second lieutenant” serving in the infantry of the United States Army today.

1921: Benjamin Lester Jacobson was “appointed major in the finance department of the United States Army” today.

1921: Simon Jacobson was “appointed lieutenant in the quartermaster corps of the United States Army” today.

1921(20thof Shevat, 5681): Parashat Yitro

1921(20thof Shevat, 5681: Seventy-three-year-old U.S. Naval Academy graduate and Rear Admiral U.S.N. Edward David Taussig the St. Louis born son of Austrian Jewish immigrants Anna Abeles and “wool broker” Charles Taussig who was raised as a Unitarian and who was the first in a four generational family that graduated from Annapolis and who played an active role in the Pacific Theatre during the Spanish American War passed away today.

https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collections/photography/us-people/t/taussig-edward-d.html

1921: Robert Scott Israel was appointed to the rank of lieutenant while serving in the infantry of the United States Army today.

1921: Arthur Louis Koch was “appointed captain in the quartermaster corps of the United States Army” today.’

1921: Louis Lehman Korn was appointed major in the Judge Advocate-General’s Department of the United Sates Army” today.

1921: Samuel Marcus was “appointed captain the medical administrative corps of the United States Army” today.

1921: Today, Herbert Block Mayer was appointed to the rank of lieutenant while serving in the infantry of the United States Army.

1921: Alfred Mordecai was “appointed lieutenant in the medical corps of the United States Army” today.

1921: Today, Eustace Maduro Peixotto was appointed to the rank of lieutenant while serving in the infantry of the United States Army.

1921: Today, Harvey Israel Rice was appointed to the rank of second lieutenant while serving in the infantry of the United States Army.

1921: Today, Harry Isaac Rosen was appointed to the rank of second lieutenant while serving in the quartermaster corps of the United States Army.

1921: Today, Frederick Buchanan Rosenbaum was appointed to the rank of second lieutenant while serving in the infantry of the United States Army.

1921: Today, Nathan Rosenberg was appointed to the rank of second lieutenant while serving in the medical corps of the United States Army.

1921: Today, Louis Bernard Saxe was appointed to the rank of second lieutenant while serving in the quartermaster corps of the United States Army.

1921: Today, Philip Schneeberger was appointed to the rank of lieutenant while serving in the air service of the United States Army.

1921: Today, Charles Eugene Schwartz was appointed to the rank of second lieutenant while serving in the quartermaster corps of the United States Army.

1921: Today, Max Weinberg was appointed to the rank of captain while serving in the medical administrative corps of the United States Army.

1921: Today, Arthur Henry Wolf was appointed to the rank of second lieutenant while serving in the infantry of the United States Army.

1921: Today, Samuel Israel Zeidner was appointed to the rank of captain while serving in the quartermaster corps of the United States Army.

1921: Birthdate of Eugene V. Klein the American businessman, supporter of candidates as varied as Pierre Salinger and Richard Nixon whose sport’s endeavors include ownership of the Seattle Supersonics and San Diego Chargers.

http://articles.latimes.com/1990-03-13/sports/sp-260_1_san-diego-chargers

1922: In Newcastle, UK, Henry Morris Cohen and Eva Sussman Cohen gave birth to Gabrielle Cohen who became Gabrielle Blake when she married Leonard Blake.

1922: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today at the West End Synagogue in Baltimore for Baltimore native Moses Crystal, the President of the Fabian Construction Company and a trustee of the West End Synagogue who had passed away two days ago.

1923: Birthdate of writer Paddy Chayevsky.  Chayevsky created works both for the big screen and television. Some of his more famous efforts included Marty, Hospital and Network.  “Television is democracy at its worst.”

1924(23rdof Shevat, 5684): Seventy-nine-year-old Frederick Salomon van Nierop a Dutch lawyer who was Chairman of the Supervisor Board of the Amsterdam Bank, a member of the Amsterdam Main Synagogue and President of the Committee of the General Affairs (a Jewish communal organization) passed away today.

1926:” The Great Duchess” directed by Willi Wolff, starring Ellen Richter and produced by the husband-and-wife team of Ellen Richter and Willi Wolf was released today in Germany.

1927: Today, President Coolidge appointed twenty-eight-year-old Nathan Cayton to serve as a Judge of the Municipal Court in the District of Columbia, making him, after his unanimous approval the Senta, the “youngest man ever to be appointed to a judicial post in the Nation’s Capital.”

1928: The New York Times reported on improving economic conditions in Palestine.  For example, at Petakh Tikvah, an additional fifty Jewish workers have been hired and “the Arab lessees of local orange groves have promised to take on 200 more Jews within the next few days.”

1929: U.S. premiere of “The Case of Lena Smith” directed by Josef von Sternberg, produced by Jesse L. Lasky, filmed by cinematographer Harold Rosson based on a story by Samuel Ortiz.

1929:Birthdate of Richard Lawrence Ottinger who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from New York before he went on to pursue a career as a law school professor.

1928: When asked by an interviewer in an article published two days before his 80thbirthday “When should one commence giving?” Nathan Straus replied, “As soon as one has a little more than he actually needs.  At first it is hard.  But afterwards it grows into a pleasure and there is nothing more satisfying, nothing to make one happier than to give in order to relieve the distress of others.” By “others” Mr. Straus means “men women and children of all races and creeds.”  He has “the deep seated feeling that all humanity is one blood whatever the accident of birth or the circumstances of religious faith.  We are all brothers and should help each other to the full extent of the opportunities that the one God of all mankind gives to each of us.

1929: “The Case of Lena Smith” directed by Josef von Sternberg, produced by Jesse L. Lasky, with a story by Samuel Ornitz was released in the United States today.

1930(29thof Tevet, 5690): Seventy-two year old Louisville native and graduate the University of Louisville Law School Moses N. Sale who moved to St. Louis in 1881 and where he served as Judge of the Circuit Court passed away today.

https://www.jta.org/1930/02/02/archive/judge-moses-sale-of-st-louis-dead-at-72

 1931: Birthdate of Brooklyn native Hyman “Hy” Cohen the Chicago Cubs pitcher who was also a coach for the Birmingham Braves.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/cohenhy01.shtml

1932: In New York City, the Julien Levy Gallery owned by Julien Levy hosted “the landmark multi-media Surrealist exhibition of the work of Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Joseph Cornell, Marcel Duchamp, and the introduction of Salvador Dalí's The Persistence of Memory owned by Levy who “also championed the surrealist work of Leon Kelly.”

1932: French premiere of “Comradeship” the Franco (La Tragédie de la mine)-German (Kameradschaft) film starring Alexander Granach as “Kasper.”

1932: The American Hebrew appeared for the last time. It would merge with the New York Jewish Tribune and re-appear as American Hebrew and Jewish Tribune

1932: In London, England, celebration of the 80th anniversary of the birth of famed composer, conductor and pianist Sir Frederic H. Cowen.

1933: Paul von Hindenburg, President of Germany appointed Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany.  The Nazis did not come to power through a coup or putsch.  They came to power legally, using the German political and electoral processes.

1934: Pierre Van Passen is scheduled to deliver a lecture this evening at the Brooklyn Jewish Center on “European Dictatorships and the Jew.”

1934: The “Conference of the Women’s division of the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League to Champion Human Rights” sic scheduled to meet this after the Hotel Plaza.

1936: Today’s decision by the Hungarian Ministry of Justice “refusing permission to Hungarian Jew to marry a German girl in Hungary” was seen as evidence that Hungary is applying the Nuremberg Laws as a sign of friendship for Germany.

1936: Rabbi B. Leon Hurwitz represented the Jewish community at memorial service honoring the late King George V held at the Hotel New Yorker.

1936: When Hans Frank told the German Academy’s economic council “We do not care what the wolrd says about our Jewish legislation” it was Germany’s way of serving “notice that she would continue her unrelenting drive against Jews” in what was part of a “strong restatement of Nazi principles on the third anniversary of Hitler’s assumption of power.

1937: “You Only Live Once,” produced by Walter Wagner, with music by Alfred Newman and starring Sylvia Sidney (Sophia Kosow) was released today in the United States.

1937: “The Good Earth” the cinematic treatment of the novel of the same name produced by Irving Thalberg and Albert Lewin, filmed by Karl Freund winner of the Oscar for Best Cinematography and starring Paul Muni and Luise Rainer winner of the Oscar for Best Actress was released in the United States today.

1937: In Geneva, Polish Foreign Minister Josef Beck told reported Clarence K. Streit that the pressure from his country to force Jews to emigrate was not based on anti-Semitism but on the changing nature of the Polish economy.

1938(27th of Shevat, 5698) Parashat Mishpatim

1938: Rabbi Benedict Glazer is scheduled to deliver the sermon this morning at Temple Emanu-El

1938: Rabbi Jonah B. Wise is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Organized Foreign Born and Democracy” this morning at the Central Synagogue.

1938: Rabbi Nathan Stern is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “What Shall We Teach Our Children?” this morning at the West End Synagogue.

1938: Rabbi William F. Rosenblum is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Laws of God and the Ordinances of Man” at Temple Israel.

1938: Rabbi Wendell A. Phillips is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Slaves to Convention” at Temple Rodeph Sholom.

1938: Rabbi Alexander Segal is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Value of Freedom” at Fort Washington where services will be followed by a meeting of the congregations Junior League.

1938(27thof Shevat, 5698): Sixty-seven year old Eugene Hugo Paul, who worked with Kuhn, Loeb & Co. for 48 years and was active in several Jewish organizations including the Young Men’s Hebrew Association passed away today.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=950DE6D61E3EE03ABC4850DFB7668383629EDE

1938: Speaking at re-union dinner at the Hotel Astor tonight, Morris R. Cohen, the retiring Professor of Philosophy at City College said that there was a real danger in the fact that “the proportion of non-Jews at the college was becoming negligible” because the friendships formed when the student body contained significant numbers of Catholics and Protestants’ would cease to exist and this could lead to a form of “segregation” in New York City.

1939(9thof Shevat, 5699): Sixty-six-year-old Sir Laurie Hammond, “who was a member of the Peel Royal Commission which in 1937 recommended tri-partition of Palestine as the only solution of the Arab-Jewish conflict” passed away today.

(EDITOR’S NOTE- THE FOLLOWING LISTINGS SERVE AS A REMINDER OF A TIME WHEN SOME WISHED TO OBSERVE SHABBAT ON SUNDAY)

1939: Rabbi Samuel H. Goldenson is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “How Men Enslave Themselves” at Temple Emanu-El.

1939: Sir Ronald Storrs who began serving as Governor of Jerusalem in 1917 as soon as Allenby had taken the city is scheduled to deliver talk on “The Problem of Palestine: England, Arab, Jew” at the service of the Free Synagogue being held in Carnegie Hall.

1939: The West End Synagogue is scheduled to host a “lecture forum” where Rabbi Hyman Judah Shacthel will deliver “an address on ‘A Way of Life.’”

1939: At Rodeph Sholom, Rabbi Louis I. Newman is scheduled to deliver “an address” on “Hitler’s Six Years: What Have They Cost Jews, Germans and the World?”

1940(19thof Shevat, 5700): Forty-two-year-old Havre, France born consulting engineer Martin Popkin who “received his education in the Kansas City, MO public schools, the Baron Rothschild Academy at Port Said and the University of Turin” and who had written “several textbooks including Manufacture of Men’s Clothes and Personnel Management passed away today in New York City.

1941: Mrs. Tehilla Lichtenstein is scheduled to deliver an address on “A Formula For Courage” at the Jewish Science Society on West 85th Street,

1941(1st of Shevat, 5701): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1941(1st of Shevat, 5701): At the Lodz Ghetto, Bluma Lichtensztajn committed suicide and painter Maurycy Trebacz died of hunger. (He was one of five thousand Jews who will die of hunger over the next six months.)

1942: This week’s issue of the Sentinel, Chicago’s Jewish Weekly was published today

http://www.idaillinois.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p16614coll14/id/68555

1942(11thof Shevat, 5702): Seventy-four-year-old Matilda “Tillie” Isaacs, the London born daughter of Albert and Adelaide Hart and wife of Julius Isaacs with she had four children passed away today after which she was buried in Sheffield, England.

1943: Germans execute 15 Poles at the village of Wierzbica for aiding three Jews. One of the victims is a two-year-old girl.

1943: The “Nazis ordered all Gypsies arrested and sent to extermination camps.”

1944: In London, unwed Australian Jewess named Oldham gave birth to Andrew Oldham, the “manager and producer of the Rolling Stones from 1963 to 1967.”

1944: In Trieste, the Nazis conduct a roundup of Jews aimed the old and sick people including those living in facilities for the aged. 

1944: A Nazi court in Kraków, Poland, sentences five Poles to death for aiding Jews. One of the accused, Kazimierz Jozefek, is hanged in the public square.

1944: In Lithuania, Soviet led partisans including Jews from the Kovno and Vilnius ghettos attacked Koniuchy which was later described a pro-Nazi town from which Germans launched attacks against partisans.  According to various reports several civilians were killed in the action which has led to it being described as a “massacre.”

1945(15thof Shevat, 5705): Tu B’Shevat

1945(15thof Shevat, 5705): Seventy-year-old Olympic Gymnast Gustav Felix Flatow died of starvation today at Theresienstadt.

http://www.jewishsports.net/BioPages/GustavFlatow.htm

1945(15thof Shevat, 5705): Less than a month before his 80th birthday Pittsburgh, PA native Albert M. Hanauer, a partner and Secretary-Treasurer of the Hamburger Distillery passed away today.

1945: Today, President Roosevelt nominated Herman B. Baruch who “had been working with the Foreign Economic Administration in Latin America” and who is the brother of Bernard Baruch to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Portugal.

1945: Birthdate of Paysach J. Krohn, rabbi, mohel and author of the “Maggid” series of books for ArtScroll.

1946(27thof Shevat, 5706): Seventy-seven-year-old Yale graduate, corset manufacturer and bank director Frederick Max Adler, the New Haven born son of Max Adler, “a manufacturer who commanded Connecticut during the Civil War” and Esther Myers Adler and husband of “the former Sophie Greenspecht with whom he raised two daughters passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1946/01/30/93022532.html?pageNumber=22

1946: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, a joint British and American committee composed of six Americans and six Englishmen that was charged with examining the “political, economic and social conditions in Mandatory Palestine as they bear upon the problem of Jewish immigration and settlement therein and the well-being of the peoples now living therein” which had been meeting in Washington, D.C. continued its meetings today in London

1947: Arthur Miller's "All My Sons" premiered in New York City

1948: Birthdate of Canadian Gerald Barry Falovtich who gained fame as singer-songwriter Yank Berry, “the philanthropist who along with his friend and partner Muhammad Ali has fed over 954,000,000 documented meals to the needy around the world over the last twenty years.”

1948: The colleagues and friends of Dr. Alexander Marx will hold a reception in the reading room of the JTS Library so that they can celebrate his 70thbirthday and congratulate him on his 45 years of service to the academic institution which is the flagship of Conservative Judaism.

1948: At its annual meeting in the Commodore Hotel, the board of governors of the Hebrew Union College approved an $8,000,000 "Blueprint for the Future."

1948: “A Woman's Vengeance,”  “a 1948 American film noir drama mystery film directed and produced by Zoltán Korda was released in the United States today.

1949(28thof Tevet, 5709) Parashat Vaera

1949(28thof Tevet, 5709): Sixty-five-year-old “Jakub Karol Parnas, a prominent Jewish-Polish–Soviet biochemist who contributed to the discovery of the Embden–Meyerhof–Parnas pathway, together with Otto Fritz Meyerhof and Gustav Georg Embden and who was arrested during the Stalinist Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee affair in 1949 and died today in the prison, reportedly of heart attack.”

1950: Birthdate of South African native Jody David Scheckter, “the 1979 Formula One World Drivers' Champion.”

1951: “Where’s Charley?” featuring music and lyrics by Frank Loesser began a second Broadway run today when it opened at The Broadway Theatre.

1953: “Dreaming Lips” with a script by Paul Czinner and Carl Mayer was released in Germany today.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Mapam, by a vote of 228 to 22, expelled from the party one of its veteran Zionist leaders, Dr. Moshe Sneh. According to the Post's leading article there was no room in Mapam for two groups which justified the new Soviet anti-Semitic policy and this explained why Sneh, and his more extreme "Left Faction," were expelled. They were expected to join the Communists. 

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that President Juan Peron said that the gates of Argentina stood wide open to any Soviet Jew who wished to find shelter there. The offer was also valid for Jews from other Soviet-dominated countries.

 

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that The Ministry of Interior closed the Communist daily Kol Ha'am for 10 days for publishing articles threatening the public peace.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that arson damaged the Russian bookshop in Jerusalem.

1954: Dr. Robert Oppenheimer sent a telegram requesting a hearing before the Atomic Energy Commission which had suspended his security clearance in response to charges that he was untrustworthy because of associations with Communists.

1954: After premiering in Los Angeles three weeks ago, “The Great Diamond Robbery” directed by Robert Z. Leonard and filmed by cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg was released today throughout the United States.

1954: CBS broadcast the final episode of “Action in the Afternoon” directed by U. of Penn graduate Richard Lester.

1955(6thof Shevat, 5715): Parashat Bo

1955(6thof Shevat, 5715): Fifty-two-year-old New York born, Columbia educated Dr. Michael Alper who was ordained by the Jewish Institute of Religion and served as “a director of Jewish Education of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum” while editing several Jewish magazines and authoring “several textbooks” passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1955/01/31/92844715.pdf

1956: Seventy-five-year-old Louis Mencken, better known as sharp tongued journalist H.L. Mencken whose diaries revealed a streak of anti-Semitism which did not keep him being “close friends” with Alfred Knopf and Ben Hecht, praising the work of Ayn Rand or that asserted that “books such as Caught Short! A Saga of Wailing Wall Street  by Eddie Cantor (ghost-written by David Freedman) did more to pull America out of the Great Depression than all government measures combined” passed away today.

http://articles.latimes.com/1989-12-05/news/mn-198_1_h-l-mencken

1957(27thof Shevat, 5717):

1958: It was reported today that Bernie Sarachek, Yeshiva University’s basketball coach urged a change in the college basketball rule requiring a team to play with fewer than five men when the rest of its players have fouled out” recommending instead the adoption of the rule used in the National Basketball Association that say “when a club has been reduced to five players, any player who commits a normally disqualifying personal foul would be permitted to continue in the game.

1959: Marian Winters began playing the role of “Myra Solomon” in the stage production of “Tall Story.”

1961: “Look in Any Window” co-starring Ruth Roman, the daughter of Mary and Abraham Roman, Jewish immigrants from Lithuania, was released today in the United States.

1962:  Violinist Fritz Kreisler passed away.  According to at least one source, Kreisler’s father was Jewish, but he was not.  Reportedly Kreisler’s wife was an Austrian anti-Semite whose reactions to Kreisler’s ethnic origins have helped to cloud the issue.  At least one of Kreisler’s brothers is reported to have said that he was Jewish but the same could not be said of Fritz.

1962: It was reported today that the Herzliah Hebrew Teachers Training Institute will receive $750,000 to “develop an accredited degree-training college for Hebrew studies.” (As reported by JTA)

1964(15th of Shevat, 5724): Tu B'Shevat

1964: Birthdate of Ruhama Avraham, the Sephardi native of Rishon LeZion who was first elected to the Knesset in 2003.

1964: Premiere of Stanley Kubrick's anti-war dark comedy, "Dr. Strangelove"

1966: “Sweet Charity” a musical with a book by Neil Simon opened on Broadway at the Palace Theatre.

1967: The album Casino Royale Soundtrack featuring “The Look of Love” composed by Burt Bacharach and Hal David was released today.

1967 "Let's Sing Yiddish" closed at Brooks Atkinson in New York City NY after 107 performances.

1968: “How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life” a comedy produced and written by Stanley Shapiro and co-starring Eli Wallach was released today in the United States.

1968(28thof Tevet, 5728): Eighty-five year old J. B. S. Hardman, born Jacob Benjamin Salutsky who was a leader of the Jewish Socialist Federation of the Socialist Party and who married “the former Virginia Mishnun in 1964” after his first wife, “the former Hanna Goldstein died in 1953”  passed away today.

http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/tam_050/

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/01/31/79932536.pdf

1968: Two days after he had passed away funeral services are scheduled to be held today for sixty-three year old Norman Gerstenfeld, the British born long-time rabbi at Washington Hebrew Congregation and husband of the former Louise Mundheim with whom he had four children

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/01/28/89318887.pdf

1969: Birthdate of Dov Charney CEO of the garment company American Apparel.

1969(10th of Shevat): Max Weinrich a founder of the Yiddish Institute (YIVO) and author of History of the Yiddish Language passed away

http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Weinreich_Max

1970(22ndof Shevat, 5730): Areyh Ben-Eliezer, the Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, a member of several pre-state organizations including Hebrew Committee for National Liberation, The American League for a Free Palestine and the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe, passed away

1970: Gideon Patt, a sabra born in Jerusalem during the British Mandate, began serving in the Knesset following the death of Areyh Ben-Eliezer.

1971: It was reported today that “although some Jewish leaders, particularly among the Orthodox, favored some sort of state aid, most Jewish groups opposed any such monetary help saying that it ‘posed a grave threated to the independence of religion and the stability of government.’”

1973(26thof Shevat, 5733): Eighty-nine year old Ludwig Stössel one of many Jewish actors and actresses who were forced to flee Europe when the Nazis came to power in 1933 and who played supporting roles in such famous films as “Kings Row,” “Pride of the Yankees” and “Casablanca” passed away today.

1974: Today, in an interview at his Leningrad apartment, Valery Panov disclosed the “rumors that the authorities plan to jail him to stop his campaign to emigrate to Israel with his wife.

1975: In Israel, Boris Chait, the president of the Israeli Ice Skating Federation and his wife gave birth to Galit Chait, the bronze medal winning ice dancer and head coach of the Israeli figure skating team who is he wife of Francesco Moracci with whom she has had two children – Raffaella and Gabriella.

1975: Alan King hosted the First Annual Comedy Awards of the Year.  Considering the number of Jewish comedians going back to the early days of vaudeville, the choice of the Jewish King is doubly appropriate.

1975: In Santa Monica, CA, Barbara Crane (née Cowan) and Harold Abeles gave birth to Sara Rebeca Abeles who gained fame as Sara Gilbert, the younger sister of Melissa Gilbert who starred in “Little House on the Prairie” and whose career included starring in the sitcom “Roseanne” a twentieth century version of the family unit which provides an interesting counterpoint to the 19th version of the family shown on Little House on the Prairie.

1976(27thof Shevat, 5736): Sixty-nine year old Milton “Milt” Galatzer the Chicago native who played outfield and first base for the Cleveland Indians and the Cincinnati Reds passed away today.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Prime Minister Menachem Begin had reversed his earlier decision and recommended to the cabinet that the Israeli military delegation return to Cairo to resume negotiations. He hoped that the joint Egyptian-Israeli Political Committee would eventually resume its meetings in Jerusalem. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat made a direct appeal to US Jewry and complained "that the behavior of the Israeli government had been negative and disappointing." Egypt, according to its Foreign Ministry statements, would never bargain over its territory and will always defend the rights of the Palestinians.

1978: Eighty-three year old Harold Lionel Zellerbach, “a topic executive for fifty years at Crown Zellerbach, a paper company started by his grandfather in 1870” and the husband of Doris Zellerbach passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1978/01/31/110785618.pdf

https://books.google.com/books?id=QUIEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA84&lpg=PA84&dq=harold+zellerbach&source=bl&ots=5gqXDq4G2n&sig=-q54LR5fSjSyiubWBoocpJEJCDw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjSw8vYx_nYAhVI5oMKHRt9AV04ChDoAQhGMAo#v=onepage&q=harold%20zellerbach&f=false

1982: After having been released in Japan and the United Kingdom, “Venom” a horror film produced by Martin Bregman with music by Michael Kamen was released in the United States today.

1983(15thof Shevat, 5743): Tu B’Shevat

1983: Birthdate of Ethiopian born Israeli fashion model Esti Mamo.

1983: Today German-born British jurist and author Sir Michael Robert Emanuel Kerr, “son of German drama critic Alfred Kerr and the brother of author Judith Kerr” married Diana Sneezum with whom he had two children – Lucy and Alexander.

1986(19thof Shevat, 5746): Two soldiers were killed and two more were wounded when a terrorist attacked any Army patrol today.

1986: Today Jerry Reinsdorf acquired an additional seven per cent of the stock of the Chicago Bulls, bring his ownership percentage to 63% and setting the stage for his ouster of Rod Thorn as general manager and moving Jerry Krause into the “top slot.”

1989: It was reported today that a Holocaust museum is to be built on the National Mall in Washington, DC has received thousands of artifacts, including letters, diaries, arm bands and secret coded communications between inmates.

1989: It was reported today that a Jewish institute plans to donate $100,000 for training black South African medical workers. The grant will be presented to Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

1990: Yuli M. Vorontsov, the Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister, met with the head of Israel's consular delegation in Moscow, Aryeh Levin. Mr. Vorontsov was quoted as saying, ''We oppose any use of citizens' leaving the Soviet Union, at great risk to them, to push Palestinians off land belonging to them.'' Soviet displeasure over the settlement debate is also threatening an agreement reached between El Al and Aeroflot for direct flights between Moscow and Tel Aviv. The head of the Soviet consular mission in Israel, Georgi Martirosov, told reporters on Monday that ''recent Israeli statements have hindered any possibility of moving this process forward.''

1991: After several days of growing frustration over the slow pace of allied efforts to eliminate Iraq's Scud missile launchers, Israeli officials warned today that Israel may not wait much longer before it attacks. An Israeli television interviewer offered a sentiment common among Israelis when he told Defense Minister Moshe Arens this evening: "The Americans keep bombing launchers but haven't been terribly effective. Meanwhile, Americans are watching the Super Bowl, and Israelis are sitting in shelters and sealed rooms." Mr. Arens responded: "The situation you described isn't going to continue -- not two months, and not a month. I simply estimate that a situation in which we'll be neutral or not active, and their ability to launch missiles against us isn't eliminated, it won't continue for a long time."

1991: In a meeting with a visiting French politician today, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir is reported to have said that Israel wants to play an active role in the battle against Iraq but is constrained by limits imposed by the United States. Mr. Shamir said he hoped the limits would be lifted soon. Iraq has fired 26 missiles at Haifa or Tel Aviv on seven occasions over the last 12 days, killing four people and wounding nearly 200. More than 2,000 apartments have been seriously damaged or destroyed. Elementary schools remain closed because there are too few teachers to help children put on gas masks quickly when the missile alert sounds. Productivity in business and industry is off. Much of the nation is traumatized. For the first time, Israel is under attack and unable to respond.

1991: Isaac Stern and Itzhak Perlman will share a stage in New York today when they team up to honor Zubin Mehta. The three violinists will appear at the annual lunch that benefits the orchestra. Last week, Mr. Mehta turned around en route to New York from Europe and flew to Tel Aviv on the eve of the war in the Persian Gulf as a show of support for Israel, where he is musical director of the national orchestra.

1992: Gila Almajor, performed a one-woman play entitled “The Summer of Aviya” which she wrote as part of “Israel: The Next Generation.”

1992: The daughter of Abie Nathan the Israeli philanthropist and peace campaigner, Sharona Nathan El Saieh, accepted the Abraham Joshua Heschel Peace Award from the Jewish Peace Fellowship today on behalf of her father because Mr. Nathan is in prison in Israel

1993: Feeling bolstered by a seal of approval from the country's High Court of Justice, Israel renewed its diplomatic offensive today to stave off United Nations sanctions over its deportation of more than 400 Palestinians to Lebanon.

1996: PBS broadcast “The Battle Over Citizen Kane,” a documentary film directed and produced by Michael Epstein and narrated by Richard Ben Cramer who also co-wrote the script.

1999: “Shakespeare In Love” co-produced by Harvey Weinsten and Edward Zwick co-starring Gwyneth Paltrow premiered in the U.K. today.

2000(22nd of Shevat, 5760): Harold H. Greene a federal judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia who was nominated by President Jimmy Carter in 1978 passed away.

2001: Eric Edelman completed his service as U.S. Ambassador to Finland.2001: Prime Minister Ehud Barak campaigned inside the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, where he spoke to a small group of disabled Israelis and some youth advocates.

2002: In the battered center of Jerusalem, beefed-up police squads guarded sidewalks and street corners today as weary shopkeepers opened for business and workers repaired the stores damaged by a bomb set off yesterday by a Palestinian woman. Along the main street, Jaffa Road, where two terrorist attacks in six days have killed three Israelis and wounded dozens, the routines of daily life became a test of bravery. Shmuel Kapash waited for customers in his empty shoe shop as an employee peered warily out the front door. Going back to work this morning was no easy matter, they said. ''I'm scared, but I have to make a living,'' Mr. Kapash said. ''I can't stay home, but I think twice before going out of the store for some fresh air. I try not to step out.'' After yesterday’s  attack, the Israeli Merchants Association demanded that the government give shopkeepers in urban centers that have been targets of attacks tax breaks similar to those granted to businesses in communities along Israel's borders. In downtown Jerusalem, the disappearance of tourists and many shoppers has drastically cut sales. At the Freiman and Bein shoe store, a Jerusalem institution for more than 50 years, Yoach Freiman stood in the debris left by the bomb, which went off just outside the front door. The store has functioned continuously on Jaffa Road, through war and peace, since 1947, and it was not about to close now, Mr. Freiman asserted. ''We don't have the right to close down or to be frightened by such incidents,'' he said of the latest bombing. ''We owe it to our customers, who have been coming here for four generations. The principle is to continue our normal lives.''

2003(26thof Shevat, 5763): Eighty-five-year-old University Wisconsin educated award winning author and critic Leslie Aaron Fiedler, the Newark born son Lillian and Jacob Fiedler and husband of Margaret Shipley passed away today in Buffalo.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1420884/Leslie-Fiedler.html

2004(6thof Shevat, 5764): “Eleven people were killed and more than 50 wounded, 13 of them seriously, in a suicide bombing of an Egged bus #19 at the corner of Gaza and Arlozorov streets in Jerusalem. Both the Fatah-related Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades and Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack, naming the bomber as Ali Yusuf Jaara, a 24-year-old Palestinian policeman from Bethlehem. The victims: Avraham (Albert) Balhasan, 28, of Jerusalem; Rose Boneh, 39, of Jerusalem; Hava Hannah (Anya) Bonder, 38, of Jerusalem; Anat Darom, 23, of Netanya; Viorel Octavian Florescu, 42, of Jerusalem; Natalia Gamril, 53, of Jerusalem; Yechezkel Isser Goldberg, 41, of Betar Illit; Baruch (Roman) Hondiashvili, 38, of Jerusalem; Dana Itach, 24, of Jerusalem; Mehbere Kifile, 35, of Ethiopia; and Eli Zfira, 48, of Jerusalem.”

2004: As she was returning to her home in Rehavia after having left her child at kindergarten, award winning-Israeli author Zeruya Shalev was severely injured when a Palestinian suicide bomber blew up a near-by bus.  Shalev is the daughter-in-law of Israeli playwright Aharon Megged and the cousin of award winning author Meir Shalev. [Meir Shalev’s latest literary effort is “Beginnings,” a must read for anybody interested in the TaNaCh and Jewish philosophy and history]

2004: Israel and the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah carried through with their deal to exchange prisoners and war dead today, in a trade greeted in Israel by a spare ceremony for three fallen soldiers and in Lebanon by a day of national celebration. Besides the soldiers -- Adi Avitan, Benny Avraham and Omar Sawayed -- Hezbollah also freed an Israeli businessman, Elhanan Tannenbaum, kidnapped by Hezbollah in October 2000. Unlike the returning Lebanese, Mr. Tannenbaum, who said he had been treated well in captivity, did not receive a hero's welcome. He was permitted a brief reunion with his family at the airport, and was then taken away for a medical check and questioning by the Israeli authorities about possible illegal activities, Israeli officials said.

2004: The Thirteenth Annual New York Jewish Film Festival comes to an end.

2005(19thof Shevat, 5765): Eighty- year old Ephraim Kishon passed away

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/feb/01/guardianobituaries.booksobituaries

http://www.ephraimkishon.com/

2006:  A day after International Holocaust Memorial Day, the new Chancellor of Germany met with the acting Prime Minister of Israel.  In one of those amazing turnabouts in history German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Germany would have no contact with Hamas until it disavowed terrorism and recognized Israel and all agreements signed with it. This declaration comes in the face of the recent electoral victory by Hamas, an organization dedicated to the destruction of the State of Israel and death to the Jewish people.

2006: Ted Koppel  signed up as an opposite editorial-contributing columnist, effective today, for The New York Times

2006: “An estimated 300,000 people took part in Yitzchak Kaduri’s funeral procession today which started from the Nachalat Yitzchak Yeshivah and wound its way through the streets of Jerusalem to the Givat Shaul cemetery near the entrance to the city of Jerusalem.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_Kaduri#mediaviewer/File:Kaduri_funeral.JPG

2006: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocquevilleby Bernard-Henri Lévy

2007: Haaretzreported that according to the Global Forum Against Anti-Semitism this past year saw a substantial rise in the number of anti-Semitic incidents in Germany, Austria and the Scandinavian countries. In an annual press conference, the forum explained that 2006 was characterized by escalation in the number and violent nature of attacks on Jews, proliferation of Holocaust denial and increased comparison of Israel to the Nazi regime.

2007(10thof Shevat): A Palestinian from the Gaza Strip blew himself up today inside a bakery in the Israeli resort city of Eilat, killing all three people inside. The two owners of the bakery, Amil Elimelech, 32, and Michael Ben Sa'adon, 27 were killed in the attack as well as one of their employees, Israel Samolia, 26. Elimelech was married with two children while Ben Sa'adon was married with one child. Samolia was an immigrant from Peru. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, each took credit for the bombing.

2008: In New York City, the 92nd St Y hosts “Commando Krva Maga: Israeli Self Defense” where attendees learn defense skills developed by the Israeli military, now popular with civilians.

2008: In Iowa City, the funeral is held for Dr. Michael Balch, Associate Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Iowa and a longtime member of the Jewish community. Michael earned a BS in Engineering Science from Pratt Institute in 1960 an MS from New York University in 1962 and a PhD in Mathematics from New York University in1965.  His areas of expertise were Economic behavior under uncertainty and Theories of deterrence, arms control, and war.  He passed away on January 28, 2008 (21 Shevat, 5768).

2008: Barnard College named as its next president Debora L. Spar, a Harvard Business School professor who has written about the economics of the human fertility industry and the evolution of the Internet but has not previously been affiliated with a women’s college. Professor Spar, 44, whose appointment is effective July 1, will succeed Judith R. Shapiro, president since 1994, the college announced on Tuesday morning. “We never expected to have anybody until March or April or May, but she was too good to pass up,” said Helene L. Kaplan, a Barnard trustee and one of two leaders of its presidential search committee. “She’s bright, she’s lively, she’s young and she’s very energetic.”

2009:Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, the former (now emeritus) president of George Washington University, discusses and signs Big Man on Campus: A University President Speaks Out on Higher Education at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington in Rockville, Md.

2009: An exhibition, "Erfurt: Jewish Treasures from Medieval Ashkenaz," which had been on display at the Yeshiva University Museum of the Center for Jewish History in New York City since September of 2008 and which drew on “a hoard of coins, goldsmiths' work and jewelry that is assumed to have belonged to Jews who hid them in 1349 at the time of the Black Death pogroms” came to a close today.

2009: An American appeal’s court today dismissed a lawsuit by Holocaust survivors who alleged the Vatican bank accepted millions of dollars of their valuables stolen by Nazi sympathizers. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld a lower court ruling that said the Vatican bank was immune from such a lawsuit under the 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which generally protects foreign countries from being sued in U.S. courts2009: “The Wedding Song,” Karin Albou’s story of a friendship between a Muslim man and a Jewish woman, set in Tunisia during the Nazi occupation is featured tonight at the New York Jewish Film Festival.

2009:James Braidy "Jim" Steinberg began serving as the 16th United States Deputy Secretary of State.

2010: An exhibition entitled Blue Like Me: The Art of Siona Benjamin is scheduled to have its final showing at the JCC in Washington, D.C.  Siona Benjamin is a painter originally from the Bombay Jewish (Bene Israel) community now living in the United States.

2010:The Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem is scheduled to celebrate Tu Bishvat from a bit of a different angle, with parents and children and having a chance to learn about the connection between planting trees and global warming.

2010: The Cedar Rapids/Iowa City Chapter of Hadassah is scheduled to sponsor a Tu B'Shevat Seder and Shabbat Services at Temple Judah.

2010:US President Barack Obama's national security adviser cited a heightened risk that Iran will respond to growing pressure over its nuclear program by stoking violence against Israel. The adviser, retired Marine Gen. James Jones, said today that history shows that when regimes are feeling pressure they can lash out through surrogates. He said that in Iran's case that would mean facilitating attacks on Israel by Hezbollah and Hamas

2010: Pei Xiong provides a description of the academic efforts of Jane Eisner in “Jane Eisner ’77 Teaching a New Generation of Writers.”

http://wesleyanargus.com/2010/01/29/jane-eisner-%E2%80%9977-teaching-a-new-generation-of-writers/

2011: A screening of The Matchmaker directed by Avi Nesher is scheduled to take place at the Seventh Annual Brooklyn Israel Film Festival.

2011:Internationally recognized rising star, Israeli violinist Vadim Gluzman is scheduled to join Orpheus for the first time in a performance of Prokofiev’s hauntingly beautiful second violin concerto at Carnegie Hall.

2011: “A Musical Mitzvah Evening” the Mitzvah Day fundraiser for Agudas Achim is scheduled to take place in Iowa City, IA.

2011: Israel watched fearfully today as anti-government unrest roiled Egypt, one of its most important allies and a bridge to the wider Arab world. The Israeli prime minister ordered government spokesmen to keep silent. Officials speaking anonymously nonethless expressed concern violence could threaten ties with Egypt and spread to the Palestinian Authority. 2011: An official at Cairo International Airport said today that El Al was trying to arrange a special flight Saturday to take roughly 200 Israeli tourists out of Egypt. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the media.

2011: At Coe College in Cedar Rapids, the final performance of “Copenhagen” in which Barb Feller played Margrethe Bohr and her husband Steve played Niels Bohr

2011: Mark Zuckerberg made a surprise guest appearance on “Saturday Night Live.”

2012(5thof Shevat, 5772): Eighty-eight year old Savannah, GA native Lee Adler, the grandson of Leopold Adler who, in an oft told tale, “came to Savannah in the 19thCentury and founded Adler’s Department Store” passed away today.

http://www.tributes.com/obituary/show/Leopold-Adler-93202081

2012: “The Religion Thing” is scheduled to have its final performance at Theatre J in Washington, D.C.

2012: A display featuring a selection of 32 Chanukah lamps selected by Maurice Sendak is scheduled to come to a close today at the Jewish Museum in New York.

2012: “Jewish Soldiers in Blue and Gray” is scheduled to be shown at the Boulder JCC in Boulder, CO.

2012: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Ida” by Gertrude Stein, “Stanzas in Meditation: The Corrected Edition” by Gertrude Stein, “Jews and Booze: Becoming American in the Age of Prohibition” by Marni Davis, “The Street Sweeper” by Elliot Perlman and “God’s Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World.”

2012: An Israel Defense Forces Heron-class drone crashed in central Israel, Army Radio reported today, with no injuries reported.

2012: Anger and despair gripped many residents of the town of Harish today, the day after a local synagogue was found completely gutted by a fire that broke out early yesterday morning on Shabbat. While police said today they are sure the fire was caused by an electrical short, some residents say they believe it was intentionally set by unknown assailants looking to threaten the Breslov hassidic community that worships at the synagogue.

2013: In London, The Wiener Library’s Young Volunteers are scheduled to host a special interactive discussion workshop for 16-25 years during which they will discuss the advantages and disadvantages in using Social Media to raise awareness and promote learning about the Holocaust and Genocide.

2013: “Numbered,” a film directed by Urial Sinai and Doan Doron is scheduled to be shown at the JCC in Manhattan

2013(18thof Shevat, 5773): Ninety-six year old Louis Lesser, chairman of Louis Lesser Enterprises passed away today.

http://www.spokeo.com/Louis+Lesser+1

2013: Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer informed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu today that he will step down as Israel's central banker on June 30, two years before the end of his second five-year term.

2014: The Of Many Institute for Multifaith Leadership at NYU is scheduled to present its inaugural Fritzi Weitzmann Owens memorial lecture with Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, titled "Dignifying Difference: The Next Generation of Multifaith Leadership."

2014: “The House Foreign Affairs Committee approved a bill that would enhance the already close U.S.-Israel defense relationship. The bill initiated by U.S. Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (D-Fla.) and Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), the top two members on the committee’s Middle East subcommittee, passed unanimously today. (As reported by JTA)

2014(28thof Shevat, 5774): Eighty-nine-year-old sociologist Lewis Yablonsky passed away today.

http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-lewis-yablonsky-20140219-story.html#axzz2uObFsmt0

2014(28thof Shevat, 5774): Eighty-five year old psychologist Theodore Millon passed away today, (As reported by Benedict Carey)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/01/us/theodore-millon-a-student-of-personality-dies-at-85.html?rref=obituaries&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Obituaries&pgtype=article&_r=0

2014: “The head of Israel’s most powerful intelligence agency depicted today a changing battlefield in which offensive cyber capabilities will, in the near future, represent the greatest shift in combat doctrine in over 1,000 years.

2015: In Switzerland fifty-nine year old Israel Yinon had a heart attack while conducting the Lucerne University Orchestra and passed away after being taken to a local hospital.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11379995/Israel-Yinon-composer-obituary.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2932877/Israeli-conductor-collapses-Swiss-concert-dies.html

2015: “Felix and Meira” and “The Go-Go Boys: The Inside story of Cannon Films” are scheduled to be shown on the final day of the New York Jewish Film Festival.

2015: In New York City, the 16th Street Book Club is scheduled to discuss Hope: A Tragedy, a novel by Shalom Auslander

2015: The Thaler Holocaust Memorial Programming Committee chaired by Dr. Bob Silber is scheduled to meet today in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

2015: Today “B'nai Brith Canada announced that it was suspending publication of eleven year old Jewish Tribune’sprint edition for 13 weeks, and possibly permanently

2016: “Rabin, The Last Day” is scheduled to open at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema.

2016: The San Diego Center for Jewish Culture is scheduled to host the final session “Art, Stories, and Movements: Jewish Art Through the Ages.”

2016: In Cedar Rapids, just days before the first in the nation Caucuses, Temple Judah is scheduled to host another of its ever popular Musical Shabbats.

2016: “Israel, Mired on Ideological Battles, Fights on Cultural Fronts” published today described internal tensions sparked, to some extent, by Miri Regev, the country’s new minister of culture and sport.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/30/world/middleeast/israel-mired-in-ideological-battles-fights-on-cultural-fronts.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

2017(2ndof Shevat, 5777): On the Jewish calendar Yahrzeit of King Alexander Yannai (Jannaeus), a Hasmonian king of Judea from 103 BCE to 76 BCE whose unpopularity led him to, according to at least one source, led him to murder thousands of Jews on more than one occasion. 

2017: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Patriots by Sana Krasikov, The Signal Flame by Andrew Krivak author of “At the New Jewish Cemetery in Prague” and Lara: The Untold Love Story That Inspired Doctor Zhivago by Anna Pasternak.

2017: '21 Rue de la Boetie,' an exhibition on legendary French art dealer Paul Rosenberg (1881-1959) is scheduled to have it last showing today at the Musee de la Boverie in Liege, Belgium.

2017: The Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines, Iowa is scheduled to host a screening of “Raise the Roof.

2017: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to play some 5-a-side football with an Oxfordshire-based charity called Streets Revolution, who aim to promote sports and leisure as a tool for engaging adults and young people from marginalized sections of the community, particularly those with mental illnesses.”

2017: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host a screening of “Defiant Requiem” – “Maestro Murry Sidlin's inspiring documentary that spotlights conductor Rafael Schächter, a Theresienstadt prisoner who taught Verdi's Requiem to 150 prisoners in 1942.”

2017: The National Yiddish Theatre Flksbiene co-presented a five hour reading of Nightin the Edmond J. Safra Hall of the Museum of Jewish Heritage in event honoring the memory the late Elie Wiesel.

2018: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host a screening of “The Band’s Visit” followed by a discussion with director Eran Kolirin, actor Tony Salhous, playwright Itamar Moses and theatre reporter Michael Paulson.

2018: “Omer Bartov, John P. Birkelund Distinguished Professor of European History, Brown University, a leading scholar of the Holocaust,” is scheduled to discuss his new book Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a screening of “The Room.”

2018: At a time when Poland, which is “largely Roman Catholic” is considering legislation that would outlaw mention of Polish complicity in the crimes of the Holocaust as well as the use of the term ‘Polish death camps’” Pope Francis said today that “countries have a responsibility to fight anti-Semitism and the ‘virus of indifference’ threatening to erase the memory of the Holocaust.”

2018: “Preserving Iraqi Jewish Heritage” an exhibition of some of the 2,700 Jewish books and tens of thousands of documents discovered by U.S. Army soldiers discovered in the Mukhabarat that provide a “written record of Iraqi Jewish life provides an unexpected opportunity to better understand this community” is scheduled to open to the general public at the Breman Museum in Atlanta.

2018:Moriah Amit, the Center for Jewish History’s Senior Genealogy Reference Librarian, is scheduled to deliver a lecture covering major resources and strategies for locating the living descendants of deceased individuals on your family tree.

2018: University of Western Ontario Professor Alain Goldschlager, who was once president of B’nai Brith Canada’s League for Human Rights, is a recipient of the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Palmes académiques award and has authored many books, the most recent of which is Les témoignages écrits de la Shoah (Written Testimonies of the Shoah), is scheduled to deliver a lecture on Holocaust survivor and author Primo Levi at Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Winnipeg

2019: Today, Democrats raised ethical concerns about connections between Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuuchin and Sir Leonard Blavatnik, the Russian born Anglo-Jewish billionaire and major Republican donor “who stands to benefit financially from the Trump administration’s decision to lift sanctions on the Russian oligarch Oleg V. Deripaska’s companies.”

2019: Coe College, the intellectual home of award winning-physicist Steve Feller is scheduled to host an evening with Dr. Jocelyn Bell Burnell, his friend and college who was finally credited with being the first to detect pulsars which is considered to be “one of the most significant scientific achievements of the 20th century.”

2019: Tulane University is scheduled to host Dimitry Shumsky, the Professor of Jewish History at Hebrew University who will lecture on “Beyond the Nation-State: The Idea of National Self- Determination in Zionism before 1948”

2019: The University of Michigan is scheduled to Claude Stuczynski of Bar-Ilan University on "Taxing Identities": The Impact of 'Pardon Taxes' on Converso Identity.

https://lsa.umich.edu/judaic/news-events/all-events.detail.html/57440-14193512.html

2019: In Boca Raton, FL, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is scheduled to “honor survivors of the Holocaust with the Elie Wiesel Award at the annual South Florida Dinner.

2019: “The Jewish Conference: Past, Present and Future,” presented by the American Sephardi Federation and Association Mimouna is scheduled to come to an end today.

2019: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host an evening with Jill Abramson, the former executive of the New York Times as she discusses issues raised in her new book, Merchants of Trust.

2020: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host “Quiz Night” complete with dinner and the Jewuniversity Challenge.”

2020: In San Francisco, Congregation Sherith Israel is scheduled to host “Shtisel Uncovered: The New Haredim” during which “haredi social activist and self-described feminist Pnina Pfeuffer talks to screenwriter and co-creator of “Shtisel” Yehonatan Indursky discusses the inspirations for the show and the haredi movement.”

2020: In Berkley, the Friends Meeting House is scheduled to host Rabbi Jonathan Seidel and “AstroloJew” Lorelai Kude as they “talk about the month of Shevat, why sages thought Aquarius was the sign of the Jewish people and how the Aquarian Minyan got its name.”

2020: The Streicker Center is scheduled to a screening of “Incitement” followed by a discussion of the film Dalia Rabin and Ambassador Ido Ahroni.

2020: Following yesterday’s warning that “all options are open” in expressing its rejection of President Trumps Middle East Plan Israelis wonder today what kind of violence they can expect from the terrorist group.

2021: The Lappin Foundation is scheduled to host online a special Tu B’Shevat puppet show with Anna Sobel.

2021: This evening via Zoom “The Jewish Secular Community of Cleveland is scheduled to host Sunny Simon, Cuyahoga Councilwoman, whose topic is "Cuyahoga County's Ban on Single Use Plastic Bags."

2021: In Pepper Pike, OH, B’nai Jeshurun Congregation, is scheduled to host “A Historical Introduction to the Laws of Purim” during which Rabbi Noah Bickart “will trace the ways the laws of Purim have developed from the test of the Biblical Megillah of Esther through Modern Codes.”

2021: The Israeli American Council of Boston is scheduled to present and online Community Tu B’Shevat Seder.

 

 


This Day, January 30, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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January 30

1349(10th of Adar, 5109): The Jews of Freilsburg Germany were massacred.

1592: Clement VIII began his papacy during which he enacted numerous anti-Jews moving including the issuance of Cum Saepe Accidere, a papal bull that “forbade the Jewish community of the Comtat Venaissin of Avignon, a papal enclave, to sell new goods, putting them at an economic disadvantage”  and Caeca et Obdurata, a papal bull that “banned Jews from living in the Papal states outside the cities of Rome, Ancona, and Avignon” which among other things had the effect of expelling the Jews from Umbria and Bologna. Last but not least, he issued Cum Hebraeorum militia a papal bull that “forbade the reading of the Talmud.”

1648: Spain and the United Netherlands sign The Treaty of Münster and Osnabrück marking the end of the eighty yearlong Dutch revolt against Spanish rule.  The treaty guarantees the independence of the Protestant Netherlands from the rule of Catholic Spain and the Holy Roman Empire.  It means that the Jewish community in the Netherlands, which includes many Sephardic refugees and Marranos, will be able to grow and flourish.

1649: King Charles I was beheaded.  One of those who took part in the trial was Isaac Dorislaus, the son of Dutch Reform minister who has been misidentified by some as being Jews. There was a “converso community” living in England but the Jews would not be formally re-admitted until after Oliver Cromwell came to power following the King’s death.

1667: The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ceded Kiev, Smolensk, and left-bank Ukraine to the Tsardom of Russia in the Treaty of Andrusovo. According “to the treaty...arranged with John the Jews, who then lived in the towns and districts that became Russian territory, were permitted to remain "on the side of the Russian czar," under Russian rule, if they did not choose to remain under Polish rule. Jewish wives of Greek Orthodox Russians were permitted to remain with their husbands without being forced to change their religion.

1723: Ester Alvares and Bordeaux native Daniel Nones gave birth to Raphael Nones.

1764: Philadelphia native Rebecca Judah and Isaac Hays gave birth to Samuel Hays, the husband of Richea Gratz with whom he ten children.

1766: Birthdate of Judith Baierthaler, the daughter of Abraham Baierthaler and wife of Samuel S. Strauss with whom she had five children

1767(30thof Shevat, 5527): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1767: Birthdate of German explorer Ulrich Jasper Seetzen who was one of the early European explorers of Jordan, Palestine and Sinai Peninsula whose writings were published by the British Palestine Association whose members sought “to promote the study of the geography, natural history, antiquities and anthropology of Palestine and the surrounding areas, "with a view to the illustration of the Holy Writings.”

1770: In England Rabbi David Segal and his wife gave birth to Aaron Levy (Aaron ben David Segal Levi)

1795: Birthdate of Muenster, Germany native Rosetta Nathan Eisendrath, the daughter of Nathan Baruch Eisendrath and wife of Elias Levi Rosenheim with whom she had seven children.

1808: In London, Sam Elias, the professional boxer known as Dutch Sam, and his wife gave birth to Young Dutch Sam who followed in his father footsteps and became “a welterweight champion in the 1820’s.”

1805: Emmanuel Isaacs married Maria Magnus at the Great Synagogue today.

1807: Sir Robert Grant was “called to the bar” and began the practice of law. This was but one step on the ladder that led to Grant’s successful career as a member of the House of Commons.  Grant was not Jewish.  Robert Grant was a strenuous advocate for the removal of the disabilities of the Jews, and twice carried bills on the subject through the House of Commons. They were, however, rejected in the Upper House, which did not yield on the question until 1858, twenty years after Grant’s death. 

1817: Nine days after he had passed away, Israel Israel, the husband of Polly Israel and father of Henrietta and Harriet Israel, was buried today.

1817(13th of Shevat): Rabbi Yom Tov Netel, author of Tehor Ra’ayonim passed away

http://thefoundationstone.org/en/bible/161-portion-of-the-week/2650-tehor-raayonim-beshalach.html

1823: Birthdate of Ida Warburg the future wife of Eduard Wolf.

1818: Brussels native Sara Rebecca Daniels and Solomon Jones gave birth to Alexander Jones.

1825: Isaac Barnett married Sarah Joseph today at the Great Synagogue.

1827: “L’artisan” (The Craftsman) “an opéra comique by Fromental Halévy, was staged at the Opéra-Comique, in Paris

1831: In Paris Edmond Rochefort and his wife gave birth to Victor Henri Rochefort allied himself with anti-Semite Edouard Drumont and the infamous Hubert-Joseph Henry during the campaign to convict Dreyfus and then to destroy as much of the Jewish community as possible.

1834: In Elllerstadt, Germany, Salomon Weil, a local merchant and the former Helena Lea Meyer gave birth to Abraham Weil who served “as a royal Bavarian tax collector.”

1835: In London, Frances Cohen and Joel Benjamin gave birth to Rachel Benjamin.

1839(15thof Shevat, 5599): Tu B’Shevat

1839: In Charleston, SC, Jacob Levin of Columbia, SC married Ann Sampson, “the eldest daughter of the late Samuel Sampson.”

1842: Solomon Nathan married Hannah Abrahams at the Great Synagogue today

1842(19thof Shevat, 5602): Sixty-five year old Branca Brendel Bernisse Hartog Kann the daughter of Jacob Hirsch Pinto and Levia Leonora Liebe Pinto and the wife of Hirschel Eliazer Kann passed away today in Nederland.

1846: Two days after he had passed away, 56-year-old Abraham Levy was buried today at the “Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.”

1852: The horribly mutilated body of Jacob Lehman was found today in the Delaware River. Lehman was the son of Aaron Lehman, a German Jewish peddler living in Philadelphia.  When last seen, Jacob had in his possession $200 worth of watches, jewelry and other items that constituted most of his father's inventory. 

1852: A jury in Philadelphia rendered the following verdict: "That the lad Jacob Lehman came to his death at the hand or hands of some person or person to the Jury unknown."  Lehman was the son of a German Jewish peddler whose gruesomely dismembered body had been found floating in the Delaware River

1854(1st of Shevat, 5614): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1854: Seventy-four-year-old Anglican clergyman John Oxlee whose studies of rabbinical and Hebrew literature led to “conclusions at odds with both Christianity and Judaism” and who was the author the three volume The Christina Doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation contended that “the concept of the trinity could be found in the Talmud” passed away today.

1854: In Kozim, Prussia Raphael Tuck and the former Ernestine Lissner, the daughter of David Lissner gave birth to Sir Adolph Tuck, the husband of Jeanetta Flatau and father of Sir William Gladys, Sybil, Desmond and Mariel Tuck, the Chairman of the Board of Raphael Tuck and Sons, the firm best known for introducing the standard sized picture post card who “was created a baronet in 1910.

1854: In Riga, Eleazar Frommer and his wife gave birth to Jacob Frommer the Rabbi of Congregation Bikur Cholim Bnay Abraham, New Haven, CT.

1855: Henry Fitzroy, the husband of Hannah Rothschild and the son-in-law of Nathan Mayer Rothschild completed his term as Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department.

1857: The will of Marcus Cone was offered for probate today. Included in the will were instructions for establishing Cone's German Human Benevolent Society of New York, Cone's German Human Benevolent Society of Syracuse and Cone's German Human Benevolent Society of Albersweiller, the Germany city in which he was born.  Cone wanted to establish the two societies in the United States because neither of these cities had any organized way to provide aid for their indigent Jewish citizens.

1860: It was reported today that "In England, astonishment is expressed” that Emperor Napoleon has not appointed the Duc de Persigny to the Foreign Ministry. Unbeknown to the public M de Persigny will not join the cabinet because he refuses to serve with Achille Fould, the Minister of State. M Fould is a favorite of the Empress who “absolutely clings” to him “as the only man competent to” serve as “Minister of State and of the Household of the Emperor.” Furthermore, M Fould is Jewish, a millionaire and is connected to “other rich Jews” through his banking connections. (“Nearly all the millionaires of Paris at this moment are Jews.”) The Emperor is reportedly “afraid to offend so important” a component needed to ensure the stability of his government.  “There are people malicious enough to suggest that the Empress' wish in the matter goes for very little, however, and that she is made to bear the blame because that is more convenient in these personal matters than a reason of State.”

1861: In Gollantsch, Germany, Meyer Rosentreter and his wife gave birth to David Rosentreter, the President of the Washington Bank National of St. Louis who was the first treasurer of the St. Louis Jewish Hospital association and the founder of the Jewish Farmers’ Colony in Washington County, MO.

1862: In Breslau, Silesia, Helene von Heimburg, a former opera singer, and the conductor Leopold Damrosch who were Lutherans gave birth to Walter Damrosch, the composer and conductor who played a key role in the founding of Carnegie Hall and whose paternal grandparents were Jewish. (A trip to the baptismal fountain was an easy way that many 18th 19th century Jews thought would lead to acceptance – a thought that was proved so wrong in the 20thcentury.)

1863(10thof Shevat, 5623): Phineas Mendel Heilprin passed away today in Washington, D.C.  Born at Lublin in 1801, he moved to Hungary in 1842 and then left in 1848 when the revolutionary movement failed.  He arrived in the United States where he gained a reputation as a scholar and author.  His son Michael, who was born in 1823 came to the United States after the failure of the Kossuth led revolution.  On the eve of the Civil War, he refuted Rabbi Raphall’s position on slavery in the United States describing it as being immoral and contrary to the teachings of Judaism. He continued to espouse liberal cause until his death in 1888.

1863: In Philadelphia, PA, Polish born “painter, lithographer, draftsman and etcher” Max Rosenthal and Helene Caroline Rosenthal gave birth to Albert Rosenthal the American artist who was the husband of Henryetta Rosenthal.

http://www.artistsandart.org/2010/05/albert-rosenthal-1863-1939-american.html

1863: In Warsaw, Talmud scholar Marcus Jastrow and his wife gave birth to American psychologist Joseph Jastrow.

http://www.wondersandmarvels.com/2012/10/americas-first-pop-psychologist.html

1864: In New York, Nannie Bayer and Ludwig A. Freund gave birth to the University of Heidelberg trained attorney Ernst Freund, the holder of Ph.D. in political science from Columbia who taught political science at the University of Chicago before becoming a law professor whom Justice Felix Frankfurter “described as one of the most distinguished all legal scholars in the whole history of the legal professoriate.”

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

1865: Philadelphian Morris Schlesinger began serving as Adjutant of the 210th Regiment.

1867: Two days after he had passed away, 38 year old Rosetta (Benjamin) Joseph, the wife of Raphael Joseph and the mother of Sarah, Mark and Elizabeth Joseph was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”

1867(24thof Shevat, 5627): In Bristol, UK, Joseph Abraham the London born son of Moses Abraham and the brother of John Abraham with whom he worked as a wine merchant and who served as both the President of the Bristol Hebrew Congregation and Mayor of Bristol passed away today.

1868: In Middlesex, Alice and Simon Cantor gave birth to Florence Caroline Cantor.

1870: Birthdate of Amsterdam native Moses Alvares Vega the husband of Sara Teresa Ameringen and the father of Abraham Moses Alvares Vega.

1871: Birthdate of Pressburg Yeshiva graduate Aaron Tanzer, the holder of a Ph.D. from the University of Berlin and the “chief rabbi of Tyrol and Vorarlberg who served as Jewish Chaplain on the Eastern Front with the German Army during WW I.

1872: Birthdate of Eduard Bloch the native of Frauenberg who “until 1907 was the physician of Adolf Hitler’s family.”

1873(2ndof Shevat, 5633): “French ship-builder and philanthropist Jacques Isaac Altaras, a native of Aleppo who tried to help settle Russian Jews in Algeria and who “founded a school for Jewish children at Marseilles, passed away today.

1874: Nine days after he had passed away in Nice, France, Daniel Joseph Jaffe, the wife of Friederike Jaffe with whom he had had four children including Sir Otto Jaffe, was buried today at the Belfast Jewish Cemetery in Northern Ireland.

1875: The London Punch has a cartoon of Disraeli shaking hands with Gladstone and saying: "Sorry to lose you. I began with books; you’re ending with them. Perhaps you're the wiser of the two." Disraeli is Benjamin Disraeli the English Prime Minister who began as an author.  Gladstone was his political opponent who held the post of Prime Minister.]

1876: It was reported today that Jews had joined with Gentiles to raise twelve thousand dollars for the Woman’s Christian Home in St. Louis, MO. 

1876: It was reported today that a Jewish synagogue has been opened in Toronto, Canada.

1877: The Downtown Hebrew Benevolent Society is scheduled to host a ball tonight as part of the New York City 1876-1877 Ball Season.

1877: In Chicago, Albert and Carrie (Stettheimer) Harzfeld gave birth to Northwestern University trained attorney Jacob Albert Harzfeld who served as a Captain in the U.S. Army during WW I in Russia and settled in Kansas City, MO where he was a member of B’nai B’rith, Y.M.H.A. and B’nai Yedhuda Congregation.

http://www.vintagekansascity.com/menwhomadekc/harzfeld_jacob_albert.html

1878: It was reported today Marcuse Woodle has been elected President of the Literary Society of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association and Samson Lachman has been elected Vice President.

1879(6thof Shevat, 5639): Fifty-nine-year-old Abraham Treunefels the son of Rachel and Gershon Hirsch Treuenfels passed away today.

1880: Birthdate of New York native and Boston attorney H. Murray Pakulski, a “delegate to the Democratic National Convention from Massachusetts in 1908 and 1912 and the husband of Ada S. Feldman whom he married in 1904.

1882: Birthdate of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States.  Roosevelt’s New Deal created a variety of career opportunities for a whole generation of newly college educated generation of Jewish professionals. For several generations of Jews, FDR was a near-saint.  Starting in the 1970’s, questions were raised about Roosevelt’s failure to do more to rescue the Jews of Europe.  The problem with criticizing Roosevelt is the need to come to grips with the level of anti-Semitism that existed before, during and after the war.  This reality played a part in Roosevelt’s dealing with the furor of the Holocaust.

1883: In Lübeck, Esther Adler, the daughter of the former rabbi of Lübeck, Rabbi Alexander Sussmann Adler and Lübeck's then Rabbi Salomon Carlebach gave birth to their eighth child Joseph Hirsch (Tzvi) Carlebach who married “his former pupil Charlotte Preuss” in 1919 and despite his service in the German Army during WW I was murdered at “the Nazi concentration camp Jungfernhof.”

1884: In Hesse, Germany, Jakob and Ida Edelchen Baruch gave birth to Siegmund Salomon Baruch

1885: Twenty-one-year-old pianist Fannie Bloomfield-Zeiser, the Silesian born daughter of Solomon and Bertha Blumenfield and future wife of Sigmund Zeisler made “made her New York debut performing with the New York Orchestra.”

1886: Birthdate of Bloomington native and 1908 graduate of the University of Indiana Howard Kahn, the “crusading editor in St. Paul who “received the Cosmopolitan International’s Distinguish Service Medal” for his work in ending the corruption in that city”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1951/03/30/89785885.pdf

1886: In New York City, Frederick and Matilda (Ottenreuter) Gilman Gutter gave birth to Hunter College graduate Blanche Gutter, who became President of the National Jewish Women’s Organization of Greater New York while married to her first husband, David Goldfarb , the father of Stanley Goldfarb and who became Blanche Gilman after she married paper manufacturer Isaac Gilman after which she continued her works with “the New York chapter of the American Red Cross, the Federation of Jewish Women's Organizations, the Federation of Jewish, Philanthropies, the Federation of Temple Sisterhoods and the Women's Board of Temple EmanuEl while serving as chairman of the New York State Commission for the Blind. (Editor’s Note:  Gilman, VT which was named after her husband was the home of George L. Fox, the Methodist minister of “Four Chaplains” fame.)

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/gilman-blanche

1889: In Kiel, Germany, Jewish businessman and communal leader Julius Frankenthal and his wife Cäcilie, née Goldmann., gave birth to Käte Frankenthal who gained fame as a psychiatrist and a socialist political leader who served on the Berlin City Council and in the Prussian State Parliament during the days of the Weimar Republic.

1889: Crown Prince Rudolph who had previously promoted the career of his Jewish mistress Eleconore Kolmann committed suicide today.

1892: The SS Massilia arrived in New York with “250 Russian Jews among her steerage passengers.”  After having been expelled from Russia they sailed to Palestine where the Ottoman authorities issued orders banning them from landing at Jaffa.  A Jewish society then paid for their passage to America.  The Superintendent of immigration said that the refusal of the Turks to let them land would not influence his decision as to whether or not they can enter the United States.

1893: Birthdate of Rabbi Yitzhak-Meir Levin a Haredi, politician, member of the Kensett and one of 37 people to sign the Israeli declaration of independence.

1893: Charles Barton’s production of “The Outsider,” a play whose villain is a Cockney Jew, is scheduled to open at the Park Theatre in New York.

1894: Isidor Straus began serving “as a U.S. Congressman from New York’s 15thcongressional district” today.

1894(23rdof Shevat, 5654): Eighty-six-year-old mathematician Moritz Abraham Stern, “the first Jewish full professor at a German university” who worked with “Ferdinand Eisenstein in formulating a proof of the quadratic reciprocity theorem” passed away today.

1894: In Pennsylvania, Isadore Engel and Emelia (Molly) Schwartz gave birth to Dorothy Engel, the future wife of Herman Maltz who owned and operated Maltz Furniture Store in Los Angeles.

1894: Samuel Gompers and Henry Weisman are scheduled to address a mass meeting at Madison Square Garden sponsored by the Trades and Labor Conference.

1894: When his father passed away today Yissachar Dov Rokeach became the third Belzer Rebbe,

1894: Members of the Hebrew Typographical Union No. 317 are among those who will join in a march led by the E.H. Wade Post of the GAR (Grand Army of the Republic, whose members were all Civil War veterans) which is scheduled to be held this evening in New York City to call attention to the plight of the unemployed during the worst economic depression to hit the United States that started in 1893.

1895: Hermann Gustloff and his wife gave birth to Wilhelm Gustloff, the found of the Swiss Nazi Party whose murder was one of the excuses for Kristallnacht.

1895: Birthdate of Vienna native William Isaiah Teichner who in 1913 came to the United States where he studied engineering at Brooklyn Polytech and CCNY, became “an engineer for the New York Board of Transpiration and the Transit Authority” and “vice president of the Sea Gate Jewish Congress which raising his son Dr. Victor J. Tecihner with “his wife Sonya.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1960/09/06/99794504.pdf

1896(15thof Shevat, 5656): Tu B’Shevat

1896: “What’s In A Name” published today described campaign being conducted by the sister of the late Abraham Hayward to disprove “the damnatory suspicion” that the two of them have “some mixture of Jewish blood.”  The efforts which have included a letter writing campaign to the London Athenaeum are proof that there “is the existence of …prejudices in the British Islands.”

1896: In Philadelphia, President Oscar Straus is scheduled to preside over the opening session of the 4th annual meeting of the American Jewish Historical Society

1897: It was reported today that the Municipal Library at Leipzig has a manuscript entitled “The Tree of Life” written by Jacob Ben Judah.  The manuscript is date 1287 and “it contains the liturgy of the Jews in England and their hymns.

1897: Rabbi de Sola Mendes is scheduled to deliver a sermon at West End Synagogue entitled “The Truth About Jonah”

1897: Based on information that first appeared in The American Hebrew, it was reported today that Rodef Shalom has selected Dr. Rudolph Grossman to serve as it next Rabbi, a move “that seems strange for an old conservative congregation” since he was trained at the Hebrew Union College, the Cincinnati based school that trains Reform rabbis.

1898: It was reported today that police had to be called when a riot broke out following an anti-Jewish speech by Lucien Millevoye in Bordeaux.

1898: The Young Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s Circle of the Auxiliary Society of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Social Orphan Asylum held its regular monthly meeting this afternoon.

1898: The Hebrew Infant Asylum Association held its third annual meeting this afternoon.

1898: It was reported today that next month’s Purim Ball sponsored by the Purim Association will be held at the Waldorf-Astoria

1898: Three days after he had passed away, 45-year-old Isaac Feinstein was buried at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1898: Doctors Richards, Greenfield, Taubenhaus and Singer were among those who addressed a group of Jews in Brooklyn tonight as part of a campaign to gain support for the construction of a Jewish hospital in Brooklyn

1899: Rabbi Gustav Gottheil preached a sermon at Temple Emanu-El this morning in which he praised the value and role of daily newspapers.

1899: “The Jews in Palestine” published today provides a summary of the report submitted in December of 1898 by U.S. Consul General B. Bie Randal in which he said that “960 families, numbering 5,000 souls inhabit 22 Jewish colonies in Palestine which have been founded and subsidized by Baron Edmond de Rothschild, representing the Alliance Israelite Universelle..”  Jacob’s Memorial (Zikhron Ya'akon) is the largest of the colonies with a population of 1,600 people.  The colony includes a synagogue, a school with five teachers and 4,000 acres on which the settles are growing fruit, mostly grapes, honey and mulberry leaves which is part of a plan to raise silkworms. (More 2014)

1899: It was reported today that of the four bills introduced in the New York legislature seeking a exemption from property tax, on was seeking such relief for the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.

1899: Rabbi Isaac C. Noot, principal of the Hebrew Free Schools delivered a lecture today at Temple Beth-El on “Thou shalt not bear false witness against the neighbor.”

1899: In Ilford, Essex, UK, Alexander and Jane Bernstein gave birth to media mogul Sidney Lewis Bernstein who was elevated to the peerage as Baron Bernstein

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-lord-bernstein-1471201.html

1900: Birthdate of Russian composer Isaak Iosifovich Dunayevsky.

1901: Birthdate of Yalowa (Grundow), Russian Poland native Oscar Serlin best known as the producer of Broadway hit “Life With Father”

http://www.nytimes.com/1971/02/28/archives/ocarsbrlin-70-produger-isdead-stage-hit-life-with-father-i-made-him.html

1902: Birthdate of Philadelphia native Emanuel “Manny” Sacks, the executive at Columbia Records and RCA Victor, who played an integral role in the careers of such stars as Harry James and who played a major role in promoting the acceptance of the LP record.

http://www.totaltheater.com/?q=node/487

 1902: Three days after he had passed away, Eleazer Tubb was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1902: Birthdate of Nikolaus Pevsner, the native of Leipzig who became a noted British expert on art and architecture.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/sep/09/nikolaus-pevsner-life-harries-review

1903: Leopold Greenberg, Herzl's representative in London, left for Cairo to carry on political negotiations.

1903: Birthdate of Sziget, Hungary native and Phi Beta Kappa graduate from Columbia University John W. Gassner, the theatre critic, playwright and author whose twenty books included Theatre at the Crossroads and Masters of the Drama who was the husband of “the former of Mollie Kern” and whose academic career led him to becoming the Sterling Professor of Playwriting and Dramatic Literature at Yale University.

https://snaccooperative.org/ark:/99166/w68d0q21

1903: In Poland, Albert and Ernestine (Rayner) Caro gave birth to Marcus Rayner Caro who in 1912 came to the U.S where he earned a B.S. in 1925 and a M.D. in 1927 and pursued a career in dermatology while being married to Adeline B. Cohen with whom he raised two children – Ethel and William.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamadermatology/article-abstract/527630

1903: Birthdate of London native Victor J. Cohen, who in 1907 came to the United States where where he founded “two well-known real estate concerns” – Williams and Company, Inc. and Williams Real Estate --, married the “former Rae Oelbaum” with whom he ha son named Jerome and became “a Science Fellow of the Belfer Graduate School of Yeshiva University.”

1904: Herzl finished his visit to Italy.

1905: In “Disraeli and Gladstone” published today, Freeman Morris compared the careers of the two political rivals closing with the conclusion that “Mr. Gladstone spoke” while Lord Beaconsfield (Disraeli) “did.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1905/01/30/102419280.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1905: An advertisement published today reminded readers that “the third and last installment of Disraeli’s Unfinished Novel” which is “the literary sensation of two continents will be available in next Sunday’s edition of The New York Times.

1906: This evening “the Choral Society for Ancient Hebrew Melodies” whose aims included the restoration of congregational singing in synagogues using “old Hebrew music” and the introduction of it “in the simpler forms in Sunday schools” is scheduled to hold its regular meeting this evening at the Young Men’s Hebrew Association

1906: In New York, the School Board for District Number 39 heard further testimony in the case of Frank F. Harding the Principal of P.S. 144, a school in a Jewish neighborhood, who is charged with having attempted to proselytize the students at last year’s Christmas entertainment.

1907(15thof Shevat, 5667): Tu B’Shevat

1908: It was reported today that “Louis Stern, the merchant and banker, has resigned as a member of the Board of Trustees of Temple Emanu-El, at Forty-third Street and Fifth Avenue, the richest Jewish congregation in New York City, in consequence, it is understood, of the criticism of the marriage of his daughter Irma to a Roman Catholic, which he believed to have been implied in a recent sermon by the associate rabbi, the Rev. Dr. J.L. Magnus.”

1908: Caught up in the dispute between the Territorialists and the Jews who will only settle for a homeland in Palestine, Churchill drafted a letter at the behest of British Zionist, Rabbi Dr. Moses Gaster.  Seeking not to offend either party, Churchill expressed his support for the Zionist dream of settling in Palestine while allowing that a temporary refuge may have to be found if such is the wish of the Jewish people.  The Territoralists were those Jews were willing to accept the British offer of a homeland in Uganda or Kenya as an immediate solution to the suffering of the Jews in Russia.  The Russian Jews were among those who were the strongest opponents of the solution.

1909:  Birthdate of activist and author Saul David Alinsky

1910: In a talk before the Young Men's Hebrew Association today Jacob H. Sehiff, the banker, urged young men to relieve the Jewish congestion in this city by going to other parts of this country” saying  that the challenge “of persuading the Hebrews of this city to "build up the American empire in other parts of the country" had become a "hobby" with him.”

1911: Birthdate of right-handed pitcher Robert Clyde “Bob” Katz who appeared in six games for the Cincinnati Reds in 1944.

1912: In response to an appeal by Dr. J. L. Magnes the New York City Jewish community announces subscriptions amounting to over sixty thousand dollars annually for five years for Jewish education in New York City.

1912: In Brooklyn, N. Y, The Atlantic Union Conference of the Seventh Day Adventist convention adopts resolutions protesting against the recent massacres of Jews in Russia and outbreaks of anti-Jewish feeling in so-called Christian countries as un-Christian and affirming their belief that the Jew is entitled to religious and civil rights.

1912: In New York City investment banker and philanthropist Maurice Wertheim and his wife Alma Morgenthau, the daughter of Henry Morgenthau, Sr. gave birth to Barbara Wetheim whom after she married Dr. Lester R. Tuchman was known as Barbara Tuchman a prolific popular historian who won a Pulitzer Prize for The Guns of August a book that President Kennedy urged people to read so that his generation might avoid the folly which led to World War I.  Ms. Tuchman won a second Pulitzer for Stillwell and the American Experience in China, a very readable tome that uses the experiences of Stillwell's career in Asia to explain the events that would ultimately lead to the victory of the Communist Chinese.  Although she was Jewish, Ms. Tuchman wrote only one book related to Jewish History - Bible and Sword (England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour).  Ms. Tuchman passed away in 1989 at the age of 77.Born in New York City, New York she is best known for her book The Guns of August (1962), a history of the outbreak of World War I, and Stilwell and the American Experience in China, (1970). She won Pulitzer Prizes for both books. Tuchman's father was a one-time owner and publisher of The Nation, as well as the founder of the Theatre Guild. Her maternal grandfather was the ambassador to Constantinople under President Woodrow Wilson, and her uncle was the Secretary of the Treasury under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. She said, "The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard." Tuchman never went to graduate school, and never took a single course in writing. In deciding to write, she said, "The single most formative experience, I think, was the stacks at Widener Library where I was allowed to have as my own one of those little cubicles with a table under a window, queerly called, as I have since learned, 'carrels,' a word I never knew when I sat in one. Mine was deep in among the 940's (British History, that is) and I could roam at liberty through the rich stacks, taking whatever I wanted. The experience was marvelous, a word I use in its exact sense meaning full of marvels. It gave me a lifelong affinity for libraries, where I find happiness, refuge, not to mention the material for making books of my own.” Tuchman said, "Nothing sickens me more than the closed door of a library." She also said, "Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill."

1913(22ndof Shevat, 5673): Eighty-eight year old Joseph Sanson, who had worked as an official court interpreter passed away today in Philadelphia, PA.

1913: Twenty-four-year-old University of Pennsylvania trained attorney Abraham David Wernick, the Russian born son of Myer and Bessie Wernick married Said Osteicher today in Philadelphia.

1914: In Columbus, OH, Fred and Metz Marx Lazarus gave birth to Ralph Lazarus, the husband of Gladys Lazarus who was “chairman of Federated Stores the owner of many chains including Bloomingdales, Filene’s and Foley’s.

https://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/20/obituaries/ralph-lazarus-74-ex-head-of-federated-stores.html

1915: The Paris correspondent of the Manchester Guardian sent a dispatch to his paper today that includes a description of the treatment Jews by the Russian Government from The Bund Committee of the Lithuanian, Polish and Russian Jews

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E06E2DF1E3EE733A05757C1A9649C946496D6CF

1915: Clara Michaelsohn, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Israel Michaelson of 383 Grand Street became engaged to Mitchell Fligel today.

1915(15thof Shevat, 5675): Tu B’Shevat

1915: In Atlanta, the defense rested this afternoon in the case of Dan S. Lehon, CC. Felder and Arthur Thurman who are on trial subornation of perjury in an effort to secure a new trial for Leo Frank who was convicted of murdering Mary Phagan.

1915: From Berlin, the Overseas News Agency reported that in Russia, “Jews ae being prosecuted officially and demonstrations against them are being organized by the government.”

1916: Miss Amy Schechter and her brother Frank were among the two thousand people who attended a memorial service for their father Dr. Solomon Schechter at the First Rumanian Congregation where Dr. Henry Moscowitz, the President of the Civil Service Commission, delivered the principal address.

1916: Assemblymen Nathan T. Perlman and Meyer Levy and State Senator Irving Joseph were among the hundreds of people who attended the dance sponsored by the Madison Republican Club at the New Harlem Casino which raised hundreds of dollars “for the benefit of war sufferers.”

1916: A report issued today by the American Jewish Committee signed by President Louis Marshall and Executive Committee Chairman Cyrus Adler described the suffering of the Jews in war-torn Eastern Europe, the need to provide them aid and the work that must be done to protect the civil and religious rights of the Jews while alleviating the consequences of persecution.

1916: Rabbi J.L. Magnes is scheduled to speak at a mass meeting in Philadelphia organized by Dr. Cyrus Adler where it is expected that $200,000 will be raised to provide relief for the Jews in war-torn Europe.

1916(25th of Shevat, 5676): Sixty-one-year-old Sydney native Joseph Jacobs, the “Australian literary and Jewish historian who was a writer for the Jewish Encyclopedia and a notable folklorist, creating several noteworthy collections of fairy tales passed away today.

http://www.mainlesson.com/displayauthor.php?author=jacobs

1916: The list of speakers published today for the upcoming “non-sectarian mass meeting” designed to raise funds “for the relief of Jews in the warring countries of Europe included Jacob H. Schiff, the Rev. Dr. S. Parkes Cadman, Louis Marshall, Rabbi J.L. Magnes, Rabbi Nathan Krass and Joseph Barondes.

1917: It was reported today the Brooklyn Jewish Volunteer Relief Committee is sending out 25,000 letters to Brooklynites as part of the campaign to raise two hundred thousand dollars that will go to the national fund being raised to aid the Jews of Europe.

1917: It was reported that thirteen percent of the money sent to provide relief for the Jews of the Vilna District has to be turned over to the occupying German authorities and that in spite of all the aid American Jews have sent, unless a great deal more is done immediately, it will be increasingly difficult to keep the population “alive through the Winter.”

1918: As celebrations take place for the upcoming 70th birthday of Nathan Straus, it was announced that “in his honor 15 teams will start a special Nathan Straus birthday drive to raise $10,000 each in ten days for the Palestine Restoration Fund” of which he is the chairman.

1918: In New York City, Joseph Opatovsky, who gained fame as Yiddish author Joseph Opatoshu and his wife gave birth to David Opatovsky who gained fame as actor and screenwriter David Opatoshu.

1919(29thof Shevat, 5679): Meyer Benjamin, the husband of Henrietta Cohen Foster with whom he had three children, passed away today at Pittsburgh, PA following a surgical operation.

1919: The Versailles Conference decided that the Arab provinces should be wholly separated from the Ottoman Empire and the newly conceived mandate-system applied to them. This decision clashed with the expectation of Faisal's Arab delegation that his state would include Palestine, and the conditional understandings reached in the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement.

1919: Forty-one-year-old landscape painter Maurice Braun, the Hungarian born son of Ferdinand and Charlotte (Schlesinger) Braun married Hazel Boyer today in San Diego, CA.

1919: Louis Graftman, one of the first three students from Hebrew Union College “to enlist at the outbreak of” World War I who completed his training as a Marine at Paris Island and served at Guantanamo Bay was “was released from service” today at Galveston, TX.

1920(10thof Shevat, 5680): Henriette Goldschmidt, the wife of Rabbi Abraham Meyer Goldschmidt, who was a social worker, educator and one of the founders of the Women’s Educational Association passed away today in Leipzig.

http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/goldschmidt-henriette

1921: Today’s annual meeting of the National Jewish Hospital for Consumptives at Denver being held at the Cleveland Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio is of special importance because the attendees will elect a new president to replace the late Samuel Grabfelder.

1922(1st of Shevat, 5682): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1923: In Newark, NJ, Jacob Israel Gersten and Henrietta (Henig) Gersten gave birth to Bernard Gersten, the Executive Producer of Lincoln Center Theater.

1924: Birthdate of Kurt Rübner, the native of Brastislava who emigrated to Palestine in 1941 without his parents, sisters and grandparents all of whom were murdered by the Nazis and gained fame Tuvya Ruebner, the poet, editor, photographer and member of Kibbutz Merhavia.

1925: “I Love You,” a silent film directed by Paul L. Stein, was released today in German

1926(15thof Shevat, 5686): Tu B’Shevat

1927: Birthdate of Zeev (Heinz) Raphael, a native of Germany who escaped to safety in Sweden three days before the German invasion of Poland.

1927(27thof Shevat, 5687): Rabbi Joseph Israel Deutsch passed away today.

http://www.balassagyarmatizsidosag.hu/en/deutsch-jozsef-izrael

1928: Birthdate of Irwin Michnick who gained fame as Mitch Leigh, “an American musical theatre composer and theatrical producer best known for the musical Man of La Mancha.”

1928: In Manhattan, Blanche Stern and Harold Smith gave birth Harold Smith who gained fame as

Harold “Hal” Prince, Tony Award winning theatrical producer and director.

https://masterworksbroadway.com/artist/harold-prince/

1929: Temple Emanu El in Dothan, Alabama was charted today.

1930(1stof Shevat, 5690): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1930(1stof Shevat, 5690): “Prominent philanthropist in colonial India, Alice Edith Isaacs, Marchioness of Reading GBE, née Alice Edith Cohen the daughter of London merchant Albert Cohen, the first wife of Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading passed away today.

1930: Simcha Hinkas, a Jewish policeman, went on trial in Tel Aviv. He is accused of leading a crowd of Jews who reportedly killed five adults and wounded two children in an Arab family on August 25, 1929 during the Arab Uprising.  According to the government, while Hinkas was on duty at a crossroad on Herzl Street during the Arab riots he saw a truck filled with Jews fired on by Arabs who killed four and wounded five.  Hinkas allegedly went back to his barracks, got his rifle and led a Jewish mob in an attack on an Arab house.  A government witness identified the bullets in the dead Arabs as having come from a government issued rifle, but could not tie them to the gun belonging to Hinkas.  Two Arabs later identified Hinkas from a group of 13 Constables, but other Arabs identified different Constables.  Alfred Riggs, assistant superintendent of the police “declared that Hinkas was one of the mildest and best of the police” but, “for reasons of his own,” the British police official seemed certain that the Jewish policeman was guilty.

1930: Today, “Comzet, the government department for settling Jews on the land, announced that the government had cut the budget” which means that “the Jewish colonists in the Ukraine will not get a single penny from the Soviet government” during 1930.

1930): Today in Warsaw, “the famous Chasidic Rabbi ‘Chafetz Chaim’ presided at a great rabbinical assembly” which was attended by “Chassidic rabbis of Ger, Amschinow, Cracow, Tarnpole, Petrikov and other Polish cities” where the attendees discussed “the new law regulating the Jewish religious communities which the government is proposing.

1931: Charlie Chaplin's "City Lights" premieres at Los Angeles Theater.

1931: In the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, Jules Weinberg, who “helped run his family’s newspaper distribution business” and the former Elka Heller gave birth to Linda Natalie Weinberg who gained fame as art historian Linda Nochlin.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/obituaries/linda-nochlin-groundbreaking-feminist-art-historian-is-dead-at-86.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=region&region=region&WT.nav=region&_r=0

1933: Author Joseph Roth “left Germany when Adolf Hitler became Reich Chancellor today.

https://web.archive.org/web/20100923110558/http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/jroth.htm

1933: Nazi Machtergreifung or “Nazi seizure of power” took placed to when President Paul von Hindenberg appointed Adolph Hitler to the Chancellorship of Germany and members of the Nazi Party were appointed to “several other high-ranking cabinet posts.”

1933: On the day that Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, Eli Boschwitz, a judicial abriter came home and told his wife, 'We are leaving Germany forever.'"  Boshwitz was the father of 5 year old Rudy Boschwitz the future Republican leader who would eventually serve 12 years as U.S. Senator from Minn. 

1933: Youth Aliyah opens its offices in Berlin. The previous year Recha Freier, a rabbi's wife decided it would be a good idea to send young people from Germany to Kibbutzim. She founded the Juedische Jugendhilfe organization to help facilitate the work. That same year it became a department of the World Zionist Organization under Henrietta Szold.  Five thousand adolescents were rescued before the war and another 15,000 after the war.

1933: “Symphony of Six Million” a film based on the “Night Bell” by Fannie Hurst which “concerns the rise of a Jewish physician from humble roots to the top of his profession and the social costs of losing his connection with his community, his family and with the craft of healing” produced by Pandro S. Berman and David O. Selznick, co-starring Gregory Ratoff with music by Max Steiner was released today in the United States.

1934: The American Economic Committee is scheduled to host a discussion on “Arab Benefirts from Jewish Enterprise in Palestine” following a dinner at the Royal Hotel.

1934: WEVD broadcast the first in a series of programs hosted by Herman Bernstein “o important current topics affect the lives of Jewish people.”

1934: Two days before he was scheduled to retire and become rabbi emeritus of Temple Emanu-El, Rabbi Hyman G. Enelow “sailed for the Mediterranean aboard the Empress of Australia.”

1934: Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Chasan of the Bronx announce the engagement of their daughter Shulamith Chasan to Theodore S. Chazin, son of Cantor and Mrs. Hirsch L. Chazin.  Mr. Chazin is a practicing attorney and the secretary of the Jersey City Zionist District.

1934: Moses Mendel Penn, the oldest patient ever cared for at Montefiore Hospital for Chronic Diseases, will observe his 109th birthday there today. He has partly recovered from a stroke that paralyzed one side of his body eight months ago. Mr. Penn entered the hospital on the application of the Bronx Young Men's Hebrew Association, of which he is the oldest living member.

1935: “Three Men on a Horse,” a comedy starring Garson Kanin and Sam Levene opened on Broadway at the Playhouse Theatre where it ran for 835 performances.

1935: Birthdate of Albert “Albie” Louis Sachs, the South African born son of Lithuanian Jews who fought against Apartheid and was appointed a Judge of the Constitutional Court by Nelson Mandela.

http://whoswho.co.za/albert-sachs-5369http://www.constitutionalcourt.org.za/site/judges/justicealbiesachs/index1.html

1936: At today’s session of its 16th annual convention, the Federation of Jewish Women’s Organizations adopted “resolutions approving the boycott of German products, opposing the sending of American athletes to the Olympics in Germany and urging a neutrality law that will keep” the United States out of war.  (Editor’s note – This is a leading national Jewish organization that is in effect supporting the isolationism of the 1930’s  All the critics of FDR, might want to consider this before rendering judgments on his behavior before Pearl Harbor.)

1936: At Long Beach, Long Island, Rabbi Stephen Wise announced plans for a “Boycott Day” to mark the third anniversary of “Hitler’s persecution of the Jews.”

1937: Rabbi Samuel Goldenson is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Can Any One Be Rich?” at Temple Emanu-El

1937: Rabbi Stephen S. Wise is scheduled to deliver a sermon comparing the four years under Hitler and Roosevelt at the Free Synagogue meeting in Carnegie Hall.

1937: Rabbi Israel Goldstein is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Hitler’s Anniversary, Roosevelt’s Inaugural and Poland’s ‘Superfluous Citizens’” at B’nai Jeshurun. (Editor’s note – 1937 was the first year that the Inauguration took place in January instead of March.  The Polish government had refused to its Jewish citizens as “superfluous.)

1937: At Rodeph Sholom, a guest speaker from Tel Aviv is scheduled to lecture on “Is there a Solution for the Jewish Problem?”

1937: Rabbi Morris Lichentenstein is scheduled to deliver the sermon at the Jewish Science Society.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that a Jewish constable, Mordechai Schwartz, who was charged with the premeditated murder of Police Constable Mustapha Khoury, was sentenced to death. The court refused to accept evidence that the previous murder by Arabs of two Jews in Karkur had influenced Schwartz to an immediate act of reprisal. Schwartz continued to claim his innocence.

1938: Rabbi Nathan A. Perilman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Protection From Our Friends” at Temple Emanu-El.

1938: Rabbi Stephen S. Wise is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Five Tragic Hitler Years” at the Free Synagogue in Carnegie Hall.

1938: Seven hundred representatives of “many Jewish organizations” attending a meeting of the Council of the Fraternal and Benevolent Organizations heard a speech by I. Edwin Goldwasser who said “this is a time when the Jew, in his personal conduct, should consider himself not only an individual but a representative of his people.”

1938: George Gordon Battle was one of the speakers at tonight’s dinner at the Manhattan Opera House where the 400 attendees celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the Federation of Polish Jews in America.

1938: While addressing a meeting of the Middle Atlantic States Regional Conference in Atlantic City, David J. Schweitzer, European vice chairman of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, said that while anti-Semitism is being offered as a “cure-all for political and economic ills in many countries” including Poland and Rumania, in the end “when put into effect” these policies intensifies the problems “and causes additional suffering among the general population.”

1938: Rabbi Jonah B. Wise is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “The Discovery of Scripture; We Wrote the Bible” at the Community House on East 62nd Street.

1938: Rabbi Louis L. Newman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Can Hitler Last Another Five Years in Germany? Will Cuza and Goga Last in Rumania?” at Temple Rodeph Sholom.

1938: Premier Octavian Goga today echoed King Carol’s assurance to the world that Rumania would strive to meet is Jewish problem “without inhumanities” but there has not been any “modification of the government’s anti-Semitic program.”

1938: Rabbi Morris Lichtenstein is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “When Nerves Become Restless” at the Jewish Science Society.

1939: In response to the “rise of anti-Semitism in the United States after fascism took hold of much Europe in the late 1930’s” the Anti-Defamation Council, which changed its name to the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Philadelphia, was founded today.

1939(10thof Shevat, 5699): Sixty-seven-year-old ophthalmologist Edwin Milton Beery who was also a surgeon passed away today in Brooklyn.

 1939: Hitler, in his anniversary speech in Berlin, talked about the event of war, "The result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe." Hitler also spoke in warm terms about its friendship with Poland.

1940: The Dominican Republic Settlement Association (DORSA), a special committee created by the Joint Distribution Committee signed a contract with the Trujillo regime that was part of plan to settle Jewish refugees in that Central American country.

 1940: “At a conference today, it was decided that all 30,000 Romani living in Germany proper were to be deported to former Polish territory” which meant they would die alongside the Jews in the gas chambers of Treblinka.

1941: Having failed to bomb Britain out of the war in 1941 Germany up the ante in its war to starve the Island nation that “any ship bringing goods to Britain would be sunk.”

1941: Hitler delivered his infamous “Speech at the Berlin Sports Palace.”

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/hitler-speech-at-the-berlin-sports-palace-january-30-1941

1942: In a speech at the Sports Palace in Berlin, Hitler told of his confidence in victory and his hatred for the Jews. "The hour will come when the most evil universal enemy of all time will be finished, at least for a thousand years." By the spring, four labor camps would be converted to death camps for the purpose of extinguishing the Jews; joining Chelmno were Belzec, Treblinka, Sobibor, and Auschwitz.

1942: In Cincinnati, “Catherine Eugenia (nee Talbot) Buchwald, who was an Episcopalian and Joseph Buchwald who was Jewish gave birth to Marty Jerel Buchwald who gained fame as Marty Balin of the Jefferson Airplane.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/obituaries/marty-balin-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

1943(24thh of Shevat, 5703): Sixty-seven-year-old Patterson, NJ native Carl Florian Zittle, the son of Gustave and Bertha Zittle and the husband of the former Martha Beatrice Bernstein with whom he had two children – Madeline and Carl -- known as Zit who worked for a number of Hearst publications, “owned the Central Park Casino during the administration of Mayor Jimmy Walker” and published Zit’s Weekly, a show biz weekly, for over twenty years passed away.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1943/01/31/88513430.pdf

1943 (24th of Shevat, 5703): In Letychiv, Ukraine, German Gestapo commences mass shootings of Jews from Letychiv Ghetto. 200 surviving Jews from Letychiv slave labor camp were ordered to undress and were shot with machine-gun into a ravine. Some 7,000 Jews were murdered in Letychiv.  For those with a sense of irony, this was Shabbat and the Torah reading was Yitro.

1943: The SS Pierre Soule, a liberty ship, was launched today 45 days after its keel was laid. The ship was named after Pierre Soule a Louisiana political leader who was an ally of Judah P. Benjamin, and according to one story in the New York Times, was Jewish. 

1944: Seven hundred Jews are deported from Milan, Italy, to Auschwitz.

1945: Hitler gives his last ever public address; a radio address on the 12th anniversary of his coming to power.

1945: In Kehrson, two Holocaust survivors gave birth to Meir Hubermann, the grandson of Holocaust victim Ber Erlich Sloshny, whom they took to Israel in 1950 where he gained famed Meir Dagan, the Director of Mossad who according to uncredited sources played a key role in derailing the Iranian nuclear program. (As reported by Isabel Kershner)

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/18/world/middleeast/meir-dagan-former-mossad-director-dies-at-71.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

1946: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, a joint British and American committee composed of six Americans and six Englishmen that was charged with examining the “political, economic and social conditions in Mandatory Palestine as they bear upon the problem of Jewish immigration and settlement therein and the well-being of the peoples now living therein” which had been meeting in Washington, D.C. continued its meetings today in London.

1947: Today, Port authorities in Le Harve “harbor police armed with machine guns” carried out the order of the authorities to impound an eight hundred ton “Honduran vessel bearing 600 Jewish refugees bound for Palestine.”

1948: Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist.  While Gandhi was a figure revered by many, some Jews have their reservations about this proponent of civil disobedience and non-violence no matter what the threat.  After Kristallnacht Gandhi wrote, "If the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary sacrifice, even the massacre I have imagined by Nazis could be turned into a day of thanksgiving that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of a tyrant...the German Jews will score a lasting victory over the German gentiles in the sense that they will have converted the latter to an appreciation of human dignity."  Apparently Ghandi lacked any concept of the evil that was Hitler.  But even after the war when the total horror was known, Gandhi said that the Holocaust was "the greatest crime of our time, but the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife.  They should have thrown themselves into the sea from the cliffs....It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany." 

1949: “Mark Ethridge, the United States representative on the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine” and publisher of The Louisville Courier-Journal left New York with the hope that his trip will “accomplish permanent peace and stability in the Middle East.”

1951: Birthdate of Harvard and Penn alum Laurence Jacob Kotlikoff, the economist who “is a William Warren Fair Professor at Boston University” and feels strong enough about his theories to have actually considered running for President in 2012.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/#4bc90ebe9bba

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/08/boston-university-economics-professor-laurence-kotlikoff-wants-to-change-your-retirement.html

1953(14thof Shevat, 5713): Eighty-nine-year-old geologist and geographer Alfred Philipson who survived 3 years in Theresienstadt, passed away today.

http://findingaids.cjh.org/?pID=475495

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported from Bonn that the West German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, assured Israel that his country would pay the first installment of 47 million marks of the German-Israeli Reparation Agreement within the next two months.

1953: The DuMont Television Network broadcast the final episode of “Steve Randall” starring Melvyn Douglas.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that IDF patrols had beaten back two attacks by Jordanian marauders at two points along the armistice lines, inflicting heavy casualties. Jordan falsely claimed that a number of Israeli soldiers were killed in both encounters. Both sides complained to the UN Israeli-Jordanian Mixed Armistice Commission.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that traces of copper were found near Jenin.

1958: “Sunrise at Campabello” the play written by Dore Schary that provided a dramatic depiction of FDR’s struggle with Polio premiered at the Cort Theatre in New York City.

1961: “A motion of non-confidence in the Cabinet over Prime Minster David Ben-Gurion’s stand concerning the Lavon Affair was defeated today in the Knesset.” (JTA)

1961: Funeral services were held today for Loula Davis Lasker, the sister of philanthropist Albert D. Lasker and national vice president of Hadassah who “donated $600,000 to help the Lasker Rink in New York’s Central Park.”

1964(16thof Shevat, 4724): Writer and theatrical producer Allen A. Adler passed away today in New York City at the age of 47. Adler was part of a famous Jewish theatrical family.  His grandfather was actor and producer Jacob Adler.  His father was theatre manager and owner, Adolph Adler.  His uncle was Luther Adler and his aunt was Stella Adler.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=FB0A17FB3E5415738DDDA80894DA405B848AF1D3

1966(9thof Shevat, 5726): Eighty-eight year old banker Rudolf Löb, who served as Chairman of Mendelssohn & Co before the Nazi broke up the bank passed away today in Boston, MA.

http://digifindingaids.cjh.org/?pID=480081

1969(11thof Shevat, 5729): Austrian born, American actress and singer Fritzi Massary passed away today.

http://www.wrightmusic.net/pdfs/fritz-massary.pdf

1970(23rdof Shevat, 5730): Marjan (or Maryan) Rawicz one half of the piano duo of Rawicz and Landauer that played together for forty years passed away today.

1971: Carole King's “Tapestry” album is released. This recording by Brooklyn born Jewess Carol Klein would become the longest charting album by a female solo artist and sell 24 million copies worldwide.

1971: “Abbie an' Slats” a comic strip created by Al Capp was published for the last time today.

1973: “Three Arabs were arrested in Italy at the border with Austria” thwarting “a planned attack on a transit camp in Austria for Jewish immigrants from Russia.”

1974: The Mayor and City of West Berlin hosted a reception to mark the 85thbirthday of Dr. Kate Frankenthal. A psychiatrist and socialist political leader during the Weimar Republic she fled Germany in 1933 and settled in the United States in 1936 where she became a consultant to the Jewish Family Service of New York.

1974(7th of Shevat, 5734): Sixty-four year old Pittsburgh native and California trained lawyer Murray Chotiner, the original political mentor of Richard Nixon passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1974/01/31/archives/murray-chotiner-nixon-mentor-dies-campaign-aide-since-46-and.html

https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKchotiner.htm

1974: PBS broadcast a performance of “June Moon” co-authored by George S. Kaufman.

1975: The final part of the Agranat Commission’s report was published today. The commission had been set up after the Yom Kippur War to find out why the IDF had failed to perform as expected prior to, and during, the hostilities.

1976: NBC broadcast the first episode of “The Practice” co-starring Didi Conn with music by David Shire.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that US President Jimmy Carter sent a sharp note to Prime Minister Menachem Begin, complaining over the plan to establish Shilo, a new West Bank settlement.

1978(22ndof Shevat, 5738): Fifty-two year old Bucharest born Israeli pianist Mindru Katz passed away today in Istanbul.

http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Katz-Mindru.htm

 1978(22nd of Shevat, 5738): Mordechai Yehuel, 27, of Ramat Gan was stabbed and killed in Ramallah.

1979: The civilian government of Iran announced it had decided to allow Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to return from exile in France. The subsequent Islamist revolution would end the reign of the Shah, a regime which was much friendlier to Israel than the government that would follow. In retrospect, one can draw a straight line between the French decision and the Iranian nuclear threat that the West and Israel face in the 21st century.

1979: Max Moses Heller completed his term in office as the 29th Mayor of Greenville, SC.

1979: “The Triangle Factory Fire Scandal” a film about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire directed by Mel Stuart and co-starring Stephanie Zimbalist and Tovah Felshuh was released in the United States today.

1980: Birthdate of Albany Law School grad and U.S. Army veteran Lee Zeldin who served in the New York State Senated before being elected as a Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives from New York’s 1s District.

 

1981: “The Incredible Shrinking Woman” directed by Joel Schumacher and co-starring Charles Grodin was released in the United States today.

1982: U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig “filed a reported with President Reagan that revealed” his “fear that Israel might, at the slightest provocation, start a war against Lebanon.”1990: The Israeli Government said today that it had no official policy of settling Soviet Jewish immigrants in the West Bank or Gaza Strip, and Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir dismissed the debate over the issue as an ''artificial storm'' created by panicked Arab leaders.

1983(16thof Shevat, 5743): Eighty-year-old Austrian born American economist Fritz Machlup who taught at several U.S. universities including’s Johns Hopkins and Princeton after fleeing the Nazis and who best known at the author of The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States passed away today.

1984(26thof Shevat, 5744): Seventy-six-year-old Rabbi Ben Zion Bokser, “the spiritual leader for fifty years of the Forest Hills Jewish in Queen” and the author of such books as Judaism: Profile of a Faith and Jews, Judaism and the State of Israel who was the husband of Kallia Halpern Bokser with whom he had two children – Miriam and Baruch – passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/02/obituaries/ben-zion-bokser-76-a-rabbi-and-professor.html

1986(20thof Shevat, 5746): One police officer was killed and two civilians were wounded when terrorists began shooting today in Jerusalem.

1987: “Outrageous Fortune,” a comedy directed by Arthur Hiller and co-starring Bette Midler was released today in the United States.

1987: Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold,” a movie version of the novel produced by Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan was released today in the United States.

1990: After having originally premiered at the Tokyo International Film, “Unsettled Land” an “Israeli drama directed by Uri Barbash” was released in France today.

1991(15th of Shevat, 5751): Tu B'Shvat

1991: The New York Times reviews The Smile of the Lamb by David Grossman; translated by Betsy Rosenberg.

1991: In Amman, around 3,000 Jordanians demonstrated in favor of Iraq, burned American and Israeli flags and urged Mr. Hussein to fire chemical weapons at Israel. The demonstration reflected Jordan's tilt toward Baghdad throughout the gulf crisis. "O Saddam, hit, hit Tel Aviv!" some chanted. "With chemical weapons, O Saddam!" others replied. Jordan's population is more than half Palestinian, and many have voiced support for the Iraqi leader as a champion who will lead them to statehood.

1991: The Young Professionals of the American Friends of Tel Aviv University is sponsoring a black-tie cocktail party and dance, at Stringfellows to benefit the Adopt-a-Student Endowment Fund at the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University.

1992: Publication date of “Hideous Kinky, an autobiographical novel by Esther Freud, daughter of British painter Lucian Freud and great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud.

1992: "ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD," by Tom Stoppard, adapted by Yosef Brodski, staged by Yevgeny Arye and featuring the Gesher Theater Company is scheduled to be performed in Brooklyn, NY.

1992: As Israel presses the United States for loan guarantees to cope with a projected huge influx of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, officials here said today that the immigrant flow this month had sunk to its lowest in almost two years and could dwindle even further

1993 “During fiscal 1992” which ended today, Younkers which had been founded by Lipman, Samuel and Marcus Younker in Keiokuk, IA in 1856 “had net earnings of $17.6 million on net sales of $473.4 million.”

1997: Kalman Ruttenstein, the fashion director of Bloomingdale’s who had outsized impact on women’s apparel suffered a major stroke today.

1998: Premier performance of Paul Simon's "The Capeman."

1998: U.S premiere of “Zero Effect” a detective move directed and written by Jake Kasdan.

1998: Evelyn Lieberman, “the first woman to serve as deputy chief of staff to a president” “testified before a special grand jury” today that Monica Lewinsky “had displayed ‘immature and inappropriate behavior,’ was ‘spending too much time around the West Wing,’ and was ‘always someplace she shouldn’t be’” which had led her to decide “to get of her because of the appearance that it was creating” and not be because “she had heard…rumors linking the president and Ms. Lewinsky.”

1999(13thof Shevat, 5659): Ninety-three-year-old Professor Mirra Komarovksy the Russian born daughter of “Zionists and land owning Jews” who came to the United States where she became a leading authority in the field of Women’s Studies passed away today. (As reported by Eric Pace)

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/01/us/mirra-komarovsky-authority-on-women-s-studies-dies-at-93.html

2000: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Einstein’s German World by Fritz Stern and The Greenspan Effect:Words That Move the World's Markets by David B. Sicilia and Jeffrey L. Cruikshank.

2001: Two people were injured during at the Tayibe Bridge bombing for which Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

2001(6thof Shevat, 5761): Eighty-five year old pioneer neurosurgeon Joseph Ransohoff,  passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/12/nyregion/joseph-ransohoff-a-pioneer-in-neurosurgery-dies-at-85.html

2001: Prime Minister Ehud Barak saw 20 immigrants' representatives inside his Jerusalem office and then presided tonight over a modest support rally at the city's convention center as he continued his campaign against Ariel Sharon.

2002: “Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met with aides to discuss a plan to ring Jerusalem with barriers following two Palestinian attacks there within six days that killed three Israelis and wounded scores more.”

2003: In “A Burst of Light Provides Privacy,” published today Elaine Louie discusses the work of Ayala Sefaty of Tel Aviv who designed her own underwater restaurant in Eilat.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/30/garden/currents-architecture-a-burst-of-light-provides-privacy.html

2003: “The Israeli experiment aboard the space shuttle Columbia has accomplished its goals of studying the effects of dust storms on weather and recording electrical phenomena atop storm clouds, scientists said today. Researchers from Tel Aviv University said their Mediterranean Israeli Dust Experiment had gathered solid information on the plumes of dust and other aerosol particles blown from deserts by storms before being carried worldwide by high winds. The particles affect rain production in clouds, deposit minerals in the ocean and scatter sunlight that affects global warming, the scientists said. ''The experiment has worked without a hitch,'' Dr. Joachim Joseph, a principal investigator, told a briefing at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. ''We have very good data, very unique data.'' A twin-camera multispectral instrument in the payload bay of the shuttle has been scanning desert particles whipped into the atmosphere and, at night, making images of the tops of some of the thousands of thunderstorms that rumble through the atmosphere every hour. The shuttle, nearing the end of a 16-day mission, is to return to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Saturday with its crew of seven, including the first Israeli astronaut, Col. Ilan Ramon, a combat pilot in the Israeli Air Force. The flight, which had been delayed almost two years, finally went into orbit at a time when storms in the Sahara that push dust into the Mediterranean Sea are infrequent. But researchers said luck was with them and they were able to obtain images of dust plumes. The first was made on Sunday, blowing from the western coast of Africa into the Atlantic. The big payoff was on Monday, on the last scheduled pass over the Mideast. ''On the last orbit over the Mediterranean,'' Dr. Joseph said, ''we got a nice dust storm over Israel. ''We just lucked out.'' Israeli scientists said they had clear images of cloud-to-space lightning, called sprites, and the first scientific pictures recorded from space that show an elf, a luminous doughnut-shape electrical glow above a thunderstorm that lasts less than a millisecond. Aside from the successful science, the mission is important to Dr. Joseph because Colonel Ramon is carrying a keepsake, a small Torah scroll used at Dr. Joseph's bar mitzvah almost 60 years ago while he was in a concentration camp in Germany. The elderly rabbi performing the ceremony, who died soon afterward in the camp, gave the Torah to the boy and told him to tell people what had occurred there. Dr. Joseph said Colonel Ramon saw the Torah when visiting his house and was so moved by the history that he asked to take it into space as a tribute. In an interview from space last week with Israeli officials, the astronaut displayed the Torah. ''This represents more than anything the ability of the Jewish people to survive despite everything from horrible periods, black days, to reach periods of hope and belief in the future,'' the colonel said. Because of the gesture from space, Dr. Joseph said, he feels he has finally fulfilled his promise to the rabbi.”

2004: Airing of the 13th episode of “Boston Public” co-starring Fyvush Finkel, Michael David Rapaport, Anthony Heald, Jessalyn Gilsig and Joey Slotnick following which it was announced that the series would be cancelled due to low ratings.

2004(7thof Shevat, 5764): Eighty-four-year-old Polish born dental student Bronek Jakubowicz, better known as Benjamin Jacobs, who survived Auschwitz thanks to his skill with dental tools that he carried in “a bright red box” which he called “his passport to survival and who described his experiences during the Holocaust including the bombing by the British of his prison ship in 1995 memoir The Dentist of Auschwitz passed away today.

https://www.doullbooks.com/product/122307

 

2005: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Lot’s Daughters: Sex, Redemption, and Women's Quest for Authority by Robert M. Polhemus and the newly released paperback editions of Growing Up Fast by Joanna Lipper and Oracle Night by Paul Auster

2005: In “The Observant Reader,” Wendy Shalit provides a prescient synopsis of the varying ways in which Orthodoxy is portrayed in contemporary literature.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F01E0DA1038F933A05752C0A9639C8B63

2005: A Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s “Pacific Overtures” which had opened at Studio 54 in 2004 closed today

2005: In “The Nation; One Clear Conscience, 60 Years After Auschwitz,” published today Roger Cohen tells the story of Miecyslaw Kasprzyk, an unsung hero of the Holocaust.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0CE0D7143BF933A05752C0A9639C8B63

2006(1st of Shevat, 5766): Playwright Wendy Wasserstein, author of the Heidi Chroniclesand The Sisters Rosensweig passed away at the age of 55.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/31/theater/31wasserstein.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

2007: It was announced today that Michael Abraham Levy who had been named Baron Levy, had been “arrested by police on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice regarding the cash for peerages investigation and immediately released on bail” Six months later he would be cleared of charges related to a scandal regarding charges of granting life peerages in exchange for political contributions.

2007: “The hardcover edition” of The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, a distant relation of David O. Selznick, was released today.

2007: “Farce of the Penguins,” an American direct-to-video parody of the 2005 French documentary film March of the Penguins with the two main characters voiced by Bob Saget (who also wrote and directed the film) and Lewis Black” was released today in the United States.

2007(11thof Shevat, 5767): Eighty-nine year old former supermarket executive Benjamin Saget, the father of Bob Saget, passed away today.

2007(11thof Shevat, 5767): Eighty-nine year old novelist Sidney Shelton passed away today in Ranch Mirage, CA.

http://web.archive.org/web/20061231180647/http://www.hachettebookgroupusa.com/features/sidneysheldon/meet_ss.html

2007: The House of Love and Prayer, a new multi-lingual musical based on the life of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, had its final performance at the JCC in Manhattan

2007: In Derby, UK, as part of Holocaust Memorial Day observances a screening of 'Into the Arms of Strangers,” for students from the Millennium Centre, with a Q&A session to follow with Steven Mendelsson who traveled on the “Kindertransports.”

2008: Today, “the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit denied John Demjanjuk’s request for a review” as he continued to fight the 2006 decision order his deportation.

2008: In Manhattan, the 92nd St Y presents Christopher Hitchens and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach in debating “Does God Exist?” Two of today’s most provocative voices as debate the ultimate religious question: Is there a God? Best-selling authors Christopher Hitchens and Shmuley Boteach pull no punches as they discuss organized religion and its place in American life.

2009: Maira Kalman started a new illustrated blog in the New York Times called “And the Pursuit of Happiness” about American democracy today

2009: Lillian Hellman’s “Scoundrel Time” opens at the City Lit Theatre in Chicago.

2009:Batsheva Dance Company, one of the most inspirational and sought-after companies in the dance world, presents its acclaimed production, ‘Three’ at the Performing Arts Center in Purchase, New York. 

2009: A swastika was discovered today at Congregation Shaarey Tphilohan Orthodox synagogue in Portland, Maine which claims to be Portland's oldest Jewish congregation.

2009 (5thof Shevat 5769: Milton Parker, who brought long lines and renown to the Carnegie Deli in Manhattan with towering pastrami sandwiches and a voluble partner who kibitzed with common folk and celebrities alike, passed away today at the age of 90. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/nyregion/05parker.html?_r=0

2010: The Museum of Modern Art is scheduled to present a musical event featuring Israeli pianist Menahem Pressler with the New York Chamber Soloists.

2010: The JCC on the Palisades in Tenafly, NJ, is scheduled to observe Tu B’Shevat with a program  of stories and songs led by Miki Rahav, of Kibbutz Yagur entitled “Celebrating 100 years of Kibbutz Life with Stories and Songs.”

2010(15thof Shevat, 5770): Tu B’Shevat

2010(15thof Shevat, 5770): Eighty-seven year old British historian Jack Richon Pole, the son of Ukrainian Jews who had found refuge in the UK, whose most famous work was Political Representation in Britain and the Origins of the American Republic passed away today.

2010(15thof Shevat, 5770): Aaron Ruben, who was a producer, writer and director for some of the most popular television comedies of the 1960s and ’70s, notably “The Andy Griffith Show,” “Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.” and “Sanford and Son,” passed away today at his home in Beverly Hills, at the age of 95. (As reported by William Grimes)http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2010/02/04/aaron_ruben_tv_producer_for_andy_griffith/

2010: Joëlle Alexis won the World Cinema Documentary prize for Editing tonight at Sundance for her work on Yael Hersonski's “A Film Unfinished.”  The movie examines an unfinished Nazi propaganda film about life in the Warsaw ghetto.

2011: Blood Relation, a documentary film by Noa Ben Hagai is scheduled to shown on the final day of the Seventh Annual Brooklyn Israel Film Festival.

2011:  At the 92nd Street Y Drawing on a compendium of more than 600 New York Times articles on the Civil War, Harold Holzer and Craig L. Symonds are scheduled to discuss revelations about America’s great conflict that are still affecting Americans today.

2011: Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit is scheduled to sponsor Super Sunday, the community wide telethon to benefit the Federation's 2011 Campaign.2011: “Return to Haifa” is scheduled to have its last performance at the Aaron & Cecile Goldman Theater, Washington DCJCC

2011: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Neoconservative Persuasion: Selected Essays, 1942-2009 by Irving Kristol, Panorama by H.G. Adler and Zero-Sum Future: American Power in an Age of Anxiety by Gideon Rachman

2011:Cyprus has recognized a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA said on today, following similar recent declarations coming mostly from South American states.

2011(25thof Shevat, 5771): Eugene Lubin, whose men and boys clothing store in suburban New York provided bar mitzvah suits for decades, and who was a longtime leader in Jewish organizations, passed away today at the age of 88. The store, Lubin's Men's World, has operated in several locations throughout Westchester County, just north of New York City. In 2010 it opened an operation within Rothman’s, an upscale men’s clothier in Scarsdale. “What happens when upscale specialty men’s clothier Rothman’s invites Lubin’s, the 56-year-old young men’s clothing institution (it has dressed generations of bar mitzvah boys), to move into his Scarsdale shop? Y-chromosome clothing kismet. From boys to men, all are suitably attired here at this brilliant -- and stylish -- pairing of retail roomies,” a Westchester magazine raved. Eric Schoen, who is active with the Jewish Council of Yonkers, said that “Gene Lubin was a man who cared greatly about the city of Yonkers and was involved in its business, civic, religious and philanthropic community." But, like others, Schoen also returned to Lubin’s bar mitzvah suits. "He also cared that bar mitzvah boys and anyone celebrating a special occasion looked perfect," Schoen said. "People traveled far and wide to get that perfect fit." Lubin was a former president of the Westchester Jewish Council and was a member of the Yonkers citizen budget commission in 1993. (As reported by the Eulogizer)

2011(25thof Shevat, 5771): Meyer O'hayon Tapiero, a Morocco native who was among the founders of the new Jewish community of Marbella in Andalusia, Spain, passed away at the age of 94. Tapiero and and his wife came to the resort town of Marbella in 1955 on a holiday from their home in Casablanca, where they had a successful men’s clothing business, and decided to set up their home and family in the Spanish region because he “felt the political change coming in Morocco and decided to look at new prospects beyond its borders.” His wife had come to Morocco from Berlin, which she fled in 1942. Tapiero convinced two brothers to join him in Spain, and they and other family members from Morocco built a synagogue and helped redevelop the community, which had been devoid of Jews since the Inquisition. The community is now a popular destination for Jewish tourism and has a Chabad house and other Jewish services (As reported by the Eulogizer)

2012: The 92ndStreet Y is scheduled to host “Terezin Between Celebration and Investigation” a frank and challenging discussion about the dual function of the art of Terezín led by Hanna Arie-Faifman and Michael Beckerman.

2012: The Israel Prisons Service parole board decided today to reduce the sentence of former minister Shlomo Benizri, a member of the Shas party who was recently sentenced to four years in prison for bribery and other offenses. The parole board decided to cut Benizri's sentence down by a year and four months, so the former minister is due to be released in April.

2012: The Jewish Federation of Arkansas announced today that President Bill Clinton will receive the Tikkun Olam Lifetime Achievement Award of the Jewish Federation of Arkansas a February 4 ceremony in Little Rock marking its 100th anniversary celebration dinner.

2013: The Library of Congress is scheduled to host a presentation on the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design featuring Professor Ezri Tabari, the founder and former chair of the Bezalel MA degree program in industrial design

2013: Jori Slodki is scheduled to teach a two hour class “Oy Vay! A History of Yiddish” at (of all places) Kirkwood Community College in Iowa City, Iowa.

2013: The ORT Braude Academic College of Engineering in Karmiel is scheduled to host the opening session of “From There to Here,” a month long event that will give 15 Oleh artists living in northern Israel showcase their works.

2013: Yeshiva University Museum with YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and Jewish Theological Seminary are scheduled to present a panel discussion featuring David G. Roskeis and Naomi Diament, the co-authors of the newly published Holocaust Literature: A History & Guide

2013: Former Representative Gabby Giffords gave a brief emotiaonal opening statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee that was holding hearings on gun violence.

2013: Israeli forces attacked a convoy on the Syrian-Lebanese border today, sources told Reuters, after Israelis warned their Lebanese enemy Hezbollah against using chaos in Syria to acquire anti-aircraft missiles or chemical weapons.

2013: Beitar Jerusalem soccer club welcomed Muslim Chechen players Zaur Sadayev and Gabriel Kadiev to the team in a press conference today attended by Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat and dozens of foreign reporters.

2014: “Nazi-looted paintings recovered by the Allies platoon known as the Monuments Men are scheduled to be sold at auction in New York” today. The four lots will go on the block at Sotheby’s in New as part of a sale of Old Master paintings and sculpture. Some of the works were owned by the Rothschild family. Two of the family’s paintings to be auctioned were placed in the private collection of Nazi leader Hermann Goering, Reuters reported.” (As reported by JTA)

2014: Joan Dodek (Past President, Washington Committee for Soviet Jewry) and Marcia Weinberg (Former Chair, Soviet Jewry Committee of Jewish Community Council) are scheduled to discuss their daring trips to visit refuseniks in the Soviet Union and involvement in the struggle to free Soviet Jewry at Washington Hebrew Congregation.

2014: In New York, the Jewish Museum is scheduled to host an evening of entertainment “featuring a live performance by Mirah” to mark the upcoming closing of “Chagall: Love, War and Exile.

2014: Rocket launched from the Gaza Strip hit in an open area in the Sdot Negev Regional Council. No injuries or damage were reported.

2014: Oxfam accepted actress Scarlett Johansson’s resignation as a global ambassador, calling the role “incompatible” with her work for the Israeli company SodaStream.“Oxfam has accepted Scarlett Johansson’s decision to step down after eight years as a Global Ambassador and we are grateful for her many contributions,” the global anti-poverty charity said in a statement issued today. “While Oxfam respects the independence of our ambassadors, Ms. Johansson’s role promoting the company SodaStream is incompatible with her role as an Oxfam Global Ambassador.” (As reported by JTA)

2014: The editors of an ultra-Orthodox daily newspaper today accused the State of Israel of encouraging anti-Semitism throughout the world, claiming that lax religious adherence in the nation and “harassment” of the Haredi community were to blame.

2015: Today, “after a week of intense political pressure and dwindling support, Sheldon Silver submitted his resignation as Speaker, effective February 2, while retaining his position as Assembly Memberand vowing to fight the charges against him.”

2015: Ernst Lutisch’s “Angel” is scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Cinematheque

2015: “Born Yesterday” is scheduled to be shown at the 92nd St Y as part of the Women on Top series.

2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to present “Piano Games” featuring Ariel Halevi, Dror Semmel and Michaek Serzekel.

2016: “Over 3500 selflessly committed and highly talented women including 4 from Arkansas are scheduled to spend Shabbat in New York, as part of the annual Chabad-Lubavitch International Kinus Hashluchos (conference of Chabad women representatives and their guests) which is held each year, at this time on the calendar, in conjunction with the yahrzeit of Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka Schneerson, wife of the Rebbe whose yahrzeit is the 22nd of Shevat.”

2016: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to present “The Best of Chamber Music - Essence of Piano Trios” featuring the Alexander Trio.

2016: The first of the two-part annual exhibition Illustrators 58 being held at the Museum of American Illustration at the Society of Illustrators featuring the work of Merav Salomon is scheduled to come to an end today.

2016: Shabbat Yitro – reading of the Ten Commandments

2017(3rdof Shevat, 5777): Eighty-eight year old “art historian and critic” Dorea Ashston, the daughter of Dr. Ralph Shapiro and Newark News reporter Sylvia Smith, passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/arts/design/dore-ashton-art-critic-who-embraced-and-inhabited-modernism-dies-at-88.html

http://www.artnews.com/2017/02/02/in-memorian-dore-ashton-1928-2017/

 

2017(3rdof Shevat, 5777): Ninety-five year old Holocaust surviving pianist Walter Hautzig passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/04/arts/music/walter-hautzig-dead-flee-nazis.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2017(3rdof Shevat, 5777): Ninety year old Tulane Graduate Harold Rosen, the engineer responsible for what has become our modern communication network passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/business/harold-rosen-dead-engineer-satellite.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

 

2017: In Boca Raton, FL, supporters of US Holocaust Memorial Museum from South Florida are scheduled to hold their annual luncheon where “Wendy Holden, author of Born Survivors: Three Young Mothers and their Extraordinary Story of Courage, Defiance, and Hope, will interview Eva Clarke, one of the infant survivors whose mothers are featured in the book.”

2018: As part of the observance of Holocaust Memorial Day, the Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to “Women in the Holocaust, “a talk by Holocaust historian Dr. Zoe Waxman, the author of Writing the Holocaust: memory, testimony, representation (2006), Anne Frank (2015), and Women in the Holocaust: A Feminist History of the Holocaust (2017), as well as numerous articles relating to the Holocaust and genocide who teaches in the Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University of Oxford.

2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a Tu B’Shevat Seder this evening.

2018: Professor Deborah Lipstadt of Emory University is scheduled to lecture on “Anti-Semitism Past and Present” as part of the History Matters “a new lecture series at the Center for Jewish History.”

2018: Leonard Stein is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Jewish Spain in American Tongue: The Sephardic Return of Emma Lazarus” at the Center for Jewish History.

2018: As part of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration “Father Sam Argenziano of Winnipeg’s Holy Rosary Parish Church is scheduled to speak on the role the Catholic Church played during the Holocaust.

2018(14thof Shevat, 5778): Ninety-one year old cardiologist and author Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/obituaries/dr-isadore-rosenfeld-high-profile-cardiologist-dies-at-91.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

 

2019(24thof Shevat, 5779): On the Jewish calendar, date on which “the prophet Zechariah predicted the rebuilding of Zion.”

http://www.aish.com/dijh/Shevat_24.html

2019: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to host an “evening featuring former CIA analyst and renowned scholar Kenneth Pollack, the author of Armies of Sand in conversation with Algemeiner editor-in-chief Dovid Efune” during which they will discuss the “changing Arab military threat to Israel.”

2019: In Memphis, members of Temple Israel are scheduled to “with the Community Shlicah Meitave” for a conversational Hebrew class that will help attendees build on their “existing foundation of Hebrew while exploring contemporary news, music and other aspects of Israeli culture.”

2019: In Cedar Rapids, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to discuss Not Our Kind: A Novelby Kitty Zeldis.

2019: Observance of National Croissant Day.  Oddly enough the croissant and the bagel – two signature “breads” – are connected to the same event in history.  According to legend when the Ottomans were laying to siege in Vienna in 1683, “the bakers of Vienna, who worked in the basement storerooms, heard the sound of Turks digging tunnels and alerted the” military authorities. For their vigilance, the bakers received high honors and thanks for their assistance in outwitting the Turks. In celebration, they baked their bread in the shape of a crescent moon—the symbol of the Ottoman Empire. After the Turks were defeated, it became custom to serve morning coffee with the crescent-shaped pastry!

According to another legend , bagels were invented during the same siege by a Viennese baker trying to pay tribute to the King of Poland, Jan Sobieski” who “had led Austria (and hence Poland as well, since it was part of the empire) in repelling invading Turkish armies. Given that the king was famous for his love of horses, the baker decided to shape his dough into a circle that looked like a stirrup -- or beugel in German. (As reported by Ari Weinzeig and “Days of the Year”)

Those living in Cedar Rapids who observe the dietary laws can take part in the observance those to Aldi’s and Trader Joe’s both of which carry kosher versions of the golden, flakey, delicacy.

2020: As National Croissant Day is scheduled to be observed, Jews can also contemplate the taste of its close relation – Rugelach.

https://blog.arousingappetites.com/rugelach-traditional-jewish-croissant-pastries-walnut-chocolate-filling-cream-cheese-dough/

2020: The JCCSF is scheduled to Dani Shapiro, as the author of Inheritance talks about her DNA test that uncovered family secrets and led to discoveries about her ancestry.

2020: In Walnut Creek, CA, Congregation B’nai Shalom is scheduled to host “Violins of Hope: Along the Trade Route” featuring four Bay Area violinists including Cookie Segelstein.

2020: The JCC of Greater Boston is schooled to a panel discussion “Can Faith and Politics Be Separated?”

2020: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host Dr. Jessica Marglin’s lecture on “The Jews of North Africa Under French Colonialism.

2020: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today in Marion, IA for businessman and pillar of the Jewish Community Bert Katz who was one of those brave men who came ashore with the first waves at Omaha Beach and led his men in all the major battles in the ETO as they fought to end Nazi tyranny.

2021: Based on reports published yesterday, as Israelis celebrate Shabbat, they are confronted with the reality that a growing proportion of Israel’s middle class is being plunged into poverty because of job loss and “the burden of soaring expenses..”

2021: Israel’s foreign ministry has stepped up security at its embassies around the world in light of the explosion of bomb yesterday outside the Israeli embassy in New Delhi.

2021: Kehilat Sukkat Shalom is scheduled to host a full day of programming to embrace space for rest and reflection, and the kehilah’s favorite holiday – Tu B’Shvat, the Birthday of Trees.

2021(17thof Shevat, 7801): Parashat Beshalach; Shabbat Shirah; This is the same portion that was read on January 27, 1945 when Auschwitz was liberated.  For more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

 

 

This Day, January 31, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. and Deb Levin Z"L

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January 31

314: Sylvester I whose name is “the Israeli term for New Year’s night celebrations” began his papacy

“The Israeli term for New Year’s night celebrations, “Sylvester,” was the name of the “Saint” and Roman Pope who reigned during the Council of Nicaea (325 C.E.). The year before the Council of Nicaea convened Sylvester convinced Constantine to prohibit Jews from living in Jerusalem. At the Council of Nicaea, Sylvester arranged for the passage of a host of viciously anti-Semitic legislation. All Catholic “Saints” are awarded a day on which Christians celebrate and pay tribute to that Saint’s memory. December 31 is Saint Sylvester Day – hence celebrations on the night of December 31 are dedicated to Sylvester’s memory. (As reported by Jewlicious)

439: Promulgation of the Code of Theodosius II in the Byzantine Empire. This was the first imperial compilation of anti- Jewish laws since Constantine. Jews were prohibited from holding important positions involving money including judicial and executive offices and the ban against building new synagogues was reinstated. Theodosius was the Roman emperor of the East (408–450) The Code was readily accepted as well by Western Roman Emperor Valentinian III (425-455).

579: The reign of Khosrow I (or Chosroes I)  who “protected the rights of Christian and Jewish minoirites” when he “destroyed Antioch” in 540 came to an end today.

1253: Henry III of England ordered that Jewish worship in Synagogues must be held quietly so that Christians should not have to hear it when passing by. In addition, Jews were not to employ Christian nurses or maids, nor was any Jew allowed to prevent another Jew from converting to Christianity.

1419: Pope Martin V issued a Bull that abolished the oppressive laws promulgated by antipope Benedict XIII and granted the Jews those privileges which had been accorded them under previous popes.

1493: Jews fleeing Spain were no longer allowed to enter to enter Genoa. During the previous year Jews fleeing Spain were allowed to land in Genoa for three days. As of this date the special consideration was cancelled due to the “fear” that the Jews may introduce the Plague.

1504: France ceded Naples to Aragon. Jews had lived in Naples in comparative freedom but began to suffer persecution when the French conquered the kingdom in 1495.  Conditions worsened when the Spanish began to rule the southern Italian land and by 1541 the Jewish community ceased to exist.

1674(24th of Shevat): Rabbi Abraham Auerbach of Coesfeld, Germany instituted an annual fast in commemoration of his expulsion on this date.

1684(Shevat, 5444): Benedict (Baruch) Nehamias de Castro, who was so successful in practicing medicine in his hometown of Hamburg “that in 1645 he was appointed physician in ordinary to Queen Christina of Sweden” passed away today.

1788: Charles Edward Stuart the leader of the Jacobite force whose invasion had caused panic among many of London’s financiers, except most notably Sampson Gideon” who provided the government with money and support, were defeated today at the Battle of Culloden which ended a major threat to the Hanovarian English monarchy passed away today.

1795: Alexander Hamilton, the native of Nevis who according to some was the son a Jewess Rachel Levine and who attended the island’s Jewish school before leaving for North America, completed his six years of service as the first United States Secretary of the Treasury.

1796: In Kingston, Jacob Bueno Henriques and Sarah Henriques gave birth to Joseph Gutteres Henriques who settled in London where he married Eliza Henriques with whom he had two children.

1800: New York native Moses Myers and Eliza Judah gave birth to Abram Myers.

1812: In London, Isabel and Isaac Lyon Goldsmid gave birth to Frederick David Goldsmid, the MP for Honiton and husband of Caroline Samuel with whom he had nine children.

1813: Birthdate of Dutch physician, pharmacist and philanthropist, Samuel Sarphati. “One of the great Amsterdammers of the 19th century,” Sarphati, was a promoter of public housing, an organizer of municipal services such as garbage collecting, and the builder of a bread factory that provided better and cheaper bread for the city. He also built the Amstel hotel. Sarphati is seen by Dutch history as a great philanthropist. Nobody ever knew he was Jewish—until the Germans authorities changed the name Sarphati Street into “Muiderschans”.

1820(15thof Shevat, 5580): Tu B’Shevat is observed for the last time during the Presidency of James Madison.

1828(15thof Shevat, 5588): Tu B’Shevat

1828: Abraham Joseph married Eliza Wolf in the United Kingdom

1830: Birthdate of James G. Blaine, the unsuccessful Republican candidate for U.S. President who while serving as Secretary of State was presented with “a petition signed by 413 Jewish and Christian leaders including John and William Rockefeller, calling for an international conference on the Jews and Palestine.”

1830: In South Moravia Löbl Strakosch and Julia Schwarz gave birth their daughter Josefina Strakosch.

1838: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi Poznanski officiated at the marriage of Samuel Sampson to Catherine Goldsmith, “the only daughter of the late Isaac Goldsmith.”

1842(20thof Shevat, 5602): Seventy-seven-year-old Emanuel Deutz who had been serving as Chief Rabbi of France since 1810 passed away today.

1842: In St. Mary’s, Camden Country, GA, Lieutenant Levi Charles Harby married Leonora R. D’Lyon the daughter of Levi S. D’Lyon of Savannah, GA at the residence of Dr. Francis O. Curtis.

1845: The government Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler permission to leave Hanover so that he could move to London and assume the position of Chief Rabbi.

1846: After the Milwaukee Bridge War, Juneautown and Kilbourntown were incorporated to form the modern city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Four years prior to this, the families of Solomon Adler, Isaac Neustadt, and Moses Weil settled in the city.  As proof of the vibrancy of the young community, during the 1840’s the first Rosh Hashanah services were held at the home of Henry Newhouse and the first Yom Kippur Services were held in a building containing Pereles grocery store.  For more about the history of the Jews of Milwaukee consider a visit to the Jewish Museum of Milwaukee or reading "One People, Many Paths: A History of Jewish Milwaukee," by John Gurda.

1841(9thof Shevat, 5601): German Jewish music teacher Moses Budinger who “edited the Jewish ritual for festivals with a grammatical commentary in Hebrew and the penitential prayers with a commentary” passed away in Cassel today.

1848: Lazarus and Sara Straus gave birth to Nathan Straus the wealthy American businessman and philanthropist who owned R.H. Macy and Company and Abraham and Straus. Born in Otterberg, Germany, Strauss moved to the United States with his family in 1854 where they first settled in Georgia before moving to New York City after the Civil War where young Nathan worked in his father’s firms L Straus & Sons.  In the 1880’s he began a life of philanthropy and public service that included leading the fight against tuberculosis and a major effort to improve the public libraries.  His philanthropy extended to developing a Jewish homeland in Eretz Israel following his first visit to the area in 1912.  His support is memorialized by the fact that a street in the Jerusalem is called “Rehov Straus” and that the modern Israeli city of Netanya, founded in 1927, was named in his honor

1849: One day after he had passed away, Joshua bar Jacob was buried today at the “Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.”

1851(28th of Shevat, 5611): David Spangler Kaufman passed away. Born in 1813,Kaufman was the first Jewish United States Congressman from Texas. No other Jewish Texan served in Congress until Martin Frost in 1979. He was born in Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania. After graduating with high honors from Princeton College in 1830, he studied law under John A. Quitman in Natchez, Mississippi, and was admitted to the bar. He began his legal career in Natchitoches, Louisiana, five years later. In 1837 Kaufman settled in Nacogdoches, Texas, where he practiced law and participated in military campaigns against the Cherokee Indians. He was wounded in an encounter in 1839. Between 1838 and 1845 he was a member of the Republic of Texas's congress. He served in the Republic's House of Representatives from 1838 to 1842, and was Speaker of the House in the last two years. He was a member of the Texas Senate from 1843 to 1845, when president of Texas Anson Jones named him chargé d'affaires to the United States in February 1845. After the Texas Annexation,Kaufman represented the Eastern District (District 1 of Texas in the United States House of Representatives from 1845 to 1851. While in Congress, Kaufman argued unsuccessfully that Texas owned lands that are now parts of New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Wyoming, and Oklahoma. He encouraged Governor of Texas Peter Hansborough Bell to have Texas troops seize Santa Fe, New Mexico, which never occurred. He also played a role in the Compromise of 1850, as one result of which the national government assumed the debts of the former republic. Kaufman was a Freemason and a charter member of the Philosophical Society of Texas. He died in Washington, D.C. while attending the Congress, and was originally buried in the Congressional Cemetery there. In 1932 his remains were moved to the State Cemetery in Austin, Texas. Kaufman County, Texas and the city of Kaufman, Texas are named for him.

1853: In Woodville, MS, Jacob Schwartz and Judith Morritz Schwartz gave birth to Lazarus “Lazar” Schwartz, the husband of Texan Sophia Weyl Schwartz with whom he had three children – Lucille, Edgar and Florence.

1856: F.W. Evans delivered a lecture tonight entitled "Shakerism" during which he described numerous similarities in the beliefs and/or practices of the Shakers and those of the Jews. This positive view Jews may be one of the reasons that systemic European style anti-Semitism never took firm root in the United States.

1860: In Prague, Simon Heller and Mathilde Kassanowitz gave birth to Maximilian Heller, the Rabbi at Temple Sinai in New Orleans who was the husband of Ida Annie Heller.

http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0033/ms0033.html

1863: In Marietta, GA, Barnet Phillips, the son of Isaac and Sarah Phillips and his wife Josephine Phillips gave birth to Henry Myers Phillips

1863: Birthdate of Landstuhl, Germany native Lazarus Reinheimer, the husband of Karoline Klien and the father of Ludwig Reinheimer.

1864(23rdof Shevat, 5624): Fifty-one-year-old Bavarian lawyer Fischel Arnheim whose legal reputation led to his election four times to the Bavarian Legislature from the cities of Hof and Munchberg.

1864(23rdof Shevat, 5624): Fifty-five-year-old Rabbi Michael Sachs who was enlightened enough to be “one of the first Jewish graduates from the modern universities” but who “so strongly opposed the introduction of the organ into the Synagogue that he retired from the Rabbinate rather than acquiesce” which led him to a literary life that included a new translation of the Bible passed away today.

1865: The House of Representatives passed the 13th Amendment today paving the way for it to be sent to the States for ratification. 

1866(15thof Shevat, 5626): Tu B’Shevat

1869: Birthdate of Hungary native Morris Newfield who in 1894 came to the United States where he graduated from Hebrew Union College, became the rabbi at Temple Emanu-El, married Leah Ullman, the daughter of Samuel Ullman, with whom he raised four children, Emma, Mayer, Lena and John Newfield

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/newfield-morris

http://americanjewisharchives.org/publications/journal/PDF/2007_59_01_02_doc_langston.pdf

1869: One day after he had passed away, 78 year old Edward Van Weerden, the husband of Caroline Van Weerden was today buried in the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”

1870: Birthdate of German author Dr. Eduard Fuchs whose works included Jews in Caricature and who was “violently attacked by the Nazi regime” and forced to flee Germany “because his second wife, the former Grete Alsberg was a Jewess.”

1876: In the village of Longdowns, Cornwall, Thomas and Jane Hocking Spargo gave birth to John Spargo, the author of The Jews and American Ideals in which he “attacked the problem of anti-Semitism and exposes the un-American nature and its positive danger to American ideals and institutions.”

https://www.amazon.com/Jew-American-Ideals-John-Spargo/dp/1543140858#reader_1543140858

1871: It was reported today that the Russian government has issued an imperial decree exempting Jews from military service once they reach the age of 32.  Christians are exempt once they reach the age of 23. Any Jew who converts will not have to serve in the military – another example of “proselytism by main force.”

1874: In the United Kingdom, start of the general election in which Benjamin Disraeli’s Conservatives would win a majority of the seats in the House of Commons.

1881: As of today, the books of the Board of Endowment of the Grand Lodge of the order Kesher Shel Barzel, District No.1 showed a deficiency of $2,996.36 which would later be attributed to embezzlement by President Oettinger.

1811: In London, Minna and Anton Dunkelsbuhler gave birth to George Dunkelsbuler.

1881: Three days after she had passed away, 85-year-old Hannah Simmons was buried today at “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1884(4thof Shevat, 5644): Thirty-nine-year-old German orientalist Siegfried Goldschmidt who fought in the Franco-Prussian War and died today of spinal consumption before he could assume his duties as a professor at the University of Strasburg.

1885: Twenty-one-year-old pianist Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler made “her New York debut came today with a performance of Anton Buinstein’s Concerto in D Minor

1886: Birthdate of Yehuda Leyb Schwarzmann who gained fame as Lev Shestov a Russian - Jewish existentialist philosopher. The Kiev native fled to France in 1921 seeking to escape the society created by the Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution.  He lived in Paris until his death in 1938.

1890: Henry A. Jackson, the Secretary of the Emigration Commission received a letter from Charles Frank, the Superintendent of the United Hebrew Charities attesting to the ability of Moses Gershonfeldt to be able to provide for his wife and four children who were being held at Ward’s Island because Commissioner Stephenson had arbitrarily denied them admission even though Moses, a butcher who earned $12 a week and his son Joseph who earned $9 a week had come to his office, described their financial condition and sought to leave with his wife and remaining children whose passage he had paid so that the family could be reunited.

1891: Twenty-nine-year-old “Edward Lawrence Levy” won “the first British amateur weight lifting championship today.

1891: During the Congressional Investigation of the management of the Barge Office, Colonel John B. Weber the former Superintendent Weber testified as to how the United Hebrew Charities had offered to care for a poor Englishwoman that Dr. Drum and the “powerful and wealthy Episcopal church” had to turned its back on leading Weber to say that he “prayed if he was to be born again he should be born a Jews for then he would have somebody to care of him if he should ever be in need.”

1892: In New York City, Meta and Mechel Iskowitz gave birth to Edward Israel Iskowitz the orphan who was raised by his grandmother Esther Kantrowtiz and gained fame as Eddie Cantor.

http://eddiecantor.com/

1892: It was reported today that six members of the senior class at Rutgers are studying Hebrew, “the study of which is increasing in” the United States.

1892: Birthdate of Moritz Guttman the native Kleinsteinach who fought in the German Army during WW I.

1892: Rabbi Henry S. Jacobs of B’nai Jeshrun officiated at the funeral of Benjamin Russak which was held at his home and followed by burial at Cypress Hills. The police were on hand to deal with the large number of carriages that brought a throng of the city’s leading business leaders and prominent members of the Jewish community.

1892: Charles Spurgeon, the English Reformed Baptist Minister who expressed his disgust for the Czar’s treatment of his Jewish subjects, passed away. “If I had all the health and strength that could fall to the lot of man, I should be quite unable to express my feelings on reading of Russia’s intolerance of the Jews…The Czar is greatly injuring his own country by driving out God’s ancient people.  No country can trample with impunity.”

1892: “The Russian Exiles” published today described efforts by the Jewish community to meet the needs of the swelling tide of immigrants that is arriving from Europe.  According to the United Hebrew Charities 62,574 Jews arrived in New York last with five-sixths or 54,194 of them coming from Russia.  The total included 26,891 men, 16,393 women and 19,290 children.  Only 195 of the immigrants were sent back to Europe by the U.S. government while 46,029 have remained in the city with the rest having been provided transportation to other cities.

1893: The Jewish community of Philadelphia is scheduled to host a charity ball today to which President-elect Grover Cleveland was invited by A.E. Greenwald and Chapman Raphael.

1893: “L’Amico Fritz” Mascagni’s second opera is scheduled to be performed at the Music Hall tonight under the direction of Walter Damrosch with the proceeds going to the Hebrew Educational Institute.

1893: Charles Frohman “signed a contract” today” under which his comedians will open at the Garden Theatre” in September.

1893: In Indianapolis, Harry and Hannah (Schiff) Efroymson gave birth to Abram Efroymson, a member of the United States Army Field Artillery during WW I and President of the Terminal and Refrigeration Corporation who was leader of the Cleveland Jewish community and the husband of Sylvia Spira with whom he had two children – Alan and John.

https://prabook.com/web/abram_b.efroymson/1054688

1894: Birthdate of Brooklyn native and NYU trained otolaryngologist Max Rabbiner, the husband of “the former Eva Ruttenberg.”

1894: Birthdate of Otto Gunstling who was transported from Prague to Ujazdow to Majdanek where he was murder in 1942.

1895: Birthdate of New York native Alfred Augustus Haldenstein, the Chemist who earned a B.S. from Columbia in 1915’

1895: Thirty-two-year-old Pittsburgh, PA attorney Joseph Stadfeld, the New York City born son of Moritz and Sophie (Spier) Stadtfeld and member of Rodef Shalom Congregation married Carrie Edmundson today in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

1895: Isaac Spectosky of the Hebrew Institute was among those who attended today’s meeting of the Federation of East Side Workers.

1896: In Philadelphia PA, the American Jewish Historical Society held the final day of it fourth annual conference during which Dr. Cyrus Adler present a paper on “Notes on the Inquisition in Mexico and the Jews”; Max Kohler presented a paper on “The Jews and the American Anti-Slavery Movement” and Professor Morris Jastrow presented a paper on “Documents Relating to the Career of Colonel Isaac Franks.”

1896: In Charleston, W.Va., Rosa and Lewis S. Strauss gave birth to Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss, the financier and husband of Alice Hanauer who worked with Herbert Hoover on providing food relief during World War, became a Rear Admiral in the Navy and served as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission.

https://www.nytimes.com/1974/01/22/archives/lewis-strauss-dies-exhead-of-aec-lewis-l-strauss-former-chairman-of.html?searchResultPosition=1

1897: Dr. Emil G. Hirsch was among those who attended a conference of South Side Charities in Chicago, Illinois.

1897: Two days after she had passed away, Fanny Lyons, the daughter of Henry and Maria Nathan and the wife of Aaron Lyons with whom she had had four children was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1897: Rabbi Gustav Gottheil preached a sermon entitled “Rights and Wrongs of Rich and Poor” at Temple Emanu-El this morning.

1897: The Jewish Socialists’ Convention continued its meeting for another day at the Walhalla Hall on Orchard Street.

1897: Professor Richard J.H. Gottheil “delivered the fifth and last course of his on ‘The Geography of Palestine’ at Temple Emanu-El” this evening.  Gottheil is the son of the congregation’s rabbi and the college professor who helped found Zeta Beta Tau.

1897: Twenty-four-year-old Montgomery, Alabama native I.O. Schiff, the son of Rabbi Abraham J. Schiff and a member of the New York firm of Schiff Bros. married Stella Newmark with whom he had three children – Ruth, Stanley T. and Roslyn Schiff.

1898: It was reported today that Mrs. Esther Wallenstein has been elected President of the Hebrew Infant Asylum Association and that Maurice Untermyer has been elected Vice President

1898: It was reported today that arrangements are being completed for a debated between representatives of the Jewish Technical School, the Hebrew Institute and the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.

1898: It was reported today that Rabbi Gustav Gottheil views newspapers “as the recorders and distributors of the world’s daily history” which provide information that will break down prejudice.

1898: It was reported today that the committee that is trying to building the first Jewish hospital in Brooklyn has selected four potential sites. The committee’s officers are: President – Robert Strahl; Vice President – Sigmund Wechsler; Secretary – Charles Levy

1899: The seventh annual meeting of the Hebrew Free Loan Association was held this evening at the Educational Alliance on East Broadway

1899: It was reported today that the officers of the Union of Jewish Religious Schools are: President-Richard Gottheil; Vice Presidents – Miss Julia Rachman and Dr. Kaufmann Kohler; Honorary Treasurer – A.F. Hochstader; Honorary Secretary – Rabbi Stephen O. Wise

1899: Daniel P. Hays presided over a dinner given by the Judeans to honor Dr. Cyrus Adler who is the newly elected President of the American Jewish Historical Society.

1900(1stof Adar I, 5660): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1900: “Jacob Oppenheimer, sold for a client, a four-story flat on Lexington Avenue for $25,000.

1902: Edwin Thanhouser, the Baltimore born son of Samuel and Julia Thanhouser and actor who went on to start the Thanhouser Film Coporation in New Rochelle, NY and the former Gertrude Homan gave birth to Lloyd Tanhouser.

1903(3rdof Shevat, 5663): Parashat Bo

1903: “Three Jewish families from Roumania” who spoke only Spanish” landed today at Ellis Island and through an interpreter, Ephraim Navon, explained that they “were the descendants of Jewish who had been driven out Spain during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.”

1904: In Germany, Samuel and Malchen Jeselsohn gave birth to Albert Jeselsohn

1905: The Correspondent for the Daily Mail telegraphed a report of the violent outbreak in Warsaw in which he noted that the “Jewish shops have been the special mark for plunder.”

1906: Birthdate of Benjamin Frankel, the London born composer who was “the son of Polish-Jewish immigrants.”

http://www.musicweb-international.com/frankel/

1906: “School Principal’s Answer” published today described the hearing held today by District School Board No. 39 to determine if Principal Frank Harding’s references to Christ last December at an assembly at Public School 144 were an attempt to proselytize students at the school in a neighborhood “inhabited almost entirely by Jews” as first alleged by a student Augusta Herbert.

1906: “Cossacks Massacre Jews” published today described the attacks on the Jews of Gomel by Cossacks whose efforts “to obtain evidence of revolutionary activity” degenerated into an orgy of drunken looting and murder.

1906: Maurice Arnoff and Adolf Spiegel of Temple El Chaim officiated at the wedding of Solomon Levin who manufacturers wax images and Mollie Mogilewsky, the daughter of east side banker Rubin Mogilewsky which was held at the Attorney Street Synagogue.

1906: The engagement of Benjamin Mogilwesky, the son of east side banker Rubin Mogilewsky to Rebecca Thomas as announced today.

1907: “Miss Hook of Holland” a two-act musical comedy “with music and lyrics by Paul Rubens” who co-authored the book “opened at the Prince of Wales Theatre” today where it would run for 462 performances.

1908: It was reported today that Vladimir K. Stoleschnikoff, one of the early leaders of “The Will of the People,” a Russian revolutionary organization who maintained “close relations with the radical wing of the Russian Jewish community” has passed away passed away in Mobile, AL.

1909: Birthdate Yosef Burg, “a seminal Israeli political figure who was a Cabinet Minister for 35 years as a head of the religious Zionist movement…” (As reported by Deborah Sontag)

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/16/world/yosef-burg-90-zionist-leader-served-in-many-israeli-cabinets.html?scp=1&sq=Yosef+Burg&st=nyt&pagewanted=print

1910: Birthdate of Giorgio Perlasca, an Italian who, with the collaboration of official diplomats, posed as the Spanish consul-general to Hungary in the winter of 1944, and saved 5218 Jews from deportation to Nazi Germany death camps in eastern Europe.

1910: Today, Alphonse Weiner was appointed to the Board of Education in New York.

1911(2ndof Shevat, 5671): Sixty-seven-year-old Paul Singer, a leading German Marxist and a co-chairman of the Social Democratic Party passed away.

1911: Julian Mack began serving as a justice on the Seventh Court of Appeals

1912: It was reported today that “The State Department professes complete ignorance of the source or authority of the bill reported to have been introduced in the Russian Duma proposing the exclusion of American Jews from the empire and providing for increased duties on American goods entering Russian ports.”

1913(23rdof Shevat, 5673): Sixty-year-old Alfred Cohen, a “Councillor at the Supreme Court of Justice, passed away today in Munich.

1913: Moses and Beila Scheindlinger gave birth to Samuel Scheindlinger, the graduate of NYU Law School and Manhattan resident who served as a Commissioner of Deeds.

1914(4thof Shevat, 5674): Parashat Bo

1914: In a letter to the German press, Dr. Paul Nathan, the distinguished German Jewish leader, replied to accusations leveled against him by Zionists “including certain well-known Jews” in the United States in which he “emphatically denied that the lion’s share of the capital for the New Technical College and other institutions in Palestine has been contributed by Americans”  saying that the Americans had subscribed $160,000, the Russian had subscribed $100,000 and the Germans $100,000 and that since the Germans and the Americans have an “equal financial” interest in the college, the Germans are entitled to advance their contention that German, and not Hebrew, should be the language of instruction.

1915: Birthdate of Altoona, PA native Maurice Howard “Babe” Patt  the Carnegie Tech tight end who played professionally the NFL Detroit Lions and Cleveland Rams before spending WW II in the U.S. Navy.

http://blaircountysportshof.com/maurice-patt/

http://blaircountysportshof.com/wp-content/uploads/1989-Maurice-Patt.pdf

1915: “New Jewish Magazine” published today described the publication by the Intercollegiate Menorah Association of the first issue of The Menorah Journal a bi-monthly under the guidance of editor in chief Henry Hurwitz which includes the following articles: “A Call to the Educated Jew” by Louis Brandeis; “Jewish Students in European Universities” by Harry Wolfson; “The Jews in War” by Dr. Joseph Jacobs and “Days of Disillusionment” by Samuel Strauss.

1915: In Atlanta, GA, “the jury in the case of Dan S. Lehon, C.C. Tedder and Arthur Forman charge with subornation of a perjury in an effort to obtain a new trial for Leo M. Frank, convicted of the murder of Mary Phagan, brought in a verdict of not guilty at 1:50 this afternoon.”

1915: “If Leo Frank obtains his freedom from the United States Supreme Court, it was announced today that Solicitor Dorsey would make an effort to have him indicted by the Grand Jury on one of two other charges” and that “Solicitor Dorsey said he intended to fight the case to the bitter end.”

1915: “Another batch” of refugees from Palestine have arrived at Alexandria aboard “the United States warship Tennessee which has been fitted up as transport” and have provided information that shows “the inability of the Turks to anything that is effective against Egypt

1915: It was reported today that “the Russian Government is now seeking to re-establish the autocracy as it existed before granting of the constitution” and has returned to its practice of organizing demonstrations against the Jews.

1915: “Refugees who have arrived in Egypt from Palestine report that conditions go from bad to worse” with “relations between the German and Turkish officers have reached a stage of acute tension.”

1916: While developments today with respect to the nomination of Louis D. Brandeis to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court did not change the rather general opinion among Senators that the nomination would be confirmed, it became more apparent that confirmation would not be accomplished without a struggle.

1916: It was reported today that New York Assemblymen Nathan Perlman and Myer Levy were among those who attended the dance held “by the Madison Republican of the Twenty-Sixth Assembly District for the benefit of war sufferers.”

1916: In a sign of the non-sectarian nature of the fund raising efforts on behalf of the Jews of Europe, it was reported that Senator Boise Penrose and Congressman William S. Vare were among those who spoke at the Philadelphia Mass Meeting organized by the American Jewish Relief Committee.

1916: Sendel and Riva Grynszpan, the parents of Herschel Grynsapan (the alleged assassin of Ernst von Rath) gave birth to their third child and second daughter, Esther.

1916: As a measure of the worsening conditions in Russia, “many commercial and technical associations have adopted resolutions declaring the restrictions placed up the Jews are the reason for Russia’s commercial backwardness.”

1916: Among those who paid tribute to Dr. Joseph Jacobs “the noted Jewish scholar and editor of the American Hebrew” who passed away yesterday were Cyrus L. Sulzberger, “Dr. Frank H. Vizitelly, the scholar and author associated with Dr. Jacobs in many of the publications issued by Funk and Wagnalls” and Louis Marshall.”

1916: “The National Jewish Workmen’s Committee on Jewish Rights announced” today “that it will submit to Congress document expositing atrocities practice on the Jews in the warring countries of Europe.”

1917: In a move that will bring the United States into World War I, Germany announces it will resume its policy of allowing U-Boats “attack any and all ships, including civilian passenger carriers, said to be sighted in war-zone waters” – a practice popularly referred to as “unrestricted submarine warfare.”

1917: As the debate over immigration continued to rage across the American political spectrum, Max J. Kohler, the son of Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler wrote today that “No doubt a very large portion of the thoughtful and patriotic citizens of our country hope that Congress will sustain the President’s veto of the Immigration bill and particularly is that true of those who, like the Jewish citizens of the United States, love our hallowed American precedent of right of asylum for the persecuted…

1918(18th of Shevat, 5678): Dr. Jechiel Tchlenow, the Moscow physician who was a major leader of the Zionist movement passed away. In 1917, Tchlenow had come to London “where he took an active part in the diplomatic negotiations that have resulted in official declarations by Great Britain” favoring the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

1919: Birthdate of Jackie Robinson, the man who broke the color barrier in major league baseball when he played with the Brooklyn Dodgers. . Robinson was befriended by Hank Greenberg, the Jewish slugger who had had to deal with bigotry during his career.  According to Jonathan Eig, the only friends that Robinson had in Brooklyn during his first year “were Jewish people.” “The Jewish community clearly recognized a kindred spirit here, someone who had to prove himself. The war had just ended, [and] anti-Semitism was running high. Blacks and Jews both, after the war, felt they had some work to do to establish more respect."

1921: The Supreme Court overturned the conviction of Victor Berger. Berger had been convicted of violating the Espionage Act and sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. In overturning the conviction, the Supreme Court found that the presiding Judge, Kennesaw Landis (the future Baseball Commissioner) had improperly presided over the case after the filing of an affidavit of prejudice.

1922: In New York City, playwright and movie producer Frank Mandel, the San Francisco born son of Emanuel and Caroline Carrie Mandel and his wife Alice Wallerstein Mandel gave birth to Alfred M. Mandel

1923: In Long Branch, NJ, “Isaac Barnett Mailer, an accountant born in South Africa” and the former Fanny Schneider gave birth to Pulitzer Prize winning author Norman Mailer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/10/books/11mailer.html

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/nov/10/books.booksnews

1924: Birthdate of Marion Ruth Abitz, the wife of Irving Abitz

1924: In Pontiac, Michigan, Fannie Ester Blustin and Philip Taubman gave birth to mall developer Adolph Alfred Taubman.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/business/a-alfred-taubman-shopping-mall-tycoon-involved-in-price-fixing-scandal-dies-at-91.html

1925: Birthdate of Charles Eliot Silberman, the native of Des Moines, Iowa, who gained fame as “a journalist whose books addressed vast, turbulent social subjects including race, education, crime and the state of American Jewry.” (As reported by Margalit Fox)

1928: Nathan Straus, prominent philanthropist, celebrated the eightieth anniversary of his birthday today at his home, 580 West End Avenue.  He will spend the day quietly with members of his immediate family. Among those sending congratulatory communications are President Calvin Coolidge and New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker. While Straus has gained great honor for his humanitarian efforts, he was proud of his business acumen and some of his unique accomplishments which, according to him, included the introduction of rest rooms and medical care employees.  His philanthropic contributions in Palestine were made with the understanding that they would be available to all regardless of race, religion, creed or nationality.  Everybody knows about his support of Jewish settlers, but how many people are aware of the fact that he gave funds that were to be used by Arabs so that they buy modern agricultural equipment?  How many people known that when Palestine was struck by an earthquake, and Arabs were the chief victims, he sent a substantial sum earmarked for their use?  

1928: Mrs. Hertha Fuerth Lasker, a Viennese artist who was married last August to Edward Lasker, one of the leading chess players in the United States and a cousin of Albert Lasker, former Chairman of the United States Shipping Board, was a passenger on the Hamburg-American liner which arrived in New York tonight.

1929:Stalin expelled Leon Trotsky Russia.  Trotsky took refuge in Turkey.

1930: The Golden Ring, a romantic operetta, set in Tel Aviv, premiered at the National Theatre on Second Avenue in New York City.

1930: The trial of Simcha Hinkas, the Jewish policeman charged with leading a Jewish crowd which killed a family of Arabs in Jaffa on Aug. 25, 1929 continued today in Jaffa with the prosecution presenting what it considered to be its strongest witnesses.  

1930: The Times“reported from Jerusalem today that the Palestine government” has proposed the establishment of an “agricultural bank…with a capital of $2,500,000.”

1931: Dr. William H. Hechler, a Protestant clergyman and teacher who was an early supporter of Theodore Herzl and his Zionist program passed away today at the age of 86.  Among other things, Hechler arranged for Herzl to meet Kaiser Wilhelm in those pre-war days when it was thought that the German monarch could persuade the Ottomans to support a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

1932: The New York Times reported that Miss Freda Berson of Warsaw who is one of the best discus throwers in Poland and Miss Heda Bienenfeld of the Vienna Hokah, an outstanding Austrian swimmer will be competing in the upcoming Maccabiah.

1932: In Boston, Samuel Joseph Bernstein and Jennie Bernstein gave birth to Burton Bernstein, the younger brother of musician Leonard Bernstein.

1933(4thof Shevat, 5693): Heinrich Oppenheimer, the German born physician who moved to Britain where he pursued a medical career and, after obtaining an LL.B combined his two areas of interest to produce “The Criminal Reasonability of “Lunatics: A Study in Comparative Law” and “The Rational for Punishment” passed away today in Nice.

1933: On the day after they had dined together in Washington Friedrich Wilhelm von Prittwitz und Gaffron resigned the German Ambassador to the United States resigned and called German-Jewish Lin Feuchtwanger not to return to Germany.

1934: Birthdate of “Alfred Appel Jr., a scholarly expert on Vladimir Nabokov, whose lecture course he attended at Cornell and the author of wide-ranging interpretive books on modern art and jazz.” (As reported by William Grimes)

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00E3DA163DF934A35756C0A96F9C8B63&scp=1&sq=Alfred+Appel%2C+Jr.&st=nyt

1934(15th of Shevat, 5694): Tu B'Shevat

1934(15thof Shevat, 5694): Sixty-six-year-old Kiev native Mary Epstein, one of the earliest stars of the Yiddish theatre who performed with such greats and Jacob Adler and Boris Thomashefsky who was attacked in 1913 by “hired gangsters” during a dispute between union and non-union actors passed away tonight.

1934: Zionist District No. 29 is scheduled to host “a gala Palestine celebration of Chamisha Asar Beshavat” this evening at the Burnside Manor in the Bronx.

1934: Jacob Landau is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Germany As I Saw It” “at the fifth anniversary celebration of the Jersey City Jewish Community Center this evening”

1934: Dr. Sidney S. Goldstein is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “The Translation of the Ideals of Social Justice Into Social Action” at this afternoon’s meeting of the New York Board of Jewish Ministers.

1935 (27th of Shevat, 5695); David Trietsch, an expert on the agriculture and economy of Palestine, as well as “one of the founders of the Zionist movement” passed away today.  The 65 year old native of Germany died of heart failure at Rmat Ayim, near Tel Aviv.  Trietsch believed that a Jewish homeland would be created through “practical colonization” as opposed to political negotiations.  When the Ottomans sought to halt Jewish settlement in Palestine, Trietsch supported the settlement of Jews in Cyprus so that they would be poised to move to Palestine quickly as soon as there was a change in the political climate.

1935: “The Good Fairy” a romantic comedy directed by William Wyler and produced by Carl Laemmle, Jr. premiered in New York City.

1935: In Croatia, Mane and Helen Hochwald gave birth to Branko Hochwald, who would come to United States in 1944 where he gained fame as Raymond B. Harding, the leader of New York State’s Liberal Party. (As reported by Robert D. McFadden)

1936: In New York City, “celebration of the 25th anniversary of the appointment of Julian Mack to serve as a federal judge.

1936: In Los Angeles, “celebration of the 20th anniversary of Edgard J. Magnin serving as the rabbi of the Wilshire Boulevard Temple.”

1936: “The suffering of the Jews in Germany has brought into focus the necessity for an all-inclusive brotherhood of Jews and Gentiles in the city and nation,” according to the 1935 Report of the Greater New York Federation of Churches which was made public today.

1937: In “A Short Survey of the History of Music” published today, Richard Aldrich reviewed A Short History of Music by Alfred Einstein which had been translated from the German language.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1937/01/31/118952592.html?pageNumber=93

1937: Five days after he had passed away, eighty-six-year-old sculptor Ephraim Keyser, the of Moses Keyser and Betty Preiss whose works included “busts of Sidney Lanier, Cardinal Gibbons, Dr. Daniel Gilman, and Henry Harland” and a “statute of Major-General Baron De Kalb” for the United States Government which was “erected at Annapolis, MD” was laid to rest today.

1937: In Baltimore, MD Ida (née Gouline) and Benjamin Charles Glass, a record store owner, gave birth to composer Philip Morris Glass

http://www.philipglass.com/

1937: Ben-Zion Mossinson of Tel Aviv delivered an address at New York’s Rodeph Sholom entitled “Is There A Solution for the Jewish Problem?”

1938:Muriel Rukeyser established herself as a poet of enduring impact with the publication of U.S. 1, her second book of poems.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that three large Arab bands abducted nine Arab supernumerary policemen from their police post near Acre and shot their corporal dead in cold blood. The Arab policemen were disarmed and beaten, warned to leave the force and released. At another police post in the South arms and ammunition were stolen.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that Romania officially denounced the Minorities Treaty into which it had entered upon gaining independence at the Peace Conference at Versailles, and claimed that the Jewish question was now "a purely internal matter" over which the League of Nations had no more jurisdiction. This meant that Romania now felt free to implement still more severe anti-Semitic discriminatory measures. 

1938: The Palestine Post reported on the rise of anti-Jewish feelings and vandalism in Yugoslavia including the fact that "local Nazis" had smashed the windows out of the Sephardic synagogue of Belgrade.

1940: In New York, Dr. Eugene Hevesi, a Hungarian-born leader in the American Jewish community who served as foreign affairs secretary for the American Jewish Committee and as representative to the United Nations for several Jewish NGOs and his wife gave birth to Alan Hevesi, the New York Democrat who served as Comptroller of New York City and State Comptroller for the state of New York. He is also the brother of New York Timesman Dennis Hevesi who creates literary gems for the obituary page.

1939: “During the parliamentary debate” today in Budapest “on the anti-Jewish bill, the president of the Association of Hungarian Industrialists, Alexander Knob, said Hungarian economic life would be gravely endangered by ‘proletarization’ of 6,000 to 7,000 Jews.”

1940: Birthdate of Alan G. Hevesi “a Democratic politician who served as a New York State Assemblyman from 1971 to 1993, as Comptroller of the City of New York from 1994 to 2001, and as State Comptroller for the State of New York from 2003 to 2006”

1941(3rdof Shevat, 5701): Twenty-four-year-old Bulla (Bubbles) Blumenson was killed by enemy action today after which she was interred at the Rainham Jewish Cemetery.

1941: Three thousand Jews were taken from their villages and moved into the Warsaw Ghetto. Another 70,000 Jews would be uprooted and moved into the Warsaw Ghetto by the end of March.

1941: U.S. premiere of “Come Live With Me” starring Hedy Lamar.

1941: Birthdate of Leningrad native Lev M. Bergman, the Israeli mathematician “most known for the Bregman divergence named after him.”

1942 (13th of Shevat, 5702): Rebbetzin Shterna Sarah passed away in New York. Wife of the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Sholom DovBer Schneerson, and mother of the sixth Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, Rebbetzin Shterna Sarah lived through the upheavals of the first half of the 20th century. She fled the advancing front of World War I from Lubavitch to Rostov, where her husband passed away in 1920 at age 59. In 1927, she witnessed the arrest of her son by Stalin's henchmen the night he was taken away and sentenced to death, G-d forbid, for his efforts to keep Judaism alive throughout the Soviet empire. After Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak's release, the family resettled in Latvia and later, Poland; in 1940, they survived the bombing of Warsaw, were rescued from Nazi-occupied city, and immigrated to the United States.

1942: Einsatzgruppe A commanding officer, Franz W. Stahlecker, sent a detailed report about activities in the Baltic and White Russian countries. It stated that between July 23 and October 15, 1941, 135,567 Jews were killed. Eichmann sent out a letter making official the conclusions of the Wannsee Conference, "The evacuation of the Jews . . . is the beginning of the final solution of the Jewish problem."

1942: By the end of January, at least 160,000 Jews were living in the Lodz ghetto.

1943(25thof Shevat, 5703): Fifty-nine-year-old Elizabethgrad native and Brooklyn trained lawyer Leon Dashew, the husband Esther Dashew and father of Ruth, Stanley and Betty Dashew passed away today.

1945 (17th of Shevat, 5705): Fritz Freund, husband of Mathilde Freund, died at Buchenwald just three months before the camp was liberated.  In the first decade of the 21st century Mathilde Freund would sue France’s government owned railroad, Societe National des Chemins de Fer Francais over its role in the deportation of her husband and thousands of other French Jews to the death camps.

1946: Having resigned from the RAF Mordechai "Modi" Alon returned to Palestine and enrolled as an architecture student at the Technion. Allon would gain fame as one of the first fighter pilots in the IAf and the first one to shoot down an enemy aircraft.

1946: In Brooklyn, Edward Drosnin, an accountant and Evelyn (Freed) Drosnin gave birth to Columbia educated journalist Michael Drosnin, the author of The Bible Codein which he wrote that “references to historical and contemporary events were secretly encoded in the Old Testament.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/19/books/michael-drosnin-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

1946: “The citation for Captain Isidore’s MBE that concluded ‘For his courage and devotion to duty during his two clandestine missions in Occupied France, it is recommended that Captain Newman be appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (Military Division)’ was gazetted today.”

1947: In the House of Commons, during a debate about Britain marinating the Mandate in Palestine, Churchill, leading the Opposition, calls for the Government to end the Mandate.  Two weeks later, the Labor Government will adopt this as policy. 

1948: Birthdate of poet Albert Goldbarth.

1948:J D Salinger's "A Perfect Day for Banana Fish" appears in New York City.

1949: After hearing Churchill’s speech in Parliament denouncing the logic of the Labor Government’s policy towards Israel and calling for recognition of the new Jewish state, Sir Simon Marks, a leading Jewish businessman and philanthropist, wrote to the former PM assuring him that Chaim Weizmann would find great comfort in his words.

1949: The U.S. which had recognized Israel on a de factor basis on May 15 recognized Israel on a de jure basis today.

1950: In Larchmont, drama critic Walter Kerr and author Jean Collins Kerr gave birth to John Kerr, “an editor, literary muse and confidant for a generation of Freudian scholars and the author of A Most Dangerous Method, the book that became the basis for a play and a movie directed by David Conenberg about the famous feud between Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung

1950: President Truman revealed that he had ordered the Atomic Energy Commission to develop the hydrogen bomb.  This decision might have been called Dueling Jewish Physicists.  On one side was Dr. Oppenheimer father of the A-Bomb who opposed building the hydrogen bomb.  On the other side was Dr. Teller who had worked on the A-Bomb and favored building the H-Bomb.  Teller won out.  Oppenheimer’s opposition was one of the causes of him losing his security clearance during the 1950’s. This was an injustice that Teller did not support and that President Kennedy would rectify.

1951: Birthdate of Dr. Harold Alan Pincus, the Vice Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons and father of Zachary Pincus-Roth the Princeton educated writer and journalist.

1952(4thof Shevat, 5712): Fifty-nine-year-old Jacob Landau, the Vienna born founder of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and the husband of Ida Bienstock Landau passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1952/02/01/93344105.pdf

1952(4thof Shevat, 5712): Seventy-eight-year-old Herbert Loeb, Sr., “the son of Rosa and Adolph Loeb” and husband of Rose Regenstein Loeb passed away today in Chicago.

1954: In Copenhagen, father, Marcus Melchior, who “helped orchestrate the escape of over 7200 Danish Jews during the Nazi occupation of Denmark, and served and the country's chief rabbi until his death in 1969” and his wife gave birth Rabbi Michael Melchior, who made Aliyah in 1986 and served as an MK and cabinet official

1955: Egyptian authorities hanged two Jews in Cairo – Dr. Moshe Marzouk and Samuel (Shmeul) Azar – who had been found guilty of spying for Israel.  Eight other Jews had been given long prison sentences for the same reason.

1957: Martin Landau married Barbara Bain today.

1958: Lieutenant General Haim Laskov is serving as IDF Chief of Staff as the Egyptians and Syrians prepare to form the United Arab Republic which will increase the threat faced by the Jewish state.

1960: World Sephardi Federation meets in Madrid, Spain. Some members complain they did not want Spain to be the site of the meeting, as they did not want to return to Spain for any reason.

1960:Songwriter Adolph Green married actress/singer Phyllis Newman in New York City.

1961: David Ben-Gurion resigned as premier of Israel.

1961: A 3.5-kilometer tract of land southwest of Mount Kidod was chosen today as the site for the city of Arad.

1961: Joseph Rosenstock returned to the Met today to conduct Tristan und Isolde.

1965: CBS broadcast the first episode of “For the People” a “legal drama” created by Stuart Rosenberg, produced by Herbert Rodkin and starring William Shatner and Howard Da Silva.

1966(10thof Shevat, 5726): Fifty-eight-year-old Syracuse native “Jehudah M. Cohen” who awas ordaing at the Jewish History of Religion and served as a regional director for Hillel passed away today in Los Angeles.

1967(20thof Shevat, 5727): Seventy-year-old sculptor, Virginia Morris Pollak, the wife of Leo Pollak passed away today.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9901E4DF1439E53BBC4953DFB466838C679EDE

http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/pollak-virginia-morris

1968: At sunset, all non-Israeli military units gave up the search for the INS Dakar, an Israeli submarine that had been first been reported missing on January 26.

1970: After 546 performances on Broadway, the curtain came down Howard Sackler’s “The Great White Hope.”

1970(24thof Shevat, 5730): Seventy-six-year-old Samuel Feldman, the husband of Stella Feldman of Long Beach, NY, passed away today in Miami Beach.

1970: In Washington, DC, “Judith Plotz, an English professor at The George Washington University, and Dr. Paul Plotz, researcher at the National Institutes of Health” gave birth to “David Plotz, an American journalist and is currently the CEO of Atlas Obscura, an online magazine devoted to discovery and exploration” who is married to Hanna Rosin, “a co-founder of Slate magazine’s DoubleX.

1972(15thof Shevat, 5732): Tu B’Shevat

1972(15thof Shevat, 5732) Eighty-eight-year-old Czechoslovakia native and NYU trained attorney Samuel Berger, the World War II veteran and Republican political activist who was a noted art collector and the uncle of painter Adolph Gottlieb, passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1972/02/01/archives/samuel-berger-lawyer-here-88-counsel-to-state-legislative.html?searchResultPosition=1

1973: U.S. premiere of “Steel Yard Blues” produced by Julia Phillips

1974: Linda McCartney and her husband “appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone today, making her the only person to have taken a photograph, and to have been photographed, for the front cover of the magazine.”

1974(8th of Shevat, 5734): Hilda Winifred Lewis (nee Maizels), the Whitechapel born historical novelist who was the wife of Dr. M.M. Lewis, the Director of the Institute of Education at the University of Nottingham, the sister of Montague Maizels and Miriam Wright and sister-in-law of Professor Samson Wright passed away today.

1974 (8th of Shevat, 5734):  Samuel Goldwyn, a major force in the creation of the motion picture industry, passed away at the age of 91. The evolution of Goldwyn’s name is microcosm of the experience of European Jews who came to America.  Born Schmuel Gelbfisz, he changed his name to Samuel Goldfish when he moved to Great Britain because that sounded more English.  After he moved to America he went into partnership with two Broadway producers whose names were Selwyn.  In naming their partnership they combined their two last names to create Goldwyn.  Sam liked the American sound of it so much that he changed his name for the third and last time.  What is amazing is the role that this Jewish immigrant from Poland played in creating modern American culture.  Among other things, he discovered that quintessential American hero, Gary Cooper and won the Oscar for best picture with his production “The Best Years of Our Lives.” Goldwyn may have been.  When Louis B Mayer a former partner turned commented on Goldwyn’s death he said, “The reason so many people turned up at his funeral is that they wanted to make sure he was dead."  However, Goldwyn’s last production marked him as a man of moral fiber. In his final film made in 1959, Samuel Goldwyn brought together African-American actors Sidney Poitier Dorothy Dandridge, Sammy Davis, Jr. and singer Pearl Bailey in a film rendition of the George Gershwin Opera, Porgy and Bess. The film won three Oscars. Samuel Goldwyn's lack of English language skills led to many of his malapropisms being frequently quoted such as:

  • "A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on."
  • "Include me out."
  • "What we need now is some new, fresh clichés."
  • "Anyone who would go to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined!"
  • "Every director bites the hand that lays the golden egg."
  • "Flashbacks are a thing of the past."
  • "A wide screen just makes a bad film twice as bad."

1978: Israel turned 3 military outposts in the West Bank into civilian settlements

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Defense Minister Ezer Weizmann left for Cairo for the second round of the interrupted military discussions. One of his specific aims was reported to be to influence the Egyptians so that they would modify their position of "not giving up even one inch of Sinai."

1979(3rd of Shevat, 5739): Celia Adler passed away today at the age of 89.  Known as the “First Lady of the Yiddish Theatre” she was part of Jewish theatrical dynasty that included her parents, Jacob and Dinah Shtettin, her half-sister Stella Adler and her half-brother Luther Adler.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F40B16F73B5D12728DDDAB0894DA405B898BF1D3

1980: The New York City Ballet premiere of “Fancy Free,” a ballet by Jerome Robbins “took place today.”

1980: Seventy-three-year-old Irving Loeb Goldberg “assumed senior status” on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

1981: Jean-Marie Lustiger was enthroned as Archbishop of Paris.  He had been born Aaron Lustiger and converted at the age of 13 in 1940.  His mother died at Auschwitz.

1982: NBC broadcast “World War III,” a mini-series directed by Boris Sagal.

1986: “Youngblood” a dramatic film edited by Stephen E. Rivkin who would later gain fame for his “work on the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’” was released in the United States today.

1986: “Down and Out in Beverly Hills” a comedy directed and co-produced by Paul Mazursky and co-starring Bette Midler and Richard Dreyfus was release today.

1987: In “Poignant Look-back At Holocaust In 'Beloved'” published today Kevin Thomas reviewed Manfred Kirchheimer’s “We Were So Beloved.”

http://articles.latimes.com/1987-01-31/entertainment/ca-2432_1_german-jews

1987: As more information came out about what would be known as The Iran-Contra Affair, Yaacov Nimrodi, said today that Israel's Defense Ministry had approved the sale of $50 million worth of Israeli-made weapons to Iran almost two months before the first reported American request for Israel's help in approaching Teheran.

1988(12thof Shevat, 5748): Eighty-year-old, Blanche Leo Ullman, the daughter of Leo Emanuel Ullman and Blanche Heller passed away today in her hometown of Richmond, VA.

1988: A Jewish settler was severely burned today when his car was firebombed in an area near the Ofra settlement north of Jerusalem.

1988: ABC broadcast the first episode of “The Wonder Years” a comedy-drama co-created by Neal Marlens and narrated by Daniel Stern.

1989: Birthdate of Israel Bar-On “an Israeli singer, who won Israel's Kokhav Nolad (A Star is Born) song contest in 2008.”

1992: Harvard trained attorney Michael Boudin, the son of poet Jean Roisman and attorney Leonard Boudin and the “brother of Weather Underground member Kathy Boudin, completed his service as “Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

1993: In “Prague’s Jewish Heritage” published today Ruth Ellen described “the monuments in the old Jewish quarter” which under the Communist regime “were maintained by the state” and which are now a
popular attraction that “attracts more than a million visitors a year.”

https://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/31/travel/prague-s-jewish-heritage.html

1994(19thof Shevat, 5754): Eighty-seven-year-old Esther Polinsky, the St. Louis born daughter of Philip and Lottie Polinsky, and the wife of Ben Weisman with whom she ahd tow children – Harry and Sandra – passed away today after which she was buried at the Beth Hamedrosh Hagodol Cemetery in Ladue, MO.

1990(5thof Shevat, 5750): Eighty-eight-year-old NYU trained attorney Yitzhak Isidore Halpern, the New York City born son of Moses and Runia Halpern passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/02/obituaries/isidore-halpern-88-brooklyn-lawyer-dies.html

1990: Yuval Ne'eman resigned from the Knesset today and was replaced by Gershon Shafat.

1992: Tonight’ performance of the Gershwin musical "Crazy for You" at the Shubert Theater is a benefit designed to raised funds for the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

1993: Broadcast of the first episode of Barry Levinson’s “Homicide: Life on the Street” co-starring Yaphet Kotto and Richard Belzer.

1993: The Dallas Cowboys, who had counted on the play of Alan Veingard during the regular won Super Bowl XXVII even though he had been “declared inactive for the game.”

1995(30THof Shevat, 5755) Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1996: Alan Binder completed his service as the 15th Vice Chairperson of the Federal Reserve.

1996 (10th of Shevat, 5756): Mathematician Gustave Solomon passed away at the age of 65.

1997: “Meet Wally Sparks” a comedy written by and starring Rodney Dangerfield was released in the United States today.

1997: “Waiting for Guffman” with a screenplay co-authored by Eugene Levy who also co-starred in the comedy along with Bob Balaban was released in the United States today.

1999: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or topics of special interest to Jewish readers including Playing For Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made
by David Halbestram and The Burden of Responsibility:Blum, Camus, Aron and the French Twentieth Century by Tony Judt. 

2000: “Three Israeli soldiers were killed today in southern Lebanon as Iranian-backed guerrillas continued to escalate their attacks during a lull in peace negotiations between Israel and Syria, Lebanon's power broker.”

2001: “Despite objections on both sides of the border, Egypt has agreed to start supplying Israel with natural gas next year, a deal totaling $3 billion that will continue until at least 2012.”

2002: For the second time in a year Tayibe was the target of a terrorist attack which this time Hamas claimed credit.

2003: Israeli forces shot and killed a Hamas terrorist during a gun battle in Jenin while continuing operations against terrorist in and around Hebron.

2004: “Talmud: in the Art of Ben-Zion and Marc Chagall,” an exhibit at the Center Art Gallery at Calvin College that brings together the Biblical work of two of the most important Jewish artists of the 20th Century that features 18 intaglio prints by Ben-Zion and 25 color lithographs by Marc Chagall comes to an end.

2004: Joelle Fishman, the daughter of Jewish immigrants who was born in 1946, “addressed the Communist Party’s conference on the 2004 elections in New York.

2005: “At least 15,000 Ethiopian Jews, many living in hovels near the Israeli Embassy in Addis Ababa, will be brought to Israel by the end of 2007 under an accelerated immigration process, the Israeli government said today.”

2006: Alan Greenspan completed his last term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve today

2007: Haim Ramon was convicted of “indecent assault” and sentenced to community service.

2007: The Times of London reported that Lord Levy (Michael Levy) the Prime Minister's personal friend and fundraiser, is the second person close to No 10 Downing Street to be questioned by police under suspicion of perverting the course of justice in the ongoing cash-for-honors investigation.

2007: The Jerusalem Post reported that the recently launched Yad Vashem Farsi site has been well received by the target audience. Since the Persian site went on-line last week, some 11,000 hits have been recorded, including 2,242 visits from Iran. That figure is just 1,000 hits short of the total number of visits the Yad Vashem Web site received from Iranians in the whole of 2006

2008: June Muriel Brown “made history by being the first and so far only actress to carry an entire episode single handed in the history of British soap, with a monologue looking back over her past life, dictated to a cassette machine for her husband Jim to listen to in hospital following a stroke.”

2008: Avi Geffen performed at Bush Hall in London.

2008: In Manhattan, the 92nd St Y presents “Praise, Grumble, Schmooze, Lament: The Voices of 21st Century Jewish Poetry.” The program features readings by established and emerging Jewish poets, including Alicia Ostriker, Rodger Kamenetz, Robin Becker, Jacqueline Osherow, Dan Bellm, Patty Seyburn, Philip Terman, Scott Cairns, Jay Michaelson and Richard Chess. 

2008: The Washington Post featured a review of Sacha Baron Cohen the Unauthorized Biography: from Cambridge to Kazakhstan by Kathleen Tracy

2008: It was announced that Neil Diamond will appear at the upcoming Glastonbury Festival in the UK.

2009: The 92ndSt Y presents a musical evening featuring the Tokyo String Quartet and Jerusalem born pianist Benjamin Hochman.

2009: The Jewish Federation of Howard County (MD) presents Yom Hadash Community Concert.

2010: Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud) said today that Israel would allow the ultra-Orthodox community to continue to run their private bus lines segregated by gender, but could not officially recognize the practice on public bus lines. The minister was responding to a petition sent by the Israel Religious Action Center and a women's rights group to the government and to the Egged and Dan transportation companies. Katz declared in his response that Israel does not disapprove of buses which separate between men and women to accommodate the Hardi community, but that segregation could not become institutionalized.

2010: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Blood and Faith: The Purging of Muslim Spain by Matthew Carr and 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fictionby Rebecca Newberger Goldstein

2010: The Tenth Herzliya Conference is scheduled to open this afternoon on the Campus of the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya in Israel.

2010: The Israel Center of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center and the Jewish Museum Milwaukee invite the Jewish community to attend “Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible: A Jewish Night at the Museum” which will include a tour of the “Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible” exhibit at the Milwaukee Public Museum and recitation by Museum President and CEO Daniel Finley of the real story of how the exhibit came to the Museum.

2010: Opening session of The Tenth Herzliya Conference, “Israel‘s primary global policy annual gathering, drawing together Israeli and international participants from the highest levels of government, business, and academia to address pressing national, regional and world strategic issues.”

2010: An exhibition at the Krasdale Gallery in White Plains, NY, entitled “Pages de Guerre” featuring the works of Avigdor Arikha comes to an end.

2010(16th of Sh'vat, 5770): David V. Becker, a pioneer in using radioactive materials to diagnose and treat thyroid disease and an expert on the thyroid damage caused by the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident in 1986, passed away  at his home in Manhattan. (As reported by Mathew Wald)

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2010/02/13/david_v_becker_86_pioneer_in_thyroid_disease_treatment/

2011: Dr. Ron Taffel is scheduled to present a program entitled “Childhood Unbound: Confident Parenting in a World of Change” at the 92nd Street Y in NYC.

2011: “A cornerstone laying ceremony was held for four apartment buildings with a total of 24 homes that are the beginning of the new Jerusalem community of Beit Orot on the Mount of Olives Ridge.”

2011: Rami Feinstein is scheduled to presents a concert featuring songs from his two albums—a combination of rock, folk, and funk- in Jerusalem.

2011: NYC based Israeli choreographers Deganit Shemy and Netta Yerushalmy, are scheduled to perform this evening in an event intended to raise funds for the 1st Contemporary Israeli Dance Festival in New York, coming in June 2011.

2011: Last day for submitting recipes for the 2011 Man-O-Manischewitz Cook-Off.

2011: The Jerusalem Post reported today that “The Sundance independent film festival over the weekend followed the Oscars and Golden Globes in recognizing the Jewish and Israeli contribution to world cinema by handing out awards to two Israeli filmmakers. The world cinema dramatic screenwriting award went to Erez Kav-El for his film, Restoration. Talya Lavie received an Inaugural Sundance Institute Mahindra Global Film-making award which recognizes and supports emerging independent filmmakers from around the world.

2011: Right-wing activists have exploited Facebook's protocol that prohibits organizations from opening personal profiles to report and block the profiles of several leftist groups, Haaretz learned on today. The move, initiated by activists linked to the far-right leader Baruch Marzel, has thus far led to the blocking of the profile pages of left-wing groups including Machsom Watch, Yesh Gvul, and Anarchists against the Wall.

2011: Grad rockets landed near the cities of Netivot and Ofakim in the western Negev today, causing damage to a car and leading to four people being treated for shock. One rocket hit Netivot, which is 9 miles east of Gaza, and the second exploded in Ofakim, 15 miles from Gaza.

2011:American Sephardi Federation presents an evening with Edwin Black author of “The Farhud: Roots of the Arab-Nazi Alliance in the Holocaust.”

2011: Thanks to the efforts of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation and the British Christian Zionist Movement an appropriate tombstone was placed what had been the unmarked gravesite of Reverend William Henry Hechler, a Protestant clergyman who was an early ally of Herzl and a supporter of the establishment of a Jewish home in Palestine.

2012: “Jewish Soldiers in Blue Gray” is scheduled to be shown at the Southwest Florida Jewish Film Festival in Fort Meyers, FL.

2012: “Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg” is scheduled to be shown at Beth Tikvah Synagogue in Toronto, Canada.

2012: Alan Zweibel will be signing copies of Lunatics, a novel, he co-authored with Dave Barry, following his scheduled interview with Mo Rocca at Buttenwieser Hall at the 92nd Street Y.

2012:Iran's "evil" leaders cannot be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons, President Shimon Peres said today, calling the Islamic Republic's nuclear ambitions the world's single most important issue

2012:Turnout for the Likud party's primary elections was unusually low today. By mid-afternoon, only 14 percent of eligible voters had cast their ballot to elect a new party leader and central committee.

2013(20th of Shevat, 5773): Seventy-year-old children’s author Diane Wolkstein passed away.(As reported by Paul Vitello)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/04/nyregion/diane-wolkstein-author-who-sparked-a-storytelling-revival-dies-at-70.html?hpw&_r=0

http://www.jewishfederations.org/page.aspx?id=65378

http://dianewolkstein.com/

2013: PBS is scheduled to broadcast a documentary entitled “Space Shuttle Columbia: Mission of Hope” which ”tells the remarkable true story of Colonel Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut, and the miniature Torah scroll he carried from the depths of Hell to the heights of Space.”http://www.bethelnj.org/sites/default/files/flyers/IlanRamon-PBS.pdf

2013: “Cartoonists Against the Holocaust: Art in the Service of Humanity” is scheduled to come to an end today.http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/20/nyregion/a-review-of-cartoonists-against-the-holocaust-in-new-rochelle.html?_r=0

2013: Award-winning, bestselling author Edwin Black is scheduled to chronicle the centuries of intersection between Islam and Jewry that led to the Farhud pogrom in Baghdad in 1941 and the ensuing Arab-Nazi alliance in the Holocaust in a major address at Fordham University this evening.  ”Black's presentation is based on his recent bestselling and critically acclaimed book, The Farhud: Roots of the Arab-Nazi Alliance in the Holocaust

2013: Rabbi Gil Marks, “noted chef and cookbook author” is scheduled to deliver a lecture “From Schmear To Eternity” at Agudas Achim in Iowa City.

 2013: Composer Phillip Glass turns 75.

http://forward.com/specials/forward-50-2012/philip-glass/?no-mobile-redirect

2013: The Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) was once again the beneficiary of a winter storm today as rain poured down upon the Land of Israel, causing power outages around the country.

2013: Mt Hermon will be closed to the public today as well. Hermon Administration has announced another 20 cm of snow at the bottom of the ski lift. 40 cm have piled up at the bottom of the ski lift since the beginning of the current storm

2014(30tth of Shevat, 5774): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

2014(30thof Shevat, 5774): Fifty-two-year-old humanitarian Anne Heyman passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/world/africa/anne-heyman-rwanda-rescuer-is-dead-at-52.html?hpw&rref=obituaries

2014: Eighty-five-year-old Mike Flanagan who had an Irishman serving with the British army who participated in the liberation of Bergen-Belson and who “smuggled two Cromwell tanks to the Haganah in 1948” passed away today.

2014: After 20 years, David Stern stepped down as Commissioner of the NBA.

2014: It was reported by Israel’s Channel 2 News tonight that the Israeli government secretly channeled 148 million shekels (over $42 million) to the local city councils that administer settlements across the West Bank in recent years, to “compensate” them for city taxes they did not receive because of a government-imposed settlement-building freeze in 2009-2010.

2014: The Iron Dome missile defense system shot down at least one of two Grad rockets fired at Eilat from the Sinai Peninsula this evening.

2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to present “Chamber Music for Flute, Bassoon and Piano featuring Esti Rofe, Mauricio Paez and Ana Kaiserman.

2015: In Olney, MD, Shaare Tefila is scheduled to host its Fourth Annual Comedy Night of “Sweet Laughter.

2015(11thof Shevat, 5775): Shabbat Shirah

2015(11thof Shevat, 5775): Eighty-six-year-old CBS news producer Sandy Socolow passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/04/business/media/sandy-socolow-cbs-newsman-during-heady-days-dies-at-86.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/sandy-socolow-news-producer-for-walter-cronkite-at-cbs-dies-at-86/2015/02/02/5824b2a8-aaf1-11e4-abe8-e1ef60ca26de_story.html

2016: Radio Kol Hamusica is scheduled to broadcast “one piece by Israeli composer Emanuel Vahl” this afternoon.

2016: Laura Apelbaum is scheduled to host a panel discussion on “Soviet Jewry: The Movement that United Our Jewish World” in Rockville, MD.

2016(21stof Shevat, 5776): Ninety-two-year-old historian Elizabeth Eisenstein the author of The Printing Press as an Agent of Change passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/24/books/elizabeth-eisenstein-historian-of-movable-type-dies-at-92.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2016: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai edited by Robert Alter, Divergent Paths: The Academy and the Judiciary by Richard A. Posner and Thomas Murphyby Roger Rosenblatt.

2017(4thof Tevet, 5777): On the Jewish calendar, yahrzeit of the Moroccan born Sephardic Rabbi, Yisrael Abuchatzeira, known as the “Baba Sali” who is buried in Netivot.

2017: Israeli singer/songwriter Noa Fort is scheduled to perform at the Cornelia Street Café.

2017: In the UK, “Denial” is scheduled to be shown for the last time at JW3.

2017: Gil Shwed, the CEO of Israeli cybersecurity firm Check Point, the winner of the Israel Prize in technology and innovation spoke “at the Cybertech Israel Conference and Exhibition in Tel Aviv” today.

2017: Today, “at least 17 Jewish community centers across the United States were targeted with bomb threats in the third wave of such mass disruption this month.” (JTA)

2018(15thof Shevat, 5778):  Tu B’Shevat

2018: “A Walk With Mr.Heifetz,” a play based on violinist Yashac Heifetz’s concert in Palestine in 1926 is scheduled to begin performances at the Cherry Lane Theatre.

2018: The University of Iowa Hillel and Congregation Agudas Achim are scheduled to Tu B’Shevat Seder at Brix Cheese Shop and Wine Bar.

2018: At Temple Beth Abraham in Tarrytown, NY, architect and art historian, Bruce Levy is scheduled to deliver a lecture on Jewish Architects including “Kahn, Eisenman and Liebeskind.”

2018: Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea Football Club which “has launched a new campaign aimed at raising awareness of anti-Semitism to it players, fans and staff” is scheduled to play a Premier League against Bournemouth today

2019: An interfaith discussion during which a Biblical topic is examined “through looking at texts from three Abrahamic traditions” is scheduled to take place at Oxford University.

2019: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host “Across the (Political) Divide), a candid and constructive “about Israel across the Aisle.”

http://emanuelstreickernyc.org/events/across-the-political-divide/

2019(25thof Shevat, 5779): On the Jewish calendar Yahrzeit of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter

http://www.aish.com/dijh/Shevat_25.html

2019: The American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to host “a panel to celebrate the publication of Marc Dollinger’s Black Power Jewish Politics: Reinventing the Alliance in the 1960s with the author and special guests Including April Baskin (The Union for Reform Judaism), Cheryl Greenberg (Trinity College), Ilana Kaufman (The Jews of Color Field Building Initiative) and Rivka Press Schwartz (Associate Principal, SAR High School and Fellow, Shalom Hartman Institute of North America).

2019: Yiddish New York’s “2018 Visual Arts Exhibition curated by Deborah Ugoretz and Tine Kindermann” at the City Lore Gallery is scheduled to come to an end today.

http://www.yiddishnewyork.com/visual-arts-exhibition/

2019(25thof Shevat, 5779): Ninety-three-year-old Harry Bibring, the Vienna born son of clothing store owner, who along with his sister was one of those rescued by the Kindertransport passed away today.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/genocide/holocaust_survivors_gallery_03.shtml

https://www.holocaust.org.uk/remembering-harry-bibring

https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/kindertransport-survivor-harry-bibring-dies-aged-93/

2020: In Brookline, MA, Temple Ohabei Shalom is scheduled to host Shabbat 500, “a mega Shabbat dinner event for Boston’s young adult community.

2020: In Los Altos Hills CA, Congregation Beth Am is scheduled to “Embracing Perfection”
“a talk by Rabbi Mark Borovitz of Beit T’Shuvah, a Jewish-based residential addiction treatment center in L.A., about struggling with the desire to be perfect.”

2020: In Boston, The Vilna Shul is scheduled to host Havurah on the Hill where attendees can “hear from film director Cellin Gluck about Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat (sometimes called the Schindler of Japan) and his life leading up to, as well as after, his decision to issue over 2,000 visas to Jewish refugees in Kaunas, Lithuania, resulting in saving the lives of over 6,000 people.”

2020: “Incitement” directed by Yaron Zilberman with a screenplay by Yaron Zilberman, Ron Leshem and Yair Hizmi is scheduled to open today in the United States.

2021: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Religion and the Rise of Capitalism by Benjamin Friedman and the “children’s book” Nicky and Vera: A Quiet Hero of the Holocaust and the Children He Rescued by Peter Sis.

2021: In Atlanta, GA, The Breman Museum is scheduled to host “Bearing Witness: Unforgettable Stories from the Holocaust” featuring Manuela Mendels Bornstein telling the story of how “her family survived the Holocaust while hiding in Vichy, France.

2021: In London, the Sir Martin Gilbert Learning Centre is scheduled to host Professor Shiri Gilbert (no relation) speaking on “Displaced Jews: Renewal in the Shadow of the Holocaust.”

2021: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to host episode six of “Sephardi Culinary History,a new show that combines chef and scholar Hélène Jawhara-Piñer’s fascination with food studies and flair for creating delicious cuisine.

2021: In recognition of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day, March of the Living UK and the London School of Jewish Studies are scheduled to present a half-day of online innovative Holocaust education. This includes a walk through the Ringelblum Archive exhibition at the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw with Dr. Samuel Kassow, a range of sessions with March of the Living UK’s first-class educators, plus a very special keynote event; Professor Deborah Lipstadt, in conversation with Rabbi Dr Raphael Zarum.

2021: “The “Drive-By Tu BiShvat” event is scheduled to take place in the parking lot of the Mandel Jewish Community Center in Beachwood, OH.

2021: On the 221st anniversary of Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury and the first “Jewish” Secretary of the Treasury completing his service to the country, Janet Yellin, the first woman and the first Jewish woman to hold the position of Secretary of the Treasury begins her fifth day on the job.

 

 

This Day, February 1, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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February 1

682:  Visigoth King Erwig pressed for the "utter extirpation of the pest of the Jews," and made it illegal to practice any Jewish rites in an area that corresponds to much of modern-day Spain. This put further pressure on the Jews to convert or emigrate

1119: Callixtus II began his papacy. In 1120, Calixtus II issued the first of the bulls called “Sicut Judaeis” (As the Jews) which in his case was intended to protect Jews from the consequences of the First Crusade “during which over five thousand Jews were slaughtered in Europe.”

1225: Today “a papal order was issued granting certain commercial privileges to a Jewish merchant named Sabbatinus Museus Salaman, who is mentioned as the business associate of several Romans in the Papal States and in Sicily.”

1327: Coronation of English King Edward III who borrowed 140,000 florins “on the eve of the Hundred Years’ War” from a consortium led by Vivelin of Strasbourg, “an Alsatian Jewish financier” who was thought to be “one of the richest people living in the Holy Roman Empire.”

1552: Birthdate of Sir Edward Coke, who in a case that involved whether Jews were protected by English law, ruled that “All infidels are in law…perpetual enemies (for law presumes not that they will be converted, that being a remote possibility, for between them, as with the devils, whose subjects they be, and the Christian there is a perpetual hostility and can be no peace.”

1593: For the 17th time since 1592, Lord Strange’s Men performed “The Jew of Malta.”

1605: Birthdate of Aboab de Fonseca, the Portuguese born Dutch Rabbi and Mystic.  In 1642, when Brazil was under Dutch control the 600 Jews of Recife established a synagogue where they could worship in public.  They recruited de Fonseca, who was living in Amsterdam, to come to Brazil and serve as their Hocham or spiritual leader.  This means that Aboab de Fonseca was the first congregational rabbi in the New World. In 1654, when the Portuguese defeated the Dutch and seized Recife, he joined a group of Jews returning to the Netherlands and successfully said back to Amsterdam. Aboab was held in high esteem by his former Amsterdam congregants, that he was reappointed as hocham in the synagogue and made teacher in the city’s Talmud Torah, principal of its yeshiva and member of the city’s bet din, or rabbinic court. He died in 1693 at the age of 88, having served the Jewish community of Amsterdam for 50 years after his return from Recife. While Aboab spent his final years as a man of letters, engaged in teaching and spiritual contemplation, “the adventuresome Isaac Aboab de Fonseca had been, from 1642 to 1654, America’s first rabbi, first Hebrew poet and a man who risked his life for Jewish religious freedom.” (One can only wonder what would have happened if Aboab had joined the group of Jews who left Recife in 1654 and ended up in New Amsterdam.  Would he have been the first rabbi in New York?)

1627: Rodrigo de Castro, the Lisbon born physician who escaped the Inquisition by moving to Antwerp with his family and the moving on to Hamburg when the Spanish re-took the Netherlands passed away today after which he was “buried in the cemetery of the Jewish-Portuguese congregation of Altona.”

1682(5442):  Asser Levy, the "founding father" of North American Jewry passed away.. He was survived by his wife Miriam (aka Maria). Though Levy and the "Levy" family of New York are thought of as Sephardic with roots in Holland and even further roots in Spain, he might have been the son of Benjamin Levy, an Ashkenazi shochet from Recife, Brazil.

1733: King Augustus II of Poland passed away.  Born in 1670, Augustus II was the Elector of Saxony (Germany) before gaining Augustus gained the Polish throne.  His rise to power was facilitated by his “court Jew” and financier Issachar Berend Lehmann. August II was a contemporary of the Besht who was making his public personna known at about the same time as the Polish King passed away.

1746: Sarah Simosn and Raphael Jacobs gave birth to Joseph Jacobs, the husband Bilhah Polock and the father of American born Abigail, Raphael, Isaac, Frances and Benjamin Jacobs.

1764: Jacob Jacobs, the husband of Caty Hays arrived in Savannah, GA today.

1765(10thof Shevat, 5525): Rebecca Mendez Furtado, the first wife of Benjamin D’Israeli, the grandfather of his more famous namesake, passed away today.

1779(15thof Shevat, 5539): Tu B’Shevat

1790: The U.S. Supreme Court, which would not have its first Jewish Justice until 1916 when Woodrow Wilson appointed Louis Brandeis, “convened for the first time today.

1791: In Darmstadt, Germany, Guetel and Huna Mormelstein gave birth to Salomon Mormelstein, the husband of Giedel Rodsenbaum and the father of Aron, Michael and Jentel Mormelstein.

1796: The capital of Upper Canada is moved from Newark to York. Jews did not settle in Canada until the British defeated the French in 1760, at which time the French ban on Jewish settlement in the area became null and void.  By the time of this move, the Jews had already built their first synagogue, The Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of Montreal also known as Shearith Israel which was established in 1768.

1798(15thof Shevat, 5558): Tu B’Shevat

1799: In Denmark, Isaac Levy and his wife gave birth to Zacharias Levy, the husband of Bolette Salomonsen with whom he had three children – Isaac, Arnold and Herman.

1799: The French army under Napoleon left for Palestine to forestall a Turco-British invasion through the Palestinian land-bridge.

1800(6thof Shevat, 5560): Parashat Bo

1809(15thof Shevat, 5569): Tu B’Shevat

1809: Moshe ben Michael Kopf married Sarah bat Yehuda Leib HaLevi at the Great Synagogue.

1809: This evening, in Charleston, SC, Mary Joseph married Levi Moses.

1810(27 Shevat 5570): Rabbi Mechel Scheuer passed away. He was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1739.  His father was Rabbi David Tebele Scheuer and he led his father's Yeshiva in Mainz as its Rosh Yeshiva during the years 1776 and 1777. In 1778 he became rabbi of Worms and in 1782 was appointed rabbi of Manheim. At the time of his death, he was the rabbi of Coblence.

1813The Common Council of New York City passed an ordinance restricting the right to sell kosher meat to butchers licenses by Congregation Shearith Israel.

1818: In Reading, Abigail Lindo and Moses Mocatta gave birth to Isaac Lindo Mocatta, the husband of Abigail Mocatta and the father of Grace Mocatta.

1823: Birthdate date of Simon Bacher, a descendant of Jair Hayyim Bacharach the 17thcentury rabbi at worms and the Maharal of Prague, the “Hungarian Neo-Hebraic Poet” who served as treasurer of the Jewish community of Budapest from 1876 until his death in 1891.

1823: Keila and Michael Myers gave birth to Joseph Myers.

1826: Philadelphian Joseph Cohen began serving as a Midshipman today.

1827: Two days after he had passed away, Simon Levy, the husband of Hannah Levy, was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”

1827: In Paris James Mayer de Rothschild and Betty de Rothschild, the daughter of Salomon Mayer von Rothschild (Austrian Branch) gave birth to Alphonse de Rothschild, French banker, philanthropist and member of the French branch of the fabled Rothschild family whose wife Leonora was from the English House of Rothschild.

1828: In Lengnau, Switzerland, Simon Meyer Guggenheim and Schafeli (née Levinger) Guggenheim gave birth to Meyer Guggenheim the patriarch of the Guggenheim family who came to the United States in 1847.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Meyer-Guggenheim

1832: David Haes married Sarah Samuel at the Hambro Synagogue today.

1833: In London, Frances Cohen and Joel Benjamin gave birth to Priscilla Benjamin.

1836: Birthdate of Francis Lewis Cardozo, the Charleston, SC native who was the son of Lydia Weston, a free black woman and Isaac a Sephardic (Portuguese) Jews.

1839: Birthdate of James A. Herne who staged the first American production of Israel Zangwill’s “The Children of the Ghetto.

1839: Sarah Ann Hays and Warrenton, NC native Alfred Mordecai, the West Point graduate and the commander of the arsenal at Washington, DC during the war with Mexico, gave birth to Rosa Mordecai, the sister of General Alfred Mordecai, Jr.

1840: In what would be the opening of the Damascus Blood Libel, “Father Thomas, a Roman Catholic priest and a” long-time resident of Damascus “suddenly disappeared today.

1842: In Bavaria, Rav Yitzchak Dov Halevi Bamberger ZT"L the Würzburger Rav and Kela Bamberger gave birth to Rabbi Nathan Bamberger of Würzburg

1844: Birthdate of Ernst Immanuel Cohen Brandes, the Danish economist.

1847(15thof Shevat, 5607): Tu B’Shevat

1848: Birthdate of British author Arnold Henry White who went from blaming the Jews for the problems in East End from a “virulent anti-Semite” who opposed Jewish immigration to the United Kingdom.

https://archive.org/details/modernjew01whitgoog

http://jewishstudies.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/docs/Kennedy_awards/KennedyAward2005%20Shacham.pdf

 

1854: In Posen, Prussia, Dr. Marcus Mosse, a German born physician and his wife Ulrike Mosse gave birth to Emil Mosse

1856: Auburn University is chartered as the East Alabama Male College. Today Auburn has 60 Jewish students out of an undergraduate population of 19,000 students.  Auburn does not offer Jewish studies classes but does have a Hillel Chapter.  

1859: In Cleveland, OH, Hannah and Benjamin Franklin Peixotto gave birth to George da Madouro Peixotto.

1860: Rabbi Morris Raphall becomes the first Jewish clergyman to opena session of the House of Representatives. Raphall’s son-in-law would serve in the Union Army and after he had committed some unspecified infraction, Lincoln pardoned him. Raphall’s letter thanking Lincoln is still in existence today.

1861: Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise published an article in The Israelite entitled “No Political Preaching” in which he explained why he had refrained from preaching a sermon on January 4, 1861.  President James Buchanan had designated that date “‘as a day of feasting and prayer, that God might have mercy upon us and save this Union.’” [This was just about the only action that Buchanan took to preserve the Union!]

1862(1st of Adar I, 5622): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1862: The will of Samuel Samuels was admitted to probate today.  According to the terms of the will, Samuels left $100 to the Jewish congregation, "Bnai Jeshurun," on Greene-street, and $100 for the benefit of the Orphan Asylum under the charge of the Hebrew Benevolent Society.

1863: Birthdate of Ida Rothschild, the husband of Bernhard Rothschild, who was buried in Ft. Wayne, IN, after she passed away.

1863: The first issue of Le Peit Journal” a Parisian daily owned and published by Moise Polydore Millaud “appeared today with a printing of 83,000 copies.

1864: Quartermaster Sergeant Alan Weinbach began his service with Company A of the 113th Regiment that served as the 12th Cavalry.

1864: Philadelphian Aaron de Hann who had been born in February of 1844 began a two year enlistment with the 112 Regiment – 2nd Artillery.

1865: “A new law abolished the compulsion for Jews to enroll with one of Hamburg's two statutory Jewish congregations, so the members of the New Israelite Temple Society were free to found their own Jewish congregation.

1865: In Newark, NJ, founding of Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society whose members included Bernard Strauss, Reuben Trier, Joseph Goetz and G. J. Kempe which held its meetings on the first Thursday of each month.

1868(8th of Shevat, 5628): Isaac Leeser passed away. Born in 1806, he “was an American Jewish minister of religion, author, translator, editor, and publisher; pioneer of the Jewish pulpit in the United States, and founder of the Jewish press of America. He produced the first Jewish translation of the Bible into English to be published in the United States. He is considered one of the most important American Jewish personalities of the nineteenth century America.”

1872(22ndof Shevat, 5632): Fifty-three-year-old Polish born German actor Bogumil Dawison whose signature roles included Mark Antony, Hamlet, Richard III and King Lear, passed away in Dresden.

1873: Birthdate of historian Israel Zinberg “best known for his nine-volume History of the Literature of the Jews which was published in Vilnus starting in 1929.

http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Tsinberg_Yisroel

1874: In Vienna Anna Maria Josefa Fohleutner and an Austrian–Italian bank manager, Hugo August Peter Hofmann, Edler von Hofmannsthal gave birth to Austrian “man of letters” Hugo Laurenz August Hofmann von Hofmannsthal, the great-grandson of Isaak Löw Hofmann, Edler von Hofmannsthal, “a Jewish merchant ennobled by the Austrian emperor.”

1875: In Kiev, John and Asna (Drubitsky) Levitt gave birth to Russian-America artist Joel J. Levitt, who studied at the School of Fine Arts in Petrograd whose works included the 1904 painting “Kishinev Pogrom.”

http://www.artnet.com/artists/joel-j-levitt/kishinev-pogrom-xDSaQAliDQCQyOmb9_HROw2

1875: In California, Isaac Spiro and his wife gave birth to pharmacist and Stanford Medical School graduate Harry Sprio, the husband of Ada Joel Cofee who who served as an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at his alma mater and as Captain in the U.S. Army during WW I.

1878: George Cruikshank the British illustrator who created “Fagan” in his cell passed away.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cruikshank_fagin_cell.jpg

1879: It was reported today that the Purim Association of New York will resume hosting a masked ball after a hiatus of 10 years.   The ball is scheduled to be held on Purim night.

1879: Wilhelm Marr, the man who popularized the term “anti-Semitism” published his pamphlet “Der Weg zum Siege des Germanenthums über das Judenthum” (The Way to Victory of Germanicism over Judaism. Toward the end of his life he would publish “Testament of an Antisemite” in which he would renounce the view that the Jews were the corrupters of German and European civilization.

1880: In St. Louis, the Young Men's Hebrew Association was organized.

1880: Jorge Isaacs Ferrer, the son of “George Henry Isaacs, an English Jew originally from Jamaica” and whom Isaac Goldberg described as “a half-Jew” “who is “Spanish America’s most famous novelist” became President of the “Sovereign State of Antioquia.”

1882: “The French Catholic newspaper La Croix published an article by Father Francois Picard, head of the Assumptionist order behind the journal, declaring that Jewish bankers are behind all of Europe’s problems,”

https://messianicjewishhistory.wordpress.com/2016/02/01/1-february-1882-french-catholic-paper-complains-against-jews-otdimjh/

 

1882: “Early in the course of the Russian persecutions a mass-meeting of New York's most representative citizens was held at Chickering Hall” today.

1882: In London, a meeting was held at Mansion House which resulted in the creation of a fund of more than “£108,000 for the relief of Russo-Jewish refugees” in the United Kingdom

1883: In London, Solomon Marks, the London born son of Elizabeth and George Joel Marks and his wife Benvenida Marks gave birth to Moss Albert Marks

1883: Theodore Hoffman was arrested this evening and charged with the murder of Zife Marks, a Jewish peddler whose body had been on the road outside of Port Chester, NY.  (Hoffman would eventually be found guilty and executed for the murder.)

1885(16thof Shevat, 5645): Peretz Smolenskin, the Russian born Jewish novelist whose works in Hebrew including A Wander on the Path of Life (Ha-toeh be-darkhe ha-Hayyim, התועה בדרכי החיים) passed away today.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0018_0_18751.html

1886: Dr. Solomon Eppinger retired from Hebrew Union College and was succeeded by David Davidson.

1886: H.U.C. conferred an honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity on Aaron Hahn.

1887: In Montreal, Katherine Harris and Jacob Scherman gave birth to Harry Scherman, American economist, author and co-founder of the Book of the Month Club.

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/archival/collections/ldpd_4079308/

1887: Claude Marks married Caroline “Carrie) Hoffnung today at the West London Synagogue.

1890: Birthdate of Sadie Plutzik, the wife of Samuel Plutzik, both of whom are buried under a common headstoe at the Old Montefiore Cemetry

1890: Mrs. Moses Gersohnfeldt and her four young children ranging in age from two to eleven continue to languish in the custody of the immigration authorities because the Immigration Commissioner has decided that they might become public charges despite the fact that her husband and oldest son have come forth and shown that they are employed and earning enough money to see to it that they are properly cared for.

1890: In Toledo, OH, Mosses and Bluma (Arndt) Srere gave birth to Detroit College of Law trained attorney and Acme Mills executive Abraham Spere, the husband of Anna Katz and life-Zionist who was president of the ZOA in Detroit and the chairman of the Detroit Keren Hyesod campaign and leader in the local Jewish community as could be seen by his serving as a director of the United Hebrew Schools and the United Jewish Charities and President of Shaarey Zedek where he chanted “Jonah” on Yom Kippur.

1890: “Castle Garden’s Autocrat” published today described Commissioner Edmund Stephenson’s capricious and semi-dictatorial control over the lives of immigrants, including Jews escaping the Czar’s tyranny, to whom he showed distinct hostility.

1891: Jacob A. Brenner, the son of an Orthodox Rabbi and William J.G. Bearns “opened their own law offices on Court Street under the name of Bearns & Brenner, specializing in civil and real estate law” today.

1891: Birthdate of Kishinev native and CCNY educated reporter Milton S. Harris who was the advertising director worth Fox and Lowes theatres.

1891: In Brooklyn, Philip Schmalheiser and the former Rose Lewin gave birth to Edward Schmalheiser who as Edward Small carved out a fifty-year career producing movies and television shows that ranged in quality from such classics as “The Count of Monte Cristo” to the highly forgettable “Ramar of the Jungle.”

http://www.cobbles.com/simpp_archive/edward_small.htm

1891: It was reported today that Mr. Rheinherz an agent of the United Hebrew Charities was among those who testified before the Congressional Committee investigating the operation of the Barge Office which was the main immigrant processing center in New York City.

1892: It was reported today that Moritz Cohn, Morris Hertz, Max Jacob, Ignatz Boskowitz, Henry Rice and Simon L. Duetsch had served as pall bearers at the funeral of Benjamin Russak.

1893(15thof Shevat, 5653): Tu B’Shevat

1893: “Theatrical Gossip” published today described the success of “The Girl I Left Behind Me” which is being produced by Charles Frohman at the Standard Theatre.

1895: It was reported today that the Federation of East Side Workers “consisting of the pastors, priests and rabbis of the churches and congregations in New York south of 14th Street and east of Broadax…expresses its grateful appreciation to the chairman and members of the Tenement House Committee…” (Compare the active, positive role played by Rabbis in the United States with the anti-Semitism found at the same time in Russia, Germany and France).

1896: Forty-six-year-old Paul Lazarus, the Wittenberg born son of Nathan Lazarus and Rebecca Ruben and husband of Bertha Levy began serving as Superintendent of the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum today.

1897: “The Future of Palestine” published today provided the views of Professor Richard J.H. Gottheil’s views on the Jewish settlement in this part of the Ottoman Empire.  Gottheil contended the Jews could again become “agriculturists” and that Palestine could “support a large agricultural and industrial population.”

1897: As of this date, the officers of the United Hebrew Charities of the City of New York say they will no long be able to respond to all of the demands of the needy without additional funds.  They received 250 applications a day, many of which come from people who have never applied before and they need at least $15,000 just to provide minimal aid.

1897: “Harm Done By Alarmists” published today includes the views of Rabbi Gustav Gottheil who expressed his sympathy for the working man, opposition to Socialism and defense of the expendiures of the wealthy as exemplified by the upcoming Bradley Martin-Ball

1897: It was reported today that Dr. Emil G. Hirsch said the work of the Jewish charities in Chicago has been complicated by the problems created by the influx of Jews flee the Czar who have taken “refuge in the larger cities of America.”

1897: It was reported today the delegates attending the Jewish Socialists Convention had voted to start a newspaper of their own after the managers of the Abendblatt, a Jewish socialist paper that had been founded in 1894, had made known their decision not to relinquish control of the paper.

1899: The USS Bennington commanded by Edward Tausig fired a 21-gun salute as the United States flag was raised over Guam marking the end of almost 300 years of Spanish rule and Commander Tausig becoming the first American to control the islands “governmental and administrative affairs.”

1899: It was reported today that Professor Richard J.H. Gottheil of Columbia University read a “paper by Albert Ulmann on the Jews in New York during the Dutch colonial period. Mr. Ulmann gave as the earliest date when Jews this city as 1652, when some Jewish farmers were sent over from Holland to serve a year’s time a soldiers…”  He also “described the fight the Jews had to make against the religious bigotry of Stuyvesant.”  

1899: “Dr. Gottheil’s Successor” published today relied on information that first appeared in the New York Tribune to report that Dr. Gustav Gottheil is preparing to retire after serving as Rabbi at Temple Emanu-El for the past 25 years and that went to provide a brief history of the Reform movement in the United States.

1900: In Austria, Fannie and Morris Rothenberg gave birth to Bronx resident Joseph “Jack” Rothenberg, who married Ann Bodner Rothenberg after the death of Bertha “Betty” Drube Rothenberg

1901: A Memorial Service for Queen Victoria was held at the Hurva synagogue in Jerusalem. Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Samuel Salant officiated at the service which was so well attended that local police were called to control the crowd. 

1902: Birthdate of Polish native Benjamin Zemach, the graduate of Moscow’s Institute of Engineering who came to the United States in 1927 where he blazed new trails in choreography and modern dance.

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/06/30/arts/benjamin-zemach-95-dancer-worked-in-theater-and-films.html

http://www.israeldance-diaries.co.il/wp-content/issues/articles/ISRAEL%20DANCE%20ANNUAL%201986-%20BENJAMIN%20ZEMACH-FROM%20DARKNESS%20TO%20LIGHT%20BY%20NAIMA%20PREVOTS.pdf

1902(24thof Shevat, 5662): Seventy-year-old Salomon Jadassohn, the German pianist and composer whose career suffered because he would not convert which meant he could not get many church related commissions and because of the rising tide of anti-Semitism in the second half of the 19th century passed away[ML1]  today.

1903: It was reported today that Moritz Kaufman, Moremo Haravor and Minschen Aleas was among the three Spanish speaking families who arrived at Ellis Island and claimed that they were descendants of Jews who had successively living in Turkey, Bulgaria and Roumania after have been expelled from Spain in 1492 and who claimed that they have been speaking only Spanish and following Spanish customs for the last five hundred years.

1903: It was reported today that the Grand, “the first theatre in New York ever erected expressly and exclusively for the foreign speaking Jewish patronage of the better class, that has three balconies seating 1,700 people is scheduled to open on February 5th.

1904(15thof Shevat, 5664): Tu B’Shevat

1904:  Birthdate of Sidney Joseph Perelman. Better known as S. J. Perelman, he was a humorist, author, and screenwriter. He is primarily known for his humorous short pieces written over many years for The New Yorker magazine. His most famous cinematic venture was writing the script for the Academy Award-winning screenplay Around the World in Eighty Days starring David Niven.

http://www.nytimes.com/1979/10/18/archives/sj-perelman-humorist-is-dead-sj-perelman-humorist-dead-at-75.html

1905: In Tivoli, Italy, Giuseppe Segrè, a businessman who owned a paper mill, and Amelia Susanna Treves, Emilio Segre, the Italian born physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project and won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1959.

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/24/obituaries/dr-emilio-g-segre-is-dead-at-84-shared-nobel-for-studies-of-atom.html

1906: It was reported today that five persons have been executed in the Citadel at Warsaw, “bringing the number shot in the past fortnight to sixteen” fifteen of whom “were Jews.”

1907: Today there was a run on the Mechanics’ Trusty Company in Bayonne, many of whose depositors are Jewish immigrants following yesterday’s “baseless rumors” about the solvency of the bank “that has resources of $4,500,000.

1908(29thof Shevat, 5668): Parashat Mishpatim

1908: “Joseph Barondess, for many years a leader and organizer of labor among the Jews on the east side, announced today that he may now be counted as unalterably opposed to Socialism, which he considers is a dwindling cause.”

1909: It was reported today that the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Trenton has decline to be chairman of a meeting at which the friends of organized labor will protest against the sentences imposed on Samuel Gompers and other officers of the American Federation of Labor” because while “these sentenced gentlemen have the sympathy of every true friend of labor, they have not lost their case” because “the Court Appeals” has not rendered its decision.

1910(22ndof Shevat, 5670): Schlome Katz passed away today after which he was buried in the Liepaja Jewish Cemetery.

1910: Birthdate of Michael Kanin, the native of Rochester, NY who shared an Oscar with Ring Lardner Jr for writing the script for Woman of the Year” and was nominated along with his wife Fay for an Oscar for the script for “Teacher’s Pet.”

1911: Today, in a response to a question as to whether the settlement houses “could persuade girls to leave poorly paid factory work and go into well-paid housework,” Jane Addams, the founder of Hull House told members of the Women’s University Club  that present immigration is now largely Italian, Jewish and Greeks” and that Jewish girls, if they are orthodox, wish to stay with their own people” meaning they are not candidates for “household service.”

1912: Peter H. James of Jersey City, NJ, was “promoted to the staff of the Quartermaster General of the State of New Jersey with the rank of Major.”

1913(24thof Shevat, 5673): Parashat Mishpatim

1913: In New Leipzig, ND, Louis and Rebecca Katz Katcher gave birth to Irving Simon Katcher, the husband of Nettie Kathcer.

1913(24thof Shevat, 5673): Sixty-two-year-old newspaper correspondent Leon Strauss passed away at Turin, Italy.

1913: It was reported today the “two trained nurse who have been to Palestine by” New York “women Zionists” are “the vanguard of an entire corps of nurses” who “will work among the women and children of the Holy Land.

1913: This evening, Armand J. Lande and Miss Jessie Plotke are scheduled to lead the grand march at the Informal Dancing Party sponsored by the Ladies’ Auxiliary of Temple Sholom in the Lincoln Park Casino

1913: “According to information received by the Federation of American Zionist, Nachum Sokolow should have arrived today to begin a two-month tour of the United States

1914(5thof Shevat, 5674): Mrs. H. Bertha Myers, the widow of “49er” Harris Meyers, who was “vice President of the Oregon Chapter of the Council for Jewish Women and President of the Judith Montefiore Society passed away today in Portland, Oregon.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1914/02/03/100298138.pdf

1915: British soldiers braced for an attack from an Ottoman force that was determined to seize the Suez Canal – a seizure that would have short-circuited the later British campaign that led them to Jerusalem with all that that would mean for the Jewish people.

1915: A dispatch from the London Daily News datelined Cairo, based, in part on reports from “Vladimir Jabotinsky, a well-known Moscow journalist” describes the deteriorating conditions faced by the Jews living under Ottoman rule in Eretz Israel.  Mr. Jabotinksy “entertains the graves fears for the safety of the 15,000 colonists in Galilee, Judea and Samaria should the Turkish army in Syria” suffer a defeat since the Turkish government will blame it on the Jews.  The government “is doing its utmost to stir up feelings against the Zionists.  The Turks have declared Zionism to be a revolutionary, anti-Turkish movement “which must be stamped out.”  The Anglo-Palestine bank has been liquidated which will lead to ruin for many of the Jewish settlers.  A large number of Jewish refugees have fled to Alexandria among them “1,000 young men who have have declared their eagerness to join the British army.”  The report closes with expression of concern for the 5,000 Jews and 12,000 Christians living in Jerusalem who are trying to survive on American relief supplies described as “insufficient to maintain life.”

1915: William Fox (born Wilhelm Fuchs) found the Fox Film Corporation today.

1915: In response to a petition from the counsel of Leo M Frank who is under sentence of death for the murder of a factory girl in Atlanta, in 1913, The United States Supreme Court advanced the on his case to February 23; an action to which the state of Georgia has assented.

1915: “Plan to Pursue Frank” published today described the plans of the prosecution to indict Leo Frank on one or two other unspecified charges if he his appeal to the Supreme Court overturn the murder conviction thus granting him his freedom.”

1916: “Dr. Joseph Jacobs” published today bemoaned the fact that New York “city and the world of letters as a whole has lost a brilliant and versatile writer” who found “few subjects…with which his mind and his pend di not busy themselves…with an even uniformity of erudite scope and depth.”

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9404EED81E38E633A25752C0A9649C946796D6CF

1916: As of today, the American Jewish Relief” is reported to nearing its goal of two million dollars having collected $1,815,737.33 in cash and pledges.

1916: Dotty Hammer who had “volunteered her services for Jewish Relief Day” wrote from Newark, NJ today to express her “heartfelt respect as well as admiration for all those who gave because they felt that in a time of grief and dire need religion was no barrier.”

1917: Supreme Court Justice Cohalan granted the “right of incorporation” “o the Association for the Promotion of Sabbath Observance which works “to develop among its members and others a clear conception and understanding of Orthodox Jewry” including observing the Sabbath on Saturday. (Editor’s Note: This came at a time when the Reform movement was trying to shift observance of Shabbat to Sunday)

1917: Today “Karl Klein, a Jewish accountant from Vienna was recruited to serve in the Austro-Hungarian Army.

1917: In the wake of Germany’s announcement of unrestricted submarine Felix Warburg, Chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee expressed the concern that worsening relations with Germany would impede the war relief work in eastern Europe which is under the control of Germany and that contributions to aid those suffering from the war would fall off just when the need was greatest.

1917: “At Warren Street, in the Portobello area of Dublin, Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe Henry Levitas and Leah Rick who had been married in the Camden Street Synagogue gave birth to Maurice “Morry” Leviatis the political activist who took part in the “Battle of Cable Street” and who “became a senior lecturer in the sociology of education at Durham University.

1918: The Jewish Congress decided to “raise money to repatriate Galician Jews stranded in or around the city” of Berdichev.

1918: Russia adopted the Gregorian Calendar. Russia’s comparatively late adoption of the calendar used by most of the western world makes precise dating of certain events all the more difficult.

1918: “The Jewish National Fund received a check for 250,000 crowns from an anonymous woman” which was “to be cashed after peace” ended the World War.

1918: “As a result of a series of conferences, Dutch Jewish leaders formulate” a list of demands “to be presented at the peace conference including emancipation of the Jews; recognition of national rights in nation states; national concentration of Jewish people in Palestine; the cessation of contemptuous and oppressive treatment of Jews.”

1918: Today, French Foreign Minister Pichon is a statement to the press in which the government “gave its endorsement to the British declaration” on Palestine.

1918: In Edinburgh, Sarah Elizabeth Maud (née Uezzell) and Bernard Camberg, an engineer gave birth to Muriel Sarah Camberg who gained as award-winning Scottish novelist Dame Muriel Spark.

1918(19thof Shevat, 5678): Gaston Lelouch, the recipient of the War Cross died today.

1918(19thof Shevat, 5678)

1918: In Berdichev, “the Jewish Congress decided to raise money to repatriate Galician Jews stranded in or around the city.

1919: Harvey E. Wessel completed a seven-month assignment with the Jewish Welfare Board during which time he performed the services usually done by a Jewish chaplain and a social worker while being stationed at the Naval Training Camp at Pelham Bay Park in New York City.

1919: The First Congress of the Muslim-Christian Association began its deliberations in Jerusalem.

1920: Thirty-nine “Turkish elders of the Sephardi Community formed the Sephardic Community of Los Angeles” today which became known as the Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel.

1920: Adolphe Danziger De Castro “was one of the thirty-nine founders of the Sephardic Community of Los Angeles (La Comunidad Sefardi) and was elected the first president of the congregation.”

1920: It was reported today that “the American Zionist Medical Unit at Jerusalem” will be establishing a school for chauffeurs in Palestine that aims “to rain men as capable motor drivers and mechanics in an effort to eliminate the acute shortage of chauffeurs” which has been brought about by the lack of railroads thus necessitating an increase in the use of automobiles.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1920/02/01/118255137.pdf

1920: Thirty-six-year-old Illinois College of Law trained attorney Henry S. Blum, the Hungary born son of Morris and Fannie (Roth) Blum, who specialized in “corporate and commercial law” and was a member of both Temple Shalom and B’nai B’rith married Dorothy Herman today in Chicago.

1921: Birthdate of Brooklyn College graduate Joseph Dames, “the director of special gifts of the American Jewish Committee’s Appeal for Human Relations and the husband of Lucille Dames with whom he had two children – Tamar and Lisa.

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/02/19/archives/joseph-dames-dies-jewish-appeal-aide.html

1921: Felix M. Warburg, the President of the Federation for Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies is scheduled to deliver a report describing the “critical conditions that face organized Jewish philanthropy in the coming year” this evening at annual meeting of the Federation being held at the Hotel Pennsylvania.

1921 First German translation of The International Jew

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/ford.html

1922: Westmorland Davis, who in 1919 had urged “citizens, irrespective of race or creed, to contribute liberally” to the Jewish relief campaign” completed his four year term of service as Governor of Virginia today.

 1923: Forty year old Hebrew Union College trained Rabbi David Rosenbaum, the Bialystok born son of Jacob and Guthe Rosenbaum and holder of a Ph.D from the University of Chicago who served congregations in Waco, Austin, Amsterdam and Chicago married Ida Adelman.

1923: Birthdate of Canadian businessman Benjamin Weider who “was the co-founder of the International Federation of Body Building and Fitness (IFBB).”

1923: “A Glass of Water,” a “German silent historical film” with a script co-authored by Adolf Lantz was released today.

1924: “Nanon,” silent film based on the operetta of the same name directed by Hanns Schwartz was released today in Germany

1924: Automobile magnet Henry Ford who bankrolled the anti-Semitic Dearborn Independent which published the Protocols of the Elders of Zion entertained Nazi Kurt Ludecke at his Michigan home.

1924: Frederick Salomon van Nierop, the son of A.S. Nierop and Rachel Salvador, who was a director of the Amsterdam Bank and was a member of both the Amsterdam City Council and the Provincial Council of North Holland was buried today in the Jewish cemetery in Muiderberg.

1925: Today, Sophie Udin and six other women who had been active in the labor Zionist organization Poale Zion, created the Pioneer Women’s Organization of America which was renamed Pioneer Women in 1947 and Na'amat (a Hebrew acronym for "Movement of Working Women and Volunteers") USA in 1981.

1925: WMCA which Peter Straus took over in the late 1950’s began regular transmissions today.

1926: In New York City, Maria Jaussaud Justin, and Charles Maier gave birth to photographer Vivian Maier.

http://www.vivianmaier.com/

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/113385/vivian-maier-jewish-chicago

1926: “The Mill at Sanssouci,” produced by Karel Freund premiered today in Germany.

1927(29th of Shevat, 5687): Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel (Nathan Zevi Finkel) the native of Lithuania known as the Alter of Slabodka passed away in Jerusalem

1928: Birthdate of Representative Tom Lantos, the California Democrat who took his seat in Congress in 1981 and is the only survivor of the Holocaust serving in Congress.

1928: “The Prince of Rogues,” a silent film directed by Curtis Bernhardt who co-authored the script was released today in Germany.

1928: Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Mitchell May, a Jewish Democratic Party leader and friend of movie mogul Harry Cohn officiated at the wedding of movie director Frank Capra and Lucille Warner, the daughter of Myron Warner.

1929: “The Broadway Melody,” “the first sound film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture produced by Irving Thalberg and Lawrence Weingarten premiered at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

1930(3rdof Shevat, 5690): Parashat Vaera

1930(3rdof Shevat, 5690): Forty-nine-year-old Police informant Julius Rosenheim was gunned down today allegedly by members of the “Capone Gang.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1930/02/02/96018329.pdf

1930: Birthdate of Ping Pong or Table Tennis Champion, Marty Reisman.

1932(24thof Shevat, 5692): Twenty-three-year-old Hyman Hirsch, Jr, the son of Hyman and Miriam Phillips Hirsch passed today after which he was buried at the Dispersed of Judah Cemetery, “the second oldest Jewish cemetery to be built in New Orleans” which was located on land “donated by Judah P. Touro.”

1932: Birthdate of Batsheva Esther Eliashiv, the Jerusalem native who was the daughter of Rabbi Shalom Elisahiv and who became Rebbetzin Batsheva Esther Kanievskey when she married Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky.

1934: “The Official Gazette of the government of Baden today announced that pensions granted to rabbis had been withdrawn” but said nothing about the pensions given to other retired clergymen.

1934: In Cairo, “the Chief Rabbi, a representative of King Faud, the Premier, members of the cabinet, two ex-Premiers, ten former cabinet members, the Italian Ambassador and leading Egyptian banks and industrialists” were among those who attended the funeral services today for sixty-four-year-old banker Joseph /bey Mosseri, “a member of one of the oldest Egyptian Jewish families.”

1934: Hyman G. Enelow became rabbi emeritus of Temple Emanu-El on New York.

1935: At the annual convention of the Palestine Jewish Farmers Federation, Moshe Smilansky, veteran farmer economist, poet, writer and journalist, shocked the assembled gathering when in his opening address as president he announced that in the present circumstances in Palestine Jewish farmers and colonists should employ only Jewish labor.

1936(8thof Shevat, 5695): Parashat Bo

1936: In Washington, DC, “celebration of the 75th of the anniversary of the birth philanthropist Isaac Gans” at which “time representatives of the Protestant, Episcopal, Catholic and Jewish faiths outdid themselves in paying tribute” to him including Episcopal Bishop James E. Freeman who said to him “When sunset comes you well may know you have left behind a reputation and record which will be your just reward.”

1936: Rabbi Jacob Tarshish is scheduled to deliver a sermon “How Can We Find Happieness?” at Temple B’nai Jeshurun

1936: English historian Dr. Cecil Roth is scheduled to lecture on “Will Hitlerism Spread?” this morning at Temple Rodeph Sholom.

1936: Rabbi Milton Sternberg is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Does Morality Require Religion?” at Park Avenue Synagogue.

1936: “Rudolf Saudek, a well-known Leipzig Jewish sculptor and a Czechoslovak citizen protested through the Czechoslovak Legation in Berlin against a ruling by the Reich Chamber of Culture forbidding him to make tombstone for Jewish graves” – a business he went into after the Reich government had ended his career sculpting busts, many of which had been placed in the local university and libraries.

1937: In Washington, DC Secretary of State Cordell Hull met with a delegation representing the Arab National League which expressed the hope that the United States “will turn a sympathetic ear to the voice of the Arabs of Palestine.”

1937: It was reported that the junior division of the United Palestine Appeal has adopted a resolution urging Great Britain to permit Jews from Germany, Poland and other parts to Europe to immigrate to Palestine without any interruption.

1938: U.S. premiere of “Mad About Music” directed by Norman Rae Taurog and produced by Joe Pasternak.

1938: In Rumania, the Finance Ministry’s Alcohol Department has demanded that the licenses of Jewish innkeepers be restored following an investigation into the unfounded claims of Prime Minster Goga that the Jewish innkeepers were “poisoning the nation.”

1938: In Berlin, the Ministry of the Interior published a new law today empowering “German courts to revoke previous rulings permitting Jews to changes their names” which means that “a Jew who changed his name years ago can be compelled to resume his original names.

1938: The German government published a decree officially notifying banks “that any company that has one Jewish director” or in which Jews have a 25 per cent ownership stake “must be classified as a Jewish concern.”

1938: A court in Westphalia issued a decision “denying a license to sell intoxicating liquor to a café proprietor whose family had social relations with a Jewish family.”

1938: The funeral for “Eugene H. Paul who was for forty-eight years connected with Kuhn, Loeb” and “a leader in Jewish philanthropic circles” in New York City is scheduled to “be held at Temple Home” this morning followed by burial in Mount Neboh City.

1939: In Hamilton, Bermuda tonight, the Governor, General Sir Reginald Hildyard told the English-Speaking Union that Hitler “has drawn America and Great Britain even closer than they were before” in part because “our hatred of what he has done our hatred of the way he has treated the Jews, has made us very close.”

1940: “A group of 2,300 Jewish immigrants from Austria and Czechoslovakia including “lawyers, artists, actors and doctors” set sail from Rumania today “aboard the Turkish freighter Vakaria” bound for Palestine even though they lacked “entry permits.”

1940: “A delegation of Jewish leaders” has asked for a meeting with the Interior Minister following the announcement of his ban on all Zionists activities and organizations.

1941: Prime Minister Churchill instructed his Foreign Minister, Anthony Eden, to send a warning to Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu telling him “that we will hold him and his immediate circle personally responsible in life and limb” if the Iron Cross did not stop their murderous attacks on the Jews.

1942: Vidkun Quisling, the Norwegian whose last name become a synonym for traitor “took office as Minister President of Norway,” much of whose comparatively small Jewish population would be literally “shipped” off to the death camps.

1943: Most of the 1,500 Jews remaining in Buczacz who had not been sent to Belzac were murdered. One survivor, Netka Goldberg, lost three sisters, two brothers and her mother. Her father would be killed seven months later.

1944: Today, the Irgun proclaimed a revolt against the British mandatory government.

1945: “Germans responsible for crimes within the Reich, including those against Jews and others, beyond any question will be punished, Joseph C. Grew, acting Secretary of State, announced today.”

1946: Norwegian statesman Trygve Lie was chosen to be the first secretary-general of the United Nations. Lie was head of the U.N. when Israel was created and was supportive of creating the Jewish state.

1947(11thof Shevat, 5707): Parashat Beshalach

1947(11thof Shevat, 5707): Sixty-two-year-old Russian born American attorney David Louis Podell, the husband of “the former Sarah Falk of Savannah and father of Margaret Ann and David L. Podell, Jr. whose clients included Eddie Cantor and who drafted major New Deal legislation whose clients included Eddie Cantor and who drafted major New Deal legislation while also serving as vice president of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and a trustee of the Education Alliance, passed away today.

1947:  In Kennett Square, PA, “Florence Goldberger, a navy nurse and David Savitch , who ran a clothing store gave birth to  American television journalist Jessica Savitch.

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/10/25/obituaries/jessica-savitch-of-nbc-tv-killed-in-car-accident.html

http://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/the-legacy-of-jessica-savitch/200320

1947: In Nicosia, Cyprus Bronia Rosenberg, originally from Łódź, and a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp and Fishel Brand, from Biłgoraj, who had been a resistance fighter during World War II gave birth to Moshé Michaël Brand who gained fame as Israeli “pop star” Mike Brant.

1948: The Arabs bombed the Palestine Post (a.k.a. Jerusalem Post) building in Jerusalem.

1949: “An exhibition of radios, machine tools, clothing, jewelry and art work -- all produced by Jewish war victims in twenty-six countries -- was opened tonight at 318 West Fifty-seventh Street to an invited audience by the Organization for Rehabilitation Through Training.”

1950(14th of Shevat, 5710): French sociologist. Marcel Mauss passed away.

1951: During the Presidency of Harry Truman, Monnett B. Davis was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Israel.

1951(25thof Shevat, 5711): Seventy-four-year-old Annie Morris, the wife of Hyman Morris, the first Jewis Lord May of Leeds, passed away today.

1952: Three years after being released in the United Kingdom, “The Small Room” which Emeric Pressburger co-directed, co-produced and co-wrote opened in New York City today.

1952: “Invitation” based on “the short story ‘R.S.V.P.’ by Jerome Weidman, directed by Gottfried Reinhardt, produced by Lawrence Weingarten and featuring Ruth Roman and Michael Checkhov was released in the United States today.

1952: The day after he had passed away funeral services were held for seventy-eight-year-old Herbert Loeb, Sr., “the son of Rosa and Adolph Loeb” and husband of Rose Regenstein Loeb.

1952: SN (Samuel Nathaniel) Behrman's "Jane" premiered in New York City.  Behrman,was a popular and prolific dramatist who tackled a number of topics in his works including what it was like to grow up Jewish in a small town as the 19thgave way to the 20th century.

1953: CBS broadcast the first television episode of “You Are There” which had originally been created for radio by Goodman Ace and whose directors included Sidney Lumet.

1953: Today, The Three Pillars was inaugurated as the official organ of the Junior Sisterhod after which “it quickly became the official bulletin of the Heights Jews Center” in Cleveland.

1955: Lord Rothschild wrote to Churchill “thanking him for the fact that in Jerusalem in 1921 ‘you laid the foundation of the Jewish State by separating Abdullah’s Kingdom from the rest of Palestine.  Without this much-opposed prophetic foresight there would not have been an Israel today.’”

1955: “Abdullah the Great,” a comedy directed and produced by Gregory Ratoff and co-starring Gregory Rafotff was released in France today.

1956: In the UK, ITV broadcast the first episode of “Colonel March of Scotland Yard” produced by Hannah Weinstein.

1958: Egypt and Syria announced plans to merge into United Arab Republic.  This was one of those failed attempts at pan-Arabism that was really a military alliance designed to destroy Israel.  The U.A.R. was neither united or a real republic.  The Syrians pulled out in 1961, but the name lingered on for many years after.

1959(23rd of Shevat, 5719): Rabbi Jonah Bondi Wise passed away. He “was an American Rabbi and leader of the Reform Judaism movement, who served for over thirty years as rabbi of the Central Synagogue in Manhattan and was a founder of the United Jewish Appeal, serving as its chairman from its creation in 1939 until 1958.”

1959(23rdof Shevat, 5719): “Three civilians were killed by a landmine near Moshav Zavdiel”

1961(15thof Shevat, 5721): Tu B’Shevat

1961: “The Misfits,” “based on an original screenplay by Arthur Miller” and co-starring Marilyn Monroe and Eli Wallach, among others, opened today at the Capitol Theatre in Manhattan.

1961: Director Otto Preminger, who will make the film version of Advise and Consent in September, “has agreed to make unspecified films for Columbia in addition to “Bunny Lake Is Missing” and “The Other Side of the Coin.”

1963: Publication of the first issue of The New York Review which Barbara Epstein helped to found with the encouragement of her husband, “Jason Epstein, a vice president at Random House.”

1964: Red Auerbach of the Boston Celtics won his “800th game as an NBA coach” today. (As reported by Bob Wechsler)

1965: “Kelly” a musical with songs by Mark Charlap “began previews at the Broadhurst Theatre today.

1966(11thof Shevat, 5726): Seventy-six year old Louisville, KY, native Louis Leopold Mann the HUC ordained Rabbi with a Ph.D. from Yale who was an active member of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, the Jewish Chautauqua Society and the Central Conference of American Rabbis passed a way today in Chicago.

https://www.jta.org/1966/02/03/archive/dr-louis-mann-leading-reform-rabbi-dies-in-chicago-was-76

1966: In “The Trefa Banquet” published today John J. Appel described the 19thcentury Cincinnati affair where shellfish were part of the menu.

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-trefa-banquet/

1966(11thof Shevat, 5726): Eighty-eight year old Philadelphia born and NYU trained attorney Herbert Louis May, the former counsel to the High Commissioner for Refugees from Germany passed away today.

1968: In Hollywood, CA, Mitzi Shore (née Saidel), who founded The Comedy Store, and Sammy Shore, a comedian gave birth to Paul Montgomery Shore who gained fame as comedic actor Pauly Shore best known for his role in “Encino Man.”

1969:  Birthdate of jazz saxophonist Joshua Redman son of a legendary jazz musician and Jewish dancer from Russia.

1969: Birthdate of publisher Andrew Breitbart, the adopted “of son of Gerald and Arlene Breitbart, a restaurant owner and banker respectively” whose Jewish upbringing included a Bar Mitzvah and a life-long identity with the Jewish people.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/business/media/the-life-and-death-of-andrew-breitbart.html

1967: In New York, as part of their confrontation with the unionized bagel bakers, owners shut the doors to their bakeries claiming “that they did not have enough work.”

1970: Elie Abel, who has most recently been working as a correspondent for NBC, is scheduled to become the new Dean of Journalism at Columbia University effective today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/12/20/78549813.pdf

1970(25thof Shevat, 5730): Dorothy Horowitz Germber, the wife of the late Newcomb Gerber passed away today in Clifton, NJ.

1970: Oil was pumped for the first time in the newly completed 42-inch Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline

1970: The New York Times includes a review of Mr. Sammler’s Planet by Saul Bellow.

1971(6thof Shevat, 5731): Fifty-three-year-old New York born lyricist Bob Hillard who gave us the words to such well-known hits as “Our Day Will Come,” “My Little Corner of the World” and “Dear Hearts and Gentle People” passed away today.

https://www.songhall.org/profile/Bob_Hilliard

1974: For the third time “University College, Oxford, elected Professor Venyamin Levich, the eminent Soviet Jewish scientist, as a visiting fellow.

1974(9thof Shevat, 5734): Ninety-three year old Dr. Lazar Schonfeld, the husband of “the former Helen Samish” who served as “chief rabbi of Hungary before coming to the United States in 1925” where he served “as the rabbi of Beth David Agudath Achim Synagogue in the Bronx” and as a “broadcaster for the Voice of America” passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1974/02/03/archives/dr-lazar-schonfeld-dead-former-rabbi-of-hungary-93.html

1976(30thof Shevat, 5736): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1976: Four days after he had passed away, funeral services are scheduled to be held this afternoon for seventy-one-year-old Shreveport native and Harvard School trained attorney, Joseph Harrison, the former lecturer at Rutgers University Law School and Republican political leader who served as a “judge of the Essex County Court” and who married “former Francis Boehm Ginsberg” after the death of his first wife “the former Amy Harvey.”

1976: "Rich Man, Poor Man" mini-series based on the work of Irwin Shaw, premieres on ABC TV.

1977(13thof Shevat, 5737): Seventy-four-year-old Warsaw native Samuel Arthur “Sammy” Weiss the first Jew to be named captain of the Duquesne University football team who went on “to represent Pennsylvania's 30th, 31st, and 33rd Districts in the United States House of Representatives” before serving as a Common Pleas Court Judge passed away today after which he was buried at B’nai Israel Cemetery in Pittsburgh.

http://history.house.gov/People/Detail/23526

1978: Director Roman Polanski skipped bail and fled to France after pleading guilty to charges of engaging in sex with a 13-year-old girl.  The father of the Polish born director was Jewish.  His mother died in a concentration camp.  Polanski avoided being trapped in the ghetto and spent the war wandering the woods of Poland.

1979: The first staging of “Fugue in a Nursery” by Harvey Fierstein opened at LaMama today.

1979: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns to Iran after 15 years in exile.  This marked a major turning point in the Islamic world as religious fundamentalists began coming to power.  There are those who would say that there is a direct line between the success of Khomeini and the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections in 2006. After 28 years, Iran boasts a leader who denies the Holocaust happened and calls for the destruction of the state of Israel.

1980: “Fatso” a comedy featuring Estelle Reiner as “Mrs. Goodman” was released in the United States today.

1980: NBC broadcast “Animalympics” written by and directed by Steven Lisberger and featuring the voices of Gilda Radner, Billy Crystal and Harry Shearer.

1980: The last public interview given by Sir Cecil Beaton, who had been fired by Conde Nast in the 1930’s for slipping an anti-Semitic message into one of his drawings, was broadcast by the BBC today.

1984: In Wayne, PA, “Susan Komm, an artist, and Alan Jacobson, a graphic designer” gave birth to Abbi Jacobson, the “co-creator and co-star of the Comedy Central series ‘Broad City.’

1983: Today, Soviet authorities put Refusnik Iosif Begun “on a punishment regimen” that involved “a reduced food ration of 900 calories a day and further restrictions on mail and visits.”

1984: Daniel Stern became NBA commissioner. Jews seem to gravitate to the position since at one point the commissioners of most major sports were Jewish: Commissioner of Major League Baseball: Bud Selig, Commissioner of the National Basketball Association: David Stern and Commissioner of the National Hockey League: Gary Bettman. According to one Urban Legend, there was a move to get Commissioner of the National Football League: Paul Tagliabue to convert to Judaism so that it would be four for four! 

1985: Morton I. Abramowitz began serving as President Reagan’s Director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

1985: In Leadville, CO, The Harvey/Martin Construction Company convey the Temple Israel property to William H. Copper whose family trust would convey it to the Temple Israel Foundation

1987(2ndof Shevat, 5747): Sixty-one-year-old Sala Burton, the widow of Congressman Philip Burton and a “member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California’s 5th district” passed away today.

1988: Two Palestinians were shot dead today near Anabta in a confrontation on the Nablus road north of Jerusalem that involved demonstrators and settlers. Military authorities said settlers were trapped at roadblocks by stone throwers and drew their guns and opened fire. Soldiers also shot at the demonstrators. Another account said a convoy of 75 settlers returned when the trouble subsided and vandalized a score of Arab cars.

1989(26thof Shevat,5749): Eighty-nine-year-old Marie Syrkin, an author, editor and teacher who was active in the Zionist cause for many decades, died of cancer today at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, Calif. (As reported by Glenn Fowler)

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/03/obituaries/marie-syrkin-89-author-and-teacher-promoted-zionism.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm

1991(17thof Shevat, 5751): Eighty-two-year-old Herzl Rosenblum who served as editor of Yedioth Ahronoth for 35 years and who signed Israel’s declaration of independence as Herzl Vardi passed away today.

1991: “Vandals attacked the Lomita, CA home of Dr. Shlomo Elspas, the executive governor of Chabad South Bay today “spray-painting a swastika and the slogan ‘white power’ on it.”

1992(27thof Shevat, 5752):U.S. District Court Judge Irving R Kaufman, who presided at the Rosenberg Spy Case, passed away at the age of 81.

1993: Gary Bettman becomes the NHL's first commissioner.

1995: Today, the 175th anniversary of issue of the American Journal of the Medical Sciences featured a 1908 article by Leo Buerger, the Austrian born American “pathologist, surgeon and urologist who passed away in 1943.

1996: “A Fair County” written by Jon Robin Baitz “premiered Off-Broadway at Lincoln Center Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater” today.

1998: “A Daughter Seeks Her Olympian Father” published today described the tortured relationship between clinical psychologist Julie Jaffe Nagel and her father Irving Jaffee, the Gold Medal Olympian speed-skating champion.

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/01/sports/sports-of-the-times-a-daughter-seeks-her-olympian-father.html

1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including On the Possibility of Jewish Mysticism in Our Time by Gershom Scholem and Selected Poems by Harvey Shapiro

1999(15thof Shevat, 5759): Last celebration of Tu B’Shevat in the 20thcentury.

1999(15thof Shevat, 5759): Eight-four-year-old Benjamin Elazari Volcani the native of Ben-Shamen, who discovered life in the Dead Sea and pioneered biological silicon research at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego” passed away today.

http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb1r29n709&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=div00076&toc.depth=1&toc.id=

2000: It was reported today that Israel had responded to attacks by Iranian-back guerillas that killed three soldiers “with artillery attacks and air strikes on Hezbollah guerrilla targets in Lebanon.”

2001: “The deadline for political parties to change candidates expired quietly at midnight today, and Prime Minister Ehud Barak finally put to rest the speculation that he would step aside and let former Prime Minister Shimon Peres run in his place in” in next week’s election.

2002(19thof Shevat, 5762): Daniel Pearl, a journalist for the Wall Street Journal was beheaded today.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,212284,00.html

2002: After having premiered in London two months ago “Gosford Park,” a clever who-done-it that was the brain-child of Bob Balaban who co-produced and co-starred in the film was released in the rest of the UK today.

2003(25th of Tevet, 5771): The Space Shuttle Columbia burned up on re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere killing the crew of six including Israel’s first man in space, Ilan Ramon. Ilan Ramon was born in 1954.  He was a combat pilot in the Israeli Air Force. He was a graduate of Tel Aviv University and held the rank of Colonel at the time of his death. Ramon was a veteran of the Yom Kippur War, one of the first Israeli pilots to fly the then new F-16 jet and was part of the group that destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor before it could go online.

2004: Jonathan Andrew Kaye won the FBR Open

2004: The New England Patriots, owned by Robert Kraft, the Jewish philanthropist defeated the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl XXXVIII

2004: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Liberated Bride by A.B. Yehoshua; translated by Hillel Halkin and The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill by Ron Suskind.

2005: At Madison Square Garden this evening, “a handful of the 25,000 people there taking part in the 11th Siyum HaShas Daf Yomi celebration recalled some of the more unusual settings in which they have demonstrated their commitment to the daily study of Talmud, which was completed — and renewed for a new seven-and-a-half-year cycle — this week. Daf Yomi, or daily page, was introduced in 1923 at the First International Congress of Agudath Israel in Vienna by a young Polish rabbi, Meir Shapiro, as a way to bring uniformity to the worldwide study of Shas, an acronym for the names of the six orders of the Mishna, on which the Talmudic sages recorded their commentaries around 200 C.E. Agudah said 120,000 North American Jews were taking part in the celebration this year.”

2006:  Despite violent protests, Israel successfully completed the evacuation of the West Bank outpost of Amona.  This is in line with the policy of the Sharon government provide security for the state of Israel and ensuring that Israel remains both a democratic nation and a Jewish homeland.  The withdrawal policy has the support of the majority of Israelis.

2007: The Sarah Silverman Program premiered on Comedy Central

2007: The first exhibition of female architects in the history of Israeli architecture entitled "The feminine presence in Israeli architecture," opened at the gallery of the Union of Architects in Jaffa. Twenty-two female architects participated and displayed works they have planned in the past few years and which have since been built.

2007: As part of a kosher cooking contest, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg issued a proclamation naming this date as Simply Manischewitz Cook-off Day.  Candace McMenamin, a non-Jew from Lexington, S.C. won with her sweet potato encrusted chicken.  Only in America

2008(25thof Shevat, 5768): Eighty-eight-year-old Holocaust survivor Rubin Partel, the father-in-law of New York born neurologist Leonard S. Schleifer, “the founder and chief executive of the biotechnology company Regeneron.,

2008: In New Jersey, Barnet Hospital which had been founded in 1908 by Nathan Barnet announced that it would closing due to a lack of funding

2008: “Things We Lost In The Fire” directed by Susanne Bier with a script by Allan Loeb was released today in the United Kingdom.

2008:Six gunmen opened fire on the Israeli Embassy inMauritania early this morning, trading fire with guards before fleeing screaming "Allah Akbar," witnesses said. The six men arrived by car and regrouped in front of a discotheque that is just beside the embassy, said Hamza Ould Bilal, a taxi driver who was parked outside the club, called the VIP. He saw them pull out their automatic weapons and scream "God is Great!" in Arabic, before assailing the embassy, he said.

2008: After having premiered at Cannes last May, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” directed by Julian Schnabel was released today in the United States.

2008: “Praying With Lior,” a new documentary about a Philadelphia boy with Down syndrome preparing for his bar mitzvah opens at the Cinema Village in New York.

2009:  At Yale University, CAMERA, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America presents “Palestinian Issues in Israeli Journalism: A conversation with Khalid Abu Toameh, a journalist who writes for the Jerusalem Post

2009: The New York Times and the Washington Post each featured a review of Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle Eastby Martin Indyk, the assistant secretary of state for near east affairs during the Clinton Administration and the first Jewish American to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.

2010: The Center for Jewish History and the Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation is scheduled to present “Diplomacy and Genocide: Challenges for the Future” during which a distinguished panel of policy makers, diplomats, and scholars discuss the issues and opportunities in diplomatic approaches to the prevention of genocide in the contemporary international community.

2010: Yehuda Weinstein replaced Menachem Mazuz as Attorney General of Israel.

2010: Two barrels of explosives were discovered on Israeli beaches today, which were dispatched into the sea as part of a large-scale Palestinian terror attack against Israeli navy ships.

2010: Seven American and European scientists were named winners of Israel's prestigious $100,000 Wolf Prize today. The Wolf Foundation said its prize in medicine went to Axel Ullrich of Germany for groundbreaking cancer research that has led to development of new drugs. Sir David Baulcombe of Cambridge University was awarded Wolf Prize for agriculture research in defending plants against viruses. The physics prize was shared by US professor John F. Clauser, Alain Aspect of France and Anton Zeilinger of Austria for their work in quantum physics. The mathematics prize was shared by two US-based professors: Shing-Tung Yau for geometric analysis, and Dennis Sullivan for contributions to algebraic topology and conformal dynamics. The Wolf Foundation was founded by the late German-born Dr. Ricardo Wolf, an inventor, philanthropist and former Cuban ambassador to Israel. The private nonprofit foundation's council is chaired by Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar.

2010(17thof Shevat): Ninety-two year old Selma G. Hirsh, a humanitarian and an author who was associated with the American Jewish Committee for many years, passed away today  at her home in Stamford, Conn. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/nyregion/25hirsh.html?pagewanted=print

2011: Virginia Jewish Advocacy Day is scheduled to take placed in Richmond, VA.

2011: The Leo Baeck Institute and American Council on Germany are scheduled to present a lecture by Joschka Fischer and Norbert Frei entitled "The German Foreign Office and the Nazi Past"

2011: At Tulane University, Dean Carole Haber announced that Prof. Ronna Burger, Chair of the Department of Philosophy, has been appointed at the Catherine and Henry J. Gaisman Chair in Judeo-Christian Studies. This chair was endowed through of generous gift of Catherine and Henry J. Gaisman..

2011: Six Senate Democrats rejected a deficit-driven proposal by a new Republican senator to cut United States aid to Israel. In a letter sent today to the top House Republicans on the Appropriations and Budget committees, the Democrats said aid to Israel, the only democratic nation in the Middle East, is imperative. They backed the $3 billion in foreign military assistance that the U.S. provides annually to Israel. Republican Sen. Rand Paul said last week that the nation faces a fiscal crisis and argued that the U.S. cannot give money away, even to allies, as the debt grows.

2011: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak informed Maj. Gen. Yoav Galant today that they have cancelled his upcoming appointment to the post of Israel Defense Forces chief. The announcement comes after months of scandal surrounding his appointment due to allegations that he had seized public lands near his home in Moshav Amikam in northern Israel. Galant was designated to succeed current IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi this month.

2011: A Tunisian Jewish leader said today that the burning of a building that served as a synagogue in the South of the country was not an attack on the local Jewish community. Roger Bismuth, the president of the Jewish community in Tunisia, told The Jerusalem Post that the fire that broke out at a makeshift Jewish place of worship in the town of Ghabes was probably not an act of anti-Semitism, but one of vandalism

2011(27thof Shevat, 5771): Seventeen-year-old Mitchell Perlmeter, the son of rabbi Rex Perlmeter and Rabbi Rachel Hertzman, passed away today in his home at Montclair, NJ.

2012: “Mamele” is scheduled to be shown at Congregation Etz Chaim in Toledo, Ohio.

2012: “Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg” is scheduled to be shown at temple Jeremiah in Northfield, Illinois.

2012: Liel Leibovitz is scheduled to moderate a presentation by New York Times columnist David Brooks at the 92nd Street Y.

2012: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told President Shimon Peres today he was worried about the possible military aspects of Iran's nuclear program, laid out in a recent IAEA report, and called on Iran to prove that the program is peaceful. "

2012: Israelis are in danger of waking up one morning to a different Israel, Opposition Leader Tzipi Livni said at the Herzliya Conference today. Livni asserted that Israelis today are not debating the true issue - that the state's relgious minority will impose its will on the Zionist majority.

2012(8thof Shevat, 5772): Eighty-six-year-old Robert B. Cohen, the president of the Hudson County News Company passed away today.  (As reported by Denis Hevesi)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/business/media/robert-b-cohen-dies-at-85-founded-the-hudson-news-chain.html?_r=0

2013: Students and members of the Jewish community are scheduled to present poems by Jewish poets including works by Yehuda Acmichai following a Friday night Shabbat dinner at the Hillel at the University of Iowa.

2013: Tenth anniversary of the Columbia Shuttle disaster which claimed the lives of all on board including Israeli Astronaut Ilan Ramon.  The event is the subject of a special documentary entitled "Space Shuttle Columbia: Mission of Hope" which is scheduled to be aired today on Iowa Public Television.

2013: “Not By Bread Alone” is scheduled to be performed at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts.

2013: On the secular calendar, 11th anniversary of the beheading of Daniel Pearl.

2013(22ndof Shevat, 2013): Eighty-eight year old Edward Koch, three-time mayor of New York passed away today on the same day that a documentary of his life opened in New York City theatres.(As reported by Robert D. McFadden)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/02/nyregion/edward-i-koch-ex-mayor-of-new-york-dies.html?hpw&pagewanted=print

http://www.timesofisrael.com/ed-koch-remembered-by-israeli-envoy-as-one-of-us/

2013: “The Gatekeepers” opened in U.S. movie theatres

2014: In Rockville, MD, Tikvat Israel is scheduled to show “Lost Islands” as part of its Israeli Film Festival.

2014: In Olney, MD, Shaare Tefila, is scheduled to host its Third Annual Comedy night of “Sweet Laughter.”

2014(1stof Adar 1, 5774): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

2014(1stof Adar 1, 5774): Eighty-year-old Gordon Zacks, the Ohio businessman who was active in the Republican Party and “served as an adviser to President George H.W. Bush (Bush I) passed away today.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/republican-jewish-coalition-founder-gordon-zacks-dies/

2014: An Egyptian jihadist group said today that it fired a rocket at the Red Sea resort of Eilat which was intercepted by Israeli air defenses, its second in a fortnight

2014: Finance Minister Yair Lapid ordered a halt on all money transfers to the settlements pending the clarification regarding their specific use, a statement on his behalf said this evening.

2014: “Three Molotov cocktails were thrown this evening towards a private home in Jerusalem's French Hill neighborhood. No injuries were reported and light damage was caused to furniture in the house.”

2014: At the Writers Guild of America Awards ceremony, Mel Brooks presented Pau Mazursky with the Screen Laurel Award, which is the lifetime achievement award of the WGA.

2015: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Girl From Human Street: Ghosts of Memory in a Jewish Family by Roger Cohen and the recently published paperback edition of A Replacement of Life, Boris Fishman’s first novel about the forgery of Holocaust restitution claims.

2015: In London, the Jewish Museum is scheduled to host an exhibition “From Generation to Generation” featuring the word of Gideon Summerfield.

2015: The New England Patriots, owned by Robert Kraft, the Jewish philanthropist defeated the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX.

2015: Gary Bettman is scheduled to “mark his 22nd year as National Hockey League Commissioner” today.

2015(12thof Shevat, 5775): Eighty-nine-year-old M.I.T. professor Irving Singer passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/us/irving-singer-mit-professor-who-wrote-the-nature-of-love-dies-at-89.html?rref=obituaries&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Obituaries&pgtype=article&_r=0

2015: “Renewal,” film that “profiles a group of dancers—the Vertigo Dance Company—in their pioneering eco-arts village on the outskirts of Jerusalem” is scheduled to be shown at Lincoln Center in New York.

2015: In New Orleans, funeral services are scheduled to held at the Old Beth Israel Cemetery on Frenchmen Street for Irvin Samuel Smith “who was a member of the CCJN’s close-knit family.”

http://www.crescentcityjewishnews.com/irvin-smith-retired-record-store-owner-promoter-dies-at-92/

2016: Some of the 6,000 Jews in Iowa are scheduled to join their fellow Hawkeyes in the first-in-the nation caucuses where the candidates include Bernie Sanders, the son of Jewish immigrants from Poland, Hillary Clinton whose son-in-law is Jewish and Donald Trump whose daughter Ivanka is Jewish.

2016: The award-winning exhibition, “Voices of the Vigil” is scheduled to move from Rockville, MD. to Rodef Shalom in Falls Church, VA.

http://www.jhsgw.org/exhibitions/online/voices/?utm_source=Voices+of+the+Vigil+programs&utm_campaign=VoV+Jan+31+programs&utm_medium=email

2016(22ndof Shevat): On the Jewish calendar “yahrzeit of Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka Schneerson, wife of the Rebbe.”

2017: Physicist Persis S. Drell, the daughter of Sidney Drell, who has been serving as Dean of the Stanford University School of Engineering since 2014 is scheduled to begin serving the Provost of Stanford University today.

2017: Today the Senate Finance Committee approved Steven Mnuchin’s nomination to serve as Treasury Secretary by a vote of 11-0 with all Democrats boycotting the vote, sending the nomination to the Senate floor

2017: David Shulkin testified before the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs during hearings on his nomination to serve as U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs.

2017 (5thof Shevat, 5777): On the Jewish calendar Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Yehuda Leib Alter, “the leader of the Ger Chassidic dynasty, author of Sfas Emes.

2017: In Memphis, TN, Temple Israel Cantorial Soloist Abbie Strauss is scheduled to lead “Musically Speaking” with sessions for both youngsters and adults.

2017: In New York, the Batsheva Dance Company is scheduled to perform Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin’s “Last Work.”

2017: The Yeshiva Museum is scheduled to host a special tour focused on the work of Hugh Mesibov.

http://www.mesibov.net/hugh/

2018: On a day when it is offering students a meal of “sweet chili beef and chicken noodles”,The Oxford University Society is scheduled to host a Gemara Shiur.

2018: Comedian Judy Gold is scheduled to perform at the West Hollywood Library.

2018: The Quad Cinema is scheduled to host the final screening of Amos Gitai’s “West of the Jordan River.”

2018: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host the final screening of “An Act of Defiance.”

2018: In Des Moines, IA, the grand opening of the Hillel House at Drake University is scheduled to take place.

2019(26th of Shevat, 5779): On the Jewish calendar Yahrzeit of Rabbi David HaLevi Segal

http://www.aish.com/dijh/Shevat_26.html

2019: In Jerusalem, Nirit Loftus, senior guide at the Bible Lands Museum, is scheduled to host a tour of “the museum’s exhibits that tell stories of the ingenuity, shrewdness and daring of queens, goddesses, and ordinary women who once lived and worked in the ancient Near East.

2019: In a rare musical treat, Cantor Joel Caplan, the son of Dick and Ellen Caplan, pillars of the “corridor Jewish community” and the father of another sweet singer of Jewish Song, Ilan Caplan, is scheduled to lead Friday evening services at Agudas Achim in Coralville, IA. 

https://www.agudath.org/cantors-corner.html

2020(6th of Shevat, 5780): Parashat Bo.

2020: In Sand Leandro, CA, Temple Beth Sholom is scheduled to host a screening of “Leaving Memel – Refugees from the Reich” for by a question-and-answer session with producer and director Fred Finkelstein.

2020: In Boston, “A Far Cry” the Grammy nominated self-conducted chamber orchestra is scheduled to present “Berlin” which highlights the music of three composers whose music “would be considered as degenerate by the Nazis.”

2020: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a Saturday Lunch and Seudah that “will begin an hour before Shabbat ends.”

2021: As part of “This Is What Jewish Looks Like series”, the Streicker Center is scheduled to host a conversation Rebecca Walker, the author of Black, White and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self, her account of growing up as the only child of Jewish civil rights lawyer Mel Leventhal and Black writer Alice Walker.

2021:  In Palm Beach Gardens, FL, Temple Judea Book Club is scheduled to discuss The Song of the Jade Lily “a gripping historical novel that tells the little-known story of Jewish refugees in Shanghai by Kristy Manning that will include a screening of “Harbor from the Holocaust,” a documentary that examines the Pittsburgh connections to the Jews who found in Shanghai during the Holocaust.

 

 

 

This Day, February 2, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. and Deb Levin Z"L

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February 2

506: Alaric II, eighth king of the Visigoths promulgated The Breviary of Alaric (Breviarium Alaricianum or Lex Romana Visigothorum) a collection of Roman law that included the sixteen books of the Codex Theodosianus complete with all of its anti-Semitic laws.

450: Birthdate of Justin I during whose reign as Byzantine Emperor the Beth Alpha synagogue was built “at the foot of the northern slopes of the Mt. Gilboa near Beit She’an.

962: Pope John XII crowns Otto I, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Gershom ben Judah, who will gain fame as Rabbeinu Gershom Me'Or Hagolah ("Our teacher Gershom the light of the exile") had been born two years earlier in Metz.  Mainz, the city he would move to as an adult, was already the center of Talmudic learning in this part of the Holy Roman Empire with Yehuda ben Meir serving as its leading scholar at this time.

1208: Birthdate of James I of Aragon.King James I of Aragon was the monarch who forced Nachmanides, Rabbi Moses ben Nachman, to participate in a public debate, with the Jewish convert to Christianity, Pablo Christiani.  Unlike what usually happened, Nachmanides chose to respond aggressively. His brilliant defense of Judaism and refutations of Christianity's claims served as the basis of many such future disputations through the generations. Because his victory was an insult to the king's religion, Nachmanides was forced to flee Spain. There were those who wanted the sage killed, but James let him escape; a silent acknowledgement of the strength of the Rabbi’s arguments.

1484: The first printed edition of tractate Bezah of the Babylonian Talmud was published in Soncino Italy

1499: The Jews were scheduled to be expelled from Nuremberg but the expulsion was delayed until “Laetare Sunday, 1499.”

1536: Spaniard Pedro de Mendoza founds Buenos Aires, Argentina.  As in so much of the rest of Latin America, the first Jews to settle in Argentina were conversos.  When Argentina gained its independence in 1810, the Inquisition was abolished and this marked the beginning of the development of the modern Argentinean Jewish Community.  The first Jewish wedding in Buenos Aires took place in 1860.  Today Buenos Aires has a Jewish population of about 200,000 souls.  The city supports a variety of Jewish institutions including a campus of the Convservative JTS and one of the last remaining daily Yiddish newspapers.  Unfortunately, Buenos Aires was also the site of one of the worst terrorist attacks outside of Eretz Israel.

1499: The expulsion of the Jews from Nuremberg was scheduled to take place but was postponed until Lætare Sunday, 1499.

1592: Consecration of Clement VIII, during whose Papacy Jews were forced to attend “conversionist sermons,” prohibited from “dealing in new articles of clothing” and forced to allow copies of the Talmud to be burned in 1601,

1644: Birthdate of Isaac Chayyim Cantarini, also known as Isaacus Viva, the native of Padua who was a physician by training but who ‘also taught in the Yeshiva, officiated as a cantor” and served as “judge” in cases requiring a deep knowledge of Halacha.

1648(17th of Shevat, 5408): Rabbi Chaim ben Benjamin Bechner of Cracow, author of Or Hadash passed away.

1653: Incorporation of the city of New Amsterdam under Dutch rule. 

1649: Birthdate of Domincan month Vincenzo Marco Orsini who as Benedict XIII issued bull describing the “necessary conditions for imposing baptism on a Jew”  and forbidding Jews to sell “new goods.”

1654.  In other words, there really is a valid reason for thinking New York and New York Jew in the same breath.  (New Amsterdam became New York when the English took the colony and named the city in honor of the Duke of York.) 

1697: In Great Britain, a site is acquired for the first Ashkenazi cemetery.

1699: Richea Asher and German native Moses Raphael Levy, who were married in Lond in 1695 gave birth to Asher Levy we was living in Philadelphia at the time of his death in 1742.

1701(24thof Shevat, 5461): Fifty-one-year-old “German Orientalist” who “published a translation of the Targum on Chronicles” and translated a book on “the travels of Benjamin of Tudela” passed away today.

1709: In London, Elias Lindo and Rachel Lopes Ferreira were married at Bevis Marks Synagogue – a moment which was celebrated by the creation of a silver Chanukah menorah by John Ruslen known as the Lindo Lamp, the “earliest known English menorah.”

http://artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=32217#.Uuxc62eA2po

http://www.jewishpress.com/news/kate-gave-birth-in-a-jewish-funded-hospital-wing/2013/07/23/

1718(1st of Adar, 5478): Rabbi Gabriel ben Judah Loew Eskeles of Nikolsburg, Moravia passed away. He was the great-grandson of Rabbi Sinai Liva, the brother of the Maharal of Prague and the patriarch of the Eskeles “clan.”

1729: Despite the opposition of the Berlin Jewish community, Frederick William I repeated the order that Moses ben Aaron be appointed to serve as the city’s rabbi.

1740: In Zülz, Silesia, Seligmann Pappenheim, the town’s associate rabbi and his wife gave birth to Solomon Pappenheim whose works include a “book on Hebrew synonyms.”

1763:Löb Wertheimer (son of Samson Wertheimer and Frumet Brülle) and husband of Sarchen Halberstadt passed away today.

1769: Seventy-five year old Pope Clement XIII who in 1759 took a stance against the blood libel when he “proclaimed that the Holy See had examined the grounds on which rested the belief in the use of human blood for the feast of Passover and the murder of Christians by Jews, and that the Jews must not be condemned as criminals in respect of this charge, but that in the case of such occurrences legal forms of proof must be used” passed away today.

1788:  In New York City, Samuel Lazarus and his wife gave birth to Eleazar S. Lazarus a “city assessor in New York” who according to one source was the “editor of the first Hebrew prayer book published in North America, an accomplishment usually credited to Isaac Pinto.

1789: In Kingston, Jamaica, Shankey Hart and Abraham Jacobs gave birth to Frances Jacobs.

1790: The United States Supreme Court meets for the first time.  It would be one hundred and twenty six years before a Jewish jurist would be named to the High Court. 

1797: In the United Kingdom, George Isaacs and Kitty Levin experienced the tragedy of having a stillborn child.

1799(27thof Shevat, 5550): Parashat Mishpatim is read for the last time in the 18thcentury.

1814: Gershom Mendes Seixas of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of New York gave a sermon saying that because the United States has declared war, it is the duty of Jewish Americans to "act as true and faithful citizens, to support and preserve the honor, the dignity, and the independence of the United States of America!" Gershom asked the people to pray to God for protection and a strengthening of faith and to get rid of the evil that is around them.  He discusses the horrible conditions that many people have been faced with and the numerous deaths that have occurred.

1815: Friedrich von Gentz,  “the secretary of the Congress” of Vienna who “was in constant communication with Dr. Buchholz “on the rights of the Jews during the Congress, mentioned today dining at the home of Leopold Herz, a Jew who was one of the Royal Bankers along with such notables as the Duke of Wellington and Prince Metternich.

1816: Birthdate of Jacob Herz (Heart) the native of Bayreuth who was a successful physician in Erlangen but found his career stymied because he would not convert.

1819: In London, Hanna and Abraham Harris gave birth to Elizabeth Harris.

1820: Walter Jacob Levi married Rebecca Hart today in the Great Synagogue.

1825(14thof Shevat, 5585): Seventy-four year old Isac Hartvig Rée the husband of Sara Wulff Wulff von Essen and the father of Thamar Ree passed away in Altona, Germany.

1827: Birthdate of Jewish scholar Solomon Buber the Lemberg native who was the son of Isaiah Abraham Buber and the grandfather of Martin Buber.

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3781-buber-solomon

1831: Gregory XVI began his papacy today during which he granted an audience to Raphael Meir ben Judah Panigel who “was the Sephardi chief rabbi of Jerusalem” until his death in 1893.

1833: Esther B. Seixas and Naphtali Phillips, the President of both Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia and Shearith Israel in New York and “the owner of New York City’s National Advocate, gave birth to Zipporah Phillips, the wife of Lewis Benjamin.

1835: In Gnesen, Posen, Joseph Chayyim Caro and his wife gave birth to historian Jacob Caro.

1835: London natives Julia Solomons and Barnett Nathan gave birth to Dinah Nathan who first married Nathaneil Hart with whom she had four children and then married Charles Harald Hansen while living in New Zealand.

1837(27thof Shevat, 5597): Hungarian rabbi Moses ben Menahem Kunizter, a descendant of Rabbi Lowe, passed away today.

1839: Birthdate of Bohemia native and Prague trained chemist Anton Schwarz who in 1868 emigrated to United States where he became editor and owner of The American Brewer which he turned into a scientific journal and who was the father of Max Schwartz he followed in his father’s footsteps.

https://brookstonbeerbulletin.com/historic-beer-birthday-anton-schwarz/

1840: “A report was spread” in Damascus that Father Thomas and his servant “were last seen in the Jewish quarter of the city” which “was sufficient to excite the wrath of” those “who had long nourished a bitter animosity against the Jews” and resulted in the arrest of Jewish barber.  After having received “500 blows” and the promise of a pardon “if he would disclose the names of his co-religionists who had” murdered the pair, the barber “denounced seven persons who had required human blood for the Passover festival.”  (Modern versions date these events as having begun on February 5. This is based on an account published in 1883

1848: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed ending the Mexican American War.  There are limited records of colorful Jewish characters who showed up at different places where the war was fought (Remember, it covered a swath of territory including California, New Mexico, Arizona and the Republic of Mexico).  They include Jacob Frankfort a tailor living at Taos, New Mexico; Nathan Appel, a trooper with Phil Kearny’s Dragoons, Solomon and Thomas Farnham who were with the American Army at the Battle of Chapultepec (and later made their fortune in California) and Jacob Frankfort, a tailor living in Los Angeles who went to work for the U.S. Army when the troops arrived.

1849: In Oriskany, NY, Elizabeth and Keiron Gaynor gave birth to William Jay Gaynor who as Mayor of New York served as an “honorary pall bearer at the funeral of Strassburg born Brooklyn businessman Moses May, the wholesale meat dealer who was also President of the Broadway Trust Company and the President of the Bushwick Savings Bank while being an active member of the Jewish community who a charter member of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Society in Brooklyn.

1852: “Shocking Murder Near Philadelphia” published today described the discovery of the mutilated body of Jacob Lehman, a German Jew, who had been robbed before he was killed and dumped into the Delaware River.

1852: Birthdate of a “Spanish physician and liberal politician” Angel Pulido Fernandez who “vowed to rebuild the links between and the Sephardi Jews, descendant of those expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in the late 15th century” and who “coined the expression españoles sin patria (Spaniards without a homeland) to refer to Sephardi.”

1852: Forty-nine-year-old Francis Mary Paul Libermann (born Jacob Libermann) “a 19th-century Jewish convert to Catholicism who was a member of the Spiritan order and who is best known for founding the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary which later merged with the Congregation of the Holy Ghost” passed away today in Paris.

1853: At Hatten, Alsace, Frederick Klein and There Moock gave birth to Max Klein who began serving as the rabbi for Congregation of Bikur Cholim in Donaldsonville, LA in 1903 and who was the brother of Cantor Zacharie Klein.

1854:  A second dinner was held in Philadelphia designed to raise funds for Jewish charities.

1855: Today’s issue of The Israelite reported that in New York, “great exertions are being made here for establishing a large institute to instruct children in Hebrw and Jewish Catechism without interfering with the common schools.”

1855: In Eisenstadt, Austria, Rabbi Dr. Azriel Hildesheimer and Henriette Jettchen Hildesheimer gave birth to Rabbi Hirsch Hildesheimer the husband of Rosa Therese Hieldesheimer

1858: In Pest, Hungary Wilhelm Diamant married Johanna Theres Diamant.

1860: "Oliver Twist," a dramatization of Dickens' novel by the same name, was performed at the Winter Garden in New York City.  J.W. Wallack played the part of Fagin the Jew

1861(22ndof Shevat, 5621): Parashat Yitro

1861: In Philadelphia, PA, Meyer Guggenheim and Barbara Myers gave birth to Solomon R Guggenheim the husband of Irene Rothschild and a second-generation member of the Guggenheim family that made its fortune mining and metallurgy, Guggenheim is best remembered for endowing the Guggenheim Foundation which funds and runs the Guggenheim Museum. Guggenheim’s brother Benjamin died on the Titanic and it was his daughter Peggy who joined her uncle as a patron of the arts.

1862: Birthdate of Rabbi Joshua A. Joffe, The Jewish Theological Seminary's second Talmud instructor. He joined the Seminary as Preceptor of Mishna and Gemara in 1893 and retired in 1917. As one of only two full time paid instructors at the Seminary when he arrived (the other was Bible instructor Bernard Drachman) Joffe taught all of the Seminary's early graduates. He was also in charge of the library, and he took part in the students' Literary Society, lecturing in Hebrew to the group that met every other Saturday evening. In addition to his work at the Seminary, Joffe taught students in his home (one of these private students was Stephen Wise), and from 1893 to around 1908 he taught Hebrew and Jewish ethics at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum on Amsterdam Avenue between West 136th and 138th Streets. Joffe was born in Nesvizh, Minsk, Russia on February 2, 1862. He studied at the Volozhin Yeshiva and received smicha (Orthodox rabbinic ordination) from Rabbi Isaac J. Reines in 1881. He then went to Berlin and attended the liberal Hochschule fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentumsfrom which he received a second rabbinic ordination in 1888. Joffe's education also included a period, 1886-1890, at the University of Berlin where he studied philosophy, history, and Semitics. He served as rabbi to congregations in Vishnove, Russia, in 1880, and Moabit, a suburb of Berlin, 1889-1892. In 1892 Joffe left Germany and came to the United States. After twenty-four years at the Seminary, Joshua Joffe retired in 1917 after a period of ill health. He then returned to Europe with his wife and daughter and died in Freiburg, Germany on December 23, 1935. His family returned to the United States after his death.

1866(17thof Shevat, 5626): Fifty-six-year-old Rosanna Osterman, the wife of “silversmith and merchant Joseph Osterman” who moved to Galveston in 1838, died today “in the explosion of the steamship W. R. Carter on the Mississippi River near Vicksburg, and was buried in the Portuguese Cemetery in New Orleans” after which she “left an estate valued at over $204,000, much of which she bequeathed to charitable organizations.

1869: The will of the late James Disraeli “was proved” today by Benjamin Israeli.

1870: Birthdate of Dr.William Salant, the 1899 graduate of Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, the pharmacologist who taught at Cornell University.

https://library-archives.cumc.columbia.edu/obit/william-salant

1871: Baron Jozsef Eotvos, Hungarian statesman and who supported the emancipation of the Jews passed away today while serving as Minister of Religion and Education of Hungary.

1871: Gustavus Cardozo, Chief of the Ordinance Bureau in New York City has issued orders to all householders to immediately clear the snow and ice from the sidewalks in front of their houses and from their rooftops.

1873: In Olmütz, bandmaster and composer Mortiz Fall and his wife gave birth to Leo Fall who gained fame for composing a series of operettas.

1873: It was reported today that a benefit performance has raised $5,200 for the Home for Aged and Infirmed Hebrews.

1874(15thof Shevat, 5634): Tu B’Shevat

1874: In Philadelphia, PA, Herman Reizenstein and Louise Woernitz gave birth to Milton Reizenstein the recipient of Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins and husband of Rose Hollander who served as the Assistant Superintendent of the Educational Alliance and whose writings included the Economic History of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

1875: Birthdate of violinist and composer Fritz Kreisler.  There are several different views as to whether or not Kreisler was Jewish.  As the following note shows, even his family did not agree on the answer to the question. “Amy Biancolli's recent biography Fritz Kreisler: Love's Sorrow, Love's Joy  (Amadeus Press, Portland Oregon, 1998) contains an extensive discussion  of Kreisler's Jewish background, which he never acknowledged and which his wife adamantly denied (see Chapter 8: "Kreisler the Catholic, Kreisler the Jew").    Biancolli cites a 1992 interview by David Sackson of Franz Rupp, Fritz Kreisler's piano accompanist in the 1930s.  Rupp states that he once asked Kreisler's brother, the cellist Hugo Kreisler, about their Jewish background, to which Hugo responded simply, "I'm a Jew, but my brother, I don't know."  According to Biancolli, Kreisler's father, Salomon Severin Kreisler (also called Samuel Severin Kreisler), a physician and amateur violinist from Krakow, was almost certainly Jewish.  Fritz's mother, Anna, was a Roman Catholic, and probably an "Aryan."  According to Louis Lochner's 1950 biography Fritz Kreisler, Kreisler was reared as a Roman Catholic.  However, according to unpublished parts of the manuscript uncovered by Biancolli in the Library of Congress, he was baptized only at the age of twelve.  The bottom line seems to be that Kreisler was at least half-Jewish and his reticence on the subject primarily an attempt to placate his highly anti-Semitic wife Harriet.  ("Fritz hasn't a drop of Jewish blood in his veins!" she is said to have vehemently responded to an inquiry from Leopold Godowsky.  Godowsky retorted: "He must be very anemic.")”

1875: Six-year-old Alice Kate Dreyfus, the daughter of Arthur Dreyfus and Harriet Broomfield was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1875: In Paris, Sophie Neymarck and Elie Camille Espir gave birth Daniel Lucien Espir.

1876: The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs of Major League Baseball which we know simply as the National League, the first and oldest of baseball’s two Major Leagues is formed. Lip Pike may have been the first Jewish major leaguer.  He had begun playing before the creation of the National League.  Reportedly, his first stint was with the Philadelphia Athletics. In 1876 he played with the National League team in St. Louis, thus making him the first Jewish baseball player to play in baseball’s senior circuit.

1878:  It was reported today that the Jewish Messenger has taken issue with those who feel they must respond every time somebody expresses negativity regarding Hebrews as individuals are as a group.  Those making these statements are “petty assailants” from whom the Hebrews need no defense.

1879: Birthdate of Johana Handgriffova who was transported from Prague in October of 1942 to Ujazdow where he was murdered.

1879: In Prague, Dr. Otto Pribram and Fanny Pribram gave birth Ernst August Pribram the Austrian Army Veteran, the serologist and bacteriologist who settled in Chicago where he also taught at Loyola.

1882: Birthdate of Irish author James Joyce. Joyce was not Jewish, but Bloom the protagonist in his most famous novel, Ulysses was Jewish.

1882: In Hungary, Herman and Leni Winkler gave birth to Viennese trained Rabbi Mayer Winkler \who in 1921 came to the United States where he served the congregation in Homestead, PA before settling in Los Angeles where he served as Regional Director of the United Synagogue of America, organized a “free synagogue” and became “one of the first rabbis in the United States to speak regularly over the radio as the founder of the radio program ‘Synagogue on the Air’ which he conducted for seven years.”

1883(25thof Shevat, 5643): Seventy-two-year-old Rabbi Yisroel Salanter passed away. He was the father of the Mussar movement in Orthodox Judaism and a famed Rosh yeshiva and Talmudist. The epithet Salanter was added to his name due to the influence on his thinking by Rabbi Yosef Zundel of Salant.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/salanter.html

http://www.myjewishlearning.com/history/Modern_History/1700-1914/traditional-jewish-life/Musar_Movement/Salanter.shtml

1883: Birthdate of S. Z. Sakall.  Born Eugene Gero Szakall in Budapest Hungary, he used the first two initials of his last name to create his professional persona.  The chubby cheeked actor was also known as “Cuddles.”  One of his most famous roles was as the round-faced waiter in Casablanca who tells Rick that he could “kiss him” after he lets a desperate young couple win enough at the casino to avoid the clutches of the lecherous Claude Raines.

http://www.moviefanfare.com/s-z-sakall/

1888: Birthdate of London born classical pianist Irene Scharrer.

http://www.naxos.com/person/Irene_Scharrer/13517.htm

1889: In Old Waverly, TX, Josephine Walker and Frank Cohn gave birth to Dr. Max Augustus Cohn D.D.S., the husband of Nina Edna Fleshman who served during WW I as a “1st Lt Dental Corps, 36th Division at the US Army Base Hospital, 84th Med Corps.”

1890: At Neuilly, France, verbal attacks were made against the Jews in general and the House of Rothschild in particular which was denounced for its “German origins” and its alleged role in the collapse of the l'Union Générale. 

 1890: “Religious Census” published today described the denominational makeup of Hartford, CN, a city of 48, 179 which includes 1,158 Jews.

1890: “Gods Who Are Kinsmen” published today provided a detailed review of Lectures on the Religion of the Semites by Cambridge professor W. Robertson Smith

1891(24thof Shevat, 5651): Philadelphian Ellen M. Phillips who was a benefactress of various Jewish charities including the Jewish Theological Seminary, passed away today.

1891: Birthdate of Warsaw native Dr. Ludwig Anigstein, the “renowned expert on tropical diseases” who during the 1920’s “was entrusted by the British Government with the task of tropical fever research in the Malayan Archipelago.”

https://www.jta.org/1939/07/11/archive/anigstein-polish-tropical-disease-expert-to-visit-u-s-for-science-parleys

 

1891: Twenty-five-year-old Chicago businessman Samuel Phillipson, the Polish born son of Phillip and Sarah Rachel Phillipson married Rachel Burton of Elgin, Illinois today.

1891: “Art Notes” published today described exhibition at the Hotel Cluny in Paris of “a collection of objects” used by Jewish during the 13th, 14thand 15th centuries.  The collection had been donated to the Cluny Museum by Baroness Nathaniel de Rothschild and was made up of items that had originally belong to Isaac Strauss, who served as conductor during the reign of Napoleon III (more for 2014)

1892: Twenty-eight-year-old Morris Ullamn, the New Haven, CT born son of Morris and Mina Ullman, the Quartermaster General of the Connecticut National Guard, “a member of the firm of Strouse, Adler and Company, and Treasurer of the American Jewish Committee married Flora Veronica Adler today

1893: “The Century for February” published today described the articles in this month’s edition of the magazine including “A Voice From Russia” in which Pierre Botkine, the secretary to the Russian Legation in Washington, DC provides his government’s version of its treatment of the Jews.

1893: Birthdate of Cornelius Lanczos the Hungarian mathematician and physicist who served as an assistant to Albert Einstein and while working for the U.S. National Bureau of Standards developed “the Lanczos algorithm for finding eigenvalues of large symmetric matrices and the Lanczos approximation for the gamma function.”

1894(26thof Shevat, 5654): Seventy-eight-year-old Maro Mortara, the native of Viadana who graduated from the rabbinical college of Padua in 1836 before starting to serve as the Rabbi to Mantua in 1842 passed away today leaving behind his son Lodvocio Mortara who was the father of statistician Giorgio Mortara.

1895(8thof Shevat, 5655): Sixty-four-year-old Adelaide Cohen Montefiore, “the daughter of Louis Cohen and Rebecca Floretta Keyser, the wife of Sir Joseph Sebag-Montefiore and the daughter-in-law of Solomon Sebag and Sarah Montefiore passed away today after she was buried at the “Sephardi New Cemetery” in London.

1895(8thof Shevat, 5655): Sixty-eight year old French painter Benjamin Eugène Fichel passed away today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Fichel#/media/File:Eugene_fichel_painting_1.jpg

1896: The Young Ladies and Gentlemen’s Circle of the Auxiliary Society of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Orphan Asylum was formed today in New York City.

1896: Alexander Lewis Simmons, the son of Joseph and Annie Simmons, was buried today at the “Balls Pond Jewish Cemetery.”

1897(30thof Shevat, 5657): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1897(30thof Shevat, 5657): Author Abraham Kaplan passed away

1897: The Young People’s Association of the West Synagogue is scheduled to meet today at the home of Dr. H.P. Mendes. 

1898: During today’s court session where the libel suit that Joseph Reinach has brought against Henri Rochefort, the audience began shouting “Down with the Jews!”

1898: Birthdate of Morocco native “Isaac Shalom Edrehi,” the Sephardic rabbi and “Arab linguist” who moved to the United States in 1920.

1899(22ndof Shevat, 5659): Sixty-three-year-old Samuel David Klauber, the husband of Charlotte Klauber

1899: Based on information that first appeared in La Presse it was reported today that Captain Alfred Dreyfus was so angry when he learned that Captain Lebrun-Renault had claimed that he had confessed at the time of his trial that he refused to answer any more of the questions put to him by the Court Cassation unless he is returned to France.

1899:  Birthdate of Benny Rubin the Boston born actor, comic and writer whose career would span over 70 years and include work on the stage, film and television.

1899: Captain Albert W. Lilienthal completed his service with the 7th U.S. Volunteer Infantry, six months before he would re-enlist with the 40thU.S Volunteer Infantry.

1899: It was reported today that “the latest victim of the anti-Dreyfus party is the Grand Rabbi, Zadok Kahn, who is being denounced as ‘the ringleader of the infamous Jewish conspiracy against France…’”

1900(3rdof Adar I, 5660): Bavarian born tobacco merchant Isaac Rosenwald who in his 17thyear came to Georgia where he went into business with brother Edward with whom he moved their firm E. Rosenwald and Brother to New York in 1863 after which he married Miss Rachel Jacobson in 1869, joined the Harmonie Club and served as President of the Southern Bank, passed away today in Manhattan.

1901: Birthdate of famed violinist, Yasha Heifetz.  Born in Russia, Heifetz was a child prodigy. He soloed for the first time at the age of four.  Considering the fact that he died in 1987, this means that Heifitz was a performer for eighty-two years.  He became "a violin virtuoso of worldwide acclaim."  He won several Grammies in the 1960s for his recordings of chamber music.  Heifetz is one of a long list of Jewish violin virtuosos including Yehudi Menuhin and Conductor Eugene Ormandy.  There are those who think of the violin as “the Jewish instrument.” Why, the comedian asked, do so many Jews play the violin?  Because, the violinist answered, it is a lot easier to carry than the bass fiddle when you are being chased out of a country.

1901(13thof Shevat, 5661): Parashat Beshalach

1901: The 35thAnnual Convention of the Independent Order of the Free Sons of Israel is scheduled to open in New York,

1902: One day she had passed away, 45-year-old Sophia Kuit, the wife of Meir Kuit, was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1902:  Birthdate of Israeli political leader and government official Eliyahu Sasson

1903(5thof Shevat, 5663): Morris Tuska who had served as Vice President of the United Hebrew Charities of the city of New York passed away.

1904: The Times of London correspondent in Moscow reported that the “the position of the Jews” in that city “has been particularly difficult in the past year” in part because the “Governor of the city” has followed polices that have meant that “a number of families whose grandfathers obtained the hereditary freedom city in the1850’s “have suddenly been expelled” with the police taking the Jews to the railroad station where those with money are compelled to buy their own tickets.

1905:  Birthdate of Alissa Rosenbaum who gained famed as author and philosopher Ayn Rand. Born in St. Petersburg, Rand was the daughter of a pharmacist – a professional and member of the middle class which was quite an accomplishment in the anti-Semitic world of Czarist Russia.  The family lost everything in the Bolshevik Revolution.  She managed to finish her education in the early days of Lenin’s Soviet Union and the immigrated to the United States.  It was during the immigration process that she took the first name of Ayn (rhymes with Pine) and the last name of Rand as in Remington Rand, name of her favorite typewriter.  After a checkered career, Ms. Rand published her two famous novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. These novels and the film made from one of them espoused her philosophy of “Objectivism.”  Rand “glorified the self-made man who aggressively demonstrated his superiority over the masses through his business acumen.”  Her personal life was at odds with her philosophy when you consider the fact that her husband was a financial failure and much of her financial base came from her unconventional relationship with Nathan Blumenthal.  The name “John Galt”, the hero of the Fountainhead became a code word among her followers in the 1950’s.  She was the philosopher to a movement that found its voice in the Goldwater wing of the Republican Party.  Alan Greenspan, the current Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, is a great fan of her philosophy.  Although Rand died in 1982, her books continue to sell well and her philosophy which, according to some, glorifies selfishness as a virtue and condemns altruism as a vice enjoys periodic periods of revival and popularity.

1906: In Volkovysk,  Yerucham Warhaftig and Rivka Fainstein gave birth to Rabbi Zorach Warhaftig who made Aliyah in 1947 and served in Israel’s first nine Knessets.   Most important of all he worked with he worked with Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese Vice-Counsel in Kaunas to save the entire Mir Yeshiva.

1906: It was reported today that of the sixteen people executed in the Citadel at Warsaw in the last fortnight, 15 of them were Jews.

1906: Birthdate of Brooklyn native Harold Rosenberg, the leading “art historian and critic.”

https://www.theartstory.org/critic-rosenberg-harold.htm

1906: Letters from Gomel appearing in St. Petersburg newspapers all agree that the “anti-Jewish outrages in that town were perpetrated with the open connivance of the authorities” with the Cossacks and dragoon leading the way with acts of arson and plunder.

1907(18thof Shevat, 5667): Parashat Yitro

1907: Miss Frances Gill and fifty children of both sexes attended the first of a series of “Socialism Sunday Schools which was established today to teach Socialism to Jewish children.

1908(30thof Shevat, 5668): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1908: In Freedom, PA, “Abel and Rebecca (Gordon) Finn gave birth to Ohio St. alum Sidney Bernard Finn, the award-winning Harvard trained dentist who was the husband of Irma Harriet Rubens with whom he had two children – Catherine and Andrew.

1909: Adolf Stoecker, a prominent Lutheran theologian and court chaplain to Kaiser Wilhelm II who was a leading anti-Semite passed away today.

1909(11thof Shevat, 5669): Seventy-year-old Prague native Leopold Karpeles who was “awarded the Medal of Honor as a Sergeant in Company E, 57th Massachusetts Infantry” for rallying the troops under fire during the Wilderness Campaign in 1864 passed away today in Washington, D.C. after which he was buried in the cemetery of Washington Hebrew Congregation, the oldest Jewish congregation in the nation’s capital.

1909(11thof Shevat, 5669): Eighty-five-year-old Julius von Gomperzes the Austrian industrialist who was President of the Bron Trade and Commerce Chamber and a leader of the Brno Jewish community passed away today.

1910: Birthdate of Syracuse, NY, native Alexander "Mine Boy" Levinsky whose nine-year career in the NFL included playing on two Stanley Cup championship teams.

http://mapleleafslegends.blogspot.com/2010/06/alex-levinsky.html

1911: Birthdate of Hilde Metzger, the daughter of Louis and Clara Metzger, who moved to Amsterdam in 1933 when her parents “moved to Palestine escape the Nazis” and who became Hilde Metzter Prins when she married Benjamin L. Prins in New York in 1940.

1912: Chief Rabbi Franco of Jerusalem protests to the Turkish Minister of Justice and Public Worship over the removal of seats at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. The Governor ignores his protest.

1913: Rae D. Landy, the Cleveland trained nurse arrived in Palestine today after having been recruited by Henrietta Szold “to begin a visiting nurse program in Palestine.”

1913(25thof Shevat, 5673): Fifty-seven-year-old Judge Henry M. Steinert of New York City passed away today.

1913(25thof Shevat, 5673): Seventy-five-year-old Nathan Goodman passed away today in Newburgh, NY.

1913: At a time when some in the Reform Movement were trying to make Sunday the day for Shabbat services, Dr. Emil G. Hirsch delivered the sermon this morning at services at Sinai Temple on Chicago’s South Side.

1913: Rabbi Joseph Stoltz is scheduled to deliver a sermon “The Memory of the Righteous” at Chicago’s Isaiah Temple which will coincide “with the annual memorial services of the B’nai B’rith Lodges of Chicago.

1913: Dr. Stephen S. Wise delivered a sermon ln “What is Wrong with the Jew?” at the Free Synagogue today.

1913: The New Jersey Conference of Charities and Corrections of which Newark, NJ Rabbi Solomon Foster served as a member of the Executive Committee began meeting in Plainfield, NJ today.

1914: Less than a year after having the British Featherweight Championship, Ted “Kid: Lewis (born Gershon Mendeloff) won the European Featherweight Championship “at London’s Premierland” today.

 1915: Birthdate of Abba Eban.  Born Aubrey Solomon Eban (he would later Hebracize his name after the creation of the state of Israel), in South Africa, raised in England and educated at Cambridge, Eban was a major figure in the creation of the Jewish state.  At Cambridge he “read” Classics and Oriental language.  This educational background meant he knew Arabic and had an appreciation of Arab culture, knowledge that would be useful during World War II when he served as an intelligence officer with the British Army.  It was while serving with the British Army in Egypt that he met his future wife.  She came from a prominent Sephardic family.  There are those who contend Eban’s political fortunes would later suffer because of his marriage to a Sephardic Jew.  Eban served at the United Nations during the Partition Debate and worked to gain early American recognition for the Jewish state.  After the War for Independence Eban was both Ambassador to the U.N. and Israeli Ambassador to the United States.  In these dual roles, Eban played a critical role in gaining popular and diplomatic support for the embattled state of Israel.  This sophisticated, Cambridge educated intellectual speaking English in the same oratorical tones as Winston Churchill was a one-man public relations machine, the value of which we can hardly comprehend today.  After his time in Washington, Eban returned to the rough and tumble world of Israeli politics.  He held a number of responsible positions, including Foreign Minister, but the top job of Prime Minister always eluded.  Eban produced several works on Jewish History and Civilization including Heritage which was the basis for PBS series narrated by Eban.  Yes, what you have read is biased.  I heard and saw Eban several times as youngster growing up in Washington.  In a post-Holocaust world, with the survival of Israel a daily question-mark, and genteel anti-Semitism still an accepted part of the American landscape, the voice and presence of Abba Eban was a source of pride and comfort to a whole generation of Jews.  Regardless of what his critics might say, in his case, the whole was greater than the sum of the parts.

1915: During WW I, Jamal Pasha, the military governor of Palestine, began battling the British under General Maxwell with the intent of taking the Suez Canal.

1915: It was reported today that “nearly all of the Jewish refugees in Alexandria come from Jerusalem and other large towns” including over 1,000 young men “who refused to become Ottomans” and have declared “their eagerness to join the British Army.

1915: It was reported today that the Provisional Executive Committee for General Zionist Affairs chaired by Louis D. Brandeis “will deposit $10,000 with the American Consul at Alexandria” for the aid of Jewish refugees.

1915: It was reported today that “the distress among the 5,000 Jews and 12,000 Christians left in Jerusalem is acute” and that “the American relief supplies” are “insufficient to maintain life.”

1916: The American Jewish Relief Committee announced that it had raised $2,050,082 thus surpassing the goal of raising two million dollars set for Jewish Relief Day.

1916: Albert Lucas, representing the American Jewish Relief Committee, called on Secretary of State Lansing and Secretary of the Navy Daniels and arranged that a naval collier “laden with medicine” would sail for a Mediterranean port next week where the cargo will then be delivered to those living in Palestine.

1916: “A report to the committed from Philadelphia” today” said that the local committee there had $330,000 pledged and that the committees of businessmen would keep at work until at least $500,000 had been pledged.”

1917: The State Department received a cable from Ambassador Elkus that a group of refugees from Jerusalem, Aleppo and various parts of Lebanon, all of whom are women and children, are on their way to Beirut with plans to board the USS Des Moines and Caesar while at the same he has discovered another 1,000 Americans in the region who “are anxious to return to the United States. (Editor’s note: Yes, this is the same region that is facing a refugee crisis 100 years later)

1917: Premiere of “The Marriage of Luise Rohrbach” a German silent moved filmed by cinematographer Karl Freund.

1917: Birthdate of Jule Rivlin, the native of Pennsylvania who played basketball at Marshall where he coached from 1955 to 1963>

1918: Margaret Seligman married Sam A. Lewisohn, son of Adolph Lewisohn, benefactor of City College and other major New York cultural institutions.

1918: Governor Whitman, Colonel Harry Cutler, Chairman of the Welfare Board for Jewish Soldiers and Sailors’ Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein of the Institutional Synagogue, Rabbi Joseph Silverman of Temple Emanu-El and Rabbi Maurice H. Harris of Temple Israel were among the speakers at tonight’s celebration marking the 75th anniversary of the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith.

1918: As it prepares to embark for the Front, The British Legion, a Jewish military unit serving in His Majesty’s forces, was ordered to London to march through the East End before proceeding to Southampton.

1919: Birthdate of Tullia Zevi, Italian journalist, writer and who was the daughter of an anti-fascist Jewish lawyer.

1919: Belarus native Rabbi Harry Hirsch Davidowitz married Ida Chaya Bloom in Philadelphia, fifteen years before he moved to Tel Aviv where he lived until his death in 1973.

1920: Birthdate of Norwich, CT native and Rutgers University trained microbiologist Albert Israel Schatz, the husband of “the former Vivian Rosenfeld who is also a microbiologist.” (As reported by Margalit Fox)

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/02/obituaries/albert-schatz-microbiologist-dies-at-84.html

1920:  France occupies Memel. Memel was one of those cities that had changed hands many times throughout the centuries.  In the 20th century it was passed back and forth between Germany and re-born Lithuania. “The French Governor, who ruled the region on behalf of the Entente, cancelled all restrictions which had been imposed upon the Jews, and thus all the Jewish inhabitants of Memel and the region received citizenship. The Governor nominated a committee of four members, two of them Jews, Moritz Altschul and Leon Rostovsky, as well as one German and a French officer as chairman, to deal with requests for citizenship, as a result of which the number of Jews in Memel increased quickly. The port, the developing commerce, the convenient conditions for developing industry, the possibility to learn a trade and the easing of permission to leave for the west and to Eretz-Israel, motivated many Jews to settle in Memel. The Lithuanian Government, having annexed Memel and the region to Lithuania in 1923, was pleased with the increase of the Jewish population, because the Jews together with the Lithuanians reduced the influence of the German majority.”

1921: Dr. Jacob Gould Schurman, the former President of Cornell University gave an address today in which he “warned the American people that they must protect themselves from the peril of denationalization by hordes of foreigners” including Jews of whom he said 24% of the world’s total now lived in the United States.

1922: In Jerusalem, Priscilla Lee, daughter of Dr. Henry J. and Josie Wolfe married Joshua Lipavsky.

1922: Birthdate Shmuel Agmon, the Tel Aviv born mathematician “known for his work in analysis and partial differential equations.”

http://www.emetprize.org/english/Product.aspx?Product=22&Year=2007

1923: Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the father of the modern Turkish Republic declared, “Our country has some elements who gave the proof of their fidelity to the motherland. Among them I have to quote the Jewish element; up to now the Jews have lived in happiness and from now they will rejoice and will be happy.”

1923: “Nora” a silent film co-starring Fritz Kortner was released today in Germany.

1926: Arshag Mahdesian, an expert on Armenia wrote today challenging William E. “Pussyfoot” Johnson’s description of Turkey in which described “the Jews” as “aliens who live on the bounty of the Turks

1926: In Breslau, Rudolf Stern, “a physician, medical researcher and a veteran of the First World War” and “Käthe Brieger Stern,a noted theorist, practitioner, and reformer in the field of education for young children” gave birth to Fritz Richard Stern an “American historian of German history, Jewish history and historiography” whose family had been forced to leave Germany even though “his family had converted to Christianity in the 19th century.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/19/books/fritz-stern-a-leading-historian-on-modern-germany-dies-at-90.html

1927: “Rio Rita” a musical orchestrated and conducted by Max Steiner “premiered on Broadway” today “at the new Ziegfeld Theatre.”

1927: The Ziegfeld Theater opened at 6th Ave and 54th Street in New York City. After Flo Ziegfeld’s death, Jewish showman Billie Rose would buy the theatre and turn in into his headquarters.  In 1927, the Ziegfeld was the site of the premiere performance of “Showboat”, the musical which owed its lyrics, tunes and literary inspiration to American Jews.

1927: Birthdate of jazz great, Stan Getz, premier tenor “sax man.” The son of Jewish immigrants from Russia, Getz was born in Philadelphia but raised in New York.  His father bought Getz his first saxophone at the age of thirteen. Getz gained fame among mainstream music fans when he won a Grammy for his recording of "The Girl from Ipanema" in 1963. 

1927: Birthdate of Herbert Kaplow, the Manhattan born son of Jewish immigrants who became a leading reporter for NBC and ABC television news.

1928: In Tel Aviv, Sir Alfred Mond, the Jewish chemist who became a Member of Parliament, says that despite the current level of unemployment, there is no economic crisis in Palestine, since the rate of unemployment is “constantly decreasing.”  After noting growth in the agricultural sector, Mond predicted that the construction of the Haifa harbor would have a positive impact on the country’s economy.  Others living in Palestine do not share Mond’s optimism, claiming that without an infusion of capital to develop the country’s industrial capacity, the employment situation will worsen.

1929(22ndof Shevat, 5689): Albert Steinrück who played Rabbi Lowe in the early German film classic Golem passed away at the age of 56.  Considering what was about to happen to the Jews of Europe, there is a certain sense of irony in this choice of material for a film.

1930: “Modern Home for the Blind To Be Built in Palestine” published today described “a meeting of the Palestine Lighthouse, a New York organization devoted to aid the blind of Palestine” at which plans for the erection of a completely modern Institute for the Blind” which “will be built on the outskirts of Jerusalem” were completed.

1930: The funeral for Lady Reading, the wife of Lord Reading is scheduled to take place to “at Goldersgreen Jewish Cemetery.

1931(15thof Shevat, 5691): Tu B’Shevat

1931: Birthdate of Newark, NJ native Judith Viorst the author best known for her children’s books and the wife of fellow Rutgers alum and author Milton Viorst who was on Nixon’s enemies list and whose late-blooming interest in Zionism and the Middle East can be seen in 2016 work Zionism: The Birth and Transformation of an Ideal

1931: The first Siyyum of the Talmud celebrated by Daf Yomi students.

1931: An announcement was made today at a meeting of “Jewish athletic clubs and youth organizations” held at the 92nd Street Y.M.H.A., that the “first world-wide Jewish Olympic games will be held in Tel Aviv next summer and that these groups had come together to “organize the first American chapter of the World Maccabee Union.”

1933: Hitler met the high command of Germany's officer corps for the first time.  Hitler needed the support of the Army.  The Prussian officer corps looked upon Hitler as an untrustworthy upstart.  They also feared that he would replace the army with the SA, his private army of brown shirted thugs.  Hitler would later make a deal with the high command.  He would get rid of the SA and they would support him.  This gave rise to the Night of Long Knives when Hitler literally killed off the SA and the German military machine embraced Hitler.  Neither World War II nor the Final Solution could have taken place without this alliance of Hitler and the High Command.

1933: In response to Hindenburg’s appointing Hitler to the post of Chancellor, theFamilienblatt a Jewish weekly newspaper, “declared, that it can hardly stand the idea, that an outspoken anti-Semite is appointed head of government.”

1933: “Morgenrot” a WW I German submarine movie starring Camilla Spira, the daughter of actor Fritz Spria who died in the Ruma concentration camp in 1943, was released today in Germany three days after Hitler came to power

1934(17thof Shevat, 5694): Eighty-four-year-old Columbia University Professor Julius Sachs, a member by birth and marriage of the Goldman-Sachs clan and the founder of Sachs Collegiate Institute passed away today.

1934: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today for ixty-six-year-old Kiev native Mary Epstein, one of the earliest stars of the Yiddish theatre who performed with such greats and Jacob Adler and Boris Thomashefsky who was attacked in 1913 by “hired gangsters” during a dispute between union and non-union actors who passed away two days ago.

1934: In a letter published today Zionist leader Louis Lipsky criticizes an article published in the Good Gray Lady on January 21 which endorsed the proposal to create Arab and Jewish cantons as the solution to the problems in Palestine.  The Arab canton would include Jerusalem, Jaffa and Haifa while the Jewish canton would be limited to Tel Aviv and a narrow strip of land that would include the malarial swamps around Lake Hula.  Furthermore, Lipsky contends that the details of the plan which had been published in the Palestine Arab newspaper, Falstin, violate the spirit and letter of the Balfour Declaration to a point where it whittles it down to meaninglessness.

1934: Journalist and Zionist Jacob de Haas is scheduled “to speak at a forum of the Jewish Community House of Bensonhurst” this evening in Brooklyn.

1934: U.S. premiere of “Hips, Hips, Hooray!,” a comedy directed by Mark Sandrich (Mark Rex Goldstein) with a script by Bert Kalmar, Edward Kaufman and Harry Ruby.”

1935: “Red Hot Tires” a crime drama written by Dore Schary was released in the United States today by Warner Brothers.

1935: Sam Winograd, the CCNY grad would become the school’s Athletic Director, led his basketball team to victory over Temple.

1936: Elfriede Spiro, a Jewish woman whose family had come from Ostrowo in East Prussia, but had fled to Breslau when East Prussia became part of Poland after World War I and then fled to Italy after the rise of Hitler and Italian physicist and Noble laureate Emilio Gino Segre “were married at the Great Synagogue of Rome” – creating a marriage that lasted until October of 1970 when Elfriede passed away and that produced three children (Claudio, Amelia Gertrude Allegra and Fausta Irene)

1936: In Washington, D.C., Simon Marks, Sir Herbert Samuel and Lord Bearsted are scheduled to address a conference being held to deal with the challenge of settling persecuted European Jews in Palestine.

1936: Today, the National Conference for Palestine unanimously approved “a complete boycott of all Nazi goods and services” and a pled to support a campaign designed to raise three and half million dollars for building “the national home in Palestine” and providing aid to German Jews seeking to settle there.

1936: A review of Adventures in Palestine by Marion Rubenstein which provides “a detailed picture of the new life which is being built in the Jewish communities in modern Palestine” as seen through the eyes of three little girls who are refugees from Germany was published today.

1936: Rabbi Morris Lichtenstein is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Conquest of Troubles” at the Jewish Science Society.

1936: Rabbi Morton M. Berman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Need Jews Be Communists?” at the Free Synagogue meeting in Carnegie Hall.

1936: In Philadelphia, “celebration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Uptown Ladies’ Home for the Aged.”

1936: In Cincinnati, Alfred M. Cohen, president of B’nai B’rith presented his annual report to the executive committee in which he “declared that Palestine offers the one substantial hope for the salvation of German Jewry.”

1937: Birthdate of wrestler Boris Gurevich, the native of Kiev who a gold medal in Mexico City at the 1968 Summer Olympics.

1937(21stof Shevat, 5697): Russian native Ida Einstein Abelson, the wife of Abraham Abelson and the mother of Myer, Hyman and Isadore Abelson passed away today after which she was buried at Agudath Achim Cemetery in Altoona, PA.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that British troops, assisted by aircraft and police, started a major anti-terrorist campaign in the hills around Jenin. Two British soldiers and some 45 Arab brigands were killed. There were also various shooting incidents in Jerusalem.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that at the Revisionist Conference, held in Prague, Vladimir Jabotinsky opposed partition and urged Britain to recognize the whole of Palestine as a Jewish country. "There is plenty of room," he argued, "for both Jews and Arabs to live together."

1938: In Warsaw, General Wilczynski, the head of the Physical Education Bureau said that the “Aryan paragraph recently introduced in the by-laws of several sporting organizations excluding Jewish clubs from membership in national organizations” was “unsportsmanlike” and declared it illegal saying that a numerous clause limiting membership based on population percentage should be used instead.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that The Association of Romanian Architects and Engineers expelled all Jewish members.

1938: The Premier of Rumania, Octavian Goga, issued a written statement today in which “he asserted that anti-Semitism would continue even if he were removed from” office because anti-Semitism which has been part of the National Christian Party for the last fifty years is an “enduring feature of Rumanian policy.”

1939: In Prague, “two far reaching decrees – one aimed at depriving most Jews of their Czecho-Slovak citizenship and the other at forcing all immigrants to leave the country within six months – are scheduled to be proclaimed today by the government” which will have a devastating effect on  the 10,000 Jews who have become naturalized citizens since 1918.

1939: Ten year old Zvi Dershowitz, the future rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, “along with his parents Aaron and Ruth and sister Lili” emigrated to New York from Brno.

1940(23rdof Shevat, 5700): Forty-one-year Mikhail Efimovich Koltsov, the Soviet journalist and NKVD agent who made the mistake of criticizing Stalin’s purges was shot today at the same time that “his third wife Maria Osten was also sentenced and shot.”

1940: U.S. premiere of “I Take This Woman” starring Hedy Lamar, produced by Louis B. Mayer with a script by Ben Hecht and music by Artur Guttmann.

1940(23rdof Shevat, 5700): Seventy-year-old composer and conductor Arnold Volpe, the husband of Marie Michelson passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1940/02/03/92864040.pdf

1941: Three hundred members of the National council of Young Israel met at the Hotel Commodore today “to celebrate jointly” the birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln as well as Tu B’Shevat  where they heard Rabbi Joseph Lookstein warn that Hitler will not be content with keeping his word to “rid Europe of all Jews” but really mean to destroy all who opposed him regardless of reiglion.

1942: Churchill ordered Lord Moyne to release the 793 illegal immigrants on board the Darien and allow them to settle in Palestine. 

1942: Birthdate of Barry Diller former head of Paramount Studios and founder of Fox Television Network.

 1943: Four days before Max Mannheimer's 23rd birthday, he, his mother, father, brothers Ernst (Arnošt) and Edgar, his 15-year-old sister, Katharina (called Käthe), and his 22-year-old wife, Eva (née Bock) were arrested and deported to Auschwitz” where “his parents, sister and wife were taken in the first selection” and where his brothers Erich and Ernst were murdered shortly thereafter.

1943: Two days after he had passed away, funeral services were scheduled to be held for fifty-nine-year-old Elizabethgrad native and Brooklyn trained lawyer Leon Dashew, the husband Esther Dashew and father of Ruth, Stanley and Betty Dashew.

1943: Final surrender of German forces at Stalingrad.  This marked the turning point in the war on Eastern Front.  Now the Soviets would go on the offensive.  One of the by-products of the Soviet advances over the next two years would the liberation of several concentration camps including Auschwitz. The defeat at Stalingrad had a negative impact on Hitler’s relationship with the General Staff.  Ideological steadfastness would now become more important than military skill. 

1943: Two days after she had passed away, funeral services are scheduled to held at the Jewish Memorial Chapel in Brooklyn for Selma Manheimer Rosenwasser , the daughter of Robert and Getta Manheimer and the wife of Maurice Rosenwasser.

1944:  Thirty-four days its keel was laid down, the SS Morris Sigman was launched today.  The ship was named after Morris Sigman who served as president of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union from 1923 to 1928.

1944(8thof Shevat, 5704): Ernst Alexander died today in Berlin.

1944: Edward Chodorov's "Decision" premieres in New York City

1944: Allied planes drop bombs on a German shipping port and accidentally kill Jews on the Island of Rhodes in the Jewish quarter.

1945: An unknown number of inmates attempted to escape from Mauthausen concentration camp.  Located in Austria, Mauthausen was opened in 1938.  It was liberated in May of 1945.  As to the risks and consequences of escaping consider the following account from a camp survivor, ““When someone tried to escape from Mauthausen during the winter, people were forced to march to the camp center where they were forced to stand outside all night in their ragged clothing. Other times when the person who tried to escape was caught, during the winter they would pour water over him and force him to stay out in the freezing cold weather.” When I asked my grandfather if his father ever tried to escape, he replied, “No, he didn’t escape - nor did he try. There was practically no way to escape from those camps, and if they did escape, then the Sudeten people would chase them through the fields. Most of the time they would catch them.”

1946: The Jewish Chronicle published the citation appointing Captain Newman a Member of the Order of the British Empire” for “his courage and devotion to duty during two clandestine missions in Occupied France.”

1947(12thof Shevat, 5707): Sixty-three-year-old David Louis Podell the native of Odessa, who was the son of Mordecai and Minnie Landa Podell passed away today in New York City.

1948: In a strange twist of fate in Warsaw, the Polish government which sought to expel all of its Jews in the 1930’s because they were not part of the new economy “has introduced new passport regulations designed to halt the steady emigration of Polish Jews” who number about 90,000 as compared to their pre-war total of three and a half million.

1949: The Israeli Government in Tel Aviv announced that West Jerusalem was no longer ‘occupied territory’ but an integral part of Israel under civil administration.

1949: Immigration fever reached its height with approximately one thousand new immigrants a day reaching the shores of Israel.

1949: Birthdate of Brent Spiner, the actor who plays Commander Data on “Star Trek.”

1949: "The British military administration in Libya allowed Libyan Jews to travel to Israel.  This brought an end to travel restrictions that had been in force since the start of the Israel War of Independence.  According to Haim Abravanel "on the first day of legal emigration: 'It was snowing for the first time in Tripoli and under the white flakes blown by the wind thousands of poor Jewish wretches ran towards the street where the polices were...to get their passports at last" and sold all of their possessions including "furniture, businesses assets and work tools."  In the next few days, 8,000 passports were issued to Jews who had no idea how they would reach Israel.

1950(15th of Shevat, 5710): Tu B'Shevat

1951:  “The Steel Helmet” a Korean War movie directed and produced by Samuel Fuller was released today in the United States.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Jordan, following a border clash during which an Israeli patrol expelled marauders, accused Israel of "aggression” and invoked the Jordanian-British Treaty of 1948 for protection.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Soviet media embarked on a concentrated “spy and saboteurs hunt," and a "merciless struggle" against the Ukrainian "Jewish bourgeois nationalism and Zionism." (One thing that was left our during the memorial ceremonies commemorating the liberation of Auschwitz last week was any mention of the virulent ant-Semitism that gripped the Soviet Union almost immediately after the war.  If Stalin had not died, the fate of Russian Jewry would have been much different,)

1954: President Eisenhower reports detonation of 1st H-bomb.  The debate over whether or not to build the H-bomb featured two famous Jewish physicists; each leading a different faction.  Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the A-bomb opposed the building of the H-bomb.  Edward Teller, who was Oppenheimer’s junior and not nearly as illustrious a scientist led those in favor of building the bomb.  Teller’s side won and the rest is history.

1955: Pinchas Lavon resigned as Israeli Minister of Defense after bitter disagreements with David Ben Gurion, chief of staff Moshe Dayan, and Director General of his office, Shimon Peres. What became known as the Lavon affair concerned a controversial Israeli operation within Egypt. The question of who had prior knowledge was to plague the Israeli political establishment and Ben Gurion in particular for years to come. The Lavon Affair and its investigation commission eventually led to the fall of the government and brought about Ben Gurion's resignation in 1963.

1957:  Producer Mike Todd and actress Elizabeth Taylor got married.  Ms Taylor converted to Judaism.  Todd was the creator of a form of wide-screen cinema called Todd-A-O.  “Oklahoma” and “Around the World in 80 Days” were both filmed in this manner.

1957: The UN adopted a resolution calling for Israeli troops to leave Egypt.  This was the beginning of the end of the 1956 Sinai Campaign.  This resolution marked one of the few times in the Cold War when the U.S. and the Soviet Union found common ground.  The Eisenhower Administration resurrected the career of Nasser, the Egyptian dictator by forcing the Israelis to back down.  The Americans would do the same to the British and the French in what would be an example of the law of unintended consequences.  The Americans told their two European Allies that the American nuclear umbrella would not cover them if they did not give into the Russians.  The French gave in, but swore they would never find themselves in this situation again.  This was the driving force behind the French development of their own nuclear weapons and eventual departure from NATO.  As we have said many times before, Jewish history takes place on the stage of world history.

1959(24thof Shevat, 5719): Eighty-year-old Bialystok born Yiddish playwright Ossip Dymow, the graduate of the Imperial Academy of Forestry in St. Petersburg whose real name was Joseph Perlman who had one daughter, Mrs. Isabel Sakier with his wife Anna passed away today.

https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Dymov_Osip

 

1959: “The Pride and The Passion” a big screen epic sent during the Napoleonic wars in Spain directed and produced by Stanley Kramer, co-starring Theodore Bikel as “General Jouvet” and with an opening title sequence designed by Saul Bass was released today in Finland.

1960:  Birthdate of Robert Smigel, a comedy writer, performer, and puppeteer best known as the voice of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, a character he created for Late Night with Conan O'Brien and writer for SNL for twenty years.

1960: David Susskind produced “Juno and the Paycock” broadcast as “The Play of the Week” co-starring Walter Matthau in the role of “Joxer Daly.”

1962: “Swifty the Great” published today provides a profile of Swifty Lazar, the super-agent who beats out MCA, William Morris and General Artists for clients on a regular business.http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,829005,00.html

1963 (8thof Shevat, 5723): Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel passed away.

1965: In Chicago, “Robinn Schulman, a nurse whose family owned the company that manufactured Shane Toothpaste (now known as AloeSense), and Joseph Steiner, a figurative painter and art instructor, David Steiner, a Zionist and filmmaker who died in an bus crash in Uganda after which he was posthumously ordained as a Rabbi.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/chicago-filmmaker-david-steiner-killed-in-uganda-bus-crash/

1966: “Israel’s new Foreign Minister, Abba Eban, immediately accepted an invitation that was extended today “by Canada’s Prime Minister, Lester B. Pearson to confer with the Dominion leader at Ottawa.”

1966: “A spokesman for the John Birch Society today denied the Society fostered anti-Semitism as charged by the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League…” claiming that “many our members are Jewish.” (JTA)

1967: “Court Martial,” the 20th episode of the first season of Star Trek co-starring William Shatner as “Captain Kirk” and Leonard Nimoy as “Mr. Spock” and written by Don M. Mankiewicz was broadcast for the first time today.

1968: Today, the ill-fated INS Dakar was scheduled to enter her home port; a rendezvous she did not keep.

1970: The funeral of Frederick Cohen son of Isidore and Leah Cohen is scheduled to take place this afternoon at The Riverside.

1970: The funeral of Abraham Cahan, husband of Flora Cahan and father of Sanford Cahan and Marjorie Rosenbloom is scheduled to take placed this morning at The Riverside.

1972(17thof Shevat, 5732): Fifty-eight-year-old WW II Army Air Corps veteran and department store executive Herbert Marcus, Jr. one of the sons of the co-founder of Dallas’ legendary Neiman-Marcus passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1972/02/03/archives/herbert-marcus-jr-dead-at-58-served-new-york-liie-in-dallas.html

1972: The funeral for eighty-eight-year-old Czechoslovakia native and NYU trained attorney Samuel Berger, the World War II veteran and Republican political activist who was a noted art collector and the uncle of painter Adolph Gottlieb, passed away yesterday is scheduled to be held this morning at Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan.

1972: After having premiered in New York City and after having been released in the United Kingdom in January, “A Clockwork Orange,” directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick who also wrote the screenplay and featuring Miriam Karlin was released today in the United States.

1974: As Secretary of State Henry Kissinger sought to bring a truce to the Middle East, Syrian guns shelled Israeli military position and civilian positions near the Golan Heights.

1974: Barbra Streisand's 1st #1 hit, "The Way We Were"

1975: Two people were injured in a terrorist bus bombing in Jerusalem.

1977: After their F-4E Phantom II was hit by an Israeli artillery shell David Noy and Ilan Erster were recovered after having ejected from their aircraft.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Europe was on an alert as Arab terrorists boasted of having poisoned Jaffa oranges.

1978: “The Boys in Company C” an early Vietnam era war film co-starring Michael Lembeck was released in the United States today.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli seamen extended their two-week strike to ships with vital cargoes.

1978: The first staging of International Stud part of a collection of three plays by Harvey Fierstein opened today at La MaMa, E.T.C., an Off-Off-Broadway theater, where it ran for two weeks

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the indirect behind-the-scenes Israeli-Egyptian negotiations and the face-to-face military negotiations came to a halt with both sides remaining far apart in their search for a political.

1980: Sherry Lansing was named president of 20th Century Fox Productions today making her the first woman to head production at a major movie studio.

1980 (15thof Shevat, 5740): Tu B’Shvat

1980 (15thof Shevat, 5740): William H Stein, US biochemist and winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1972 passed away at the age of 68.

1985: Neil Simon’s “Biloxi Blues” closed out its world premiere run which had begun on December at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles.

1987(3rdof Shevat, 5747): Seventy-eight-year-old American record executive Alfred Lion passed away today.

https://www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entry.php?rec=112

 

1987: A memorial service is scheduled to be held in NYC for Grete Mosheim, a leading Berlin and West German stage actress whose husbands included actor Oscar Homollka and financier Howard Gould and who had fled Germany when Hitler came to power.

1988: In Randolph, VT, “actress Lindsay Crouse” who was Buddhist and playwright David Mamet who was Jewish gave birth actress Zosia Russell Mamet, the actress who identifies with her father’s Judaism.

1988: In Itamar Yitro Asheri and his wife gave birth to Eliyahu Pinchas Asheri who was murdered by terrorists belonging to the PRC in 2006.

1989(27th of Sh'vat, 5749): Marie Syrkin, author, editor, poet, teacher, and outspoken activist for Israel, died at the age of eighty-nine.

1991(18thof Shevat, 5751): Parashat Yitro

1991(18thof Shevat, 5751): Sixty-nine-year-old Howie Rader, who played basketball with his twin brother Lenny at Long Island University before serving in WW II and going on to a career in the pros passed a way today.

1991: New York Mayor David Dinkins was scheduled to leave on his trip to Israel today.  The trip is designed to show support for Israel during the Persian Gulf War.

1992: A theater performance benefiting the Tel Aviv Foundation, which helps Russian artists settling in the Tel Aviv area, was held at the Brooklyn Academy of Music this evening "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead," an adaptation of the Tom Stoppard play by Joseph Brodsky, the poet laureate of the United States, was performed in Russian by a Soviet émigré troupe, the Gesher Theater Company, with simultaneous translation into English. A reception honoring Mayor Shlomo Lahat of Tel Aviv followed the performance.

1993(11thof Shevat, 5753): Eighty-four-year-old Lithuanian born American violinist Alexander Schneider who was a member of the Budapest String Quartet passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/04/arts/alexander-schneider-violon-virtuoso-dies-at-84.html

1994(21stof Shevat, 5754): German born Dutch photographer Annemie Wolff whose husband, architect Helmuth Wolff committed suicide as a part of a failed suicide pact and who compiled a photographic of Dutch suffering under the Nazis passed away today.

http://archives.sfweekly.com/exhibitionist/2015/03/03/annemie-wolffs-1943-portraits-of-jews-in-amsterdam-are-more-powerful-than-words

1995(2ndof Adar I, 5755): Eighty-six-year-old physicist and radiobiologist Tikvah Alper who overcame prejudice against women and Jews and who opposed Apartheid in her native South Africa passed away today.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-tikvah-alper-1610123.html

http://cshlwise.org/wise-wednesdays/2017/8/23/tikvah-alper

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/Alper-Tikvah

 

1997: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers includingBehind the Oval Office Winning the Presidency in the Ninetiesby Dick Morris, For the Hell of It: The Life and Times of Abbie Hoffman by Jonah Raskin and Arnon Grunberg’s Blue Mondays about “a jaded young Jewish man gets kicked out of high school and spends his days in bars, getting fired from jobs, rejecting his parents and his religion, and dropping most of his money on whores before deciding to become one himself.”

1997(25thof Shevat, 5757): Ninety-one-year-old Sanford Meisner the actor and acting teacher who founded the Meisner/Carville School of Acting passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/04/theater/sanford-meisner-a-mentor-who-guided-actors-and-directors-toward-truth-dies-at-91.html

1998(6thof Shevat, 5758): Eighty-six physicist Gertrude Scharff Goldhaber passed away today. (As reported by Wolfgang Saxon)

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/06/us/gertrude-scharff-goldhaber-86-crucial-scientist-in-nuclear-fission.html

http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/goldhaber-gertrude-scharff

2000: “Israel announced today that it would recall its ambassador to Vienna if President Thomas Klestil of Austria authorized a new coalition government that included the rightist Freedom Party led by Jorg Haider.”

2001: Today, “days before Israelis vote, Bill Clinton appeared on television and indirectly endorsed the underdog, Prime Minister Ehud Barak, by praising his peacemaking.”

2002(27thof Shevat, 5762): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

2002: It was reported today that Palestinian officials are claiming that Prime Minister Sharon met secretly this week with “three Palestinian leaders acting as emissaries for Yasir Arafat.”

2003: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Welcome to Heavenly Heightsby Risa Miller and What I Saw Reports From Berlin, 1920-1933 by Joseph Roth; translated with an introduction by Michael Hoffman

2004: Israel killed a leader of Islamic Jihad and three other terrorists in a Gaza raid.

2005: Prime Minister Sharon and President Abbas who were scheduled to meet this week in Jerusalem agreed today to meet in Egypt instead where they will be joined President Hosni Mubarak.

2006 (4 Shevat, 5766): Paratrooper Yosef Goodman, a member of the elite Maglan unit died in a training accident. Goodman aged 20, originally from New York, lived in Efrat with his parents and siblings. The price of a Jewish state is indeed expensive.

2007: Israeli author David Grossman was awarded the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.

2007: The Jewish Daily Forward published “The Joys of Cedar Rapids.” http://www.forward.com/articles/10009/

2008(26thof Shevat, 5768): Eighty-two-year-old Joshua Lederberg who “was just 33 years old when he won the 1958 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering that bacteria can mate and exchange genes” passed away today.

2008: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, at Temple Judah kicks off the weekend with Super Bowl Shabbat.  The traditional minyan combines Tefillah and Tailgating by observing Shabbat Mishpatim followed by a Kiddush featuring pizza and assorted football munchies.

2009: At NYU, the David Project Center for Jewish Leadership cosponsors “Tribalism in the Middle East,” a lecture by Mordechai Kedar, professor of Arabic and Middle East Studies at Bar-Ilan University and an expert on Arabic and Muslim Society.

2009 (8thof Shevat, 5769): Eighty-nine year old Ralph Kaplowitz, who appeared as a member of the Knicks in what is considered the National Basketball Association’s first game in 1946, when Jewish players were often showered with anti-Semitic catcalls, passed away at his home in Floral Park, Queens today.(As reported by Vincent Mallozzi)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/sports/basketball/15kaplowitz.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

2009: Opening session of the 9th annual Herzliya Conference

2010: Members of the Little Rock Jewish Community are scheduled to meet at The Center of Jewish Life under the auspices of Rabbi Pinchas Ciment and join their co-religionists around the world in the second JLI course titled Portraits in Leadership: Timeless Tales for Inspired Living.

2010: The Jewish Community Center in Manhattan is scheduled to show “Una Storia Romana” (An Italian Story), a documentary that centers on the round-up of Jews in Rome in 1943 and Jewish attempts to raise the 50 kilos of gold that German demanded as ransom.

2010: Maggie Anton, author of the trilogy about Rashi’s Daughters is scheduled to speak at The Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto, Ontario.

2010: A number of Israel’s leading “Wikipedes” came to the Knesset today, where they reaped the laurels of their efforts, but also leveled a certain amount of criticism toward a lack of government cooperation with their efforts to compile a free online Hebrew-language encyclopedia

2010: First broadcast of PBS’s service documentary “Herskovits at the Heart of Blackness” which examines how Melville J. Herskovits a Jew who grew up in El Paso, TX came to be considered “the inventor of African American Studies.

2010: Ninety-one-year-old Donald Wiseman, the “biblical scholar, archaeologist and Professor of Assyriology at the University of London” passed away today.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/religion-obituaries/7252002/Professor-Donald-Wiseman.html

2010: Security forces searched Israel's coastline and closed beaches in the south today after two barrels of explosives washed up on the shores of Ashkelon and Ashdod, north of Gaza.

2011: The 92ndSt Y is scheduled to present “The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry: Pivotal Figures from a Heroic Era” during which political advisor Richard Perle and Gal Beckerman, author of When They Come For Us, We'll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry, are scheduled to discuss the dramatic Cold War period when American Jewry first became politicized as Jews and Jews behind Russia's Iron Curtain took grave risks in order to win their freedom and emigrate to Israel or the United States.

2011: Mike Brown signed a three-year extension with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

2011: Esther Friedman, matriarch of a pro-active Zionist family from Netanya and Jerusalem wh died last night at age 94 after several years of serious illness, was buried today on the Mount of Olives.

2011: The Knesset Constitution Committee approved a modified version of a bill today that would allow some small communities to maintain admissions committees to screen candidates for residency.

2012: Professor James Kugel is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “In the Valley of the Shadow: Some Thoughts on Serious Illness at Shearith Israel in New York City.

2012: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to present a lecture by Miryem-Khaye Seigel entitled “The Broder Singers: Forerunners of the Yiddish Theater.”

2012: About 200,000 missiles are aimed at Israel at any given time, a top Israel Defense Forces officer said today, adding that Iran's ability to obtain nuclear weapons was solely dependent on the will of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

2012: During his visit to Gaza today, UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon urged “the people from Gaza to stop firing rockets into the Israeli side. Indiscriminate killing of people, civilians, is not acceptable, for whatever reasons. Eight rockets were fired into Israel on the eve of Ban’s visit, the IDF said. 

2012(10thof Shevat, 5772): Seventy-year-old Zalman King, “a filmmaker who mixed artistic aspiration, a professed empathy for female sexuality and gauzy photography to bring soft-core pornography to cable television” passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/arts/television/zalman-king-creator-of-soft-core-films-dies-at-70.html?_r=0

2013: Israel’s No. 1 box-office hit, “The World Is Funny” is scheduled to be shown at the opening of  The 13th Annual Broward County Jewish Film Festival, at the Posnack JCC, in Davie

2013: The Israel String Quartet is scheduled to perform two string quartets by Beethoven at the Eden-Tami Music Center.

2013: As the בולטימור רייבנס prepare to square off against the סן פרנסיסקו 49, the traditional minyan at Temple Judah is scheduled to host its annual Super Bowl Shabbat service.

2013: The Syrian state broadcasters showed the aftermath images of last week's alleged Israeli air strike on the sprawling Jamraya site north-west of Damascus.

2013: The Los Angeles Times reported that the top contenders in the city’s mayoral race “share strong ties to the Jewish community.” (As reported by Seema Mehta)

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-jewish-20130202,0,4056368,print.story

2013: Turkey’s foreign minister blasted Syrian President Bashar Assad for not responding to an alleged Israeli strike on targets in Syria. (As reported by Yoel Goldman)

2014: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including An Officer and a Spy, a novel about the Dreyfus Affair by Robert Harris and Trieste, a novel that focuses on the fate of Jews of this city that has belonged to so many nations by Dasa Drndic as well as a “conversation” with Gary Shteyngart, author of the recently published Little Failure.

2014: Among the ads scheduled to be shown during the Super Bowl is a commercial for “Noah,” director Darren Aronofsky’s cinematic treatment of the “the righteous man in his generation.” (It will be interesting to see how his version squares with what he learned growing up Jewish in Brooklyn)

2014: In the UK, scheduled final showing of “Children of the Sun” a documentary about “the children who were part of Israel’s first kibbutzim.”

2014: It was announced on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” today “that Bill Kristol would be a contributor for ABC News and to that program

2014: “Mike Flanagan, a former British soldier who smuggled two Cromwell tanks to the Haganah in 1948, was buried in the Sha’ar HaAmakim cemetery alongside his wife and son today. (As reported by Marissa Newman)

2014: “threeASFOUR: MER KA BA” is scheduled to close today.

http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/exhibitions/three-as-four

2014: “Chagall: Love, War and Exile” is scheduled to close today

http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/exhibitions/chagall-love-war-exile

2014: Ynet News reported today that “Rabbi Mordechai “Motti” Elon, an Israeli Modern Orthodox leader, will not appeal his conviction on two charges of sexually assaulting a minor.”

http://www.timesofisrael.com/no-appeal-for-rabbi-motti-elon-in-sexual-assault-case/

2014: With Israeli politicians pouncing on US Secretary of State John Kerry for allegedly encouraging a boycott against Israel, the State Department issued a statement today urging that Kerry's words be portrayed "accurately."

2015: In Miami Beach, the Jewish Museum is scheduled to host a lecture by Genie Milgrom, “How to Find and Prove your Jewish Ancestry from Catholic Inquisition Sources.”

2015: In New York, the Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “Echoes of the Borscht Belt” featuring contemporary photographs by Marisa Scheinfeld.

2015: During an awards ceremony today where the IDF honored many of those who fought “in last summer’s conflict in Gaza” a Distinguished Service Medal was awarded posthumously to twenty-four year old Lt. Eitan Fund “who famously rushed into a tunnel to try and stop the kidnapping of Hadar Goldin during an ambush near Rafah on August 1, 2014.”

2015, “Seven Stories Press published Art Shay's final book, My Florence, a picture book chronicling his late wife Florence's life in 20th-century Chicago.”

2015: Pianist Roman Rabinovich and Violinist Itamar Zorman are scheduled to perform with Jupiter Chamber Players at the Good Shepherd Church in New York City.

2015: Anat Gov’s play “Oh God” is scheduled to open at the JCC Manhattan’

2015(13thof Shevat, 5775): Ninety-two-year-old screenwriter Stewart Stern passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/movies/stewart-stern-92-screenwriter-of-rebel-without-a-cause-dies.html?_r=0

2016: “The Metropolitan Klezmer” is scheduled to perform at the 92nd Street Y.

2016: FX broadcast the first episode of “The People versus O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story” based on The Run of His Life: The People versus O.J. Simpson by Jeffery Toobin.

2016(23rdof Shevat, 5776): Ninety-year-old breast feeding advocate Dana Raphael passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/21/nyregion/dana-raphael-proponent-of-breast-feeding-and-the-use-of-doulas-dies-at-90.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=1

2016: An Off-Broadway revival of “Buried Child” co-starring Nat Wolff is scheduled to begin today.

2016: The 92ndStreet Y is scheduled to host “Trials and Error: The NFL Concussion Settlement.” 

2017: Journalist Paul Martin is scheduled to speak at today’s Learn and Lunch hosted by the Oxford University Jewish Society.

2017: Coe College is scheduled to host the first session of “The Conflicted Jewish World of Chaim Potok” under the leadership of award winning Physics Professor Steve Feller.

2017: Lebanon is scheduled to begin an auction for energy rights in an area of the Mediterranean Sea that is claimed by Israel.

2017: It was reported today that “the White House issued an unexpected statement appealing to the Israeli government not to expand the construction of Jewish settlements beyond their current borders in East Jerusalem and the West Bank” saying that such expansion, “may not be helpful in achieving” the goal of peace.”

2017: Richard A. Shweder is the Harold H. Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Human Development at the University of Chicago, David Makovsky is the Ziegler Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute, Mark Yudof is Board Chair of the Academic Engagement Network and Milan Chatterjee is one of two recipients of the American Jewish Committee’s inaugural Campus Courage Awards, are scheduled to take part in a panel discussion about BDS on College Campuses at the Streicker Center

2017: Susan Bachrach, Curator of the special exhibition The Nazi Olympics: Berlin 1936, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is scheduled to take part in a discussion “Sports and Politics, Then and Now” at the California African American Museum

2017: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host the opening “Black Panther Got Loose from the Bronx Zoo: An Exhibition by Ido Michaeli”

http://www.ajhs.org/black-panther-got-loose-bronx-zoo-exhibition-ido-michaeli#overlay-context=user

 

2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a Kabbalat Shabbat service followed by dinner at the beginning of Parents’ Shabbat.

2018: In Cedar Rapids, Temple Judah is scheduled to host its Tu B’Shevat Seder and Soup Seder.

2019: Limmud Helsinki is scheduled to begin today.

2019: Today’s observance of Ground Hog Day can include a viewing of the corny cult classic “Ground Hog Day,” directed by and co-produced by Harold Ramis who co-authored the screenplay with Danny Rubin.

2019: Limmud FSU St. Petersburg is scheduled to continue for a second day.

2019(27th of Shevat, 5779): On the Jewish calendar Yahrzeit of “Joseph Sanalbo who was burned at the stake in Rome” today.

http://www.aish.com/dijh/Shevat_27.html

2019(27th of Shevat, 5779): Parashat Mishpatim;

2020: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Adults and Others Children by Miriam Cohen, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 by Rashid Khalidi, Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America’s Schools by Diane Ravitch, What’s Your Pronoun?: Beyond He and She by Dennis Baron and The Sun and Her Stars: Salka Viiertel and Hitler’s Exiles in the Golden Age of Hollywood by Donna Rifkind.

2020: The Chaplains of the Oxford University Jewish Society are scheduled to host a “pub meetup” at the Royal Oak as everybody helps to “build our Jewish grad community.”

2020: In London, UK Jewish Film is scheduled to host a screening of “The Painted Bird” which focus on a nameless Jewish boy, separated from his parents, wandering “through war –ravaged Eastern Europe”.

2020: In New Orleans, at Tulane University is scheduled to host the opening session Zionism Then A Now” a symposium organized by Dr. Brian Horowtiz.

2020: The Center For Jewish History, AJHS, CCNY, the Alumni Association of CCNY and CCNY are scheduled to present “The Jewish Harvard and a World of Ideas” which is part one of three part series on City College of New York.

2020: In Berkley, CA, Congregation Netivot Shalom is scheduled to a “representative of IsraAid talking about its working in world crisis and disaster spots.

2020: In New Jersey, The Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County is scheduled to host a screening “Yoo-Hoo Mrs. Goldberg.”

2020: The London School of Jewish Studies is scheduled to host “Talking to your Teens about Relationships,” “a discussion with clinical experts Dr. Hadassah Fromson and R. Emily Simon.”

2020: In the United States, observance of Groundhog Day which was theme and a name of weird comedy directed and co-produced by Harold Ramis who also co-authored the screenplay.

2020: The Kansas City Chiefs, featuring outstanding offensive lineman Mitchell Schwartz are scheduled to take on the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl.

2021: “Rabbi Sharon Marcus is scheduled to lead Torah study through a women’s lens this morning at a sisterhood event at Park Synagogue in Cleveland Heights and Pepper Pike.

2021: The East Bay International Jewish Film Festival and other Jewish organizations are scheduled to present a cooking demonstration by cookbook author and food blogger Danielle Renov and the 2016 documentary “In Search of Israeli Cuisine.”

2021: In New Orleans, the National Council of Jewish Women Board Meeting is scheduled to take place this evening.

2021: The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience is scheduled to presents “Tell Your Sephardi-Mizrahi Story” With award-winning author Gila Green

2021: The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston is scheduled to present online “Equity in Education in the COVID-19 Era.”

2021: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host artist Tobi Kahn and Rabba Wendy Amsellem as they “explore Rabbi Yehuda haNasi’s story in both the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds” which is part of “The Barbara C. Freedman Artists’ Beit Midrash” lectures

2021: As part of the of Sonoma State University’s annual public series, All the Horrors of War author Bernice Lerner is scheduled to give a talk titled “The Liberation of Bergen-Belsen.”

 

This Day, February 3, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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February 3

19(12th of Adar, 3779): Dedication of the Temple built by King Herod the Great at Jerusalem

1112: Ramon Berenguer III of Barcelona and Douce I of Provence marry, uniting the fortunes of those two states.  According to archaeological evidence, Jews had been living in both Barcelona and Provence since the first century of the Common Era. “The earliest documentary evidence for the presence of Jews living in Provence dates from the middle of the fifth century in Arles. They were to be found in large numbers in Marseilles at the close of the sixth century.”  The Jewish population in certain parts of Provence would grow in the 14thcentury when the Jews who had been expelled from France found refuge in Provence which at that time was independent from France.  A group of these refugees would be referred to as the Pope’s Jews. Berenguer would pass away in 1131 the same year that Sheshet Benveniste, the “philosopher, physician, diplomatist, Talmudist and poet” who become the leader of the Barcelona Jewish community until his death in 1210 was born.

1451: Sultan Mehmed II inherits the throne of the Ottoman Empire. He conquered Constantinople in 1453. The oppressed Jews were relieved to see him occupy the city. He allowed Jews from today's Greek Islands and Crete to settle in Istanbul. Mehmed II’s declaration read as follows: "Listen sons of the Hebrew who live in my country...May all of you who desire come to Constantinople and may the rest of your people find here a shelter".  Mehmed II invited the Ashkenazi Jews of Transylvania and Slovakia to settle in the Ottoman Empire. The synagogues Ahrida, Karaferya, Yanbol and Cuhadji which were damaged due to a fire were repaired on his order. Based on surviving documents, the Sultan employed at least five Jewish doctors as palace physicians.

1468: Johannes Gutenberg, father of modern printing, passed away.  Gutenberg was not Jewish.  But the invention of the printing press was a boon to Jewish study and culture.  The people of the book had much easier access to the World of Books.

1679. Birthdate of Isaac Lampronti, the native of Ferrara and the great-grandson of Constantinople native Samuel Lampronti who became a rabbi and physician “best known as author of the rabbinic encyclopedia Paħad Yitzħak.

1740: Charles de Bourbon, King of Naples, invited the Jews to return to Sicily in hopes that this would restore flagging trade and commerce industries. Approximately 20 families heeded the call but due in part to an inhospitable welcome by the local community, most soon left.

1747: A deed dated with today’s date conveyed a half-acre of land in the Township of Lancaster, Pennsylvania from Thomas Cookson to Isaac Nunus Ricus and Joseph Simons "in trust for the society of Jews settled in and about Lancaster, to have and use the same as a burying-ground."“At this time there were about ten Jewish families at Lancaster, including Joseph Simon, Joseph Solomon, and Isaac Cohen, a physician.” The deed is the earliest record of Jewish settlement in Lancaster which was an early and important settlement during the Colonial and post-Revolutionary period of American history

1781(8thof Shevat, 5541): Parashat Bo

1781(8thof Shevat, 5541): Bilhah Levy, the daughter of Benjamin Levy passed away today in Newport, RI.

1784: In Baltimore, MD, Abraham Isaac Abrahams and his wife gave birth to Samuel Abrhams.

1749:  Sicily, invited Jews to return to the island ending a three-hundred-year ban.  The Sicilians believed that the Jews would restore trade to the island and improve its diminished economic conditions.

1760(16th of Shevat): Rabbi Jonah Nabon, the son of Hanun Nabon part of a distinguished Turkish and Jerusalemite family that included Rabbi Ephraim ben Aron Nabon who died at Constinople in 1735 and Rabbi Isaac Nabon son of Judah Nabon and the author of Nepah ba-Kessef passed away today

1761(29th of Shevat): Eliezer ben Samuel Avila, the nephew of  Talmudist Chaim ben Moses ibn Attar and the rabbi at Rabat Morocco who authored Ozen Shemuel passed away.

1769: Birthdate of Baden native Michael Herzog, the husband of Sara Herzog and the father of Minette Herzog.

1770(8thof Shevat, 5530): Abraham ben Uri Shraga passed away today in London. (However, his tombstone says he died on Sunday, 9th of Shevat which would have been February 4)

1780: Jacob Pinto, the son of Abraham and Sarah Pinto and Abigail Pinto, his second wife, gave birth to Sarah Pinto

1781: During the American Revolution British Admiral George Bridges Rodney seized St. Eustatius which would set the stage for the worst outbreak of anti-Semitism during the war.

Instead, Rodney assigned a sizable part of his naval force to protecting the convoy. Rodney's occupation of Statia began on February 3rd, 1781. Already, in a report of March 5, 1781, General Vaughan advised Rodney against attempting to keep the island. Rodney did not follow Vaughan's advice. Professing to be ailing, but evidently swayed more by consolidating the riches gained than with geopolitics, he departed for England, leaving a garrison of 670 men behind on decimated Statia, and assigned a naval contingent to protect them.

1786: Birthdate of Whilhelm Gesenius author of two books “of particular interest to English-speaking students of Hebrew – “a Latin work, the Lexicon Manuale Hebraicum et Chaldaicum in Veteris Testamenti Libros, and a corresponding issue of the German work, Hebräisches und Chaldäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament” – which were the forerunner of the Brown Driver Biggs lexicon

1802(1stof Adar I, 5562): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1802(1stof Adar 1, 5562): Seventy-five-year-old the third child of Isaac and Beila Levy passed away today in Baltimore, MD.

1807(25th of Shevat): Meir Posner of Danzig, the rabbi of the Schottland Congregation in Danzig and the author of Bet Meir a commentary on the Shulchan Aruk  passed away

 1809:  In Hamburg, Germany the banker Abraham Mendelssohn, the son of the German Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn and Lea Salomon, a member of the Itzig family and a sister of Jakob Salomon Bartholdy gave birth to Felix Mendelssohn the famous composer who was not Jewish and that is what makes him significant in terms of Jewish History.  His grandfather was Moses Mendelssohn, the founder of Reform Judaism.  Felix was baptized and raised as a Protestant. His detractors point out that he wrote oratorios for the Church instead of music for the synagogue.  Others see him clinging to a vestige of his Jewish roots in choosing to write an oratorio called Elijah andsetting Psalm 100 to music.  Ironically, the German composer Richard Wagner cited Mendelssohn when he attacked the Jewish influence on German music.  Hitler and the Nazis were not the first Germans to see the Jews as a race for whom conversion to Christianity was not a solution to "the Jewish Problem."  Regardless of any sentimental attachments Moses Mendelssohn may have felt for the faith of his grandfather, he died in 1847 as a Protestant.  The Jewish line of Mendelssohn had disappeared.

http://www.biography.com/people/felix-mendelssohn-40373

1810: In Chrast, Leopold and Theresia Frankl gave birth to Ludwig August von Frankl, the Bohemian born Austrian author and poet.

1816(4th of Shevat): Rabbi David ben Mordecai of Brody, author of Yefe Einayim passed away today.

1821: The government of the grand duchy of Baden asked Aron Chorin, a Hungarian rabbi who was an advocate for Reform “for his opinion about the duties of a rabbi, and about the reforms in the Austrian states. Chorin answered by writing Iggeret Elasaf, or Letter of an African Rabbi to His Colleagues in Europe, which was published by M. I. Landau (Prague, 1826). In it he stated that the Torah comprised religious truths and religious laws, the latter partly applicable only in Palestine, partly obligatory everywhere. These may be temporarily suspended, but not entirely abolished, by a competent authority, such as a synod. Only ordinances and precautionary laws which are of human origin may be abrogated in conformity with the circumstances of the time. As for mere customs and usages (minhagim), the government, after having consulted Jewish men of knowledge, may modify or abolish them; but in no other way may it interfere with religious affairs. Chorin also pleaded for the establishment of consistories, schools, a theological seminary, and for the promotion of agriculture and professions among the Jews. Some of these ideas he carried out in his own congregation, which included a great number of mechanics. He succeeded in founding a school, and introducing liturgical reforms into the synagogue; even an organ was installed at his instance. He permitted the eating of rice and pulse during the days of Passover. To his theory of a synod regulating and modifying Jewish laws and customs, Chorin always adhered. In his Treue Bote (Prague, 1831) he declared himself against the transfer of the Sabbath to Sunday, but expressed the opinion that, considering the requirements of our time, synods might mitigate the severity of the Sabbatical laws, especially in regard to traveling and writing.

1826: In Mikuloc, Moses Spitzer and his wife gave birth to Viennese mathematician Simon Spitzer.

1830:  The sovereignty of Greece was confirmed in a London Protocol marking the end of the Greek War of Independence which had raged from 1821 until 1829. “By supporting the Ottoman Empire, the Jews curried disfavor with the Christian Orthodox Greeks. Thousands of Jews were massacred alongside the Ottoman Turks. The Jewish communities of Mistras, Tripolis, Kalamata and Patras were completely destroyed. A few survivors moved north to areas still under Ottoman rule.”  The Jewish Community of Thessaloniki dated from the 17thcentury and would become one of the largest Jewish communities as Greece developed its national identity during the rest of the 19th century.

1830: Birthdate of Lord Salisbury, who became an ally of Benjamin Disraeli and who as Foreign Secretary represented the UK at the Congress of Berlin where he worked to make sure that Romania honored its commitment to give equal rights of citizenship to the newly created kingdom.

1833: In Posen, Prussia, Dr. Siegmund Zabulon Dembitz and Francesca Whele gave birth to Lewis N. Dembitz the Louisville, KY, lawyer and husband of Wilhelmina Wehle who helped to nominate Abraham Lincoln at the 1860 Republican National Convention who may be best known for being the uncle of Louis Dembitz Brandeis, the first Jewish Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

1834: In London, England Dr. Many and Hannah Emanuel gave birth to Louis Manly Emanuel, the 1860 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School who served with the 88th Regiment of the Union Army from the Peninsula Campaign to the surrender at Appomattox and died prematurely after the war due to the deterioration of his health brought on by his military service.

1834: The Baptist State Convention of North Carolina establishes the Wake Forest Manual Labor Institute, today known as Wake Forest University. Based on recent statistics, there are 80 Jewish students among the 4,000 undergraduate student body.  The school offers 21 Jewish studies courses.  Jewish students use the Hillel at UNC in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

1836: Edward Levy Green married Amelia Hart at the Great Synagogue today.

1841(12thof Shevat, 5601): M.H. Landauer, the son of Cantor Elias Landauer, who served as the Rabbi of Braunsbach and who wrote several works on the Kabala and Zohar passed away today.

1838: In Canterbury, Hannah Barnard and Nathan Jacobs gave birth to Maurice Jacobs.

1842(23rd of Shevat): Abraham Stern an inventor of mechanical calculators and one of the few it not the only Jewish member of the Warsaw Society of Friends passed away. He is buried at the Bródno Jewish Cemetery which “was opened in 1780 by Szmul Zbytkower, a Polish Jewish merchant and financier, who donated the land for that purpose.”

1843: Today’s edition of The Voice of Jacob provided information about London financier Levi Salomons who had passed away in January of 1843.

1846: Philadelphian Jefferson H. Nones, who would serve “gallantly” at the Siege of Puebla during the war with Mexico, completed his training as a Midshipman in the U.S. Navy.

1848: In London, Adelaid Cohen and Aaron Salomons gave birth to their second daughter, Gertrude Salomons.

1848: The German version of “Elijah” “an oratorio written by Felix Mendelssohn” that depicts events described in the Book of Kings about the Israelite Prophet which had “premiered in 1846 at the Birmingham Festival” premiered today in Leipzig “a few months at the composer’s death.

1849: Birthdate of Nahida Ruth (nee Sturmhofel) Lazarus the Berlin born author of The Jewish Woman who converted to Judaism after the death of her first husband Max Remy and who then married Professor Mortiz Lazarus.

1851: Caroline Davis and Levy Jacobs gave birth to Blanche Jacobs,

1851: Brigadier General James Totten and his wife gave birth to Charles A.L. Totten the graduate of West Point and Yale University professor who “engaged in a genealogical exercise, attempting to prove the Davidic ancestry of the British royal family” and who supported “the project of restoring Palestine to the Jews…through the medium of an international conference.”

1853: Today, Hyam Joseph, one of the earliest Jewish settlers of the Sandwich Islands, sent a letter with a business order to San Francisco, CA

1854: In "American Slavery" published today, Henry Ward Beecher draws a distinction between slavery as practiced among Abraham and the Jews and American Slavery. "Hebrew slavery admitted that a slave was a man with all appropriate human responsibilities and made ample provision for his civil and religious instruction."  American slavery stands upon the fundamental idea that a slave is chattel, not a man; and it makes teaching him to read a penitentiary offense."  Beecher was the father of Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin.  Slave owners and their supporters used the Bible as one of their defenses for that "peculiar institution" saying that if slavery was acceptable in the Bible it was acceptable today.  People like Beecher, who knew their Bible and something of ancient Israelite culture quickly challenged this bogus comparison.

1856: In Middlesex, Caroline Benjamin and Isaiah Simmons gave birth to David Simmons.

1858: "The Last Moments of Rachel” published today quotes a letter from French author Mario Uchard to dramatist Victorien Sardou in which he described the final days and death of Rachel Félix the Alsatian born Jewess better known as Mademoiselle Rachel, the famous  French actress.

1860: Today's review of "Oliver Twist," the dramatic version of Charles Dickens novel of the same name reported that "the most salient triumph of the play, however, it must be said, is won by" Mr. J.W. Wallack, Jr., "who makes Fagin the Jew the fearful, odious and miserable creature that Dickens, working then in the May-time of his genius, summoned into being. The scene in which the wretched Fagin's driveling despair at the advance of death is painted by Mr. Wallack rises far above the level of melodrama. It is eloquent with the results of close and sincere study, vivified by the intense light of a quick and vigorous imagination." [Dickens'"Fagan" is seen by some of being symptomatic of 19th century British anti-Semitism.]

1860: It was reported that today that “The Vienna Gazette has published an Imperial decree, enacting that the testimony of Jews, in future shall be regarded of the same value as that of Christians. The measure is considered preliminary to according them full civil and political rights. "

1862: During the Civil War, Captain Leopold Meyer of Philadelphia began his service with Company C of the 113th Regiment of the 12th Cavalry of the Union Army.

1863: During the Civil War,” a fishing smack, containing three Jews,” was seized tonight on Lake Pontchartrain as it made its way to Ponchatoula, a Louisiana town still held by the Confederates. The boat contained “a large quantity of medicines for the rebels” and letters from forty or fifty leading citizens in New-Orleans which were addressed to persons of authority in the Confederate Government.

1865: In Amsterdam, Jozef Israëls, “one of the most respected painters of the Hague School, and Aleida Schaap,” gave brith to Dutch painter Isaac Israëls who was also a popular and award winning painter whose subjects included  Magaretha Gertrud Zelle, better known as the German spy Mata Hari

1865: During the Civil War, the 27th Ohio Infantry including Jacob C. Cohen arrived at Salkehatchie Swamp, SC, as Sherman’s Army pursued the Rebels under Johnston trying to reach Robert E. Lee.

1866(18th of Shevat, 5626): Joseph Bach passed away in Budapest. Born in 1784, he was a Hungarian rabbi. After I. N. Mannheimer, he was the first German preacher of a Jewish congregation in Austria-Hungary.mIn Alt-Ofen, his birthplace, he began to ground himself early in life in the study of the Talmud. Without the aid of a teacher he studied several foreign languages; after which he attended the University of Prague, remaining there 12 years. Then he returned to his home town, where he married the daughter of a wealthy family, and settled down as a merchant. It was not long, however, before he lost his entire fortune and was left penniless. Destitute of the means of subsistence, he was constrained to accept a situation as teacher. In 1827, despite having never studied homiletics, and had never heard or read a sermon, he was appointed first preacher at the newly organized synagogue of Pest, where he officiated for over thirty years. Many of his sermons have been published. An autobiography, with a preface by Kayserling, was published by his son in Budapest.

1867: In London, Amelia Joseph and John Aaron Cohen gave birth Eveline Leah Cohen, the wife of Louis Solomon and the mother of Eunice, John and Vera Solomon.

1869: Two days after he had passed away, Amsterdam native Abraham Van Minden, the husband of Esther Levy and the father of Helena, Solomon and Mary Anne Van Minden, was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”

1869: Birthdate of Ludwig Lesser, the Berlin native who’s fame as an award-winning landscape did not keep him from having to flee to Sweden with his son Richard in 1939 after the Nazis came to power.

1871: In Pilsen, Rabbi Heinemann Vogelstein, a leader of the Reform movement in Germany and his wife gave birth to Ludwig Vogelstein an industrialist who served as Vice President of the World Union Progressive Judaism, and in keeping with his leadership in the Reform movement, an opponent of Zionism.

1871: Three days after she had passed away, Rachel (Joseph) Phillips, the wife of Frederick Phillips, was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.

1872: In New York, Sarah and Max Harris gave birth to self-educated theatrical producer Sam H. Harris and husband of Alice Nolan best known for his years of collaboration with George M. Cohan and Irving Berlin who was also responsible for building what became the Sam H. Harris Theatre and the Music Box Theatre.

1872: Salomon Jacobs, a Jewish peddler, was sentenced to six months in the penitentiary for picking the pocket of sewing girl in New York City.

1874: In Allegheny, PA, Daniel and Amellia Stein gave birth to American modernist writer Gertrude Stein.

1875: It was reported today that the committee that has been investigating the management of the Hebrew Benevolent Asylum has concluded that Mr. Meyer Stern and his colleagues were guilty of the charges made against them. While the committee has no legal standing, its investigation has resulted in putting an end to the practices of which they were accused.

1875: Julius and Elsie Wiltschek gave birth to Gisele Elizabeth Wiltschek who became Gisele Wallenstein when she married Henry Wallenstein,

1876: The trial of Pesach N. Rubenstein, a Polish Jew charged with the murder of his cousin Sara Alexander, was scheduled to resume today.

1876: In New York, 21-year-old Therese Schiff (Loeb) and Jacob Henry Schiff gave birth to Frieda Fanny Schiff who became Frieda Warburg when she married Felix Warburg in 1895.

1878: Birthdate of Enrico Curiel who may have been a relative of Italian physicist Eugenio Curiel.

1878: “Ceremonies of Judaism: Their Meaning and Observance,” a lengthy article that described the ceremonial practices of the Jewish people including their Biblical origins was published in the New York Times. [One could hardly imagine an article like this appearing in a major European daily.]

1879: In New York, the Controller appeared at today’s meeting of the Board of Apportionment and reported that the Hebrew Ladies’ Benevolent Association was one of the charities that had made application to receive a portion of the excise moneys collected in 1878.

1879: Gertrude Lowy, the daughter of Deborah and Israel Lindenthal and wife of Albert Lowy with whom she had had eight children was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1879: In Cherokee, Iowa, James Maxwell Gillette and Clara V. Gillette gave birth Guy Gillette, the United States Senator from Iowa who became an outspoken supporter of the Zionist cause and served as President of the American League for a Free Palestine. [In those days, references to Palestine were Jewish, not Arab.  I am still researching the path that led a person from the small northwest Iowa town of Cherokee to support the creation of the state of Israel especially when you consider that in Iowa, unlike some of other states, there was no “Jewish vote” of any major importance.]

1881: Two days after he had passed away, 65-year-old David Judah Alberga, the husband of Henrietta Delgado and the father of Theresa and Eugene Alberga was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1884: Birthdate of Hanover, Germany native Selma Mayer who gained fame as “Schwester Selma” the head nurse at Shaare Zedek Hospital for fifty years where she began working in 1902 when it was founded by Dr. Moshe Wallach.

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/mair-selma

1885: In Modena, Italian merchant Salvatore Donati whose family traces its origins to back to the 16th century and his wife gave birth to banker, philanthropist and diplomat Angelo Donati who played a key role in rescuing Jews during WW II.

1887: Famed explorer Henry M. Stanley, the man who “found” Dr. Livingston, left Cairo to day so that he could join the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition and assume his role as active leader. Emin Pasah had been into a German family who named him Isaak Eduard Schnitzer.

1880: It was reported today that the Russian government is planning to change the law so that Jews have the same rights of other citizens as part of measures to be enacted as part of the Silver Anniversary of the Czar’s coming to the throne.

1880: The German Women’s Society for Aiding Poor and Sick Widows and Orphans held their annual meeting this afternoon at Steinway Hall.  Originally, the organization had been limited to Lutheran members. By the time of this meeting membership had been opened to include Jews as well as members of other Christian denominations.

1885: Birthdate of Modena, Italy native Angeolo Donati, the banker, philanthropist and diplomat who saved “Jews from Nazi persecution in Italian-occupied France.”

1890: “The Jews of France” published today cites claims in Fiagro and Gaulois that anti-Semitism in France is based on a belief that Republican Government favors the Jews and that the Rothschids were responsible for the “ruin of the Union General.” 

1890: Two days after he had passed away, 62 year old Prussian born Philip Falk, the husband of Sarah Falk with whom he had had six children, was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1891: In Paris, France, Albert Lazard and Camille Lazard gave birth to Jacques Michel Adolphe Lazard the husband of Georgette Lazard.

1891: It was reported today that 160 Jewish families from Russia are scheduled to arrive in the Twin Cities this week.  They are planning on forming an agricultural colony that has the financial backing of Baron Hirsch.

1891: Sarah Bernhardt and her company are scheduled to open their four week-long “American season at the Garden Theatre” this evening with a performance of “La Tosca” which “will be followed by performances of “Cleopatra,” “Theodora,” “Fedora” and “Jeanne d’Arc.”

1892: Russia closed down Yeshiva of Volozhin.

1893: The will of the late Simon Davidson, a retired Jewish merchant whose home had been on East 56th Street in Manhattan was filed for probate today.

1894(27thof Shevat, 5654): Parashat Mishpatim

1894(27thof Shevat, 5654): “The Belzer Rabbi, Yehoshua Rokeach, the eldest son of Rabbi Sholem Rokeach, the founder of the Belzer Dynasty,” who “after his father’s death in 1855 maintained the Belz Dynasty for forty years” passed away today. (As reported by Joseph Margoshes)

1894: Birthdate of Gertrud "Trude" Kiesler (née Lichtwitz) the mother of actress Hedy Lamarr.

1894: A group of unemployed Jews clashed with police outside of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London today.

1894: In Pennsylvania, Mendel S. Salsburg, the son of Arthur and Sarah Salsburg and his wife Rachel Naomi Salsburg gave birth to Sara “Sally” Salsburg.

1895: “Russia’s Jewish Problem” published today provides a detailed review of The Russian Jews; Extermination or Emancipation by Leo Errera. (He was a Belgian born Jewish botanist who works on anti-Semitism “under the pseudonym "Un vieux juif” which is German for "an old Jew"

1895: Birthdate of Breslau native Kurt Peiser, who in 1907 came to the United States where after earning his college degrees “served as executive director of Jewish federation and welfare funds successively in Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Detroit and Philadelphia” and who helped to “set up relief programs in North Africa” during WW II after the Allies had driven the Italians and Nazis back across the Mediterranean Sea.

1895: Samuel Somers, the son of Lawrence and Rebecca Somers was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”

1895: Birthdate of Breslau native Kurt Peiser who in 1907 came to the United states where he earned AB and MA from the University of Michigan after which “he served as executive director of Jewish federation and welfare funds successively in Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Detroit and Philadelphia” and as a worker for the Joint Distribution Committee during World War II setting up relief programs in North Africa.  (He is not to confused with the painter who had the same name)

1896: In North Dakota, Max Rabinovich and Pearl Hartstein gave birth to Joseph Rabinovich.

1896: In Berlin, movie producer Jules Greenbaum and Emma Karstein gave birth to cinematographer Mutz Greenbaum.

1898: It was reported today that a decision will not be made for at least week in “the libel suit brought by Joseph Reinach against Henri Rochefort who charged Mousier Reinach with intending to prove Alfred Dreyfus’s innocence by means of forged documents.” The judicial proceedings took place for spectators who quickly turned into a mob of jeering anti-Semites.

1899: It was reported today Israel Zangwell is expected to speak at the opening session of the Hebrew Fair which will be held at the Tuxedo.

1899: In New York, founding the Yiddish daily the Jewish Abend-Post.

1899: Philip Stern was promoted from 1st Lieutenant in the 5th U.S. Volunteer Infantry to the rank of Captain today.

1900(4thof Adar I, 5660): Parashat Terumah

1900(4thof Adar I, 5660): Forty-seven-year-old Paul Aaron Calmann-Lévy, the son of Kalmus Calmann Lévy and Pauline Levy and the husband of Dorothée Calmann-Levy passed away today in Paris.

1901: Herzl sets out on a journey to London and Paris that will last until the 15thof the month.

1901: The Huvra Synagogue in Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter was the scene of a standing room only memorial service for Queen Victoria led by Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Samuel Salant.

1902: In London Suzannah and Herbert Bentwich gave birth to Joseph Bentwich who made Aliyah in 1924 when he began teaching the Herzilya Hebrew Gymnasium.  He spent almost three decades at the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa as a teacher and principal. He passed away in 1982.

1903(6thof Shevat, 5663): Professor Frederick Kitziger, the noted musician and “composer of seven volumes of hymns, many of which are well known in the Jewish synagogues…” and the organist at Touro Synagogue passed away today in New Orleans.

https://www.milkenarchive.org/artists/view/frederick-kitziger/

 1904: “Jewish Emigration to America” published today reported that “a dispatch from Gomel (Government of Moghilev)” said that “Jewish emigration to America is steadily increasing” as can be see seen by the recent departure of three hundred families which included “artisans as well as wealthy Hebrew householders.”

1904: Herzl telegraphs back that he can take up the British proposal of new territory in Nandi only after the most careful investigation.

1905: It was reported today, that at a meeting of the Library Committee of the New York State Board of Regen when Librarian Melvil Dewey of Dewey Decimal fame was confronted by “representative of the signers of a petition for his removal as Director of the State Library because of “The policy of the Lake Placid Club, which he and his wife hold control of excluding Jews and other religious and ethnic groups” Dewey “said he really had very friendly feeling towards Jewish and that he regarded them a very bright and progressive people.”

1906: The Jewish Socialist-Territorialist Labor Party of America was organized today with offices on East Broadway in New York City.

1906: “Letters from Gomel appearing in the newspapers declare unanimously that the anti-Jewish outrages in that town were perpetrated with the open connivance of the authorities” and cited “numerous instances…of soldiers blackmailing unfortunate Jews who were seeking to save the remnants of their movable property.”

1906: The American Jewish Committee was formed. It was headed by Judge Mayer Sulzberger, a leader in the fight for liberal immigration laws. Its aims included the protection of civil and religious rights of Jews all over the world. Among its founders were Dr. Cyrus Adler, Louis Marshall and Jacob H. Shiff.

1907: Birthdate of author James Michener who was not Jewish but whose novel, The Source, is one of the least painful ways to gain an overview of Jewish History.

1907: Dr. Stephen S. Wise is scheduled to delivered an address on “Shall the Pulpit Be Free” at the second in “a series of meetings looking to the completion of his plans for the founding of a free synagogue.”

1908(1stof Adar I, 5668): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1909: In Paris, two Alsatian Jews – Saolomea and Dr. Bernard Weil gave birth to French mystic and Resistance fighter Simone Weil.

1910(24thof Shevat, 5670): Sixty-three-year-old Josephine Lazarus, author of The Spirit of Judaism passed away.

1911(5thof Shevat, 5671): Sixty-five old Kaskil Casper, the husband of Sophie Newman Casper, the Nevada City “clothing merchant” who “was granted a franchise by the City Council in December, 1891 to light the city with a Heisler incandescent system passed away today.

1912(15thof Shevat, 5672): As the Jews celebrate the New Year of the Trees, American politicians begin to gear up for a New Political Year – the presidential elections of 1912.

1913: Birthdate of Milton Lipson, a lawyer and investigator who, as a Secret Service agent from 1938 to 1946, was a personal bodyguard for Presidents Roosevelt and Truman.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/24/nyregion/milton-lipson-89-lawyer-and-a-former-bodyguard-for-roosevelt.html

1913: The two day “annual convention of District Grand Lodge No. 1 of the B’nai B’rith” which included a dinner at Delmonico’s where Jacob Furth of St. Louis addressed the attendees, a ball at Sherry’s and the election of Dr. Joseph Silverman of Temple Emanu-El as the President came to an end in New York.

1913: The New Jersey Conference of Charities and Corrections of which Newark, NJ Rabbi Solomon Foster served as a member of the Executive Committee continued meeting for a second day in Plainfield, NJ today.

1913: The Independent Order of the Sons of Benjamin held its “twenty-second annual convention” today in New York City which was attended by Grand Master, Richard Cohn’ First Deputy Grand Master, Julius Gumpert and Second Deputy Grand Master, Jacob Hyman of Boston.

1913: The Junior Auxiliary of the Mothers’ Aid of the Chicago Lying-in Hospital and Dispensary is scheduled to be held in the Vestry of Rooms of Isaiah Temple this afternoon.

1914: It was reported today that “all restrictions on the length of sojourn to be permitted in Russia to Jewish physicians who wish to attend the Twelfth International Ophthalmological Congress in St. Petersburg” that will run from July 28 to August 2, 1914.

1915: Among those listed today as contributors to the American Jewish Relief Committee were the Ladies Benevolent Society, Albany, GA; Temple De Hirsch, Seattle, Washington; the House of Israel, Hot Springs, AR; Adath Moshe, Athens, GA; Temple Israel Ladies, Wilmington, NC and the Hebrew Drama Club, Columbus, Ohio.

1915: Ottoman forces attempt to cross the Suez Canal but are repelled by the British. The Turks then turn towards Beersheba in Palestine after suffering near 2000 casualties.

1915:  In what would prove to be one of the opening rounds in the battle for the control of Palestine, Turkish troops arrive at the Suez Canal after having marched 130 miles through the Sinai Peninsula.

1916: The American Jewish Relief Committee announced today that it has received “to date” contributions in cash and pledges totaling $2,112,048.71.

1916: “In an interview” today the “President of the American Tariff Reform League stated that the organization…was entirely in accord with the sentiments expressed by Jacob Schiff in a speech before the Reform Club” in which he declared “war will never cease until we have worldwide free trade and the only way to render preparedness unnecessary is to the Custom Houses and the tariff walls and have international free trade.:

1916: It was reported today that the American Jewish Relief Committee had received the following contributions from committees throughout the United States and Canada including $305 from the Calgary Committee and $1,000 from the Des Moines Committee as well as $250 from the Staunton Christian Churches.

1917: The response of Felix Warburg, the chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee, to Germany’s announcement of a return to unrestricted submarine warfare published today, read, in part “Germanys note to the United States announcing a ruthless submarine warfare against neutral and other ships has stopped negotiations begun by the Joint Distribution Committee for the Relief of Jewish War Sufferers and which had for its object the sending of the German liners interned here to Syria and Belgium”

1917: During the second to the last year of World War I, British troops occupied Baghdad. After suffering heavily by forced conscription, torture and extortion by the Turkish ruled government, local Jews celebrated their freedom by declaring it a holiday (Yom Ness). Their freedom lasted until 1929 when the British granted independence to Iraq and all Zionist activities were prohibited.

1917: Birthdate of William Frankel, the son of Isaac Frenkel, the beadle of an Orthodox London Synagogue, who became editor of the “Jewish Chronicle,” a British weekly newspaper.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/apr/25/pressandpublishing.religion

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/20/AR2008042002077.html

1918: Five days after she had passed away Kate (Fairbanks) Greenland, the wife of Frederick Greenland was buried today the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery.”

1918: The Jewish Press Bureau reported from Stockholm “that the Dutch Zionist Federation has published a protest against the non-participation of a Jewish representative in the Brest-Litvosk peace negotiations” despite the fact that “the rights of millions of Jews as a national minority are being decided there.”

1918:  In the Bronx, Jacob Gottlieb, a bicycle repairman and Anna Siegel Gottlieb gave birth to Joseph Abraham Gottlieb who gained fame as Joey Bishop whose career spans the entire spectrum of a Jewish comic's life - Vaudeville, Burlesque, the Catskills, Las Vegas, Movies, and Television.  Many remember him as one of ABC's attempts to imitate the popular Johnny Carson Show.  The shows only lasting contribution was introducing Regis Philburn to America.  His other claim to fame was being part of Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack which included another famous Jewish entertainer, Sammie Davis, Jr.

1918: Colonel Josiah Wedgwood, a Member of Parliament visiting the United States on Government business today “urged that no obstacles be put in the path of the Palestine restoration movement” saying that “the Jewish State should include all of the territory of twelve tribes ”stretching from Dan to Beersheba

1919: Today, Chaim Weizmann, the leader of the Zionist delegation, presented the case for a Jewish homeland together with a map of the proposed entity. The statement supported the creation of a mandate entrusted to Britain and described the Jewish historical connection with the area. It also declared that the proposed borders and resources were “essential for the necessary economic foundation of the country” including “the control of its rivers and their headwaters”.

1919: It was reported today that Herman Bernstein, “who has just returned from Siberia” is no longer editor of the American Hebrew having been replaced by Isaac Landman.

1920(14th of Shevat, 5680): In New York, Rabbi Isaac C. Noot passed away at the age of 80.

1920(14thof Shevat, 5680): In her 57th year, Lena Reich, the wife of Bernard Rech and the mother of Mrs. Louis E. Beiber passed away today in New Rochelle, NY.

1920(14thof Shevat, 5680): Mae Reichman, the wife of Samuel Reichman and the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Goldberger passed away today in New York.

1921: Rabbi Stephen S. Wise officiated at the marriage of Arthur M. Schwartz and Rosaline Steifel at St. Regis Hotel “followed by a wedding breakfast for about 40 guests.”

1921: Dr. Bernard Drachman officiated at the wedding of William Freiber and Regine Weiss, “the niece of Charles M. and Henrietta H. Fergess” at the Hotel McAlpin.

1921(25thof Shevat, 5681): Fifty-six-year-old Ukrainian born son of Heinrich and Julia Zach, Max Zach, the orchestra conductor who began his career playing Viola with Boston Symphony Orchestra before moving on to lead the Boston Pops and husband of Blach Going with whom he had three children Leon, Phillip and Eleanor, passed away today.

http://www.anb.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-1801277

1921: In Washington, DC, Samuel Zallman Alpher and Rose Raise Alher gave birth to Ralph Ahser Alpher the physics professor at Union College, mathematician and provider of the model for the Big Bang Theory which was the subject of his 1948 Ph.D. dissertation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/18/us/18alpher.html

1921: In the Bronx, jewelry salesman Milton Kalish and his wife, the former Helen Rosenfeld gave birth to Austin Kalish script writer today. (As reported by Anita Gates)

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/arts/television/austin-kalish-dead.html?ribbon-ad-idx=5&rref=obituaries&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Obituaries&pgtype=article

1922: Residents of Bridgeport, CT heard a broadcast carried by WDY and KDKA that included the singing of Eddie Cantor in one of his first, if not his first venture, into the world of Radio.

1922: “Masters of the Sea” a “silent adventure film directed by Alexander Korda” produced by Arnold Pressburger and co-starring his wife Maria was released in Austria today.

1924: Birthdate of famed timpanist and baton maker Richard Samuel Horowitz, the Bronx native who was the son of “a cellist in silent-picture orchestras and movie theatre projectionist “and a “violin and piano teacher.” (As reported by Margalit Fox)

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/arts/music/richard-horowitz-renowned-timpanist-and-craftsman-of-conductors-batons-dies-at-91.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=thumb&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

1924: “The Marriage Circle” a silent film directed and produced by Ernst Lubitsch was released today in the United States.

1924: In the back of their dress shop in East Harlem, Daniel and Fanny Gelb gave birth to “Timesman” Arthur Neal Gelb. (As reported by Sam Roberts).

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/21/business/media/new-york-times-editor-arthur-gelb-dies.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&_r=0

1925: In Chicago, Irene (née Marks) and Nathan Berman gave birth Sheldon Berman who gained fame as comedian Shelly Berman who was part of a group of early monologists who along with Mort Sahl and Bob Newhart, created a golden age of stand-up comedy.  Berman's specialties included a "series of neurotic schlemiels" and "benign Lenny Bruce characters." He also appeared in a few short-lived comedy series. 

http://www.shelleyberman.com/

1926: Birthdate of Vivien Wax Nearing, the New York attorney who dethroned Charles Van Doren as champion on “Twenty-One” the popular quiz show on NBC.  She survived as champion for four weeks.  Ms Nearing was one of fourteen contestants who were exposed for cheating during subsequent investigations into the quiz show scandal.

1928: When Albert D. “Dolly” Stark was “added to the National League umpiring staff” today, he became the first Jew to serve as an umpire in the Major Leagues in modern times.

1930: The day after her funeral, a memorial service is scheduled to be held for Lady Reading, the wife of Lord Reading to whom King George and Queen Mary had sent “a message of sympathy and condolence.”1931: In Brooklyn, Arthur Levitt, Sr. and his wife gave birth to Arthur Levitt, Jr. who served as Chairman of the S.E.C. from 1993 to 2001.

1931: It was reported today that the Zionist Executive Committee has sent a message of condolence to the family of the Reverend William H. Hechler who has just passed away at the age of 86.  Hechler was a Protestant minister who was an early supporter of Zionism and the work of Theodor Herzl.

1932: Birthdate of Maria Itkina, the native of Roslavl the track star who competed in the 1956, 1960 and 1964 Summer Olympics.

http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/it/mariya-itkina-1.html

1933: Influential art dealer Sir Joseph Duveen, “was raised to the peerage as Baron Duveen.”  He was the oldest child of Sir Joseph Joel Duveen, the Dutch born Jew who had settled in England where established a firm that dealt in the trading of antiquities. 

1934: “The anti-Semitic ‘Prophecy’ attributed to Benjamin Franklin” that has been distributed in Germany was actually first published today in Liberation, “the organ of the Silver Shirts, a secret Fascist body headed by William Dudley Pelley” founded in Asheville, NC

1934(18thof Shevat, 5694): Parashat Yitro

1934: At Temple Israel, Rabbi William F. Rosenblum is scheduled to deliver a sermon at services this morning on “If You Wrote the Ten Commandments.”

1934: In Brooklyn, Louis J. Gribetz is scheduled to deliver a speech on “Political Aspects of Present Day Palestine” at a Zionist student rally.

1934: In the Bronx, at the Congregation of Israel, Dr. Samuel Benjamin is scheduled to deliver a talk this afternoon, in Yiddish on “Jews by Compulsion.

1934: This evening the United Jewish Socialist Labor Party is scheduled to host a symposium on “What do the Opponents of the Histadruth want?”

1934: Jesuit Father M. Barbera reviewed Alfred Rosenberg's Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts (The Myth of the Twentieth Century) for La Civiltà Cattolica. The book, published in Germany in 1930, had strongly endorsed Article 24 of the Nazi Party Program of 1920, which said that the party "stands for a new `positive Christianity.'" This new cult would abolish the "Jewish" Old Testament, purge the New Testament of humanitarian and pacifist themes, and create a German church anchored in blood, race, and soil. The party program and the book itself constituted a direct challenge to Catholics and Protestants alike, and Father Barbera was not delicate in his response. Because of the book's emphasis on the superiority of the pure "Aryan" race and its distortions of Christian history and teachings, he unequivocally rejected it as a "subversion of the very foundations of Religion and the Christian State." He did not mention Rosenberg's anti-Semitism.

1935(30thof Shevat, 5695): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1936: The Federal Council of Churches of Christ hosted a luncheon at the Aldine Club at which Sir Herbert Samuel and Viscount Bearsted made a plea to Catholic, Protestant and Jewish clergyman for support in financing the emigration of young Jews from Germany.

1936: The English-Speaking Union hosted a reception for Sir Herbert Samuel, the former British Home Secretary, during which he urged cooperation between the United States and Great Britain “to promote world peace and liberty.”

1936: Celebration of Samuel D. Levy’s 25th anniversary as Judge of Children’s Court.

1936: Celebration of the 60th birthday of Frieda Warburg, the wife of Felix Warburg the daughter of Therese Loeb and Jacob Schiff and the mother of Carol Rothschild and Fredrick, Gerald and Edward Warburg.

1937: It was reported today the Richard Walter Darre, the Reich Minister of Agriculture has written The Pig Murder, a book that “deals with the killing of 9,000,000 pigs in 1915” which he says was part of a Jewish plot to destroy the basis of the German self-nourishment system” and to aid in the allied blockade that was so harmful to the German war effort.

1938: In Bucharest, “Foreign Minister Istrate Micescu told the cabinet council that he had scored a success over the Jews in Geneva” where the League of Nations had given Rumania “a free hand to carry out revision of Jews’ citizenship” and said that it will not consider any complaints brought by Jews against that government until Rumania has “put forth its explanations.

1938: It was reported today that while Great Britain is broadcasting messages in Arabic designed to counteract “Mussolini’s persistent anti-British propaganda and to bring about peace in Palestine between Arabs and Jews” Sir Oswald Mosley, the English fascist leader is among those sending anti-Jewish literature to Arabs and to British officials in Palestine with intention of exacerbating tensions in the Holy Land.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that the third British soldier was killed in the battle near Jenin. While more than 50 Arab terrorists were killed, the number of their wounded could not be estimated. In Safed Arabs refused to attend the funeral of an Arab policeman branded as a traitor and murdered by Arab terrorists. The Palestine government approved the Post's suggestion that both Arab and Jewish buses should be of the same color, to make them indistinguishable and less prone to Arab terrorist snipers.

1939: “The British Government accepted an offer by President Roosevelt’s Advisory Committee on Refugees to send an expert commission to investigate the possibilities” settling Jewish refugees in British Guiana

1939: “A large number of prominent Finish citizens of all parties started a nation-wide collection” to raise funds to support the destitute refugees from Central Europe, most of whom are Jews from Germany “who have sought temporary refuge in Finland.

1939: In Budapest, The Dohány Street Synagogue “was bombed by the Hungarian pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party” today after which it was “used as base for German Radio and a stable during WW II.”

1939: “Honolulu,” a Burns and Allen film directed by Edward Buzzell and with music by Franz Waxman was released today in the United States.

1940(24thof Shevat, 5700): Eighty-two-year-old librettist Viktor Léon whose best-known work was the operetta “The Merry Widow” passed away today

http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~hou01714

1941: Esther "Etty" Hillesum, young Jewish women whose diaries about life in Holland under Nazi occupation were published posthumously, went to serve as "model" to the psycho-chirologist Julius Spier, at the Courbetstraat 27 in Amsterdam.

1941: Birthdate of Toronto native and “Canadian historian of the Holocaust” Michel Robert Marrus the author of such works as Vichy France and the Jews and “one of three Jewish scholars appointed to the International Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission to investigate the role of the Pope Pius XII during the Holocaust.”

1942(16thof Shevat, 5702): Seventy-one-year-old who had transported from Pilsen to Terezin was murdered there today.

1943: U.S. premiere of “Air Force,” a film based on a real event that took place in WW II produced by Hal B. Wallis and Jack Warner and staring John Garfield and featuring George Tobias, playing a role for which he was born – a Jew from Brooklyn serving in the crew of a B-17

1943: Leon Blum “wrote to a friend, one Madame Camel: “I received your package from Noch. The ham hock was wonderful. I haven’t yet eaten the prunes, but I know the species and look forward to eating them. … The household routine remains the same, except that occasionally new guards appear from outside.”

1943: After visits from René Bousquet, the secretary-general of the Vichy police and the man responsible for the July 1942 roundup of French Jews, and the no less redoubtable Colonel Helmut Knochen of the SS, representing Himmler, today Leon Blum was removed from Bourrassol by German troops.

1943: Eva-Marie Buch, who “worked for the Schutze-Boysen-Harnack resistance group (The Red Orchestra)” “was sentenced to death by the People’s Court.”

1943(28th of Shevat, 5703):  The Allied troopship S.S. Dorchester was torpedoed by a German sub and went down with a loss of 600 lives. As it sank, four chaplains calmly ministered to the needs of their comrades-in-arms and gave up their lifejackets to shipmates, thereby perishing in the icy waters. The bravery of Rabbi Alexander Goode, Father John Washington, Rev. Clark Poling (Dutch Reformed), and Rev. George Lansing Fox (Methodist) led Congress afterward to mark February 3rd as "Four Chaplains Day.

"https://www.legion.org/sitesearch?s=four+chaplains and

1944: The 67th train in eighteen months left Drancy for Birkenau. Upon their arrival 985 of the 1,214 deportees were gassed: of them 184 where children under 18 year of age.

1944: Two weeks after his wife Elizabeth had become a United States citizen, Hungarian born photographer André Kertész became a U.S. citizen today.

1944: Sydney Shumelson, a 29-year-old junior officer with the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), was part of a Buffalo Beaufighter Squadron that successfully attacked a Nazi convoy off the coast of Norway. On the way back, Shumelson engaged in a running dogfight with a Messerschmitt for which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order. “Six months later, Sydney participated in another sortie in which he and his comrades sunk two heavily defended warships in the Bay of Biscay. As a result of his service, he received the Distinguished Flying Cross and became the highest decorated Canadian Jewish serviceman in World War II.”

1944: “The Fighting Sullivans” a WW II biopic about five brothers from Waterloo, IA, produced by Sam Jaffe was released in the United States today.

1945: Colonel Robert “Rosie” Rosenthal led the entire Third Division, an armada of 1,000 B-17’s, on a raid on Berlin.

1946: The Royal Air Force reported that “six uniformed men held up an RAF medical rehabilitation unit in Tel Aviv tonight and stole eighteen weapons.”

1946: Seventy-nine year old English novelist Edward Phillips Oppenheim who was incorrectly “widely perceived as Jewish and was termed ‘the greatest Jewish writer since Isaiah’” passed away today.

1946: In Jerusalem, “police and military authorities announced today that the curfew that had barred pedestrians from streets in Jewish quarters would be lifted tomorrow.  The curfew has been in effect for sixteen nights.

1946: Among the 12,000 Canadian military personnel who arrived at Pier 90 in New York aboard The Big Bess was comedian Lou Herman of Toronto who performed in Italy and Northern Europe “with his rifle on the alert, never sure when an enemy attack might be made.”

1947: “An outline of the extent to which Britain is prepared to go to meet Zionist demands for an independent state in Palestine will be submitted to leaders of the Jewish Agency for Palestine tomorrow, Foreign Secretary Bevin told the agency's spokesmen here today.”

1948: “Twenty-five members of the Blockade Runners of Haganah, a recently formed organization of former crew members who ran the British blockade off Palestine, picketed today from noon until 2 P.M. in front of 630 Fifth Avenue, where the British visa office is located on the thirty-fifth floor.

1948: It was reported today that the Mufti of Jerusalem flew from Cairo to Damascus to attend an upcoming meeting of the Arab League where a date will be set for the “Arab volunteer to open an offensive in Palestine.” (Editor’s note – this is months before the declaration of the end of the mandate and hardly a popular uprising of the local population.  Aren’t facts a bummer)

1949: The Provisional State Council which acted as the legislature for the state of Israel until the election of the first Knesset held its last meeting today.

1949: “The Bribe,” an American crime film directed by Robert Z. Leonard, produced by Pandro S. Berman and filmed by cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg was released in the United States today.

1950: Morton Gould and his wife gave birth to their third child and first daughter Abby.

1951(27thof Shevat, 5711): Parashat Mishpatim

1951(27thof Shevat, 5711): Seventy-one-year-old Freeport, Illinois born “newspaper reporter, edito, publicity man, screen writer, author, Collector of Customs in Los Angles and President of the Los Anglese Commission, Alfred A. Cohen “who wrote the “The Jazz Singer,” the first full length talking motion picture, passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1951/02/05/86968833.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

 1951: In Philadelphia, President Harry S. Truman dedicated a chapel in the honor of “The Four Chaplains” in Philadelphia.  The chapel was moved to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in 2001 and after being repaired in 2004 was renamed “The Chapel of the Four Chaplains.”

1952: In Mt. Vernon, NY, Lillian Vernon and Samuel Hochberg gave birth to their first son LGBT activist Fred Philip Hochberg, who in a very Jewish pattern was named for an uncle who died at Normandy and who served as “president and CEO of the Lillian Vernon Corporation” before serving in several government positions including Chairman and President of the Export-Import Bank under President Obama.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported on the Ministry of Labor plans to develop communications and queries, expand irrigation and agriculture and move people from towns to villages all of which should help in lowering the unemployment rate and hasten the closing of the transit camps for recent immigrants.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Arab states had dropped their plans for a boycott of Germany after the Bonn government has ratified the Israeli Reparations Treaty.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Czechoslovakia and Hungary joined the Soviet Union in spreading false anti-Semitic accusations and started identifying and purging their Jewish officials.

1954: The IDF officially began employing “a new doctrine of combining armored and motorized infantry units” developed by Yitzhak Pundak who was promoted the rank of Brigadier General.

1958(13th of Shevat): Benzion Katz passed away

http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Katz_Bentsiyon

1959(25th of Shevat, 5719): Joseph Pearlman passed away.

1959(25thof Shevat, 5719): Eighty-two-year-old Oscar William Oppenheimer, the “son of Moses and Julia Oppenheimer,” the “husband of Claude Siesel” with whom he had two children – Louise and James – passed away today in Pittsburgh, PA and President of the Steel Drum Company passed away today in Pittsburgh.

1960: “The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond” a crime biopic that “marked the film debut of Dyan Cannon (born Samille Diane Friesen), produced by Milton Sperling, with music by Leonard Rosenman was released today in the United States by Warner Brothers

1965(1stof Adar I, 5725):  Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1965(1stof Adar, 1, 5725): Ninety-two-year-old Giuseppe Levi “an Italian anatomist and histologist” who “was a pioneer of in vitro studies of cultured cells” passed away today.

1968(4thof Shevat, 5728): Parashat Bo

1968(4th of Shevat, 5728): Seventy-three-year-old Jacob Albert “Jake” Pitler, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants Frederick and Yetta Pitler and the husband of Henrietta L. Pitler whose two-year career with Pittsburgh Pirates was followed by lengthy career as a coach with the Brooklyn Dodgers that included being on the 1955 team that won Brooklyn’s only World Championship passed away today.

http://jewishbaseballmuseum.com/player/jake-pitler/

1970: The funeral for Bella Bergoffen, the widow of Samuel Bergoffen is scheduled to take place this afternoon at Riverside Chapel

1970: The funeral for Dorothy Horowitz Gerber, the widow of Newcomb Germer is scheduled to take placed at the Higgins Home for Funerals followed by internment at the Children of Israel Cemetery in South Plainfield, NJ

1971: Birthdate of Tobias Jacob "Toby" Moskowitz “an American financial economist and a professor at the University Of Chicago Booth School Of Business. He was the winner of the 2007 American Finance Association (AFA) Fischer Black Prize, which is awarded biennially to the top finance scholar under the age of 40 in years when one is deemed deserving.”

1971(8thof Shevat, 5731): Sixty-nine-year-old Latvian born psychotherapist and author Asya L. Kadis, the widow of textile manufacture Max Kadis passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/02/05/archives/tlsa-l-kadis-psychiatrist-group-therapy-expert-dead.html

1973: Judge Justine Wise Polier retired from the New York Family Court after 38 years spent trying to use the bench to assist children and redress discrimination.

1974: After only 65 performances a Broadway revival Adler and Ross’ “The Pajama Game” co-starring Hal Linden, closed today.

1974: The Syrian Foreign Minister announced that his country was carrying out a ‘continued and real war of attrition’ that aim of which was to keep ‘Israel’s reserves on active duty and paralyzing its economy.’

1975(22ndof Shevat, 5735): Fifty-three-old “Eli M. Black, chairman of the billiondollar United Brands Company, which has vast interests in bananas and meatpacking and other enterprises, plunged to his death at 8 A. M. today from the 44th floor of the Pan Am Building.” (As reported by Peter Kihss)

www.nytimes.com/1975/02/04/archives/44story-plunge-kills-head-of-united-brands-united-brands-head.html

1975(22ndof Shevat, 5735): Eighty-eight-year-old Russian born American character actor Michael Mark whose career spanned almost 40 years passed away today.

http://www.classic-monsters.com/michael-mark/

1976: In Oman, Elspeth Reid and Brian Fisher gave birth to actress Isla Lang Fisher who converted to Judaism before marrying Sacha Baron Cohen.

1977: Birthdate of American born sprint canoer Rami Zur, who “competed for Israel at the 2000 Summer Olympics.”

1978: “The One and Only” a “comedy starring Henry Winkler, directed by Carl Reiner, produced by David V. Picker, starring Henry Winkler and Gene Saks and filmed by cinematographer Victor J. Kemper was released in the United States today.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that mercury was found in Spanish oranges as a poisoning scare cut into sales of Israeli citrus in Europe. In the third week of their almost total strike, Israeli seamen threatened to wreck their ships to prevent their sale, as threatened by the Zim management. The US was contemplating a package deal: a joint sale of American jet fighters to Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. 1985: Physicist Frank Oppenheimer, younger brother of Robert Oppenheimer, and veteran of the Manhattan Project, passed away.

1986: In Harrisburg, PA, the large plant owned by TRW (the R stands for Simon Ramo) burned to the ground in an eight-alarm fire.

1988: In Yorkton, Saskatchewan Rick and Carol Schwartz gave birth to Mandi Jocelyn Schwartz the Yale hockey player whose struggle with leukemia would inspire thousands of people to volunteer to be bone marrow donors.”  (As reported by Thomas Kaplan)

1988: Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin visited Nablus today and found the streets deserted except for his own soldiers. He chatted with them in the narrow twisting streets. Some residents could be seen peeking at the minister through the slats of their closed shutters as he walked with bodyguards, a squad of soldiers and an entourage of journalists. ''I more than believe that we are going to put an end to it,'' he said of the protests. ''When, I don't know.''

1989: “Wicked Stepmother,” a comedy featuring Lionel Stander and Tom Bosley and “written, produced and directed by Larry Cohen” was released in the United States today.

1989(28thof Shevat, 5749): Seventy-three year old Academy Award winning American movie music orchestra leader, composer and arranger Lionel Newman, passed away.

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/08/obituaries/lionel-newman-73-winner-of-an-oscar-as-a-film-composer.html

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/33578/LIONEL-NEWMAN-DIES.html?pg=all

1991: After a long and angry debate, the Israeli Cabinet today voted to accept as a new member of the Government a small right-wing party that advocates expelling all the Palestinians from the occupied territories. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir pushed through the appointment of the Moledet Party -- the Hebrew name means homeland -- over the opposition of senior members of his Government to expand his coalition to 66 seats in the 120-seat Parliament.

1991:  The army announced that it had decided to begin large-scale distribution of gas masks to Palestinians in the West Bank.

1991: Mayor David N. Dinkins arrived in Tel Aviv “today from New York City for a lightning visit to show solidarity with Israel

1992: Ezer Weizman, the former Israeli Defense Minister and air force commander who became an ardent advocate of peace with the Arabs, announced his retirement from politics today, warning that the Government was leading the country toward war

1992(29th of Shevat, 5752: Eighty –five-year-old “Dead Sea Scrolls Scholar” Theodore H. Gaster passed away today.

http://articles.philly.com/1992-02-08/news/26040942_1_dead-sea-scrolls-jewish-sect-ancient-texts

1993: U.S. premiere of “The Century Club” the cinematic treatment of the play by the same name about three Jewish widows in Pittsburgh produced by Philip Rose, with music by Elmer Bernstein and co-starring Lanie Kazan.

1995: “In the Month of Madness” a horror film featuring David Warner and Frances Bay was released in the United States today.

1995(3rdof Adar I, 5755): Seventy-one-year-old author Jack Sendak, the brother of Maurice Sendak and the son of Philip Sendak passed away today. (As reported by Wolfgang Saxon)

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/04/obituaries/jack-sendak-71-a-writer-of-surrealist-books-for-children.html?pagewanted=1

1997: Newly installed U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright announced the uncovering of her Jewish origins.

https://jwa.org/thisweek/feb/03/1997/madeleine-albright

 

1997: During fiscal 1997 which ended today women's apparel accounted for 32 percent of Younkers's sales, men's apparel for 16 percent, home furnishings for 16 percent, and cosmetics for 11 percent. In an example of oft repeated tale, Younker’s traced its origins to a general store started by Lipman, Samuel and Marcus Younker at Keokuk, IA, from which the brothers put the merchandize on backpacks and walked the roads selling to local farms.  Herman Younker “joined them in 1874 and opened a 1,320-square-foot dry goods store in Des Moines on their behalf with a $6,000 grubstake.”

 1999(17th of Shevat, 5759): Eighty-five-year-old Ben “Red” Kramer the Long Island University basketball all-star who won the Haggarty Award which “is given to the best men’s basketball player in the New York City metropolitan area” passed away today.

2000: The U.S. Senate voted 89-4 to confirm Alan Greenspan for a fourth term as chairman of the Federal Reserve.

2001: “God’s Ghostwriters” published today provides a complete review of The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman.

https://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/04/books/god-s-ghostwriters.html?searchResultPosition=3

2002: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers includingShouting Fire: Civil Liberties in a Turbulent Age by Alan M. Dershowitz

2002: Robert Kraft’s New England Patriots defeated the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI in New Orleans.

2003: Today actress Lana Clarkson was found in the Pyrenees Castle, the Alhambra, CA, mansion of musician Phil Spector whose immigrant Jewish grandfather arrived in the United States “with the surname Spekter.”

2004: “Nasser al-Kidwa, head of the Palestinian observer mission, criticized the Israeli ambassador, Dan Gillerman, for having accused Secretary General Kofi Annan of showing bias against Israel in his response to the suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed 10 and wounded 50.”

2005(24thof Shevat, 5765): Eighty-one-year-old landscape architect Karl Linn the German-Jewish born son of Henriette (Henny) Rosenthal and the stepson of Josef Lin, the Chief Librarian of the Jewish Community Center in Berlin who fled to Palestine when the Nazis came to power and who studied to be a psychologist before turning to landscaping passed away today.

https://archives.ced.berkeley.edu/collections/linn-karl

2006(5thof Shevat, 5766): Actor Al Lewis, best known for his role as Grandpa on the television show “The Munsters” passed away.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/nyregion/al-lewis-95-dies-portrayed-grandpa-on-the-munsters.html

https://www.biography.com/people/al-lewis-162967

2006: “Rick Moranis performed "Press Pound" on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and discussed the development of his music career.”

2007: ט"ו בשבט or Tu B’Shevat and Shabbat Shirah.  In Cedar Rapids a special Tu B’Shevat and Tailgating Kiddush celebrating the New Year of the Tree’s and Sunday’s Super Bowl.

2008: “Camille Pissarro: Impressions of City and Country” closes at the Jewish Museum of New York.

2008: The Sunday New York Times book section featured a review of Artists in Exile: How Refugees From Twentieth-Century War and Revolution Transformed the American Performing Artsby Joseph Horowitz, Swimming in a Sea of Death David Rieff’s account of his mother’s (Susan Sontag) final illness and Eli Gottlieb’s second novel, Now You See Him.

2008: The Sunday Washington Post book section featured a review of They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons by Jacob Heilbrunn and Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning by Jonah Goldberg.

2008: Super Bowl Sunday: In Super Bowl XLII, the New York Giants take on the New England Patriots who are owned by Jewish businessman and philanthropist Robert Kraft.

2009: Dr. Avi Bitzur, Israel's Director General of the Ministry, "gave details of the new Israeli campaign for compensation of seized property and assists as at a panel entitled 'A Matter of Historic Justice: Jewish Refugees From Arab Countries,' held at the Ninth Annual Herzliya Conference.

2009: The Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism presents the second annual Professor William Prusoff Honorary Lecture, "1948 as Jihad" featuring Professor Benny Morris of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

2009: German Chancellor Angela Merkel issued a stern rebuke today to Pope Benedict XVI, accusing the Vatican of giving "the impression that Holocaust denial might be tolerated" by welcoming a disgraced bishop back into the church.

2009: Palestinian militants fired a long-range rocket from Gaza into the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon today and Israel retaliated with airstrikes against smuggling tunnels and a Hamas outpost in southern Gaza, as Egyptian-brokered talks for a sustainable cease-fire continued in Cairo with no obvious progress.

2010: The 10th Annual Herzliya Conference is scheduled to come to a close.

2010: Maggie Anton, author of the trilogy about Rashi’s Daughters is scheduled to speak at Congregation Beth Shalom in Oak Park, Michigan.

2010: The Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia is schedule to present “Taste of Israel: Ethnic Cooking at its Best” featuring six Israeli women from the Partnership Community of Beit Shemesh-Mateh Yehuda who will be at the JCCNV to cook foods from different origins including Morocco, Iraq, India, Kurdistan, Persia and Egypt.

2010: Elie Wiesel told Haaretz today that he is using his ties with world leaders and heads of state and appearing at international conferences to warn of Ahmadinejad's intentions. More than 40 Nobel Prize winners from various countries have added their signatures to a full-page ad denouncing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that is due to be published in The New York Times and International Herald Tribune in the next few days. The ad, initiated by 1986 Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel, condemns Iran's severe human rights violations and warns that Iran's nuclear program is a danger to humanity. The ad is part of Wiesel's worldwide campaign to raise awareness of the threat he says Ahmadinejad poses to world peace. "Governments must stop Ahmadinejad and put him on trial at the International Court of Justice in The Hague on charges of open incitement for genocide," he said. Wiesel blasted Judge Richard Goldstone, saying his report on the Israeli offensive in Gaza was "a crime against the Jewish people." Wiesel, who was deported from his hometown of Sighet in Transylvania to Auschwitz, is demanding Hungary open its Nazi-occupation era archives. This would expose the extent of the Hungarian police and army's persecution of the Jews, he said.

2010: The daily Dernieres Nouvelles d'Alsace reported today that Vandals have defiled a Jewish cemetery in the city of Strasbourg with swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans. 

2011: The Center for Jewish History and Leo Baeck Institute is scheduled to present: “Chamber Music of Schubert, Bach, Shostakovich, Rachmaninoff and Zaretsky” performed by the Phoenix Chamber Ensemble.

2011: Professor Jean Seaton is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Reporting the Holocaust - As it was Happening” at the Wiener Library in London, UK. 

2011: Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who is recovering from a bullet shot into her brain, will not be attending this year’s National Prayer Breakfast which is scheduled to take place today. Congresswoman Giffords had invited her rabbi, Stephanie Aaron of Congregation Chaverim, to attend the event with her.

2011: Police officers stumbled on a large stash of jugs and coins dating back from the Second Temple era in the Galilee village of Mazara today, during an arms raid.

2011: Rabbi Steven Kushner officiated at the funeral of Mitchell Reuben Perlmeter at Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield, N.J. Perlmeter who passed away two days ago at the age of 17 was the son of two rabbis.

2012: IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen Benny Gantz ordered a full inquiry into the incident that saw a soldier with the 188th Armored Brigade accidently left behind in the Palestinian village of Budrus.

2012(10thof Shevat, 5772): Seventy year old Zalman King, actor turned film maker, passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/arts/television/zalman-king-creator-of-soft-core-films-dies-at-70.html?hpw&_r=0

2012: "The Zionist regime is a cancerous tumour and it will be removed," Teheran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said today. Khamenei addressed thousands of worshipers attending a Tehran University prayer service marking the Fajr celebration. The crowd met the statement by chanting "Death to Israel."

2012: Rabbi Alexander Goode, Reverend George Fox (Methodist), Reverend Clark Poling (Dutch Reformed) and Father John Washington (Roman Catholic) are remembered on Four Chaplain Day.

2012: In Cedar Rapids, Temple Judah is scheduled to host another of its fabulously popular Friday Night Musical Shabbats

2012: Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff is scheduled to speak at Friday night services at Washington Hebrew Congregation as part of the commemoration of Four Chaplains Day.

2013: 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 The Lion Is In by Delia Ephron

2013: As part of the Temple Judah 90th anniversary celebration, historian Mark Hunter is scheduled to deliver an illustrated talk on the history of the Cedar Rapids Jewish Community.

2013: Rebekka Helford and Bruce Bierman are scheduled to lead the music and dancing at the Klezmer Jam Session and Dance hosted by The Talking Stick in Venice, CA.

2013: Final performance of “Not By Bread Alone” is scheduled to take place at the Skirball.

2013: Today marks the 70th anniversary of the sinking of the Dorchester, a U.S. Army transport ship, torpedoed by a German U-boat during World War II. During the sinking 4 chaplains, including Rabbi Alexander Goode sacrificed their lives to save others answering in the affirmative to the age old question of “Am I my brother’s keeper.” (Special thanks to the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington for assembling so much valuable information about this event)

http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=nz5hiyn6&v=001w_-M_3FUdLfmI057ZYjIj8JFAAzKzljhO72c44ookapmKWBSa_puN0vuZkJiyB04yUE02ttGVQxMiyTbPtMxTK_PZ7CiOWoZ19jVv8jehqZeJi68KbKkdm7M5SkTt5jVOqV5DUoJ4VT3KhS8MKIsIjrkODxRz7M-aRIkY7VfRhCMsHDrP3Gk_Vk0yR-xfkdNIsZ5FMJ-aa-SChupjjnx2klGzFwMRTpULnMqrsvSaCxq6-E8Dlq4Bg%3D%3D

2013: Today, Israel’s army chief landed in the United States for talks with his American counterpart, amid tension with Syria following a reported Israel airstrike there last week. He arrived as Israel’s defense minister insisted that Israel “means what it says” about preventing advanced weaponry being moved into Lebanon as Bashar Assad’s regime in Damascus loses control. (As reported by Michal Shmulovich)

2013: As Americans watch the Super Bowl, this is the story of the commercial you will not see.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/refaelis-super-bowl-kiss-censored/

2014: An exhibit at La Galeria at Boricua College in Washington Heights featuring works from “Intermarriage” is scheduled to close today.

2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host a panel discussion on “Iranian Jewish Identity.”

2014: The UK Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to “Lea and Daria,” a film about two Croatian “Shirley Temples

2014: According to reports first published today by Haaretz “Israel has offered Turkey twenty million dollars in compensation to the families of those killed and wounded in its 21o raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla.”

2014(3rdof Adar I, 5774): Eighty-seven-year-old Arthur Ortenberg, the husband and business partner of Liz Claiborne passed away today, (As reported by Doulas Martin)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/05/business/arthur-ortenberg-a-liz-claiborne-founder-dies-at-87.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&_r=0

2014(3rdof Adar I, 5774): Sixty-four year old American born Professor Barry Rubin who was a “columnist and well-known expert on terrorism and the Middle East passed away today.(As reported by Stuart Winer)

http://www.timesofisrael.com/barry-rubin-columnist-and-mideast-expert-dies-at-64/

2014(3rdof Adar I, 5774): Ninety-two-year-old Professor Ezra Zohar, the physician who helped to found the School of Medicine at Tel Ave University passed away tody.

http://www.jewishpost.com/archives/news/dr-ezra-zohar-is-israel-uncle-sams-concubine.html

2014(3rdof Adar I, 5774): Twenty-one-year-old Captain Tal Nahman was “killed today due to friendly fire near Gaza.”2015: “Ze’eva Cohen: Creating a Life in Dance” is scheduled to be shown at the Lincoln Center.

2015(15thof Shevat, 5775): This evening seventy-eight-year-old Sir Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Winston Churchill and author of 80 books who wrote meaningful history with the style of a novelist passed away today after an extended illness during which he was lovingly cared for by his wife, Lady Esther Gilbert.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/06/arts/martin-gilbert-churchill-biographer-with-a-populist-bent-is-dead-at-78.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

http://www.martingilbert.com/

2015(14thof Shevat, 5774): Seventy-five-year-old theatre director Ike Schambelan, who created opportunities for “challenged” actors and actresses passed away today. (As reported by Bruce Weber)

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/06/arts/ike-schambelan-director-who-brought-disabled-artists-to-the-stage-dies-at-75.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2015: In Washington, DC, the Historic 6th& I Synagogue is scheduled to host a Tu B’Shvat Seder “featuring local soured snacks and dessert.”

2015: French-Israeli journalist Jonathan-Simon Sellem today “was invited at The Algemeiner Gala in New-York City, to receive a prize as one of the 2014 Top-100 people influencing positively Jewish life.

2015: At the Center for Jewish History Gina B. Nahal is scheduled to discuss her new novel, The Luminous Heart of Jonah S., about the experience of the Iranian Jewish community in the United States.

2016(24th of Shevat, 5776): Three terrorists murdered 19-year-old Hadar Cohen, an Israeli security officer who was “interfering” with their apparent attempt to launch an attack on shoppers in and around the Damascus gate in Jerusalem.

2016: Rabbi Yosef Greenberg, the Chabad-Lubavitch from Anchorage, Alaska invoked the seven Noahide Commandments when he 19offered the opening prayer at the United States Senate in which he “prayed for the United States to lead in the fight against terrorism worldwide.”

2016: Professor Michael Walzer is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Secular Revolutions and Religious Counter-Revolutions: The Case of Zionism” at Kol Shalom Congregation.

2016: “Pinchas Zukerman and the Zukerman Trio” are scheduled to appear the Kaufman Concert Hall.

 2016: The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust is scheduled to host an “Artist Talk Anika Smulovitz” in conjunction with “Pointing the Way” an “exhibit about ceremonial Torah pointers.

2017: Funeral services are scheduled to today at Chicago’s Emanuel Congregation for Rabbi Herman Schaalman.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/obituaries/ct-herman-schaalman-obit-met-20170201-story.html

2016: In “Gay Congregation Celebrates Its Identity With New Home in Manhattan” published today David W. Dunlap described the growth of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/nyregion/gay-congregation-celebrates-its-identity-with-new-home-in-manhattan.html?action=click&contentCollection=nyregion&module=NextInCollection&region=Footer&pgtype=article&version=column&rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fbuilding-blocks

2017: This afternoon, UKJF is scheduled to sponsor a screening of “Through the Wall,” Rama Burshtein’s comedic look at love in the Hasidic community of Tel Aviv.

2017: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host Friday night services and a Shabbat dinner followed by Rabbi Michael Rosenfeld-Schueler’s chavruta session.

2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to continue Parent’s Shabbat that includes a Pirke Avot study session following Shabbat Luncheon.

2018: Yiddishkayt is scheduled to host the “West Coast premiere of ‘Art Is My Weapon,’ the inspiring cabaret showcasing the life and work of Dutch-Jewish anti-fascist performer Lin Jaldati at Genghis Cohen in Los Angeles.

2018(18thof Shevat, 5778): Parashat Yitro – including the revelation at Sinai, one of the most universally known of all Biblical stories;

2018(18thof Shevat, 5778): Bogalusa, LA native and Tulane School of Social work, Sara Benson Stone, the philanthropist and wife of Saul stone with whom she had four children – David, Richard, Harvey and Carol – passed away today at the age of 102.

https://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/article_2b6cb56a-095f-11e8-8634-3bf63a73513b.html

2019: On the secular calendar, fourth anniversary of historian Sir Martin Gilbert – always missed and never forgotten.

https://www.martingilbert.com/

2019: Robert Kraft’s New England Patriots are scheduled to meet the Los Angeles Rams, a team once owned by Carroll Rosenbloom in Super Bowl LIII.

https://jewishjournal.com/news/los_angeles/181298/

2019: The New York Times reviewed books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Zuck: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe by Roger McNamee, Antisemitism: Here and Now by Deborah E. Lipstadt and Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts by Jill Abramson

2019: The Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA is scheduled to host a screening "Angel Wagenstein: Art is a Weapon"

http://support.yiddishbookcenter.org/site/Calendar?id=7771&view=Detail

2019: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “a staged reading” this afternoon of “Out of the Depths,” an original play by Chaim Potok.

2019: The Jewish Museum of London is scheduled to host a rehearsed reading by Diane Samuels of “Kindersport” which had been previously been shown in the West End and which “explores the trauma and hope of the Kindertransport through the lens of mother/daughter relationships.”

2019: Limmud Helsinki and Limmud FSU St. Petersburg are both scheduled to come to an end today.

2019: Four Chaplains Day, marking the 76th anniversary of the sinking of U.S.A.T. Dorchester and the courage of the four chaplains -- Rabbi Alexander D. Goode, the Rev. George L. Fox, a Methodist Minister, the Rev. Clark V. Poling of the Reformed Church in America, and the Rev. John P. Washington, a Roman Catholic priest.”

https://medium.com/@CarlBuhler/four-chaplains-day-february-3-2019-d168ad447fff

2020: In Berkeley, CA, Urban Adamah is scheduled to host “Nature Tales of Joy and Wonder” during which “Rabbis Arthur Waskow and Phyllis Berman join rituaist-feminist Starhawk to share Jewish stories of earth, sky and ocean.”

2020: In New Orleans, at Tulane University “Zionism Then and Now,” a symposium organized by Dr. Brian Professor, a professor in the Jewish Studies Department is scheduled to come to an end.

2020: In Lafayette, CA, Temple Isaiah is scheduled to host “Battle for Religious Freedom in Israel” during which “Jewish scholar and activist Yael Yechieli-Persico talks about tensions between religion and state.”

2020: In Cincinnati, OH, The Mayerson JCC Jewish and Israeli Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “The Spy Behind Home Plate.”

2020: Iowa is scheduled to host its political caucuses tonight which on the Democrat side include two possible Jewish candidates and on the Republican side, an incumbent President with a Jewish daughter, son-in-law and numerous supporters including Prime Minister Netanyahu who has turned his position into a virtual adjunct of the Republican Party.

2020: Rabbi Alexander D. Goode, the Rev. George L. Fox, a Methodist Minister, the Rev. Clark V. Poling of the Reformed Church in America, and the Rev. John P. Washington, a Roman Catholic priest -- the ot “Four Chaplains” -- are scheduled to be honored today, which is a feast day “on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America.”

http://www.fourchaplains.org/

2021: In Columbus, OH, Congregation Tiftereth Israel is scheduled to offer two study opportunities with virtual meetings of the “Short Story Group” and “The Heart of the Torah” sessions where essays on the upcoming Torah portion are discussed.

2021: The Highgate United Synagogue Book Club is scheduled to discuss Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan.

2021: The Illinois Holocaust Museum is scheduled to re-open to the public today.

2021: The Berkley Center for Jewish Studies is scheduled to present “Ode to Energy: Einstein, Feynman and Oppenheimer” during which Sonoma State professor Anne Goldman, author of “Stargazing in the Atomic Age,” will talk about Jewish physicists of the mid-20th century and their role in creating the atom bomb.

2021: The London School of Jewish Studies is scheduled to host Rav Avida Tabory as he continues his exploration into the halachic (Jewish law) response to historical events in modern Israel” and Karen Miller Jackson as she begins a study session on sections of Tractate Pesachim.”

2021: The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience is scheduled to present “New Works Wednesdays” with Nadia Sabri who will have a discussion with book contributors Abdou Filaly Ansary, Vanessa Paloma Elbaz, and Brahim El Guabli.

2021: The Aquarian Minyan is scheduled to present “The Store of a German Jewish Refugee during which “Psychologist Joan Schwartz will about her mother, Eva, from Trier, Germany, and other relatives who fled the Holocaust and immigrated to California.”

2021: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “Jewish Ruptures, Mourning and Belonging” during which “Sharon Musher, author of Promised Lands: Hadassah Kaplan, Zionism, and the Making of American Jewish Women and David Slucki, author of Sing This at My Funeral: A Memoir of Fathers and Sons, who will discuss with Natalia Aleksiun their grandparents’ and parents’ turbulent life trajectories before, during, and after the war in New York, Europe, British Palestine, and Australia.

2021: The Jewish Community Center of the North Shore is scheduled to present, online, “Science, Spirit and Self: Men’s Health and Wellbeing.”

  

This Day, February 4, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. and Deb Levin Z"L

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February 4

211: The reign of Septimius Servus, the Roman emperor who outlawed conversions to both Judaism and Christianity in an attempt to unify his crumbling empire, came to an end.

362: Roman Emperor Julian promulgates an edict that recognizes equal rights to all the religions in the Roman Empire. Known as Julian the Apostate, Julian effectively undid the edicts of Constantine that had made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire. He brought back the old religions of the Empire including those that were tied to Hellenism, the spiritual path that he favored.  Julian was sympathetic to the Jewish people and was prepared to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.  Unfortunately, he was murdered by a Christian Arab soldier who may have been angered by Julian’s decision to deny state support to Christianity.

1194: Richard The Lion Hearted bought his freedom by paying his ransom to Leopold, an Austrian Duke.  In collecting the ransom, the Jews were forced to pay 5,000 marks.  They were taxed at three times the rate as that paid by their Christian countrymen. 

1428(17th of Shevat): Purim of Sargosa

 1594: Sussex’s Men, an Elizabethan acting company performed Marlow’s “The Jew of Malta” today.

1616(16thof Shevat 5376): Samuel Pallache, a Moroccan Jewish merchant passed away in The Hague while serving as the diplomatic representative of the sultan Zidan Abu Maali in negotiations with the Dutch Republic designed to establish an alliance to fight their common enemy – Spain. Born in Fez in 1550, he was the son of a rabbi from Cordoba whose family had fled Spain following the Reconquista.

1657: Oliver Cromwell granted the right of residence in England to a Jew, Antonio Fernandez Carvajal. According to some, this is the earliest official British act of tolerance in favor of the Jews.

1657: Thomas Burton, an MP who was a comrade of Cromwell and kept a diary on the proceedings of Parliament wrote today that "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."

1683: Birthdate Judah Monis, the son of Portuguese conversos born in Algeria who would become the first college Hebrew instructor in North America and the author of the first Hebrew textbook published in North America.  The price of his position at Harvard would be conversion to Christianity; a price many others, such as James Schlesinger, would pay for academic advancement.

1689(14thof Shevat, 5449): Jerusalem chief rabbi Moses ben Jonathan Galante, the grandson of Moses Galante and the grandfather of Moses Hagis passed away today.

https://upclosed.com/people/moses-ben-jonathan-galante/

http://ascentofsafed.com/Stories/Stories/5760/103-03.html

1738(14thof Shevat, 5498): Joseph Süß Oppenheimer, a noted banker and court Jew was led to the gallows. He had been falsely accused of a variety of crimes and only “confessed” after being tortured. Even as he faced death by hanging, he refused to convert to Christianity, a move that might have saved his life. “Hanging inside a human-size cage, surrounded by a huge crowd of spectators, his last words - while a rope was tied around his neck - were those of the central prayer of Judaism, ‘Shema Yisrael.’"

1753: In Bordeaux, France, Rachel and Abraham Benjamin Nones gave birth to Ester Nones.

1757: In New York City, Moses Lopez and his wife gave birth to Aaron Lopez.

1770: One day after he had passed away, Abraham ben Uri Shraga “an upright and proper man…all his days” was buried at the Alderney Road Cemetery today.

1782: Jewish physicians in Galicia were granted permission to treat Christian patients.

1788(24thof Tevet, 5548): Avrahom bar Baruch passed away today in the United Kingdom.

1789: George Washington was unanimously elected first President of the United States.  Because he was the first President, Washington’s actions set the tone for the new nation and for his predecessors.  Washington offered assurances to American Jews that they would enjoy full rights as citizens of the new republic where every man will sit under his fig tree and “none shall make him afraid.”

1792:  George Washington is unanimously elected to a second term as President of the United States by the U.S. Electoral College. Washington’s treatment of the Jews set a national tone that would help make the Jewish experience in America a unique one.

1800: Lewis Aarons married Abigail Barah at the Great Synagogue today.

1807: In France, The Great Sanhedrin, a creation of Napoleon Bonaparte, met at the Hotel de Ville in the City Hall of Paris.

1810(30th of Shevat): Rabbi Reuben Horowitz author of Dudaim ba-Sadeh passed away

1810: The Royal Navy seized Guadeloupe.  At this time there were no Jews living on the Island. Jews were first recorded living in Guadeloupe in the late 14th century. In 1391, in a surge of anti-Jewish riots that began in Spain, the most of the Jews were murdered. The community, however, began to revive during the mid-15th century. In 1485, the local inquisitor, Nuño de Arévalo, forbid all Jews from living in Guadeloupe. Prior to the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal in 1492, the Jewish community sold the land of the old cemetery to the local bishop. Many Jews were forced into converting to Christianity; the Conversos in Guadeloupe lived together in a specified street in the former Jewish quarter. In 1489, two monks Diego de Marchena and García Capata, were burned at the stake for converting to Judaism. In 1654, three shiploads of Jewish refugees from Brazil settled in Guadeloupe. During that time, the Jews were welcomed by the French owner of the island. Even the capital of Guadalupe, Pointe-a-Pitre was named after a Brazilian Jew, called Pietre who started a fish processing plant in the city. The Jews established sugarcane plantations, which ultimately became the country’s leading export. In 1685, however, King Louis XIV issued “The Black Code” expelling all Jews from Guadeloupe.  During the latter part of the 20th century, many Jews began to arrive from North Africa and France. In 1988, the Jewish community consecrated the first synagogue in Guadeloupe, Or Sameah. Later the congregation added a Talmud Torah, community center, kosher store, and Jewish cemetery. Today, approximately 50 Jews live in Guadeloupe.

1815(24thof Shevat, 5575): Seventy-one year old Italian poet Solomon Fiorentino, the father of Angiolo Fiorentino passed away today at Florence.

1816: In Trieste Isacco Morpugro and Regina Parente gave birth to the banker Giuseppe Morpurgo the husband of Elisa Morpurgo.

1822: In London, Sarah and Eleazer Hart gave birth to Kate Hart the wife of Nathan Benjamin whom she married in 1844 and the mother of Mark, Sarah and Benjamin Nathan.

1825: In London, Frances Cohen and Joel Benjamin gave birth to Joseph Benjamin.

1827(7thof Shevat, 5587): Sixty-seven Josiah Lunn, the Hilltown, PA born son of Alice and Joseph Josiah Lunn who first married Rachel Lunn and then Mary Lunn passed away today in New Britain, PA.

1829: Michael Coleman married Harriet Phillips at the Great Synagogue today.

1835: In Charleston, SC, Dr. B.A. Rodrigues married Cecilia Solomon this evening.

1836: Dade County, Florida is formed. According to 2000 census data, Dade County, which includes Miami, had a Jewish population in excess of 125,000 souls. The vibrant Jewish community there has far too many institutions, organizations and cultural events to list here. 

1838: Together with a dedicated group of Philadelphia Jewish women, Rebecca Gratz established the first Jewish Sunday School.

1842: In Portsea, Julia Moss and Emanuel Emanuel gave birth to Barrow Emanuel.

1842:  Birthdate of George Morris Cohen Brandes, influential Danish literary critic and historian.  “Poor is the power of the lead that becomes bullets compared to the power of the hot metal that becomes type.”

1848(30th of Shevat, 5608): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1850: In Mount Washington, KY, Alsace native Agatha Schwab and Bavarian born Maier Ochs gave birth Mathilda Ochs, the wife of Louis Tachau whom she married in Louisville, KY.

1852: Over eight hundred people attended the annual Ball of the Jew’s Hospital that was held this with the proceeds of the event providing funds to maintain this medical facility.

1854:  It was today reported that the population of Cape Town, South Africa, totaled 30,000 of which 3,000 were either Jews or Moslems.

1855: Nahum J. Steiner, "a converted Jew who has been laboring for several years among the Jews" of New York City was scheduled to give an address tonight at the Stanton Street Baptist Church entitled "Israel's Return and The Future Glory of the Messiah."  [Early attempts to convert Jews in America to Christianity were largely unsuccessful.  For those who did not want to remain Jewish, it was easy enough in America's fluid environment to just being a Jew without taking any formal action.]

1855:  Soldiers shot Jewish families in Coro, Venezuela.

1857: One day after she had passed away, 69-year-old Esther Cohen, the wife of Moshe Cohen, was buried to at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.

1859: The Codex Sinaiticus is discovered in Egypt. The Codex was one of several ancient texts or resources discovered starting at the end of the 18thcentury and continuing into the 20th century including the Rosetta Stone, the Cairo Genizah and the Dead Sea Scrolls that shed light on ancient civilizations. They gave Jewish scholars a better understanding of the ancient Israelites and the Biblical text which are the cornerstone of Jewish faith and culture.

1863(15thof Shevat, 5623): Tu B’Shevat

1863: During the Civil War, three Jews went on trial before Judge Peabody in New Orleans, LA.  They had been seized by Union authorities while crossing Lake Pontchatrain headed to Rebel held territory in a boat loaded with medicines and letters from several leading citizens in New Orleans.  The Judge delayed passing sentence on the accused until the letter writers had been arrested per the order of General Nathanial Banks.

1864: Twenty-six-year-old Lyon Levy Emanuel, the native of Philadelphia and brother of Dr. Louis Manly Emanuel, began serving as a Captain with Company of the 88th Regiment.

1864: Union General Benjamin Butler, one of those chosen for his political clout and not his military acumen, replied to a complaint from N.S. Isaacs over the general’s use of the term “Jews” when describing the capture five people trying to smuggle supplies to the Rebels.  The General said that he used the term without thinking and was merely dictating from the dispatches submitted by his subordinate. He used the term Jews as he would Germans, Italians or Irish men i.e. a term of nationality not religion. While appearing to defend himself of a charge of being an anti-Semite the General wrote, I “have always considered the Jews a nationality, although possessing no country. The closeness with which they cling together, the aid which they afford each other, on all proper, and sometimes improper occasions, the fact that nearly all of them pursue substantially the same employment, so far as I have, known them -- that of traders, merchants, and bankers -- the very general obedience to the prohibition against marriage with Gentiles, their faith, which looks forward to the time when they are to be gathered together in the former land of their nation, -- all serve to show a closer the of kindred and nation among the Hebrews, and a greater homogeneity than belongs to any other nation, although its people live in closer proximity. So that while I disclaim all indention of any reflection upon, their national religion, which was the foundation and typical of that of the Christian World, and, holding to the doctrines of Christianity with reverence for the Savior, no one can stigmatize all Jews -- yet one may be reasonably permitted in speaking of that nation, to suppose there may be in all the Jaws of the South, two of whom certainly are in the Confederate Cabinet, at least five, who might attempt to carry on a contraband trade. Because, it may be reverently remembered that when, the Savior, aided by Omniscience, undertook to choose twelve confidential friends from among that nation, he got one that "was a thief and had a devil." 

1870: In London, L.B. Abrahams, the Welsh born Head Master of the Jews’ Free School and his wife gave birth to Bertram Abrahams the University College graduate, Assistant Physician at Westminster Hospital and Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians wh wrote “The Principles of Pathology.”

1871: Eighty-five-year-old Hermann, Fürst von Pückler-Muskau who met Rabbi Moses Sachs in Tunis in 1835 and was so impressed with him and his plan to settle Jews in Palestine that he arranged for him to meet with Baron Salomon Mayer von Rothschild of Vienna passed away today.

1874(17thof Shevat, 5634): Yakir Gueron, the sixth member of his family to serve as the rabbi in Andrianpole who had resigned his position two years ago passed away today in Jerusalem.

1874: It was reported today that the Hebrew Young Ladies’ Charitable Union will sponsor a dramatic performance at the Lyceum Theatre in New York in order to raise funds for the Home of Aged Hebrews.

1875: The Downtown Hebrew Ladies’ Benevolent Society – Mothers of Israel – will sponsor its first annual festival ball this evening at Turner Hall in New York City.

1876: In Kings County, New York, the trial of P.N. Rubenstein who has been charged with murdering his cousin Sara Alexander heard testimony from several witnesses including the defendant’s brother, Louis.

1877: It was reported today that the in New York, the Purim Association will celebrate the festival this year with a Calico Masked Reception at Delmonico’s.  The event is a fund raiser and attendance will be limited by the number of tickets available.

1877: It was reported today that the Ladies’ Bikur Cholim Society of the School of Industry will host an event on February 15th at Ferrero’s Assembly Rooms in New York. [Editor’s Note – Bikur cholim refers to the mitzvah of visiting the sick.  Societies to further that goal have been a part of Jewish communal life since the Middle Ages.]

1877: “Compassionate Israel” published today described the manner in which the Jewish community cares for the less unfortunate including the creation of the Hebrew United Charities, the building of the Jew’s Hospital now known as Mt. Sinai and the opening of the Aged and Infirm Hebrews on the grounds of what used to be the Astor estate.

1877: Four days after he had passed away, 85 year old Samuel Isaacs, the husband of Ann Isaacs with whom he had had ten children, was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1879: William Henry Waddington, who had expressed his support “large-scale Jewish settlement in Palestine” in a letter to the Sultan began serving as French Prime Minister.

1879: It was reported today that among the private institutions caring for New York’s impoverished orphans that are receiving public funds as proscribed by law is the Hebrew Orphan Asylum which is scheduled to received $32,450 to help toward the care of 295 youngsters.

1882(15thof Shevat, 5642): Parashat Beshalach and Tu Bishevat

1883: Three days after he had passed, Samuel Stiebel, the German-born son of Isaac Daniel Stiebel and Vogel Heinemann and the husband of Jane Stiebel with whom he had had six children was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1884: Leaders of the New York Jewish community met at the Nineteenth-Street Jewish Synagogue to discuss plans for commemorating the upcoming 100th birthday of Sir Moses Montefiore with a permanent monument.  Projects under consideration including building housing for poor Jews, a reformatory and a mission designed to provide education for recent Russian immigrants.

1887: Birthdate of Morris Pozen, the native of Elizabethgrad who came to the United States where earned a BS and PhD from George Washington University after which he pursued a career in the fields of “brewing and food-chemistry.”

1899: Birthdate of New York native Nathan Peyser, the holder of a Ph.D. from NYU who served as Principal of P.S. in Easter Harlem and P.S. 181 in Brooklyn who championed having the public schools serve as “center of the community” in the fight to prevent delinquency among the city’s youth.

1890: The sale of boxes for the 29th annual ball sponsored by the Purim Association which will be held next month took place this evening at Temple Emanu-El in New York City.

1891: In Worcester, MA, “Franz Boas, regarded by many as the father of modern anthropology” and the former Marie Krackowizer gave birth to Columbia trained physician Dr. Ernst Phillip Boas who served as the Captain in Medical Corps of the U.S. Army during WW II before becoming the Director of the Montefiore Hospital for Chronic Diseases starting in 1921 while raising three children – Barbara, Donald and Norman – with his wife “the former Helen Sisson” whom he married in 1917.

1891: The trustees of the fund which was created with money donated by Baron de Hirsch met at the home of Jesse Seligman where they re-elected their old officers and finalized the method for gaining access to the Baron’s largesse which help Jewish immigrants to pursue occupations other than peddlers such as mechanics or farmers.

1892: During an address by American author and journalist Poultney Bigelow on the persecution of “Christian Jews” in which he described the Czar as “a kindly man” a Russian Jew named Copik rose from the audience and said “that the Czar was a savage and a tyrant” and went to provide several examples based on his personal experience.

1892: The will of the late Benjamin Russak was filed for probate in the Surrogate’s office in New York City.  “The estate is valued at about a million dollars.”

1892: The Chamber of Commerce met today in New York City in an attempt to raise funds to alleviate the Russians who are suffering through a famine.  Jewish members expressed their support for raising the money but expressed concern that raising such funds would express approval for the government of the Czar which was persecuting their Russian co-religionists.

1893: It was reported today that the late Simon Davidson has bequeathed $500 to Mount Sinai Hospital.  He also “returned six buildings and the loan bonds for $1,000 which he held against” the Hebrew Benevolent Orphan Asylum to that institution.

1894(Shevat 28): Louis Lewandowski, the first Jew to be admitted to the Berlin Academy of Arts passed away

1894: It was reported today, that after police drove 250 unemployed Jews from the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral, they regrouped at Trafalgar Square, “where an impromptu meeting was held.”

1898: During the Dreyfus Affair, the French Army High Command brings an action of criminal libel against Emile Zola for his accusations of knowing collaboration on the part of the French general staff in convicting Dreyfus based on false information.

1899: Among the 150,000 forces present to suppress the Insurrection that began today in the Philippine’s is Joseph M Heller who was assigned as a surgeon to a battalion of the 24th U.S. Infantry

1899: Birthdate of Lower East Side native Harry Halpern, the holder of a BA from CCNY, an MA from Columbia, two degrees from the Brooklyn Law School and a DHL from Jewish Theological Seminary, who was a powerhouse in the Conservative rabbinate as he served the East Midwood Jewish Center in Brooklyn for almost half a century.

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/12/obituaries/harry-halpern-82-jewish-leader-dies.html

1889: Twenty-one-year-old Republican party leader and Washington University graduate Louis P. Aloe, the St. Louis born son of Albert S. and Isabelle (Prince) Aloe who would serve as acting mayor of St. Louis during World War and Vice President of the Federation of Jewish charities married Edith Rosenblatt today.

1899: In New York, the Shaaray Tefila Young People’s Association hosted an evening of entertainment in the lecture room of the congregation located on West 82ndStreet.

1900: “The Jewish Historical Society of England created an ‘Education and Publication Committee’” today.

1900(5th of Adar I, 5660): Rabbi Jacob Aron Mendes Chumaceiro of Amsterdam passes away at the age of 67.

1900: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today for Bavarian born Abraham Michelbacher, “the last surviving charter member of Temple Emanu-El who in 1839 came to New York where he went into the dry goods business and was “a patron of every Jewish organization” In New York including the Zion Lodge of B’nai B’rith of which he was a charter member.

1900(5th of Adar I, 5660): Rabbi Israel Benamozegh at Leghorn passed away at the age of 76.

1901(15thof Shevat, 5661): Tu Bishvat

1901(15thof Shevat, 5661): Jacob Plautt of Hamburg who passed away today in Nice “left 20,000 francs for the benefit of police officers” injured in the line of duty, 10,000 francs each to the Jewish Refuge at Plessis Piquet, the Alliance Israelite and the School Elisa Lemonnier and 5,000 francs to the Jewish Philanthropic Union.

1902:  Birthdate of Charles Lindbergh, the “Lone Eagle,” the first person to fly across the Atlantic from New York to Paris.  Unfortunately, Lindbergh’s skill as an aviator surpassed his political aptitude. “As World War II began, Lindbergh became a prominent speaker in favor of non-intervention, going so far as to recommend that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Germany during his January 23, 1941 testimony before Congress. At an America First rally in Des Moines, Iowa, on September 11, 1941, he made a speech titled "Who Are the War Agitators?" in which he claimed that Americans had solidly opposed entering the war when it began, and that three groups had been "pressing this country toward war" -- the Roosevelt Administration, the British, and theJews, and complained about what he insisted was the Jews'"large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government." He made clear however his opposition to anti-Semitism, stating that "All good men of conscience must condemn the treatment of the Jews in Germany", further advising "Instead of agitating for war, the Jewish groups in this country should be opposing it in every possible way for they will be among the first to feel its consequences. Tolerance is a virtue that depends upon peace and strength. History shows that it cannot survive war and devastation."

1902: Fifty-six-year-old Hermann Wolf passed away in Berlin

http://en.tchaikovsky-research.net/pages/Hermann_Wolff

1903:  Birthdate of famed mathematician Sir Alexander Oppenheimer. Interestingly enough, even though Oppenheimer was born in Salford, Lancashire it is reported that his first language was Yiddish. After graduating from Oxford in 1927, he earned PhD from the University of Chicago in 1930. After a year of lecturing at Edinburgh University, he accepted a professorship at the Raffles College, Singapore. During the war he was a prisoner at the Changi camp. After the war he returned to Raffles College, retiring in 1967. He then became a professor at Reading University (1966-68) and head of the mathematics departments of the University of Ghana (1968-73) and Benin, Nigeria (1973-77). He passed away in 1997.

1903: Birthdate of Alexander Imich “a Polish born American chemist, parapsychologist, and writer, who was the president of the Anomalous Phenomena Research Center in New York City

http://www.jewishpress.com/sections/features/meeting-alexander-imich-111-years-old/2014/02/28/

1904: Three days after he passed away funeral services are scheduled to held for seventy-two-year-old Hungarian born and California Gold Rush participant Morris Tuska who in 1857 “established himself in the wholesale upholstery business” in New York where “he was instrumental in the founding of the United Charity Organization” and the Hebrew Technical Institute while being an active member for 45 years of Temple Emanu-El and raising one daughter and two sons with his wife.

1905(29thof Shevat, 5665): Parashat Mishpatim

1905: Harris Elias, a well-to-do merchant and Trustee of Beth Israel” lies near death after have been struck in head with a “stove lighter” wielded by John O. Grady.

1906:  Today, Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf, the founder and President of the National Farm School said, "Happiness is never a product of external treasure. It can only spring from within, from a clean heart, from a pure conscience."

1906: In Manhattan, Isidore Rabinowitz, the Grodno born son of Shimon Simon Rabinowitz and Libbie Robinowitz Rabinowitz and his wife Rebecca Rosen Rabinowitz gave birth to Dr. Archie Robbins

1906: During his lecture on “Liberty” at Cooper Union, Rev. Dr. Thomas R. Slicer said “It is a foolish thing for Russian Jews in America and England to be should for freedom for their people at home when a rich Jew lends money to Russia for a war loan.”

1907: “Solomon Foster, the rabbi of Temple B’nai Jershurun of Newark, NJ, created much supries at a meeting of the Newark Ministerial Association” today be expressing his supported “strictly secular schools, “declaring that the Jews should have equal rights with Chrisitians.”

1908: Birthdate of trumpeter Emmanuel "Manny" Klein.

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/manny-klein-mn0000539790/biography

1909(13thof Shevat, 5669): Sixty year old Polish born Adolph M. Radin who served as the rabbi of a congregation in Elmira, NY and Congregation Gates of Hope in NYC before assuming the pulpit at the People’s Synagogue passed away today.

1909: In Chicago, Alfred Samuel Alschuler, Sr. and his wife, the former Rose Haas, the noted child education and Zionist, gave birth to Marian Frances Despres.

1910: A decision handed down today by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court reversing the ruling of Columbia Law School graduate Justice Samuel Greenbaum, the London born sone of Rachel Schlesinger and Louis Greenbuam and husband of Selina Ullman, in dismissing the action brought by the city last year against the Alhambra Theatre, in Harlem, has reopened the whole agitation regarding Sunday theatrical performances, and dealt the Sunday theatres a severe blow.

1910: Dr. Joseph P. Solomon, “a chiropodist” asked the State Board of Charities for permission to start a “People’s Pedicure Clinic.”

1910: Isaac Stern of the Jewish Communal Institutions told the State Board of Charities “that when Mount Sinai’s two new stories and its additional $80,000 improvements were finished, it would be able to take care of all of the upper east side poor who apply to it.”

1911: The Sentinel, a weekly Yiddish paper co-founded by Abraham L. Weber and Louis S. Berlin who was the “editor and longtime publisher” was published for the first time today.

1912: Birthdate of Norfolk, VA, native and Carnegie Ph.D. Julius Halpern, the physicist who helped to develop radar on WW II and who was the husband of “the former Phyllis E. Melnick” and father of Sydney Ann and Paul J. Melnick.

https://www.nytimes.com/1972/05/16/archives/julius-halpern-physigist-was60-professor-at-pennsylvania-who-worked.html

1912: In Vienna Ludwig Julius and Charlotte Loebl Leinsdorf gave birth to conductor Erich Leinsdorf.

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/12/obituaries/erich-leinsdorf-81-a-conductor-of-intelligence-and-utility-is-dead.html

1913: The Executive Committee of New Jersey Conference of Charities and Correction to which Newark Rabbi, Solomon Foster had been re-elected to as a member came to a close today at Plainfield, NJ.

1913: Former Harvard football coach and U.S. Congressman Lucius Nathan Littauer “and his brother William were convicted of smuggling and conspiracy to defraud after he admitted to importing valuable jewels from Venice worth in excess of $40,000 without paying the necessary duty.”

1913: Nora Funkenstein is scheduled to play a piano solo at today’s meeting of the Ladies Society of B’nai Sholom Temple Israel.

1914(8thof Shevat, 5674): Fifty-five-year-old Romanian born Yiddish comedian and actor Sigmund Mogulesko passed away today.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F0DE4D71F3BE633A25756C0A9649C946596D6CF

1915(20thof Shevat, 5675): Fifty-year-old David Blutreich, the Secretary of the 50,000 member Federation of Galician Jews in America who came to the United States ten years ago passed away from heart disease while at his office at 273 East Houston Street.

1915:  Dr. Joseph Goldberger began his experiments on prison volunteers in Jackson, Mississippi in order to find the cause of the deadly disease pellagra.  He proved that pellagra is caused by poor diet and launched the biological age of nutrition research which linked diseases with a lack of essential vitamins.

1915:  Turkish troops attempt to cross the Suez Canal as part of plans to start an anti-British uprising in Egypt and close the vital waterway connecting India with the British Isles.  The seriousness of the attack will lead to an aggressive campaign that will ultimately end with the British in control of Eretz Israel.

1915: “To Send Food to Palestine” published today described the work of The Provisional Executive Committee for General Affairs is doing to arrange for sending “a shipload of food to Palestine” after receiving a cable from the American Ambassador at Constantinople describing a report from the American Counsel at Jerusalem “that it is impossible to obtain coffee, tea, sugar, rice or flour at any price.”

1915: “Tells of Russian’s Murder of Jews” published today, provides information first appearing in The American Hebrew from “Dr. Arthur Levy, a rabbi serving with the German in the campaign against Russia who sets for in great detail a list of pogroms and murders, with many deeds of unmentionable outrage which, he says, were committed by the Russians against the Jewish population in recent weeks of war”

1916: Among the contributions reported today by the American Jewish Relief Committee were $100 from Congregation Beth Israel in Washington, DC; $100 from the Dubuque, Iowa, Hebrew Relief Association, $100 from the American Jewish Relief Committee in Chattanooga, TN and $240 from Hirsch Manischewitz of Cincinnati, Ohio.”

1916: Felix Warburg the Treasurer of the American Jewish Relief Committee “received a check for $835.50, the amount collected by Miss Esther Labold and Mrs. Shapiro of Portsmouth, Ohio” which was “entirely collected” from “non-Jews.”

1916(30thof Shevat, 5676): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1916: While serving with the Royal Army Medical Corps, Hyman Lightstone of Montreal, received he Military Cross today.

1916: The People’s Relief Committee which “is raising funds for the relief of the millions of Jews made destitute through the war in Europe” “announced today that it would hold a bazaar and fair” next month.

1916: The committee raising funds for the Jewish war suffers announced today that the demand for seats at the upcoming mass meeting in Brooklyn has been so great “that the music hall of the Brooklyn Academy of Music has been engaged for an overflow meeting.”

1917: It was reported today that according to a report received from Abram I. Elkus, the American Ambassador at Constantinople, the Jewish Orphanage at Chichli has received £25 for shoes and clothing.

1917: The campaign of the Brooklyn Jewish Volunteer Relief Committee which has a goal of raising $200,000 for the relief of Jews in war-torn Europe is scheduled to come to an end tonight.

1917: J. Shreve Durham, the General Superintendent of the Home Visitation Committee expressed his approval of the cooperation shown by Catholics, Protestants and Jews who took part in today’s effort to compile figures for a religious census in New York City.

1918: The American Jewish Relief Committee announced today that it has received almost $15,000 in additional contributions for its $10,000,000 fund.

1918: Today the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith met for the final day of its annual convention during which it passed resolutions supporting the government’s war aims and calling upon all members to support the conservation measures that are part of the war effort.

1918: A Cincinnati firm that supplies about 65% per cent of the Jews in America with Matzah, today asked Food Administrator Herbert Hoover “to permit bakes of unleavened Passover bread to get sufficient flour to meet the requirements of the Jews.”

1918: The Palestine Restoration Fund announced that to date it has raised almost $700,000, including a $25,000 contribution of $25,000 from Albert H. Loeb of Chicago.

1919: While the world waits for a final peace settlement ending the World War the Imperial Ottoman Banks Bank of London is preparing to resume payments who are “not enemies or who are not the allies of enemies” to “residents in those portions of Palestine and Syria” that are under control of the British Imperial forces.

1919: It was reported today that a $20,000 check from the Phelps-Dodge Corporation was “the first contribution from a New York corporation” made to the Committee for Relief in the Near East which is working to proving “immediate relief to the sufferers in the Holy Land” i.e. Palestine.

1920(15thof Shevat, 5680): Tu B’Shevat

1920(15thof Shevat, 5680): Fifty-nine-year-old William J. Berkowitz, the Kansas City, MO businessman, founder of Berkowitz and Company Printers and a “delegate to the National Conference of Jewish Charities and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations” who married Emilie Block with whom he had three children – Eugene, Estelle and Walter --, the grandchildren of Louis and Henrietta Berkowitz, passed away today.

1920: The funeral of Louis Seide, a member of the Knights of Pythias is scheduled to take place at the Rothschild’s Chapel on Lenox Avenue this morning.

1920: The funeral of Mae Reichman, the wife of Samuel Reichman is scheduled to take place this afternoon at the home of her parents Mr. and Mrs. Goldberger on East 165thStreet.

1921: At a conference in Salonica, Greek Zionists adopt a resolution stating that Jewish education at the Alliance Israelite Universelle schools is not in tune with their national views and aspirations.

1921: It was reported today that “during the month of January, the papers on ‘Judaism and Our Youth’ by Mrs. Max L. Margolis of Philadelphia and on ‘Social Effort in America for Assimilation of the Immigrant’ by Mrs. W.D. Sporborg of New York were read the regular meeting of the Baltimore and San Francisco sections” of the Council of Jewish Women.

1921: Birthdate of Betty Naomi Goldstein, the Jewess from Peoria, Illinois, who would gain fame as BettyFriedan author of The Feminine Mystique.

1922: Birthdate of New York native and award winning broadcast journalist Bernard Kalb, the older brother of Marvin Kalb with whom he co-authored a book on Henry Kissinger and who resigned as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs “to protest what he called "the reported disinformation program" conducted by the Reagan Administration against the Libyan leader Col. Muammar al-Gaddafi.

1922: “Radio Operators Hear a Good Concert” published today in the Bridgeport (CT) Telegram described a recent radio broadcast that including songs sung by Eddie Cantor.

1923: Louis “Gruenberg conducted the American premiere of Pierrot Lunaire by Arnold Schoenberg as a member of the International Composers' Guild.”

1923: The Turks “interrupted” the conference at Lausanne, Switzerland, where the Allies and Ottomans were meeting to bring a formal end to World War I.

1924: In the same year that he founded Sam Ash Music Corporation, 27-year-old Sam Ash married 21 Rose Dinn

1925: In Brooklyn, Harry and Henriette Koeppel Karnow gave birth to Stanley Karnow, “the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and journalist who produced acclaimed books and television documentaries about Vietnam and the Philippines…” (As reported by Robert D. McFadden)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/arts/television/stanley-karnow-historian-and-journalist-dies-at-87.html

1926: “A delegation of well known Jews of New York, headed by Rabbi Stephen Wise, appeared before the House Committee on Immigration today to urge favorable action on the Wadsworth-Periman bill proposing amendments to the Immigration law that would admit wives, husbands and other near relatives of American citizens as non-quota immigrants.”

1927: In Basel, Marcus Cohn, a leader of the Swiss Zionist movement and his wife gave birth to Oscar award winning movie producer Arthur Cohn, the grandson of Arthur Cohn, the chief rabbi of Basel.

1927: “The Jazz Singer,” the first talking motion picture, starring Al Jolson, was released.

1927: In Manhattan Joseph Schultz, at attorney and Isabelle Schultz gave birth to acclaimed television producer Barbara Ann Schultz, (By Katharine Q. Seelye)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/16/obituaries/barbara-schultz-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

1927: Twenty-four-year-old bantam weight Charley Phil Rosenberg won his 15 round championship bout today but lost the title because he was over the weight for his class.

1928(13thof Shevat, 5688): Parashat Beshalach

1929: “The Man with the Frog” a silent film with much by Artur Guttman was released in Germany today.

1930: “People on Sunday,” a silent film “directed by Curt and Robert Siodmak with a screenplay by Billy Wilder and Robert Siodmak which was produced by Edgar G. Ulmer was released in Germany today.

1931: In Philadelphia, PA, David and Rose Feinstein gave birth to Barry Feinstein, “a photographer who chronicled the lives of seminal rock ’n’ roll stars of the 1960s, and who was perhaps best known for the stark portrait of Bob Dylan on the cover of the 1964 album “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” (As reported by Paul Vitello

1932: The 1932 Winter Olympics in which speed skater Irving Jaffee would win two gold medals, opened today in Lake Placid.

1932(27thof Shevat, 5692): Sixty-five-year-old Max Leopold Margolis passed away today.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0013_0_13280.html

http://www.ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/1933_1934_5_SpecialArticles.pdf

1933: Eighty-seven-year-old Archibald Henry Sayce, the Professor of Assyriology at Oxford whose works included The Chronology of the Bible Connected with Contemporaneous Events in the History of Babylonians, Assyrians and Egyptians, Introduction to the Books of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther, The Life and Times of Isaiah, Patriarchal Palestine, The Egypt of the Hebrews and Herodotus, Early History of the Hebrews and Israel and the Surrounding Nations, passed away today.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9D0DE1D7173EEF33A25751C2A9629C94659ED7CF

1933: In Tel Aviv, Eliyahu Golomb, one of the early leaders of the Haganah and his wife gave birth to David Golomb, Israeli political leader and Knesset member. 

1934: In New York, at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, Dr. Israel Goldstein is scheduled to deliver a sermon “A Roosevelt Anniversary and a Hitler Anniversary – Is Humanity Moving Forward or Backward?”

1934: “United action to provide a refuge in Palestine for Jews of Germany was urged today at an emergency conference of more than 1,000 delegates of Jewish organizations in the Hotel Pennsylvania.”

1935(1st of Adar I, 5695): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1935(1stof Adar I, 5695): Fifty-five year old, Nathan Mileikowsky, the Lithuanian born rabbi who made Aliyah in 1920 and was the patriarch of the Netanyahu clan that included his son historian Benzion and grandsons Benjamin and Yonatan of blessed memory, passed away today.

1936: In Philadelphia, PA, vaudevillian Louis Brenner and his wife gave birth to comedian David Brenner.

http://news.yahoo.com/comedian-david-brenner-tonight-favorite-dies-222814425.html

1936: Bronislaw Humberman, a prominent Polish violinist announced this afternoon that a symphony orchestra is being formed in Palestine that will be known as the Palestine Orchestra Association. Many of those in the orchestra will be residents or former residents of Germany who cannot work that Nazi nation.  Huberman reported $25,000 has already been contributed to help the orchestra with its initial organizational activities.

 1936: David Frankfurter, a Jewish Yugoslav medical student, killed the Swiss Nazi Gauleiter Wilhelm Gustoff. Though the German government demanded the death penalty, he was sentenced to eighteen years. Some historians believe that his action served as a model for Hershel Grynzpan whose assassination was used by the Nazi party for an all-out attack on Jewish property and synagogues known as Kristallnacht.

1937: “White Cargo” directed by Robert Siodmak, produced by Seymour Nebenzal and with music by Paul Dessau was released in France today.

1938: Two months after premiering at the Cathay Circle Theatre, Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” which animator David Hilberman helped to create was released today in the rest of the United States.

1938: Tonight, in Vienna, Nazis youths smashed windows in shops owned by Jews and “threw a burning gasoline container” into a synagogue while people were attending services.

1938: New income tax regulations issued by the German government today ended the income tax reduction for Jewish children while keeping the reduction for Aryan families.

1938: “The Goldwyn Follies” produced by Samuel Goldwyn, written by Ben Hecht, co-starring the Ritz Brothers, with music by George Gershwin was released in the United States today.

1938: “Everybody Sing” a musical comedy co-starring Fanny Brice, produced by Harry Rapf and photographed by cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg was released today in the United States.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that Mordechai Nahman, a Jewish guard at the Shell Bridge in Haifa, was stabbed and badly injured by two Arabs, who succeeded in escaping.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that Dr. Chaim Weizmann, upon his departure for England, stressed the Yishuv's and world Jewry need for unity, and said that some people "can only succeed in placing obstacles on our path, but they will never stop our work."

1939: Abraham Lewis, an African-American from Louisiana one of the last of the members of the International Brigade, a large percentage of whom were Jewish,  to leave Spain after the Civil War returned to the United States on board the SS President Harding today.

1939: Martha and Waitstill Sharp set sail for Europe today in the first step of their plan to help rescue Jews in Europe.  The behavior of these two quintessential WASPS (he was a Unitarian minister who traced his lineage back to the original settlers of New England) defies logic and serve as a reminder of the good truly religious people can in the world.  They have been honored as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

1939(15thof Shevat, 5699): Parashat Beshalach and Tu B’Shevat

1939: Rabbi Nathan A. Peulman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “How Israel Can Survive the World” at Temple Emanu-El.

1939: Rabbi William F. Rosenblum is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Jewish Life” this morning at Temple Israel.

1939: Rabbi Louis I. Newman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Hitler’s Speech and Democracy’s Answer” this morning at Temple Rodeph Sholom.

1939: As part of the “observance of the Jewish New Year of the Trees” that coincided with Shabbat today, Rabbi Alexander Segel is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Blessed Be the Planters” at the Fort Washington Synagogue.

1939: Rabbi Harold H. Maischioff is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “A Prelude to Freedom” at the Temple of the Covenant.

1939: Rabbi Jonah B. Wise is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Tree and Its Maker” at the Central Synagogue.

1939(15th of Shevat, 5699): Fifty-five-year-old Edward Sapir, the son of a rabbi who gained fame as an anthropological linguist while teaching at the University of Chicago and Yale passed away today.

https://biography.yourdictionary.com/edward-sapir

1940(25thof Shevat, 5700): Eighty-year-old “civic leader and philanthropist” who came to Washington, DC from Baltimore in 1882 and had earned the praise of “Protestant, Episcopal and Catholics” leaders passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1940/02/06/94793337.pdf

1940: It was learned today that “the emigrant ship Sakarya with about 2,200 Jewish refugees from Czecho-Slovakia, Austria and Rumania on board has left the Black Sea port of Sulina, on the Danube delta” after the refugees have spent six weeks aboard the ship where they have survived on donations from Jewish charities.

1941: As they made their way to Palestine, artist Marcel Janco who co-invented Dadaism and his family arrived in Turkey having left Romania following the Bucharest Pogrom of January, 1941.

1941: In response to a request from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to provide morale and recreation services to uniformed military personnel six civilian agencies including the National Jewish Welfare Board formed the United Service Organization popularly known as the USO.

1942: Reverend Chait of the Army Jewish Chaplaincy visited Isidore Newman who was in the hospital recovering from the effects of having broken a leg during SOE parachute training in Scotland.

1943(29th of Shevat, 5703): The Germans killed Eberson, Buber, Kimmelman, and Chigier four of the remaining 12 members of the Jewish Council of Lvov. Six others were sent to Janawska concentration camp.

1944: Today, William Green, the President of the American Federation of Labor pledged his organizations support “for the Wagner-Taft resolution asking the government to aid in keeping Palestine open for the free entry of Jews” going forward from today into the “post-war period.”

1945: This afternoon, a British constable was seized by a shark while he was swimming in the Mediterranean off the coast of Tel Aviv.  “A passing RAF pilot saw the commotion in the water beneath him and dipped down to investigate.  The roar of the motors frightened the shark away and the constable swam to shore safely.”

1946: The Anglo-American Palestine Inquiry Commission is scheduled to leave for Germany today to begin a month’s study of the Jewish situation in Europe. 

1946: Garson Kanin’s “Born Yesterday” starring Judy Holliday premiered on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre.

1947(14thof Shevat, 5707): Forty-five-year-old Manhattan native and NYU trained attorney Herman M. Albert, the Democratic Party leader who served as an Assemblyman and Bronx County Register passed away today in the Montefiore Hospital.

1947: “My Brother Talks to Horses” directed by Fred Zinneman and produced by Samuel Marx was released in the United States today.

1948: It was learned today that “Trygve Lie, Secretary General of the United Nations, will throw the full weight of his influence behind the Palestine Commission’s demand for an international armed force which is intended to enforce the Partition Plan adopted by the United Nations.

1948: Today, 73-year-old Dr. Chaim Weizmann, “the former president of the World Zionist Organization” said that “reports of Communist agents” being on board the “Pan York and Pan Crescent are malicious nonsense.”

1949: After premiering last month in Los Angeles, “Criss Cross,” the film version of the book by the same title direct by Robert Siodmak was released today in the rest of the United States.

1949: At a public meeting David Ben-Gurion stressed the need for a ‘partnership’ between the state of Israel and the Jews of the Diaspora.

1950: The Andrews Sisters version of “I Can Dream, Can’t I?,” “a popular song written by Sammy Fain with lyrics by Irving Kahal completed its run as the “U.S. Billboard Best Sellers in Stores number-one single.”

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that a train was derailed north of Kalkilya, as the result of a carefully planned operation by Jordanian saboteurs who blew up a section of track opposite Tulama village. The line was later repaired and reopened, but only after military attaches of foreign embassies visited the site. Israel submitted another complaint on Jordanian infiltration to the Mixed Israeli-Jordanian Armistice Commission.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that a Farm Settlement Bill passed its first reading in the Knesset.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that The High Court upheld the Interior Ministry's order closing the Communist daily Kol Ha'am for 10 days for endangering the public peace by publication of articles justifying the current Soviet anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli propaganda, lies and fabrications.

1956: Birthdate of Kati Marton “an American author and journalist. Her career has included reporting for ABC News as a foreign correspondent and National Public Radio, where she started as a production assistant 1971 in her 20s, as well as print journalism and writing a number of books. She is the former chairwoman of the International Women's Health Coalition, and a director (former chairwoman) of the Committee to Protect Journalists and other bodies including the International Rescue Committee, Human Rights Watch and the New America Foundation. She has received several honors for her reporting, including the 2001 Rebekah Kohut Humanitarian Award by the National Council of Jewish Women, the 2002 Matrix Award for Women Who Change the World, the George Foster Peabody Award (presented to WCAU-TV, Philadelphia in 1973) and the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary—the country's highest civilian honor. Marton is also a recipient of The International Center in New York's Award of Excellence. Marton was born in Hungary, the daughter of UPI reporter Ilona Marton and award-winning AP reporter Endre Marton. Her parents survived the Holocaust of World War II but never spoke about it. Her parents served nearly two years in prison on false charges of espionage for the U.S. and Kati and her older sister were placed in the care of strangers. Raised a Roman Catholic, she only learned late in life and by accident from a third party that her grandparents were Jews who were murdered at Auschwitz concentration camp. Among the many honors her parents received for their reporting on the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was the George Polk Award. The family ultimately fled Hungary following the revolution and settled in Chevy Chase, Maryland, where Marton attended Bethesda Chevy Chase High School.

1956: Sixty-eight-year-old Savielly Tartakower the Polish and French chess grandmaster whose parent were killed in a pogrom in Rostov-on-Dov despite having converted t0 Christianity, passed away today.

1957: “Miss Peach” a comic strip created by Mell Lazarus appeared in the New York Herald Tribune for the first time today.

1957: Reinhold Niebuhr expressed his views on the Jewish state in “Our Stake in the State of Israel” which was published today.

http://www.newrepublic.com/book/review/our-stake-in-the-state-israel

1958: Record executive Emanuel Sacks wrote “Broadway columnist” Louis Sobel at the Journal American expressing his hope that he will soon be over his “illness” and able to return to NBC “which is going to look like paradise.”

1959: For the first times since ancient times, Israel began exporting copper ore from the King Solomon mines.

1959: In Camden, NJ, the Beth-El Men’s Club presented a musical program honoring Cantor Louis J. Herman that included a performance by the Beth-El Choral group accompanied by pianist Mrs. Herbert Solomon.

1959: “Black Orchard” a love story directed by Martin Ritt was released in the United States today.

1960: Birthdate of Los Angeles native Jenette Elise Goldstein, the actress best known for her role in the sci-fi thriller “Aliens.”

1962: Birthdate of Ethan Berkowitz, a leader of the Democratic Party in Alaska.

1962: Eighty-nine-year-old French historian Daniel Halévy, the son Ludovic Halevy who had converted to Christianity and who went from being a supporter of Dreyfus to a supporter of Petain’s pro-Nazi Vichy government passed away today.

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/25086922?sid=21105777943973&uid=2129&uid=70&uid=2&uid=4

1966: In Tel Aviv, the offices of Zim Shipping Company on Rothschild Boulevard “burned down in of the biggest fires in Israeli history.”

1966: “The Ugly Dachshund” starring Suzanne Pleshette premiered in the United States today.

1966:Angélique et le Roy (Angelique and the King) featuring Sami Frey was released at multiple locations in western Europe today.

1966: Abba Eban, Israel’s new Foreign Minister and Ambassador Michael Comay, Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations are scheduled to have lunch today with United Nations Secreatry-General U-Thant.

1967(24thof Shevat, 5727): Czech born Stephen Roth Jewish cartoonist passed away

http://www.cartoons.ac.uk/artists/stephenroth/biography

http://www.wienerlibrary.co.uk/Wit's_End

1968: At sundown, Israeli forces ended their search for the INS Dakar.

1968: A month before his seventieth birthday, “international lawyer and diplomat” Fritz E. Oppenheimer, the Berlin born son of Ernst and Amalie Friedlander Oppenheimer and husband of “the former Elsbeth Kaula with whom he had two children – Ernest and Ellen – who had the unique distinction of being wounded and winning the Iron Cross while fighting in the German Army during WWI and rising to the rank of Lt. Colonel in the United States Army during WW II where “he was in charge of reforming the German law and court system” passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/02/06/77300128.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

https://www.northjersey.com/story/life/2021/01/15/we-can-hope-history-wont-repeat-itself-but-fritz-oppenheimers-experience-warning/6620107002/

1968(5thof Shevat, 5728): Eighty-nine-year-old Judge Jacob Panken passed away today.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=980CE6DF1138E134BC4D53DFB4668383679EDE

1969: Birthdate of Leah Gloldstein, the native of Vancouver who moved to Israel where she spent 9 years in the Israeli commandos and secret police, won the 1989 World Bantamweight Kickboxing Championship, and was Israel's Duathlon champion.

http://leahgoldstein.com/

1969: Yasser Arafat takes over as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Arafat was committed to a Palestinian state from the “River to the Sea.”  Despite all of the grins and handshakes associated with the Oslo Agreements, Arafat’s behavior at and after the Camp David Peace Talks sponsored by President Clinton proved that he really never deviated from this goal.

1970: “Start the Revolution Without Me” a comedy set in the French Revolution directed and produced by Bud York and starring Gene Wilder was released in the United States today.

1971(9thof Shevat, 5731): Ninety-year-old Rumanian native Mois H. Avram, the NYU trained engineer who in 1899 came to the United Sates where, as President of Fox Brothers International Corporation “took part in planning the reconstruction of the Port of Versailles” wrote several books including Patenting and Promoting Inventions while raising a son and two daughters with his wife Ernestine passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/02/06/archives/oi-ayra-90-lob6-an-engineer-onsultant-to-governments-and-companies.html

https://www.amazon.com/Launching-Enterprise-Avram-Mois-Herban/dp/1313273597

1971(9thof Shevat, 5731): Seventy-six-year-old Tasmanian born American sculptor Betty Lewis, the wife of Julius Lewis, passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/02/05/archives/betty-l-saacs-sculptor-and-magistrates-wife-76.html

https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/topic/3426

https://www.google.com/search?q=Betty+Lewis+Isaacs&tbm=isch&source=hp&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi-zams2qDgAhXRqYMKHd3lD_MQsAR6BAgGEAE&biw=1010&bih=633#imgrc=fgomZ32bojOGxM:

1973(2ndof Adar, 5733): Forty-three-year-old CCNY and Columbia alumnus Shmuel Lapin, the son of Fanya and Beryl Lapin, “the Yiddish poet” and the husband of Khave Lapin with whom he had had three children – Dov, Avrum and Hayim – passed away today while serving as the “executive secretary of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.”

https://www.nytimes.com/1973/02/06/archives/shmuel-lapin-43-expert-on-yiddish-specialist-in-jewish-history-and.html

1973(2ndof Adar, 5733): Eighty-two-year-old department store executive Robert Lazarus, the son of Fred and Rose Lazarus, the husband of Hattie Weiler Lazarus and father of Charlotte, Babette, Jean, Robert and Nancy Lazarus, passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1973/02/06/archives/robert-lazarus-sr-executive-of-federated-stores-dies-at-82.html

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/84523505/robert-lazarus

1973: Israel unveiled the Reshef, its newest missile boat.

1976: U.S. premiere of “Next Stop Greenwich Village,” a film about “a young Jewish boy from Brooklyn who has dreams of stardom” written, directed and produced by Paul Mazursky, co-starring Shelly Winters and Ellen Greene and featuring Jeff Goldblum.

1985(13thof Shevat, 5745): Seventy-two-year-old nuclear physicist, Frank Friedman Oppenheimer, the New York born son of Julius Oppenheimer and Ella Friedman who worked with his more famous brother J. Robert Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1985/02/04/us/frank-oppenheimer-nuclear-physicist-dies.html?searchResultPosition=1

https://www.exploratorium.edu/about/history/frank

 1986: Israeli fighters intercepted a Libyan passenger plane.

1971: In Los Angeles, former D.A. Gil Garcetti and Sukey Roth, daughter of Harry Roth, a Jewish immigrant from Russia who founded the clothing brand Louis Roth& amp; Co gave birth to Eric Garcetti, the 42nd Mayor of Los Angeles.

1979: Birthdate of Topeka, Kansas native and MacArthur Fellow Benjamin “Ben” Lerner, the poet and English professor at Brooklyn College.

1983: “The Entity” a horror film starring Barbara Hershey was released today in the United States.

1984(1stof Adar I, 5744): Rosh Chodesh Adar I; Parashat Terumah

1984(1stof Adar I, 5744): Eighty-year-old South African explorer, stockbroker and chess champion Albert Sidney Pinkus passed away today in New York City.

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/06/obituaries/albert-s-pinkus-80-40-s-chess-champion.html

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=39243

1984(1st of Adar I, 5744): Sixty-five-year-old Dr. Henry S. Kapan the Chicago native, U. of Chicago grad and Rush Medical College trained physician and cancer specialist who raised two children – Ann and Paul – with his wife Leah passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/06/obituaries/dr-henry-kaplan-cancer-fighter-is-dead.html?searchResultPosition=1

1987: Marcel Marceau performed before a crowd of 2,074 fans in Iowa City, IA.

1988: Jozef Gierowski, the scholar, who heads the Research Center of Jewish History at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, said at a dinner tonight that Poland will soon acknowledge ''political error'' in 1967-68, when thousands of Jews were purged from the Communist Party.

1988: A four-day conference, sponsored by the Hebrew University Center for Research on the History and Culture of Polish Jews attended by 300 scholars including more than 80 Polish scholars came to an end. The 150 presentations given during the conference encompassed the entire history of the Polish Jews, covering subjects ranging from Jewish literature and philosophy to relations with the Roman Catholic Church and Jewish political organizations. The main presentation was about ethical problems concerning the Holocaust and Poland.

1989: After 644 performances, the curtain came down on the West End production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Follies” at the Shaftesbury Theatre.

1989: France won the doubles and took an unbeatable 3-0 lead over Israel today in Davis Cup play. Guy Forget and Yannick Noah defeated Amos Mansdorf and Shahar Perkis, 6-3, 6-7, 3-6, 6-3, 13-11, in a match that lasted three and a half hours. Forget and Noah staved off three match points in the fifth set, which lasted 1 hour 20 minutes.

1990:Ten Israeli tourists were murdered near Cairo. Israeli military officials speculated this evening that the attackers of an Israeli tourist bus near Cairo were members of a guerrilla organization that sent assassins across the Egyptian border into Israel in December.

1991: Mayor David N. Dinkins is scheduled to return to New York today after having made “a lightning visit to” Israel. Dinkins had said that the visit served “to reaffirm our historic solidarity with the State of Israel, our concern for the safety of the people of the Middle East who are caught up in this conflict, and of course, our support for the men and women in uniform who are risking their lives for freedom."

1992(30th of Sh'vat, 5752): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1992: Israel's Ambassador, Zalman Shoval, returned to Washington today with what Israeli officials described as pragmatic counterproposals to an American position stated by Secretary of State James A. Baker 3d on January 24 concerning $10 billion in loan guarantees The Bush Administration had told Israel that it would consider its request for $10 billion in loan guarantees that are to be used for the construction of housing in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

1994: “Romeo Is Bleeding” a crime film directed by Hungarian-born British director Medak was released in the United States today.

1994: “Death Machine” featuring Rachel Weisz was released today.

1995: In the following article David Gonzalez describes the growing involvement of Orthodox Jewish women in advanced graduate level Jewish Studies which could be a harbinger of further change in the role that Orthodox women play in communal life.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1755&dat=19950211&id=dN4eAAAAIBAJ&sjid=hHwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5552,1062424

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1995-03-03/lifestyle/9503020410_1_jewish-studies-orthodox-jewish-jewish-education

1997: En route to Lebanon, two Israeli Sikorsky CH-53 troop-transport helicopters collide in mid-air over northern Galilee, Israel killing 73.

1997: Secretary of State Madeline Albright announced she had just discovered that her grandparents were Jewish.

2000: “A day after fining Beth Israel Medical Center and ordering it to hire an outside monitor to oversee its quality of care, the State Department of Health said today that it was investigating another case in which a patient had been harmed in the hospital.”

2000: It was reported today that “Israeli and Palestinian leaders ended a summit meeting in frustration, still bogged down in disagreement over interim issues and far from bridging gaps on the thorny final issues that stand between them and a permanent peace.”

2001: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers includingThe Bible Unearthed Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman,A History of Britain: At the Edge of the World? 3000 BC-AD 1603 by Simon Schama and Under His Very Windows:The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy by Susan Zuccotti

2002: Ann F. Lewis was appointed National Chair of the Democratic Party's Women's Vote Center.

2003:Standing up before television cameras tonight, Eliezer Wolferman, the father of Colonel Ilan Ramon Israel's first astronaut opened his mouth as if to begin speaking” but inside sighed saying  that ''It is very difficult for me to speak here under these circumstances,''

2004: Mark Zuckerberg “launched Facebook from his Harvard dormitory room.”

2005: It was reported today that “Israel agreed to release 900 Palestinian prisoners and to pull back troops gradually from West Bank cities in moves that improve the overall climate in advance of next week's meeting between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders.”

2006: “The founder of the concierge service WhatShouldWeDo” and producer Arielle Tepper the granddaughter of philanthropists Philip J. and Janice H. Levin married Ian Madvoer which she was known as Arielle Tepper Madover.

2006 (6th of Shevat, 5766): Betty Friedan passed away on her 85th birthday. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/national/05friedan.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

2007: An exhibition entitled “The ‘Jewish’ Rembrandt” closes at Amsterdam’s Jewish Historical Museum. The ‘Jewish’ Rembrandt is part of the key programs designed for the Rembrandt-400 celebrations, a national festival organized by museums and public bodies to celebrate the 400th birthday of the Dutch painter Rembrandt.

2007: A review of Matters of Honor by Louis Begley entitled “A Jew at Harvard” appeared in Sunday New York Times book section.  In Begley’s seventh novel, the author describes the attempts of Henry White, a/k/a Henryk Weiss from Krakow, “to navigate in a culture where the term “Jew” is used “with restraint,” where it’s “an embarrassing word to utter in polite company. ... not unlike ‘homosexual.’ ”

2007(17 Shevat 5767): Kurt Schubert, the founder of Austria's first Jewish museum after 1945 passed away at the age of 83. Schubert died after a long illness, according to a statement posted on the Web site of the Austrian Jewish Museum in Eisenstaedt that he founded in 1972.

2007: Roni Bar-On withdrew his candidacy for the position of Justice Minister

2008: (28thShevat): On the 28th of Shevat, 134 BCE, Antiochus V abandoned his siege of Jerusalem and his plans for the city's destruction. According to the “Megilat Taanit,” this day was observed as a holiday in Hasmonean times.

2008: At the Community Synagogue in New York, The New Yiddish Rep presents “The Essence,” an overview of Yiddish Theater from Abraham Goldfaden to the present day created by Allen Rickman, performed by Allen Rickman, Yelena Shmulenson and Steve Sterner. The narration is in English and the songs and scenes are in Yiddish with English supertitles.

2008: “The Knesset, including Arab MK Ahmed Tibi, agreed to consider the bill put forth by MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union-National Religious Party) proposing the evacuation of the Palestinian residents of Hebron in 2008.” (As reported by Shahar Ilan)

2008 (28 Shevat 5768): A Palestinian suicide bomber killed one woman and wounded 11 other people when he blew himself up in a crowded mall in the southern Israeli city of Dimona at 10:30 A.M.  (8:30 A.M. GMT). A second suicide bomber was killed by a policeman before he could detonate his explosives belt. The woman killed in the attack was 74-year-old Razdolskya Lyobov, a Dimona resident from the former Soviet Union. One of the wounded, a man, was in "critical condition."

2009: The Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism presents a lecture with Dr. Mordechai Kedar entitled "Islamism, Genocidal Anti-Semitism and the Place of the Other."

2009: At Columbia University, the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies presents a lecture entitled, "Statecraft in the Middle East," with Ambassador Dennis Ross

2009: Dutch Police on Wednesday found two bullet holes from a shooting aimed at a mental health clinic run by the Amsterdam Jewish community, in what may be a further escalation in anti-Semitic attacks in the Netherlands since Israel launched an operation in Gaza in December.

2009: The 9th Annual Herzliya Conference comes to a close.

2010: A staged concert version of Harold Rome’s musical “Fanny” opened at City Center.

2010: The 14thNew York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to open in New York City.

2010: Maggie Anton, author of the trilogy about Rashi’s Daughters is scheduled to speak at Congregation B'nai Tzedek in Cincinnati, Ohio.

2010: Heavy snow was falling on Mount Hermon and on the higher areas in the Upper Galilee and Golan Heights today, while rains, hailstorms and strong winds were felt from Israel's North to the Negev

2011: “Wandering Eyes” a documentary that tells the story of “Gabriel Belhassan …the next big thing in the rock music world, former Orthodox Jew and recently diagnosed manic depressive directed by Ofir Trainin is scheduled to be shown at the “REELABITLITIES FILM FESTIVAL” in New York City.

2011: Hadassah Attorneys Ladies who Lunch! Gather at Eli’s, a kosher restaurant in Washington, D.C.

2011(30thof Shevat, 5771): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

2011: Mass flash flooding triggered by Cyclone Yasi caused severe damage to Jewish community buildings in Melbourne. Wild floods stormed through several suburbs heavily populated by Melbourne’s 50,000-strong Jewish community this prompting the closure of the Sephardi Synagogue on Shabbat. At least two Jewish schools were also flooded, with Bialik College – one of the largest Jewish schools in the country – reportedly closing for two days this week due to damage. The offices of theAustralian Jewish News were also partially flooded, according to Yossi Aron, the newspaper’s religious affairs editor.

2011: Deborah “Solomon stepped down from writing her weekly column” for the New York Times Magazine “to write in house and continue her biography of Norman Rockwell.”

2011: “The Other Woman,” a film version Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelete Waldman, co-staring Natalie Portman, Lisa Kudrow and Scott Cohen was released today in the United States after having premiered at the Toronto Film Festival.

2011: Alan Gross was charged by the government of Cuba today with "acts against the independence and territorial integrity of the state," a charge that carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence. The U.S. State Department identified Gross as a U.S. government contractor who was in Cuba to assist Cuban Jews in learning how to communicate with other Jewish communities using the Internet. (As reported by JTA)

2012: Professor James Kugel is scheduled to deliver two lectures at Shearith Israel – “Why Did Moses Do Wrong? The Mystery, and History, of Massah and Meribah” and “How Our Ancient Interpreters Understood the Song at the Sea”

2012: In Little Rock, the Jewish Federation of Arkansas is scheduled to present President Bill Clinton with the Tikkun Olam Lifetime Achievement Award at an event marking its 100th anniversary celebration dinner.

2012: Electile Dysfunction: The Kinsey Sicks For President! (Because Sometimes It's Hard Being a Republican) is scheduled to open at Theatre J in Washington, DC.

2012: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the Temple Judah Traditional Minyan takes on a triple header – Super Bowl Shabbat, Shabbat Shirah and Four Chaplains Shabbat

2012: In Iowa City, Defunct Books is advertising a first ever for that college town – a poetry reading featuring Yiddish poetry. Well known Cedar Rapids poet and playwright Murray Wolfe will be reading some of his own original works as well as reciting from the works of Avrom Sutskever

2012: A shell from the British Mandate era was discovered this morning during construction work at Tel Aviv University.

2012: As reports about the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure continue to escalate, Iran's oil minister said the Islamic state would not retreat from its nuclear program even if its crude oil exports grind to a halt, the official IRNA news agency reported today. Israel’s reported plan for an air attack is based on these kinds of declarations of Iranian determination to develop a nuclear capability. 

2013: In Rockville, MD, Magen David Congregation is scheduled to host a presentation by Professor Anat Berko entitled “A Smarter Bomb; Women and Children as Suicide Bombers.”

2013: The 16thAnnual Miami Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to come a close.

2013: In Florida, “Nicky’s Family,” a film that “pays tribute to” Sir Nicholas Winton who has been dubbed “Britain’s Schindler” is scheduled to be shown at the 13thannual Broward County Jewish Film Festival

2013: Funeral services for the Ed Koch, the former Mayor of New York City are scheduled to be held at Temple Emanu-El in New York City.  Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the Israeli consul general are among those scheduled to speak at the funeral.  Former President Bill Clinton is scheduled to attend as the representative for President Barak Obama.

2013: New research published today found that “school textbooks in both Israel and the Palestinian Authority largely eliminate one another’s existence in maps, although the Israeli curriculum is more balanced and self-critical than the Palestinian.

2013: Israeli threats to strike Iran's nuclear program and send shock waves throughout the world are "unhelpful," and Jerusalem should lower its profile on the issue, director of the Institute for National Security Studies, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin, said today.

 2013: The IDF has arrested a number of senior Hamas figures in the West Bank, Palestinian sources said today.

2013: Mark Dreyfus began serving as Attorney-General for Australia and Minister for Emergency Management.

2014: Graveside services for Jacob L. Horowitz, the son of Miriam Landsman and Steven Horowitz are scheduled to take place this afternoon at Agudas Achim Cemetery in Iowa City, IA.

2014: The JCC of Northern Virginia is scheduled to host an evening of Israeli Dance with instructor Ethan Halpern.

2014: Keren Katz is scheduled to discuss Israeli cartoonists as part of the New York Comics & Picture –story Symposium.

2014: Professor Ezra Zohar, the 92 year old physician who was one of the founders of the School of Medicine at Tel University and who passed away yesterday is scheduled to be laid to rest at Mt. of Olives Cemetery this afternoon.

2014: The funeral for Captain Tl Nahman who was accidently killed yesterday in a “friendly fire” episode is scheduled to be buried this afternoon at the cemetery in Nes Ziona.

2014: “The Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) revamped their Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library today.” (As reported by Tova Dvorin)

2015: “The Encores! Staged a concert version of the George and Ira Gershwin musical ‘Lady, Be Good’”.

2015: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present Kathleen D. Roe speaking on the importance of archives and “why ‘archives matters.’”

2015: Ari Shavit is scheduled to discuss his latest work, My Promised Land at Temple Emanu-el followed by a book signing.

2015(15thof Shevat, 5775): Tu B’Shevat

2016: “The Price of Sugar” is scheduled to be shown on the opening night of the 26thSan Diego Jewish Film Festival.

2016: In Nice, a two-day celebration of the life of Angelo Donati who worked to save Italian Jews living in France that “included the unveiling of a commemorative plaque on the Promenade des Anglais” came to an end.

2016: All decent people mourned as 19-year-old Hadar Cohen was laid to rest today after having been murdered by terrorists in Jerusalem yesterday.

2016: The Skirball Center is scheduled to host “An Evening With Frédéric Brenner” the French photographer best known for his masterpiece Diaspora, a 25-year project spanning 40 countries resulting in a stunning visual record of the Jewish Diaspora.

2016: The Jewish Historical Society is scheduled host an evening with Lawrence Douglas, author of The Right Wrong Man: John Demjanjuk and the Last Great War Crime

2017(8thof Shevat, 5777): Parashat Bo

2017: “A police officer removed swastika stickers from the front of the Loop Synagogue in Chicago” where services went on as usual despite the vandalism which has been labeled a hate crime.

2017: This evening in Chicago, Dr. Daniel Greene, a curator from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum is scheduled to lead a “conversation on Americans and the Holocaust” – what did they know about it when it was happening?

2017: Shiva is scheduled to come to an end this evening for Gloria Mound “who devoted almost four decades of her life to researching the history, dispersion and fate of Jews exiled from Spain in 1492.”

http://casa-shalom.com/content/view/5/26/

http://www.casa-shalom.com/Gloria%20Mound%20CV.pdf

2017: The Batsheva Dance Company is scheduled to perform “Last Work” for the final time at BAM.

2018: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Menashe” which is a rarity since it is a full-length feature film in Yiddish.

2018: Kerry Kennedy, the daughter of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at the grand opening of “Speak Truth to Power: Human Rights Defenders Who Are Changing Our World” at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Skokie, Illinois.

2018: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Saboteur:The Aristocrat Who Became France’s Most Daring Anti-Nazi Commando by Paul Kix, L’Appart: The Delights and Disasters of Making My Paris Home by David Lebovitz, Munichby Robert Harris and To Fight Against This Age: On Fascism and Humanismby Rob Riemen

2018: The exhibition “Codebreakers and Groundbreakers” that includes “documents and photos showing how World War Two codebreaker Alan Turing sponsored two Jewish refugee children from Austria and helped educate them in the UK have been put on show in Cambridge” is scheduled to come to an today at King’s College, Cambridge.

2018: “In celebration of Black History Month, ACCESS, the young professional’s group of the American Jewish Committee - Washington Regional Office, and Thursday Network, the young professionals auxiliary of the Greater Washington Urban League, are scheduled to host a February Black - Jewish Relations Panel - Recounting the Past, Examining the Present and Envisioning the Future.”

2018: Betty Moore and Helen Stone are scheduled to be installed today when the Greater New Orleans Chapter of Hadassah holds its annual installation and brunch today. (As reported by CCNJ, the source for Jewish news in Cajun Country)

2018: Led by Gregory Locke and Jared Nied, a group of commuters spontaneously scrubbed ant-Semitic graffiti from a New York subway train this evening.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/05/nyregion/swastika-nyc-subways.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

2019: At the Streicker-Center Henry Finder, the Editorial Director at the New Yorker is scheduled to serve as the moderator of a presentation by his brother, Joseph Finder, the author of fifteen “nail biting” novels.

2019(29thof Shevat, 5779): Ninety-year-old Israel Goodman Young the Lower East Side born son of Philip and Pola Young who gained famed as Greenwich Village folklorist Izzy Young, the man responsible for Bob Dylan’s first New York concert passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/obituaries/izzy-young-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

2019: According to Miri Shalem, the split between Tzipi Lvni and Avi Gabbay “reveals a profound process that Israeli politics is undergoing, the key being the fact the Right has triumphed even before Israeli cast their ballot.

2019: It remains to be seen today, if the international community will have a different view of clashes on Israel’s northern border following yesterday’s tour by “dozens of United Nations ambassadors at a site near Metula where the IDF discovered a Hezbollah terror tunnel during Operation Northern Shield.”

2019(29thof Shevat, 5779): On the Jewish calendar Yahrzeit of Rabbi Noson Tzvi Finkel.

http://www.aish.com/dijh/Shevat_29.html

2020: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a dinner and a discussion of “the different elements of Jewish prayer and how these distinct characteristics shape a spiritual practice for many Jewish people today” which is “free for student participants” and requires “no previous Jewish prayer experience.

2020: In Roslyn Heights, NY, Temple Beth Sholom is scheduled to host “Rosh Chodesh – Cultivating the Uniqueness of Women’s Leadership.

2020: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Echo.”

2020: The Streicker Center is scheduled to present “Calculating Risks” with Amb. Dennis Ross and David Makovsky

2020: In San Francisco, the Contemporary Jewish Museum is scheduled to host a screening of the Gene Wilder comedy, “The Frisco Kid.”

2020: “The Vilna Shul, Boston’s Center for Jewish Culture” is scheduled to host a discussion on “Confronting Israel’s Security Challenges in an Ange of Disruption and Instability.”

2020: The YIVO Institute is scheduled to host “scholar and musician Jeremiah Lockwood” and Cantor Yoel Kohn as they seek to answer the question “What is the Cantorial ‘Golden Age’?”

2021: The San Francisco based Jewish Community Federation’s annual one-day day is scheduled to go virtual with the program “Using Humor and Levity to Repair Our Communities” featuring Jennifer Aaker and Naomia Bagdonas, authors of Humor, Seriously: Why Humor is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life.

2021: In London, the Highgate United Synagogue is scheduled to host online, a “Piano Concert with Yali Zaken, a sixteen-year-old student at Hassanda playing Mozart: Fantasie in C Minor KV 475 Bach: English Suite no. 2 - Prelude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande Brahms: Piano Pieces op.118, nos. 1-3 and Mendelssohn: Serious Variations op. 54.

2021 The Breman Museum is scheduled to host historians Mark Bauman, Leonard Rogoff and Diane Vecchio “as they discuss the legacy of Jewish women’s activism in Atlanta and the region.”

2021: The Hadassah Brandeis Institute is scheduled to present online “Israeli in the Spanish-Speaking Media” “with Leah Soibel, Fuente Latina founder and CEO, and Susanne Althoff, journalist and author of Launching While Female.”

2021: Berkeley Institute’s Program on Jewish Law, Thought and Identity and Berkeley Center for Law and Tech are scheduled to present online the first session of “Defining and Combating Antisemitism and Hate Online.”

2021: The Breman is scheduled to present “Jews and Jazz III”  with vocalist Rita Graham, pianist Kevin Bales and trumpet player Dr. Gordon Vernick telling “stories about the significant roles Jews played in the Jazz world.”

2021: Contra Costa JCC, Congregation B’nai Shalom and Jewish club at Rossmoor are scheduled to present online “An Encirclement of Hate” which is” an examination of antisemitism in 21st century led by Gloria Greenfield, director-producer of “The Case for Israel” and other documentaries.

 

 

This Day, February 5, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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February 5

517/519: Alcimus Avitus, the Archbishop of Vienne in Gaul who in 576 on Easter temporarily succeeded in calming a crowd angered when a recent convert to Christianity was doused with oil. Four days later local Christians burned down the synagogue and began attacking Jews. The Bishop offered the Jews a choice baptism or exile, he reported that 500 Jews accepted conversion. The rest fled, mostly to Marseilles. Many of those who ostensibly converted managed to eventually return to practicing Judaism.” (As reported by “The History of the Jewish People)

1191: King Richard I (the Lionheart) whose coronation touched off anti-Semitic riots and Tancred, the King of Sicily, the island where Jews had been living since the first century met today at Catania.

1258: “The Mongols under Chinese general Guo Kan laid siege to” Baghdad today as part of a successful invasion Persia which led to the abolishment of “the inequality of dhimmis” which meant that all religions, including that of the Jews “were declared equal.”

1265: Clement IV began his papacy during which he “authorized the Spanish Inquisition to investigate the live of Jewish people, especially those who had chosen to join the Catholic Church.” 

1428: King Alfonso V, ordered Sicily's Jews to attend conversion sermons.

1523: The first printed edition of Zeror ha-Mor, a popular commentary on the Pentateuch by Rabbi Abraham Sebag was published in Venice.

1576:  Henry of Navarre, who will become Henry IV, converts to Roman Catholicism in order to ensure his right to the throne of France. Although there were no Jews living in France at this time, Henry reportedly was acquainted with one, a man named Manuel Pimentel whose Jewish name was Isaac Abenacar whom the French king called the “king of players.”  Pimentel or Abenacar would be the first person to be buried at the Jewish cemetery in Ouderkerk, near Muiderberg, not far from Amsterdam.

 1631: Roger Williams emigrated to Boston.  A believer in religious toleration, Williams would be forced to leave Boston which populated by the intolerant Puritans.  In Rhode Island, Williams would practice the religious toleration that became part of the American fabric and would make the United States a unique experience for the Jews.

1678(13th of Shevat): Yuspi Shammah of Worms passed away

1705: Seventy year old German theologian Phillip Spener who differed from his fellow Lutherans because he did not believe that “the expectation of the conversion of the Jews” was a “prelude to the triumph of the Church” – an expectation

1718: Adriaan Reland the professor of Oriental languages at the University of Utrecht who “taught Hebrew Antiquities passed away today. He was a contemporary of Willem Surenhuis another Dutch Hebraist who published a completed Latin translation of the Mishnah from 1698 to 1703.

1775: In Savannah, GA, Sarah and Levi Sheftall gave birth to Rebecca Sheftall.

1776(15thof Shevat, 5536): Tu B’Shevat is celebrated for the first time since the firing of “the shot heard ‘round the world.”

1778: During the American Revolution South Carolina became the first state to ratify the Articles of Confederation, which was the first document of national governance for the newly created United States of America which was still fighting Great Britain to gain its independence. Francis Salvador, who had served as a delegate to the Provincial Council that had voted for independence was not present for this vote since had been killed by Indians while fighting against the British. But most of the Jews, including David Cardozo and Joseph Solomon who were members of a “Jewish company” were probably quite supportive of the ratification since they supported the cause of American Independence.

1781: Two days after capturing St. Eustatius, Admiral Rodney “asked for an inventory of all merchants and their nationality” followed a week later by an order from Rodney that “all male Jews report to the weigh house for deportation at which time he “extorted a total of 8000 ponds in cash from some 250 males.”

1790: Newport, RI native Hannah Isaacks and London native Jacob Phillips gave birth to Frances Phillips, the husband of Isaac M. Goldsmith.

1791: As the Jews worked to gain full citizenship in Hungary, Judge Stephen Atzel read the following at today’s session of the Diet: “In order that the condition of the Jews may be regulated pending such time as may elapse until their affairs and the privileges of various royal free towns relating to them shall have been determined by a commission to report to the next ensuing Diet, when his Majesty and the estates will decide on the condition of the Jews, the estates have determined, with the approval of his Majesty, that the Jews within the boundaries of Hungary and the countries belonging to it shall, in all the royal free cities and in other localities (except the royal mining-towns), remain under the same conditions in which they were on Jan. 1, 1790; and in case they have been expelled anywhere, they shall be recalled."

1782: The Spanish defeated British garrison on Minorca and captured the island. When Minorca had become an English possession in 1713, the English willingly offered “asylum to thousands of Jews” who responded in large enough numbers to justify the building of at least one synagogue. However, when the English left the island after this defeat, the Jews left too. After all, Spain was still the land of the Inquisition.

1793: Birthdate of Hesse-Cassel native Henry Isaac Weil the son of Isaac Weil and the husband of Matilda Marks with whom he had four children – Isaac, Edward, Clara and Sarah.

1793: Birthdate of Brendle Weil, the wife of Marx Pfeiffer Rothschild and mother of Frommet, Juettle, Simon, Wolf and Samuel Rothschild.

1795(16thof Shevat, 5555): Joseph Abrahams, the who arrived in Savannah, GA in 1785 and Married Judith de Lyon, the widow of Moses Cohen in 1791 passed way today.

1799(30th of Shevat, 5559): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1801: In Frankfurt, Benedikt Moses Worms and Schönche Jeannette Rothschild gave birth to Salomon Benedikt Worms the grandson of Mayer Amschel Rothschild who became a leading member of the Anglo-Jewish community as the 1st Baron de Worms.

1812: In Amsterdam, Jacob Abraham, “the Levite” “took the family name Rabbie and became Jacob Abraham Rabbie

1817: “The Rothschilds took up a Prussian loan of 1,500,000 gulden at 5 per cent.”

1817: Moses and Dinah Meyer were married to at the Western Synagogue.

1817: In Philadelphia, Sarah and Daniel da Silva Solis gave birth to Hannah “Ann” Solis who became Hannah Solis Levy when she married Isaac Abraham Levy.

1819: Birthdate of Rabbi Bernhard Gotthelf who served as a Chaplain in the Union Army during the Civil War.

1836: Rosa and Benjamin Vallentine gave birth to Zilah Deborah Vallentine.

1840: The Damascus Affair started with the disappearance of Father Thomas, a Franciscan superior. The French consul accused the Jews of ritual murder and extracted a "confession" by torture in which one of the victims died. The consul then requested permission from Mahemet Ali to kill the rest of his suspects. Others, including sixty children, were arrested and starved to convince their parents to confess. Sir Moses Montefiore, Adolphe Cremieux and Salomon Munk intervened on behalf of the Jews and the charges were dropped.

1844(15thof Shevat, 5604): Tu B’Shevat

1848(30th of Shevat, 5608) Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1848: In Brandenburg, Germany, Leo and Ida Eloesser gave birth to Arthur Eloesser, the “husband of Molly Helen Eloesser with whom he had four children.

1851: David Davis married Esther Hart at the Great Synagogue at the Great Synagogue.

1852: “Otto Goldschmidt married the world-famous soprano Jenny Lind. To please his wife, he converted to Protestantism.”

1852(15th of Shevat, 5612): Tu B'Shevat

1855: French artist Eugène Delacroix wrote the following description of the deteriorating condition of Fromential Halevy, the French composer who was the son of a cantor. “I went on to Halévy’s house, where the heat from his stove was suffocating. His wretched wife has crammed his house with bric-a-brac and old furniture, and this new craze will end by driving him to a lunatic asylum. He has changed and looks much older, like a man who is being dragged on against his will. How can he possibly do serious work in this confusion? His new position at the Academy must take up a great deal of his time and make it more and more difficult for him to find the peace and quiet he needs for his work. Left that inferno as quickly as possible. The breath of the streets seemed positively delicious.”

1857: Rabbi Philipp Ehrenberg and Julie Ehrenberg gave birth to Richard Ehrenberg.

1857: In Philadelphia, PA, Leopold Sulzberger and Sophia Lindauer gave birth to Solomon Sulzberger the husband of Clara Frank who moved to Chicago in 1876 where he served as a Director of Michael Reese Hospital, a Director of the National Paint, Oil and Varnish Association of Chicago and Chairman of the Relief Committee of the United Hebrew Charities.

1858: In London, Sophia Goldsmid and David De Stern gave birth to an infant daughter who died eleven days later.

1859: Birthdate of Jakob Allschoff, who was transported from Prague to Terezin where he was murdered in 1942.

1859: Wallachia and Moldavia are united under Alexander John Cuza as the United Principalities, an autonomous region within the Ottoman Empire, which ushered the birth of the modern Romanian state. When the Jews failed to provide financial support for Cuza, he “inserted in his draft of a constitution a clause excluding from the right of suffrage all who did not profess Christianity.”

1861: Birthdate of history Julius Aronius, the native of Rastenburg whose most famous work was a study of the “history of the Jews in Germany during the Middle Ages” which he was not able to complete before his death.

1861: Birthdate of Limehouse native Mary Ann Farrant the wife of Henry Levi with whom she had six children.

1862: In Maco, Hungary, Betty Rosenberg and Gustav Englesman gave birth to CCNY Instructor in Classics Gabriel Englesman, the holder of a Ph. D from the University of Vienna and husband of Celestine Bader who had served as the private secretary to Dr. Adolf Jellinek and assistant foreign editor of the New York Herald.

1864(28thof Shevat, 5624): Fifty-three-year-old Mortiz Veit the “author, publisher and politician who was chairman of the Association of German Booksellers and leader of the Jewish community in Berlin passed away today.

1864; “Physician, children’s health advocate, and community activist Dr. Zemach Szabad was born today in Vilna. Szabad began his career as a doctor providing care and support to Jews whose shtetlach were devastated by World War One. When the war ended, Szabad played an active role in public life, quickly becoming one of the most prominent figures in the city, working to improve the health of the Jewish community—especially children and women—and participating in numerous cultural projects and organizations.” (As reported by Yiddishkayt)

1864: Birthdate of “Physician, children’s health advocate, and community activist Dr. Zemach Szabad” who served in the Senate of the Second Polish, was a co-founder of YIVO and who was the father of Regina Weinreich, the father-in-law of Max Weinreich and the grandfather of Uriel and Gabriel Weinreich

1865(9thof Shevat, 5625): Fifty-nine-year-old Joseph Schwarz the native of Bavaria whose devotion to the history and geography of Palestine led him to move there passed away today in Jerusalem.

1866: Barbe-bleuean opéra bouffe, or operetta, in three acts (four scenes) by Jacques Offenbach with a libretto co-authored by Ludovic Halevy was first performed at the Théâtre des Variétés, Paris where it played for five months.

1866: Three days after he had passed away, 69-year-old Philip Joseph Salomons, the husband of Cecilia Samuels with whom he had had five children was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”

1867 (30th of Shevat, 5627): In a decree from the Sultan, brought about by the intervention of Moses Montefiore, the Jews of Morocco were ordered not to be harmed, and to be treated in accordance of the laws of Allah. However, it was reported many Jews became "arrogant and reckless" after hearing this ruling, especially the Westernized Jews who worked the ports.

1867 (30th of Shevat, 5627): Salomon Munk, German-born French Orientalist passed away. Born in 1803, Munk had a thorough Jewish education before pursuing secular interest.  He was unique among Europeans and Jews of his time because he was fluent in Arabic.  Munk “devoted himself to the study of the Judæo-Arabic literature of the Middle Ages and to the works of Maimonides, more especially the latter's Moreh Nebukim or Guide to the Perplexed." This enabled him to publish his three volume Arabic edition of the Morehin the years from 1856 to 1860.  This accomplishment is all the more amazing because it was done after Munk had lost his eyesight in 1850 while cataloguing manuscripts written in Hebrew and Sanskrit.  Munk was a leader of the French Jewish community.  His position of prominence in the community along with his Arabic linguistic skills enabled him to serve as one of the three Jewish leaders who went to Egypt to deal with the Damascus Affair. Munk’s Yahrzeit should help us to remember that Maimonides was a Jewish scholar who belonged to the Arab world as well.

1868:Sir George Grey, who hired Samuel Joseph, an Anglo-Jew from London as his interpreter” completed his second term as the Governor of New Zealand.

1872: In Delhi, NY, “Benedict Mendel, a merchant born in Aufhausen, Germany in 1833, and Pauline Ullman, born in Eschenau, Germany” who emigrated to the United States in 1870 gave birth to Yale and Sheffield Scientific School educated biochemist Lafayette Benedict Mendel, one of the cofounders of “the science of nutrition, and the Sterling Professor of Physiological Chemistry at Yale who was the only Jew among the first twenty professors to be “designated a Sterling professor and who married Alice R. Friend in 1917;

http://www.bookrags.com/biography/lafayette-benedict-mendel-wob/#gsc.tab=0

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lafayette-Benedict-Mendel

1873(8thof Shevat, 5633): Ike Rothschild, the seven-day old son of Sophie and Nathan Baruch Rothschild passed away today in Ravenstein, Germany.

1875)30thof Shevat, 5635): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1879(12th of Shevat, 5639): Moses S. Cohen passed away unexpectedly today at the age of 70.  A prominent New Yorker, he had served as President of B’Nai Israel on Stanton Street and as Master Mason. A native of Holland, he had lived in the United States for almost fifty years.

1880: Four days after she had passed away, Sarah Abraham, the wife of Abraham Abraham was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1880: Emma Godefron, the daughter of Edward and Rosetta Micholls and the wife of Salomon Godefron with whom she had had four children was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1881: Phoenix, Arizona is incorporated. Jews played a prominent part in the development of the Arizona Territory in general and Phoenix in particular from early pioneer times. For example, Michael Wormser, the poor son of a butcher, who made his fortune in the Arizona territory donated the land for the Phoenix Beth Israel Cemetery before his death in 1898. Sol Lewis and Martin Kaltes established the National Bank of Arizona in Phoenix. The Goldwater family is the Jewish family many think of when they hear of Phoenix.  From a Jewish point of view, this is not such a point of pride since the most “famous son” was Barry Goldwater. Senator Goldwater was raised as a member of the Episcopal Church.

1881: In Lodz, Poland, Michael and Beatrice Oshner Winter gave birth to Benjamin Winter, Sr., who in 1901 came to the United States where he went from painting apartment buildings to becoming a real estate mogul who lost forty million dollars while going bankrupt during the Depression and then making it all back and more just before his death while raising four children – Marvin, Beatrice, Ethel and Natalie – with his wife “the former Dora Nissel” and serving as the President of the Federation of Polish Jews.

1881: Thomas Carlyle passed away. While many remember him as the historian who chronicled the French Revolution and the life of Frederick the Great others remember as an author “Negro hating,” anti-Semite who believed in the superiority of the Teutonic Race. T. Peter Park examined Carlyle’s anti-Semitism in an article entitled “Thomas Carlyle and the Jews.”

1882: In Cumberland County, VA, Maria Jane Addleman and Ephrim Henry Addleman gave birth to Samuel William Addleman.

1883(28thof Shevat, 5643): Seventy-four-year-old Jonathan-Raphaël Bischoffsheim a member of Bischoffsheim dynasty who co-founded the bank of Bischoffsheim & Goldschmidt and the National Bank of Belgium while also serving as a Liberal member of the Belgium Parliament where he was an advocate for public education, passed away in Brussels.

1885: In Philadelphian, PA, The Young Women's Union which “was originally a branch of the Hebrew Education Society, “was organized today through the efforts of Mrs. Fanny Binswanger. “The object of the union was to educate the younger children of immigrant Jews. It maintained a kindergarten, day-nursery, sewing-school” and other such programs under the Presidency of Mrs. Julia Friedberger Eschner.

1887(11thof Shevat, 5647): Eighty-year-old Asher Sammter who served as the rabbi in Liegnitz (Prussia) from 1837 to 1854 and who moved to Berlin in 1869 where he pursued a career of literary scholarship passed away today.

1888: Birthdate of Morris Michael Edelsein, the Polish born graduate of “Brooklyn Law School of St. Lawrence University” who as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York’s 14th District spoke out against “Mississippi Congressman John Rankin,” the notorious bigot who sought to make peace with Nazi Germany and blamed the Jews for trying to get the U.S. to fight the Axis during WW II.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/morris-michael-edelstein

1888: Birthdate of Austrian native Rabbi Ezekiel Landau, the “spiritual director of HIAS” and the husband of “the former Helen Greenberg with whom he had three children – Siegfried, Sol and Lotti.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1965/08/20/101562643.pdf

1888: In Louisville, KY, founding of Congregation Beth Hamidrash Hagodel whose members include S. J. Nathan, Samuel Cooper and Abraham Jacobstein, holding daily services at 6 a.m. and 4 p.m. while holding Religious School six days a week and owning a cemetery on “7th Street beyond the city limits.”

1889: Birthdate of Zeev (Wolf) Gold, the son of Mariampol Rabbi who lived in the United States from 1907 to 1924 where he served as Preside of the Mizrachi in the United States and Canada before moving to Israel in 1924 where he lived until his death in 1956

1889: Cecilia Michaels, the wife of Henry Michaels with whom she had had seven children was buried today at the “Willesden Jewish Cemetery.”

1890(15thof Shevat, 5650): Tu B’Shevat

1890: Rabbi Zeev Yavet, one of the founders of the Misrachi movement, took his students to plant trees at Zichron Yaakov.  The Jewish Teachers Union adopted this custom in 1908.  This is also the origin of the JNF Tree Planting Drive which is tied to the modern observance of Tu B’Shevat.

1890: Based on information that appeared in the 15th annual report of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children during 1889, the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society provided care for 149 children that the New York Society had placed with them.

1890: It was reported today that Jesse Seligman, J.H. Schiff, Simon Schafer and Henry Rice were among the prominent members of the Jewish community who have bought boxes for the upcoming Purim Ball, a major fund-raising event.

1891(27thof Shevat, 5651): Forty-seven-year-old Nehemiah Brüll the native of Moravia who served as the rabbi at Frankfurt am Main and was a leader of the Reform movement as well as a scholar whose “reading in Jewish literature was” unparalleled and who “who evinced a peculiar acumen found in no other scholar in modern times” passed away today.

1891: In New York City, Albert and Rebecca (Schwarzkopf) Baumann gave birth to “physiological chemist” Emil J. Baumann, the CCNY grad and holder of a Yale Ph. D who taught at Yale and the University of Toronto Medical School before going to work as a chemist at Montefiore Hospital in New York in 1919.

1892: In Buffalo, NY, Mary and Edward Goetz gave birth to Dorothy Goetz who have gained fame as Dorothy Goetz Berlin, the first wife of composer Irving Berlin, who died of typhoid which contracted while they were on their honeymoon in Cuba in 1912.

1892: It was reported today the late Benjamin Russak made bequests of $500 each to Mount Sinai Hospital, the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society, Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews, United Hebrew Charities, Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids and the Hebrew Technical Institute. He made bequests of $250 each to B’nai Jershurun, the Bikur Cholem Society, and the Hebrew Free School.

1892: As the Chamber of Commerce made plans to raise funds to help alleviate those suffering from the famine in Russia, Jacob H. Schiff, said, “he belonged to the race which had suffered so much at the hands of the Czar’s government” and while the Jews would be generous in supporting the effort, they would not support any effort that sent money to the Russian government.  The money must go directly to those who were suffering.

1892: Samuel J. Cohn was arraigned this morning on charges of fraud. Specifically, he solicited funds while falsely claiming to be a collector for the United Hebrew Charities.

1892:” Mr. Bigelow Talks on Russia” published today included a description of a dispute that broke between Poulteney Bigelow and a Russian Jew named Coplik.  When describing the persecution of the “Christian Jews” in Russia, Bigelow described the Czar as a kindly man, Coplik rose from the audience and said that “the Czar was a savage tyran and went on to prove it” by providing several anecdotes to support his statement.

1893: The first of the series of Sunday Grand Opera Concert’s at Oscar Hammerstein’s Manhattan Opera House is scheduled to take place today.

1893: In New York City, the Central Labor Union endorsed several resolutions including one that called upon the state legislature “to take action in regard to alleged misuse of the Baron Hirsch Fund by the United Hebrew Charities.”

1894: The Cincinnati Enquirer described the marriage ceremony of Maurice Bear and Miss Bertha Levy of Birmingham, Alabama at her home.  The bride and the groom, who is a successful businessman, are each about four feet tall.

1895: Four days after she had passed away, Miriam Mocatta, the daughter of Abraham Jacob Mocatta nd Miriam Brandon and the wife of Samuel Mocatta with whom she had had six children was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1899: In Harrisburg, PA, founding today of the Jewish Literary and Musical Society which meets on the first Sunday of each month and whose members included Mrs. George Rosenthal and J.S. Lowengard.

1899: In the Ukraine, Peter J. Schweitzer and his wife gave birth to Louis J. Schweitzer who came to the United Sates at the age of four and eventually used the family fortune to work for reforms in the penal and judicial systems.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9506E2DD1F3FE63ABC4951DFBF66838A669EDE

1899: It was reported today that Senor Castelar, the Spanish Republican political leader has expressed his concern with the political situation in France including what he sees as “as a tendency…to go back to the barbarous old-time expulsions of the Jews” “when Jews have to be protected from massacre by the armed intervention of the Government…”

1899: It was reported today that in defending the Zionism, Professor Richard Gottheil has stated that “Palestine is the place where we can live that Jewish life we are called upon to live and only there can we take up the greater work for preparing for the Messianic time….We Zionists are the most ideal of all Jews because we want to prepare the basis upon which the building, seen by our prophets in visions may be reared.” (What may make this sound surprising to some is that Gottheil was a professor at Columbia and the son of on America’s most prominent Reform Rabbis.)

1900: Four days after he had passed away, 69-year-old David Bauman, the husband of Sarah Bauman with whom he had had eleven children was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1901: In Chicago, Nettie Green Sheekman and Charles Grover Sheekman gave birth to Arthur Sheekman the brother of Edith and Harvey Sheekman the writer whose big break came while collaborating with the Grouch Marx.

1901: Herzl met with the French banker Reitlinger in Paris and discussed the idea of buying the Turkish Public Debt as a way to negotiate for the Charter for a Jewish Homeland in Eretz Israel.

1902: Herzl begins a trip Constantinople where he is scheduled to arrive on the 14thso that he may begin negotiations for the creation of Jewish homeland.  

1903: The Grand, a white stone Renaissance structure at the corner of Chrystie and Grand Streets built by and for the Grand Theatre Company which is “first theatre in New York ever erected expressly and exclusively for foreign-speaking Jewish patronage of the better class is scheduled to open its doors tonight.

1903: Birthdate of John Michael Cohen, the Cambridge graduate who gave up a career in the family furniture business to become a teacher, translator and author whose “works included The History of Western Literature,The Penguin Dictionary of Quotations and a biography of Ludwig Mond.

1903: Funeral services were to be held this morning for Morris Tuska at his home in Manhattan followed by burial in Salem fields.  A native of Hungary, the seventy-two-year-old Tuska passed away two days ago.  He found success in a wholesale upholstery supply business which he operated from 1857 until 1871.  He was a co-founder of the United Hebrew Charity Organization, founder of the Hebrew Technical Institute, President of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum and an active member of Temple Emanu-el for 45 years.

1903: The Grand, “the first theatre in New York ever erected expressly and exclusively for foreign-speaking Jewish patronage of the better class” and which is owned by The Grand Theatre company under the management of Louis S. Gottlieb who said the purpose of the stock is to provide entertainment for the better class of east side Jews, is scheduled to open its doors tonight

1904: One day after he had passed away, 69-year-old Herman Rosenheim, a native of Germany and the husband of Laura Rosenheim with whom he had had six children was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1904: Sixty-three-year-old “French microbiologist and chemist” Émile Duclaux who was “a vocal supporter of Alfred Dreyfus” passed away today.

1905: Birthdate of Mirra Komarovsky, the Russian born American Sociologist.

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/01/us/mirra-komarovsky-authority-on-women-s-studies-dies-at-93.html

1906: As of today, “many Jews” in Kiev” have received by mail sentences of death in the name of the Pan Russian League in Defense of the Holy Cross.”

1907: “Wants Secular Schools” published today described Newark, NJ, Rabbi Solomon Foster’s advocacy for “strictly secular public schools” at a meeting of the Newark Ministerial Association where the pastor of the Park Presbyterian Church “referred to Rabbi Foster as having a ‘chip on his shoulder’” and the pastor of the Third Presbyterian Church “said that America was…established on Christian principles and ideas…”

1908: At Setatt, Morocco two days of riots and killings riots and massacres have devastated the Jewish community.

1908: In Bridgeport, CT, music store own Joseph Gilman and Rebecca Ives Gilman gave birth to Yale Medical School graduate and pharmacologist Alfred Zack Gilman, Sr.

http://theinfolist.com/php/SummaryGet.php?FindGo=Alfred Gilman, Sr.

1909: “Rights of Jews Involved” published today described how Montgomery Schuyler, Jr., Secretary of the American Embassy” in St. Petersburg, has brought concerns about the need to modify the treaty of 1832 between the United States and Russia to the attention of Foreign Minister Iswolsky in light of “regulation excluding from Russia Hebrews of all nationalities” including American Jews.

1910(26thof Shevat, 5670): Parashat Mishpatim

1910: After the candidates “from the Jewish districts” for the census enumerator positions refused to appear for the examinations today on the grounds that it would be “a violation of the Sabbath,” the supervisor in charge “arranged a special examination for them to be taken at 7:30 this evening at the High School of Commerce.

1911: “The thirty-sixth annual report of the United Hebrew Charities” showed that the organization had provided relief to 929 widows with 1,579 children under 14 years of age at a cost of $66,930” and provided a total of $32,575 to 526 families where tuberculosis was present.

1911: It was reported today that “the New York section of the Council of Jewish Women has been formed to affiliate with the Council of Jewish Women of the United States, the International Council and with the National Conference of Jewish Charities” with Sadie American serving as “president of the local section” assisted by Mrs. Julius Beer, Mrs. A.N. Cohen, Mrs. Daniel Guggenheim, Mrs. Adolph Lewsohn and Mrs. Jacob H. Schiff.”

1912: It was reported today that when Herbert E. Clark who was the American Vice-Consul in Jerusalem for eighteen” was asked “what are the Zionists doing the colonies they have established in Palestine? “ he responded that “the old Zionist who came first have returned to their own country” because they had no knowledge of farming or living away from large cities while the colonies that traced their origins to the funding provided by Baron Rothschild seven years ago “are now in a prosperous condition and the Zionists own their own farms.”

1913(28thof Shevat, 5673): Fifty-one-year-old Baltimore merchant Isaac L. Kemper passed away today.

1913: New York attorney Harry Newburger was “appointed Third Deputy Police Commissioner” today.

1913: At the Hotel La Salle in Chicago, Dr. Joseph Stoltz officiated at the marriage of Samuel Lee Dinkelspiel of Louisville, KY and Lilian R. Phillipson, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Phillipson.

1913: “A dispatch received” today “at St. Petersburg” reported “that a crowd of roughs invaded the Jewish quarter” and beat a number of the inhabitants, several whom are believed to have been fatally injured” while also “sacking a number of stores.

1914: Hyman J. Reit presided over today’s special meeting of “the Executive Committee of the Federation of Jewish Organizations of New York State” where arrangements were made “for sending a memorial and resolutions to President Wilson and Congress protesting against the Burnett Immigration bill…and against other pending legislation restricting immigration.”

1914: Birthdate of Sol Libsohn, the New York native and CCNY graduate who became a noted photographer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/25/arts/sol-libsohn-86-photographer-who-captured-ordinary-life.html

1915: After Herbert Samuel had “submitted a Zionist memorandum entitled ‘The Future of Palestine’ to the British cabinet” in January, today “Samuel had another discussion with Foreign Minister Lord Grey: who said that “it might be possible to neutralize the country (Palestine) under international guarantee ... and to vest the government of the country in some kind of Council to be established by the Jews.

1915: Birthdate of Robert Hofstadter, American atomic physicist and winner of the Nobel Prize in 1961.

1915(21stof Shevat, 5675): David Cahn the native of Cracow who in 1872 came to the United States where he served as the cantor at numerous New York Congregations in Temple Shar Hashomayim and Temple Rodeph Sholem passed away today.

1915: In “Turks Near Armageddon” published today described the encampment of the fourth Turkish army near “the historic highway connecting three continents” which “is passed through daily by Jews and Christians fleeing to the seacoast.”

1915(21stof Shevat, 5675): David Cahn, who was born in Cracow in 1852 and came to the United States in 1871 where served as a Cantor passed away today.

1916: Albert Lucas, the Chairman of the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering the War received word from Secretary of the Navy Daniels” today “that space allotment for the consignment of medicines” bound Palestine has been made on the naval collier Sterling which will probably set sail from New York within the next ten days.

1916: In “Brandeis,” published today Felix Frankfurter described the impact of the nomination of this distinguished lawyer to the Supreme Court.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/brandeis

1917: Birthdate of Rephoel Baruch Sorotzkin, the native of Lithuania who was the son of Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin and became the Rosh Yeshiva of Cleveland’s Telz Yeshiva.

1917(13th of Shevat, 5677): Paul Alfred Rubens an English born song writer who found success in composing works for musical comedies in the UK and the USA passed away today at the age of 41.

http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/british/composers/rubens.html

1917: The Congress of the United States overrode President Wilson’s veto of the Immigration Act of 1917, which contains a literacy test, making the act the law of the land.  This override marked the end of a twenty yearlong battle that had begun in 1897 when President Grover Cleveland vetoed an immigration act passed by Congress.  President Taft vetoed a similar bill in 1913.  Jewish groups opposed the act, especially the literacy test, because they saw it as a thinly veiled way to exclude Jewish immigrants from eastern and southern Europe from coming to the United States.  Jewish immigration to the United States peaked in 1906 when 150,000 Jews made their way to the United States.  In 1914, even with the war having broken out in, 140,000 Jews came to the United States.  By 1917, only 14,000 Jews were admitted to the United States.

1917: The news that President Wilson had broken off diplomatic relations with Germany over that country’s policy of unrestricted submarine warfare and had seized German auxiliary cruisers in American ports was greeted with joy by the British, fear for how American diplomats in Germany might be mistreated and concern that the result of all of this would U.S. entry into the war which would make it that much harder to provide aid to the Jews trapped in eastern Europe and the Ottoman Empire.

1918: Rabbi Wise, the Chairman of the Provisional Zionist Committee, provided a list of the name of European statesman “who had approved the plan for the Jewish State in Palestine.

1918: This evening, the UB-77, a German submarine, torpedoed the S.S. Tuscania, a U.S. troopship that sank with a loss of life that included at least eight Jewish servicemen.

1919: In New York City, Jewish immigrants Sophie (née Baker) and Michael Chwatt gave birth to Aaron Chwatt who gained fame as comedian and actor Red Buttons.  Buttons got his first name from the color of his hair.  The last name was a reference to the shiny buttons on the coat he wore as waiter while waiting tables before his career took off. Bronx New York NY, comedian/actor (Sayonara, Poseidon Adventure).

1919: Charlie Chaplin joined three other Hollywood stars in starting United Artist Studios, one of the early giants of the motion picture industry.  It was unique, because as its name indicates, this studio was owned and controlled by the creative people.

1919: Today, Julius Kahn, the Jewish Congressman from California expressed his “regret…that President Wilson had come out openly in favor of a” proposal for an independent Jewish state because “consideration of this question should place at the peace table” and because “one of the great dangers of Zionism is the face that the non-Jew will begin to look upon the American Jew as always having a lurking desire to return to the so-called Jewish homeland and the Jew will be accused by the non-Jew of being merely a sojourner in the United States.”

1920: Office and members of the Hebrew Mutual Benefit Society will be attending the funeral for Rabbi Isaac C. Noot, the father of Kittie Lazarus, Simon, George and Louis Noot which is scheduled to be held this morning at the family’s residence.

1920(16thof Shevat, 5680): Twenty-seven-year-old Marjorie Goodhart, the New York born daughter of Florence and William Israel Walter and wife of Howard Lehman Goodhart passed a way today.

1921: The “second annual reception and dance” sponsored by “the Bronx Free Synagogue” is scheduled to be held today at the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan.

1922: “Jews to Celebrate The Tree’s New Year” published today described plans for celebrating the upcoming holiday of Tu B’shevat including “a special program that been arranged for the Bronx Y.M.H.A. under the leadership of Rose Ephraim and Mamie Goldsmith of the League of Jewish Youth.”

1923: Maurice Duplessis who as Premier of the Province of Quebec issued the warrant which empowered the provincial police to raid “the cultural section of the Canadian Labor Circle, a Jewish fraternal organization” during which they removed “eight hundred books of the 950 volume library maintained by Jewish cultural circle” today began serving as MNA (Member National Assembly) for Trois-Rivières.

1924: In Greece, the Athens City Council “conferred honorary citizenship on Henry Morgenthau” and “changed the name of a prominent street to America Street.”

1925(11th of Shevat, 5685): Julius Fleischmann, the son of Charles Louis Fleischmann and mayor of Cincinnati, passed away.

1925: Four days after he turned 77, British author Arnold Henry White who went from blaming the Jews for the problems in East End to being a “virulent anti-Semite” who opposed Jewish immigration to the United Kingdom passed away today.

1926: In New York City, Arthur Hays Sulzberger and Iphigene Bertha Ochs gave birth to Arthur Sulzberger, Sr., Chairman of the Board of the New York Timesfrom 1965 to 1991.

1927: Birthdate of Marshall Rosenbluth, the American plasma physicist who won the National Medal of Science.

1927: After premiering in Tokyo, “The General” a film that included “gags and bits of business” by Al Boasberg was released today in New York City.

1927: Launch of the USCGC Northland, which after a twenty years of service would be sold for scrap, acquired by Zionists who renamed it the Jewish State and used the ship for bringing European refugees to Palestine before the creation of the state of Israel.

1928: It was reported to that “seventy-five Zionists exiled from Russia have been permitted to enter Palestine by order of the British Colonial Office.”

1928: While “praising both Louis Marshall and Dr. Stephen S. Wise for their efforts on behalf of the Jews of Rumania,” Bennett E. Siegelstein, the newly elected President of the United Rumanian Jews of America and Canada expressed the wish they would combine their efforts as his 50,000 member organization worked to protect the rights Jews in Rumania and “other European countries.

1929: In Holyoke, MA, “Jewish immigrants Meyer and Rose Belsky gave birth to Harold Simon Belsky, who gained fame as “drummer and session musician” Hal Blaine who can be heard on innumerable hits including recordings by the Beach Boys and Simon and Garfunkel.

1929: “The Sidewalks of New York” a film “made by animation pioneers Max Fleischer and Dave Fleischer was re-released today as part of the Fleischer’s new series Screen Songs.

1930:  Fifth Aliyah begins. The Fifth Aliyah, which some sources say actually started in 1929, marked a ten-year period when approximately 250,000 Jews settled in pre-War Palestine.  This new wave of Jewish immigration was sparked by a number of causes including the restrictions on immigrations adopted by the United States in the 1920’s, the end of the Arab Uprising of the 1920’s and the rise of Hitler which brought a wave of German immigrants to the Jewish homeland.  The arrival of the Germans changed the nature of the Jewish community, because unlike the previous immigrants they were not from Russia and they were not committed Zionists eager for life on the Kibbutz.

1930: After a half-hour’s deliberation the death sentence was imposed today upon the Jewish Constable, 22-year-old Simcha Hinkas. The jury had found him guilty of the premeditated murder of an Arab family in the August,1929. “Not more than ten minutes after the verdict was pronounced, large crimson printed notices appeared pasted on trees and signboards at Tel Aviv where the accused lived and where a spirit of deep mourning now prevails…Meir Dizengoff, Mayor of Tel Aviv said today: ‘When I contrast the death sentence imposed on this Jewish policeman with the acquittal of twelve Arabs accused of murdering seven Jews at Macleff House in Motzah, it makes me weep.  What? Is this human justice?’”

 1931: Eddie Cantor appeared on The Fleischmann’s Yeast Hour starring Rudy Vallee which “led to a four-week tryout with NBC’s The Chase and Sanborn Hour.  (Cantor and Fleischmann were Jewish; Vallee was not)

1931: “The Man in Search of His Murderer” a comedy directed by Robert Siodmak, with a script by Curt Siodmak and Billy Wilder and music Franz Waxman was released in Germany today.

1933: In Germany All Communist Party buildings and printing presses were expropriated by Hitler’s new Nazi government.  Hitler would equate his war against the Communists with his war against the Jews. 

1934: David T. Wilenz was appointed Attorney General of New Jersey today.

1935: After merging with the New York Jewish Tribune, the American Hebrewappeared today as the American Hebrew and Jewish Tribune.

1936: Charlie Chaplin’s first “talkie,” “Modern Times", was released.

1936: On the closing day of its two-day meeting in Louisville, KY, the Executive Board of the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods denounced “compulsory military training” and endorsed the Nye-Kvale Bill.

1936: In Manhattan, Gustave Silverman, “a builder and plumber who invested in real estate and eventually bought the Hotel Wales on Madison Avenue,” and the former Bessie Goldberger gave birth to Kenneth Silverman, who won both the Bancroft Prize and the Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Cotton Mather.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/10/books/kenneth-silverman-pulitzer-winning-author-dies-at-81.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

1936: Sir Herbert Samuel, who is in the United States to raise funds and gain public support for the settling of 100,000 Jewish refugees in Palestine and is the honorary president of the Biriths Friends of the Hebrew University in Palestine was the guest of honor at a reception hosted by Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach.

1936: Hugo Blumenthal, President of the Board of the School Nursing, presided over the 53rdannual commencement ceremonies at Mt. Sinai Hospital where 33 new nurses received their degrees.

1936: Bernhard Rust, the Minister of Culture and Education, today “forbade non-Jewish university students” from employing Jewish tutors because it was “contrary to academic dignity.”

1937: “The Holy Terror” a comedy featuring Joe E. Lewis and Leah Ray, the future wife of Sonny Werblin was released in the United States today.

1937: U.S. premiere of “Outcast” a murder drama produced by Emanuel Cohen, photographed by cinematographer Rudolph Mate and music by Ernst Toch.

1937: In an article published in the Evening Standard, Winston Churchill “continued to issue his warnings about the growing menace of Nazi tyranny.”  The Baldwin government would ignore him and Europe would continue on the path that led to the Holocaust.

1938(4thof Adar I, 5698): Parashat Terumah

1938: Rabbi William F. Rosenblum is scheduled to deliver a sermon “God Save the Family” at Temple Israel.

1938: Rabbi Louis I Newman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Don Isaac Abrabanel of Spain: a 500th Anniversary Tribute” today at Temple Rodeph Sholom.

1938: Rabbi Samuel H. Goldenson is scheduled to deliver the sermon at Temple Emanu-El this morning.

1938: “No Time to Marry” co-starring Lionel Stander, featuring Jay Adler and produced by William Perlberg was released today in the United States.

1938: Rabbi Hyman Judah Shachtel is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Jews’ Contribution to Civilization” at West End Synagogue.

1938: Five hundred protestors who gathered at Columbus Circle this afternoon for a meeting sponsored by the New York State Committee Communist Party protested “the Fascist wave of terror aimed at the 900,000 Jews of Rumania” and adopted a resolution demanding “that the Government of Rumania put an end to the oppression of Jews and other national minorities.”

1938(4thof Adar I, 5698): Thirty-four-year-old Hans Achim Litten the Jewish lawyer who cross-examined Hitler for three hours during a trial in 1931 committed suicide in Dachau after years of incarceration and torture.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0146fs2

1939: Today, on Sunday, Rabbi Samuel H. Goldenson is scheduled to deliver a sermon “It Is Later Than You Think at Temple Emanu-El.

1939: James Waterman Wise is scheduled to deliver an address on “Hitlerism Invades America: How To Defeat It” at the Free Synagogue meeting in Carnegie Hall.

1939: At a forum hosted by the West End Synagogue Stanley High is scheduled to deliver an address on “What’s Ahead of the Democracies?” at 11 A.M.

1939: Ludwig Lewisohn is scheduled to deliver an address on Confessions of a Novelist” at Temple B’Nai Jeshurun.

1939: It was reported today that “five Haydn symphonies varied as the work of the Austrian master by Dr. Alfred Einstein” who has restored them “to their original form” “will be played probably for the first time since the composer himself led their performance at a concert series beginning later this month at Carnegie Hall.

1939: Professor Albert P. Martin, the former head of the Quaker Committee in Berlin is scheduled to deliver an address on “The Message of Quakers in a Troubled World” this morning at Temple Rodeph Sholom.

1939: The Fort Washington Synagogue, led by Rabbi Alexander Segel, hosted a meeting of the Junior League today.

1939: Mrs. Tehilla Lichtenstein is scheduled to deliver an address on “Religion and Evolution – a Message of Optimism for Today” at the Jewish Science Society in New York.

1939: The Central Synagogue is scheduled to host the first in a series of lectures on “The History of the Jews” delivered by Rabbi Jonah B. Wise who will speak on “Jews on the Roman Empire.”

1940: Tonight, in Tampa, FL, at the closing of its annual meeting, the executive committee of B’nai B’rotj voted to appropriate $2,500 to aid in transferring Jewish children from European lands to Palestine.”

1941: “A diplomatic note from Chinune Sugihara” the Vice-Consul for the Empire of Japan in Lithuania, “to Japan's then Foreign Minister Yōsuke Matsuoka” states that “he issued 1,500 out of 2,139 transit visas to Jews and Poles.”  This was only part of the picture of a man who should be called “a Japanese Schindler.”

1941: The first week-day religious school sessions under the Coudert-McLaughlin Law passed last spring at Albany, permitting students to be released from public school classes an hour a week for religious training, were held on this date.  The law was passed in response to the wishes of certain Catholic leaders, not Jewish educators.

1942: In a letter today, Martha Dodd “told her Soviet contacts that her husband should be brought into their network.”  Dodd was the daughter of William Dodd, the first U.S. Ambassador to Germany who tried to warn America about the menace of Hitler.  Martha’s husband was Alfred Stern, the investment broker who had been married to the daughter of Julius Rosenwald.  Dodd, like many during this period, saw the Soviets as allies in the fight against Fascism.

1943(30thof Shevat, 5703): Rosh Chodesh Adar 1

 1943(30thof Shevat, 5703: Sigmund Freud’s sister Esther Adolfine (Dolfi) died at Theresienstadt

 1943: For 14 hours the Jews of Birkenau stood in place, in the snow, during a roll call. Then each was beaten, chased or sent to the gas chamber.

1943: For one week, Germans are greeted with an armed uprising as they try to deport the final group of Bialystok Jews. By February 12th, 18,000 were in hiding. Another 10,000 would end up in Treblinka.

1943: In Chicago, grocers Esther and Jack Mann gave birth to Oscar nominated director, producer and writer Michael Mann.

1943: Rutka Laskier, a fourteen-year-old living in Bedzin, Poland wrote in her diary: “The rope around us is getting tighter and tighter. Next month there should already be a ghetto, a real one, surrounded by walls. In the summer it will be unbearable. To sit in a gray locked cage, without being able to see fields and flowers. Last year I used to go to the fields; I always had many flowers, and it reminded me that one day it would be possible to go to Malachowska Street without taking the risk of being deported. Being able to go to the cinema in the evening; I'm already so "flooded" with the atrocities of the war that even the worst reports have no effect on me. I simply can't believe that one day I'll be able to leave the house without the yellow star. Or even that this war will end one day ... If this happens, I will probably lose my mind from joy. But now I need to think about the near future, which is the ghetto. Then it will be impossible to see anyone, neither Micka, who lives in Kamionka C, nor Janek, who lives in D, and not Nica, who lives in D. And then what will happen? Oh, good Lord. Well, Rutka, you've probably gone completely crazy. You are calling upon God as if He exists. The little faith I used to have has been completely shattered. If God existed, He would have certainly not permitted that human beings be thrown alive into furnaces, and the heads of little toddlers be smashed with butts of guns or be shoved into sacks and gassed to death ... It sounds like a fairy tale. Those who haven't seen this would never believe it. But it's not a legend; it's the truth. Or the time when they beat an old man until he became unconscious, because he didn't cross the street properly. This is already absurd; it's nothing, as long as there won't be Auschwitz ... and a green card ... The end ... When will it come? ...”

1943: Morris A. Wainger, a member of a panel of attorney who have volunteers their service to the government was one of two lawyers who heard the first case under “a new procedure in pleasure driving cases under which persons not officially connected with the OPA sit in judgment on accused motorists.”

1944(11thof Shevat, 5704): Parashat Beshalach

1944: Today, Rabbi Israel Goldstein of Temple B’nai Jeshurun expressed supported for the “resolution now before Congress urging” the United States “to use its offices to open the doors of Palestine for free entry of Jews.”

1944: In New York, at Temple Israel, Rabbi William F. Rosenblum “hailed the positive declaration of Archbishop Spellman that bigotry is not only un-American but that anti-Semitism is un-Catholic.”

1945: Twenty-three-year-old Violette Szabo who played an active role in fighting the Nazis as a member of the SOE was executed by the Germans today at Ravensbruck concentration camp.

1945(22ndof Shevat, 5705): Twenty-nine-year-old Paris born Jewess Denis Bloch who served with British Special Operations Executive (SOE) was executed at Ravensbruck after which her body was “disposed of in the crematorium.

1946: George Arliss passed away.  Arliss was not Jewish, but he won an Oscar for portraying Disraeli in a film of the same name.  For many people of that era, the Arliss portrayal was synonymous with Disraeli and with English Jews.

1947: In Schwäbisch Hall, Germany, Felek and Chana Gebotszrajber (Fred and Ann Gilbert) gave birth to Yankel Gebotszjraber (Jack Gilbert), the brother of Lena R. Gilbert, who came to the United States in 1949 where he lived in Cedar Rapids before graduating with honors, from California Polytechnic State University in San Louis Obispo.

1948(25thof Shevat, 5708): Sixty-eight-year-old Belorussian born Columbia graduate Simeon Strunsky who began as an editor for the New International Encyclopedia before eventually joining the editorial staff of the New Yok Times in 1924 passed away today.

https://www.jta.org/1948/02/08/archive/simeon-strunsky-noted-n-y-times-columnist-dies-was-68-years-old

1948: Dr. Alexander Marx will be the guest of honor at dinner being held at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York to recognize his 45 years of service to JTS as a teacher and librarian.

1948: In Hollywood, Melrose (née Moore) a Presbyterian from Arkansas and Arnold Nathan Herzstein, a Jewish horse racing columnist gave birth to Barbara Lynn Herzstein who gained game as actress Barbara Hershey.

1949: “Tarzan’s Magic Fountain” the fifth in the series of Tarzan films directed by Lee Sholem, produced by Sol Lesser and with a script co-authored by Curt Siodmark was released today in the United States

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the cabinet held an extraordinary meeting, under the chairmanship of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, to consider the recent frequent outbreaks of violence and infiltration across the Jordanian border, including the derailing, of a goods train near Kalkilya,.

1956: Birthdate of Weizman Shiry. A native of Beersheba, this son of Iraqi Jews served in the Knesset as a member of the Labor Party.

1955: Today “a 60-minute version of the play aired on the CBS Television series The Best of Broadway” with Peter Lorre reprising his famous role as “Dr. Einstien.

1956: “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” a classic American horror film made famous by the “Pod People” directed by Don Siegel and produced by Walter Wagner was released in the United States.

1958: United Artists released “The Quite American,” the cinematic version of the novel of the same name which was written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and featured Fred Sadoff as “Dominguez.”

1959: “Redhead,” a musical with music composed by Albert Hague and lyrics by Dorothy Fields, who with her brother, Herbert, along with Sidney Sheldon wrote the libretto opened on Broadway at the 46th Street Theatre.

1959(27thof Shevat, 5719): Sixty-seven-year-old Berlin born American musicologist Curt Sachs who had been forced to leave his homeland when the Nazis came to power passed away today.

http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Sachs-Curt.htm

https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01616569/document

1960: “University of New Mexico coach Marv Levy is named head football coach at the University of California, Berkley.” (As reported by Bob Wechsler)

1961(19thof Shevat, 5721): Fifty-six-year-old Lithuanian born Dr. Koppel S. Pinson the holder of Ph.D. from Columbia and “a specialist in Jewish and German history” passed away today.

https://www.jta.org/1961/02/07/archive/professor-koppel-pinson-historian-and-educator-dead-was-56

1962: In Hollywood Jewish thespians Vic Morrow and Barbara Turner gave birth to Jennifer Leigh Morrow who gained famed as actress Jennifer Jason Leigh.

1964: “Man in the Middle” a film based on a novel by Howard Fast, featuring Sam Wanamaker and Al Waxman was released in the United States today.

1967: Ninety-two-year-old Martin Saxe, who when a New York State Senator responded to Bertha Rayner Frank having been turned away from a New Jersey hotel because she was Jewish that would have banned such behavior in the state of New York.

1967(25thof Shevat, 5727): Fifty-one-year-old Brooklyn native Joel Edward Saltzman the “vice president and director of Twayne Publishers who attended NYU and Columbia and was the husband of Hilda Kluger Saltzman with whom he had two children – Roslyn and Lawrence – passed away today.

1968(6thof Shevat, 5728): Seventy-eight-year-old Abraham Handelman, the Ukrainian born son “of Joseph Yussel Handelman and Dobrish (Dora) Handelman” and the husband of Anna (Boorstein_ Handelman with whom he had two children – Lillian and Arnold – passed away today in New York.

1971: Seventy-eight-year-old Hungarian communist politician who repudiated his Jewish faith passed away today.

1972: Paul Simon’s “Mother and Child Reunion” was released as a single today after which it reached “No. 1 in South Africa and No. 4 on the US Billboard Hot 100 Chart.”

1972: “When Michael Calls” a horror film starring Michael Douglas, Marian Waldman and Al Waxman and with music by Lionel Newman premiered today on ABC.

1973: “Foreign Minister Mario Gibson Barboza of Brazil called on President Zalman Shazar this morning at the start of his four-day office visit to Israel,” after which he “held a working session with Foreign Minister Abba Eban” where they discussed “Israel’s quest for reciprocal air landing rights” that would open Rio de Janeiro to El Al flights.

1974: “On his way home from Cuba Brezhnev told representatives of Canadian Jewish Community of St. Johns at Gander airport, Newfoundland that the real figure of Soviet Jews wanting to emigrate was 3,500 and not 500,000 quoted by the group” and the he refused “to intervene in the case of Sylva Zalmanson, who is currently serving 10 year labor camp sentence.”

1974: “The Lovell Beach House located on the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach, California” which “was completed in 1926 and is now recognized as one of the most important works by Austrian born Jewish architect Rudolf Schindler” “was listed as a Registered Historic Place in California” today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovell_Beach_House#/media/File:Lovell_Beach_House_photo_D_Ramey_Logan.jpg

1975(24thof Shevat, 5735): Seventy-seven-year-old movie producer Lawrence Weingarten who produced two Hepburn-Tracy films – Adam’s Rib and Pat & Mike – and who won the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award passed away today.

1975: The movie version of Report to the Commissioner with a screenplay co-authored by Abby Mann, music by Elmer Bernstein and featuring Yaphet Kotto and Bab Balaban was released today in the United States.

1977(17th of Shevat, 5737): Swedish physicist, Oskar Klein passed away.

1977: (17th of Shevat, 5737): Russian born chess player Izaak Boleslavski passed away at the age of 67

1980: The Egyptian Parliament voted to end the boycott of Israel.  This was one of the “fruits” of the Camp David Peace Accords. 

1983: Former Nazi Gestapo official Klaus Barbie was brought to trial today.

1984(2ndof Adar I, 5744): Two days after her 100th birthday, Hanover native Selma Maier, one of the first Jews to be certified as a nurse by the German government and the head nurse at Shaare Zedek and the colleague of the “founding director Dr. Moshe Wallach” passed away today in Jerusalem.

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/mair-selma

1984 (2nd of Adar I, 5744): Seventy-eight-year-old Manès Sperber an Austrian-French novelist, essayist and psychologist born in Austrian Galicia in 1905, passed away today in Paris. (As reported by Herbert Mitgang)

http://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/07/obituaries/manes-sperber-78-novelist.html

1984(2ndof Adar I, 5744): Michael Kogan the Russian born businessman who survived most of WW II living in Japan and who founded Taito Corporation in 1953 passed away today.

1987: An Italian prosecutor's report contends that a 1985 airport attack here was planned in Syria and carried out by the Abu Nidal organization, according to senior judicial officials. The report says the four gunmen in the attack intended to seize an Israeli airliner and blow it up over Tel Aviv, but were foiled when Israeli security men opened fire, the officials said. The report does not charge direct Syrian involvement although it notes evidence of links with the Abu Nidal group, the officials said.

1988: In Los Angeles, Donald E. Sanford Jr. and Debra Blair gave birth to sprinter Donald Sanford who “took up Israeli citizenship after marrying Israeli basketball player Danielle Dekel, who he met when they were both students at Central Arizona College.”

1988: U.S. premiere of “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” directed by Philip Kaufman who co-authored the script, produced by Paul and Saul Zaentz and starring Daniel Day-Lewis.

1988(17thof Shevat, 5748): Eighty-five-year-old Hungarian-born screenwriter, director and producer Emeric Pressburger who fled to Great Britain as the Nazis began to take over Europe passed away today.

http://www.powell-pressburger.org/Reviews/Emeric/LaDoaS.html

1989 (30thof Shevat): “Charles Z. Offin, an artist, publisher and art patron, died today in Mount Sinai Hospital. He was 90 years old and lived in Manhattan. A gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is named for Mr. Offin in recognition of his gifts to the museum. He also gave grants to the Brooklyn, Guggenheim and Tel Aviv museums and endowed arts projects at universities. Mr. Offin was art editor of The Brooklyn Eagle and editor and publisher of the magazine Pictures on Exhibit. He also was director of the Etchers Guild. In World War II, he worked for the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency.

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/08/obituaries/charles-z-offin-90-artist-and-art-patron.html

1989: The New York Times features a brief review of Past Continuous by Yaakov Shabtai, translated by Dalya Bilu.

1990: Ninety-four-year-old Père Marie-Benoît a Capuchin Franciscan friar who helped smuggle approximately 4,000 Jews into safety from Nazi-occupied Southern France passed away.  He had been named as one the “Righteous Among the Nations.”

http://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/pere-marie-benoit-and-jewish-rescue-susan-zuccotti?A=SearchResult&SearchID=4398624&ObjectID=6650851&ObjectType=35

1990: The Israeli Army said its troops had killed five heavily armed Arab guerrillas in the western Negev region of Israel after chasing them for a short distance. The army said the guerrillas had crossed into Israel from Egypt through the Sinai and apparently had timed the infiltration to coincide with the second anniversary of the Palestinian uprising. But it was not clear then to which organization the guerrillas belonged.

1990: Prime Minister Shamir will face nine different parliamentary motions of no confidence, from both left- and right- wing opponents today in Jerusalem.

1992(1st of Adar I, 5752): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1992(1stof Adar I, 5752): Eighty-year-old New Jersey native Walter Wallace “Walt” Singer the Syracuse and NFL football player who played college baseball with his twin broth Milton passed away today.

1993: “3 Arts Entertainment a Beverly Hills–based talent management and television/film production company founded by Erwin Stoff in 1991” today released its first movie, “Loaded Weapon 1.”

1993(14thof Shevat, 5753): Ninety-four-year-old media mogul Sidney Lewis Bernstein the son of Alexander and Jane Bernstein who was elevated to the peerage as Baron Bernstein passed away today.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-lord-bernstein-1471201.html

1993: “The Vanishing” an American re-make of a Dutch film by the same name produced by Larry Brezner and directed by George Sluizer who “was accused by Israeli officials of a 'modern blood libel' for his claims – which in 2010 finally achieved front page level publicity in Israel – that he had witnessed the then Defense Minister Ariel Sharon personally shooting two Palestinian children from close range near the Sabra-Shatilla refugee camp in 1982” was released in the United States today.

1993 (14th of Shevat, 5753): Joseph L Mankiewicz, director and writer, passed away at the age of 83. (As reported by Peter Flint)

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/06/movies/joseph-l-mankiewicz-literate-skeptic-of-the-cinema-dies-at-83.html

1993 (14th of Shevat, 5753): Hans Jonas, who fled Nazi Germany and became an influential philosopher, passed away at his home in New Rochelle, N.Y. at the age of 89. (As reported by Eric Pace)

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/06/nyregion/hans-jonas-influential-philosopher-is-dead-at-89.html

1994(24thof Shevat, 5754): Seventy-four-year-old Czarna(née Zielinski) Levy, the native of Poltusk and wife of Reuven Levy passed away today in Tel Aviv.

1996(15thof Shevat, 5756): Tu B’Shevat

1997:  The so-called Big Three banks in Switzerland announce the creation of a $71 million fund to aid Holocaust survivors and their families.

1999(19th of Shevat, 5759): Ninety-three-year-old Wassily Leontief Russian born American Nobel Prize winning economist, passed away.

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/1973/leontief-bio.html

1999: The Times of London features a review of The World’s Banker: The history of the House of Rothschild by Niall Ferguson

1999: “The Last Day” an Oscar winning documentary that ‘tell the story of five Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust” was released today in the United States.

2000(29thof Shevat, 5760): Parashat Mishpatim

2000: After confirming that ''Madonna and Child in a Landscape,'' by Lucas Cranach the Elder, a German Renaissance artist, “one of its most prized paintings had been stolen by the Nazis during World War II from an Austrian Jewish art collector, the North Carolina Museum of Art announced plans to give the painting back to its rightful owners, two sisters in Austria.”

2001: “Einstein and Freud were among the holders of 21,000 dormant Swiss bank accounts posted on the Internet today in an effort to identify accounts that belonged to Holocaust victims.”

2002: As part of a “blood feud” that has nothing to do with the Israelis, a mob of Palestinians stormed a makeshift courtroom here today and executed three Palestinian men convicted of murdering a popular lieutenant of the Palestinian security forces.”

2003: Ernst Zündel, “A German publisher infamously known for his Holocaust denial” was detained by local police in the US and deported to Canada, where he was detained for two years on a Security Certificate for being a foreign national considered a threat to national security pending a court decision on the validity of the certificate.”

2003: In “Murder In Monaco” David Kohn provides information about the death of Edmond Safra.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/murder-in-monaco-05-02-2003/

2004(13thof Shevat, 5764): Eighty-five-year-old “Samuel M. Rubin, who was known as "Sam the Popcorn Man" for making popcorn almost as popular in New York City movie theaters as jokes and kisses,” passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/09/nyregion/09RUBI.html?ex=1391749200&en=e33f8d9c57aa1917&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND

2004: "Leha'amin" (To Believe) song David D’Or co-wrote with Ehud Manor “was chosen in voting during the program "Israel Selects a Song," held during a break in a televised Maccabi Tel Aviv Euroleague basketball game in Tel Aviv at which videos of four songs sung by D'Or were shown” to represent Israel in the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest.

2004: Five weeks before opening in Israel, “Walk on Water” premiered today at the Berlin International Film Festival.

2005: The London revival of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd closed today at the Ambassadors Theatre.

2006: Irwin Cotler completed his term as Minister of Justice in Canada.

2006: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition of Tattoo for a Slave, Hortense Calisher's elliptical memoir that stretches across two centuries, and wrestles with a grim legacy as she comes to believe that her family — Southern, German and Jewish — may have been slaveholders.

2006: The Pittsburgh Steelers for whom punter Josh Miller had played from 1996 through 2003, defeated the Seattle Seahawks for whom Sam McCullum had played wide receiver from 1976 through 1981, in Super Bowl XL an event for which Rabbis Kasriel Shemtov and Yudi Mann of The Shul in West Bloomfield created the “Chabad Jewish Center at the Super Bowl”.

http://crownheights.info/general/1495/chabad-at-the-super-bowl-xl/

2007: Defense officials told settlers that it was still likely that the security fence would be constructed in the Judean Desert, even though work there had been halted last month due to environmental concerns.

2007: The board of NBC Universal named Jeff Zucker as the company’s chairman and chief executive officer.

2008:  In New York, the 92nd St Y sponsors The Beir Lecture Israel at 60 featuring Michael B. Oren who discusses the 60-year history of Israel and its quest for peace.

2008: Three Kassam rockets were fired at southern Ashkelon this evening.

2008: Pope Benedict has ordered changes to a Latin prayer for Jews at Good Friday services by traditionalist Catholics, deleting a reference to their "blindness" over Christ, the Vatican said today.

2008: A Simchah - Eli Sherman arrives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  Mother and father are doing fine.  Rabbi and Rabbi are doing fine as well.

2009(11thof Shevat, 5769): Eighty-nine-year-old Canadian director, producer and writer Leo Orenstein passed away today.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thestar/obituary.aspx?n=leo-alan-orenstein&pid=123922595#fbLoggedOut

2009: Opening of the 13th NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival

2009(11thof Shevat, 5769): Seventy-eight-year-old Rabbi Yisrael Noah Weinberg, the founder of Aish HaTorah passed away today in Jerusalem.

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/834580/jewish/The-Rosh-Yeshivah-and-the-Shliach.htm

2009:The Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism presents a lecture by Professor Jeffrey Herf, Department of History; University of Maryland entitled "Nazi Propaganda in and towards the Middle East during World War II and the Holocaust"

2009; The CUNY Graduate Center and the European Union Center of NY present a lecture and presentation marking 50 years of Israel's relations with the European community by Benjamin Krasna, Deputy Consul General of Israel entitled "Israel and Europe: An Insider's Perspective"

2009: The UN staff discovered five rockets north of the southern Lebanese town of Nakoura which ready to be launched against Israel. Milos Strugar, a UNIFIL spokesman, said the rockets were discovered along with a launching pad by a patrol of peacekeepers near Nakoura, where the UN force is headquartered.

2009: David Miliband “made a statement to the House of Commons concerning Guantanamo Bay detainee and former British resident Benyam Mohammed.

2009: Today British actress and ardent supporter of Israel Maureen Lipman “appeared in the third series of teen drama Skins, in the episode entitled "Thomas" as Pandora Moon's Aunt Elizabeth.”

2010: David Samuel Goyer announced he would be stepping down as FlashForward showrunner to focus on feature films and directing

2010: “Eyes Wide Open,” a film set in Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox community, is scheduled to have its New York debut at the Cinema Village in Manhattan.

2010: Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon arrived in Munich for an annual security meeting which was also attended by Saudi Arabia's Prince Turki al-Faisal.

2010: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown today called the record number of anti-Semitic incidents across the United Kingdom last year "deeply troubling", urging Britons to exercise greater vigilance. more

2010(21st of Shevat, 5770): Harry Schwarz, a South African Jewish leader and lawmaker who as an attorney defended Nelson Mandela, has died. Schwarz, who escaped the Nazis and came to South Africa from Germany in 1936, died today following a short illness. He was 86. As an opposition member of Parliament from 1974 to 1989, he was among the most vociferous campaigners against apartheid, according to a statement from the South Africa Jewish Board of Deputies. Schwarz in Parliament forcefully denounced the government's racial policies and spoke out strongly against anti-Semitism, the statement said. From 1990 to 1994, although still in the opposition, Schwarz served as South Africa's ambassador to the United States. As an attorney, he served on the defense team of Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid activists during the1963-64 Rivonia Trial. For his services to South Africa, he was awarded the Order for Meritorious Service: Class 1, Gold. Schwarz was active in Jewish communal affairs, serving from 1983 to 2000 on the National Executive, Management Committee and Gauteng Council of the Jewish Board of Deputies. He served as a navigator in the South African Air Force during World War II

2010(21st of Shevat, 5770): Beth Shulman, 60, a lawyer, author and union leader who fought for improving conditions for low-wage workers throughout her career, died today of complications from brain cancer at Georgetown University Medical Center. (As reported by Patricia Sullivan)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/08/AR2010020803776.html

http://www.bethshulman.com/

2010: Chancellor Arnold Eisen sent an e-mail today that The Jewish Theological Seminary is eliminating the position of dean of its cantorial school as part of a major reorganization and consolidation at Conservative Judaism’s flagship seminary. Chancellor Arnold Eisen said that the restructuring would take place in lieu of closing the cantorial school — the course of action recommended by an outside consultant.

2010(21st of Shevat, 5770): Frank N. Magid, 78, the television "news doctor" whose survey research and advice to local television stations in the 1970s resulted in co-anchors who chatted between stories, fast-paced graphics, sports tickers and live shots, and a heavy reliance on both crime coverage and feel-good segments, died of lymphoma today at Santa Barbara [Calif.] Cottage Hospital. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/us/14silberman.html?_r=0

2011: Yoav Gal’s “Mosheh,” an opera loosely based on the life of Moses, is scheduled to have its last performance tonight in New York City.

2011(1stof Adar I, 5771): Rosh Chodesh Adar I 

2011(1stof Adar I, 5771): Eighty-six-year-old Charles E. Silberman, a journalist whose books addressed vast, turbulent social subjects including race, education, crime and the state of American Jewry, died today in Sarasota, Fla, He was 86. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/us/14silberman.html?_r=0

2011(1stof Adar I, 5771): Sixty-one-year-old “Miriam Hansen, a scholar of cinema who studied not only film itself but also the early 20th-century creation known as the film audience” passed away today in Chicago. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/arts/13hansen.html

2011: In Cedar Rapids, IA, the traditional minyan at Temple Judah celebrates Super Bowl Shabbat

2011: The Quartet – the UN, the US, the EU and Russia – “refused to heed the Palestinian call for unilateral statehood and instead continued to throw its support behind a negotiated solution, when it met today in Germany. ‘Unilateral actions by either party cannot prejudge the outcome of negotiations and will not be recognized by the international community,’ the group said in a statement it issued after the meeting.”

2011: Ed Sabol, the founder of NFL Films who helped to turn the professional game into America’s leading form of sports entertainment was elected to the Professional Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio today.

2012: The Leo Baeck Institute is scheduled to present a recital by The Loewenberg Piano Trio

2012: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Thinking the Twentieth Century” by Tony Judt with Timothy Snyder, “No One Is Here Except All Of Us by Ramona Ausubel and the recently released paperback edition of J.D. Salinger: A Life” by Kenneth Slawenski

2012: The Los Angeles Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank” by Nathan Englander

2012:Home Front Defense Minister Matan Vilnai is today expected to call for increased investment to protect Israel's cities and national infrastructure.

2012:Amid growing reports that Israel is planning to attack Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and increased economic sanctions, Iran will attack any country whose territory is used by "enemies" of the Islamic state to launch a military strike against its soil, the deputy head of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards told the semi-official Fars news agency today   

2012: Israel has not and is not interfering in the political crisis in Syria, Vice Prime Minister and Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon said today, adding that he did not think radical Islam would take over the country in case Syrian President Bashar Assad is ousted.

2012: At Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Robert Kraft’s New England Patriots lost to the New York Giants which were co-owned by Steve Tisch in Super Bowl XLVI.

2013:Rabbi Riccardo Shmuel Di Segni, M.D., Chief Rabbi of Rome, Italy is scheduled to deliver an address entitled "The Jews of Italy, the Jews of Europe: an Overview and Update" Congregation Magen David in Rockville, MD.

2013: The American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists (AAJLJ) are scheduled to host an Israeli Wine-Tasting Reception in Washington, D.C.

2013:Bulgaria’s Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said today two individuals with links to Lebanon’s Shi’ite group Hezbollah were involved in a bomb attack on a bus in the Bulgarian resort of Burgas that killed five Israeli tourists last July and a Bulgarian national.

2013:The IDF stationed a third Iron Dome air defense battery in northern Israel today, amid escalated tensions following last week's reported air strikes in Syria.

2013: The New York Review of Books “began its year-long celebration of its 50thanniversary with a presentation by Robert Silvers at The Town Hall in New York City.

2013: Six incoming members of the 19th Knesset will have to have given up their foreign citizenship by today, the day when new MK’s are scheduled to be sworn as members of Israel’s parliament.

2013: “Obama Plans Visit to Israel This Spring” published today described the plans of President Obama to make his first visit to Israel since moving into the White House although he had visited the country while he was a United States Senator.

2013: Based on information supplied Chabad today marks the start of 32ndround of studying the 982 chapters of The Mishne Torah.

2014: Virginia Jewish Advocacy Day is scheduled to take place in Richmond, VA today.

2014: The Haifa Symphony Orchestra of Israel is scheduled to make its debut appearance in the United States at Bergen, NJ.

2014: Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center of Houston is scheduled to “Woman to Woman: The Power of the Arts to Transform Lives.”

2014: The Jerusalem District Attorney's Office filed charges in the city's District Court today against three Arab residents of eastern Jerusalem who planned a sadistic murder spree at a banquet hall. Anas Awisat, Basel Abidat, Ahmed Srur and Amru Abdu of Jabel Mukabar, aged 19 to 21, were charged with conspiring to assist the enemy in wartime. (As reported by Gil Ronen)

2014: Two air force fighter pilots have been handed short prison sentences and 12 others were tried for breaching military security protocols, after top-secret information was found on their smartphones, Army Radio reported today. (As reported by Itmar Sharon)

2014: Today the leadership of the Conservative movement responded to MK David Rotem’s statement yesterday that “The Reform movement is not Jewish…they are another religion” in a statement lamenting “the utter lack of leadership that makes these outrages so frequent and undermines the very aspirations that are the foundations of Judaism and the Jewish state.” Saying ‘The Jewishness of the Reform Movement is beyond question and in no need of defense,” the statement called on the government of Israel to censure Rotem and remove him from leadership roles.

2015(16thof Shevat, 5775): Eighty-five-year-old Holocaust survivor turned scam-artist Herman Rosenblat passed away today.(As reported by Sam Roberts)

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/business/media/herman-rosenblat-85-dies-made-up-holocaust-love-story.html?_r=1

2015: Sir Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Winston Churchill and the author of 80 books on a wide range of topics including World War II, the Holocaust, Israel, to name but a few and who passed away on February 3 is scheduled to be buried today at Eretz HaChaim Cemetery in Beit Shemesh, Israel.  In addition to having the writing style of a novelist, Sir Martin was kind enough to answer repeated questions from amateur historians.  For those of you who think 80 books are a lot, consider that before illness stilled his pen he was working on a comprehensive history of the Jews of the United Kingdom.  Our hearts go out to Lady Gilbert who was his steadfast companion during these thirty-four months when he fought back against the effects of hypoxia of the brain.   

http://www.martingilbert.com/

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/sirmartingilbert.html

2016: Professor Paul Dilley is scheduled to speak on “The Rabbis and the Persian Empire” in Coralville, IA.

2016(26thof Shevat, 5776): Eighty-three-year-old veteran New York Times correspondent Arnold Lubasch passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/10/business/media/arnold-lubasch-who-covered-crime-for-the-times-dies-at-83.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2016(26thof Shevat, 5776): Eighty-six-year-old federal Judge Miriam Cedabaum who is best known for her role in the Martha Stewart case passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/nyregion/miriam-cedarbaum-86-dies-longtime-federal-judge.html?ribbon-ad-idx=3&rref=obituaries&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Obituaries&pgtype=article

2016: The Hadassah Mission to Jerusalem and the Blooming Desert led by Marlene Post, Past National President of Hadassah is scheduled to come to an end today.

2016:Carvalho’s Journey” which tells the exciting story of the trailblazing of the American West in 1853.is scheduled to have its San Diego premiere at that city’s 26thannual Jewish Film Festival.

2017(9thof Shevat, 5777): Yahrzeit of Rabbi Eliezer Silver, the President of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis who helped to organize the March of the Rabbis in 1943.

2017: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Weapon Wizards: How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower by Yaakov Katz and Amir Bohbot, The Man Who Never Stopped Sleeping by Aharon Appelfeld, This Close to Happy: A Reckoning With Depression by Daphne Merkin and The New Brooklyn: What It Takes to Bring a City Back by Kay S. Hymowitz

2017: When the Robert Kraft’s New England Patriots take the field against Arthur Blank’s Atlanta Falcons it will be the first time since 2012 that both Super Bowl teams will be owned by Jews but regardless of whom fans favor in Super Bowl LI, they can all enjoy Sabra, the official dip of the National Football League.

2017: Robert Kraft’s New England Patriots, featuring the play of Julian Edelman defeated Arthur Blank’s Atlanta Falcons.

/2017(9th of Shevat, 5777): Eighty-five-year-old producer, arranger and composer David Axelrod passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/arts/music/david-axelrod-dead-music-producer-composer.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

https://www.discogs.com/artist/5451-David-Axelrod

2017: The Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies and the London Partnership Minyan are scheduled to a shiur by Rabbi Zvi Hirschfield.

2017: “John Singer Sargent’s Mrs. Carl Meyer and Her Children” is scheduled to come to a close at the Jewish Museum.

http://thejewishmuseum.org/exhibitions/john-singer-sargent-mrs.-carl-meyer-and-her-children

2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host guest speaker Rabbi Binyamin Miller, the native of Philadelphia and IDF veteran who is the director of the Alisa Flatow International Program.

2018: At the University of Virginia, the Brody Jewish Center is scheduled to host the “4th Year Seminar” Judaism and Post College Life” as well as a screening of “Rosenwald.”
2018: The YIVO Institute is scheduled to present “the launch of a new book of Isaac Babel translations with readings by translator Val Vinokur and discussion with Isaac Babel expert, YIVO’s Executive Director Jonathan Brent.”

2018: The American Sephardi Association is scheduled to present “The IV International Shashmaqam Forever Concert dedicated to Yunus Rajabi (1897-1976), a composer, musician, and scholar who collected, systematized, and transcribed more than a thousand songs and pieces from the Shashmaqam repertoire.”

2018: Two days after she had passed away funeral services are scheduled to be held at Shir Chadash Synagogue in Metairie, LA for 102-year-old Bogalusa, LA native and Tulane School of Social work, Sara Benson Stone, the philanthropist and wife of Saul stone with whom she had four children – David, Richard, Harvey and Carol.

https://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/article_2b6cb56a-095f-11e8-8634-3bf63a73513b.html

 2018(20thof Shevat, 5778): Twenty-nine-year-old Rabbi Itamar Ben-Gal, the father of four was stabbed today in a terrorist attack.

2018: “The German government has agreed to recognize some 25,000 Jewish Algerians as Holocaust survivors eligible for compensation, and they will be able to apply for a one-time grant later this year, a survivor’s rights organization announced today.” (As reported by Stuart Winer)

https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-first-germany-to-compensate-25000-algerian-jewish-holocaust-survivors/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=7604cdbe27-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_02_04&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_adb46cec92-7604cdbe27-53921877

2018: Some of “today’s great Broadway stars” are scheduled to perform “an extraordinary cavalcade of brilliant and beloved songs by our most illustrious Jewish American composers and lyricists” as part of the Great Jewish American Songbook at the Streicker Center.

2019: President Donald Trump is scheduled to deliver the State of the Union which will be boycotted by Representative Steve Cohen, the Tennessee Democrat who did not attend last year’s address saying that “I'll come to the House Chamber for the State of the Union the next time I can hear from a president who will tell the truth about the State of the Union.”

2019: The Herbert and Eileen Bernard Museum of Judaica is scheduled to host a “processional of over 50 Torah scrolls from tri-state-area synagogues to complement the first-ever New York gathering of scrolls from Czechoslovakia that survived the Holocaust, in partnership with Memorial Scrolls Trust of London.”

2019: This afternoon, in Amherst, MA, the Yiddish Book Center is scheduled to host a screening of “Itzhak.”

2019: The Wiener Library, in partnership with the Association of Jewish Refugees, German Embassy, Jewish Museum London, and the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain” is scheduled to offer  a workshop that will provide “advice on how people can search for German heritage to check eligibility to apply for European citizenship post-Brexit.

2019(30th of Shevat, 5779): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

2020: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a “lunch and learn” with Rabbi Eryn London, JOFA's UK scholar in residence speaking about death and bikur cholim based on her experiences working as a medical chaplain.

2020: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host Sheila Nevins, Executive Producer at MTV Documentary Films, who will screen the award-winning documentary, Gay Chorus Deep South, and discuss its impact.”

2020: In Cincinnati, OH, The Mayerson JCC Jewish and Israeli Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “The Passengers,” a tale centering around Jewish refugees from Ethiopia.

2020: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “Family History Today: Jewish Students, Medical Globetrotters and Persevering Women” during which Andrew Zalewski , a former professor of medicine at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia discusses the impact of Galician and Lithuanian students going to other parts of Europe to pursue their medical education.

2020: In Berkley, CA, as part of “A Multi-Faith Response to Climate Crisis” Rabbi Arthur Waskow (Shalom Center) is scheduled to join “a pastor and an Earth activist to speak about the intersection of climate activism and spirituality.”

2021: A family members only funeral service is scheduled to be held this after at Temple Judah for “former member, Rochelle Jacobson Weiss, daughter of Oscar and Freda Jacobson, who died February 1st in St. Paul, MN at the age of 85.”

2021: In Ohio, Temple Emanu El is scheduled to host a Wine and Cheese Reception via Zoom prior to Friday Night Services.

2021: In Palm Beach Gardens, FL, Temple Judea is scheduled to host “Shabbat Under the Stars, an person worship experience in the Temple Judah parking lot.

2021: NFTY Northeast is scheduled to host the first day of the three-day NFTY Convention 2021.”

2021: The Jewish Film Institute is scheduled to present a streaming showing of “The Vigil,” “a supernatural horror film set over the course of a single evening in Brooklyn’s Hasidic Borough Park neighborhood.”

2021: Based on information made public yesterday, as of today, Israel is making progress in the Pandemic Battle because “vaccination of Israelis over the age of 60 has reduced the rate of that age group getting COVID-19 by almost half and the number of serious cases in that cohort by more than a quarter in the last two weeks.”

 

 


This Day, February 6, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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February 6

 337: Julius I began his papacy during which “he officially declared that the birth of Jesus would be celebrated on the 25th of December.”

http://www.whychristmas.com/customs/25th.shtml

1095: Henry IV of Germany who issued a charter to the Jews and a decree against forced baptism. He desired to protect the Jews even during the Crusades and granted favorable conditions wherever possible. He also permitted forcibly baptized Jews to return to Judaism. He did this partly because he viewed the Jews as valuable property. The Church criticized his actions.

1190: In England, the Jews of Norwich were massacred by a mob following a similar attack in Lynn.

1279:Dinis I who resisted pressure from the clergy to apply the anti-Semitic restrictions of the Fourth Council of the Lateran and “maintained a conciliatory position” regarding his Jewish subjects began his reign as King of Portugal today. During the reign of King Dinis, Alfonso’s father, the clergy invoked the restrictions of the Fourth Lateran Council in an attempt to get the monarch to restrict the role of Jews in Portuguese society.  The clergy, however, invoking the restrictions of the Fourth Council of the Lateran, brought considerable pressure to bear against the Jews during the reign of King Dinis I of Portugal, but the monarch maintained a conciliatory position. Alfonso remained faithful to his father’s policies

1283: In England, a Justice of the Jews named Hamo Hauteyn, set up a commission to investigate charges against Jews accused of selling plate made of clippings or silvered tinplate to foreign merchants.

1298: King Jaime II had a Jewish man's property confiscated. Moses Avencurel of Elche was punished for taking part in an anti-royalist rebellion.

1413: The first sitting of a “disputation” in which the Jews must listen to the Treatise of Geronimo De Santa, a convert to Christianity, contend that the Talmud recognized Jesus as the Messiah. This disputation was ordered by Pope Benedict XIII and would last until November of 1414 with a total of 68 sittings.

1481: Several affluent men of the community in Seville, led by Diego de Susan, plotted to strike back at the Inquisitors.  He stated to his co-religionists: "Are we not the principal men of this city in standing, and the best esteemed of the people? Let us assemble troops; and if they come to take us, let us start an uprising with the troops and the people; and so we will kill them and avenge ourselves on our enemies!"

1508: Maximilian I was crowned Holy Roman Emperor. In the first decade of his reign, Maximilian would put an end to the attempts by some German nobles to banish the Jews from their realms.  Maximilian did this, not so much because he loved Jews, but because he saw these attempts at banishment as an encroachment on his imperial authority.  Wherever they lived in the empire, the Jews were the subjects of the emperor and not of any local lord.  Therefore only he could banish Jews.  Maximilian feared that if he gave way on his control over the Jews, who knew what power the nobles might try and take from him next. 

1521: Suleiman the Magnificent, whose reign was one of the highpoints for Jews living in the domains of the Ottomans, led his army west with the intention of conquering Hungary.

1640(13th of Shevat): Rabbi Israel Samuel Kalihari, author Yismah Yistrael passed away

1647(1st of Adar): Rabbi Azariah Figo (Picho) author of Giddulei ha-Terumah passed away

1649: King Charles II of England and Scotland was declared King of Great Britain by the Parliament of Scotland. While on the throne, Charles showed his support for the Jews.  In 1660, when Thomas Violet introduced a petition to have the Jews expelled again from Great Britain, a “Royal message” was sent “Parliament them to take the protection of the Jews into consideration.”  Violet’s petition was rejected.(The Great Trappaner of England': Thomas Violet, Jews and crypto-Jews during the English Revolution and at the Restorationby Ariel Hessayon)

1664: Birthdate of Sultan Mustafa II.  During his reign Ottoman forces conquered Belgrade again in 1690 and Jews were allowed to return to the city.

1685: James II of England and VII of Scotland becomes King upon the death of his brother Charles II. For once, a change in monarchs turned out to be a “win-win” situation for the Jewish people.  While still in the Netherlands, prior to regaining the throne, the Anglican “Charles had assured Amsterdam Jews that their coreligionists had no reason to fear his reemergence in England.”  How much of this was promise was due to personal beliefs and how much was the product of the substantial financial support the soon to be crowned monarch received from Dutch Jews is immaterial.  The fact is, he kept his word.  A group of London merchants who wanted to limit their competition petitioned the king to keep the Jews out of the country to protect the religion and welfare of his subjects.  “The targeted Jews” sought the King’s protection which he granted. In 1673, 13 years after Charles II’s coronation, “a grand jury…responded to anti-Semitic rabble rousing by indicting Jewish communal leaders for worshipping in public. When Jews threatened to leave England rather than endure loss of religious freedom, Charles had an order in council issued to halt the legal proceedings. And to make sure it did not happen again, King Charles gave orders “not to cause any more anxieties to Jews.”  During the first year of his reign King James II put an end to the custom of requiring the Jews to pay “the mandatory tax imposed on those who failed to attend the established church.”  The King declared that he did not want the Jews to be troubled about this ever again and only wanted them be able to “quietly enjoy the free exercise of their religion.”  What makes this all the more remarkable is that it took place against a backdrop of religious wars fought between English Catholics, Anglicans and Protestants.  While the Jews became victims of the religious wars on the Continent, in England they were able to survive and thrive.  This may account for the affection which Jews came to hold England and its later iteration as Great Britain.

1685: With death of Charles II Catherine of Braganza, the Portuguese born wife King Charles II of England who brought Portuguese native Fernando Mendes to serve as her personal physician which made it possible for him to begin living openly as a Jew, ended her “reign” as Queen-consort.

1693: Royal charter granted College of William and Mary, at Williamsburg VA.  Currently the most famous alumnus of this storied academic institution is Jon Stewart, award winning host of “The Daly Show” and featured speaker at the William and Mary’s commencement ceremonies in 2004.

1756: Birthdate of Aaron Burr, Jr. one of America’s less distinguished “founding fathers.”  Burr’s greatest claim to fame is his participation in a duel with Alexander Hamilton, whose mother was Jewish. Burr also played a role in the career of Sampson who was one of the founders “Jews Hospital” which became Mt. Sinai.  Born at Danbury, CN, he studied under Burr who was a New York lawyer before he went to become one of New York City’s first Jewish lawyers. 

1756: In response to King George II”s order that today be observed as a period fasting and penitence Isaac Nieto, the Cha-Cham of Sha'ar ha-Shamayim, the Spanish and Portuguese congregation also known as Bevis Marks Synagogue preached a “Sermon Moral” that was “published in Spanish and English in London, 1756.”  The English monarch proclamation was probably issued in connection with the Seven Year’s War.  The positive response of the kingdom’s Jewish community was an indication of how quickly it had become a part of the UK’s social and political environment.

1765(15thof Shevat, 5525): Tu B’Shevat observed as Parliament debates what will become the Stamp Act, one of the stones on the path to the American Revolution.

1767: In Berlin, Deiche Aaron and bank broker Anschell Jaffe gave birth to Saul ben Anschel Jaffe, “a prolific writer whose work can be divided into three different areas: author, translator, editor/publisher.”

1776: Solomon Isaac, a Jew living in Philadelphia, enlisted as private in the Sixth Pennsylvania Battalion, part of the Rebel forces fighting the British.

1778: In Paris the United States and France signed treaties of alliance that, among other thing, provided French aid for the fledgling republic.  This helped to guarantee the success of the American Revolution which helped to create the site for the most prominent Jewish community in the diaspora.  The aid would also helped bring financial ruin to France.  This financial ruin was a catalyst for the French Revolution which had a major impact of Jews throughout Europe

1781(11thof Shevat, 5541):  Two and half year-old Rachel Sheftall, the Savanah, GA born daughter of Sarah De La Motta and Levi Sheftall, all part of the famous Sheftall clan, passed away today in Charleston, SC during the American Revoltuion.

1785: In London, Abraham Benjamin Cohen, the Dutch born son of Benjamin Jonas Cohen and Eva Jacob Cohen and his wife Elisabeth Gompertz gave birth to James Abraham Cohen-Stuart

1788:  Massachusetts becomes the sixth state to ratify the United States Constitution. Solomon Franco a Sephardic Jew was reportedly the first Jew to come to Massachusetts.  He settled in Boston in 1649. Judah Monis, a descendant of conversos is the next person of Jewish lineage connected with Bay State to appear on the scene.  He filled the chair of Hebrew in Harvard College from 1722 until his death in 1764. When and why Monis became identified as a Christian is a bit cloudy.  Could he be the first example of a Jew who swam through the baptismal font to secure a position in American academia?  The first significant Jewish settlers made their homes in “Massachusetts when the Revolutionary War drove the Jews from Newport. In 1777 Aaron Lopez and Jacob Rivera, with fifty-nine others, went from Newport to Leicester, and established themselves there; but this settlement did not survive the close of the war. A number of Jews, including the Hays family, settled at Boston before 1800. Of these Moses Michael Hays was the most important. In 1830 a number of Algerian Jews went to Boston, but they soon disappeared. The history of the present community begins with the year 1840, when the first congregation was established.”

1788: Two days after he died erev Shabbat, Avrahom ben Baruch was buried in the Plymouth Hoe Burial Ground.

1797: In Mt. Pleasant, NY, Jochabed Isaaks and Michael Marks who were married in 1786 gave birth to Levy Marks.

1799(1st of Adar I, 5559): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1801: Birthdate of Salomon Herxheimer, of Dotzheim in Wiesbaden who became the Chief Rabbi of Anhalf-Bernburg.

1804: Seventy-year-old Joseph Priestly the English theologian and chemist who in 1786 published his Letters to the Jews in which he urged them to convert which led David Levi to respond with his three-volume Dissertation on the Prophecies of the Old Testamentpassed away today.

1808: In Amsterdam, Sara Magnus (Nachman) Hannover-Jochem-Mozes and Mozes Koopman Jacob-Hamburger gave birth to their fifth child, Zise Mozes Hamburger.

1818: One of two birthdates for Germain Sée the French physician from Ribeauvillé

1820: In Greenwich, Kent, Elizabeth Davis and Myer Marks gave birth to Israel Marks the husband of Rebecca Myers with whom he had 13 children.

1822(15thof Shevat, 5582): Tu B’Shevat

1831: In Covent Garden, Eleanor Levy and Simon Marcus gave birth to John Marcus.

1835: In Germany, Babette True and Isaac Jacob Bamberger who were married in 1832 gave birth to Ansel Bamberger who settled in Baltimore, MD where he married Hannah Eilau with whom he had six children including Florence Eilau Bamberger, the holder of a Ph.D. from Columbia Teachers College “who served as director of Johns Hopkins College for Teachers.

1838: Birthdate of Sir Henry Irving, the English actor who gained fame for his portrayal of Mathias in “The Bells,” a version of Erckmann-Chatrian's Le Juif polonais by Leopold Lewis, a property which Irving had found for himself.

1838: Birthdate of Yisrael Meir Kagan also known as the Chofetz Chaim. He passed away in September of 1933.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/chofetz.html

1839: Birthdate of Ferdinand Forzinetti, one of the first French officers to come to the conclusion that Captain Dreyfus was innocent.

1839:Moshe Yehoshua Yehuda Leib Jusha Diskin and Sara Sonia Diskin gave birth to Yitzhak Yeruham Diskin.

1839: In Charleston, SC, A.J. Moses of Cheraw, SC wed Octavia Harby, “the daughter of the late Isaac Harby.”

1839: In Charleston, SC, Lewis Hertz married Esther Peixotto, the “eldest daughter of the late Solomon C. Peixotto.”

1840:  Signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, the document making New Zealand a British colony.  By this time, there were at least 30 Jews living in the area.  David Nathan is credited with founding the first Jewish community at Aukland, in the same year that New Zealand became a colony.

1840: In Hanover, German banker Adolph Meyer and his wife gave birth to banker Sigmund Meyer the grandson of banker Simon Meyer.

1841(15thof Shevat, 5601): Tu B’Shevat

1845: In Ottenberg, Germany, Lazarus Strauss and his second wife Sara gave birth to Isidor Strauss, the first of their five children who would become co-owner of Macy’s and die when the Titanic sank.

1849: In Worms, Germany, wedding of Abraham and Clara Kuhn.

1849: In Worms, Wilhelmine "Mindel" Freudenberg and Nathan Blun gave birth to Rosalie Ida Blun who gained fame as Ida Straus, the wife of Isidor Straus, the co-owner of Macy’s.

1853: In Madison, Indiana, Aaron Marks and Sarah August gave birth to Martin A. Marks, the husband of Belle Hays who moved to Cleveland in 1887 and whose activities included be a “member of the firm of A. Marks and Son founded by his father in 1847” as well as a series of communal activities including serving as “treasurer of the Covenant Endowment Fund of District Grand Lodge, No. 2, Independent Order of B’nai B’rith and President of Tefereth Israel.”

1855:Lord Palmerston, who as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had defended David Pacifco as this “man of Jewish persuasion” and on whose behalf he “made a celebrated speech which concluded that all British subjects ought to be able to say, as did citizens of ancient Rome, "Civis Romanus sum" ("I am a citizen of Rome"), and thereby receive protection from the British government” began his first term as Prime Minister.

1855: It was reported today that "two German Jews" were arrested and charged with "stealing two pieces of black silk with a value of $131.00 from the Importing House of Henry E. Leyrain in New York City. According to the charge, one of the men would appear to be pricing an item while the other would be hiding an item in his coat.  After appearing before a judge at the Tombs, the two were bound over for trial. [How the Times discovered their religion is one question. Why the two are identified by their religion is another question since such practice was not common with those belong to other religious groups.]

1856(30thof Shevat, 5616): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1856(30thof Shevat, 5616): Sixty-four-year-old Elias Levy, the son of Lyon Levy and husband of Rachel Moise passed away today in Charleston, SC.

1857: Two days after he had passed away, 29-year-old Israel Bennett, the son of Solomon Bennett and Angel Elizabeth was buried today in the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”

1859: In Osyka Pike, MS, Mina and Louis Hart gave birth to Lena Catosk Hart who became Lena Catosk Pearlstone when she married Barney Pearlstone with whom she had six children.

1868: In Philadelphia, “Joseph S. Berg and Louisa M. Berg” gave birth William Joseph Berg the stockbroker who married Rita Berg in 1893 and was the half-brother of weapons manufacture Hart O. Berg.

1869: La Périchole, “an opéra bouffe in three acts by Jacques Offenbach” was performed in Stockholm for the first time today

1870: Three days after she had passed away, 77-year-old Miriam “Polly” Isaacs nee Solomons the wife of Isaac Isaacs was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”

1870: In Mir, “in the Minsk Governate,” “Rabbi Baruch Peretz and Miriam Reisel Meltzer gave birth to Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer, “known as the Even HaEzel” which is “the title of his commentary on the Rambam’s Mishne Torah.”

1870: In Brixton, a suburb of London, James Yalden and his wife gave birth to James Ernest Grant Yalden who became head “of a special new school to prepare Jewish immigrants for jobs” in American which was the brainchild, and supported by, the trustee of the Baron de Hirsch fund in America.”

1871(15thof Shevat, 5631): Tu B’Shevat

1871: Birthdate of Yonah ben Amitai the native of Minsk who came to the United States in 1888 where he gained fame as John Paley, the author and editor of a Yiddish daily paper.

1872:Benjamin Franklin Peixotto, the U.S. Counsel at Bucharest wrote to the Secretary of State that reports describing the attacks the Jews had suffered in several towns in Bessarabia and Romania as a result of which hundreds of Jews had fled across the Danube to seek refuge in Turkey.

1872: In New York, Morris and Rachel Victorius gave birth to Abraham Victor Victorious, the husband of Rose Victorius and the father of Jeannette and Paul Victorious.

1872: Birthdate of German-born author Theodor Lessing.  After the Nazis came to power, Lessing fled to Czechoslovakia where he was murdered in broad day light by Nazi supporters.

1873: The Hebrew Charity Ball took place this evening at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, PA.

1874: In Paris, Henry Bachrach who worked in Washington, D.C., Wheeling, W.Va. and Chicago before opening Kaufman and Bachrach, a highly successful clothing store in Decatur, Illinois where he and his wife, the former Matilda Hamburger gave birth to Albert Bachrach

1874(19thof Shevat, 5634): Fifty-five-year-old Mayer Amschel de Rothschild the fourth and youngest son of Nathan Mayer Rothschild who was named for his grandfather, the patriarch of the Rothschild family and whose only daughter Hannah became the Countess of Rosebery, the wife of the Earl of Rosebery, the Prime Minister in the 1890’s and one of the wealthiest women in Europe, passed away today.

1875(1stof Adar I, 5635): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1876: It was reported today that Rabbi Brown addressed the Indianapolis (Indiana) Young Men’s Christian Association on the subject of the “Harmony of all creeds on the Principle of Love.”

1876: It was reported today that the Purim Association will host a ball at Delmonico’s on March 7.  The association expects a larger crowd than in the past due to its recent decision to increase its membership.

1876: According to reports published today, the Jews of New York are planning on issuing a call for a national meeting to discuss plans for creating a college designed to teach the Hebrew language and literature and to establish a system of Jewish education.

1876: In New York City, Michael and Amelia (Franklin) Spellman gave birth to NY Law School graduate Benjamin Franklin Spellman, the husband of Rae Grace Freedman and member of Temple Emanu El who was a member of the Democratic Party who was part of the opposition to the “Food and Fuel Contract Act” also known as the Lever Act because it was sponsored by Congressman Asbury Lever.

1877: In Baltimore, MD, Henrietta and Kaufman Katz gave birth to A. Ray Katz, the husband of Ethel Epstein with whom he had three children who was a member of Oheb Shalom Congregation, vice president of the American General Corporation “and the first president of the Associated Jewish Charities.”

1879: It was reported on Zebulon Baird Vance’s last day as Governor of North Carolina that he has pardoned the only Jewish person imprisoned in the state’s penitentiary.  This unnamed Jew had been sentenced to serve 10 years for manslaughter.  Of the pardon, Vance wrote that he took pleasure in issuing the pardon as recognitions of the good and law-abiding character of the state’s Jewish citizens.  According to Vance, this episode was “the first serious case ever brought to my notice on the part of any of that people.”

1880: It was reported today that Isaac Adolphe Cremieux, the Jewish-French, political leader is seriously ill.  He currently is serving as a “life Senator.”

1881: In Edinburg, Scotland, Professor Robertson Smith delivered a lecture on the “Spirit of Hebrew Poetry.”  He believes that the “Canticles’ (another name for the Song of Songs” is simply a love poem and that the Book of Job was written after the Exile and should not be viewed as historical literature.

1882(17thof Shevat, 5642): Dorothy “Dora” Brobeck Kahn, the wife of Adam Kahn with whom she had had nine children passed away today.

1883(29thof Shevat, 5643): Seventy-four-year-old Raphael Jonathan Bischoffsheim passed away. Born at Mayence in 1808, he gained fame as a Belgian financier and philanthropist (As reported by Singer, Bloch and Weill)

1883: In Cape Town, Isaac and Esther Abrahams gave birth to Sir Adolphe Abrahams, the British doctor who “was the medical officer in charge of the British Olympic teams from 1912 until 1948.”

1886: Birthdate of Buffalo, NY native Michael Martin Cohn, the Columbia undergraduate and University of Buffalo trained attorney,

1887: Birthdate of Ernest Henry Gruening, the Senator from Alaska who joined in Wayne Morse in being the only two to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

1888 (24th of Shevat, 5648):Rebbetzin Menuchah Rachel Slonim, daughter of Rabbi DovBer of Lubavitch and granddaughter of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, passed away. She was born on Kislev 19, 5559 (1798 on the secular calendar) -- the very day on which her illustrious grandfather was freed from his imprisonment in the Peter-Paul Fortress in Petersburg; she was thus named "Menuchah", meaning "tranquility" (Rachel was the name of a daughter of Rabbi Schneur Zalman who died in her youth). The Rebbetzin's lifelong desire to live in the Holy Land was realized in 1845, when she and her husband, Rabbi Yaakov Culi Slonim, who passed away in 1857, led a contingent of Chassidim who settled in Hebron. Famed for her wisdom, piety and erudition, she served as the matriarch of the Chassidic community in Hebron until her passing in her 90th year in 1888.

1889: In Prudnik, Poland Max and Hedwig Pinkus gave birth to Alice Babette Cäcilie Herzfeld

1890: The Hofburgtheater produces Herzl's comedy "Die Dame in Schwarz" - "The Lady in Black". The play is condemned as hokum by the critics.

1890: In Chemulpo, Korea, Sarah Herzberg gave birth to Amalie Herzberg who passed away eight months and twenty-two days later.

1890: Twenty-four-year-old Rebecca Rosenberg, the daughter of “Abraham and Sara van Weenen” and wife of Charles Rosenberg was buried today at the West Ham Jewish Cemetery.

1891: In Vienna, Johanna and Herman Joseph Popper gave birth to William Popper, the husband of Annie Popper

1891: Herzl's best friend, Heinrich Kana, commits suicide in Berlin. After Herzl receives the message, he sets out for a three-week journey to Italy and South France.

1893: Following today’s scheduled performance of “Lady Windermere’s Fan” produced by Charles Frohman at Palmer’s Theatre, the cast of the production will sent on the road “under Frohman’s personal management.

1893: It was reported today that of 1,100 inmates at the workhouse on Blackwell’s Island, 5 of them are Jews.  Of the 800 prisoners in the Kings County Penitentiary, 7 are Jews. In the whole state of New York, which has the largest Jewish population of any state in the United States, fewer than 350 of those in prison are Jews.

1893: It was reported today that “with a view to promoting the organization of a society to be called the Jewish Aid Association for the Relief of the Unfortunate, the Jewish Ministers’ Association has published a sketch of the work of its prison chaplain Rabbi Adolph M. Radin.”

1893: Samuel J. Cohn, who had been a successful lace merchant, was still being held today on charges that he had collected over $500 by posing as an agent of the United Hebrew Charities.

1893: It was reported today that the Central Labor Federation has “received a letter from the International Typographical Union asking why the Federation had protested against the issuance of a charter to the Hebrew Typographical Union.”

1893: “Central Labor Union” published today described allegations by that body that the United Hebrew Charities has used money from the Baron Hirsch Fund “to import thousands of poor and persecuted Hebrews, who in turn underbid American workmen in the labor.”  (For those not acquainted with the immigration and labor battles of the 19th and 20th centuries, this is the double whammy – “The Jews” are using their money to take jobs from American workers and give them to foreigners.)

1894: Among those charities that benefited from today’s distribution of the theatrical and concert license moneys were: Montefiore Home, $500; Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews, $350; Beth Israel Hospital.

1894: Sixty-four-year-old Prussian born Austrian surgeon Theodor Billroth who in 1876 triggered a “storm at Austrian universities with his “criticism of what he considered the disproportionately large share of Jewish medical students from Hungary and Galicia” and his strongly stated belief that Jews could never be real Germans passed away today.

1897(4thof Adar, 5657): Fifty-eight-year-old Morris Goodhart, a prominent New York lawyer, passed away today.  Born in Amsterdam in 1838, he came to the United States in 1846 and graduated from Yale Law School in 1867.  In 1869, he married the daughter of Philip J. Joachimsen, a prominent jurists and leader of the New York Jewish community.

 

1897: Birthdate of Berlin native and Berlin Technical Institute graduate Willi Menachem Cohn who in 1931 came to the U.S. where he served on the faculty of University of California, Berkley,

1897: A significant number of Jewish men and women attended a meeting at the New York Presbyterian-Hebrew Church Mission on Forsyth Street where they expected to proposals about how to deal with the poor living on the East Side.  Many of the Jewish attendees were unemployed tailors who were suffering due to the economic downturn.

1898: Two days after she had passed away, 37-year-old Rachel Levy and husband of Solomon Levy was buried today at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.

1898: Birthdate of Russian native Beryl David Cohon who in 1906 came to the United States where he was ordained as a Rabbi at Hebrew Union College and wrote several books on Judaism including Come Let Us Reason Together and Judaism In Theory and Practice.

https://www.amazon.com/Beryl-David-Cohon/e/B001KHWK2S%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

 

1899: The Hebrew Fair, which will feature a speech by author Israel Zangwill, is scheduled tonight at the Tuxedo in New York City.

1899: The U.S. Senate ratified the peace treaty ending the Spanish-American War.  There were fifteen Jewish crewmen aboard the battleship Maine when she blew up in 1898 in Havana harbor.  This was the “cause” of the war.   Approximately 5,000 Jews served in the war.  In 1898 there were reportedly four thousand requests for furloughs at the time of the High Holidays.  The first trooper in the famed Rough Riders was Jewish.

1900(7thof Adar I, 5660): Elijah Benamozegh, who “served for half a century as rabbi of the important Jewish community of Livorno, where the Piazza Benamozegh now commemorates his name and distinction and whose major work is Israel and Humanity passed away today.

http://www.jcrelations.net/Benamozegh%2C+Elijah.+Israel+and+Humanity.2552.0.html?L=3

1901: Herzl travels to London and tries to win Rothschild for his plan. Despite the efforts of British Zionists, Rothschild refuses to receive him.

1902:  In London, Bella Nizer and Joseph Nizer, who would start a dry-cleaning business in Brooklyn gave birth Columbia Law School graduate Louis Nizer one of the leading trial lawyers of the 20th century.

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/387079/LOUIS-NIZER-ATTORNEY-DIES-AT-92.html

1902 Le Roy Eltinge, the author of Psychology of War which contained such anti-Semitic passages as “He doesn’t know what patriotism means”, “the soldiers lot is hard physical work” which “the Jew despises and “he does not have any of the qualities of a good soldier” – remarks which forced the War Department to order him to go over the book and remove all such objectionable portions – was promoted to the rank of Captain in the 15th United States Cavalry.

1902: Young Women's Hebrew Association was organized in New York City. According to the Jewish Women’s Archive, “Bella Epstein Unterberg held a meeting in her New York City home to discuss the founding of the first Young Women's Hebrew Association. At the meeting, at which she was unanimously elected president of the new association, a decision was made to establish a sister organization to the YMHA, a community center dedicated to the uplift—both social and spiritual—of young Jewish women.”

1903: “The first Semitic Museum to be established in America and indeed in the whole world” which was “the gift of the Jacob H. Schiff…who for ten years has served as a member of the Semitic Committee at Harvard” was dedicated this afternoon at Harvard.

1904(20thof Shevat, 5664): Parshat Yitro

1904: Members of Congregation Adath Israel mourned the death of philanthropist Adolph Erlebach the Bavarian born Boston businessman whose “name was on the roles of all the Jewish charities of Boston.”

1905: It was reported today that Morris Loeb is the President of the Hebrew Technical Institute one third of whose “older graduated are positions of independent reasonability and one-half follow the professions for which” the “school has fitted them” which may account for why the school has more applicants than it “can receive.”

1906: It was reported today from Kiev that following the receipt of death threats in the mail from the Pan Russian League in Defense of the Holy Cross, “a great panic prevails among the Jewish population who are expecting a renewal of the anti-Jewish excesses.”

1906: “The restrictions on the residence of Jews in Moscow are again being applied with the greatest severity” and “many of them have been expelled.”

1906: Cyrus L. Sulzberger who had overseen “collection of the American fund for the relief of the victims of the massacres in Russia” said tonight that did not give any credence to the report from St. Petersburg that the Russian police “have obtained the lion’s share “of the money sent to the country to aid the victims of the recent uprisings.

1907: It was reported today, that “Wolf Margolies, the chief rabbi of Grodno” “was met at the pier by a delegation of Jews from the Orthodox Synagogues and take to the Montgomery Street home of his brother Hirsch Margolies.

1908: It was reported today that William Jennings Bryan who is running against William Howard Taft for President of the United States, told “a gathering of Jewish men and women” meeting at the Y.M.H.A. Building in Manhattan that “Yours is the greatest of al races in its influence on history and the thought of the ages.”

1909: Birthdate of Russian-born American composer Israel Citkowitz.  Citkowitz had an impact on the careers of Aaron Copeland and Elmer Bernstein.

1910: It was reported today that “a cottage community will be established by the Hebrew, Sheltering Guardian Society on its new home site at Pleasantville, Westchester County” thanks in part to the generosity of the “the Lewisohn family and other friends of the society” who have raised over $650,000 for the building fund.

1911: Three days after he had passed away, 65 year old Kaskil Casper, the husband of Sophie Newman Casper, the Nevada City “clothing merchant” who “was granted a franchise by the City Council in December, 1891 to light the city with a Heisler incandescent system” was buried today the Hills of Eternty Memorial Park.

1912: Twenty-two-year-old St. Louis University trained attorney Maximilian George Baron, the Ukraine born son of Julius and Rose (Shucart) Baron who would become a member of the faculty at his alma mater serve as the Vice President of Board of Education of Associated Hebrew Schools of St. Louis married Dorothy Catlin in Vandalia, Illinois today.

1913(29thof Shevat, 5673): Seventy-seven-year-old David Fuld, a manufacturer from Albany, NY, passed away today.

1913: James Weber Linn of the University of Chicago is scheduled to speak today at the 5thregular meeting of the Isaiah Women’s Club on the subject of Literature and Daily Wife while Mrs. Oscar Lessing is scheduled to provide the music for the attendees.

1914: Birthdate of Baron Bernd Freytag von Lorinhoven, the native of the island of Saaremaa who was one of the last to escape Hitler’s Berlin bunker in 1945.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/world/europe/01loringhoven.html

 

1914 (10th of Shevat, 5674):Rebbetzin Rivkah Schneerson passed away. She was born in Lubavitch in 1833; her maternal grandfather was Rabbi DovBer, the 2nd Rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch. In 1849 she married her first cousin, Rabbi Shmuel, who later became the fourth Lubavitcher Rebbe. For many years Rebbetzin Rivkah, who survived her husband by 33 years, was the esteemed matriarch of Lubavitch, and Chassidim frequented her home to listen to her accounts of the early years of Lubavitch. She is the source of many of the stories recorded in the talks, letters and memoirs of her grandson, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak (the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe). The Beth Rivkah network of girls' schools, founded by Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak in the 1940's, is named after her.

1915(22ndof Shevat, 5675): Parashat Yitro

1915: The American Jewish Relief Committee of which Felix M. Warburg is Treasurer issued a statement today saying “that it would not sanction any for raising money through chain letters.”

1916: “More than $125,000 was subscribed for the Jewish war sufferers in an hour following the appeal of Rabbis J.L. Magnes and Nathan Krass to an audience of Jews and Gentiles in the Academy of Music in Brooklyn tonight.

1916: “Many letters reaching the American Jewish Relief Committee show how wide-spread among Jews and Gentiles alike is the desire to assist Jewish relief work” including the one from Plymouth, MA, that read:

“Dear Mr. Warburg, Please find enclosed $2 for the Jewish relief.  The Jesus of the Christian was a Jews. I wish I could give more but, will send the little I can spare.” Signed “A Christian Woman.”

1917: The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) was founded today “by Jacob Landau as the Jewish Correspondence Bureau with the mandate of collecting and disseminating news among and affecting the Jewish communities of the Diaspora.”

1917(14thof Shevat, 5677): Seventy-seven-year-old German physiologist Julius Bernstein, the son of Aron Bernstein, a founder of the Reform Congregation in Berlin and the father of mathematician Felix Bernstein.

http://www.nncn.de/en/the-network/bernsteina

1917: Edouard A. Drumont, French anti-Semitic journalist, dies at 72.  His book La France Juive (Jewish France) attacked the role of Jews in France and argued for their exclusion from society. His newspaper “La Libre Parole,” played a leading role in whipping up anti-Semitic passions during the Dreyfus Affair.

1918: Austrian painter Gustav Klimt passed away. Klimt was not Jewish but many of his patrons were. Born in 1862, by 1898, Klimt had “managed to become the portraitist of the Jewish haute bourgeoisie in Vienna who, since the Jews had reached legal equality in 1867, had become a thriving force in commerce, finance, industry and art. Klimt's patrons were financiers, industrials and other members of the liberal (in the European sense) haute bourgeoisie. Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer (see Klimt's portrait of his wife below) was dominating the Austrian-Czech sugar industry. Karl Wittgenstein, another of his patrons, was often referred to as the "Austrian Krupp" and the creator of the steel cartel. August Lederer was the leading figure in the alcohol business in Central Europe. In the 1920s, he was considered ‘the richest man in Austria after Rothschild’".  Several of the works Klimt painted for his Jewish patrons were seized by the Nazis.  The recovery of these art works became a part of lengthy, difficult litigation in the post-War years.

1919: Rabbi Hyman Gerson Enelow who served “as a member of the Overseas Commission of the Jewish Welfare Board, which went to France in July, 1918” wrote today that “I am feeling fine. I feel that Providence is taking care of me as I have come out all right of every experience I have had.  At the different camps I have met many friends who have done so much to help the work while the commanding officers have been very obliging.”

1919: It was reported today that Julius Kahn, a Jewish Congressman from California, has expressed his “regret that President Wilson has seen fit to come out openly in favor of the Jewish State proposed by some of the English statesmen” and his belief “that if President Wilson had consulted the views of those members of the Jewish faith who have lived in the United States for many years he would have found that an overwhelming majority of them is opposed to Zionism.”

 1920:  Birthdate of Congressman James Scheuer who represented New York in the House of Representatives from 1965 to 1993.

1920: In Neutitschein, North Moravia, Margarethe (Markéta), née Gelb, Mannheimer and Jakob Leib Mannheimer gave birth to author, painter and survivor of the Holocaust Max Mannheimer.

https://www.kz-gedenkstaette-dachau.de/current-news-136/articles/mourning-for-max-mannheimer-1920-2016-3188.html

1920: Birthdate of Tidor Rudas, the native of Budapest who survived Bergen-Belsen and who “was the impresario who brought Luciano Pavarotti out of the opera house and into the arena.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/17/arts/music/tibor-rudas-classical-music-impresario-dies-at-94.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHedThumbWell&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=1

1921: "The Kid", starring Charlie Chaplin and Jackie Coogan was released. (Coogan was not Jewish.)

1921: In Washington Heights, Josephine (née Condon) and Bernard Gorcey, a Russian Jewish immigrant gave birth to David Gorcey, who appeared in the East Side Kids series and was one of the Bowery Boys.

1921: Temple B’nai Israel of Borough Park is scheduled to host a concert that will raise funds for Israel-Zion Hospital which is led by its new President, Newman Dube and Executive Director Boris Fingerhood.

1921: At the New Rochelle Hospital, Rabbi and Mrs. Richard M. Stern gave birth to  a daughter this morning.

1921: In Brooklyn Harry and Ida Katz gave birth to Sidney (Sid) Lewis Katz, the WW II USAAF mechanic and husband of Harriet Foreman who would eventually become a pillar of the Temple Beth El Congregation in Augusta, Maine

https://obituaries.pressherald.com/obituaries/mainetoday-pressherald/obituary.aspx?n=sidney-lewis-katz-sid&pid=183167565&fhid=25473

1922: In Worcester, MA, “Louis Chase and Bessie (Lubin) Chase gave birth to Princeton educated Marine Corps Major General and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense  Harold William “Hal” Chase

http://seymourbrody.com/generals/gen-adm70.htm

1922: In Muscatine, IA, Orrie and Anne Beck gave birth to Northwestern University graduate and U.S. Navy WW II veteran Harold M. Backer, the Cedar Rapids banker and pillar of the Jewish community who married Dianne Becker after his first wife Arlene had passed away.

https://www.cedarmemorial.com/Obituary/2016/May/Harold-Becker/

1922: In Chicago, Lottie and Simon Wexler, “the found founder of Allie Radio, a mail-order and retail electronic firm” gave birth to Haskell Wexler, one of the ten most influential cinematographers of the 20th century.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/28/movies/haskell-wexler-oscar-winning-cinematographer-dies-at-93.html?_r=1

1922: Birthdate of Denis Norden, the London native who gained fame as writer and a “television presenter” and who “accidentally” found himself at Bergen-Belsen at the end of World War II.

http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/435134/Denis-Norden-A-cruel-disease-robbed-me-of-my-sight

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33230122

1923: Birthdate Frankfurt, Germany native Heinz Grunhaus who gained fame as Harold H. Greene, the WW II U.S. Army Veteran and George Washington University Law School graduate whose distinguished career on the federal bench included presiding United States versus AT&T, the case that broke up AT&T and helped pave the way for the modern communications industry.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/2000-01/30/102r-013000-idx.html

1923: Birthdate of NYC native and Brooklyn Polytechnic alum Boris Sherbak who worked as economic advisor.

1925: Sid Terris lost an elimination bout for the World Lightweight Championship.

1926: In Manhattan, Harold Stone, “the heir to a fortune built from a five-and-dime store chain, and the former Elza Heifetz, the sister of violinist Jascha Heifetz gave birth to Barbara Stone who gained fame as “author and journalist” Barbara Gelb.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/09/books/barbara-gelb-dead-biographer-of-eugene-oneill.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

1926: In the Bronx, Isaac Fein, a history professor and the former Chaya Wertheim, a schoolteacher gave birth to Rashi Fein, the health economist referred to as “a father of Medicare” who was the brother of Leonard J. Fein, the editor of Moment magazine.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/us/rashi-fein-economist-who-urged-medicare-dies-at-88.html

1927: Birthdate of Bukovinian native and survivor Transnistira Zvi Laron who came to Israel for the first time in 1948 where he eventually became world famous endocrinologist best known for his work with a form of dwarfism known as the Laron syndrome.

https://www.healio.com/endocrinology/news/print/endocrine-today/%7B3d0e1ceb-3309-4899-84f7-c12033b7c82e%7D/zvi-laron-md-the-man-behind-laron-syndrome

1927: The Atlanta Journal reproduced the receipt of Major Rafael Jacob Moses (CSA) from 1865 for $40,000 of bullion which he was supposed to get to the remnants of the Confederate Army to pay for food and munitions.

1928: Today “King Victor Immanuel granted an audience” that lasted for an hour “to prominent leaders of the Italian Jewish community” during which he “expressed sympathy with the Zionist movement and asked for details about the colonization work in Palestine.”

1928: In Hungary, “the Jewish cemetery…near Husi was desecrated” tonight by unknown vandals” who “completely destroyed” the cemetery.

1929: It was made known to the United Jewish Campaign today, that “David A. Brown, the national chairman of the United Jewish Campaign has sent letters to 100,000 persons in the United States and Canada asking them if the relief work on behalf of Jews in Europe and Palestine” which has raised eighty million dollars in the past fifteen years “shall be continued or come to an end on December 31, 1929.

1930(8thof Shevat, 5690): Basheva “Sheva” Pearlman Lazarus, “the widow of Jacob Lazarus” passed away today In Valdosta, GA after which she was buried at the B’nai Israel Hebrew Cemetery in Thomasville, GA.

1931: “It was said” today that “the condition of actor Louis Mann has shown considerable improvement since his admission to Mt. Sinai Hospital some weeks ago” when he was “suffering an intestinal complaint.”

1932(29thof Shevat, 5692): Parashat Mishpatim

1932: In Berlin, the “leaders of the Jewish community visited the Minister of the Interior today to protest against the National Socialist or Nazi agitation against Jews, which they said was causing considerable uneasiness.”

1933: The NBC Blue Network broadcast an episode of “Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel,” “a situation comedy radio show starring two of the Marx Brothers, Groucho and Chico, and written primarily by Nat Perrin and Arthur Sheekman.”

1933: Timemagazine published “Hitler Into Chancellor” an article that provides a contemporaneous account of the German leaders rise to power and plans for the immediate future.

http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/printout/0,8816,745087,00.html

1934: In France, Jewish political leader Leon Blum, chairman of the Socialist Party, promised to stand with Premier-designate Daladier as right wing paramilitary gangs battered at the doors of the Chamber of Deputies. This attempt to impose a fascist regime on France came before Vichy but explains why so many Jews were so quickly shipped to Drancy, the doorway to Auschwitz. 

1934: Following tonight’s right-wing anti-government riots historian Daniel Halévy “publicly declared that he “was now ‘a man of the extreme right’” which despite his Jewish origins would lead him to support the Vichy anti-Semitic pro-Nazi Vichy regime.

1935: Birthdate of New Jersey political leaders Loretta Weinberg has served as a member of the New Jersey Senate from the 37th Legislative District and was an unsuccessful candidate for Lt. Governor in 2009.

1935(3rdof Adar I, 5695): Seventy-six-year-old Santo Domingo native Francisco Hilario Henriquez y Carvajal, the descendant of “Sephardic Jews who had immigrated in the 19th century from Curaco,” and  the husband of Salome Urena with whom he had four children – Pedro, Francisco, Max and Camila – “who served as president just prior to the US occupation of his country passed away today.

1935: As reported in today’s edition of Sydney Commercial News, Sefton Louis Cullen (born Louis Sefton Cohen) “became a shareholder of David Cohen and Co., Ltd.

1936: “The Woman Doctor” directed by Sidney Salkow and produced by Sol C. Siegel.

1936:  In Washington, DC, Nehemiah Cohen and Samuel Lehrman opened the first Giant supermarket on Georgia Avenue and Park Road, NW.  Giant would grow to become a major supermarket chain in the Washington metropolitan area. In the 1950’s, Giant would be the first grocery chain in Washington sell challah in its in-store bakery.

1936(21stof Shevat, 5694): Hyman Gerson Enelow, who had become Rabbi Emeritus Temple Emanu-El on February 1 had a fatal heart attack while sailing for the Mediterranean Sea.

https://snaccooperative.org/view/3810042

1936: An editorial on the front page of the Voelkischer Beobachter, “Chancellor Adolf Hitler’s own newspaper” demanded “the death penalty for David Frankfurter, the Jewish student who killed Wilhelm Gustloff, the German leader of the Nazis in Switzerland.

1936: While addressing a meeting of Jews in London, the Bishop of Durham asserted that the present rulers of Germany are those who are “ultimately responsible for the assassination of Wilhelm Gustloff.”

1937(25thof Shevat, 5697): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

1937: Rabbi Hyman Schachtel is scheduled to deliver a sermon “The Strength Judaism Gives” at the West End Synagogue.

1937: Rabbi Louis I. Newman is scheduled to deliver a sermon “Will Democracy and Liberalism Destroy the Jew?” at Temple Rodeph Sholom.

1937: The National Conference for Palestine, whose attendees had had a chance to read “How Many Jews Can Palestine Hold?” by Joseph L. Cohen, opened today in Washington, D.C.

 1938: The Palestine Post reported that Ezekiel Altman, 22, a Jewish supernumerary constable, was found guilty of firing at an Arab truck on December 27, 1937 and was sentenced to death by the Military Court in Jerusalem. The prisoner heard the sentence with equanimity.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that in Tel Aviv, High Commissioner Sir Arthur Wauchope inaugurated the first automatic telephone exchange. Romania started the expropriation of Jewish private land properties in Bukovina.

1938: Edward M.M. Warburg and Dr. Milton Steinberg are among the speakers at the second Annual Conference on Jewish Affairs being held this afternoon at the Jewish Theological Seminary where the attendees will discuss “The Future of Judaism in America.”

1938: “A Jewish Who’s Who” published today provided a brief review of Who’s Who In American Jewry: Volume III 1938-1939 edited by John Simon a reference containing “8,477 full biographies” and additional 1,900 names “for which further information was not available.”

1938: In “Terror Grips Jews In Rumanian Cities” published today G.E.R. Gedye continues his series on the frightening conditions facing the Jews that includes a description of Jassy as “the headquarters of the Anti-Semitic Cuzist terrorists.”

1938: Don Isaac Abravenel by Joseph Saracheck, “a biography of the 15thcentury Jewish scholar and statesman” was included on today’s list of “Latest Books Received.”

1938: Rabbi Louis I. Newman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Assignments in Utopia by Eugene Lyons: Russia, the Riddle; What Can Americans Believe About Communism” at Temple Rodoph Sholom.

1938: Rabbi Morris Lichtenstein is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Conflicts Within” at the Jewish Science Society.

1938: Rabbi Clifton Harby Levy is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “What Jewish Science Does” at the Centre of Jewish Science.

1938: Rabbi Samuel H. Goldenson is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “What Are the Perquisites of Cooperation?” at Temple Emanu-El.

1938: Rabbi Stephen S. Wise is scheduled to deliver a sermon “Prodigal Parents’ – Are Parents Always Wrong? Sinclair Lewis Answers” at the Free Synagogue in Carnegie Hall.

1939: While speaking “the school of politics in the Women’s National Republican Club” in Manhattan, “Brackett Lewis, the secretary of the American Committee for Relief in Czechoslovakia demonstrated a burst of unwarranted optimism about the future of the country when he “pointed out that the nation’s new president was not the candidate suggested by Berlin and that Jews had not been persecuted as Berlin had suggested to Prague’s ‘sincerity.’”

1939: On the eve of the start of talks in London about the future of Palestine, Arabs, under the leadership of the followers of Mufti of Jerusalem went on strike today which forced the British to impose a twenty-four-hour curfew.

1940: In Berlin, “the Reich Association of Jews announced today that the Jews would be allowed to have a ration of twenty pfeddings worth of sewing materials each three months to repair clothes” but “as before, Jews will receive no rations cards for clothes, textile goods, shoes or shoe soles.”

1940: Word reached to New York today that German author Dr. Eduard Fuchs who had been “violently attacked by the Nazi regime” because among other things “his second wife, the former Grete Alsberg was Jewish.”

1940: This evening. Dr. George N. Shuster, acting president and academic dean of Hunter College is scheduled to speak at a public meeting of the North Hempstead Round Table of Christians and Jews where the topic is “The Meaning of Democracy.

1941: Birthdate of Richard Cohen, the New York native who became a leading columnist with the Washington Post.

1942: Birthdate of Dr. James W. Lowen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong in which he wrote that the prosecution of Robert Goldstein a Jewish German-American who produced “The Spirit of ‘76” “was consistent with Woodrow Wilson's targeting anyone suspecting of holding anti-British views, which the president claimed gave aid to Germany” which the movie did not.

1943: Upon arriving in “liberated” Algiers, Churchill discovered that the Vichy laws restricting the rights of the Jews of Algeria were still in force and insisted that they be repealed at once.

1943: Himmler received a report on the quantity of garments collected from Birkenau. The list included: 97,000 sets of men's clothing, 76,000 sets of women's clothing, 132,000 men's shirts, 155,000 women's coats and 3,000 kilograms of women's hair. The hair filled an entire railroad car. Children's items included 15,000 overcoats, 11,000 boys' jackets, 9,000 dresses and 22,000 pairs of shoes. The clothing filled 825 freight cars. Included in this inventory was also close to a half of million in American currency and $116,420 dollars in gold.

1943: Fifteen trains of deportees reached Birkenau from Holland, Drancy (Paris) and from Berlin. Five thousand on board were gassed.

1943: Rutka Laskier, a fourteen-year-old living in Bedzin, Poland writes in her diary: “Something has broken in Me. When I pass by a German, everything shrinks in me. I don't know whether it is out of fear or hatred. I would like to torture them, their women and children, who set their doggies on us, to beat and strangle them vigorously, more and more. When will this day arrive which Nica talked about ... that's one matter. And now another matter. I think my womanhood has awoken in me. That means, yesterday when I was taking a bath and the water stroked my body, I longed for someone's hands to stroke me ... I didn't know what it was, I have never had such sensations until now ...I met Micka today. I don't know with what these "dubious" lovers attract her, to the point that she refuses to get into a quarrel with them. They are so dazzled by her and think that every boy should be in love with her. Of course, I ascribe this to Janek, but Janek finds her disgusting (I don't know why). I think Janek likes me very much. But it doesn't matter to me, either way. Today, I recalled in detail the day of Aug. 12, 1942. I'll try to describe that day so that in a few years, of course if I'm not deported, I'll be able to remember it. We got up at 4 o'clock in the morning. We had a great breakfast (considering it was wartime): eggs, salad, real butter, coffee with milk. When we were ... ready, it was already half past 5, and then we left. There were thousands of people on the road. Every once in a while we had to stop, in order to let the crowd in front of us proceed. At half past 6, we were in place. We managed to get quite good seats on a bench. We were in a pretty good mood until 9 o'clock. Then I looked beyond the fence and I saw soldiers with machine guns aimed at the square in case someone tried to escape (how could you possibly escape from here?). People fainted, children cried. In short--Judgment Day. People were thirsty, and there was not a single drop of water around ... Then ... it started pouring. The rain didn't stop. At 3 o'clock Kuczynsky arrived and the selection started. "1" meant returning home, "1a" meant going to labor, which was even worse than deportation, "2" meant going for further inspection, and "3" meant deportation, in other words, death. Then I saw what disaster meant. We reported for selection at 4 o'clock. Mom, Dad and my little brother were sent to group 1, and I was sent to 1a. I walked as if I were stunned ... The weirdest thing was that we didn't cry at all, AT ALL ... Later on, I saw many more disasters. I can't put it in words. Little children were lying on the wet grass, the storm raging above our heads. The policemen beat them ferociously and also shot them. I sat there until 1 o'clock at night. Then I ran away. My heart pounded. I jumped out of a window from the first floor of a small building, and nothing happened to me. Only my lips were bitten so bad that they bled ... When I was already on the street, I ran into someone "in uniform," and I felt that I couldn't take it anymore. My head was spinning. I was pretty sure he was going to beat me ... but apparently he was drunk and didn't see the "yellow star," and he let me go.

 Around me it was dark like in a closed cabin. From time-to-time flashes of lightning lightened the sky ... and it thundered. The journey that normally takes me half an hour I did in 10 minutes. Everybody was at home except Grandma, whom Dad released and brought home the next day ...

Oh, I forgot the most important thing. I saw how a soldier tore a baby, who was only a few months old, out of its mother's hands and bashed his head against an electric pylon. The baby's brain splashed on the wood. The mother went crazy. I am writing this as if nothing has happened. As if I were in an army experienced in cruelty. But I'm young, I'm 14, and I haven't seen much in my life, and I'm already so indifferent. Now I am terrified when I see "uniforms." I'm turning into an animal waiting to die ...Now to everyday matters: Janek came by this afternoon. We had to sit in the kitchen ... I told him that I had given away all my photographs. He got very upset. We were joking around; we spoke about "Nica and the gang." While we were talking he suddenly blurted out he'd like it very much if he could kiss me. I said "maybe" and continued the conversation. He was a bit confused; he thought I was Tusia or Hala Zelinger. I would have allowed [myself] to be kissed only by the person I loved, and I feel indifferent towards him. Then Dad sent me to deal with something. I had to leave. Janek accompanied me. While going downstairs I asked him, is kissing such a pleasant thing? And then I told him that I had already kissed before, what a taste it has (that's completely true). He burst out laughing. (He has a nice laugh, I must admit.) He said he was curious too. Maybe, but I won't let him kiss me. I'm afraid it would destroy something beautiful, pure ... I'm also afraid that I'll be very disappointed.” For more about a young Jewess who has been compared to Anne Frank, another diary writer see:

 http://judicial-inc.biz/6_5_rutka_laskier.htm

1944: Birthdate of actor Michael Tucker. Born in Baltimore, Maryland he is best known for his role as the nebbish tax attorney, Stuart Markowitz on the television series, “LA Law.”

1944(12thof Shevat 5704): Phillip Max Raskin, editor of The Anthology of Modern Jewish Poetry and author of New Songs of a Jew died

https://archive.org/details/songsofjew00raskiala

https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/the-eternal-riddle-by-p-m-raskin

1945: Today, “Supreme Court Justice Meier Steinbrink, the chairman of the Board of the eastern region of the ADL called upon the NYU, Columbia and the American Dental Association to repudiate a report submitted to them by Dr. Harlen H. Horner, secretary of the council on Dental Education of the A.D.A. which called for the adoption of a quota policy for students based on racial origins which “Justice Steinbrink charged was aimed solely at the exclusion of Jewish students from dental schools.”

1946: Two Jews who were plowing a field near Ramle were wounded by an unknown number of attacking Arabs.

1946: After one of their men had been killed tonight during an attack on the headquarters of an East African soldiers' camp just south of Jaffa-Tel Aviv, British soldiers stormed into the near-by Jewish community of Holon and began firing at “anything that moved.” Apparently the soldiers were not content to fire their weapons since of the fatalities was a 15 year old boy who had been stabbed to death.

1946 (5th of Adar I, 5706): Fifty-year old Ben Zion Shenkar, the director of a knitting mill and the vice chairman of the Community Council in Cholon was murdered by rampaging British troops who shot up the town after an attack on their headquarters. There are no records of anybody being held accountable for his death.

1947: Birthdate of Daniel Yergin, the Los Angeles born author, economist and co-founder of Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

1948: The Arab Higher Committee of Palestine sent a “a formal declaration of war” to Trygve Lie, Secretary General of the United Nations “against any attempt to partition” Palestine. (Editor’s note – seems like a rejection of the two-state solution to me)

1949(7thof Shevat, 5709): Sixty-year-old MGM studio executive and producer of the Academy Award winning best picture Broadway Melody Harry Rapf, New York born son of Maurice and Eliza Brooks Rapf, the husband of Christian Rodin with whom he had two children producer Mathew Rapf and blacklisted screenwriter Maurice Rapf passed away today after suffering his second heart attack.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel told Britain and the US that Jordan was entirely responsible for the current border unrest. The Mixed Israeli-Jordanian Armistice Commission censured Jordan for mining Israeli railway line near Kalkilya.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel had contributed to "Watershood 1953," the Dutch Welfare Fund for the victims of the recent terrifying floods which claimed over 1,300 dead in Holland.

1954(3rdof Adar I, 5714): Parashat Terumah

1954(3rdof Adar I, 5714): Sixty-one year old poet and novelist Maxwell “Bogey” Bodehnheim, the Hermanville, Mississippi born son of Carrie and Solomon Bodenhierm  who was raised in Chicago where he met and joined forces with Ben Hecht and whose life story is told in memoir My Life and Loves in Greenwich Village passed away today.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Maxwell-Bodenheim

https://poets.org/poet/maxwell-bodenheim

1954: Birthdate of “Érik Izraelewicz[, a French journalist and author, specialized in economics and finance.”

1955: On Long Island, NY, “author and financial consultant Stephen Pollan and columnist Corky Pollan” gave birth Harvard and UC Berkley Professor Michael Pollan whose works include The Botany of Desire and The Omnivore’s Dilemma.

1955: Birthdate of Avraham “Avram” Grant the Petah Tikva native who became a successful “football” manager. (In the U.S. this football is called soccer)

1956(24th of Shevat): Composer Joseph Rumshinsky passed away.

1958: In Los Angeles, Sidney Miller, an actor, director, and writer, and Iris Burton, an agent, gave birth to Barry L. Miller who won a Tony Award as Best Actor for his portrayal of “Arnold Epstein” in Neil Simon’s “Biloxi Blues.”

1958: After surviving the McCarthy Era which led to the death of her husband, Gertrude Berg appeared on “The Ford Show.”

1961: “President Izhak Ben-Zvi began today what apparently will be a long drawn-out and difficult process of obtaining a new Prime Minister and Cabinet to replace the Ben-Gurion coalition government which fell last week as a result of the Lavon affair.” (JTA)

1961: “The Quai d’Orsay revealed today” that “Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville has informed the Foreign Affairs and Security Commission of the Senate that the French Government is concerned over the anti-Jewish discriminations practiced by the Moroccan Government.”

1961:Do-Re-Mi” a 1961 jazz album consisting of selections from the Broadway musical Do Re Mi, written by Jule Styne, Betty Comden and Adolf Green was recorded today at the Capitol Tower in Los Angeles.

1965: After seven previews and one actual performance at the Broadhurst Theatre, the curtain came down on the original Broadway performance the Mark Charlap musical “Kelly”

1966: CBS broadcast the final episode “Mister Ed,” a sit com created by Martin Ransohoff’s Filmways production house

1967(26thof Shevat, 5727): Seventy-five year old Henry Morgenthau, Jr. who served as 52ndU.S. Secretary of the Treasury from 1934 to 1945 passed away today.

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007408

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Morgenthau.html

1969: The Jerry Herman musical “Dear World” which featured lighting design by Jean Rosenthal opened on Broadway at the Mark Hellinger Theatre.

1970(30thof Shevat, 5730); Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1970: “Egyptian frogmen sank an Israeli naval auxiliary vessel in Eilat harbor and damaged an Israeli landing craft” which caused Israel to launch aircraft that “sank a 700 ton Russian-built Egyptian mine-layer in the Gulf of Suez…”

1971(11thof Shevat, 5731): Parashat Beshalach

1971(11thof Shevat, 5731): Seventy-two-year-old Philadelphia, PA native and University of Pennsylvania radiologist, Dr, Jacob Gershon-Cohen who served “on the faculties of the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University medical schools” and who “was known as the developer of mammography” passed away today.

1971(11thof Shevat, 5731): Seventy-five-year-old author Marie Trommer, the Ukraine born daughter of Bernard and Betha Trembitsky, a member of the Creative Writers Group, Society of Independent Artists, Salons of America, and Art Alliance of America passed away today in New York City.

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/trommer-marie

1972(21stof Shevat, 5732): Seventy-one-year-old Gavriel Mullokandov regarded by some “as the greatest Bukharin Jewish singer and musician” passed away

1972: A groundbreaking ceremony was held today in Reno for Temple Emanu-El's new building. The dedication ceremony would take place in March of 1973.

1973: King Hussein of Jordan who is scheduled to meet with President Nixon at the White House today has “declined to say whether any ‘new initiatives’ regarding a Middle East settlement will emerge during the discussions.”

1975: U.S. premiere of “The Strongest Man in the World” co-starring Phil Silvers and featuring Harold Gould a “Regent Dietz.”

1978: In Paris, two Sephardic Jewish immigrants from Tunisia gave birth Israeli singer/songwriter Yael Naim

1980: In a letter-to-the editor published today, Zachary Saletan, President of Moriches Duck Farm, takes issue with derogatory comments made by Patricia Wells in an article published on December 19 entitled “So You Want to Buy a Duck” about ducks sold by Empire Poultry.  Saletan contends that it was unfair to compare kosher ducks (Empire) with non-kosher fowl since the kosher birds have to slaughtered and dressed in conformity with the laws of Kashrut.  This requires a process which would account for the different appearance, texture, etc of the final product.  Saletan is doubly upset because Moriches supplies Empire with its ducks.

1983(23rdof Shevat, 5743): Seventy-two-year-old Polish native John “Jack” Grossman, a three sport all-star athlete at Rutgers who played professionally in the NFL for the Brooklyn Dodgers before moving to Chile where he played professional baseball and soccer passed away today in Hollywood, FL today.

1983: The New York Times publishes “Hebrew Poetry In Its Israeli Phase,” Edward Hirsch’s review of The Static Element: Selected Poems of Natan Zach; translated by Peter Everwine and Shulamit Yasny-Starkman

1984(3rdof Adar I, 5744): Seventy-one-year-old Dr. Solomon Schonfeld, the rabbi who saved thousands from death during the Holocaust passed away today.

http://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/british_hero_of_holocaust_government_honours_highgate_rabbi_dr_solomon_schonfeld_for_saving_3_500_lives_in_holocaust_1_2013751

1985(15thof Shevat, 5745): Tu B’Shevat

1985: Four days after closing its premiere run in Los Angeles, Neil Simon’s “Biloxi Blues” opened at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco.

1985(15thof Shevat, 5745): Eighty-four-year-old Shelomo Dov Goitein, Jewish Arabist, historian and author of the 5-volume work A Mediterranean Society, passed away.

http://www.nytimes.com/1985/02/10/nyregion/shelomo-d-goitein-a-hebraic-scholar-dies.html?pagewanted=print

1987: Prisoner of Zion, Roald Zelichenok was released today in Leningrad.

1988(18thof Shevat, 5748): Seventy-two-year-old Marghanita Laski, the author and critic who was part of distinguished family of Anglo-Jewish intellectuals passed away.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2003/feb/24/guardianobituaries.booksobituaries

1989(1st of Adar I, 5749): Seventy-seven-year-old Pulitzer Prize winning historian Barbara Tuchman passed away (As reported by Eric Pace)

1990: The Egyptian authorities said today that the men they suspected of killing nine Israelis in a rifle and grenade attack on a tour bus near here on Sunday were Palestinians. That has come as no comfort to a dwindling minority of 40,000 Palestinians whose roots here, once firm, have weakened with time.

1990(11thof Shevat, 5750): Eighty-one-year-old attorney and Treasury Department Bernard Bernstein official passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/07/obituaries/bernard-bernstein-aide-to-eisenhower-in-40-s-dies-at-81.html

1991: Today an Arab traveling on a bus got up and attacked a soldier with a knife.

1994(25th of Shevat, 5754): Seventy-six-year-old Jacob Kurtzberg, the son of Austrian immigrants who gained famed as Jack Kirby passed away. He was one of the most influential, recognizable, and prolific artists in American comic books, and the co-creator of such enduring characters and popular culture icons as the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Hulk, Captain America, and hundreds of others stretching back to the earliest days of the medium. He was also a comic book writer and editor. His most common nickname is "The King."

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/08/obituaries/jack-kirby-76-created-comic-book-superheroes.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm

1995: In “Can Peace Survive?” published today, Lisa Beyer examined the status of the peace talks in Israel.

http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,982457-2,00.html

1997(29thof Shevat, 5757): Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Ezer Weizman attended funerals and visited grieving families while thousands of Israelis went to pray at the Western Wall and assemblies were held at schools nationwide as Israel observed a national day of mourning for the 73 Israeli soldiers who died on February 4 when two Sikorsky helicopters collided.

1998: U. S. premiere of “Blues Brothers 2000” directed by John Landis with music by Paul Shaffer.

1999: In Manhattan, Rabbi Allan Schranz officiated this evening at the wedding of Robin Holly Lass, D.D.S. and Samuel David Levy, “a founding partner in Marcus and Levy, a Manhattan law firm.”

2000: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Trouble With Principleby Stanley Fish and a newly published paperback edition of Kaddishby Leon Wieseltier

2001: Elections for Prime Minister were held in Israel today following the resignation of the incumbent, Labour's Ehud Barak.

2001: Ariel Sharon was elected Israeli prime minister in a landslide over Ehud Barak.

2001 Richard N. Haass began serving as United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland and Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. State Department.

2002(24th of Shevat, 5762): Max Perutz, the son Viennese Jewish converts to Catholicism, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1962, passed away.

2003(4thof Adar I, 5763): Eighty-seven-year-old journalist Herb Brit passed away today.

http://www.davidbrin.com/herbbrin/obituary.html

2004: “Focus on the Soul: The Photographs of Lotte Jacobi” opened at the Jewish Museum.

http://thejewishmuseum.org/exhibitions/focus-on-the-soul-the-photographs-of-lotte-jacobi

2005: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Unholy Alliance Radical Islam and the American Left” by David Horowitz

2005:  The New York Times reported that two sisters who were separated in Budapest in 1944 were re-united.  Unbeknownst to each other, they had made their separate ways to Israel in 1948 and had been living 45 miles from each other.

2005: Robert Kraft, the Jewish owner of the New England Patriots, received the Vince Lombardi Trophy, as his team won their third super bowl in four years. 

2005 (27th of Shevat, 5765): Russian born pianist Lazar Berman passed away at age 75 in Florence, Italy.

2005 (27th of Shevat, 5765):  Karl Haas, award winning host of the radio show “Adventures in Good Music” passed away.

2006: Ezekiel Isaac Malekar, the head of the Jewish community in New Delhi who “is the Honorary Secretary of the Judah Hyam Synagogue, “was a key participant in the 15th International Conference on Human Integration which took place at Kirpal Bagh.” He was “a recipient of the Mahavir mahatma Award for preserving Jewish heritage and culture in India.”

2006: In one of the largest restitutions ever of art seized by the Nazis, the Dutch government announced that it would return more than 200 old-master paintings to the heir of Jacques Goudstikker, a wealthy Dutch Jewish dealer and collector who fled Amsterdam ahead of advancing German troops in May 1940.

2006: British Jewry was stunned and outraged over a surprise decision by the Anglican Church's General Synod to divest from companies whose products are used by Israel in the territories. The synod backed a call by the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem to divest from "companies profiting from the illegal occupation," such as Caterpillar, which makes bulldozers that Israel is using to build the separation fence. Several Protestant churches in the United States have adopted similar resolutions over the past two

2007: Jeff “Zucker became president and CEO of NBC Universal.

2007: Nine Star Hotel, winner of the 2006 Wologin Award for Israeli Cinema at the Jerusalem Film Festival will begin being screened in movie theatres in several Israeli cities

2007: In Cedar Rapids, Harold Becker, Chairman of Guaranty Bank and Trust Company and pillar of the Jewish Community, was surprised with a reception celebrating his 85th birthday and marking his 35 year tenure as Chairman.  Mr. Becker is driving force behind the Jewish Welfare Board, the community umbrella organization for the Jews of Cedar Rapids and surrounding communities.

2007: A Holocaust denier who gave his name as “Eric Hunt” wrote on an anti-Semitic website explaining why he had attempted to kidnap Eli Wiesel from an elevator in San Francisco on February 1.  Police would later issue an arrest warrant for what is described as a “New Jersey” man for on charges including kidnapping, false imprisonment, elder abuse, stalking, battery and the commission of a hate crime.

2007: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert appointed Daniel Friedmann as the Minister of Justice today.

2008: Rosh Chodesh Adar I 5768

2008: The headsof one of the largest Palestinian clans in Hebron met with the Kiryat Arba local council chief and prominent leaders of the Jewish community in Hebron in what both sides described as a meeting of reconciliation. Sheikh Abu-Hader Ja'abri, the head of a prominent Palestinian clan and a relative of a former mayor of Hebron, and the head of the Abu Sneinah clan, Haj Akram Abu-Sneinah met with the head of the Kiryat Arba settlement council, Zvi K'tzubar, and the heads of Jewish settlers in Hebron.

2009: An exhibition entitled Woman with a Camera: Liselotte Grschebina: Germany, 1908 – Israel, 1994 appearing at the Ticho House Gallery of the Israel Museum comes to an end.

2009: After having premiered at Alp d’Huex, “The Pink Panther2,” the 11th of the films in the Pink Panther series, written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber was released today in the United States.

2009: A day after a Hamas delegation left Egypt without an agreement on a long-term Gaza truce, terrorists in the Strip fired two rockets at southern Israel. One of the rockets landed near a kibbutz in the Sha'ar Hanegev region, while the other hit an open area south of Ashkelon

2009: Eddie Schawartz, “the king of overnight radio in Chicago from the late 1970’s to the mid-1990’s …was laid to rest after graveside services at Waldheim Jewish Cemetery in Forest Park.

2010: Sidney Ferris Rosenberg returned to WFAN to host a special Super Bowl preview show from Miami.

2010: In an article published in today’s LA Times, Megan Strack describes the ordeal of Alexei Vaitsen, one of the few Jews who escaped from Sobibor, and has lived to be able to bear witness against concentration camp guard, John Demjanjuk.

2010: At Temple Judah, in Cedar Rapids, IA, Super Bowl Shabbat combines Tefillah & Tailgating with the Reading of the Ten Commandments.

2010: Cellist Alisa Weilerstein and Israeli pianist Inon Barnatan are scheduled to perform tonight at the Historic Sixth and I Synagogue in Washington, D.C.

2010: “A Matter of Size” is scheduled to shown this evening as part of the 14th New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival.

2010:Tony Copti, a supporting actor in the Oscar-nominated Israeli film Ajami and brother of Ajami co-director Scandar Copti, was arrested this evening along with another brother for allegedly assaulting police officers during a brawl in Jaffa, and released several hours later.

2010:In a rare occurrence, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon shook the hand of Saudi Arabia's Prince Turki al-Faisal during the annual security conference in Munich today.

2011:"Hitler and the Germans — Nation and Crime," an exhibition at the German Historical Museum that juxtaposes the Nazis' propaganda images and artifacts such as 1930s Hitler busts with footage and documentation on the regime's brutality and Germans' involvement in it is scheduled to come a close today.

2011: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to present a program entitled “Tableau Vivant: The Berberisca Ceremony (A Living Picture)” which is part “of the year-long series, "2,000 Years of Jewish Life in Morocco: An Epic Journey", presented Under the High Patronage of His Majesty Mohammed VI, King of Morocco.”

2011: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Ugly Beauty: Helena Rubinstein, L’Oréal, and the Blemished History of Looking Good” by Ruth Brandon and “The Last Brother” by Nathacha Appanah, a novel “inspired by the largely unknown story of 1,500 Jews who fled Europe only to be imprisoned in Mauritius from 1940 to 1945 after their ship was refused entry into Palestine (then under British rule)” that “recounts the heartfelt friendship between two boys: David, a Czech orphan, and Raj, an Indian-Mauritian grieving for the two brothers he lost in a flash flood.”

2011:As the Green Packers were defeating the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLV in Dallas, there was at least one Jew rooting for the Steelers - Randy Grossman the tight end who earned four Super Bowl rings while playing for teams from “the Steel City.” On the other hand, according to Andrew Muchin, the Green Bay Packers might have not existed if it had not been for the unheralded efforts of Nate Abrams, a five-foot, four inch “Jewish cattle dealer” who helped finance the Packers and who played for them in their first season.

2011:A colorful procession of dancers and musicians walked down the aisles and took the stage tonight at Tel Aviv’s Mann Auditorium, the venerable music venue where the sounds of Bach and Mozart are more often heard than the blares of huge Korzai trumpets and bangs of Doyra drums. In the stands some 2,800 Bukharan Jews and dignitaries – a handful of whom were dressed in the colorful traditional garb of the Central Asian community – clapped and cheered on the occasion of the Bukhara Jewish Congress’s 11th annual gathering.

2012: Israeli violinist Shmuel Ashkenasi, pianist Seymour Lipkin and the Jupiter musicians will perform Mozart’s Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-flat Major, K. 493; the Beethoven String Quintet in C minor, Op. 104; and Clarinet Quartet No. 2 inC minor by Bernhard Crusell, Finland’s first great master of chamber music at the Good Shepherd Church in New York City.

2012: Actor Mandy Patinkin who has star of stage, film and television, is scheduled to appear “in conversation with Than Rosenbaum” at the 92nd Street Y.

2012:Histadrut chairman Ofer Eini today announced that the general strike in support of contract workers will begin in two days.

2013(28thof Shevat, 5773): Eighty-two-year-old bridge champion Ira Rubin passed away today. (As reported by Paul Vitello)

2013: Sylvie Simmon and Liel Leibovitz are scheduled to discuss the life of singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen at the Museum of Jewish Heritage at 36 Battery Place.

2013: “The Other Son” is scheduled to be shown at the 13th Annual Broward County Jewish Film Festival.

2013(28thof Shevat, 5773): Eighty-nine-year-old Menachem Elon, the former Supreme Court passed away today and was buried in Jerusalem.

2013:Officials in charge of Bosnia’s national monuments said today they rejected an offer by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art to exhibit one of Bosnia’s most prized relics, a 600-year-old Jewish manuscript that remains locked in a museum which closed because of a lack of money.

2013: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg today spoke up for academic freedom amid controversy over an event at a public college, despite stressing his distaste for the cause at hand.

2013:U.S President Barack Obama wants to host a summit between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during his visit here this spring, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said today.

2014: Anniversary of the birth Isaac Zaretski, “a Yiddish linguist, lexicographer and educator…who was one of the major figures of the movement to reform and standardize the Yiddish language in the Soviet Union.” (As reported by Yiddishkayt)

2014: The San Diego Center for Jewish Culture’s 24th annual Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to begin today.

2014(6thof Adar I, 5774): Eighty-seven CBS newsman Marty Plissner passed away today. (As reported by William Yardley)

2014(6thof Adar 1, 5774): Eighty-eight-year-old Pulitzer Prize winning poet Maxine Kumin passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/08/books/maxine-kumin-pulitzer-winning-poet-dies-at-88.html?hpw&rref=obituaries

2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to a panel discussion “Jews, Cities, Culture: Hamburg, New York, Kiev.’

2014: Amazon Video broadcast the first episode of “Transparent” a comedy-drama created by Jill Soloway and starring Jeffrey Tambor.

2014: Michael Steinlauf of Gratz College is scheduled to deliver a lecture in Yiddish on “Y.L Peretz in a Time of Revolution.

2014: The Third Annual Reelabilities: Greater DC Disabilities Film Festival is scheduled to begin today.

2014: The Haifa Symphony Orchestra of Israel is scheduled to make its first New York appearance at the Lehman Center for the Performing of Arts in Bronx

2014: Thousands of Haredi demonstrators demanded the government to reinstate payments to religious seminaries which were frozen earlier this week by Finance Minister Yair Lapid. (As reported by Adiv Sterman and Stuart Winer)

2015: According to todays “New York Law Journal” fifty-one-year-old Yisroel Schulman “has resigned as president and attorney-in-charge of NYLAG” “has stepped down amid a federal investigation into his alleged accounting irregularities” while serving as “head of a Jewish legal aid charity for low-income New Yorkers.”

2014: For the third time in the past 24 hours terrorists in the Gaza strip fired a rocket into the Ashkelon and Eshkol regions.

2015: The Roni Koresh Dance Company is scheduled to perform at Pace University’s Schimmel Center.

2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to present Singers of the "Meitar" Opera Studio Of The Israel Opera “Bel Canto Gems”

2015: Funeral services were held today at Chabad of the Rivertowns for Ellen Brody.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/07/nyregion/ellen-brody-suv-driver-in-metro-north-crash-is-mourned.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

2015: “Educating Rita” is scheduled to shown at the 92nd St Y as part of the Women on Top series.

2016: As part of its “Power of Pictures” exhibition the Jewish Museum is scheduled to show “The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty” and “Aelita: Queen of Mars.”

2016: In suburban Maryland, Kelly Terranova and Mike Aronin are scheduled to appear at Shaare Tefila’s 5th Annual Night of Sweet Laughter Comedy Night.

2016(27thof Shevat, 5776): Shabbat Mishpatim

2016(27thof Shevat, 5576): Ninety-year-old construction mogul John L. Tishman passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/nyregion/john-l-tishman-builder-who-shaped-american-skylines-dies-at-90.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2016: A terrorist stabbed a 65-year-old grandmother who was shopping with her family at a market in Rahat.

2017(10thof Shevat, 5777): On the Jewish calendar, yahrzeit Shalom Sharabi, the 18thcentury Yemen born rabbi, kabbalist and author Nehar Shalom.

2017: The Streicker Center at Temple Emanu-El is scheduled to host Canadian piano virtuoso-playwright-director-composer-producer-actor-recording artist Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin in a one-man bio-drama.

2017: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today called for new international sanctions against Iran during his first meeting with British counterpart Theresa May in London.” (As reported by Raphael Ahren)

2017: Less than a month after becoming Governor of Missouri, Republic Eric Greitens “signed a bill into las making Missouri the 28th right-to-work state.

2017: Isaac Zolotarevsky’s 1910 melodrama "Gelt, Libe, Un Shande" (Money, Love and Shame) is scheduled to be presented at YIVO in a new English translation by writer/director Allen Lewis Rickman in a ‘rehearsed reading’ format.

2017: The Brookes Pub Meetup where Jews at Oxford Brookes University have a chance to meet and mingle is scheduled to take place The Cowley Retreat.

2017: “Israeli aircraft targeted three Hamas sites in the northern Gaza Strip this afternoon, hours after tanks shelled one of the terrorist group’s positions in the coastal enclave in response to a rocket attack earlier that morning, the army said.” (As reported by Judah Ari Gross)

2018: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to offer the first session of Radical Jewish Politics in Postwar America and Israel focusing on Arthur Waskow, Meir Kahane, Yoel teitelbaum, and Zvi Yehuda Kook.

2018: Prize winning concert pianist Eliyahu Zabaly is scheduled to play “selected pieces” at Harmonia Hall in Jerusalem.

2018: Steve “Wynn stepped down as CEO of Wynn Resorts” today because of allegations by dozens of people that he was guilty of a variety of “sexual misconduct” “ranging from harassment to forcible assault to coercing a female employee into sex” which led to his name being removed from a plaza on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania and having his honorary degree from the school was rescinded.”

2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a Holocaust Memorial Day event featuring Czech native John Fieldsen who came to England with his brother in 1939 on the Kindertransport.

2019(1st of Adar I, 5779): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

2019(1st of Adar I, 5779): Sixty-seven year old Rabbi Yechiel Zvi Eckstein,the  Winthrop, MA son of Rabbi Simon L. and Bell (Hirschman) Eckstein, the founder of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews passed away today.  (As reported by Isabel Kershner)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/obituaries/rabbi-yechiel-eckstein-dead.html

2019(1st of Adar I, 5779) On the Jewish calendar yahrzeits Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra and Rabbi Shabsai HaKohen Ktaz.

http://www.aish.com/dijh/Adar_1.html

2019: “The Guiding Hand,” “an exhibition of Torah Pointers from Past and Present” is scheduled to open today at the Herbert and Eileen Bernard Museum of Judaica.

2019: The Washington Next Generation Board is scheduled to host “Americans and the Holocaust: How Did US Citizens Respond?” a benefit event for “young professionals in the DC area” at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

2019: The Streicker Center is scheduled to “an evening with Danny Meyer, the Culinary Maestro of Manhattan.

2019: The JCC of Metro Detroit is scheduled to host a lecture U. Michigan Professor Ryan Szpiech, author of Conversion and Narrative on “He is Still Israel? Conversion and Jewish Identity in the Middle Ages.”

https://lsa.umich.edu/judaic/news-events/all-events.detail.html/57447-14193519.html

http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15053.html

2019: “Final results came in this evening for the Likud party primary held the day before, with Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein taking the top spot on the list (behind Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was reelected as party leader in a 2016 vote), followed by Transportation Minister Israel Katz, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan and former interior minister Gideon Sa’ar.”

2019: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host “a dinner quiz” prepared by “icon and legend of Entz team fame Chloe Spinks.

2020: At Nocturno, Meni Berger is schooled to celebrate forty years of rock and roll “in a concert with his best all-time hits.’

2020: In Tiburon, CA, Congregation Kol Shofar is scheduled to host a “Lunch and Learn” in which “Rabbi Paul Steinberg leads the Great Modern Jewish Thinkers series starting with a talk on philosopher Martin Buber.”

2020: In Cincinnati, the Jewish and Israeli Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of several “short films.”

2020: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host the final two screenings of “Echo.”

2020: In Mt. Pleasant, NY, Jochabed Isaacks and Michael Marks gave birth to Levy Marks.

2021: Temple Beth Avodah is scheduled to present online a Havdalah program featuring a live concert by Nefesh Mountain.

2021: Temple Emunah is scheduled to present online “Abayudaya: The Music and Culture of the Jews of Uganda.”

2021: The family of Rochelle Jacobson Weiss Z”L, a former member of Temple Judah is scheduled to host a virtual shiva service this week.

2021: Temple Emanuel of the Merrimack Valley is scheduled to present online a “Pajama Havdalah” with Rabbi Sparr and Morah Rosen.

2021(24th of Shevat, 7801): Parashat Yitro; for more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

This Day, February 7, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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February 7

457: Leo I becomes emperor of the Byzantine Empire. As can be seen from this decree, Leo was no friend of the Jewish people. "Therefore We, desiring to accomplish what Our Father failed to effect, do hereby annul all the old laws enacted with reference to the Hebrews, and We order that they shall not dare to live in any other manner than in accordance with the rules established by the pure and salutary Christian Faith. And if anyone of them should be proved to, have neglected to observe the ceremonies of the Christian religion, and to have returned to his former practices, he shall pay the penalty prescribed by the law for apostates." Jews who converted in public but were found practicing “the faith of their fathers” faced a variety of punishments including loss of estates and possession, loss of the right to transfer property to their heirs and/or loss of life.

1413: In Aragon (Spain), Vincente Ferrer returned and assisted by an apostate Joshua Lorki (Geronimo de Santa Fe), known to the Jews as Hamegadef (the blasphemer) convinced Anti-Pope Benedict XIII to stage a disputation at Tortosa. It was presided over by the Pope himself and lasted for a period of twenty-one months in sixty-nine sessions. The Jews, led by Vidal Benvenisti and Joseph Albo, were faced with an opening salvo by Benedict when he made the expected outcome clear. Hamegadef attacked the Talmud as anti-Christian and urged its banning. None of the Jews' counter-arguments were officially recorded.

1497: The bonfire of the vanities occurs in which supporters of Girolamo Savonarola burn thousands of objects like cosmetics, art, and books in Florence, Italy. For once, the books of the Jews may have been spared since Savonarola, had expelled the Jews from Florence earlier in the decade.

1550: Julius III becomes Pope.  Julius had mixed record where it concerned the Jewish people which made better than most of his contemporaries or others who served as Pope. Julius confirmed the rights of the Jews in Ancona.  “He condemned the blood libel and forbade baptism of Jewish children without parental consent.”  At the same time, he was unable to stand up against the power of the Holy Office.  Under pressure from the Inquisitor General he collected copies of the Talmud and other Jewish books and burned them.

1569: The Inquisition is established in South America. About a half a century after the Spanish landed in South America, the Inquisition reared its ugly head.  Unlike the English colonies founded in North America in the next century and half, there was no place for religious toleration in New Spain.  Rather the hunt for all manner of backsliders including Marranos, Conversos or Secret Jews became part of Spanish culture in the New World.  When we study the history of Jews in the New World, hopefully we will have time to take a side trip to the little known secret Jewish communities in what later became Arizona and New Mexico.

1624:  The Jamestown City (Virginia) Census demonstrated that 38-year-old Elias Legardo, a Jew, came to America in 1621 on the ship Abigall. Legardo was one of the earliest Jews in the Colonies.

1685: A document written today, a copy of which found its way into the archives of Breslau, “advised against the establishment of a Hebrew press in Silesia, ‘because there are three very large Jewish printing establishments at Amsterdam in Holland, whence books are sent by sea to Danzig and Memel, thus abundantly providing for the Jews of Poland and Lithuania.’"

1754(15thof Shevat, 5514): Tu B’Shevat

1765: In Arnhem, “three Jews, as wardens of the Jewish congregation, presented a petition stating that the congregation had greatly increased in numbers, and that their meeting-place for prayer in the house of Solomon Cohen, which they had used a number of years, had become too small” which led to them being “requested to prepare a plan and submit a constitution and by-laws for the government of an incorporated congregation.”

1791: Having passed the “De Judaeis law” which regulated the treatment of the Jews of Hungary, the Diet today appointed “a commission to study” ways to ameliorate the conditions under which the Jews of Hungary lived.

1791: In London, Moses Ancona and the former Hannah Montefiore gave birth to Moses Montefiore Ancona who lived in Barbados and Jamaica before settling in Pennsylvania where he used the first name of Moses, married Mary Ann Knapp, and practiced medicine until he passed away after contracting pneumonia.

1808: Henry Hart married Phoebe Myers at the Hambro Synagogue today.

1806: In Charleston, SC, Netherlands native Zachariah Florance whose name at birth was Zachariah Levy and his wife Florance gave birth to Henry Clay Florance, the husband of Mary Levy Florance who was buried in the Dispersed of Judah Cemetery when he passed away in New Orleans.

1812: Birthdate of Charles Dickens.  The author of A Christmas Carol and David Copperfield was not Jewish.  But he did portray Jewish characters in at least two of his works.  The most famous was Fagan in Oliver Twist.  Eliza Davis, a Jewish acquaintance of Dickens, whose husband had purchased Dickens’ London residence, wrote a famous letter complaining about the Jewish characterization of Fagan.  Dickens saw himself as a friend of the Jews.  In his response he wrote, “Fagin is a Jew because it unfortunately was true of the time to which the story refers that that class of criminal invariably was a Jew.  But surely, no sensible man or woman…can fail to observe that all of the rest of the wicked dramatis personae are Christians and the Fagan is called a Jew, not because of his religion, but because of his race.  I have no feeling toward the Jewish people but a friendly one.  I always speak well of them whether in public or private and bear testimony to their perfect good faith in transactions as I have had with them.”  In Our Mutual Friend, Dickens created “Mr. Riah” a “totally sympathetic Jewish character notable for his gentle nature and great dignity.”  In a case of what some might consider role reversal, Mr. Riah falls victim to a gang of Christian moneylenders.  Mrs. Davis recognized Dickens’ sincerity when she gave him a Hebrew-English Bible as sign that he had “exercised the noblest quality men can possess – that of atoning for an injury as soon as conscious of having inflicted it.”

1817: Joel Hart was appointed by President James Madison United States consul at Leith, Scotland, and remained there in that capacity until 1832, when he returned to New York and resumed the practice of medicine. He was well known in Masonic circles in New York City. A native of Philadelphia, Hart received the degree of M.D. from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, London and he was one of the charter members of the Medical Society of the County of New York.

1819: In New York City, Sarah Nathan and Isaac Mendes Seixas Nathan gave birth to Esther Nathan who became Esther Lazarus when she married Moses Lazarus.

1829: One day after he had passed away Raphael Harris, the son of Rabbi Zvi Lissa and his wife “Kitty” was buried today at the “Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.”

1833: Eighty-six-year-old Philip Moses was buried today at the “Plymouth Hoe Burial Ground.”

1833: Birthdate Jefferson Medical College graduate Jacob Mendez DaCosta, a native of St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Island and surgeon in the Union Army responsible for identifying what was known as “DaCosta’s Syndrome,” a form of ptsd who furthered the study of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania and was the husband of Sarah Frederica Brinton DaCosta and the father of John M. DaCosta.

1838: Judah Joseph and Elizabeth Marks were married today at the Great Synagogue.

1838: Moses Levy married Alice Moses at the New Synagogue today.

1840: Isaac Samuel married Fanny Heilbronner in Paris, France today.

1841” Three days after he passed away, Henry Ellis, the son of Zalman Ellis and the borther of Lambert Ellis was buried today in the UK.

1842: In London, Caroline Samuel and Frederick David Goldsmid gave birth to their third daughter, Isabel Goldsmid.

1845: Birthdate of Yaakov Dovid Wilovsky, the native of Kobrin, Russia who served as the Rabbi for several European communities including Vilna before moving to the United States where he was lected “elder rabbi” by the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of America and chief rabbi of a Russian-American synagogue in Chicago Illinois.  He passed away in Safed in 1913.

1848: In West Maitland, Australia Julia and Lewis Wolfe Levy gave birth to Martha May Levy who became Martha May Cohen when she married Louis Samuel Cohen

1849(15thof Shevat, 5609): Tu B’Shevat

1849: Birthdate of Arthur Frankau, “the son of Bavarian-born Joseph Frankau (previously Frankenau), a Jewish merchant who moved to London from Frankfurt in 1837,” the husband of Dublin, Ireland, native Julia Davis, the novelist who wrote under the name of Frank Danby and father of novelist Gilbert Frankau, who was a managing partner in the family dry goods business, originally known and Adolph Frankau and Company.

1849(15th of Shevat): Rabbi Nehemiah of Dubrovno, author of Divrei Nehemiah passed away

1851: In Darmstadt, Germany, David Simon and Elise Simon gave birth to Joseph Simon, a German immigrant who serve as U.S. Senator from Oregon and Mayor of Portland, Oregon.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/joseph-simon

1853: The executors of the will of Jonas Fränckel asked Zacharias Frankel to be president of the soon to be opened Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau. Funds for this new Jewish institution of higher learning had been part of the late Fränckel’s will.

1853: "Jewish Plantation of Ireland," an article published today claimed that in 1703, James Harrington, the author of Oceana, had proposed that English Jews should be brought to Ireland where they could farm the land which produce revenues of "about four million a year."  He claimed that Jews had "always showed their aptitude in all pursuits of agriculture."  How credible is this?  Harrington died in 1677 so it is unlikely that he was making any proposals about Jewish farmers in Ireland in 1703.

1862: During a debate in the House of Representatives, Congressman Hale of New Hampshire showed the impact of the Hebrew Bible on American culture when he responded to critics by stating that he would to Lincoln's Administration "as the old Hebrew Prophet said to the King of Babylon: 'Let thy gifts be to thyself, and give thy rewards to another, but I will read to the King the writing declared to me and the interpretation of it.'"

1863: Philadelphian Corporal Jacob Benedict, completed his service with Company H of the 122nd regiment today.

1864:In Hamburg, Germany, George Gershon Charles Raphael, the London born son of Lewis and Rachel Raphael and his wife Charlotte Hanne Raphael gave birth to Gertrude Emily Raphael who became Gertrude Spielman when she married Sir Meyer Adam Spielman

1865: In London, Abigail Jacobs and Jacob Aarons gave birth to Benjamin Aarons.

1869(26thof Shevat, 5629): Thirty-two-year-old Swedish opera singer Eufrosyne Abrahamson, the wife of “Swedish businessman and patron of the arts” August Abrahamson passed away today “unexpectedly after a short illness.

1869: In Philadelphia, PA, Leon Levy Hyneman and Grace Marks Hyneman gave birth Edwin I. Hyneman who played football and baseball at the University of Pennsylvania from which he graduated in 1889 and eventually became a part of the Philadelphia baseball team which competed in the National League.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9C06E4DE1238E53ABC4C53DFBE66838D659EDE

1870: In Norfolk, VA, formation of Congregation Beth El whose members would later come to include Rabbi Leopold Heiman, J.W. Spagat and Charles Myers.

1870: Birthdate of Austrian physician and psychologist Alfred Adler the husband of Raissa Epstein who fled his homeland for New York in 1932 when the Nazis became the dominant political power.

https://www.notablebiographies.com/A-An/Adler-Alfred.html

1873: In New York City Henry Goldwater and Mary Tyroler gave birth to Dr. Sigismund Schulz Goldwater the superintendent of Mount Sinai Hospital and Commissioner of Health in New York City.

1873: Eduard Lasker delivered a speech today “in which he attacked the management of the Pomeranian railway” and exposed financial mismanagement by one of Otto von Bismarck’s “most trusted assistants” which led to his being a target of attacks from the Iron Chancellor.

1875: In Indiana, Esther Amanda Ritterband and Moses Maness Ritterband gave birth to Leon Maness Ritterband, the husband Laura Ritterband.

1876: In Kings Count, the defense is scheduled to continuing presenting its defense in the sensational murder trial in which the state has accused P.N. Rubenstein of murdering his cousin Sara Alexander.

1878: Birthdate of Ossip Gabrilovich the Russian born American composer, pianist and composer who married the daughter of Samuel Clemens and who was the father to the last known lineal descendant of the man most people know as Mark Twain.

1876: A decree issued today was one of two decrees that regulated the behavior of the Jews of Ghent.

1878(4thof Adar I 5638): In Vienna twenty-eight-year-old Pauline Herzl, the older sister of Theodore Herzl, passed away after contracting Typhus.  After the creation of the state of Israel her remains would be laid to rest on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.  Herzl named his daughter after his sister.

1878: Pope Pius IX who had been the subject of an ode by David Levi when he was elected because of hopes that he would be a progressive but turned reactionary, passed away today.

1880(25thof Shevat, 5640): Parashat Mishpatim and Shabbat Shekalim

1880: Seventy-four-year-old Kassel native and convert to Christianity Franz Ferdinand Benary, the orientalist and University Berlin associate professor of Old Testament exegis who “was the older brother of classical philologist Agathon Benary, passed away today in the German capital.

1883(30thof Shevat, 5643): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1884: The opera “Nell Gwynne” in which Giulia Warwick (born Julia Ehrenberg) played the title role “was first performed at the Avenue Theatre in London” today.

1885(22ndof Shevat, 5645): Parashat Yitro

1885(22nd of Shevat, 5645): Forty-three-year-old Caroline Weis, the daughter of John and Jannette Ries Mayer and husband of Julius Weiss, the businessman who in 1901 was “fined $25 for violating the Wilson separate car law because he sat in the section reserved for negroes and declined the conductor's request to get up because there were no empty seats in the white section” passed away today after which she was buried at the Metairie Cemetery in Orleans Parish, Louisiana.

1888: In Galveston, TX, Nettie Heidenheimer Davis and Morris Lasker gave birth to Loula Lasker, the Hadassah leader and founder of the National Council who was the sister of philanthropist Albert Lasker the sister of Hadassah president Etta Lasker Rosensohn.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1961/01/30/97655288.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1889: In Bohemia, Jakob Bondy and Barbara (Babette) Bondy gave birth to Bohumil Gottlieb Bondy who died at Auschwitz in 194.

1890: Birthdate of Victor Alter, the Russian born mechanical engineer who as a leader of the Bund and the Second International.

1891: Myer S. Isaac said tonight that since the New York Trustees had begun receiving contributions from Baron Hirsch, they had been able to find jobs for 3,000 people most of whom were heads-of-households.

1891: In Neustadt, linen factory manager Max Pinkus, the son of Josef Pinkus and Auguste Fränkel and Hedwig Pinkus gave birth to Hans Hubert Pinkus

1891: Joseph Klein, the president of a Hebrew Cemetery Association in New Jersey was convicted of fraud today.

1893: It was reported today that President-elect Grover Cleveland is considering appointing Isidor Straus to the position of Postmaster General in his cabinet which will be sworn in in March.  The forty-five-year-old Straus is the brother of Oscar Straus who served as Minister to Constantinople in Cleveland’s first administration and the brother of Nathan Straus the Park Commissioner.

1894: “Theatrical License Money Divided” published today provided a list of the charities receiving funds including: the Montefiore Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews which got $1,000 in 1893 but only $500 in 1893; Beth Israel Hospital which got $100 in 1893 and the same amount in 1894 and the United Hebrew Charities of New York which got $1,500 in 1893 but only $1,000 in 1894. (The reductions were probably a reflection of the depression that had begun in 1893 and gained momentum in 1894)

1893: In Bowling Green, KY, Max and Sunshine Friedman Nahm gave birth to Emanie Nahm who became Emanie Sachs when she married Walter Edward Sachs in 1917.

1895: Based on information from its 6th annual report, it was reported today that the Aguilar Free Library “now has 25,848 volumes” and that in 1894, it circulated 253,349 volumes.

1895: Birthdate of Pieter Anthonie Larusse van Passen the native of Gorcum, Netherlands who gained fame as Pierre van Paasen the “Canadian-American” author, the WW I Canadian Army Veteran and Unitarian Minister who was an early constant support of a Jewish homeland in Palestine as can be seen from such works as “the 1939 best seller Days of Our Years and The Forgotten Ally.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/01/09/77165343.pdf

1896: Henry Steinhal, “one of the actors” performing in “The Russian Jew” at Adler’s Theatre “was accidently shot in the leg” when “a piece of wadding” from a blank cartridge went off and “embedded itself in” his limb.

1896: Jews were among the melting pot of immigrants who attended James Pryse lecture on “The Masters” at Centennial Hall on New York’s lower East Side.

1897: It was reported today that Rabbi Gustav Gottheil and Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt will participate in the upcoming ceremonies dedicating the new building housing the Hebrew Technical Institute.

1897: In Chelsea, London, Alexander Neumann, a native of Bomberg who had moved “to London at the age of 15” and Sarah Ann (Pike) Neumann gave birth to Maxwell Neumann, who gained fame as “British mathematician and codebreaker” Max Newman.

http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Newman.html

1897: It was reported today Reverend Faust, a Presbyterian missionary attempting to convert Jews in New York “said that the distress among the poor east side Jews was very great…and that he hoped that the wealthy Jews” would join with those who were working and wealthy Christians would contribute to alleviate their suffering. 

1897: It was reported today that during a meeting at church on the lower east side about how to relieve the suffering of the poor Reverend John B. Devins of Hope Chapel “thought it best for the poor Jews to apply for relief to the United Hebrew Charities.”

1898(15thof Shevat, 5658): Tu B’Shevat

1898:  Emile Zola was brought to trial for libel for publishing J'Accuse. “J'accuseaccused the French government of anti-Semitism and of wrongfully placing Alfred Dreyfus in jail. Zola was brought to trial for libel for publishing J'Accuseon February 7, 1898 and was convicted on February 23. Zola declared that the conviction and transportation to Devil's Island of the Jewish army captain Alfred Dreyfus came after a false accusation of espionage and was a miscarriage of justice. The case, known as the Dreyfus affair, had divided France deeply between the reactionary army and church and the more liberal commercial society. The ramifications continued for years, so much so that on the 100th anniversary of Émile Zola's article, France's Roman Catholic daily paper, "La Croix", apologized for its anti-Semitic editorials during the Dreyfus affair.”

1898: A fire broke out tonight at the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society’s building which is home to 835 youngsters.

1899: Isaac L. Rice took over the leadership of Electric Storage, a company that was trying to build the first modern submarines that ran on electric power while submerged for the U.S. Navy and changed its name to the Electric Boat Company.  The company operated by the Jewish professor was so successful that it during World War I it would build 85 submarines and 722 sub-chasers. (The company lives on today as General Dynamics.)

1900: Birthdate of Polish native and American attorney Joseph Fischer Barr who in 1904 came to the United States where he served as the associate general counsel at the United States Veterans Administration and national executive director of the Jewish War Veterans while raising his son John “Johnny” Barr, a graduate of Coolidge High School in Washington, DC.

1900(8thof Adar I, 5660): Seventy-six “Baron Carl von Rothschild, the husband of Baroness Julie Von Rothschild and head of the House of Rothschild branch in Naples passed away today in Paris.

1901(18thof Shevat, 5661): Thirty-seven-year-old Max Schwarz, the Budapest native who in 1880 followed his father Austrian born chemist Anton Schwarz to the United States where he followed in his father’s footsteps and became editor of The American Brewer” and the “principal of the Brewer’s Academy” passed away today.

1901: In Boston, MA, Albert B. and Annie Botkin gave birth to Harvard graduate and folklorist Benjamin Albert Botkin, the holder of a Ph. D from the University of Nebraska and husband of Gertrude Fritz who taught at the University of Oklahoma and who is the namesake of Benjamin A. Botkin Prize present by the American Folklore Society.

https://www.loc.gov/folklife/botkin/hirsch.html

1902(30thof Shevat, 5662): Rosh Chodesh Adar I observed as Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., the son of the philo-Semitic  President Teddy Roosevelt  and the Fourth Infantry Division’s assistant commander who led the first wave ashore at Utah Beach on D-Day a month before he died of heart attack, was fighting a bout of pneumonia today at Groton School.

1903(10thof Shevat, 5663): Parashat Beshalach

1903: “Jews Take Up Prairie Lands” published today described how 56 Jewish families from Chicago comprising 302 people have begun farming 5,440 acres of North Dakota land thanks to the support of the Jewish Agricultural Society led by its president. Adolph Loeb.

1904: Twenty-eight men from 18 local families in the Champaign-Urbana (Illinois) community met and formed the Champaign-Urbana Hebrew Congregation. Rabbi George Zeppin of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations presided over the meeting.

1905: Birthdate of Jersey City, NJ native and holder of a Ph.D. from Columbia. “Israel E. Drabkin, the chairman of the department of classical languages and Hebrew City College who married Miriam Frideman after his first wife Norma Lowenstein died passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1965/03/28/97189720.pdf

1906(12thof Shevat, 5666): Eighty-four-year-old Bella “Betty” Baer, the wife of Jacob Baer passed away today.

1906: As of today, “over $3,000,000 has been raised for the relief of the Jewish victims of the” outbreak of anti-Semitic violence in Russia of $1,200,000 was raised by the American National Relief Commission of which Jacob H. Schiff is the Treasurer.

1906: “Soon after his arrival at Gomel,” General Orlott met with a group of prominent citizens including at least one rabbi who declared “that the outrages” that had taken place “were entirely unprovoked.”

1907: Two days after he had arrived in the United States aboard the steamship Kaiser Wilhelm II, Wolf Margolies, the chief rabbi of Grodno and brother of Hirsch Margolies is scheduled to leave for Boston today where he will take up leadership of an orthodox synagogue.

1908: It was reported today that Countess Muravieff, the prominent Russian actress, is scheduled to perform in the upcoming New York performance of “The God of Revenge” Jewish playwright Sholom Asch

1909: Tonight, one day after Tu B’Shevat, Rabbi Henry S. Morais addressed a crowd of 150 Zionist supporters at the “uptown Talmud Torah” on East 111th Street.

1909 Tonight, Rabbi Elias Margolies addressed a gathering of 400 Zionist supporters at Kehilath Israel Congregation.

1909: At least 1,000 people attended the meeting held “in the Synagogue Zewach Zedeck” chaired by the editor The Jewish Daily News where they heard eulogizes for Theodore Herzl.

1910(28th of Shevat, 5670): Seventy-one-year-old Avrohom Bornsztain, founder and first Rebbe of the Sochatchover Hasidic dynasty” who was “known as the Avnei Nezer ("Stones of the Crown") after the title of his posthumously-published set of Toroth responsa, which is widely acknowledged as a halakhic classic” and whose “only son, Shmuel, author of Shem Mishmuel, succeeded him as Rebbe” after he passed away today.

1911: Birthdate of German native Siegbert Koch who made Aliyah in 1934, “fought with the international Brigade during the Spanish Civil War and who as Shimon Koch served in the Palmach and led the Givati Brigade during the 1948 War of Independence.

1912: The Portland Evening Telegram described the Portland Equal Suffrage League which was founded by Josephine Hirsch as one that “will wield an important influence” even though it is “one of the youngest leagues to be formed.

1913(30thof Sheva, 5673): Rosh Chodesh I

1913: Boris Thomashefsky is scheduled to present “Tata Mamas Zures” at the Haymarket in Chicago.

1914:  Charlie Chaplin's signature character, "The Tramp," debuted in a film called "Kid Auto Races at Venice"

1914: Birthdate of U.S. poet David Ignatow.

1915: More than seven thousand dollars was raised tonight at “the 27th annual entertainment and dance given for the benefit of the Ladies’ Hebrew Fuel and Aid Society” which was held in the Astor Gallery of the Waldorf Astoria.

1916: Birthdate of Floyd K. Haskell, the U.S. Senator from Colorado who was the husband of Nina Totenberg.  She was Jewish – he was not.

1916: “At a small information luncheon at Little Hungary on East Houston Street,” attended by a number of Jews living on the east side and “several prominent rabbis” Colonel Theodore Roosevelt “pledged his support to the movement organized to obtain equal rights of citizenship for the Jews in every country of Europe at the end of the war.”

1916: “Judge Samuel Seabury of the Court of Appeals of the State of New York said in a speech to the Far Western Travelers’ Association at their annual dinner at the Hotel Astor” tonight “that President Wilson had made a great appointment in naming Louis D. Brandeis to the Supreme Court of the United States”

1916: Leon s. Moisseiff, President of the Jewish newspaper The Day criticized the work of the Educational Alliance saying that “the east side does not believe that the alliance does as much work as it could” because “the great mass of the people of the east side do not feel that this institution in any way links up with the old Jewish customs and traditions.”

1916: Justice Greenbaum responded to criticism of the Educational Alliance by pointing out that “the alliance not only taught Hebrew, but also gave instruction in Jewish history and Jewish customs.”

1916: “The Bronx Jewish War Suffers’ Committee announced” today “that management of the Adams-Flanigan store” in the Bronx “will devote 10 per cent of all cash purchases” for the next two days “for the Jewish war sufferers.”

1917: The first draft of the Balfour Declaration was written at the Gaster home today in the presence of Chaim Weizmann, Nahum Sokolow, Baron Rothschild, Sir Mark Sykes and Herbert Samuel

1917: The U.S. military expedition that had been trying to capture Pancho Villa since March of 1916 and during which Rabbis had been to various camps on the border by the Army and Navy Committee and the Central Conference of American Rabbis to conduct religious services, came to an end today.

1917: Forty-nine-year-old skirt manufacturer Jacob Hyman and his wife, the former Regina Zeltenwerth, a native of Tarnow, Galicia celebrated their silver wedding anniversary.

1917(15thShevat, 5677): Yosef Levi passed way in Paris. Levi was an archeologist and philologist of African and oriental languages. Born in Adrianople on December 15, 1827, he went on to write 33 books during his career.

1918: In Chicago, Leon B. Sager, an advertising executive, and Deborah Borovik Sager who died in the Great Flu Epidemic, gave birth to geneticist Ruth Sager, the University of Chicago Phi Beta Kappa who was chief of cancer genetics at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston when she passed away

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2004/11/ruth-sager/

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/04/us/dr-ruth-sager-79-researcher-on-location-of-genetic-material.html

1918: In Brownsville, Abraham Rosenbaum, a Jewish immigrant working as a baker and his wife gave birth to Terry Rosenbum the teacher whose career would be a casualty of Joe McCarthy and the red-baiting right-wingers who distorted the intellectual and political landscape of post-World War II America.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/27/nyregion/terry-rosenbaum-teacher-and-civic-leader-dies-at-97.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=1

1919(7th of Adar): Rabbi Isaac Jacob Rabinovitz, author of Zekher Yizhak passed away.

1919: Today, artist William Meyerowitz, a native of Ekaterinoslav (later Dnepropetrovsk), Russia and student of the National Academy of Design in New York married fellow artist Theresa Berstein whom he had met in 1917.

https://theresabernstein.newmedialab.cuny.edu/?page_id=4235

1920: The Northamptonshire Yeomanry in which actor Leslie Howard (Leslie Howard Steiner) had served as a subaltern during World War I “was reconstituted in the Territorial Army with HQ at the Old Militia Barracks in Clare St, Northampton.”

1921: As Americans adjust to Prohibition, “the Chicago Rabbinical Association adopted a resolution to refuse to sign all requests for fermented wine for sacramental purposes.”

1921: Evening classes will begin tonight at the Bath Beach Y.M.H.A. under the leadership of the executive director, Dr. Hochfelder.

1922: One day after he had passed away, Morris Jacob, the husband of Matilda Jacob was buried today in the Belfast Jewish Cemetery in Northern, Ireland.

1923: Today in Berlin, Herr Auer, the Vice President of the Bavarian Diet, gave a report to President Ebert in which he accused Henry Ford “of financing a Bavarian monarchist revolution” while Auer told The Tribune “that Henry Ford’s financial as well as moral backing had been to Bavarian reolvtuion-makers during the past year because a part of the program of Herr Hitler, leader of the Monarchists, is the extermination of the Jews in Germany.”

https://www.hebcal.com/hebcal/?v=1&maj=on&min=on&nx=on&mf=on&ss=on&mod=on&o=on&F=on&s=on&i=off&year=1903&month=x&yt=G&lg=s&d=on&c=off&geo=geoname&zip=&city=&geonameid=&b=18&m=50&.s=Create+Calendar#cal-1903-02

1924(2ndAdar I, 5684):Sixty-six year old  Rabbi Henry Berkowitz, the Pittsburgh, PA born son of Louise and Henrietta (Jaroslawski) Berkowitz, and graduate of the University of Cincinnati, and Hebrew Union College who served a number of congregations including Temple Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia where he helped to found the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies and the Philadelphia Rabbinical Association but who may be best known for his role in found the Jewish Chautauqua Society, passed away today.  Emily Nepon, his great-great-great-granddaughter described him in the following words. Born in 1857, Rabbi Henry Berkowitz was the “Beloved Rabbi” of Mobile, Kansas City, Missouri and Philadelphia. He is best known for being the founder of the Jewish Chautauqua Society in 1893 and was one of four members of the first graduating class of Reform rabbis in the United States.  Rabbi Henry Berkowitz was an activist, philanthropist, counselor, community leader, voracious learner, teacher, prolific writer and speaker. And, in keeping with mainstream Reform Judaism of his day, Berkowitz was also anti-Zionist.

1925(13th of Shevat, 5685): Parashat Beshalach

1925(13th of Shevat, 5685): Eighty-year-old Alabama natve Nancy Priscilla “Nannie” Mordecai Cash, the eldest child of Samuel Jefferson and Martha Louisa "Tarrant" Mordecai and wife of Wesley Sheppard Cash passed away today.

1926: “Franklin and Other Patriots Aided Jews After Revolution” published today told of how “on the subscription list of Congregation Mikve Israel, the oldest Jewish religious organization in Philadelphia, are the signatures of Benjamin Franklin, printer William Bradford, astronomer David Rittenhouse, Charles Biddle and John D. Sargeant.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1926/02/07/100048433.html?pageNumber=176

1927: Birthdate of “stand-up comedian” and Catskill funny man Sammy Shore, the co-founder of the Comedy Store whose four children including Pauly Shore who followed in his father’s comedic footsteps.

https://variety.com/2019/biz/news/sammy-shore-dead-dies-comedy-store-co-founder-1203219787/

1928: “Ruins of the Palestine Bear Out the Bible” published today included the assertions by Professor John Garstang of the Institute of Archaeology at the University of Liverpool that “recent excavations in Palestine have proved that there is not a flaw in the biblical narrative of the campaigns of Joshua and the can now be traced with absolute topographical accuracy.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1928/02/07/96901029.html?pageNumber=7

1929: It was reported today that “The Alliance Israelite Universelle…recently received a donation of $100,000 from an anonymous American in honor of Nissim Behar, the octogenarian leader of the alliance.

1931(20th of Shevat, 5691): Sixty-year-old Rabbi Abraham Ber Goldenson who served for 13 years as the “head rabbi for the Nusach Hari Shul in St. Louis” passed away today.

1932: “The Monster Walks” a horror film featuring Mischa Auer was released in the United States today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monster_Walks#/media/File:The-Monster-Walks-Poster.jpg

1933: The London Gazettereported that the King has conferred “the dignity of a Baron of the United Kingdom upon Sir Joseph Duveen…and the heirs’ males of his body lawfully begotten…”

1934: During the Stavisky Affair, a night of rioting fomented by right-wing parties came to an end.  The right failed in their effort to overthrow the Third Republic, but the event was a harbinger of the social rot that would lead to the quick defeat of the French in World War II and the rise of Vichy.

1934:Vatican directed the Holy Office to place Nazi leader Alfred Rosenberg's Myth of the Twentieth Century on the Index of Forbidden books

1934: The Halevy Singing Society is schooled to move into new quarters at the Society for the Advancement of Judaism at 15 West 86th Street. (As reported by JTA)

1934(22nd of Shevat, 5694): Abraham I. Shiplacoff “sometimes called the Jewish Eugene V. Debs”, passed away today in Brooklyn “after a long struggle with kidney disease. Born in Chernigov, Russia in 1877, he “came to the United States with his parents at the age of 13 in 1891. For several years he worked long hours in a garment shop and studied at night. During this period, he married Henrietta (Yetta) Zwickel, and they eventually had three children, Frederick Engels Shiplacoff, William Morris Shiplacoff, and Lydia Shiplacoff Greene. Beginning in 1905 he taught school at P.S. 84, Brooklyn, served as a clerk in the customs service, was briefly labor editor of the Jewish Daily Forward. In 1914 he became secretary-treasurer of the United Hebrew Trades. Politically active in the Socialist Party, he was elected as the first Socialist Assemblyman from New York City in 1915, re-elected in 1916 and 1917, and led the Socialist delegation in the Legislature in a campaign of strong opposition to World War I. He also supported the dissemination of birth control information, curbs on police power and other controversial causes. When, as a street-corner orator, he denounced U.S. military intervention in Russia shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution, he was indicted under the wartime Espionage Act; the indictment was later quashed. He was elected to the Board of Aldermen from Brooklyn in 1920, managed the mayoral campaign of Norman Thomas in 1925, chaired the Sacco-Vanzetti Liberation Committee in 1927, and became a vigorous participant in Socialist battles with the Communist Party. During the twenties and early thirties he served as general manager of the Joint Board of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and the International Pocketbook Workers Union. He had a longstanding interest in Palestine and Zionism and became national chairmen of the National Labor Committee for Palestine in 1933. He was actively involved in many Jewish philanthropic and cultural organizations, and served as executive director of the Deborah Sanitarium, Browns Mills, NJ.”

1935: Birthdate of Herbert “Herb” Kohl, United States Senator from Wisconsin.

1935: The Eoff Street Temple in Wheeling, West Virginia is scheduled to begin celebrating its 85th anniversary today.

1935: After being released in the United Kingdom in 1934, “The Scarlet Pimpernel” produced by Alexander Korda, starring Leslie Howard and with music by Arthur Benjamin was released today in the United States today.

1936: “The Milky Way” a comedy featuring Lionel Stander as “Spider Schultz” was released in the United States today.

1936: In his message to the National Conference of Jews and Christians endorsing the upcoming observance of Brotherhood Day, New York Governor Lehman said, “I am heartily in accord with the purposes of Brotherhood Day” and I think the National Conference of Jews and Christians “has done much to bring a greater understanding among those of different faiths and races.”

1936: Today “in the vicinity of the Winter Olympics at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the Bavarian Alps there are some highly conspicuous road signs” – anti-Jewish placards and streamers which correspondents had said were removed because of the Olympics.

1936: George Althuas, “a former Protestant pastor in Timmerlach” was sentenced to six months in jail by the Summary Court after having been accused of including his prayers “God protect the poor and persecuted Jews,” “having told his Sunday School pupils not to participate ‘in the hue and cry against Jews’” and “having banned the Hitler salute from his Sunday School.”

1936: Georgetown University sophomore Harry Bassin scored “a team high 11 points” during today’s upset of the NYU basketball team.

https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/554817/gu_archives_sports_00012.jpg?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

1937: George F. Pelham, the Canadian born American Architect who in 1905 “designed a new synagogue building for Brooklyn's Beth Jacob Anshe Sholom, based on Arnold Brunner's West Side Synagogue building on Manhattan's West 88th Street” passed away today.

1937: James Waterman Wise is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Is Soviet Russia Anti-Semitic” this morning at the Free Synagogue in Carnegie Hall.

1937: Rabbi Samuel H. Goldenson is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “When Propaganda Is Substituted for Education” at Temple Emanu-El.

1937: “A message from President Roosevelt lauding ‘the vitality and vision of the Jewish pioneers in Palestine’ was read to the National Conference tonight” after the organization had committed to raising four and a half million dollars to finance the “Jewish colonization of the Holy Land.”

1937: Senator Norris of Nebraska “told the National Conference for Palestine that the dissenting opinions of Supreme Court Justice Brandeis would ‘ultimately become the universal law of the land’” and that “Senator Kenyon who had fought the Brandies confirmation had told him shortly before his death that he would ‘give anything if I could retake that step.’”

1937: Harry Einstein, who was famous for appearing as “Greek chef Nick Parkyakarkus on the Eddie Cantor and Al Jolson radio programs” married actress Thelma Leeds (nee Goodman) today, union which resulted in the birth comedic talent Albert Brooks.

1938: Professor Norman Bentwich, the former director of the High Commission for Refugees From Germany told The League of Nations International Conference meeting in Geneva to settle the status of refugees from Germany “that 130,000 Jewish…refugees had left Germany” and “had been able to establish themselves overseas.”

1938: The Palestine Post reported that according to the London Daily Herald,the Mandatory government planned to erect a 20-foot-high barbed-wire barricade along the northern border in order to prevent the movement of the gun runners, smugglers and terrorists between Palestine, Lebanon and Syria.

1938: In a leading article on the elections to the Jerusalem Communal Council (Va'ad Hakehila), The Jerusalem Post expressed the hope that the people serving on the council would be able to cast away heavy obsolete traditions, eliminate inefficiency and stand up to vested interests.

1938: Approximately 200 people attended the meeting of the Bergen County chapter of the German American Bund at the home of Caroline Meade, a teacher and actress, where Fritz Kuhn, the national leader of the Bund told the attendees that the Jews in the United States “must be driven from their high posts in government, finance, and education as they have been in certain European countries.”

1939: In Berlin, “reiterating the contention that ‘the Jewish problem in Germany will be solved only the last Jews has left the Reich, Nazi party leader Dr. Alfred Rosenberg declared that the “problem must be settled definitively not only for the German Jews, but later for the millions of Jews in Central and Eastern Europe.”  (Editor’s note – The Nazi goal of a Jew free Europe was no secret and they made no attempt to hide it from anyone who listened to their spokesmen.)

1939: Dr. Alfred Rosenberg offered a specific proposal to turn either British Guiana or Madagascar into a “Semitic reservation” which solve “the Jewish question.”

1940: In Prague, the police informed the leaders of the Jewish community “that a reported order prohibiting the presence of Jews in ant public café…after 8 P.M. was based on a misunderstanding” and there never was such an order.

1940: “Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, president of the American Jewish Congress explained” today “that at a recent luncheon of the Brooklyn Women’s Division of the congress he said ‘that the Eruopean nations should have recognized sooner that Hitler’s attack upon the Jews was a sign of his readiness to destroy civilization, including the religious life of the world, and that the nations and churches of civilization should have united to make impossible the Nazi assault upon life’s decencies and values,’ rather than attributing the current war to the failure of the Catholic Church to speak up against the ill treatment of the Jews.”

1941: U.S. premiere of “Back Street” the second cinematic treatment of the Fannie Hurst’s novel of the same name.

1942(20thof Shevat, 5702): Thirty-eight-year-old lyricist Irving Kahal who collaborated on such classics as “Wedding Bells Are Breaking Up That Old Gang of Mine” and “I’ll Be Seeing You” passed away today in New York.

http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/exhibits/C49?exhibitId=49

1942: In the aftermath of the release of the Jews on board the Darien, Lord Moyne continued to protest Churchill’s arguing that the Prime Minister’s decision would undermine the Mandatory Government.  Churchill had already tried to assuage Lord Moyne’s fears by reminding him that there was little risk of any mass immigration of Jews since most of Eastern and Southern Europe were under Nazi control.

1943(2ndof Adar I, 5703): Forty-nine-year-old Louis Weitzenkorn, “author of ‘Five Star Final’ and other plays and a former newspaper man was found dead of burns and suffocation today in the kitchen of his apartment.”

1943: In New York, Liza (née Kraitz), a high school art teacher, and historian Jack D. Foner gave birth to historian Eric Foner whose The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery hit the triple header when it won the Pulitzer, Lincoln and Bancroft prizes.

1943: The first armed struggle between Jews and Nazis takes place in the Warsaw ghetto.   Most people connect the Warsaw Uprisings with Pesach (April) of 1943.  Actually, the first fighting took place in February. Unsettled, by Melvin Konner has an interesting chapter (entitled Smoke) that deals with the issue of Jewish resistance in Europe during World War II. 1946: While taking part in two month speaking tour with self-proclaimed anti-Semite, Gerlad L.K. Smith, Father Arthur W. Terminiello of Mobile, Alabama, a self-styled Father Coughlin of the South, delivers an address at the Chicago’s Veeran Hall in the heavily Jewish neighborhood of Albany Park that resulted in a riot and in his subsequent conviction on charges of disturbing the peace.  Three years later, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the decision in a major freedom of speech case.1946: The Palestine Information Service issued a statement today describing yesterday’s failed attempt to attack a British military camp and seize weapons for the fight to create a Jewish state.1946: Arabs in Lebanon protested the British “decision to permit 1,500 Jewish immigrants to enter Palestine” each month by staging a general strike today.

1944: “A twelve-point program "to help save 3,000,000 Jews in Europe form extermination by the Nazis" was outlined today at a special conference of 400 Jewish leaders from all sections of the country who are attending the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds.”

1945: After Representative Emanuel Celler of New York said that the American Dental Associations support of “religious tests being required for entrance into dental colleges as ‘un-American,’” John Rankin of Mississippi “jumped to his feet shouting ‘I am getting tired of the gentleman from New York raising the Jewish question in the House” and while defending the American Dental Association’s right to use a religious test said that “90 percent of the doctors who get on the Civil Service roll are Jews and 6o percent of the ones we are compelled to accept in veterans’ hospitals are Jews.” (Editor’s note – Ranking would later refer to Celler as a Kike.)

1946: In Buenos Aires, Jaime Babenco, “an Argentine gaucho of Ukrainian Jewish origin” and Janka Haberberg, “a Polish Jewish immigrant” gave birth to “Brazilian film director, screenwriter, producer and actor” Héctor Eduardo Babenco.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/brazilian-film-director-hector-babenco-dies-at-70/

1947: This date marks the official founding of the Jewish Agency, a world-wide organization centered in Israel. It is dedicated to the establishment of Israel as the Jewish Homeland, and to the encouragement and fulfillment of Jewish Aliyah from around the world.

1948(27thof Shevat, 5708): Parashat Mishpatim

1948(27th of Shevat, 5708): Seventy-nine-year-old Daniel England Sr., the Pittsfield, MA, born son of Moses and Rosa Rosenthal England, and “vice president and treasurer of England Brothers Department store” founded by his father in 1857 who was the husband of “the former Myra Bendell; with whom he raised two sons and one daughter and the seventh mayor of his hometown passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1948/02/08/86893919.pdf

1949: “Dr. William Haber, adviser on Jewish affairs to United States Army commanders in Germany and Austria, said today that the task of resettling displaced Jews in occupied zones was "over the hump" and predicted the closing of the remaining fifty-three camps by June 30, 1950.”

1950: Arnold Eidus gave a recital at Carnegie Hall that “featured the debut and only public performance of jazz/pop composer Raymond Scott's Suite for Violin and Piano (which reportedly was composed as a showcase for Eidus) during the composer's lifetime.”

1952: The DuMont Television Network broadcast the first episode of “Steve Randall” starring Melvyn Douglas in the title role.

1952(11thof Shevat, 5712): Forty-two-year-old Phillip G. Epstein died of Cancer a decade after having co-authored the Academy Award winning script for Casablanca, which Time magazine called the greatest movie of all times.  Epstein’s grandson, Theo, broke Bambino’s Curse and brought World Series victory to the Boston Red Sox and then did the same for the Chicago Cubs.

 1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that two policemen who found safety on a rock were saved by a helicopter, but the third was missing, when a captured Lebanese vessel they were towing to Haifa broke up in a heavy storm off the northern coast.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Moscow's press was intensifying its drive against the Jewish and "bourgeois" influence in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that An airlift of immigrants from Iran was stopped, following the intervention of the Egyptian government.

1955(15thof Shevat, 5715): Tu B’Shevat

1956: Nineteen-year-old lightweight boxer Larry Boardman won his 31st victory in his first 32 professional bouts today, “leading to him being rated # 10 in the world in the lightweight division by Ringmagazine.”

1960(9thof Shevat, 5720): Cabinetmaker Abraham Goodman Jacobs, the son of Abraham and Rebecca Jacobs and the husband of Sarah Jacobs passed away today in London.

1960: ABC broadcast “The Crime,” an episode of “The Rebel” directed by Irvin Kersner.

1961: Mortimer Caplin began serving as The Commissioner of Internal Revenue.

1961: “Australian Nationalist Workers Party Withdraws Invitation to Rockwell” published today described the decision announced by Arthur Smith to tell the American Nazi leader not to come because the “invitation has caused too much trouble” and “would have antagonized the government.”

1962: U.S. premiere of a remake of the 1921 film “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” co-starring Lee J. Cobb with a score my Andre Previn.

1962: Violinist David Montagu, “a sensitive, unassertive artist” participated in a concert tonight at Town Hall where four violin sonatas were played.

1966(17thof Shevat, 5726): Ninety-seven-year-old Blanche Abrahams, the daughter of Elizabeth and George Joseph Emanuel and wife of Samuel Abrahams passed a way today.

1967(27thof Shevat, 5727): Henry Morgenthau, Secretary of the Treasury under FDR and author of the Morgenthau Plan, passed away.  Morgenthau was nominally Jewish.  He was appointed Secretary of the Treasury because he was FDR’s neighbor in Hyde Park and because he was bland enough not to rock the financial boat while FDR was building the New Deal.  During the war, Morgenthau began to get increasingly upset with the State Department’s handling of the “Jewish Question.”  He became aggressive in terms of trying to force FDR to take action.  Obviously, the outcome of the desires of “the next-door neighbor” left something to be desired.

http://archive.jta.org/article/1967/02/08/2747716/henry-morgenthau-jr-exsecretary-of-treasury-dead-at-age-of-75

http://hnn.us/node/120913

1967(27thof Shevat, 5727): Sixty-eight-year-old Saul Adler passed away in Monroe, LA. Born in Russia he served in the U.S. Army during World War I. The Saul Adler Community Center in Monroe was named in his honor.

1967: U.S. premiere of “The Fox” directed by Mark Rydell.

1967: U.S. premiere of “Tobruk” a WW II movie directed by Arthur Hiller

1968(9thof Shevat): Just eight days from his 86th birthday Rabbi Eliezer Silver, a refugee from the anti-Semitic Russian Empire of the Czar who worked to save Jews from the Holocaust passed away toay.

https://web.archive.org/web/20051203005136/http://www.cincypost.com/living/1999/silver051199.html

1968:  Arthur Miller's "Price" premiered in New York City

1969: In Boston, MA, Molli Newman, a lawyer, and Dr. Reuben Mezrich, a chairman of radiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine gave birth to author Ben Mezrich whose works include Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions

1970(1stof Adar I, 5730): Rosh Chodesh Adar I; Parashat Mishpatim

1970(1stof Adar I, 5730): Seventy-four year old Joseph Brainin, the Vienna son  “Reuben and Miriam (Amsterdam) Branin and Laval University (Montreal) educated journalist who wrote for two New York newspapers, using the pen-name Phineas Piron, and who served in Palestine as part of the Jewish Battalion under General Allenby and “as executive Vice President of the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot while raising a son and a daughter with his wife “the former Salomea Neumark passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1970/02/09/archives/joseph-brainin-is-dead-at-74-aide-of-weizmann-institute.html

1970: In Roslyn Harbor, NY, producer and media executive Charles Koppelman and Bunny Koppelman gave birth to Jennifer Koppelman who, after marrying Keith Hutt in 1997, was known as Jennifer Hutt the radio and television talk show host who co-authored Whateverland.

1971(19thof Shevat, 5731): Fifty-year-old Brooklyn College graduate Joseph Dames, “the director of special gifts of the American Jewish Committee’s Appeal for Human Relations and the husband of Lucille Dames with whom he had two children – Tamar and Lisa.

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/02/19/archives/joseph-dames-dies-jewish-appeal-aide.html

1971(19thof Shevat, 5731): Seventy-five-year-old Marie Trommer who moved to Brooklyn 1905, attended Cooper Institute and gained fame as “an artist, poet and author” who worked for the Jewish Tribune and Jewish Daily News passed away today.

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/trommer-marie

1972: Three days after she had passed away, funeral services are scheduled to be held this afternoon for sixty-nine-year-old Latvian born psychotherapist and author Asya L. Kadis, the widow of textile manufacture Max Kadis

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/02/05/archives/tlsa-l-kadis-psychiatrist-group-therapy-expert-dead.html

1973: “Black Caesar” a remake of the gangster classic “Little Caesar” written and directed by Larry Cohen who followed up later in the year with a sequel “Hell Up in Harlem” was released today in the United States.

1974: Mel Brooks'"Blazing Saddles" opened in movie theaters across America.

1976(6thof Adar I, 5735): Parashat Terumah

1976(6thof Adar I, 5735): Eighty-eight year old Columbia University trained bio-chemist and Professor of Chemistry at NYU School of Medicine Isidor Greenwald, the New York City born son of Jacob and Mary Greenwald,  the husband of Alma Greenwald and the father of David Greenwald passed away today

https://www.nytimes.com/1976/02/10/archives/isidor-greenwald-professor-at-nyu.html

https://www.amazon.com/history-goiter-Africa-Isidor-Greenwald/dp/B0007K0K80

1976(6thof Adar I, 5736): Sixty-three-year-old rabbi and author Avraham Eliyahu Mokotow who made Aliyah in 1936 whose works include Chassidim v’Anshei Ma’aseh, a five-volume collection of Chassidic stories passed away today.

1977: The Soviets arrested Alexander Ginzburg and Yuri Orlov, members of the “Moscow Helsinki Group.”

1979:  War Criminal Josef Mengele who as the concentration camp doctor was known as the Angel of Death, reportedly drowned.

1983: First episode of Krovim Krovim, an Israeli television sitcom” was broadcast today.

 1985: "New York, New York" becomes the official city anthem of New York City. "New York, New York" is a song from the 1944 musical On the Town. The music was written by Leonard Bernstein and the lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green.

1986: “Hannah and Her Sisters” directed by, written by and starring Woody Allen was released today in the United States.

1987: According to reports published today, Israel's universities, the reputation and achievements of which have been a source of national pride, are facing a severe financial crisis.

1990(12thof Shevat, 5750): Nathan Wartels, Chairman of the Board of Crown Publishers, passed away at the age of 88.

1991 (23rdof Shevat, 5751): Lieutenant Colonel Amos Yarkoni one of six Israeli Arabs to receive the IDF’s third highest decoration, the Medal of Distinguished Service and the first commander of the Shaked Reconnaissance Battalion of the Givati Brigade died of cancer at the age of 71.

1991: Months after its premiere in the United States “Avalon” the saga of a Jewish immigrant family in Baltimore, MD, directed, produced and written by Barry Levinson, with music by Randy Newman, starring Leo Fuchs, Leo Jacobi and Kevin Pollak was released today in Australia.

1993: The United States has protested to Israel over the treatment of three Palestinian-Americans who have been jailed on suspicion of having ties with a militant Islamic group in the occupied territories, a United States Embassy spokesman in Tel Aviv said todayIsraeli authorities said they had evidence the three detainees were helping to rebuild Hamas and to finance terrorist activities after scores of Hamas leaders were deported to southern Lebanon by Israel in December. The authorities said the two of the men had been found with more than $100,000 and with plans from Hamas leaders in the United States.

1994: “Tzomet MKs Segev, Esther Salmovitz, and Alex Goldfarb split from their party to form the Yiud faction.”

1994(26thof Shevat, 5754): Seventy-six-year-old University of Michigan graduate and WW II veteran Irving Mathews, the Toledo, OH born son of retail apparel store owner Samuel Henry Mathews, who devoted four decades to Frost Brothers Department Store while served as a director of the San Antonio Branch of the Federal Reserve and co-founder of the San Antonia Spurs NBA team passed away today.

1995: The INS Hanit, a Sa'ar 5-class corvette, was commissioned today.

1997: “The Beautician and the Beast” starring Fran Drescher who also co-produced the film was released in the United States today.

1999; The New York Times book section featured reviews of A Journey to the End of the Millennium by A. B. Yehoshua; translated by Nicholas de Lange and Preempting the Holocaust by Lawrence Langer.

1999: Bruce Fleisher won the Royal Caribbean Classic.

1999: A Broadway revival “Little Me,” “a musical written by Neil Simon, with music by Cy Coleman and lyrics by Carolyn Leigh” closed today after “99 performances and 43 previews.”

2000: In “Lindbergh Family Bashes Biographer” published today examines the story behind the writing of Anne Morrow Lindbergh: Her Life by Susan Hertog, the wife of financer and philanthropist Roger Hertog, the Chairman of the Tikvah Fund.

https://www.salon.com/2000/02/07/lindbergh/

2001: Today “reaction in the Arab world to the election of Ariel Sharon was a mixture of indifference, predictions of dire consequences for any agreement with the Palestinians and occasional relief among Arabs hostile to Israel that the notorious general would be the one to abort the idea of coexistence.”

2002: “Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel said today that he expected to see a Palestinian state at the end of the Middle East peace process -- though that process is now moribund -- even as President Bush said the United States would keep up pressure on Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, to crack down on violence.”

2003:“Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner attended the Lucian Freud opening in Los Angeles” today

2004: On the same day that an Israeli helicopter fired a missile that killed a Palestinian terrorist traveling in a car, four Palestinian men went on trial “in a Palestinian security court on weapons charges liked to a roadside bombing that killed three American security workers as they escorted a United States diplomatic convoy into the Gaza Strip.”

2004(15thof Shevat, 5764): Parashat Beshalach; Tu B’Shevat

2005: Ian Livingston “the fourth-generation son of Polish-Lithuanian Jews who arrived in Scotland 120 years ago became CEO for Retail of BT Group.

2005: Rabbi Raymond Apple “marked his retirement today after 32 years at the helm of Sydney's Great Synagogue. The NSW Governor, Marie Bashir, and the Premier, Bob Carr, joined representatives from Sydney churches and hundreds of well-wishers at a tribute to Rabbi Apple at the Art Gallery of NSW. Great Synagogue president Herman Eisenberg said Rabbi Apple had always represented his congregation and the wider Jewish community with great dignity. ‘He has been a spokesman for Jewish ethics and values, a bridge between diverse religions and cultures and a moderating voice both in the Jewish community and in wider society,’ Mr. Eisenberg said.”

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/02/06/1107625057722.html

2006: Seeking a leader to guide a much-disputed 9/11 museum into existence at ground zero, officials announced that they had settled on Alice M. Greenwald, an associate director for museum programs at the Holocaust Museum in Washington.

2006: “Dutch to Return Aft Seized by Nazis,” published today described the return of Nazi looted art to the heirs of a “Dutch Jewish dealer and collector.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/07/arts/design/dutch-to-return-art-seized-by-nazis.html

2006: “A few days before the theatrical release of a “Curious George” motion picture the body of Alan Shalleck who produced “more than 100 short episodes for the Curious George television series” was found in his Florida home, the victim of an apparent robbery/homicide

2006: The day after Betty Friedan passed away, The Guardian publishes “The Betty I Knew” by fellow feminists Germain Greer who raises questions about the importance of Ms. Friedan’s role in the “Women’s Movement.” (You can decide if this is Lshon Hora.)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/feb/07/gender.bookscomment/print

2007: Publication of “America’s First Torah Scholar: Israel Baer Kursheedt” by Dr. Yitzchok Levine

http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/front-page/americas-first-torah-scholar-israel-baer-kursheedt/2007/02/07/

2007: Daniel Friedmann was sworn in today as Minister of Justice succeeding Tzipi Livni.

2007: During his freshman season in which he started all 33 games for the Duke Basketball team, today Jonathan James "Jon" Scheyer “scored a season-high 26 points in a loss to North Carolina.”

2007: In “Sold on a Stereotype” published today the Washington Post reported on the growing popularity in China of “a genre of self-help books that purport to tell the secrets of making money ‘the Jewish way.’”  Volumes include The Eight Most Valuable Business Secrets of the Jewish, The Legends of Jewish Wealth, and The Jewish People and Business: The Bible of how to Live Their Lives.  While some of the volumes tout the success of the Lehman Brothers and the Rothschilds, others miss the mark when the identify J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller as Jews.

2008: First Day of Adar I (2nd Day Rosh Chodesh Adar I 5768

2008: Scholar Michael B. Oren, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, discusses and signs copies Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

2008: In Bethesda, Maryland, Open Arms, the women's giving circle of the Jewish Social Service Agency (JSSA), hosts its first annual "Meet the Author" evening with novelist Elinor Lipman, author of The Inn at Lake Devine, Then She Found Me (the basis of a feature film opening in May) and, most recently, My Latest Grievance, at the Dennis and Phillip Ratner Museum. 

2008: The 12thNew York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival opens with a showing of “Got No Jeep and My Camel Died.”

2008: Right winger Michael Steven “Mike” Brown who had scored his first NHL goal in December “was sent back down to the Manitoba Moose” today.

2008: The Washington Post featured a review of A Lost Letter, A Remarkable Discovery, and The First Amendment in an Age of Terrorism by Alan Dershowitz

2009: An exhibition entitled Blue and White Pages: Documenting the History of Israel has its final showing at the Israel Museum.

2009: Suzane Adam’s tour of the United States designed to promote her award winning new book Laundry comes to an end.
2009: Shabbat Shirah, 5769

2010: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including For The Soul Of France: Culture Wars in the Age of Dreyfus by Frederick Brown and Where The God Love Hangs Out by Amy Bloom.

2010: While the Saints defeated the Colts in Super Bowl XLIV their fans were able to enjoy kosher food. Kosher Sports Inc. (KSI), a New York-based kosher concessions provider geared to the sports industry has signed a contract to provide kosher food to this year's Super Bowl games at Dolphin Stadium in Miami, Florida. This is the first-time kosher fare will be available at The Super Bowl. Kosher Sports is under the kosher supervision of the Star-K Kosher Certification, based in Baltimore, Maryland.

2010: A Jewish former banker was elected the vice president of Costa Rica today. Luis Lieberman will become vice president after Costa Rican voters elected Laura Chinchilla as the Central American country's first female president by a wide margin.

2010: The CSSO convened two emergency meetings today and, in response to the upset, JTS’s provost, Alan Cooper, took the unusual step of sending a letter on that same day to the cantorial faculty, reassuring them of its commitment to the school

2010(23rdof Shevat, 5770): Eighty-nine-year-old Phillip Klass the science fiction writer who used the pseudonym “William Tenn” passed away today.  (As reported by Gerald Jonas)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/books/14tenn.html

2011: The New Yorker published “The Wave” in which Francisco Goldman “wrote about his wife’s death and their relationship.”

2011: Érik Izraelewicz was appointed director of Le Monde.

2011: John Russ Tupper and Niki Russ Federman, 4th generation owners of Russ & Daughters are scheduled to “demystify caviar in an evening that is educational and unpretentious at the Astor Center in New York City. While most of us think of Russ & Daughters as “the go to place” when you want the best in lox, it offers a whole more, including some of the nicest people working behind the counter you would ever want to meet. [This is not a commercial plug. It is based on real live experience.]

2011: Israeli pianist Roman Rabinovich and the Jupiter musicians are scheduled to “perform works by American composers including Aaron Copland at the Good Shepherd Church in New York City.

2011(3rd of Adar I, 5771): Eighty-year-old Jerry James, a longtime contributor to the art of tap dance, and ‘a teacher and choreographer ‘known for his airy, balletic style and eclectic approach’” who had been born Jerome Howard Abrams, passed away today.  (As reported by Margalit Fox)

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2011/02/19/jerry_ames_tap_dancer_known_for_his_airy_style_80/

2011(3rdof Adar I, 5771): Maria V. Altmann, a Jewish refugee who in her 80s waged a successful legal battle all the way to the United States Supreme Court to force the Austrian government to return paintings by Gustav Klimt that had been seized from her family by the Nazis, passed away today at her home in Los Angeles at the age of 94.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/09/arts/design/09altmann.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Maria%20Altmann&st=cse

2012: Iowa PTV is scheduled to broadcast “Lost in History: Alexander Clark” which is produced by Marc Rosenwasser, the son-in-law of Ellie and Ed Spector (and Nancy’s husband).  The Spectors have brought joy, delight and warmth to numerous Jewish communities including Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

http://www.iptv.org/iowastories/story.cfm/alexander_clark/9056/acl_20120118_lost_history_alexander_clark/video

2012: Nathan Englander’s “third book, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, short story collection, was released today. Born in 1970, Englander was raised in an Orthodox Jewish community, lived in Israel for five years and graduated from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop at the University of Iowa.

2012: In Columbus, Ohio, Tifereth Israel is scheduled to host its HAZAK Tu B'Shevat Seder

2012: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to presents “The Jewish Antifascist Committee and Its Foreign Delegation” a lecture by Gennady Estraikh

2012: “Ahead of Time: The Extraordinary Journey of Ruth Gruber” is scheduled to be shown at the Golda Meir Chapter of Hadassah in New York.

2012: Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman thanked US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today for the “very important message” recent sanctions on Iran have sent.

2012: MK Zahava Gal-On was elected as Meretz chairwoman today, winning 60% of the votes.

2013: Yiddish copy editor Louis Katz “left the Forward today, half a century after joining the newspaper as a typesetter.” (As reported by Paul Berger)

2013: Stefanie Fischer is scheduled to deliver a talk entitled “Economic Trust and Anti-Semitic Violence at The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide in London.

2013: The Center for Jewish History and the Jewish Book Council is scheduled to present, “Emerging Writers/Contemporary Literary Landscapes” that will examine the works of Nadia Kalman, Austin Ratner, Francesca Segal and Adam Wilson.

2013: In Washington, DC, Dr. Peggy Pearlstein, former Society President and Head of the Hebraic Section at Library of Congress is scheduled to conduct a tour titled “Words Like Sapphires: 100 Years of Hebraica at the Library of Congress,1912-2012”

2013: “Ezekiel’s World” a play based on the life of Abba Kovener, is scheduled to premiere in New York City. 

2013: The Jerusalem District Attorney today filed two indictments in the magistrate’s court against four Betar Jerusalem fans for making racist statements against Arabs and Muslims, including new players that had joined the team.

2013: Residents of the mixed religious/secular neighborhood of Ramat Sharett in Jerusalem are furious over the municipality’s approval of three yeshivas on the edge of their neighborhood at last week’s city council meeting. Today, the residents will hold a planning meeting with City Councilor Rachel Azaria (Yerushalmim) to try and submit a petition to the city’s Administrative Court to stop the yeshiva’s creation

2013: Tonight’s anti-Israel event sponsored and endorsed by the Brooklyn College political science department will take place on that school’s campus, but it now appears certain that the atmosphere of intimidation and distrust generated by that academic department did not begin, and will not end, with this event.

2013: Today Ben “Shapiro published an article citing unspecified Senate sources who said that a group named "Friends of Hamas" was among foreign contributors to the political campaign of Chuck Hagel, a former U.S. Senator awaiting confirmation as Secretary of Defense as a nominee of President Barack Obama” and in which he “criticized the Obama administration for ignoring his questions about Hagel's foreign associations and called for full disclosure of Hagel's foreign ties.”

2014: “The Monument’s Men,” based on book by the same name that beings with the story of the Ettlingers, a Jewish family from Karlsruhe and describes the work of tells the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives program is scheduled to be released to theatres today.

2014: Violinist Shmuel Ashkenasi is scheduled to perform in the Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center.

2014: “The Spanish government approved a draft citizenship bill “that would offer citizenship to Sephardic Jews as a gesture of conciliation for Spain’s expulsion of Jews during the Inquisition” (As reported by Isabel Kershner and Raphael Minder)

2014: “The Sturgeon Queens” a movie that “tells the story of four generations of the Russ family - and how they took their business from a tiny storefront stocked with herring barrels to the famed smoked fish emporium it is today” is scheduled to be shown at the San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

2014: “Hundreds of young worshipers flung rocks at Israeli police on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount just after Muslim Friday prayers concluded at the al-Aqsa mosque.” (As reported by Lazar Berman)

2014: “Thirteen ultra-Orthodox protesters were indicted today after their arrest during anti-draft riots yesterday in Ashdod.” (As reported by Adiv Sterman and Stuart Winer)

2014: Centuries worth of Jewish documents are at risk of vanishing into the vortex of Iraq’s chronic instability, but for American Jewish groups advocating for their preservation, there was a moment of optimism today after the US Senate approved a resolution calling for a renegotiation of the archives’ status. (As reported by Rebecca Shimoni Stoil)

2015: In Coralville, IA, Landon Elkind is scheduled to be called to the Torah as Bar Mitzvah at Aguadas Achim’s Traditional Shabbat morning service.

2015: The Eden-Tamar Music Center is scheduled to host “Sonata or Sontina – Sounds of Flue in Ein Kerem featuring Noam Bhuchman on flute and Pazit Gal playing the piano.

2015: At Temple Beth El in Hollywood, FL, Rabbi Romiel Daniel, the scholar in residence will discuss the similarities and differences between Hinduism and Judaism after having delivered a sermon the night before on the history of the Jews in India where according to him “Jews have more freedom and few if any cases of discrimination than anywhere else in the world.”

2015: In “A Month After Kosher Market Attack, French Jews Plan An Exodus” published today Griff Witte described the reaction to the terrorist attack in Paris.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/a-month-after-kosher-market-attack-french-jews-plan-an-exodus/2015/02/07/bf7fd644-abb9-11e4-8876-460b1144cbc1_story.html?hpid=z1

2015: “Egypt: faith after the pharaohs” an exhibition that includes “the Gaster Bible, a 9th-century Torah from Egypt featuring one of the oldest Hebrew illuminated text” and “fragments of documents from the Cairo Geniza containing Hebrew, Judeo-Arabic, Aramaic and Arabic texts detailing Jewish life in Cairo during the Middle Ages” is scheduled to open today at the British Museum.”

2016: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including In Europe’s Shadow: Two Cold Wars and a Thirty-Year Journey Through Romania and Beyond by Robert D. Kaplan and Exit Right: The People Who Left the Left and Reshaped the American Century by Daniel Oppenheimer.

2016: The Denver Broncos defeated the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl L.

2016: “Blind Hero, A: The Love of Otto Weidt” is scheduled to be shown this afternoon at the 26th Annual San Diego Jewish Film Festival

2016: Birkbeck University of London is scheduled to host a screening of “Ida” followed by a round-table discussion between Dr. François Guesnet, University College London and Dr. Małgorzata Pakier, POLIN, Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Warsaw.

2016: A day after a 65-year-old grandmother was stabbed by a terrorist, a Sudanese national who had entered Israel illegally in 2008, stabbed a 20 year old soldier near the central bus station in Ashkelon.

2017(11thof Shevat, 5777): Forty-nine-year-old Yehuda Simes, known as the “Rolling Rabbi” passed away today in Ottawa.

http://www.cjnews.com/news/canada/rabbi-yehuda-simes-quadriplegic-inspired-died

2017: “Sefaria, a website founded in 2013 that aims to put the seemingly infinite Jewish canon on line for free” today “rolled out 22 tractates of the Steinsaltz English edition.” (As reported by Ben Sales)

2017: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host an evening with author Judith Viorst.

2017: This evening, after dinner, The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a talk by Richard Verber from World Jewish Relief on “Tales from a Refugee Camp.”

2018: JCC Manhattan is scheduled to host the Ka’et Dance Ensemble, a Jerusalem based dance group composed of four Orthodox men performing “Heroes,” a work originally “commissioned by JW3, Jewish Community Centre for London.”

2018: At the University of Virginia, the Brody Center is scheduled to host “Bagels on the Lawn” in the morning and a presentation by Yavilah McCoy, the founder of Ayecha, in the evening.

2018: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to “Jewish Baroque” a program “featuring Dr. Michael Beckerman and Dr. Simona Frankel” that “will study the introduction of art music into European synagogues and explore mystical atonement rituals of Jews during the Baroque era.”

2019: “The 51stAnnual Four Chaplains Day Banquet honoring the four chaplains and the crew of the USAT Dorchester” is scheduled to take place in Philadelphia, PA.

http://www.fourchaplains.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/C4C-2019-Awards-Dinner-Pkg-Invitation-2-1-1.pdf

2019: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host another in its Short Talks on Big Subjects series in which Michael S. Neiberg, author of The Treaty of Versailles: A Very Short Introduction, discusses the watershed events of 1916-1919 and their connection to the Jewish people today

2019: The Springfield Jewish Community Center is scheduled to host “Author Talk with Jamie Bernstein” the author of Famous Father Girl: A Memoir of Growing Up Bernstein.

2019: The Infected Mushroom is scheduled to perform in Tel Aviv for the first time in Tel Aviv at the Gnei Hataaruch.

2019: “Jill Abramson, the former executive editor of The New York Times, responded today to accusations that her latest book, “Merchants of Truth,” contains passages that were plagiarized or not properly attributed to the original source material.

2019: The Jewish Museum in London is scheduled to host “Capture Your World: Photography Late,” a workshop that will include an exploration of the Roman Vishniac Rediscovered exhibition and instruction on developing “your own photos in a pop-up darkroom: and “reflective talks from social photographers.”)

2020: Start of “JeWitch Camp,” a “multiday restorative camping trip for Jews, pagans and those interested in exploring the eco-feminist, pre-patriarchal, pagan roots of Judaism acilitated by Rabbis Arthur Waskow and Phyllis Berman.”

2020: In Cedar Rapids, IA, Temple Judah is scheduled to host its Tu B’Shevat Seder on a night when it is not snowing in Iowa.

2020: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host “Parent’s Shabbat,” the “biggest and most popular event of the year.”

2020: In the U.K., the National Army Museum is scheduled to host “Jewish Women in the Armed Forces” during which “Kathrin Pieren and Susan Gordon from the Jewish Museum London uncover the important contribution of Jewish women in the First and Second World Wars.”

2021: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Mistrust:Why Losing Faith in Institutions Provides the Tools to Transform Them by Ethan Zuckerman and The Ratline: The Exalted Life and Mysterious Death of a Nazi Fugitive by Phillipe Sand, the author of East West Street, which “wove the story of his own Eastern European Jewish family with those of two jurists who forged the legal framework for the Nuremberg trials Hersch Lauterpacht, who put forth the concept of “crimes against humanity,” and Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term “genocide.”

2021: Temple Sinai of Sharon is scheduled to present an online screening of “Commandment 613” which  “highlights the sacred work of sofer (Torah scribe) Rabbi Kevin Hale as he restores Torah scrolls saved in Czechoslovakia during the Holocaust.”

2021: The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience is scheduled to present Part 2 of “Writing Between Tongues” which “will take a deeper dive into the rich visual worlds of Arabic and Hebrew calligraphy” with Ruben Shimonov.

2021: In Columbus, OH, the Tifereth Israel Men’s Club is scheduled to participate in the Federation of Jewish Men's Clubs annual World Wide Wrap, a world-wide minyan that will include a presentation entitle “Tefillin: A New Look at an Old Ritual.”

2021: Jewish LearningWorks is scheduled to present Ph.D. candidate Jillian Hinderliter talking about how Jewish women shaped the movement as early activists on birth-control and breast-cancer issues.

2021: The Addison-Penzak JCC is scheduled to present “The Untold Story of Bukharin Jews” during which “Manashe Khaimov of Queens College will talk about the culture and heritage of this once-sizable Jewish community in Central Asia.”

2021: The Harvard University Hillel is scheduled to present online “The Israel Summit” which is par of “an international movement dedicated to shifting the conversation surrounding Israel on college campuses across the globe.”

2021: “Israel has extended its third coronavirus lockdown until 7am today, hoping that its rapid vaccination campaign helps to contain an outbreak accelerated by new variants.”

2021: Temple Isaiah is scheduled to present online Ambassador Michael Oren talking about his third work of fiction The Night Archer and Other Stories.

 

 

This Day, February 8, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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February 8

421: Constantius III becomes co-Emperor of the Western Roman Empire serving as co-Emperor with Honorius. Constantinius only reigned for 7 months, but during his long tenure Honorius was no friend of the Jews as can be seen by his promulgation of “a new law requiring any taxes collected by Jewish leaders from the Jewish community to be sent to the imperial treasury.

1250: During the seventh crusade, King Louis IX of France faces Ayyubid forces at the 3 day Battle of Al Mansurah.  The entire crusading period was a debacle for the Jewish people.  As to Louis, Fordham University, the Jesuit University of New York says, he “was an ideal medieval king: he was chivalrous, religious, ascetic, and hostile to Jews.”

1265: Hulagu Khan, whose invasion of Persia in 1255 led to the creation of the Ilkhanate, a portion of the Mongol Empire where much to the relief of the Jews “the rulers abolished the inequality of dhimmis, and all religions were deemed equal,” passed away today.

1265: Abaqa Khan succeeded Hulagu Kahn as the ruler of the Ilkhanate, a portion of the Mongol Empire where much to the relief of the Jews “the rulers abolished the inequality of dhimmis, and all religions were deemed equal.”

1291: Birthdate of King Alfonso IV of Portugal who increased the taxes paid by the Jews, load to “reinstituted the dormant requirement that Jews wear an identifying yellow badge, and restricted their freedom to emigrate.” 

1349: In Worms, Bishop Frederick ordered that “the Jewish community should pay 20 florins each year on St. Martin’s Day when a new “Bishop of the Jews” – the head of the 12 member council that governed the internal affairs of the Jewish community – each year on St. Martin’s Day.

1596: Despite being tortured today by the Inquisition Louis de Caraval said nothing but later said that “he remembered that Jorge de Almeida and some others ‘believed in the law which God gave to Moses.’”

1640: Murad IV, “during whose reign, the Jews of Jerusalem were persecuted by an Arab who had purchased the governorship of that city from the governor of the province,” passed away today.

1693:  The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia is granted a charter by King William III and Queen Mary II.  According to recent figures there are approximately 385 Jewish students attending the school with a student population of approximately 7,700.  The school offers eight Jewish studies courses and is home to William and Mary Balfour Hillel whose mission is “To inspire every Jewish student to make an enduring commitment to Jewish life and enrich the lives of Jewish undergraduate and graduate students so that they may enrich the Jewish people and the world.”

1725: Peter The Great, Russian Czar, passed away at the age of 52.  Peter’s determination to keep the Jews out of his realm and his treatment of Russian Jews was not the picture of “enlightenment.” But his use of the Velesovsky Brothers showed that he was not above using the services of Jews who converted. From the point of Jewish history, he certainly was not the “Great”

1773:The Grand Council of Poland meets in Warsaw, summoned by a circular letter from King Stanisław August Poniatowski to respond to the Kingdom's threatened partition between three foreign powers” --- Russia, Prussia and Austria – which would have disastrous consequences for most of the large Jewish population living in Poland.

1744: Birthdate of Karl Theodor Anton Maria von Dalberg, the “prince bishop” sovereign of Frankfurt during whose reign Karl Ludwig Börne was appointed a police actuary in 1811 and then forced to resign three years later because he was Jewish.

1787: In Easton, PA, Judith Hart and James Pettigrew gave birth to Hetty Pettigrew, the wife of Adolph Anker with whom she had twelve children.

1792(15thof Shevat, 5552): With France gripped in the turmoil of the effects of the Revolution and Americans living under the leadership of their first President, George Washington, Jews celebrated Tu B’Shevat.

1795: In Baden Handel bat Gumbert and Joseph ben Ephriam Zimmern gave birth to Moses I. Zimmerman, the husband of Sarah Jacob with whom he had eight children.

1795: Birthdate of Hungarian-born journalist and author, Moritz G [Moses] Saphir who moved to Bavaria to further his career.  In 1832 he was expelled but was permitted to return by the king later that year.  Eighteen thirty-two was also the same year that Saphir became a Lutheran.

1799: In Easton PA, Sarah Hart and Isaac Nunez Cardozo gave birth to Rachel N. Cardozo the wife of Simon Cauffman and the Joseph Phillips with whom she had two children – Ellen and Isaac Cardozo Phillips.

1800(13thof Shevat, 5560): Parashat Beshalah

1806: “In ‘Sur les Juifs’ published today in Mercure de France Louis-Gabriel-Ambroise Bonald “repeated the usual anti-Semitic accusations” including “that the Jews were at war with morality, that they formed an "imperium in imperio," and that the majority of them were parasites.”

1810: Birthdate of Paris native Alphonse Louis Constant, the Roman Catholic who was the great nineteenth century student of the Caballah who did his work as Eliphas Levi, the Hebraized form of his given name.

1818: Moses Moses married Sarah Friedberg today at the Great Synagogue.

1830(15thof Shevat, 5590): Tu B’Shevat

1831: Louis Philippe of France, successor to Charles X, ratified a motion putting Judaism on a par with Christianity, granting State support to Synagogues and their Minister of Religion. This meant that France extended financial support to Jewish religious institutions on par with Christian institutions.

1832: Birthdate of German native Babette Baum, the wife of Samuel Strauss.

1833: Birthdate of Baron Horace Günzburg who was “one of the founders of the Society for the Spread of Enlightenment among the Jews of Russia…”

1833: In England, Iganz Moscheles and Charlotte Emden, “the daughter of a Jewish Banker and a cousin of Heinrich Heine who were married in 1825 in a Hamburg synagogue “gave birth to their second son, painter and advocate for Esperanto Felix Moscheles who appears to have been raised as a member of the Church of England.

1843: Health officers in Frankfort-on-Main issued an order stating “Israelite citizens and inhabitants, must employ the services of competent persons" when having their sons circumcised.

1835: Thirty-one-year-old Clara Kahn married Jacob Neumond, the thirty two year old German born son of Johanna and Louis Neumond.

1858: Birthdate of Pauline Koch, who as Pauline Einstein gave birth to physicist Albert Einstein.

1860(15th of Shevat, 5620): Tu B'Shevat

1860(15thof Shevat, 5620): Sixty-seven-year-old Charlotte Aron, the wife of Alexandre Aron and the daughter of Asser Lion and Gitlé Loëw passed away today in Alsace, France.

1860: “A Mistaken Philanthropist” published today describes the efforts of "‘Captain’ Moses, a gentleman we presume of Abrahamic stock,” to raise funds and outfit a ship that would provide relief for “the Christian and Jewish refugees, who had been constrained to flee almost naked from Morocco to Gibraltar ‘to escape the knife of the savage Bedouin of the desert.’” Unfortunately for Captain Moses, he misrepresented his credentials when he went to Philadelphia to continue his efforts and ended up being be jailed because authorities saw him as a “swindler” and “imposter” rather than “an indiscreet philanthropist.”

1863: “Beauregard and the Jews” published today quoted a letter that the P.G.T. Beauregard had written in 1861 when he was commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in which he explained why could not grant leave to Jewish soldiers to observe the High Holidays. He is sure that “the Hebrews” serving with the army will understand that military necessity makes it impossible to grant a request that he would otherwise comply with quite willingly.

1863: Jeanetta Mallan and Joseph Davis gave birth to George Victor Davis.

1866: In Yelisavetgrad, Maryam-Ethel Reznikova and Hershko (Hirsh) Gomberg gave birth Moses Gomberg who was a professor of Chemistry at his alma mater, the University of Michigan, and who considered to be “the father of radical chemistry.”

http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/gomberg-moses.pdf

1866: At Tabor, Hungary, Judith Klemperer and Juda Markus Klemperer gave birth to Karl Klemperer.

1867:  The Ausgleich results in the establishment of the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. The Ausgleich refers to the compromise document that changed the Austrian Empire into the dual monarchy that put Hungary on level playing field with the previously dominate Germanic (Austrian) element of the Hapsburg Empire.  The reform came about as a result of Austria’s defeat at the hands of Prussia. (Yes this gets complicated; but if you want to understand the fate of the Jews of Europe you have to understand European history.)  Following the Law of Unintended consequences, The Ausgleich had a profound effect on the Jews living under the rule of the Habsburgs. “With the “Ausgleich” between Austria and Hungary in 1867, Jews finally gained full citizen rights. Vienna was now the city in the Habsburg Empire with the largest Jewish community (40,000 or 6.6 percent). Most of the Viennese Jews were of Bohemian, Moravian and Hungarian origin, while others were from the poor area of Galicia. Jewish communities in other parts of the Empire developed, even in cities that have not had any Jews for a long time, such as Salzburg (part of Austria since 1816).”  Today we seem to have forgotten the prominent role that Vienna played in European and Jewish culture.  Within a few decades of each other, for example, Vienna was home to Herzl, Freud and Hitler.  Imagine what might have happened had Hitler been one of Freud’s patients.

1870: Two days after she had passed away, Mina Davis, the wife of Woolf Davis and the mother of Isaac, Ann, David and Leah Davis was buried today at the Deane Road Jewish Cemetery in Liverpool.

1871: During inquest being held today at Union Hill, NY, to determine the cause of death for Charles Kraft, a Jew named Nathan Berg was identified as one of three men who might have been involved in a fatal beating of the deceased.

1872: Birthdate of Theodor Lessing, the “German Jewish philosopher… known for opposing the rise of Hindenburg as president of the Weimar Republic and for his classic on Jewish self-hatred (Der jüdische Selbsthaß)…in which he tried to explain the phenomenon of Jewish self-hatred - Jewish intellectuals who incited anti-Semitism against the Jewish people, and regarded Judaism as the source of evil in the world. A Zionist, he moved to Czechoslovakia after Hitler came to power. The move did not save him since he “was assassinated by Nazi agents in the summer of 1933.”

1874: Sixty-six-year-old German theologian and author David Friedrich Strauss who was a leader of those studying Jesus as a historical figure, which would have included his Jewish origins, passed away today

1874: In Pittsburgh, Adolph and Rosalia Burkhart gave birth to Curry Institute and University of Southern California alum Lillian Burkhart who married George Goldsmith ad gained fame as Lillian Goldsmith, vaudeville performer turned social reformer who was member of the national board of the Council of Jewish Women and President of the Los Angles Section of the National Council of Jewish Women. (Some sources show her birthdate as 1871)

1878:  Birthdate of Martin Buber.  Buber almost defies definition. He gained fame as a theologian, philosopher, teacher and Zionist.  His life and teachings are too rich and complicated to be encapsulated in this brief item. Born in Vienna, Buber spent his youth living with his grandfather who was a distinguished rabbinic scholar. Buber returned to Vienna for his secular education.  He was attracted to Zionism in its earliest days but saw the need to add a uniquely Jewish cultural and spiritual component to Herzl’s political ideas.  After dabbling with various forms of mysticism, Buber began to study the works of the Chassidic Masters.  Eventually he developed a philosophy based on their lives and teaching which has been described as Neo-Chasidism.  Buber moved to Jerusalem in 1938 and joined the faculty of Hebrew University. His most famous work I and Thou which described the I-Thou and I-It relationships was published in 1923.  Other works available in English include, but are not limited to, Good and Evil, On Judaism and The Legend of the Baal Shem.  Buber understood the relationship between Judaism and Christianity but knew the difference between the two as well.  His works and philosophy has had an impact on people of many different beliefs.  In the words of Buber: “The God of history and the God of nature cannot be separated and the land of Israel is a token of their unity.”  “There is no opposition between the truth of God and the salvation of Israel.”  "To him who knows how to read the legend, it conveys more truth than the chronicle.”  “The Jew carries the burden of an unredeemed world.  He cannot concede that redemption is an accomplished fact for he knows it is not.”

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/martin-buber/

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/martin-buber

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0208.html

 

1878: In the Pale of Settlement a Hebrew scholar named Ezekiel Baevski and his wife, Koona Dubrusha, née Shur gave birth to Simcha Myer Baevski who would gain fame as Sidney Baevski Myer “the Jewish-Australian businessman and philanthropist, best known for creating Myer, Australia's largest chain of department stores.”

1878: Tonight, marked the final performance at the Opera Comique of “Dora’s Dream” starring Giula Warwick.”

1878: Birthdate of Hungarian native and Columbia trained New York physician Joseph Bieber.

1879(15thof Shevat, 5639): Shabbat and Tu B’Shevat

1880: Rabbi De Sola Mendes officiated at the funeral of John D. Phillips which was attended by several prominent Jewish leaders including Albert Cordozo, Jesse Seligman and Emanuel B. Hart.

1882(19thof Shevat, 5642): Twenty days before his 70th birthday, German-Jewish author Berthold Auerbach passed at Cannes, France.

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2112-auerbach-berthold-baruch

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_New_International_Encyclop%C3%A6dia/Auerbach,_Berthold

1883(1st of Adar I, 5643): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1886: Gabriel Lippman the son of a Jewish glove maker and who earned the Nobel Prize in Physics became a member of the French Academy of Sciences which he served as President in 1912.

1889(7thof Adar, 5649): Eighty-three-year-old author and social work Anna Maria Goldsmid who was the daughter of Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, passed away today.  Born in London in 1805 she first gained fame for her work as the translator of Dr. Gotthold Salomon’s sermons from German into English.  She helped from the Jews’ Infant-Schools and took an active role in the Jews’ Deaf and Dumb Home.

1889: Achad ha-am organized the Zionist Order Benei Moshe

1890: In New York City, Morris and Sarah and Miriam Goldstein gave birth to Columbia and JTS graduate Herbert Samuel Goldstein, the husband of Rebecca Fischel and “the only person in history to have been elected president of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, the Rabbinical Council of America (first presidium), and the Synagogue Council of America.”

1890: While serving with the United States Army, twenty-five-year-old Sergeant Frank Maximillian Steinhart, the Munich born son of Simon and Regina (Levinger) Steinhart who would eventually go on to serve as the General Manager of the Havana Electric Railways, Light and Power Company today married Alice Florene Redden.

1890: Birthdate of Isidore Kaufman, the native of Syracuse, NY who gained fame as singer Irving Kaufman, who along with is brothers Phillip and Jack for the “The Kaufman Brothers.”

http://www.gracyk.com/kaufman.shtml

1891(30thof Shevat, 5651): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1891(30thof Shevat, 5651): Fifty-eight-year-old Bavarian born Grand Rapids mayor and Michigan congressman Julius Houseman passed way in his adopted hometown.

http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=H000820

1891: It was reported today that at the request of Baron Maurice de Hirsch and several well-known leaders of the New York Jewish community have undertaken the management of a philanthropic scheme of “great practical utility.” They have consented to act under a deed of trust, by which Baron Hirsch places in their control the sum of $2,400,000 to be used in improving the condition of the poor Hebrew immigrants that are continually coming here from Russia and Romania.

1891: It was reported today that funds provided by Baron Hirsch and his supporters in the United States four new schools have been opened in New York City to help provide training for the newly arrived immigrants from Russia.  These include a technical school, an evening school for girls who work during the day and two schools that prepare youngsters for entering the public schools.

1891: It was reported today that Joseph Klein, the President of Hebrew Cemetery Association received a suspended sentence from a court in Union County, New Jersey, after having been convicted of defrauding a co-religionist out of $60.

1891: “Unleavened Bread,” published in today’s Atlanta Constitution reported that “Cincinnati bakers have been busy for three months preparing for Passover.” (Editor’s note – The story is notable on 2 counts – it was published in a paper in Atlanta, GA, hardly a bastion of Jewish settlement and the matzo was being produced by Manischweitz, which continues to supply a wide variety of Jewish products in the 21st century)

1894: Birthdate of Ludwig Marcuse German-born author and philosopher.

1896: At two o’clock, Henry Steinhal, an actor appearing in “The Russian Jew” who had been accidently wounded when a blank pistol misfired, left the Adler Theatre with a limp and with a question – would he get damages from management?

1896: Benjamin and Rose Briskin gave birth to producer Samuel J. Briskin whose most memorable accomplishments may have been co-founding Liberty Films which made the classics “It’s A Wonderful Life and “State of the Union and serving the U.S. Army’s Signal Corps during WW II for which he received a President commendation.

https://valor.militarytimes.com/recipient.php?recipientid=28189

1896: The Berlin monthly "Zion" publishes a friendly review of Herzl's London article.

1896: Herzl discusses his Zionist ideas after a lecture by Chief Rabbi Güdemann in the "Jüdische akademische Lesehalle" with some Jewish students.

1896: The Jewish community in Vienna wants to prevent the publishing of Herzl's "Der Judenstaat”

1897: It was reported today that Rabbi Kaufman Kohler and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise will co-officiate at the upcoming funeral of Morris Goodhart.

1898: Newspapers in Paris published today provided an account of the way Maitre Fernand Gustave Gaston Labori, Emile Zola’s senior defense council dealt with the government witnesses during the first session of the Seine Assizes.

1898: Birthdate of Philadelphia native Bella Finkel, the sister of director Abe Finkel, who gained fame as actress Bella Finkel Muni, the wife of the famous actor Paul Muni.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1971/10/04/90693586.pdf

1898: Two days after he had passed away, 78 year old Judah Cohen, the husband of the former Caroline Davis with whom he had had eleven children was buried today at the West Ham Jewish Cemetery.

1898: It was reported today that firemen who arrived at the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society’s orphanage were not dealing with a serious fire.  Four boys had secretly gathered to light a homemade lantern made from a cigar box and a candle.  When another boy saw the flame, he told Superintendent Louis Fauerbach and he sounded the fire alarm. The boys involved are awaiting disciplinary action.

1899: During this evening’s meeting of the People’s Club, Reverend Walter Bentley offered to let the group meet at the St. Mark’s Parish House.  A young, unnamed Jewish man said that “he was positive that no respectable Jew would belong to a club which met in a building connected with a church.” Several Jews said he was mistaken and Reverend Bentley’s offer was acceptable.

1899: Birthdate of Ralph Steiner, the Cleveland native and Dartmouth graduate who became a leading photographer and documentarian.

http://www.valley.net/~townsend/Steiner/Point.html

1900(9thof Adar I, 5660): Sixty-six-year-old Jacob Mendes Chumaceiro who served variously as the dayyan of the Sephardic synagogue, and acting chakam for the Portuguese Jews of North and South Netherlands, inspector of the Jewish schools of Amsterdam, head and librarian of the bet ha-midrash Ets Haim, and editor of Het Israelietisch Weekblad passed away today.

1901: In the Reichstag, where Konitz was made the subject of an interpellation), the Prussian minister of justice Schönstedt limited himself to a defense of the authorities against the charge of shielding the Jews; but he carefully refrained from uttering one word in condemnation of the ritual-murder charge, and even from stating that there was no reason for assuming such a motive in the case of Ernst Winter.

1902(1stof Adar I, 5662): Parashat Mishpatim; Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1902: It was reported today that Professor Lyon of the Harvard Museum plans on undertaking excavations in Palestine with hopes that they will provide “revelations of immense value to historical and theological students.”

1903: Solomon Barnato Joel and Ellen (Nellie) Ridley gave birth to Stanhope Henry Joel

1904: During the annual meeting of the members of the Hebrew Technical Institute which “was held at the Institute Building” today, Joseph B. Bloomingdale delivered his report as President in which he “said that that the pupils who had been graduated from the Institute had a combined earning capacity of over one million dollars.”

1905: New York State Commissioner of Labor John McMackin “today made public his answer to the charges of the Child Labor Committee that he has failed to enforce the child labor law” including “the charge that ‘six poor Jews of the east side in New York City were the only persons prosecuted during 1902’ for accidents due to unguarded machinery” to which he said that “we have recognized neither race creed nor color in administering the duties of the office.”

1906: Birthdate of Galicia native Henry Roth, author of Call It Sleep.

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/14/nyregion/henry-roth-is-dead-at-89-wrote-novel-call-it-sleep.html?pagewanted=1

1906: In London, Laurie and Dora Marian Magnus gave birth to Sir Philip Montefiore Magnus-Allcroft, the husband of Jewell Magnus.

1906: “A deputation of prominent citizens” including at least one rabbi were reported today to have told General Orloff that they had seen “Cossacks and hooligans shooting Jews and setting fire to their rooms” in Gomel.

1906: Birthdate of Arthur Balsam, Polish born pianist, who was an accompanist for Yehudi Menhuin.

1907: The Jewish community of Kingston, Jamaica issues an appeal for help in rebuilding three synagogues laid in ruins by an earthquake. Many Jews were killed during the disaster. The Jewish community in England responded with an offer of assistance.

1908: In Buffalo, NY, Anna and Harry Prinzmetal gave birth to their second son, Dr. Myron Prinzmetal the pioneering cardiologist and the brother of attorney Isadore Prinzmetal.

http://www.prinzmetal.net/myron_prinzmetal.htm

1909: In Pennsylvania, founding of the Canonsburg Hebrew Association the officers of which are Joseph Levine, President; Maurice Levine, vice president; Benny Klee (who along with his wife owned a grocery store that had previously been operated by Markus Blaustein), treasurer; Samuel Rosenberg, trustee and Harry Levine, trustee

1910: The Hahambashi is formally asked if he has any recommendations for the Turkish authorities over the subject of Ottoman Jews in Persia. At the time the Persian ambassador to Turkey, Prince Mirza Riza Khan utilized the Hahambashi as the final decider of Jewish law.

1911: Supporters of Sigmund Freud attack Alfred Adler and his followers at a meeting of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. The Freudians believe “that sexual feelings and sexual repression are the primary motivations of human behavior” while “Adler insists that feelings of inferiority, mostly on the subconscious level, combined with compensatory defense mechanisms (like overcompensation) become the primary forces behind behavior - especially pathological behavior.”

1912: “Hokey Pokey,” a “potpourri of Weber-Field reminiscences” opened tonight at the Broadway Theatre. (Editor’s note: Weber-Field refers to Jewish vaudevillians Joe Weber and Lew Fields)

1913(1stof Adar I, 5673): Parashat Terumah and Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1913: This evening, “the Baron Hirsch Co-Workers” are scheduled to host “their third annual subscription dance in the Florentine Room of the Congress Hotel” under the leadership of “Miss Rose Weinfeld.”

1913: Boris Thomashefsky is scheduled to present “Dvorelle the MIcheses” at the Haymarket in Chicago.

1914: Jacob H. Schiff, Rabbi J.L. Magnes and Joseph Barondess, a Commissioner of the Board of Education addressed the annual meeting of the “officers and directors of Brownsville’s Hebrew Free School” today.

1915: In New York, Meyer Barmett, the Polish born son of Harris and Gittel Baran and his wife Sarah Barnett gave birth to Edna Barnett

1915: It was reported today that a gala event at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel has raised more than $7,000 for the Ladies’ Hebrew Fuel and Aid Society.

1915: In Denver, CO, Harry Lutstig and Jeanette Schamus gave birth award winning graphic designer Alvin Lustig, who studied at the Los Angeles City College and the Art Center College of Design who also taught at Black Mountain College and Yale.

https://www.alvinlustig.com/

http://www.designishistory.com/1940/alvin-lustig/

1915: It was reported today that plans have been for “a Palestine Pageant and Oriental Exposition” at the St. Luke’s Church in New York which will received support from “fourteen neighboring churches of various denominations.” (Editor’s Note - It would seem that the question of who “owns” Palestine is more complicated than one might already think.)

1916: “The American Jewish Relief Committee has issued a preliminary report of distribution showing that so far $1,085,000 has been sent to Russia, $660,000 to Germany, $430,000 to Austria-Hungary and $109,243 Palestine.

1916: “Alleging that the name of his family was being used to lure hundreds of poor east side Jews into a real estate venture, Jesse I. Straus, the son of Isidor Straus who lost on the Titantic, appeared at the District Attorney’s office” today “and urged immediate investigation of the Chatsworth Industrial Company.”

1916: “Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels notified Leon Sanders, President of the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society” today “that the 60,000 pounds of matzoth which the organization is to send to Palestine would be taken on board the collier Sterling which is scheduled to leave Norfolk, VA for Alexandria, VA” in the next eight days.

1916: The concerns of Dr. M.J. Lewis reported today included “the worries of the older generation of Jews that so many of their offspring, in spite of the work of the Educational Alliance, are mistaking liberty for license and feel that their young are going astray.  American ideas and ideals are causing a great gulf to spring up between the older and the younger.  It is this gulf that is giving them concern.”

1917: Abraham Haim Weldberg, a native of Palestine was among those who applied for their citizenship papers today at the “county Naturalization Bureau” in New York.

1918: In the East of London, garment manufacture Philip Rayne and his wife gave birth to “property developer” and philanthropist Max Rayne whose good works led to him being made a “life peer” known as Baron Rayne.

1918: After completing three weeks of training. Solomon Landman was sent to Camp Hancock in Augusta, GA where he performed many of the functions of a social worker and a chaplain including visiting the sick in hospitals, setting up entertainment for the troops and conducting religious services.

1918: According to reports “from Zurich, in an interview with Rabbis Lipshitz, Treistman and Cahano, the Polish Premier Kucharzewski promised to submit to the Political Department, the rabbinical memorandum on anti-Semitic restrictions still prevailing in Poland and to satisfy the Jewish demands.”

1919(8thof Adar I, 5679): Parashat Terumah

1919: Rabbi Gerson B Levi led Shabbat services at B’nai Shalom Temple Israel on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue.

1919: In statement made public today by the ZOA, “Jacob H. Schiff said he favored the establishment of a Jewish Homeland in Palestine but found himself unable to endorse some of the phases of Zionist propaganda in particular the emphasis on Jewish nationalism at the expense of religion.

1919: After World War, Hugo Guttman the Jewish officer who successfully lobbied for Adolf Hitler to receive the Iron Cross First Class, “was demobilized from the German Army but was still maintained on the Army rolls as a Reserve Lieutenant.”

1920: The Illustrated Sunday Herald, a popular British Sunday newspaper, published an article by Winston Churchill urging the Jews of Russia and beyond to choose Zionism over Bolshevism.  In one sense, Churchill saw Zionism as anti-dote for Jews who would otherwise be drawn the Communist cause.

1921: Birthdate of Immanuel Jakobovits, the native of Konigsberg, Germany who became the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth.

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/02/world/lord-jakobovits-outspoken-chief-rabbi-in-britain-for-24-years-is-dead-at-78.html?scp=14&sq=Immanuel+Jakobovits&st=nyt

1922: An auction is being held in Lorimer Hall where Boston realtor and Zionist Julius Nesson “is selling $3,000,000 worth of property” prior to his “departure for Palestine.”

1923: In Paddington, London “Italian actor Victor Rietti and Rachel Rosenay” gave birth to Lucio Rietti who gained fame as English actor Robert Rietti.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/celebrity-obituaries/11555558/Robert-Rietti-voiceover-actor.html

1923: The Völkischer Beobachter ("Völkisch Observer") the newspaper of the National Socialist German Workers' Party or Nazi Party was published as daily for the first time.

1925: Kaufman and Berlin's "Coconuts" premiered in New York City.

1926: Today, the “national headquarters of the $15,000,000 United Jewish Campaign announced ha A.W. Mclean, the Governor of North Carolina has issued a proclamation urging all the leaders of public thought, non-Jews as well as Jews, throughout the State to volunteer their services to help raise North Carolina’s quota of $200,000.”

1927: It was reported today that although “financial difficulties have beset the American Zion Commonwealth, the organization responsible for the colonization of Palestine by Jews” it is in no danger of declaring bankruptcy according attorney Samuel J. Rosensohn.

1928(17thof Shevat, 5688): Forty-seven-year-old Lynchburg, VA native and Columbia trained attorney Norvin R. Lindheim and the husband of Hadassah President Irma Levy passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1928/02/09/91471664.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1929 While addressing members of Congregation B’nai Israel and Sheerith Judah which was celebrating its tenth anniversary, Mayor Walker “said Jewish philanthropy was the most inspiring thing he had met in the city and praised the Jews for their care of the young and the aged as well.”

1930: "Happy Days Are Here Again" by Benny Mereoff hits #1.

1931: In Cairo, King Faud opened the Museum of Modern Art which was located in a mansion that had been purchased by Elie Mosseri and donated to the government.  Mosseri was a leading member of the Egyptian-Jewish community.

1934: Birthdate of Louis Katz, the long serving Yiddish copy editor of the Forward. (As reported by Paul Berger)

http://forward.com/articles/171250/the-forward-says-good-bye-to-mister-katz/?p=all

1935 (5th of Adar I, 5695):  Max Liebermann leading German impressionist painter and graphic artist, passed away at the age of 87.  Some of his works are on display at the Jewish Museum in New York.  Once you see a Liebermann you want to see more.

http://www.liebermann-villa.de/en/biografie-max-liebermann.html

1935: “Rumba” a musical drama based on a story by Guy Endore was released in the United States today.

1935: In Wheeling, West Virginia, celebration of the 85th anniversary of the Eoff Street Temple is scheduled to continue for a second day.

1936(15thof Shevat, 5696): Parashat Beshalach, Shabbat Shirah, Tu B’Shevat

1936: In honor of the “Sabbath of Jewish Song” (known as Shabbat Shirah) Temple Emanu-El is scheduled to follow a special liturgy developed by the “Board of American Hazan-Minsters” of which Walter A. Davidson is secretary.

1936: “Three peasants were killed and several were wounded” when peasants ‘armed with pitchforks and clubs fought with the police “who were searing for the nationalist ringleaders who organized anti-Jewish riots in Zagorow, Poland.

1936: In Minneapolis, MN, two pharmacists, “Max Sadoff and the former Rose Carroll,” gave birth to pioneering forensic psychiatrist Dr. Robert L. Sadoff. (As reported by Sam Roberts)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/20/us/robert-sadoff-dead-forensic-psychiatrist.html

http://jaapl.org/content/jaapl/36/3/286.full.pdf

1936: A national conference on Palestine at Washington D. C’s Willard Hotel which “is intended to formulate a comprehensive program to link the efforts of the Jews of” the United States “and of Europe in providing for the transportation” German, Polish and other European Jews to Palestine opened today.

1936: At Ann Arbor, MI, the celebration of the 70th birthday of Professor Moses Gomberg, the chair of the Chemistry Department included a gift of five thousand dollars by his “friends and students” in his honor to the school.

1936: In Paris, Andre and Yvonne (Cremieux) Istel gave birth to Princeton educated economist Yves-Andre Istel, who worked with Kuhn Loeb and Company, Lehman Brothers and Rothschild, Inc. and who was the husband of the former Nancy Lazarus.

1937: “The plight of the Jews was forcibly brought to the attention of the world” today with the startling report “that the Polish government planned the immediate ‘evacuation” of all of the more than three million Jews in Poland, “thereby confronting other nations with a migration problem of unprecedented dimensions.”

1937: “The Man Who Could Work Miracles” directed by Lothar Mendes, produced by Alexander Korda, with music by Mischa Spoliansky and filmed by cinematographer Harold Rosson was released today in the United Kingdom.

1937: “Nationalism Casts Polish Jews Aside” published today described a “drive similar to that in the Reich that aims to ‘Polonize’ towns and the country’s businesses” which means  the government has thrown its political and economic might on the side of 22 million Poles and to ignore the needs of the Jewish population which it considers to be “surplus.”

1938: In Rome, the Minister for Popular Culture issued an official statement today denying “rumors published in various foreign newspapers” describing “measures taken against the intellectual activity of the Jews” including a ban on Jews speaking on the radio and a ban on all books and plays by Jewish authors.

1938: Today, Tribuna, “one of Rome’s two principal Fascist dailies printed a two-column review of In the Dawn of a World by Franz Werfel.

1939: “Thirty people marched tonight from a wine cellar in downtown Vienna to a near-by Nazi headquarters shouting ‘Down with Roosevelt, Down with Jews, Heil Hitler.’”

1939: “The contention that Palestine is the only country where Jews from Germany and Central Europe can be received on a scale that will solve the refugee was stressed tonight by Dr. Chaim Weizmann” as he started to present the Jewish case at the opening of the hearings in London.

1940: The first ghetto was set up by the Nazis in Lodz. The idea was to bring in all Jews from the surrounding areas in order to make it easier to proceed with the "Final Solution." By the first of May, 160,000 Jews would have been herded into the Ghetto.

1940: Edzia Abbe and her family were among the Jews forced to move into what would become the Lodz ghetto.

 1940: Birthdate of Ted Koppel, ABC newsman and host of Nightline.  Koppel was born in England where his parents had fled to escape Hitler’s Germany.  According to one source, Koppel’s proudest possession is a family Torah Scroll.

https://www.biography.com/people/ted-koppel-9368366

1941: Lord Moyne, the British leader who would be murdered by Lehi in 1944, began serving as Secretary of State for the Colonies in the cabinet led by his friend Winston Churchill. He also assumed the leadership position in the House of Lords per the appointment of Churchill who as commoner served in the House of Commons.

1942: Herman Barron defeated Henry Picard by two strokes to win the Western Open in Phoenix, AZ.  This made him the first Jewish golfer to win a PGA Tour event.

 1942: Birthdate of actor and comedian Robert Klein.

1942: Fritz Todt, Hitler’s Minister of Armaments died in a plane crash today paving the way for Albert Speer to assume all of his powerful positions in the Third Reich – an assumption of power that should have led him to the gallows at Nuremberg.

1942: Author Hans Gunther Adler was deported along with his wife Gertrude Klepetar to Theresienstadt where he would spend the next three years of his life and she would die.

1942: Much to the disappointment of the Nazis only 359 Jews (137 women) from the Kovno ghetto arrived in Riga. The German Civil Administration in Lithuania had originally requested 1,000 male Jews.

1943: Sixty-seven-year-old Frederick Paul Keppel who Third Assistant Secretary of War during World War I played a role in having “a double triangle placed above the graves of the Jewish soldiers” who died in France “instead of the cross” passed away today.

1944(14thof Shevat, 5704): Seventy-four-year-old Bernhard Rothschild, the German born son of Sibilla Rothschild and the “husband of Henriette (Jetta) Rothschild” passed away today.

1944(14thof Shevat, 5704): Fifty-three-year-old Newark, NJ, native and New Jersey Law School trained attorney, Judge William Unterman, “the chairman of the Ninth Ward Democratic Club” and “President of the Third District of B’nai B’rith who was the husband of Esther Untermann passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1944/02/09/86846234.pdf

 

1944(14thof Shevat, 5704): Seventy-seven-year-old “Sir Elly (Eleaszer Silas) Kadoorie, Bagdad-born Jewish philanthropist, who was taken prisoner by the Japanese in Hong Kong” passed away today. (As reported by JTA)

http://www.jta.org/1944/03/05/archive/sir-elly-kadoorie-bagdad-born-jewish-prilanthropist-dies-in-japanese-captivity

1944(14thof Shevat, 5704): Eighty-six-year-old Bernard Sachs, the American neurologist who is the Sachs in Tay-Sachs Disease an honor he earned because he “provided a more comprehensive description of the disease, and in 1887 noted its higher occurrence in Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe” passed away today.

https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/bernard-sachs-1858-1944

http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/403.html

1944: The Nazis deported 1,000 Jews from Holland to Birkenau, including 268 hospital patients.

1945: The Alsos Mission, a sub-set of Robert Oppenheimer’s Manhattan Project which was “established to investigate enemy scientific developments involving nuclear weapons chemical and biological weapons, and the means to deliver them” “reopened its forward headquarters in Strasbourg as Alsos Forward South (AFwdS0”

1945(23rdof Tevet, 5705): Twenty days before his 99th birthday, Daniel Harris who 1864 enlisted in the Navy where he served aboard the Saratoga as part of the force blockading Confederate ports and was part of a detachment of five thousand sailors who fought on land at Charleston, SC passed away today meaning that were no more survivors of the “8,000 Jewish soldiers who fought on the Union side during the Civil War.

1946: In Palestine, Jewish newspapers respond to an attack on a British military installation followed by a British rampage aimed at the Jews of Cholon by publishing editorials calling on the Jewish population to reject the tactics of terrorism in their quest to create a Jewish homeland regardless of British or Arab provocations.  An editorial in the Palestine Post calls on the Jews to “ferret out extremists” and to remember that “lawless violence will generate lawless violence—from which the innocent invariably suffer more than the guilty.  In its editorial, Haaretz“declared these incidents had given the Jewish people an ‘opportunity of reminding itself that forces are being let loose that cannot after be controlled…We have to pursue the difficult struggle against British policy and there many ways of doing it.  Our fight is against British policy, not against British soldiers.’”

1947: Birthdate of MIT grad Gerald Jay “Gerry” Sussman who became the Panasonic Professor of Electrical Engineering at his alma mater where he developed a specialty in artificial intelligence.

1948: Today, at the 19thannual luncheon of the Jewish Teachers Association, M. Maldwin Fertig, the “former Commissioner of Markets’ called for the “lifting of the embargo on arms to Palestine” which would help to put an end to Arab defiance of the U.N. partition plan.

1949: Formation of Shabak or Shin Bet, the Israel security service

1951: Birthdate of Deborah Lynn Friedman, who as Debbie Friedman would change the face of Jewish music in the last half of the 20th century.

1952(11thof Shevat, 5712): Eighty-four-year-old Max W. Wallenstein, one of the four children of Esther and Solomon Wallenstein passed away.

1952: “Lambert the Sheepish Lion” an animated short film featuring the voices of Stan Freberg and June Foray was released today in the United States.

1957(7thof Adar I, 5717): Maurice Finkelstein, the Syracuse, NY born son of Hannah and Simon Isaac Finkelstein, the husband of Naomi Finkelstein and father of Helen and James Finkelstein passed away today in New York City.

1958: Birthdate of actor Barry Miller.

1959(30thof Shevat, 5719): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1959(30thof Shevat, 5719): Sixty-year-old “Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter and columnist” Meyer Berg, the husband of “Mrs. Mae Gamsu Berger” passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1959/02/09/80760429.pdf

1960: “Tiger at the Gates” co-produced by Henry Weinstein, co-directed by Harold Culman and featuring David Hurst as the “Poet Propagandist” was broadcast today as “The Play of the Week.”

1961: A three day meeting of “B’nai B’rith Youth leaders” during which Herman Edelberg , the Washington Director of the ADL “pointed out that the 1960 Presidential election” in which America elected its first Catholic President was “another evident that prejudice is declining in the United States.”

1962: In Bnei Brak, Professor Yaakov Rand, a winner of the Israel Prize for his contribution to special education who is also a chazzan and his wife gave birth Ophir Award winning Israeli entertainer Shalom “Shuli” Rand who is also a Haredi Jews.

1962: It was reported today that Carl Foreman “of the nation's most successful writer-producers sees little hope that Hollywood can avert almost complete destruction as a moviemaking center” and has said that the movie industry here could be saved only by Federal subsidy and the establishment of an industry-sponsored school to train new creative and technical talents.”

1966(18thof Shevat, 5726): Eighty-two-year-old Russian-born American mathematical physicist Paul Epstein passed away today.

http://socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu/xtf/view?docId=epstein-paul-sophus-1883-1966-cr.xml

http://books.nap.edu/html/biomems/pepstein.pdf

1964: After 149 performances “Chips with Everything,” a play by Arnold Wexler finished its Broadway run.

1967(28thof Shevat, 5727): Seventy-three-year-old British publisher Sir Victor Gollancz passed away today.

1967: Falastin, a Jaffa based Palestinian newspaper founded in 1911 “that became one the most influential newspapers in Ottoman and British Palestine” ceased publication today.

1968(9thof Shevat, 5728): Eighty-seven-year old Rabbi Eliezer Silver, the Lithuanian born son of Rabbi Bunim Tzemach and Malka Silver who in 1907 came to the United States where he “worked as a garment salesman” and sold life insurance before returning to the pulpit during which he was part of the delegation that went to see President Taft about voiding the treaty with Russia in an attempt to improve the lot of Russian Jewry and who was founder and president of Agudath Israel, passed away today.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/eliezer-silver

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/02/09/79933172.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1970: “Israeli fighters shot down two Egyptian MIG-21s in an aerial dogfight over the Nile delta this morning” during “a 50-minute raid on Egyptian artillery emplacement and bunkers in the souther sector of the Suez Canal zone.” (JTA)

1970: In an interview published today, Premier Golda Meier told James Reston and James Feron that Israel “would return to the austerity conditions of the early 1950’s if necessary, to pay for the additional Phantom jets and other weapons requested from the United States.

1971: The NASDAQ stock market index, which Bernie Madoff helped to create, makes its debut. According to some, the confidence that Madoff built up in his role with NASDAQ, would become a tool in the creation of the largest Ponzi scheme in history.

1972(23rdof Shevat): Seventy-eight-year-old Samuel Pinanski, the President of the American Theatres Corporation and the Hebrew Free Loan Society passed away today.

1973(6th of Adar I, 5733):  Max Yasgur, the owner of the farm where Woodstock took place, passed away.

1974: “Many leading figures in British show business appealed to Soviet authorities to allow Panov to emigrate to Israel with his wife.”

1975: Opening session of the Second National Conference in Solidarity with Chile co-sponsored by Herbert Aptheker, the youngest child of wealthy Jewish family from Brooklyn who became a leading Marxist.

1976: The first recorded meeting of what would become the Women's Rabbinic Network took place.

1976: “The Taxi Driver” produced by Julia and Michael Phillips, co-starring Albert Brooks and Harvey Keitel and with music by Bernard Hermann was released in the United States today.

1978(1stof Adar I, 5738): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1978(1stof Adar I, 5738): Fifty-one German born Arnulf M. Pins the “director for the Middle East Region of the Joint Distribution Committee, and associate director of JDC-Israel” passed away today in Jerusalem.

http://en.sw.huji.ac.il/book/dr-arnulf-m-pins-%E2%80%93-memoriam

1980: “American Gigolo” an oddly plotted crime movie produced by Jerry Bruckheimer was released in the United States today.

1981: A revival production of “The Five O’Clock Girl” with music by Harry Ruby and lyrics by Bert Kalmar closed at the Helen Hayes Theatre.

1981: In a case of Jew on Jew, the curtain came down on a revival of The Five O’Clock Girl, a Harry Ruby and Bert Kalamar musical which Times critic Frank Rich described as"amiably silly" saying it "is not without passing interest as an arcane footnote to theatrical history, but as entertainment in 1981 it's a pretty slim affair,” adding that "the show's book is tiresomely long, and its gags are unshucked corn” meaning that “we're living just for the songs, and very few of them prove to be worth living for."

1982(15thof Shevat, 5742): Tu B’Shevat

1982(15thof Shevat, 5742): Just two days before his 65th birthday, Edward Lawrence “Eddie” Turchin, an infielder for the 1943 Cleveland Indians passed away today in Brookhaven, NY.

1983(25thof Shevat, 5743): Eighty-four-year-old “Alfred Wallenstein, the conductor, cellist, classical music pioneer on radio and former music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic” passed away today. (As reported by Allen Hughes)

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/10/obituaries/alfred-wallenstein-the-conductor-dies-at-84.html

1983: The Kahan Commission released its report today.

1983: Florence Lacaze Gould, the daughter of Maximin and Berthe Lacaze, the wife of Frank Jay Gould and the daughter-in-law of the infamous Jay Gould whose role as a Nazi collaborator was described in Susan Ronald’s A Dangerous Womanpassed away today.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5432787/The-life-socialite-Nazi-collaborator-Florence-Gould.html

1984(5thof Adar I, 5744): Eight-one year old Mordechai Shapira, the son of Avraham and Liba Rochel Shapira and the husband of Batya Shapira, passed away today in Petah Tikva.

1988: A commission of historians charged by the Austrian Government to look into President Kurt Waldheim's wartime record reported today that he must have been aware of atrocities committed around him and did nothing about them, and that he tried to conceal his military past

1990: Herb Gray, a member of the Liberal Party, began serving as Leader of the Opposition in the Canadian Parliament today.

1991: Victor Erlich, the grandson of Henryk Erlich was informed that according to a decree passed under Russian president Boris Yeltsin, Victor Alter, together with Erlich had been "rehabilitated" and the repressions against them had been declared unlawful. Victor Alter had been a Jewish leader of the Bund who was arrested by the NKVD and eventually executed by Stalin as part of his plan to murder any of those who might work for a non-Communist Poland after the end of the War.

1991: Israeli media reported that three soldiers had been wounded when Jordanian gunmen sneaked across the border and threw a hand grenade at a military bus. A few hours later, an Israeli guard in Jerusalem shot and wounded a Palestinian who attacked him with an ax.

1991(24thof Shevat, 5751): Ninety-five-year-old Irving Maidman, the Ukrainian born son of Jacob and Rose Maidman and the “husband of Byrdie Maidman” passed away today in Queens, NY. (He is not to be confused with the New York realtor of the same name)

1991(24thof Shevat, 5751): Eighty-five-year-old photographer Aaron Siskind passed away today.  (As reported by Andy Gundberg)

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/09/obituaries/aaron-siskind-a-photographer-of-abstract-images-dies-at-85.html

http://www.aaronsiskind.org/

http://m.theartstory.org/artist-siskind-aaron.htm

1992(4thof Adar I, 5752): Ninety-three-year-old Yiddish Art Theatre actor Baruch Lumet the father of Sidney Lumet the filmmaker responsible for such hits as Serpico and Network passed away today.

http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt2199p8q5/

1997(1stof Adar I, 5757): Parashat Mishpatim; Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1997: Tonight, at a dinner party attended by “some of the most loyal Clinton enthusiasts” when Frank Rich “raised the question of Madeline Albright’s sudden discovery of her Jewish roots” his query was greeted with “eye-rolling and sarcasm” which included “one prominent Jewish friend of both the Clintons and the Secretary of State” not hesitating “to characterize Ms. Albright's professed ignorance about her past: ''She didn't want to know from Jewish.''

1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Commanding Heights: The Battle Between Government and the Marketplace That Is Remaking the Modern Worldby Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw and the newly released paperback edition of Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger by Elizabeth Ettinger

1998(12thof Shevat, 5758): Ninety-five-year-old Joseph Baruch (J.B.) Salsberg who “was a Labor-Progressive member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1943 to 1955” passed away today.

https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/j.b.-salsberg-labour-organizer-poltical-activist-communist-and-jew

2000: “The conflict in Lebanon continued to heat up today as Shiite Muslim guerrillas killed another Israeli soldier, the sixth in two weeks, and Israeli warplanes retaliated less than 24 hours after their first bombardment shut down civilian life in Lebanon.”

2001(15thof Shevat, 5761): Tu B’Shevat

2001: “A Brazilian production of Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Company’ opened today at the Teatro Villa-Lobos in Rio de Janeiro.”

2001: Hamas claimed responsibility for today’s Beit Yisrael Bombing in which two people were injured in Jerusalem. 

2001(15thof Shevat, 5761): Eighty-eight-year-old pioneering dancer and choreographer Pauline Koner passed away today.  (As reported by Jack Anderson and Lewis Segal)

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/09/arts/pauline-koner-dies-at-88-dancer-and-choreographer.html

http://articles.latimes.com/2001/feb/10/local/me-23770

2002: The XIX Olympic Winter Games, during which 16-year-old Sarah Hughes won a gold medal, opened today in Salt Lake City.

2002: “Jewish involvement of Patriots' owner extends to Israel” by Jacob Horowitz, reported today that Robert Kraft may or may not have said the Shehechiyanu when his New England Patriots scored the game-winning field goal in Sunday's Super Bowl, but there was no mistaking the elation of this Jewish businessman and philanthropist.

2003: “With his re-election campaign behind him and the task of forming a new governing coalition still incomplete, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has resumed direct contacts with senior Palestinian officials, Israeli and Palestinian aides said today.”

2004(16th of Shevat, 5764):  Julius "Julie" Schwartz American comic book and science fiction editor passed away. He is best known as a longtime editor at DC Comics, where at various times he was primary editor over the company's flagship superheroes, Superman and Batman.

https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Julius_Schwartz

2004:The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror
by David Frum and Richard Perle and Someone To Run With by David Grossman; translated by Vered Almog and Maya Gurantz.

2005:  Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas announced a cease-fire at a summit in Egypt.

2005: “Fateless,” an Hungarian “based on the semi-autobiographical novel Fatelessnessby the Nobel Prize-winner Imre Kertész, who also wrote the screenplay” which “tells the story of a teenage boy who is sent to concentration camps at Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Zeitz” was released today in Hungary, Germany and the United Kingdom.

2006: Haaretzreported that IDF confiscated a stolen seventh-century synagogue mosaic. An archaeologist said the mosaic seized from Palestinian antiquities thieves appears to have been cut from the floor of a previously unknown synagogue that dates back to the 7th century.

2006: In Hebron international observers end their decade-long presence following attacks by Palestinians.

2007(20thof Shevat, 5767): Ninety-five-year-old Florence Melton “an inventor of the foam soled washable slipper and the mother of Gordon Zacks and Barry Zacks passed away today.

http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/florence-zack-melton-95-invented-foam-slippers/48510/

2007: The 11th annual New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival closed after a week long run. 

2008: At the Folger Library in Washington, D.C. Daniel Mendelssohn, author of The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million participates in a PEN/Faulkner event entitled "Imagination as Subversion: The Role of Imagination in Memoir & Nonfiction."

2009: The Sunday New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Jerusalem FileJoel Stone’s adamantly anti-heroic novel about a former Israeli security officer who has lost his will to live,”The Samaritan’s Secret, Matt Beynon Rees’ latest thriller which “finds the protagonist Omar Yussef in Nablus, helping his friend Sami Jaffari, a lieutenant with the national police, investigate the theft of a priceless Torah scroll (said to be the oldest book in the world) from a Samaritan sect’s synagogue” and the recently released paperback version of The Conscience of a Liberal byPaul Krugman.

2009: The Washington Post features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Random Acts of Heroic Love by Danny Scheinmann, the English author who is the son of two Jewish immigrants and Is God A Mathematician byMario Livio a Romanian born Jewish astrophysicists who was educated in Israel, served with IDF and is currently the senior astrophysicist at the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore

2009: This evening, Hila Plitmann, the 36-year-old Israeli operatic soprano, won her Grammy for Best Classical Performance as vocalist on a recording of Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan (2000), an original composition for full orchestra and amplified soprano by John Corigliano using the lyrics of Dylan and performed by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by JoAnne Falletta.

2010: The New York premiere of “Salvador: The Ship of Shattered Hopes” is scheduled to take place tonight at the 14th New York Sephardic Film Festival is schedule.

2010: In Washington, the DCJCC is scheduled to present a program entitled “Sanctuary in Israel: The Plight of African Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Israel Today.”

2010: Eleven people were arrested as Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren was repeatedly interrupted while trying to deliver an address tonight at the University of California, Irvine.

2010: Unknown assailants torched a building housing a Conservative synagogue in Arad tonight, a year after a failed attempt to burn the shul.

2010: Chancellor Arnodl Eisen and JTS Provost Alan Cooper met with about 100 students, faculty and alumni to discuss the recent announcement that the position of deal of the JTS cantorial school has been eliminated.

2010(25 Shevat, 5770): Ninety-four-year-old Rabbi Bernard Lander, founder and president of Touro College, passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/15/nyregion/15lander.html?_r=0

2011: Members of Maryland’s Jewish community are scheduled to meet with the Governor, Lt. Governor and state legislators as part of The Maryland Jewish Community 2011 Annapolis Advocacy Day.

2011: Opening night of the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.

2011: Two Kassam rockets slammed into a field and a parking lot in a kibbutz in the Sha'ar Hanegev regional council at around 11 a.m.

2012(15thof Shevat, 5772): Tu B’Shevat

2012: Based on a previous announcement by Ofer Eini, chairman of Histadrut, a general strike in support of contract workers is scheduled to begin today shutting down banks, the Bank of Israel, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE), buses, railways, the courts, national parks, local authorities, and government ministries

2012: LilithEditor in Chief Susan Weidman Schneider and Michelle Brafman, a writer and fiction teacher at GWU and the Johns Hopkins MA in writing program, are scheduled to facilitate an evening devoted to discussing the influences of naming practices on the identities of Jewish women.

2012: Former Mossad Chief Meir Dagan kicked off a new movement calling for changes in the political system today by warning that the current system could result in faulty decision-making on key issues like Iran.

2012: Gilad Schalit, the IDF soldier held in Hamas captivity for five years before being released in October, was welcomed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to the Élysée Palace in Paris on today. 2013: “Excellence” a concert featuring the Young Piano Masters of the Aldwell Institute of the Jerusalem Conservatory of Music and Dance is scheduled to take place at the Eden-Tamir Music Center

2013: An IISHJ (International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism) Seminar, “Matzah Without Dogma: Four Centuries of Secular and Humanistic Judaism,” featuring Rabbi Adam Chalom is scheduled to begin at Silver Spring, MD.

 2013: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu today condemned an arson attack at Betar Jerusalem soccer club's offices overnight, calling it "disgraceful."

2013: As snow began falling across the Northeastern US today, ushering in what was predicted to be a huge, possibly historic blizzard — and sending residents scurrying to stock up on food, and gas up their cars — some synagogues announced they would be canceling weekend services. At least two synagogues in Providence, R.I., called off Shabbat services this weekend in light of the expected severe weather. More than two feet of snow were expected in Providence, one of the highest predicted snowfalls on the East Coast this weekend.

2013: A British judge ordered Google to help identify people who may have defamed a London rabbi accused of inappropriate conduct toward women.

2014: The JCC of Northern Virginia is scheduled to host the “Ninth Annual Comedy” night featuring Monica Piper

2014: “The Attack” is scheduled to be shown at The David Posnack JCC’s 14thannual Jewish Film Festival

2014: “The Girl on the Train” is scheduled to be shown at the 24th annual San Diego Jewish Film Festival

2014: For its Joyce Theatre debut, the company created by talented Israeli choreographers Lee Sher and Saar Harari is scheduled to perform the New York premiere of Grass and Jackals, a dance piece and light spectacle.

2014: “An Israeli activist from the leftist Ta'ayush organization says he was attacked today in the West Bank by a group of masked settlers who beat him with clubs.” (As reported by Eilor Levy)

2014: Former CIA Director James Woolsey told Israeli Channel 10 TV today that “anti-Semitism could be a factor in the US refusal to release” Jonathan Pollard.

2014: For the fourth time this week, Palestinian terrorists in Gaza fired a rocket this evening in southern Israel. (As reported by Matan Tsuri)  

2014: In “At Look at a Real Man Portrayed in Monuments Men” Jamie Stengle profiles the character portrayed by Matt Damon -- James Rorimer the museum curator and director of the Metropolitan Museum who Cleveland born Jew, a fact not mentioned in the movie for some strange reason.

http://chronicle.augusta.com/life/2014-02-08/look-real-man-portrayed-monuments-men

2015: The Jewish National Fund of Canada - 2015 Tu Bi'Shevat Telethon is scheduled to take place today.

2015: “At the dedication of the Zelikow School” today Richard Siegel stated, “Now more than ever, Jewish organizations, whether start-ups or legacy institutions, need business-savvy, Jewishly educated, and visionary professional leaders to help them address both the enormous challenges and significant opportunities facing the Jewish world and the broader society.”

2015: Four ultra-Orthodox protesters were arrested today during a Jerusalem protest against IDF enlistment, that featured vandalism including setting fire to trash dumpsters.  

2015:Comedian Joan Rivers won a posthumous Grammy Award” tonight in the category of Best Spoken Word Album for the audio version of her 2014 memoir “Diary of a Mad Diva.” (As reported by Lior Zaltzman)

2015: In Coralville, IA the children of Agudas Achim are scheduled to celebrate Tu B’Shevat by planting herb and vegetable seeds which they will transplant in the Spring.

2015: Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to “mark the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide with a powerful symposium that examines the United States' response to the genocide through the lens of the Near East Relief, the first non-governmental, non-sectarian, ecumenical of its kind.”

2015: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington and Adas Israel are scheduled to co-host “Voices of the Vigil – A Movement in Music” during which Robyn Helzner “shares her experiences as an activist in the Soviet Jewry movement.”

2015: The Eyal Vilner Big Band is scheduled to bring the timeless sounds of the Swing Era to Smalls Jazz Club.

2015: Today, “the all-female Jewish pop-rock group, HAIM was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best New Artist.”

2015: The “Los Angeles' Musical Theatre Guild performed a one-night engagement of” James Moross’ “‘The Golden Apple’ with full orchestra at the Moss Theatre in Santa Monica.”

2015: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Test: Why Our Schools Are Obsessed With Standardized Testing — But You Don’t Have to Be by Anya Kamenetz and the recently released paperback edition of Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists to America by Annie Jacobsen.

2016: “For You Were Once Strangers” is scheduled to be shown at the Bow Tie Cinemas.

2016: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to host an “Insider's Talk with Chief Curator Hetty Berg of Amsterdam's Jewish Historical Museum.”

2016: An unidentified Arab stabbed and wounded an eleven year old boy in Ramle today.

2016: With the memory of last week’s fatal stabbing of border policewoman Hadar Cohen fresh in their minds. “Jerusalem police guarding the Damascus Gate…arrested an Arab woman carrying a large knife.”

2016: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host an evening exploring the life of Hungarian Jewry based on How They Lived: The Everyday Lives of Hungarian Jews, 1867-1940 by Andras Koerner.

2017: In Memphis, TN, Temple Israel’s Barbara K. Lipman Early Learning Center is scheduled to host a carnival style celebration of Tu B’Shevat.

2017: In a testament to the vitality of small-town Jewry, the Agudas Achim book club in Coralville, IA is scheduled to discuss Moonglow by Michael Chabon.

2017: Suzanne Schnieder is scheduled to present the second class on “Separation Anxiety: Religion and the Modern State” which explores the role of separation of church and state in democratic states.

2018: The Illinois Holocaust Commission is scheduled to co-host “If Not Now, When!” a panel discussion on the ‘impace and response to the Rohingya Genocide.

2018: The 28th Annual San Diego Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to open today.

2018: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host the final screening of “Menashe” which is a rarity since it is a full-length feature film in Yiddish.

2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a pub crawl starting at Turf Tavern during the 4th week of Hilary Term.

2018: The New York Times reported today that “insufficient rains in India have led to several years of a reduced chickpea harvest” which could drive up the price of hummus. (Editor’s note – this would be a real problem for Sabra which at one time was the official dip of the National Football League.)

2018: “The Foreign Ministry today appointed a new ambassador to Jordan, Amir Weissbrod, weeks after Jerusalem and Amman agreed to end a diplomatic standoff over the shooting deaths of two Jordanians by an Israeli security guard who Israel said opened fire in self-defense when under attack.” (As reported by Raphael Ahren)

2018: The Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to host an evening with Brandeis University art historian Peter R. Kalb and artist Ben Schachter as they discuss issued raised in Schacter’s latest book, Image, Action and Idea in Contemporary Jewish Art.

2018: As part of Black History Month, Albion College is scheduled to host a screening and discussion of “Rosenwald: The Remarkable Story of a Jewish Partnership with African-American Communities.”

2019: Limmud Baltics is scheduled to begin today.

2019(3rdof Adar I, 5779): Ninety-two-year-old Kreminologist and survivor of both the Lodz ghetto Seweryn Bailer, the husband of Joan Afferica passed away today. (As reported by Neil Genzlinger)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/obituaries/seweryn-bialer-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

2019: The annual conference co-sponsored by the Dubnow Institute at the Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture that took “a fresh look at the work of Else Lasker-Schuler” on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of her birth is scheduled to come to an end today.

2019: Valerie Hansen is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at the “De-Centering the Global Middle Ages” a two-day symposium co-sponsored by The Jean and Samuel Frankel for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan.

2020: In Winthrop, MA, Temple Tifereth Israel is schedule to “celebrate Tu B’Shvat with an Israeli style wine party.”

2020: In Corte Madera, CA, Book Passage Marin is scheduled to host Andy Winberger talking of about An Old Man’s Game, his book about a retired Jewish private eye hired by a temple to investigate a situation.

2020: In San Francisco is scheduled to host an “Émigré Community Gala” during which the S.F.-based Jewish Family and Children’s Services hosts fundraiser honoring community members.”

2020: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a “Walking Tour of Jewish Oxford Past and Present.”

2020: In Cambridge, the Royal Sonesta Boston is scheduled to host “Chai in the Hub 2020.”

2020(13thof Shevat, 5780): Shabbat Shirah; Parashat Beshalach;

2021: The Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County is scheduled to begin its online auction.

2021: The Lappin Foundation is schedule to present online “Space Torah” which billed as “a thrilling journey into space with NASA astronaut Dr. Jeffrey Hoffman.

2021: Sha’ar Zahav is scheduled to present Theologian Jonathon Thunderword who will talk about his soon-to-be-published book about his journey from Christianity to Judaism and Eastern traditions, and subtitled “Journey-Making with a Black Transgender Elder.”

2021: The Chabad Center of Natick is scheduled to present “Code to Joy: The World’s Happiest Kept Secret” that “explores a simple premise: Happiness isn’t just something that happens to you; it’s an approach, an attitude, an understanding of the world and your place in it.”

2021: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host Mike Solomonov, the award-winning chef and restaurateur behind Philadelphia’s Zahav, during the first session of “Bringing Israel Home.”

2021:  Founding Director of the Clalit Research Institute, and senior advisor to the coronavirus cabinet, Prof. Ran Balicer, warned the ministerial coronavirus Cabinet that lifting the nationwide closure in the midst of an infection surge could lead to rising mortality among the country's younger population” while “Israel's vaccine deniers have noticeably stepped up their efforts in the last few days, both online and on the streets.”

 

 

This Day, February 9, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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February 9

474: Zeno was crowned as co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire. “The feeling of Emperor Zeno towards the Jews is illustrated by a remark made at the races of Antioch. After a mob murdered many Jews, threw their corpses into the fire, and burned their synagogue Zeno commented, ‘They should have burned the living ones also.’”

1119: Calixtus II was named Pope.  During his twenty five years on the papal throne, Calixtus II “provided a considerable amount of protection for Roman Jews.”

1267: The Synod of Breslau ordered Jews of Silesia to wear special caps.

1288(4thof Adar): Pola, a female copiest who belonged the Avanim family from Rome completed working on a book of the Bible as can be seen from the colophon which revealed “the name of her father, her forefathers, her first husband and the date of completion.” (As reported by Renee Levine Melammed)

1404: In Constantinople, Manuel II Palaiologos and Helena Dragaš gave birth to Constantine XI Palaiologos, the last Byzantine Emperor who would lose his capital to the Ottomans led by Mehmed II in 1453. This would mark the end of Christian domination in parts of eastern Europe and Asia Minor, a change which would have incalculable effect on Jews living in the region as far west as Spain.

1517: Isabel Lopez, the daughter of Maria Lopez offered an expanded rebuttal of the charges made against by the Inquisition. “She never observed Shabbat or wore special clothes except in honor of a Church holy day, a baptism or wedding ceremony. She recited the Ave Maria, the Pater Noster, the Creed and the Salve Regina. She had no idea what the sciatic nerve was, but was a clean woman who ate all types of fish and animals. She asked the tribunal to restore her honor and reputation. In August, she stated that the evidence was false and invalid. She was a good Christian; nothing she did was heretical. If she cleaned her meat, it was because she was meticulous; she never dressed up on Friday or Saturday and had no special lamps in her home.” (As reported by Renee Levine Melammed)

1621: Gregory XV was elected Pope. Gregory’s support of the censorship of Jewish books can be seen in the fact that during his brief papacy (1621-1623) at “least three expurgators of Hebrew books were appointed by the Roman Inquisition: Vincentius Matelica, 1622, "auctoritate apostolica"; Isaia di Roma, 1623, "per ordine di Roma"; and Petrus de Trevio, 1623, "deputatus" (officially appointed to revise books).”

1670: Sixty year old Frederick III, who said of the Jews, they “have stolen into Denmark contrary to long-standing custom, [since the days of the Reformation, the Lutheran creed had, according to the laws of Denmark, been compulsory throughout the kingdom], and have dared to traffic with jewels and the like” which led him “to order that no Jew should enter Denmark without a special passport ("Geleitsbrief"), and that those who were already in the country should be heavily fined if they did not leave within fourteen days” passed away today. [Editors’ note: A few years later, however, the tables were turned. Frederick III., being in need of funds for his wars, borrowed money from the Jew Abraham (or Diego) Teixeira de Mattos of Hamburg (known through his relations with the Swedish queen Christina), and gave as security crownlands in Jutland. Teixeira thereupon made such good use of his influence with the Danish king that, as early as Jan. 19, 1657, "the Portuguese professing the Hebrew religion" were permitted to travel everywhere within the kingdom, and to trade and traffic within the limit of the law. Teixeira himself gained little by his transaction with the Danish monarch. As his loan was not returned, he took instead the estates he held as security, selling them later at a great loss. The king acted similarly in his dealings with the De Lima family, who were in possession of the Hald estate from 1660 to 1703.”

1749: Benedict XIV issued a papal bull, “Singulari Nobis consoldtioni” that prohibited marriages between Jews and Christians.

1773: In Virginia, Elisabeth and Benjamin Harrison V gave birth to William Henry Harrison the whose service as the 9th President of the United States lasted only 32 days and whose connection to the Jewish people came through his grandson Benjamin Harrison, the President who in 1892 appealed to the Czar to stop mistreating his Jewish subjects. (As reported by Denis Brian)

1799(4thof Adar I, 5559) Parashat Teruman

1800: In Germany, Marget Isaac and Aron Abraham Arnold gave birth to Abraham Arnold, the husband of Maria Abrahams whom he married in Philadelphia and with whom he had 16 children.

1803: Michael Benjamin married Sarah Goodman today at the Great Synagogue.

1807: Napoleon convened the French Sanhedrin. The first meeting in Paris of the Napoleonic Sanhedrin was under the leadership of The Assembly of Jewish Notables. It opened amid great pomp and celebration under the direction of Abraham Furtado. The Sanhedrin was modeled on the ancient Tribunal in Jerusalem and consisted of 71 members - 46 Rabbis and 25 laymen. Rabbi David Sinzheim of Strasburg was its President. They were presented with 12 questions regarding the positions of Jewry regarding polygamy, divorce, usury, other faiths, and most important whether they considered France to be their Fatherland. Needless to say, they received "guidance" from the emperor as to the general formulation of the answers.

1808: In Westphalia, a large delegation of Jews visited King Jerome, the brother of Napoleon to express their thanks for his granting them full emancipation.  During the audience he told them: Tell your brothers to enjoy the rights that were granted to them.  They can depend upon my protection on a par with the rest of my children."

1812: Birthdate of Israel “Izzy” Lazarus, the London born bare-knuckle boxer who moved to the United States in 1853 with his wife and two sons (both of whom were boxers) where he was “saloon keeper” and fight promoter.

1813: Birthdate of Maria Godfrey Solomons, the wife of Gabriel Myers and the mother of Henrietta and Matilda Myers.

1815: Birthdate of Austrian Talmudist and historian Isaac Hirsch Weiss best known for his 5 volume work Each Generation and Its Scholars, “a history of the Halakha, or oral law, from Biblical times until the expulsion of the Jews from Spain at the end of the 15th century.”

1825: Birthdate of Abraham Pereira Mendes, the native of Kingston Jamaica whose lengthy career as a rabbi took him London and Montego Bay before spending the last ten years as the leader of Touro Synagogue in Newport, R.I.

1825: For the first, and so far, only time, the House of Representatives chose the President of the United States when it elected John Quincy Adams to the Presidency during which he responded to a letter from Major Mordecai Manuel Noah by saying “I believe in the rebuilding of Judea as an independent nation.”

1826(1stof Shevat, 5586) Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1826(1stof Shevat, 5586): Sixty-eight-year-old Abraham Benjamin Nones, the Bordeaux born son of Rachel and Abraham Benjamin Nones, Sr. and husband Miriam Marks do Nones, who had earned the rank of Major while serving as an aide to General Washington who settled in Philadelphia where he raised a son Joseph who “was wounded while serving as a midshipman in 1815.”

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/nones-benjamin

1828(24thof Shevat, 5588): Parashat Yitro; Shabbat Mevarchim Chodesh Adar

1828: In Germany, Gela Weil and Isaac Jacob Bamberger gave birth to Moses Bamberger, the resident of Baltimore and husband of Elizabeth Pels with who me had five children – Julius, Seymour, Louis, Rena and Arnold. (Do not confuse him with German rabbi Moses Lob Bamberger.)

1830: In Sparrow Court, London, Hannah and Abraham Harris gave birth to Nathan Harris.

1842: In Charleston, SC, Frank Segar wed Elizabeth De Haan, the daughter of Samuel De Hann.

1842: Samuel H. Myers was admitted to the Bar of United States District Court today.

1844(19thof Shevat, 5604): Karl Stix, the son of Deborah Cohen and Solomon Stix who had been born in Germany in 1816, passed away today in Cincinnati.

1844(19thof Shevat, 5604): Eleven-year-old Sarah Stix, the German born daughter of Deborah Cohen and Solomon Stix passed away today on the same day as her older brother Karl also called Charles.

1849: Sigmund Max Einhorn, the son of “Maier Mendel Einhorn and Karoline Einhorn” and the former Karoline Schloss gave birth to Fanni Einhorn who became Fannie Goetz when she married Gottlieb Goetz.

1849(17thof Shevat, 5609): Eighty-five-year-old Michael Josephs (aka Myer Königsberg) the native of Konigsberg who met Moses Mendelssohn which studying Talmud in Berlin after which he moved to London where he pursued a business career while writing articles for "Hebrew Review," the "Voice of Jacob," and the "Jewish Chronicle” passed away today.

1852: Today’s “News by the Mail” column reported that “Rabbi Raphall is lecturing at Albany on the Poetry of the Hebrews.”

1854:  In Sappemeer, Netherlands, Abraham Jacobs and Anna de Jongh gave birth to Aletta [Henriëtte] Jacobs, activist for the rights of women and the first Dutch female physician.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jacobs-aletta-henri-x00eb-tte

1855: Today issue of the Israelite, published today bh Charles F. Schmidt, with Isaac M. Wise serving as Editor reported that Joseph Wise is the papers “authorized agent for the six New England States.”

1857(15thof Shevat, 5617): Tu B’Shevat observed for the last time during the Presidency of Franklin Pierce, “the first U.S. President to appoint a Jew, August Belmont, as both U.S. Charge d ’Affairs and Ambassador to the Hague.”

1860: “The Temple of the Reformed Jews” on Twelfth street, between Third and Fourth avenues, was among the buildings damaged by a gale described as a "winter tornado" that swept across New York City this evening.

1860: The Philadelphia North American reported that it is unlikely that “Captain Moses” will end up in jail.  The man who had been previously described as “a Hebrew” had been charged with swindling those wishing to make donations to aid the destitute Jewish and Christian refugees from Morocco who had taken shelter at Gibraltar.  There will be no trial because there is no real evidence to substantiate the charge.

1861(29thof Shevat, 5621): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

1862: Toechter Lodge No.2, the second women’s lodge of the Free Sons of Israel was organized today.

1864: In a report published today, the Richmond Examiner highlighted the presence of Jews among those seeking to escape from the Confederacy and find refuge in the North. The Examiner reported that “it is reliably estimated that during the past week over 100 Jews, principals of substitutes and others, have come...to Richmond from the South, put up at the hotels, and disappeared by the various underground routes to the North. How they go is known only to themselves and their agents, but it is true they have gone and are still going. Ten Jews left one of the principal hotels on Sunday morning. They are mostly of the wealthy class, and $10,000 is frequently tendered for a safe passage to the Potomac.” Farmers who have brought goods to the Confederate capital reportedly smuggle the refugees North in their empty wagons. Those caught trying to leave have been imprison in the Castle Thunder Prison.  Jews have been able to escape from the prison by pretending to be dead and having their embalmed bodies taken “through the lines, en route to bereaved relatives in the North.”

1864: N.S. Isaacs of New York wrote to Union General Benjamin Butler concerning his use of the term “Jew” in a disparaging manner in his recent dispatches about a group caught trying to smuggle contraband to Confederate forces.

1865: Professor John W. Draper the first in a series of lectures on "The Historical Influence of Natural Causes." In his address tonight on “The Influence of Climate” he said that that “climate does change men” as can be “seen in the Jews, who come of a common stock. In northern Europe they are fair, with blue eyes, while in Palestine they are tawny, and in Malaga, almost black.”

1865: Birthdate of actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell whom Jewish Artist Solomon J. Solomon painted ‘Paula Tanqueray’ in 1894.

1870: Twenty-seven-year-old Simon Wolfe Rosendale, the Albany, NY native and Union University trained attorney who was the Vice President of the American Jewish Historical Society married Helen Cone today.

1873: Birthdate of Lower East Side native Joseph A. Levenson, the Republican party activist who never strayed from his Chrystie Street roots and whose career included serving “as city marshal during the administration of Mayor William J. Gaynor” and “one of the Presidential electors for Theodore Roosevelt in 1904” while also serving as Director of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association and writing “several books” including A History of the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

1873(12thof Shevat, 5633): Sixty-seven-year-old Jewish German orientalist Julius Furst passed away in Leipzig.

1875: In New York, the hat store on Third Avenue that belonged to a Polish Jew named Abraham H. Keinski burned tonight.

1876: Today’s session of P.N. Rubenstein’s trial for the murder of Sara Alexander in Kings County lasted from 10:30 in the morning until 3:30 in the afternoon.

1878 Giulia Warwick (born Julia Ehrenberg) created the part of Lady Viola in “The Spectre Knight,” which replaced Dora's Dream as the curtain raiser at the Opera Comique.

1879(16th of Shevat): “Markus Edinger, the first Jew in Mayence to serve as a juror, passed away today

1879: Both sides rested during the trial Abraham D. Freeman and Charles Bernstein who were accused of complicity along with Abraham Perlstein in setting to the house on Ludlow Street.  Perslstein has already been convicted and sentenced.  In his charge to the jury, Judge Barrett spoke strongly on the matter of prejudice, telling all concerned that it had no place in the decision making process. As of midnight, the jury had not reached a verdict.

1879: It was reported today that modern day London and its suburbs cover an area of 700 square miles with a population that includes more Jews than are found in all of Palestine.

1880: It was reported today that Hebraica, which has been published as a monthly supplement to the Jewish Messenger will now be published as a weekly featuring articles on Hebrew literature and the science of the Bible.

1880: In Lewiston, ME, George and Rachel Ehrenfried gave birth to Harvard trained physician and WW I veteran Albert Ehrenfried, the husband of Grace Waterman with whom he had three children – George, Fredrika and Constance.

1881: Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky passed away. To the world he is the author of Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov.  For Jews, he was a skilled author who was also a vocal anti-Semite.  He freely disparaged them as “Yids”  who “have everything to gain from every cataclysm and coup d’état…and only profit from anything that serves to undermine gentile society.”

1885: In Vienna, Johanna and Conrad Berg gave birth to Austrian composer, Alban Berg, a protégé of Arnold Schoenberg.

1889: The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is established as a Cabinet-level agency. Former Kansas Congressman Dan Glickman who served as USDA Secretary from 1995 to 2001 is the only Jew to head this department of the U.S. Government.

1890: Grand Master J.E. Lowenstein presided over the opening session of the Grand Lodge, No.1 of the Independent Order of Free Sons of Israel at Webster Hall in New York City.

1890: A memorial service in honor of the late Seligman Solomon was held today at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in New York City.

1890: It was reported today Princeton University Professor Arthur Frothingham presented each of the students in his Hebrew Class with a new Hebrew Lexicon and a volume containing the text of Genesis. The course was an elective.  Frothingham was one of the first professors of art history and an archeologist who got in trouble with President of Princeton over his choice of courses.  I have not been able to find out why he was teaching a course in Hebrew, except for the face that his academic training had been foreign languages.

1891: A deed of trust signed by Baron Hirsch and those who have been named to oversee the $2,400,000 grant designed to improve the lot of Russian and Romanian immigrants to the United States was filed in the Register’s office in New York

1895: The mid-year examinations in Hebrew are scheduled to be given at Columbia College today.

1895: William G. Morgan invents volleyball at YMCA in Holyoke, MA.  Jewish  volleyball players include the Brazilian women’s star Adriana Brandão Behar, Aryeh ("Arie") Selinger the Polish born Israeli who coached the Dutch Men's Team to the silver medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain and Avital Haim Selinger, a 48 year old Sabra, who, before his retirement, played for two different Dutch teams in the Summer Olympics.

1895(15thof Shevat, 5655): Tu B’Shevat

1895(15thof Shevat, 5655): Elim D’Avigdor “the eldest son of Count Salamon Henri d'Avigdor and of Rachel, second daughter of Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid” who followed his engineering career with a publishing career while serving as a leader of the Jewish community as “a warden of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue” and “chief of the Chovevi Zion Association” passed away today.

1897: The funeral of 58 year old Morris Goodhart, the President of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society Orphan Asylum is scheduled to take place this morning at Temple Beth El followed by interment at the family plot at the Washington Cemetery.

1898(17thof Shevat, 5658): Seventy-six-year-old “Elizabeth Cashmore (Solomon), Free "Enchantress" 1833, the London born daughter of Samuel Moss (Shemayah) Solomon, Free "Enchantress" 1833 and Esther Solomon, Free "Enchantress" 1833 and wife of Michael Cashmore passed away today in Melbourne, Australia.

1898: “Hebrew Charities Building to be incorporated” published today described New York State Senator Cantor’s introduction of a bill in the state legislature that would allow for the incorporation of the Hebrew Charities Building in New York City.  “The object of the corporation is to establish and maintain a building in which Hebrew benevolent institutions can have their headquarters, and at which all applicants for aid may apply.”  The building will also include a public library “with a special department of Judaica.”

1899: It was reported today that Ida Silverman was among those chosen to serve on the Executive Committee of the People’s Club in New York City.

1900(10thof Adar I, 5660): Seventy-six-year-old Adolph Carl Rothschild, the Italian born son of Carl Mayer von Rothschild and Adelheid von Rothschild and husband of Caroline Julie Anselme von Rothschild, a scion of the Naples branch of the Rothschild banking family, passed away today.

1900:  Davis Cup competition is established. The most prominent American Jewish player in Davis Cup competitor was Aaron Krickstein. He was a member of the U.S. Davis Cup team from 1985-1987 and also was a member of the 1990 squad. He compiled a 6-4 record in singles play during Davis Cup ties. The highlight of Krickstein's Davis Cup career came in 1990 when he scored two hard fought victories in a World Group Quarterfinal tie against Czechoslovakia leading his team to a 4-1 win. Israel first competed in Davis Cup play in 1949. Shlomo Glickstein and Eleazar Davidman are two of the most prominent members of the Israeli teams over the last half century.

1900: Birthdate of Friedrich Mandl, the Austrian fascist armaments manufacturer whose wives included Jewish actress Hedy Lamar and Monika Brücklmeier, the daughter of one of the men executed for his role in the plot to kill Hitler in July of 1944.

1901(18thof Adar, 5661): Parshat Ki Tisa; Shabbat Parah

1901: “Antiquity of the House That Jack Built” published discusses the Jewish origins that folk-lore tale based on a book “published in 1835 at the New Juvenile Book Store in New York” that “bears upon its title page the inscription ‘A Kid, A Kid, or the Jewish Origin of he Celebrated Legend, The House That Jack Built.’”

1902(2ndof Adar I, 5662): Seventy-three-year-old Somerville, OH native and Jefferson Medical College trained physician Levi Cooper Lane, the U.S Navy Surgeon, the founder of Cooper Medical College and one of the pioneers of medical education on the Pacific Coast of the United States.

1903: The fifty-one sweatshop proprietors who were each fined five dollars today for “running their plants on Sunday, “were indignant” because they claimed, “that Jews who keep their own Sabbath ought to have the right to do business on Sunday.”

1903: It was reported today that Herman Grossman, a delegate of the Women’s Garment Maker’s International Garment Makes International Union complained about the police going through the east side of New York on Sunday and stopping all work because “he said that this was a hardship to thousands of Orthodox Jews who kept the Sabbath on Saturdays” and that “it has always been understood” that until Police Commissioner Greene took this action “the Orthodox Jews who keep Saturday as the Sabbath must not be molested on Sundays.”

1904: Sir Matthew Nathan completed his term as the 20th Governor of the Gold Coast, the British colony that became the independent nation of Ghana.

1904: Twenty-five-year-old Joseph Adler, the Russian born son of Solomon and Goldie Adler and the Yeshiva trained rabbi who worked “in the wood product industry” before, in 1909 coming to the United States where he served as the “Rosh Yishva Torah Vo’dath in Brooklyn and Rabbi of the New People’s Synagogue while helping to organize the Jewish Sabbath Alliance, married Jennie Resnick today.

1904: As some Zionist leaders consider temporary alternatives for a Jewish homeland, Leopold Greenberg cables to accept the offer of the territory in Nandi without delay because a governmental change was impending. Under this pressure Herzl writes back the demanded consent. On the next day he cables Greenberg again to undertake nothing until he received Herzl's written instructions.

1905: In Newark, NJ, Martha levy and Maurice Steinfeld gave birth to Harold L. Steinfeld.

1906: “According to Dr. Mosesohn, a prominent Jew” living in Portland, Oregon, “whose are assertions are corroborated by the local Post Office Officials, a large amount of the money sent from the United States to aid Jewish sufferers in Russia has never been received by those for whom it was intended” due to “a general failure on the part of the Post Offices throughout Russia to cash postal money orders which have been sent to Jews” in Russia.

1906: Birthdate of California native Erwin Charles Ginsburg, who earned All-Far Western Conference honors while playing for Fresno State from 1925 to 1929.

1907(25thof Shevat, 5667): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

1907: In New York, at Columbia University, “the meeting of the Jewish students, held this afternoon, was for the purposed of forming a society, the object of which shal me the fostering of a Jewish spirit among the Jewish students” and not to protest against discrimination to which these students are subjected.

1908: Birthdate of Jacob Finkelstein, the Chicago native who boxed as welterweight under the name of Jackie Fields.

1909: “Friends of the Hebrew Technical Institute met at the Hotel Astor tonight to hold what Prof. Morris Loeb, the Chairman, called its silver wedding feast” during which Dr. Edgar T. Barney reported that only eight per cent of the students leave without graduating as compared to forty per cent at ordinary high schools and that the “annual earnings of the graduates is $800,000.”

1910:  Birthdate of the influential modern dance choreographer Anna Sokolow.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/30/arts/anna-sokolow-a-modern-choreographer-known-for-studies-in-alienation-dies-at-90.html

1911: It was reported today that Elbridge T. Gerry, President of the Children’s Welfare Society told a gathering at the Seventy-first Regiment Armory that “few Hebrew children came within” the Society’s “sphere, partly because there were few Jews in” New York City “but in the main because of the instinctive  their parents to them and their morals.

1912(21stof Shevat, 5672): Eighty-one-year-old Marx Moses who had been the Rabbi at Ahavath Chesed in Jacksonville, FL until 1885, passed away today in New Orleans.

1912: Birthdate of Marianne Baum, the husband of Herbert Baum who were both Jewish leaders of the anti-Nazi resistance.

1912(21stof Shevat 5672): Fifty-eight-year-old Louisiana native Theodore David “Ted” Marks, the grandson of Isador Newman, one of New Orleans’ wealthiest businessman who after dabbling in several occupations became a leading agent for vaudeville acts in the United States and the United Kingdom passed away today in New York.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1912/02/10/104890825.pdf

1913: Miss Prudence Neff is scheduled to perform a piano solo this evening at the Seventeenth Sinai Orchestral Concert at the Sinai Temple.

1913: In Detroit, Michigan, Elias and Freida (Mendelson) Safran gave birth Hyman Safran the WW II US Navy Lieutenant and President of Safran Printring Company who was the husband of Leah Yoffee and the father of “Sharon Elaine, Frederick David, Kenneth Jay, James Allan” Safran.

https://myjewishdetroit.org/2018/02/lchaim/

1913: In his final offering of the weekend, Boris Thomashefsky is scheduled to present “Strange Children” this afternoon at the Haymarket.

1913: The Judaeans are scheduled to hold a meeting this evening at the Hotel Astor where they will “honor of the board of editors of the new Bible translation now being prepared under the joint auspices of the Jewish Publication Society of American and the Central Conference of American Rabbis.

1914: It was reported today that “proof of the early settlement of Jews in New York and of subsequent colonial activities of the followers of that religion” which has “been obtained by the Jewish Historical Society” headquartered in Philadelphia will be submitted at the upcoming annual meeting of the society along “with the results of other research work.”

1915: In a letter written today, Charles S. Hartwell who has offered 100 bushels of corn to the Serbian Agricultural Relief Commission shared the text of a postcard from “A Hebrew” who noted that by doing this he was “trying to please the Czar, the protector of my Jewish brethren.”

1915: During today’s session of the Duma, Foreign Minister Segei Sazonov denied allegations that the Russians had organized pogroms against the Jews and that any suffering came from “the Jewish population being in the theatre of war” where “suffering…is an inevitable evil.”

1915: At Worcester, MA, “the 63rd annual convention of District 1, I.O.B.B., the oldest fraternal Jewish order in American came to a close today after donating $1,000 to the American Zionist toward the relief ship which is to go to Palestine” and appointing “a special committee…to assist in the relief work of the indigent and unemployed of New York.”

1915: “Celebration for Army and Navy Jews” published today described the plans of the Army and Navy Young’ Men’s Hebrew Association to arrange “a Passover celebration…for Jews serving the United States Army and Navy stationed in the vicinity of NewYork” which be held at the Vienna Hall at 58th and Lexington in Manhattan.

1915:  It was reported today that “there are mon than 8,000 Jews” currently serving in the U.S. military.

1916: It was reported today that the matzoth that will be shipped aboard the U.S. Navy collier Sterling “is intended for distribution among Jews who, owing to the war conditions will be unable to get a supply from any other source” and that “the matzoth is being prepared in accordance with all the requirements of the Jewish religion.”

1917: The 600-year-old synagogue of Congregation Shaari Zedek in Tunis was destroyed by fire.

1917: Dr. Isaac Straus, the editor of the American Jewish Chronicle, who has just applied for his naturalization papers denied that he had ever been a member of The Committee for the East, a pro-German propaganda organization or that he had come to the United States with Bernhard Dernburg, the German-Jewish leader who had come to the United States to present the German point of view before America entered the war on the side of the allies.

1917: The Joint Distribution Committee, chaired by Felix M. Warburg, today authorized the transfer to Europe of all of the funds in its possession - $955,000 – for the purpose providing relief to Jews of Europe, Turkey and Palestine.

1917: This week’s issues of The American Hebrewand The American Jewish Chroniclepublished today, “both pledged to President Wilson the unwavering support of the Jews in America” if the United States goes to war with Germany.

1919: Rabbi Jacob S. Minkin delivered the prayer at the ceremony today marking the opening the Nursery of the Daughters of Israel in New York which can accommodate as many as 150 youngsters.

1919: Fannie Newberger is scheduled to present a paper on “Civilization of Ancient India and the Vedie religion” at today’s meeting of the Jewish Literary Society at Zion Temple in Chicago.

1919(9thof Adar I, 5679): Seventy-year-old Ludwig Geirger, the son of Abraham Geiger, who was chair of the history department at the University of Berlin passed away today.

1919: The pupils of the Hebrew School are scheduled to perform a playlet and sing songs in Hebrew at today’s annual of the Jewish Education Centre in New York.

1920: “Moroccan Jews Ask to be Spanish” published today reported that “a delegation of Jews from the Spanish zone in Morocco has arrived” in Madrid “with a largely signed petition from their co-religionists asked that Spanish citizenship be granted to them.”

1921: In an interview given today, “Nahum Sokolov, the President of the Executive Zionist Committee” suggested “that the Jews of America and Europe organize a plan to transport the oppressed Jews in the Ukraine to Palestine as soon as feasible.”

1921: “Actors Want Rest Day” published today reported that “actors and actress” have joined together in “opposition to the bill which would permit Jews who observe Saturday as Sabbath to keep their places of business open on Sunday.”

1922: “Lord Northcliffe, who is visiting Jerusalem,” was “reported in a Jerusalem dispatch to The London Times” to have expressed “regret at finding the country in a less satisfied state than when he was there years ago.”

1923: “Vienna, City of Song” a “silent film directed by Alfred Deutsch-German” who thought he was safe when he took refuge in France but ended up being murdered at Auschwitz.

1923: Premiere of “The Land of Smiles,” “a romantic operetta with a libretto co-authored by Fritz Löhner-Beda would be murdered by the Nazis two decades later at Monowitz concentration camp.

1924: Twenty-one-year-old Rose Dinn married 27 year old Sam Ash, the founder of Sam Ash Music Corp. which was, at one time, “the largest family owned chain of musical instrument stores in the United States.

1925(15thof Shevat, 5685) Tu B’Shevat

1925: The Technion opened in Haifa. “As Israel's oldest and premier institute of science and technology, the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology has been an active and leading participant in Israel's establishment and development. With supreme effort and unyielding dedication, deserts have bloomed, swamps have been transformed into fertile agricultural valleys, and sand has given way to silicon. Israel is now recognized as one of the world's most prominent high-tech innovators, and has been called the second Silicon Valley.”  After some years of intense pioneering activities, with which Prof. Albert Einstein's deep involvement, the Technion opened its doors in the 1920’s becoming Israel’s first modern university. The first undergraduate class consisted of 16 students in two areas of instruction; Civil Engineering and Architecture.
After serious debate, the language of instruction was chosen to be Hebrew, as opposed to German. The impact of the first Jewish university in an embryonic Jewish state brought about a vital link between the two. The faculty has had an impact in a variety of fields and has one numerous international honors. In 2004, “Professors Avram Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover of the Faculty of Medicine received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery of the crucial role of ubiquitin in the process of protein breakdown in cells.”  The accomplishments are all the more amazing when one considers the political, economic and cultural milieu in which the Technion was developed – limited funding, terrorism, and the constant threat of national annihilation.

1925: The children of Jerusalem planted trees on Tu B’Shevat

1926: “Municipal Court Justice Jacob S. Strahl of a Brooklyn and other officers and directors of the American Palestine Line were sued in the Supreme Court” today “for $150,000 in damages for false arrest and malicious prosecution by Hyman Epstein, the former general manager of the line.”

1927: Mrs. Louis L. Rapport gave an address of greeting at “the first joint Senior and Junior meeting of the National Council of Jewish Women of Bergen County Section was held at the Y.M.H.A. building in Hackensack, NJ this evening

1927: “Wrapped in elegant gray furs, Helen Menken was handcuffed and charged with ‘contributing to a common nuisance’ and ‘obscene exhibition’ when police arrested her and the rest of the cast of “The Captive.”

1929(29thof Shevat, 5689): Parashat Mishpatim

1930: In Massachusetts, Samuel and Bessie Bassok Warshawsky gave birth to Irving Warshawsky, the “husband of Anita (Kornfeld) Warshawsky.”

1931: Birthdate of William “Willie: Harmatz, the native of Wilkes-Barre, PA, who grew up in California where he learned the skills to make him a leading jockey who won the Preakness, the third jewel in the triple crown, in 1959.

1934: The funeral for Abraham Shiplacoff, a veteran labor leader and the first member of the Socialist Party to be elected to the New York State Assembly is scheduled to be held today the Daily Forward Building in New York City.

1934: In Chicago, Jules Stein the ophthalmologist who founded MCA, and “the former Doris Jones” gave birth to Jean Babette Stein “whose restless curiosity led her to produce oral histories about Robert F. Kennedy, the tragic Warhol star Edie Sedgwick and a group of people and families who transformed Los Angeles.” (As reported by Richard Sandomir)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/02/books/jean-stein-dies-chronicled-wealth-fame-and-influence.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

1934: Three days after he had passed away, Lazarus Isaacs, the husband of Rebecca Isaacs was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.

1934: In the UK, premiere of the “The Rise of Catherine The Great” directed by Paul Czinner, produced by Alexander Korda, with music by Irving Berlin.

1935(6thof Adar I, 5695): Parashat Terumah

1935(6thof Adar I, 5695): Thirty-four-year-old Maurice Elfenbein, the son of Samuel and Celia Elfenbein and husband of Mildred Elfenbein with whom he had two children – Lucille and Richard – passed away today.

1935: In Wheeling, West Virginia, the third and final day of the celebration marking the 85thanniversary of the E off Street Temple.

1936: “Mrs. William Dick Sporborg accepted the chairmanship of the women’s division of the United Palestine Appeal” which plans on “raising $3,500,000 during 1936 to finance the settlement in Palestine of large numbers of Jews from Germany and other Eastern European countries.

1936: In a statement issued today “through Dr. Stephen S. Wise” Dr. Chaim Weizmann said “American Jewry constitutes the premier Jewish community in the world” and such it “must recognize that the rebuilding of Palestine as Jewry’s ‘one means of self-preservation’ rather than a mere philanthropic enterprise. (Editor’s note:  Compare this inclusionary statement with the exclusionary policies followed increasingly by the current of government of Israel)

1936: In a sermon this morning, Dr. J. Stanley Durkee, the pastor of the Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims in Brooklyn criticized “Jews for declining to become ‘an integral part of the civilization around them’” while describing their persecutors as those “who have driven them away and so over-pressed them that their only hope lies in money to purchase their freedom”

1936: In Buffalo, at a meeting of the executive board of the Union Hebrew Congregations, Chairman Jacob W. Mack of Cincinnati made a plea for the 286 reformed congregations in the United States “to become a counterpart of the liberal movement in world Jewry.”

1936: An article published today in the New Orleans Times-Picayune “discussed Felix J. Dreyfous and the concept of a small claims court” which Dreyfous thought would be able “to protect the rights of dependent children and to render services to families in difficult straits.”

1936: “Modern Jewish Thought” published today provided a lengthy review of Rebirth: A Book of Modern Jewish Thought by Ludwig Lewisohn.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9501E2DD123BE33BBC4153DFB466838D629EDE

1937(28thof Shevat, 5697): Georges Calmann-Levy, “the famous French publisher” the grandson of the founder of the firm of Calmann-Levy, which published the works of Antaolo France, Pierro Loti and Ernest Renan passed away today. (As reported by JTA)

1937: Albert Ganzert’s “Borderline” a play set in Berlin that “describes the havoc wrought in a substantial, happy family when certain persons discover that the grandfather of the head of the family (an eminent physician) was a Jew” “was presented by Maurice Schwartz and the Yiddish Art Theatre Company at the Forty-ninth Street Theatre” tonight.

1937: Following violent demonstrations last night during which 22 Jewish students were injured, nationalist students at the university in Vilna proclaimed today as “A day without Jews” and barred Jewish students from entering the classroom

1938: The Jerusalem Post reported that a British sergeant was killed while pursuing an Arab gang near Tulkarm.

1938: The Jerusalem Post reported that Arab terrorists cut telephone wires, shot at and stopped an Arab bus near Hebron, killed one passenger and took away the uniform of an Arab constable, warning him to leave the force.

1938: The Jerusalem Post reported that in elections to the Jerusalem Communal Council (Va’ad Kehila) out of 9,404 votes cast, Labor won 1,417, Revisionists 877, General Zionists 416, Mizrahi 413, and the rest was divided among 13 small political parties.

1938: Today “The Rumanian National Bank committee forbade the sending of currency to Rumanian Jews studying abroad.”

1938: Today, “Colonial Secretary William Ormsby-Gore told the House of Commons that the British Government would consider the problem of the Jews in Rumania when it set the new immigration for Palestine.”

1939: Per a request by the executive council that had met at the Jewish Theological Seminary, prayers are scheduled to be offer this evening…in the 300 synagogues that belong to the Rabbinical Assembly that the deliberations at the Palestine parley in London will be conducted in the spirit of truth, mutual understanding and brotherhood.”

1939: Today in London, Arab leaders said, “The helpless condition of Jewish refugees from Germany is a problem for the world in general and must be kept separate from the question of Palestine”

1939:  In Johannesburg, “Betty (née Sonnenberg) and Saul Suzman, a wealthy tobacco importer” gave birth to South African actress Janet Suzman, the granddaughter of South African MP Max Sonnenberg and the “niece of Helen Suzman, South African politician and anti-apartheid campaigner.”

1940: William E. Dodd, the American historian who served as Ambassador to Germany from 1933 to 1937 passed away.  Dodd was the first American ambassador who served under the Hitler régime. He tried to warn the State Department and the American people about the danger, but his warnings fell on deaf ears. (For more see In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson, a history book that reads like a novel.)

1940(30th of Sh'vat, 5700): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1940: U.S. premiere of “Broadway Melody of 1940,” a musical directed by Norman Taurog, filmed by cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg with a story co-authored by Dore Schary.

 1941: Dutch Nazis sparked the first anti-Jewish riots in Amsterdam. Among other damage, the Nazi collaborators destroyed the pro-Jewish café Alcazar Amsterdam. Alcazar refused to hang "No Entry for Jews" signs in front of café.

1942: Birthdate of Carole King.  The famous singer and song writer was born Carol Klein in Brooklyn.

1943: In Gary Indiana, (née Fishman) and Nathaniel D. Stiglitz gave birth to Joseph E. Stiglitz, American economist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics.

1943, G R Barnes, the director of talks at the BBC “complained about an interview which strayed into forbidden territory by discussing anti- Semitism: 'Personally I don't want to touch the subject, except by implication in talks on other subjects,' he wrote.” His complaint was emblematic of an anti-Semitic mentality at the BBC that “led to a policy which suppressed news about Germany's attempt to exterminate European Jews.”

1944(15thof Shevat, 5704): Tu B’Shevat

1944: Tarnow, Poland ‘was declared ‘Judenrein’ – Jew free – today.

1944: The Lodz Ghetto received machinery and a factory was set up that helped to secure survival for a while longer for many Jews. Unknown to them, the machinery came from Poniataw, where the Jewish population had been obliterated in November of 1943.

1945: Churchill sends Ibn Saud, the Saudi Monarch, urging him to meet with FDR who is on his way back to the United States after the Yalta meetings.  Churchill mistakenly believes that FDR will provide leverage for the settlement of Jews in Palestine after the war.

1946(8thof Adar I, 5706): Parashat Terumah

1946: “Evan Wilson, the research assistant of the Anglo-American Commission on Palestine arrived in the Middle East to assist in making arrangements for the commission’s visit.”

1947: “Dr. Frank Aydelotte, a member of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine appealed” today “for the United states to take its share of responsibility in solving the Arab-Zionist problem in the Holy Land.”

1948: The Stern Gang blew up two Arab owned building in Jerusalem from which Arab snipers had been shooting at Jews.

1948: During the fight for Jerusalem, the Haganah attacked the Arab village of Sur Bahir from which snipers had been shooting at the residents of Talipot.

1948: The Supreme Court, including Justice Felix Frankfurter began hearing oral arguments in the landmark anti-trust cast – United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. (Paramount was the creation of a cadre of Jews including Zukor, Frohman, Lasky, Goldywyn, et al)

1949: On the Island of Rhodes, “Egyptian-Israeli armistice talks appeared today to be marking time for the second day in succession, but a well-informed source said that positive developments were expected within a few days.”

1950: “Young Man with a Horn” the movie version of the novel with the same name directed by Michael Curitz, produced by Jerry Wald, with a screenplay co-authored by Carl Foreman and starring Kirk Douglas and Lauren Bacall was released in the United States today.

1951: In New York City Michael Allen Pomeranz and the former Bonnie G. Bernstein gave birth to singer/songwriter David Pomeranz.

1951(3rd of Adar I, 5711): Pianist and society band leader, Eddy Duchin passed away. Born in 1910, in Cambridge, MA, this son of Jewish immigrant parents trained as a Pharmacist before pursing his musical dream. He was a musical genius who began leading his own orchestra in 1931 when he was only 22. He was 41 years old when he died of acute myelogenous leukemia. He was the father the even more famous Peter Duchin.  The Eddy Duchin Story, a film with Tryone Power playing the title role and Kim Novak playing his High Society first wife, made no mention of Duchin being Jewish or the challenges that must have presented as he pursued his career among those who if not anti-Semitic certainly were not partial to having Jews around.

1952: John Demjanjuk , a guard at Sobibor who Michael Hanusiak, editor of the Ukrainian News would list as a Ukrainian suspected of collaborating with the Nazis, his wife and child arrived in New York aboard the USS General W.W. Haan

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that by six votes of Mapai and Ha’oved Hatzioni against two of Mapam, and one member of Mapam abstaining, the Histadrut decided to ban Communists from the organization.

1953(24thof Shevat, 5713): Fifty-eight-year-old London born American cinematographer Richard Fryer passed away today.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that three marauders were killed and eight captured along the Jordanian border.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the cabinet had decided on the establishment of the State Bank, agreed to hold the Conquest of the Desert Exhibition and allocated land for the Hebrew University Givat Ram development.

1954(6thof Adar I, 5714): Julius Isaacs, the Lithuanian born “son of Isaac and Sarah Postawelsky” and husband of “Matilda (Tillie) Isaacs” passed away today after which he was buried in Sheffield, England.

1954: Birthdate of Salah Tarif, a Druze Israeli politician who served in the Knesset for fourteen years.  His service in the cabinet of Ariel Sharon made him the first non-Jew to serve as a government minister in Israel.

1956(27thof Shevat, 5716): Fifty-three-year-old Sailing P. Baruch, Jr. the Elberon, NJ born son of Sailing Baruch and the former Leonora Prince, the brother of Donald Edward Baruch and nephew famed financier Bernard Baruch who served as an Ensign in the Coast Guard during WW II and who was “president of the investment hose of Baruch Brothers and Company passed away tonight in Miami Beach, “after a series of abdominal operations.”

1958(17thof Tevet, 5718): Fifty-six-year-old Philadelphia native Emanuel “Manny” Sacks, the executive at Columbia Records and RCA Victor, who played an integral role in the careers of such stars as Harry James and who played a major role in promoting the acceptance of the LP record passed away today.

https://pennsylvaniamilitarycollege.org/maine-sacks-pied-piper-stars/

http://www.totaltheater.com/?q=node/487

1958: Birthdate of New Yorker Jonathan Joseph “Jon” Ledecky the founder of U.S. Office Products and uncle of gold medal winning swimmer Katie Ledecky who along with his Harvard roommate Scott D. Makin, the brother-in-law of Senator Richard Blumenthal, purchased the New York Islanders of the NHL.

1959(1stof Adar I, 5719): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1959(1stof Adar 1, 5719): Seventy-five-year-old David Jacob Cohen, the “honorary secretary of the Beth-El Synagogue, vice president of the Calcutta Jewish Association and member of the Bengal Legislative Council who “was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1941” passed away today.

http://www.jewishcalcutta.in/items/show/104

http://www.jewishcalcutta.in/items/show/128

1964: Thanks to the work of their manager Brian Epstein, the Beatles made their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, three days before they were to appear at Carnegie Hall as a result of a deal work out between Epstein and impresario Sid Bernstein.

1964(26thof Shevat, 5724): Seventy-five-year-old Lviv native Marek Weber, the successful “German violinist and bandleader” who fled Nazi Germany where his work was labeled “degenerate” and came to the United States where he was featured as the “Waltz King” on NBC radio passed away today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62vpXVUS-Jw

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/gay-south-florida/article3538787.html

1966 (19th of Shevat, 5726): Seventy-nine-year-old Sophie Tucker, the last of the Red Hot Mommas, passed away.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/gay-south-florida/article3538787.html

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/tucker-sophie

1968 (10th of Shevat, 5728): Sydney Silverman, Labour MP, foe of the death penalty and a supporter of Jewish causes passed away today.

1969: Today, over a year after the INS Dakar sank with all hands on board, a Palestinian fisherman found her stern emergency buoy marker washed up on the coast of Khan Yunis, a Palestinian town southwest of Gaza.

1970: “A four-day mid-winter meeting of Hadassah focusing on the ‘problem of disaffected Jewish youth’ is scheduled to open today” in New York.

1971: “Little Murders,” an off-beat comedy directed by Alan Arkin, written by Jules Feiffer, starring Elliot Gould and featuring Lou Jacobi was released in the United States today.

1972(24th of Shevat, 5732): Bella Fromm passed away.  Born in Bavaria in 1890, she became a successful journalist who sought refuge in the United States in 1938. In 1942, she published an account of her time spent covering the Nazis in a bestseller entitled “Blood and Banquets: A Berlin Social Diary.”

1972(24thof Shevat, 5732): Fifty-six year old Newark native Dr. Irving K. Perlmutter, the graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Jefferson Medical College and the “former director of obstetrics and gynecology at Beth Israel Medical Center” who was the husband of Helen Perlmutter with whom he had had three children – Armin, Eric and Penny – passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1972/02/11/archives/dr-irving-perlmutter.html

1973: Brazil’s Foreign Minister, Mario Gibson Barboza is scheduled to complete “his official visit to Israel” today.

1973(7th of Adar I, 5733): Max B. Yasgur, an American farmer, best known as the owner of the dairy farm in Bethel, New York at which the Woodstock Music and Art Fair was held passed away.

1974: “The editors at Billboard“singled out Barbra Streisand’s ‘The Way Were’ in its ‘Spotlight’ section.

1975: The Second National Conference in Solidarity with Chile co-sponsored by Herbert Aptheker, came to an end.

1975: Birthdate of rabbi and author Danya Ruttenberg who in 2010 was named as “one of the 36 most influential leaders under the age of 36.”

http://danyaruttenberg.net/

https://jps.org/bookauthors/rabbi-danya-ruttenberg/

1975(28thof Shevat, 5735): Eighty-six-year-old Romanian native, Leon Rene Yankwich, the holder of law degrees from Willamette University College of Law and Loyola Law School who began serving as Federal judge after being nominated to the bench in 1935 by President Roosevelt passed away today.

https://www.fjc.gov/node/1390201

https://www.nytimes.com/1975/02/12/archives/leon-yankwich-us-judge-is-dead-author-of-elk-hills-ruling-on-oil.html

1975(28thof Shevat, 5735): Sixty-four-year-old art dealer and “art sleuth” Frank Richard Perls passed away today.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9E07E0D81438E63BBC4852DFB466838E669EDE

1975: “A Brief Vacation” an Italian film produced by Arthur Cohn was released today in the United States.

1976(8thof Adar I, 5736): Fifty-six year old Israeli archaeologist Yohanan Aharoni  who took part in numerous digs including Tel Hazor and Lachish as well as the “discovery of the Bar Kokhba Caves” passed away today.

1978: “The Betsy,” the movie version of the novel by Harold Robbins who co-wrote the script with Walter Bernstein was released in the United States today.

1978: A day after he passed away, Dr. Arnulf M. Pins, “the director for the Middle East Region of the Joint Distribution Committee and associate director of JDC-Israel was buried in Jerusalem today.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Egyptian President Anwar Sadat succeeded in persuading US President Jimmy Carter to adopt a more active role in peace negotiations. In New York, Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan denied that Israel had violated pledge given to the US on the settlement issue and sharply attacked Sadat¹s negotiating stance. In Geneva, meeting Jewish leaders, Prime Minister Menachem Begin warned that the sale of US arms to Egypt and other Arab countries endangered peace.

1978(2ndof Adar I, 5738): Sixty-two-year-old Woodrow “Woody” Gelman whose varied career as a cartoonist and publisher included the creation of the “Triple Nickel” books and the designing of the Topp’s Baseball Card sets passed away today.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9C03E0DC1430E632A25752C1A9649C946990D6CF

1981(5thof Adar I, 5741): Seventy-one-year-old professor of medical psychology at Columbia University and author Helen Cohn Schucman passed away today.

http://acim-archives.org/Scribes/autobiography_preface-Helen.html

1982: “Twenty-eight veteran refuseniks sent an open letter to participants of the Madrid Conference of the CSCE meeting listing Soviet violations of the Helsinki Final Act.”

1982(16thof Shevat, 5742): Forty seven year old Polish native Israel Giladi, the son of Haim Yehuda Giladi and Nechama Laska  and brother of Michael and Bilha Laska passed away today in Antwerp.

1985: Reagan appointee Alex Kozinski ended his service as Chief Judge of the United States Claims Court today.

1986(30thof Shevat, 5746): Rosh Chodesh Adar I: Ukrainian born Broadway columnist Louis Sobol passed away today.

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

1987: Kidnappers holding four Western hostages reiterated that they would kill their captives at midnight tonight unless 400 Arab prisoners were freed by Israel, then, as the deadline passed, announced that it had been extended ''until further notice.

1987:  Israel's Defense Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, said tonight that Israel would consider any American appeal to swap 400 Arab prisoners for hostages held by kidnappers in Beirut.

1989: Sally Oppenheim-Barnes who served in the House of Commons with her for four years, “was created a life peer today as Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes of Gloucester in the County of Gloucester.

1990: Unrepentant, the Israeli peace campaigner Abie Nathan was released from prison today. He vowed to continue the activities for which he was jailed four months ago.

1991(25thof Shevat, 5751): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekailm

1991: A new Scud missile attack on Israel left 20 people slightly wounded in Tel Aviv, the military said. Iraq fired a single Scud missile armed with a conventional warhead at Israel early this morning, and the authorities said it was hit by a Patriot missile over Tel Aviv. But burning debris struck buildings in a residential area, badly damaging some of them and wounding between 15 and 20 people, the army said.

1992: The "Schwarzkopf March," which was composed by Abraham Sternklar in honor of General Norman Schwarzkopf, is scheduled to have its premiere at the North Shore Jewish Center in Port Jefferson Station. As a 12-year-old living in Tel Aviv in 1943, Sternklar had composed a march in honor of British General Bernard Montgomery entitled “Montgomery’s March.”

1993: Launch of the INS Eilat (501) a Sa’ar 5 – class corvette.

1994: Israeli minister Shimon Perez signed a peace accord with PLO's Arafat.

1994: Poet Kenneth Koch, professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia, was named winner of the Bollingen Prize in Poetry by Yale University.

1994: In Israel, two portfolio managers, Vladimir Saar and Arye Shafir, have been detained on suspicion of a multimillion-dollar stock market manipulation scheme on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, the police said today.

1994 (28th of Shevat, 5754): Taxi driver, Ilan Sudri was kidnapped and killed while returning home from work. The Islamic Jihad Shekaki group sent a message to the news agencies claiming responsibility for the murder.

1994(28thof Shevat, 5754): Eighty-year-old Romanian born “French-speaking Surrealist theorist and poet” passed away today.

1996(19th of Shevat, 5756): One hundred six-year-old Rabbi Albert J. Amateau, founder of the Brotherhood of Rhodes, and the Sephardic Brotherhood, an offshoot of the Salonican Brotherhood, passed away.

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/29/nyregion/rabbi-albert-j-amateau-106-sephardic-leader.html

1997: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Reichmanns Family, Faith, Fortune, and the Empire of Olympia & York by Anthony Bianco and French Children of the Holocaust: A Memorial by Serge Klarsfeld

1999: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including A Journey to the End of the Millenium by A.B. Yehoshua and Preempting the Holocaust by Lawrence L. Langer.

1999: Journalist Claudia Dreifus highlighted her expertise in a talk on the art of the political interview given at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

1999(23rdof Shevat, 5759): Just ten days before his 78th birthday NCAA heavyweight wrestling champion and college and professional football standout Leonard Bernard “Butch” Levy passed away in his hometown – Minneapolis, MN.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160801234459/http://discover.lib.umn.edu/cgi/f/findaid/findaid-idx?c=umfa;cc=umfa;rgn=main;view=text;didno=umja0022

2000(3rd of Adar I, 5760): Stephen Robert Furness  a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers' famed Steel Curtain defense who earned four Super Bowl rings passed away.

2001: Arthur Levitt, Jr. the twenty-fifth and longest-serving Chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission stepped down from his position today.

2001: STS-98 Atlantis blasted off today with Mark Lewis “Roman” Polansky serving as pilot.

2001(16th of Shevat, 5761):  Eighty-four-year-old Nobel Prize winning economist Herbert Simon passed away.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1978/simon/biographical/

2002: In today's broadcast of Verbatim, Rabbi Raymond Apple described his early life in Melbourne (including his early experience of a Catholic kindergarten) from short pants to long 'Bar Mitzvah' trousers and the steady development of his religious vocation

2003: The Times of London featured a review of Charlotte and Lionel by Stanley Weintraub

2003: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Lost In America: A Journey With My Father by Sherwin B. Nuland and Genuine Authentic: The Real Life of Ralph Lauren by Michael Gross.

2004: It was reported today that “Israel is working to reroute parts of its West Bank separation barrier to make it less burdensome on the Palestinians and more acceptable to the United States…”

2005(30thof Shevat, 5765): Sixty-seven-year-old former Mossad agent Sylvia Rafael passed away today.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Rafael.html

http://www.spymuseum.org/calendar/detail/sylvia-rafael-the-life-and-death-of-a-mossad-spy/2014-10-12/

2006(11thof Shevat, 5766): The Indian film star known as Nadira passed away today in Mumbai after a long illness.  There is some confusion as to her age – she was either 73 or 75.  That is not the only confusion.  According to one source her name was a native of Palestine named Florence Ezekiel who moved to India in the late 1940’s to begin a career in films.  Another source said her name was Farhat Ezekiel Nadira and she was the daughter of Baghdadi Jews.

2006: The United States confirmed the appointment of Eric S. Edelman as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.

2006: In Germany, after several delays, Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel’s trial in which he was facing charge of “14 counts of inciting racial hatred” was resumed.

2007:Haaretz reported on a study conducted by the Steinhardt Social Research Institute at Brandeis University that found between 6 million and 6.4 million Jews live in the United States, about 1 million more than was previously thought.

2007: Ernst Leitz II, “the German owner of the company that manufactures Leica cameras was honored” posthumously “by the ADL for saving  200 to 300 employees and their families from the Nazis.”

http://archive.adl.org/presrele/holna_52/4975_52.html#.VrlRyv8UV9C

2008: The 12thSephardic NY Film Festival continues with “A Tribute to Israel at 60” featuring the North America premiere of “Exodus, Ada’s Dream” which is “based on the true story of Ada Sereni who became a leader of Aliyah Bet helping the underground Jewish Brigade bring survivors to Palestine in 1945” followed by the New York Premier of “Family Heroes” or “Le Heros de Famille.”

2008: It was reported today that Conservative Rabbis plan to vote on a resolution (see below) criticizing the Pope’s revision of prayer recited on Good Friday.

 “The revision of a contentious Good Friday prayer approved this week by Pope Benedict XVI could set back Jewish-Catholic relations, Conservative Judaism’s international assembly of rabbis says in a resolution to be voted on next week.

 The prayer calls for God to enlighten the hearts of Jews “so that they may acknowledge Jesus Christ, the savior of all men.”

 The draft resolution states the prayer would “cast a harsh shadow over the spirit of mutual respect and collaboration that has marked these past four decades, making it more difficult for Jews to engage constructively in dialogue with Catholics.”

 On Tuesday, the pope released new wording for the prayer, part of the traditional Latin, or Tridentine, Mass.

Before the Second Vatican Council, also known as Vatican II, the Good Friday Mass in Latin prayed for the conversion of Jews, referring to their “blindness” and calling upon God to “lift a veil from their hearts.”

 An unofficial translation of the new prayer reads: “Let us pray for the Jews. May the Lord Our God enlighten their hearts so that they may acknowledge Jesus Christ, the savior of all men.”

 Lay Jewish groups this week called the change insufficient.

Rabbi Joel H. Meyers, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, the Conservative rabbis’ group, said leaders from the Reform and Reconstructionist movements had also been in touch with him about issuing a joint statement on the papal revision.

 “We have been very much involved in interfaith activities and dialogue for years, and relationships with the Catholic Church are really quite good,” the rabbi said. “I think it really turns back the clock a bit and reverts to some sense that the church is pulling back from the positions it took in Vatican II.”

 Most Catholics worship in the vernacular, and their prayers will not be affected. But last year, the pope made it easier for traditionalists to celebrate the Latin Mass that was the norm before Vatican II.

 At a meeting in Washington from Sunday to Thursday, the Rabbinical Assembly will vote on a draft resolution, which, while subject to revision, says the group is “dismayed and deeply disturbed to learn that Pope Benedict XVI has revised the 1962 text of the Latin Mass, retaining the rubric, ‘For the Conversion of The Jews.’ ”

 The Rev. James Massa, executive director of the secretariat of ecumenical and interreligious affairs of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Friday that the prayer would be heard by “a tiny minority of Catholics and they will hear it in Latin.”

 “The publication of the prayer and its interpretation by some of our partners in the Jewish community does lower the temperature a bit,” Father Massa said, “but we have persevered other controversies in the past and at the end of the day we are all at the table of dialogue.”

2008: It was reported today that the selection of Israel as guest of honor at this spring’s International Book Fair in Turin has set off a furious debate among Italian, Israeli and Arab authors and intellectuals, including calls to boycott the event, Italy’s largest annual gathering of the publishing world provides portrait of the double standard to which Israel and Israelis are subjected.

2009(15thof Shevat, 5769): Tu B’Shevat

2009: At NYU, the Taub Center for Israel Studies cosponsored a briefing and Q&A session with Ambassador Asaf Shariv, Consul General of Israel.

2010: The 14thNew York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to present a screening of “Pillar of Salt,” a film “based on the autobiographical novel by sociologist Albert Memmi” which “captures the cultural richness and social complexity of a Jewish boy's life in Tunisia.”

2010: The 92ndStreet Y in New York is scheduled to present “Those Who Trespass Against Us: A Dialogue on Murderous Neighbors” a program featuring Philip Gourevitch author of We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, and Jan Gross the author of Neighbors, an extraordinary account of the day in 1941 when the Jews of Jedwabne, Poland, were brutally killed by their fellow townspeople, discuss this question and its dreadful consequences.

2010: In Washington, D.C., Maina Chawla Singh is scheduled to present "Being Indian, Being Israeli: Migration, Ethnicity and Gender in the Jewish Homeland."

2010: Joel Chasnoff’s memoir The 188th Crybaby Brigade: A skinny Jewish Kid From Chicago Fights Hezbollah is scheduled for release today by its publisher Free Press.

2010: Well-known Holocaust survivor Eli Wiesel relayed his efforts to speak out against both the Iranian regime and the Goldstone Commission's report today. The prolific author has put together a petition denouncing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, signed by some 50 other Nobel Prize winners, which will run as a full-page advertisement in newspapers such as the New York Times.

2010(25thof Shevat,5770): Ninety-three-year-old Dr. Albert M. Kligman, a dermatologist who invented the widely used acne medication Retin-A but whose experiments involving prisoners raised ethical questions that dogged his career, died today in Philadelphia (As reported by Denise Gellene)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/us/23kligman.html?pagewanted=all

2010: A memorial service for 86-year Samuel Hirsch, “a life-long labor and civil rights activist who served in the U.S. Army will be held today NYU’s Tamiment Library.

2011: “The Socalled Move,” a film that “charts the personal quest of an obsessive personality as he excavates, then deconstructs his Jewish musical heritage to create an illuminating union of cultures” is scheduled to be screened at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.

2011: The Eleventh Annual Herzliya Conference is scheduled to come to an end.

2011: Tony Kushner. The Professor of Jewish/non-Jewish relations in the Parkes Institute and History Department, University of Southampton whose research interests includes British Jewish history, immigration issues and responses to the Jews, is scheduled to be one of those delivering a lecture entitled Refugees in the Media: Then and Now at the Wiener Library in London.

2011: NewCAJE is scheduled to present a webinar by Rabbi Anne Brener entitled "Reflections on Life, Death and Debbie Friedman."

http://newcajelehrhausonline.org/page.aspx?id=237452

2011: Kadima launched a new campaign today highlighting the faults of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government and calling for early elections.

 2011(5thof Adar I, 5771): Eva Lassman, a Holocaust survivor who became prominent in the Spokane, Wash., area for her frequent appearances at schools and events where she spoke against hatred and bigotry, passed away today at the age of 91. Lassman and her family arrived in Spokane in 1949, but she began speaking publicly only after attending the inaugural gathering of Holocaust survivors in Washington, D.C., in 1983. In the following years she appeared repeatedly at Spokane-area community events, met frequently with schoolchildren, helped organize a major exhibit about Anne Frank at Gonzaga University, and appeared at a human rights rally to counter a hate march by white supremacists in nearby Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Her awards included a presidential commendation from Whitworth University, an honorary law doctorate from Gonzaga and the Carl Maxey Racial Justice Award from the area’s YWCA. In 2009 she became the first recipient of an award named for her, the Eva Lassman Award, from Gonzaga’s Institute for Hate Studies, to recognize individual achievement in combating hatred. George Critchlow, an associate law professor at Gonzaga and a founder of that institute, said Lassman “was so committed to educating about the Holocaust.”Lassman was born in Lodz, Poland, and fled to Warsaw following the Nazi invasion. After the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, she was sent to Majdanek death camp, where she did forced labor. “They took everything from us. I could not take my ring off of my swollen finger. They cut it off with pliers," she told students in 2001. "The air smelled of burning flesh. It was a scene that no human being should ever have to witness.”  She met her husband, Walter “Wolf” Lassman, at a refugee camp after the war. They had two children in Europe and went to Spokane in 1949 under the sponsorship of the Spokane Jewish community. Her husband, a tailor, ran a clothing shop there until he died in 1976. The Spokane newspaper editorialized about Lassman after her death: “She labored to make sure this and future generations never underestimate the consequences of hate. She made hundreds of presentations, mostly to children, and her powerful message made the Holocaust chillingly real for thousands." The editorial added that "the Inland Northwest, tainted as it has been by Hitler worshipers, is a better, more ethical region as a result of her efforts.” (As reported by the Eulogizer)

2011: “Poles 'plundered mass graves and turned Jews over to the Nazis'”, published in today’s Daily Mail described material in Golden Harvest by Jan Gross and Irena Grudzinska in which the authors “claim some Poles actively profited from the persecution of the Jews – and would turn them in to the occupying forces for a reward.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1355086/Golden-Harvest-Poles-plundered-graves-turned-Jews-Nazis.html

2012: Marc Caplan is scheduled to deliver the Podbrodz Memorial Lecture sponsored by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research entitled Belarus in Berlin/Berlin in Belarus: Moyshe Kulbak’s Raysn and Meshiekh ben-Efrayim

2012: At the JCC of Northern Virginia, The ReelAbilities Film Festival part of a week-long festival dedicated to promoting awareness and appreciation of the lives, stories, and artistic expressions of people with various disabilities is scheduled to come to a close.

2012: Significant steps forward were taken today in talks between the Finance Ministry and the Histadrut Labor Federation to end Israel’s general strike

2012: The State Comptroller’s report on the December 2010 Carmel fire will place “special” responsibility with Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz and Interior Minister Eli Yishai for failures that led to the disaster, and “general” responsibility with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich, observers said today.

2012: It was announced today that Josh Lewin would be joining the New York Mets Radio Network sharing the play-by-play with Howe Rose thus giving the New York an all-Jewish duo in the booth.

2013: The Ensemble Millennium is scheduled to perform “The Russians” a concert featuring the works of Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky at the Eden-Tamir Music Center in Jerusalem.

2013(29th of Shevat, 5773): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

2013(29th of Shevat, 5773): Eighty-nine “painter and sculptor” Richard Artschwager, the son of Eugenia (nee Brodsky) Artschwager a “Jewish Ukrainian” “amateur artist and designer” passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/11/arts/design/richard-artschwager-painter-and-sculptor-dies-at-89.html

2013: In Frederick, MD, Beth Sholom Congregation is scheduled to host its Second Annual Casino Night.

2013: As a near record blizzard batters the Northeastern United States, “at least two synagogues in Providence, RI, called off Shabbat services. “Due to the impending blizzard all worship services have been canceled Friday, Saturday and Sunday,” said a recorded message at Providence’s Temple Beth-El yesterday afternoon. Newport, RI’s Touro Synagogue, the oldest synagogue in the country, will reportedly not hold services this Shabbat for the first time in years. Nearly 99% of Aquidneck Island, where Newport is located, lost power, according to the Providence Journal. (As reported by JTA and AP)

2014: “The Mexican Suitcase,” an exhibition of the photographs of CHIM (David Seymour) is scheduled to come to a close at Museo San Ildefonson in Mexico City.

2014: The Jewish Museum is scheduled to host David Weinstone and The Music for Aardvarks Band

2014: Rabbi Cahim Seidler is scheduled to present “Exile: The Secret of Jewish Survival” at Temple Emanu-El’s Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning.

2014: “The Dybbuk” made in Poland in 1937 with a “screenplay by Yiddish novelist Alter Kacyzne, and cantorials by Gershon Sirota is scheduled to be shown at the Westside Neighborhood School in L.A.

2014: This morning the Israeli Air Force targeted a terrorist in the Gaza Strip who was involved in multiple attacks against Israel, critically wounding him. The targeted terrorist was identified as Abdallah Kharti, a Popular Resistance Committee operative affiliated with global jihad. (As reported by Yoav Limor, Shlomi Diaz, Daniel Siryoti and Israel Hayom Staff)

2014: “The Decent One” an Israeli documentary about Heinrich Himmler premiered today at the Berlin International Film Festival.

2014: The Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities said today it will boycott all government events commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Holocaust in Hungary unless the government cancels some of the planned memorials.

2014: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Sex After: Women Share How Intimacy Changes as Life Changes by Iris Krasnow, Last Train to Parisby Michele Zackheim and Alena by Rachel Pastan as well as an interview with Rachel Kushner

2015: Ronnie Perelis is delivered a lecture “The New World Adventures of Luis de Carvajal- Mexican Crypto- Jew and and Mystical Searcher” at the Jewish Museum of Florida.

2015: “GETT: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem” is scheduled to be shown at the JCC Manhattan.

2015: Banking giant HSBC faced damaging claims today that its Swiss division helped wealthy customers, including “6,200 Israelis with holdings totaling some $10 billion, dodge millions of dollars in taxes after a “SwissLeaks” cache of secret files emerged online.

2015(20thof Shevat, 5775): Ninety-eight-year-old Milton “Ed” Sabol who changed the face of football when he found NFL Films passed away today.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2015/02/09/6b8c8c16-b0ab-11e4-854b-a38d13486ba1_story.html

2015(20thof Shevat, 5775): Eighty-two-year David Levy “composer of Mourning Becomes Electra” passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/arts/music/marvin-david-levy-opera-composer-who-became-a-felon-is-dead-at-82.html?rref=obituaries&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Obituaries&pgtype=article&_r=0

2015: Jon Stewart announced that he was leaving “The Daily Show.”

2015: According to today’s Army Radio poll “nearly one in two Israelis believe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should cancel his March 3 address to the United States Congress amid heightened tensions between the White House and Jerusalem.”

2015: “French police arrested a man today as he tried to burn an Israeli flag, outside the kosher supermarket in Parish where four Jewish men were killed and dozens held hostage, by a jihadist last month.”

2016: Arthur M. Blank “co-founder of the Home Depot” and owner of the Atlanta Falcons announced today that he had a very treatable form of prostate cancer. (Spoiler Alert – Feel Good Moment; Blank is still alive and kicking.  Baruch Hashem)

2016: The Carnegie Deli re-opened today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/10/nyregion/carnegie-deli-reopens-after-a-10-month-shutdown.html?hpw&rref=nyregion&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2016: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with a delegation of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, led by Stephen M. Greenberg and Malcolm Hoenlein  in Ankara, today.

2016: Today, seventy-four-year-old Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders “became the first Jewish candidate to win a presidential primary election.”  (As reported by Nicholas Confessore)

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/11/us/politics/bernie-sanders-jewish.html?mabReward=CTM&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&region=CColumn&module=Recommendation&src=rechp&WT.nav=RecEngine&_r=0

2016: As part of the “The Real Housewives of the Bible” Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Hagar.”

2016: In London, the Pears Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism is scheduled a lecture by Professor Dan Stone on “Race Theory, Anthropology and the Jewish Connection.”

2016: As the U.S. Presidential primary season begins, the approximately 10,000 Jews join their fellow one million plus fellow Granite Staters in the first primary election of 2016.

2016(30thof Shevat, 5776): Calendar Coincidence – Mardi Gras and Rosh Chodesh Adar I

2017(13thof Shevat, 5777): Ninety-one-year-old author and journalist Barbara Gelb who collaborated with her husband New York Times managing editor Arthur Gelb on “the first full-scale biography of Eugene O’Neil” passed away today in New York.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/09/books/barbara-gelb-dead-biographer-of-eugene-oneill.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

https://www.usnews.com/news/entertainment/articles/2017-02-09/barbara-gelb-eugene-oneill-biographer-dead-at-91

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/301248/by-women-possessed-by-arthur-gelb-and-barbara-gelb/9780399159114/

2017: Today, “an Islamic State—affiliated terror group…claimed” responsibility for yesterday’s “attack tht saw four rockets fired at…Eilat…from the Sinai Peninsula.

2017:  Dr. Steve Feller is scheduled to lead a Thursday Forum on “The Conflicted Jewish World of Chaim Potok” featuring a discussion of My Name is Asher Lev and The Gift of Asher Lev.

2017: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host an after-dinner talk by Teaching Fellow Maureen Kendler on “Satan: Friend or foe?”

2017: The American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to host a Valentine’s Day Program – “Bubby: Kosher Love Advice in Unkosher Times” - a fashion photo series that features real bubbies imparting love and life advice.

2018: After premiering at the Los Film Festival, “The Female Brain” co-starring Beanie Feldstein was released today in the United States.

2018: “First We Tale Brooklyn” a crime whose protagonist is an Israeli ex-con who moves to Brooklyn directed and produced by Sabra Danny A. Abeckaser who also co-authored the screenplay is scheduled to be released in selected theatres throughout the United States.

2018: The 2018 Winter Olympics in which figure skater Aimee Buchanan competed with the Israeli team began today in Korea.

https://www.jta.org/2018/02/07/sports/olympian-aimee-buchanan-is-from-boston-via-dallas-but-she-is-skating-for-israel

2018: In partnership with the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines, The Des Moines Young Artists' Theatre production of 'I Never Saw Another Butterfly' is scheduled to open at the Stoner Theatre.

2018: “The House of Z” is scheduled to be shown at the San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a meeting of the Book Club where extracts from G-d, Science and the Search for Meaning by Rabbi Lord Sacks will be read while attendees will explore the question “Can and should religion and science both have a place in the modern world, and if so…how and why?”

2018: Annual observance of National Bagel Day (formerly known as Bagel and Lox Day)

https://nationaldaycalendar.com/national-bagel-and-lox-day-february-9/

https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/nationalbagelday?source=feed_text&story_id=10154689119412107

https://forward.com/food/362649/celebrate-national-bagel-day-with-free-bagels/

http://www.nationalbagelday.com/

For more on the subject see The Bagel by Maria Balinska

2019(4th Adar I, 5779): Parashat Terumah;

2019: On a Shabbat where the weekly portions is called “Gifts” the family of Nili Bayla Rosenbloom are scheduled to celebrate the gift of her first birthday.

2019: “De-Centralizing the Global Middle Ages” a two-day conference co-sponsored by the Jean and Samuel Frankel Center of Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan is scheduled to come to an end today.

2019: Limmud Baltics is scheduled to continue for a second day.

2019: National Bagel Day; for more about special offers see https://www.bustle.com/p/7-national-bagel-day-2019-deals-freebies-to-take-advantage-of-this-year-15932665

https://www.elitedaily.com/p/these-2019-national-bagel-day-deals-will-help-you-score-a-free-bagel-schmear-15936792

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/einstein-bros-bagels-celebrates-national-bagel-day-with-free-bagel-and-shmear-300790771.html

2020: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including To the Edge of Sorrow by Aharon Appelfeld, The Teacher by Michal Ben-Naftali, House on Endless Watersby Emuna Elon, Mengele: Unmasking the “Angel of Death” by David G. Marwell and by Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein.

2020: In Brookline, MA, the Chai Center is scheduled to host “Girl’s Night Out: The Seeds of Happieness” a “special Tu B’Shvat workshop led by Raizel Schusterman.”

2020: In Sonoma, CA, Congregation Shir Shalom is scheduled to host Oakland author Michael David Lukas talks about his novel, The Last Watchman of Old Cairo, the “winner of the 2019 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature.”

2020: In Lafayette, CA, Temple Isaiah is scheduled to host the “East Bay Jewish Choral Festival” during which “singers from different East Bay Synagogues perform with Cantor Leigh Korn” who began his musical career with Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, IA.

2020: The Illinois Holocaust Memorial and Education Center is scheduled to host a screening of “Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.”

2020: “JAMI, the mental health service for the Jewish Community” is scheduled to host “Finding Your Creative Voice Workshop.”

2020: The Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County, NJ, is scheduled to host “Green Fields” as part of the Yiddish Film Festival.

2020: Among those awaiting the outcome of the Oscar ceremonies scheduled to be held tonight are nominees for best director (Sam Mendes for “1917”) and best actor (Joaquin Phoenix for “Joker”) and Scarlett Johansson who got two nominations: best actress (for “Marriage Story”) and best supporting actress (for “Jojo Rabbit”).

2020: Friends and family are scheduled to celebrate the second birthday of Nili Bayla Rosenbloom

2020: “The Weinberg Center for Holocaust Education at The Breman Museum and Eternal Life-Hemshech” are scheduled to present “Unforgettable Stories From the Holocaust.”

2020: All of those who love great combinations are scheduled to observe National Bagel and Lox Day.

https://nationaldaycalendar.com/national-bagel-and-lox-day-february-9/

2021: National Bagel and Lox Day; Pandemics may come and pandemics may go but this great comfort food combination is here again. https://foodimentary.com/2018/02/09/february-9th-is-national-bagel-and-lox-day-2/

2021: Sanoma State University is scheduled to host the first session in it “Virtual Holocaust and Genocide Lecture Series.”

2021: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is proud to present actor Bryan Cranston and the creators of Your Honor, to discuss adapting Your Honor, a version of the Israeli show Kvodo, for American television and the question of how a tiny country of 8.8 million people with only one TV channel until 1993 became a global storytelling powerhouse.

2021: In London, the Highgate United Synagogue is scheduled to “Highgate 15 Minutes of Fame,” during which three members of the community “speak on topics passionate to them in 15 minutes of less.”

2021: The Breman Museum is scheduled to a virtual tour of the “Notorious RBG Exhibition” first seen at the Illinois Holocaust Museum.

2021: The Vilna Shul, “Boston’s Center for Jewish Culture” is scheduled to present, “Watch and Learn: Exploring ‘Jewish’ Through Film,” the first in a four-part series that will explore Jewish themes through television and movies.”

2021: The Aquarian Minyan is scheduled to present “Radio DJ Amy Wachtel as he talks about the spiritual and cultural similarities between Judaism and Rastafarianism, including Zion, the 12 Tribes, the Sabbath and the six-pointed star.”

2021: The Berkeley Center Jewish Studies is scheduled to present Professor Dina Danon of SUNY-Binghamton in conversation about her 2020 book, The Jews of Ottoman Izmir, which describes the Mediterranean port city Izmir emerging as a major center for Sephardic Jewish life some 125 years ago.

2021: The decision made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in consultation with Defense Minister Benny Gantz, Education Minister Yoav Galant and Health Minister Yuli Edelstein to keep schools closed until February 11 is scheduled to be presented to the cabinet today.

 

This Day, February 10, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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February 10

1163: Baldwin III, the first so-called King of Jerusalem to have been in “the Holy Land” passed away.  None of these Crusader monarchs were rightful heirs to the crown worn by David, Solomon and their successors. His successors would so bungle things that 25 years later Saladin would take the city which was a boon for the Jewish people.

1258: Mongols overran Baghdad, burning it to the ground and killing 10,000 citizens. This marked the beginning of the Il-khan (Mongol) Dynasty in Persia.  The Dynasty lasted until 1335. With the conquest of Baghdad by the grandson of Genghis Khan, the Mongol dynasty replaced the Abbasids. The Mongols were for the most part tolerant of Judaism. An Arab writer reported that on the eve of the Mongolian invasion there were 36,000 Jews living in the city and that they supported 16 Synagogues. Most of the city was destroyed during the siege. It is during this period that Judeo-Persian literature flourished specifically the poetry of Shahin whose most famous work was Sefer Sharh Shain al Hatorah.

1574: 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” was buried today in the Pawel Cathedral at Cracow. (The History of the Jewish People)

1622(1stof Adar I, 5422): Shabbatai ben Meir HaKohen” a noted 17th century talmudist and halakhist”  b known as the Shakh which is an abbreviation of his most important work, Siftei Kohen ((literally Lips of the Priest) on the Shulchan Aruch passed away today

1660(28thof Shevat, 5420): Saul Levi Morteira passed away.  Born in 1596, he was a Dutch rabbi of Portuguese descent. In a Spanish poem Daniel Levi, de Barrios speaks of him as being a native of Germany ("de Alemania natural"). When in 1616 Morteira escorted the body of the physician Elijah Montalto from France to Amsterdam, the Sephardic congregation Bet Ya'aḳob elected him ḥakam in succession to Moses ben Aroyo. Morteira was the founder of the congregational school Keter Torah. He taught Talmud and Jewish philosophy to the older students. He had also to preach three times a month. Among his most distinguished pupils were Baruch Spinoza and Moses Zacuto. Morteira and Isaac da Fonseca Aboab (Manasseh ben Israel was at that time in England) were the members of the bet din which pronounced the decree of excommunication ("ḥerem") against Spinoza. Some of Morteira's pupils published Gibeat Shaul a collection of fifty sermons on the Pentateuch, selected from 500 derashot written by Morteira.

1719: Jacob de Beer was employed today by the Dutch East India Company.

1738: In Savannah, GA, Esthter Nunez and Abraham de Lyon gave birth to Zipporah de Lyon, the wife of Mordecai Moses Mordecai with whom she had six children.

1753: In German, Hindel Mayer and Ruben Rubel gave birth to Abraham Rubel the husband of Johanna Rubel with whom he had four children.

1755: Sixty-six-year-old French author and political philosopher Charles Louis De Secondat Montesquieu, simply known as Montesquieu passed away.  A product of the Age of Reason, the optimistic Montesquieu’s most famous work is De l'esprit des loiswhich is known in English as The Spirit of the Laws, published in 1748.  Montesquieu did not just believe in religious toleration.  He believed that the state had a responsibility to see to it that religious groups leave each other in peace.  In the Spirit of Laws he writes, “’I cannot help remarking by the way how this nation (the Jews) has been sported with from one age to another: at one time their effects were confiscated when they were will to become Christians; and at another, if they refused to become Christians they were ordered to be burn.’” He described the Jews as a “’a mother that brought forth two daughters who have stabbed herewith a thousand wounds.’”  As befitted his optimistic views, Montesquieu believed “’the Jews are at present safe; superstition will return no more, and they will no longer be exterminated on conscientious principles.’” Unfortunately, History would prove him wrong.

1763: The Treaty of Paris, often called the Peace of Paris, or the Treaty of 1763, was signed on by the kingdoms of Great Britain, France and Spain, with Portugal in agreement marking the end of the Seven Years War which those living in North America called the French and Indian War.  As part of the agreement, France ceded Quebec to the British.  This opened the way to Jewish settlement in Canada since French law had prohibited Jews from settling the colony.  Under “the law of unintended consequences,” the war left Britain with a debt that it looked to the North American colonies to help pay off.  The taxation levied on the 13 colonies was a cause of the American Revolution which helped to create the nation that has become home to one of the leading Jewish communities in our history.

1767: In Berlin Esther Bamberger and Liepmann Meyer Wulff gave birth to Amalie Beer the mother of Giacomo Mayerbeer.

1768: In New York City, Rebecca Machado and Jonas Phillips gave birth to David Machado Phillips, the husband of “Catherine” Phillips and the father of Catherine, Dina, Jane and Rachel Phillips.

1775: In London, Elizabeth Field and John Lamb gave birth to their youngest child English author and poet Charles Lamb who used anti-Semitic tropes in his attacks on tenor John Braham while mocking him for having married a gentile.

1778: In Stratford, CT, Elkaleh Myers-Cohen and Gershom Mendes Seixas gave birth to Sarah Abigail Seixas, the wife of Israel Baer Kursheedt with whom she had nine children.

 1779: Jews were granted right of residence in Stuttgart, Germany (As bad as all the bad things that happened to the Jewish people were, one often considers some of the good things also bad - Anon). The Jewish experience in the Germanic states was a mixed bag.  Emancipation and anti-Semitism co-existed in an uneasy alliance that produced great culture but ended in the ashes of the Shoah.

1791: Birthdate of Reverend Henry Hart Milman who published History of The Jewsin 1829, which was the first work by an English clergyman that “treats Jews as an Oriental tribe.”  Milman based his work on “documentary evidence” and minimized the mythological approach that was used in earlier such works. In a world where the Bible and Science were clashing, his view was upsetting to many Christians and delayed the advancement of his career.

1791: Birthdate of German native Sarah Bernheimer, the wife of Samuel Moses Faist Rosenheim with whom she had seven children.

1795: Birthdate of Dutch born French painter Ary Scheffer who was not Jewish but who used Biblical themes in one of his famous paintings “Ruth and Naomi” which is based on the Book of Ruth.

1796: Rachel Aarons and Joseph Tobias gave birth to Isaac Tobias, the husband of Isabella Cowen with whom she had six children, five of whom were born in South Carolina and one in Georgia.

1797(14thof Shevat, 5557): Mordecai Gumpel Levison, born Mordecai Gumpel ben Judah Leib, the native of Berlin who pursued a medical degree after arriving in London in 1771, the same year he published the first of several religious works – Ma’amar ha-Torah V’Hokmach (Dissertation on Torah and Wisdom)

1799: Duke Karl Eugene decreed that no Jew should be deprived of the right of residence in Stuttgart, Germany

1799: In Bavaria, Jachet David and Samuel Bluthenthal gave birth to David Bluthenthal.

1799: Birthdate of Hannah Hamel Straus, the Bavarian born daughter of Abraham Baum and father of Helena Baum.

1800(15th of Shevat, 5560): Tu B’Shevat

1800(15thof Shevat, 5560): Benjamin Cohen - the maternal grandfather of Jonas Daniel Meijer, the first Jewish lawyer in the Netherlands – passed away. Born in 1725, Cohen was a successful businessman, Jewish teacher and supporter of William V, Prince of Orange-Nassau, the last Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic.

1802: In London Isaac D’Israeli married Maria Basevi, the daughter of Anglo-Jewish merchant whose family originally came from Italy.  This union produced five children the most of which was Benjamin, the future Prime Minister and Earl Beaconsfield.

1804: Birthdate of Joseph Zender, the German Jewish bibliographer who became librarian of the Hebrew department of the British Museum in 1845.

1805(11thof Adar I, 5565): Amsterdam born chazan Abraham Azuby, the husband of Esther Azuby and father of Joseph Abraham Azuby  who in 1764 came to the America where he became the leader of Congregation Beth Elohim passed away today.

https://mappingjewishcharleston.cofc.edu/1788/map.php?id=1002

https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/azuby-abraham

1815: Birthdate of Kowel native Meir Auberach, part of the Rabbinic Auerbach family, who “was president of the Jewish court at Koło”, and after immigrating to Palestine “was appointed the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem and headed the Poland Kollel.”

https://www.rabbimeirbaalhaneis.com/Rabbi%20Meir%20Auerbach.asp

1817: Seventy-three-year-old Karl Theodor Anton Maria von Dalberg, the “prince bishop” sovereign of Frankfurt during whose reign Karl Ludwig Börne was appointed a police actuary in 1811 and then forced to resign three years later because he was Jewish, passed away today.

1824: Simon Bolivar named dictator by the Congress of Peru. At the turn of the nineteenth century, the Jews of Curacao became involved with Simon Bolivar and his fight for the independence of Venezuela and Colombia from their Spanish colonizers. Two Jewish men from Curacao distinguished themselves in Simon Bolivar’s army, while another supplied moral and material support to Bolivar, as well as refuge for him and his family.

1829: Leo XII, the Pope who in 1826 order that the gates of the Ghetto at Ancona be replaced and that the “old time persecutions” be resumed, passed away today.

1830(15thof Tevet, 5590): Benjamin Jonas Phillips, the Phiadelpha born son of Rebecca Machado and Jonas Phillips and husband of Abigail Seixas with whom he had eight children passed away today in New York City.

1831: Birthdate of Dr. Isaac Rülf, a German rabbi who supplemented his income as a newspaper editor and became an early supporter of the Zionist cause.

1836: Dr. Albert Moses Levy completed his service chief surgeon in the Texas Volunteer Army that had fought against Mexico.

1836: Samuel and Rosetta Moses were married today at the Great Synagogue.

1839: In, Lynn, Norfolk, England, Esther and Aaron Daniel de Pass gave birth to Daniel Aaron de Pass.

1840: Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Three years before the wedding Victoria had “knighted Moses Haim Montefiore” and a year after her marriage she made Isaac Lyon Goldsmid a baronet, making him the first Jew to receive a hereditary title. According to one source, “Prince Albert may have had a Jewish father.”  According to this report, “Albert's mother was dismissed from the court of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha for having an affair with the Jewish chamberlain, the Baron von Mayern.”

1841: Samuel and Ann Solomon were married today at the Maiden Lane Synagogue.

1848: In New York, Canadian native Rebecca Solomons and Simon Mendes Nathan gave birth to Sara Nathan who never married.

1852: "The Revolution in Northern Mexico" published today reported that the Mexican revolutionaries are opposed by foreign merchants in Brownsville, Texas and Matamoros, Mexico.  They are led by an English Jew named Charles Uhde a man with major business interests "south of the border" and who is the editor of the Brownsville Flag.

1853: Birthdate of Victor Mordechai Goldschmidt, German mineralogist. Goldschmidt made important studies of crystallography. His books The Index of Crystal Forms and The Atlas of Crystal Forms are considered classics of mineralogy.

1853: English natives Mary Levy and John Fileman gave birth to Catherine Fileman.

1858: Lord John Russell's bill that would modify the oath of office so that Jews could serve in Parliament was "debated and read for a second time" in the House of Commons.

1860: In Sulzberg, Leopold Dukas and Mathilda Kahn gave birth to Julius Dukas, the husband of Sarah Hyman, whose involvement in American Jewish communal affairs included serving as Vice President of Congregation Zichron Ephraim, first vice president of the Hebrew Free Loan Association and treasurer of Orach Chaim.

1861(30thof Shevat, 5621): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1861: On the same day that the Jews began celebrating a new month, Jefferson Davis found out he had a new job when a telegram arrived at his plantation telling him he had been chosen President of the Confederate States of America.

1862: “The Lily of Killarney” an operetta in three acts by Julius Benedict premiere at Covent Garden Theatre in London.

1863: Elvira S. Solis, the “daughter of Isaac Mendes Seixas Nathan and Sarah Mendes Nathan and her husband David Hays Solis gave birth to Sarah Solis who became Sarah Nathan when she married Edgar Joshua Nathan.

1867: After the death of his first wife, Victorine in 1865, Sir George Henry married his second wife, Elizabeth, “the daughter of Ferdinand Eberstadt of Mannheim Germany with whom he had three children – George, Gertrude and Katherine.

1868(17th of Shevat): Haim Palachi, the author of works in Hebrew and Ladino and the Chief Rabbi of Smyrna who married Esther Palacci with whom he had three sons all of whom were Rabbis – Abraham Palacci, Isaac Palacci and Joseph Palacci. passed away today.

1869: Twenty-seven-year-old Myer S. Isaacs, who would go on to become a distinguished jurist and President of the Baron de Hirsch Fund, married Marie Solomon, the daughter of B.L. Solomon. 

1869: In Galicia, Mathia and Sarah Leah (Fassberg) Spiegel gave birth to Adolph Spiegel, the husband of Anna Krebs and alum of NYU and Oskaloosa College in Oskaloosa, IA whose quarter of a century of as rabbi included serving as a chaplain during the Spanish American War during which he “started the first Jewish Congregation in Puerto Rico.”

1869: Twelve years after founding The Jewish Messenger with his father and seven years after being admitted to the Bar, 27-year-old Myer S. Isaacs married Marie Solomon, the daughter of New Yorker B.L. Solomon. She would pass away in 1888 leaving him with six children including I.S. Isaacs and Louis Isaacs.  He would on to become a judge and President of the Baron de Hirsch Fund.

1871: Maximillian Steiner wrote the libretto for “Indigo and the Forty Thieves” which premiered today.

1874: Baron Mayer Amschelm de Rothschild, late Member of Parliament for Hythe was laid to rest this morning at the Jewish Cemetery at Willesden.  According to an article in the Pall Mall Gazette,“the funeral cortege consisted of a hearse drawn by four horses followed by thirty mourning coaches and a large number of private carriages.”

1874: Anslem Rudolph de Jongh married Sophia Woolf at 24 Gloucester Terrace in Hyde Park.

1875: Birthdate of Troy, NY native and Williams College graduate Charles Gross, the Harvard Professor of History who at the time of his was “regarded as one of the leading authorities on the history of early English institutions and constitutional history.”

https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/gross-charles

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1909/12/4/death-of-professor-gross-pprofessor-charles/

1876(15thof Shevat, 5636): Tu B’Shevat

1876: In Kings County, the trial of P.N. Rubenstein who is charged with the murder of Sara Alexander, was scheduled to resume this morning at 10 o’clock.

1877: It was reported from Belgrade that the Serbians have refused to discuss granting equal rights to the Jews and Armenians living in their realm.  The opposition is led by merchants in Belgrade who do not want any new business competitors.

1879: Dr. William M. Taylor will deliver a lecture on “Walter Scott” to the Young Men’s Hebrew Association who are holding a social at the Chickering Hall. 

1879: Joseph G. Wilson, the United States consul at Jerusalem approved the plan of the American Jews in Southern Syria to organize their own kolel saying that “a responsible agency for the distribution of their charities may be the means of great and lasting good," and promised cooperation to the best of his power.

1880(28th of Shevat, 5640): Adolphe Crémieux, a French statesman and leader of the Jewish community, passed away. A lawyer and political leader he championed the rights of the less fortunate in general and the Jews in particular. Born before the first French Revolution, he came to power following the Revolution of 1830. He fought to end the death penalty for political offenses and the abolition of slavery in France’s colonies. Crémieux worked tirelessly to improve the conditions of the Jewish community.  “In 1827, he advocated the repeal of the More judaico, legislation stigmatizing the Jews left over from pre-revolutionary France. He founded the Alliance Israelite Universelle in Paris in 1860, becoming its president four years later. In 1866 Crémieux traveled to Saint Petersburg to successfully defend Jews of Saratov who had been accused in a case of blood libel.”

http://www.ohio.edu/chastain/ac/cremieux.htm

1881: “La Civilta Cattolica, an official Jesuit publication founded by Pope Pius IX and published under the direct control of the papacy, publishes an article in a 36-part series of anti-Semitic pieces. Father Giuseppe Oreglia di Santo Stefano, one of the journal's founders, argues that pogroms against the Jews are a natural consequence of Jews demanding too much liberty”

1882: In Russia, Mark A. and Fanny Tobenkn gave birth to University of Wisconsin graduate whose career in journalism including for the “Hearst Newspapers,” “The New York Tribune” and JTA who was the husband of the former Rae Schwid.

https://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingaid.cfm?eadid=00256

http://snaccooperative.org/ark:/99166/w6259g62

https://www.jta.org/1963/10/22/archive/elias-tobenkin-noted-author-dead-was-j-t-a-correspondent-in-moscow

1888: In the Ukraine, Adel and Akiva Brodetsky, the beadle of the local Synagogue, gave birth to Selig Brodetsky, a “British Professor of Mathematics, a member of the World Zionist Executive, who served as the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and was the second president of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.”

https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Brodetsky/

1890: Birthdate of Boris Pasternak, the Russian Nobel Prize-winning novelist and poet, author of Dr. Zhivago

1890: The Grand Lodge, No. 1 of the Independent Order of Free Sons of Israel met for a second day at Webster Hall. Among the attendees were David Keller, S.B. Hamburger, Aaron Stern, Harry Jacobs, Gabriel Marks and Benjamin Baker.

1890: It was reported today that Edward Lauterbach delivered a speech eulogizing the late Seligman Solomon, the Jewish philanthropist who was the driving the force behind the Hebrew Orphan Asylum. The memorial service is an annual event held at the asylums building on Tenth Avenue.

1891: Julius Rosenwald of Sears and Roebuck fame and Augusta Nusbaum gave birth to Cornell University alum and Chairman of Sears Lessing Julius Rosenwald, who turned to a life of book collecting and philanthropy as well as a stint of political activity that included support of the America First Committee and the Presidency of the anti-Zionist American Council of Judaism.

1891: In Bern Switzerland, Russian born Sergius Ingerman and his wife Anna gave birth to Eugenia Ingerman who became Eugenia Low when she married Bela Isidor Low with whom she had one child, Francis Eugene Low.

1891: It was reported today that very few of the Jewish immigrants from Russia who have received assistance from a fund established by Baron Hirsh settle in the southern United States.  Many of them settle in the West, while smaller numbers settle in the Middle Atlantic States or New England.

1891: According to the first paragraph of trust agreement signed by Baron Hirsch which was made public today, his reason for establishing a charitable fund is that he has “observed with painful interest the suffering and destitution of the Hebrews dwelling in Russia and Rumania where they are oppressed by severe laws and unfriendly neighbors, and have determined to contribute to the relief of such of my brethren in race who have emigrated or shall emigrate from these inhospitable countries to the Republic of the United States of America.”

1892: “A New Loan Commissioner” published today described the appointment of Edward Jacobs to the position of Loan Commissioner in New York by Governor Roswell P. Flower.  A native of Buffalo, the 38-year-old Jacobs is a lawyer who has never held office but is a member of the Tammany Society (Ed. Note – Yes the Jewish lawyer belonged to the Irish Catholic political organization) Jacobs is an active member of several Jewish charities and social organizations including the Hebrew Sanitarium, the Sons of Israel and B’nai B’rith.

1892(12thof Shevat, 5652): Henry Adler passed away today.

1892: Birthdate of New York native Frederick Eberson, the holder of an M.S. from Iowa State, a Ph.D. from Columbia and an M.D. from the University of Minnesota, the pathologist and bacteriologist who served with the U.S. Army during WW I after which he pursued research at Washington University and the Mayo Clinic.

https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf8c6009g5/

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Eberson%2C%20Frederick%2C%201892-

https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/portraits-kentucky-pioneers-community-health/author/frederick-eberson/

1894: Meyer Markowitz remained in custody on charges that he had broken the lock off of an icebox and tried to steal the contents to feed his family.  Markowitz is a tailor who has been out of work for several months due to the Depression.  He had exhausted all other sources of assistances, including asking for aid from the United Hebrew Charities. The arresting officer was sympathetic to his plight but the law against theft had to be reinforced.

1895: Birthdate of Samuel Holtzman, the Brooklyn born lightweight boxer who fought under the name of Frankie Callahan.

1895: “Charity and Pleasure” published today traces the history of the Purim Association which was formed in 1862 by ten young Jewish men – Moses H. Moses, Herman H. Stettheimer, A. Henry Shutz, Solomon B. Solomon, Joseph A. Levy, Louis G. Schiffer, Solomon Weill, Adolph Sanger, Lionel Davies and Myer S. Isaacs.  The men decided to combine the celebration of the holiday with fundraising by hosting an annual ball that would provide funds for a growing listing of agencies that now includes Mt. Sinai Hospital, the Montefiore Home, the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, United Hebrew Charities, the Russian Emergency Fund and many, many more.

1895: “For Sick Poor Children” which was published today provides a history of the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children. The organization grew out of a meeting in the Spring of 1877 at which Dr. S.N. Leo and John J. Davis decided that the children of Jewish parents would benefit from a series of outdoor excursions each summer.  The first excursion took place in August of 1877 and provided a riverboat excursion for between 700 and 800 children and their mothers. These events have become part of the summer time activities for underprivileged New York youngsters thanks to the fundraising activities of Jewish leaders including Abraham Ettinger, Leonard Lewinson, Mrs. A.M. Kohn and Mrs. Julius Hart.

1896: Herzl reads Auto-Emancipation by Leon Pinsker.  Leon Pinsker was a Russian born physician who became a Zionist years before Herzl had his “vision of a Jewish state. ’Auto-Emancipation was a pamphlet Pinsker published in 1882 “in which he urged the Jewish people to strive for independence and national consciousness.”

1897:  Freedom of religion granted in Madagascar.  This “liberal sounding statement” was actually the product of French imperialism. France conquered the island in 1895 and the Chamber of Deputies voted to annex it in 1896.  The extension of Freedom of Religion, including securing the rights of French Jews who might settle there, was part of the law of unintended consequences.  Madagascar would enter into Jewish history as the site where the Nazis offered, before World War II to deposit the Jews.  This was the so-called Madagascar Plan.

1897: In Auburn, Maine, founding of Congregation Beth Abraham which owned a “cemetery three and one-half miles from town on Denvil Road” and whose members came to include Hyman Savage, Abrahm Widronitz and Moses Miller.

1898: In Argentina, Samuel and Raissa Kessel gave birth to French journalist and author, Joseph Kessel, the uncle of Maurice Duron, the author of the bestselling novel Les Grandes Familles

https://www.nytimes.com/1979/07/25/archives/joseph-kessel-author-and-newspaperman-was-a-de-gaulle-aide-a.html

1898: Birthdate of German aircraft designer and journalist whose 1929 article in The World Stage exposing the creation of “a secret German Air Force in violation of the Treaty of Versailles” was ignored in the West but earned him an 18-month prison term in a German prison for treason and espionage.  (Editor’s note: This warning came four years before Hitler came to power putting the lie to the contention that German re-armament was strictly a Nazi affair)

1900(11thof Adar I, 5660): Parashat Tetzaveh

1900: As Jews observer Shabbat, Lord Balfour, who would gain fame for the declaration about Palestine, was reported today to have conceded that the Boer’s have the advantage over British forces in the fighting in South Africa.

1900: In Fort Smith, AR, founding of the Afternoon Literary the purposed of which was “the discussion of current events and the study of the classics” and who members included Miss Mae Wolf and Mrs. Benno Stein.

1901:  On New York’s Lower East Side, Sara and Jacob P. Adler gave birth to their youngest daughter, Stella Adler, the sibling of actors Luther, Jay, Charles and Celia Adler.She began her career on the Yiddish stage before making the transition to Broadway.  Her fame as an actress was exceeded only by her fame as an inspiration for aspiring actors and actresses at the Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting in New York City.  She passed away in 1992 at the age of 91.

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/adler-stella

1901: Birthdate of German born American mathematician Richard Dagobert Brauer.

1902: “Opera Company Entertained” published today described a dinner given by Jacob Rothschild, one of the owners of the Hotel Majestic for 25 guests including artists and their friends all connected with the Metropolitan Opera Company.

1903: Herzl writes to Lord Rothschild, reports about the commission and asks for a meeting in Paris.

1903: Birthdate of Russian born composer, Matvey Isaakovich Blatner.

1904: It was announced at this afternoon’s meeting of the Trustees of the New York Library “that the later Isaac Meyer” a part of whose “life was spent in investigations of Jewish and Egyptian mysticisms” and who “was the author of “The Cabbalah,” “Ion Gebirol” and “Scarabs” “had donated his library of 2,000 volumes and manuscripts to the library.”

1905: The will of Kasryel H. Sarasohn, the founder of The Jewish Daily News disposing of about $600,000 worth of property which was “written in the old Hebraic language” was filed for probate in the Surrogates’ office today “by the testator’s son, Abraham H. Sarasohn, the lawyer who is to receiving one-fifth interest in the publishing business.”

1906: It was reported today that the Russians are refusing to cash money orders intended to aid Jewish citizens and are returning them to the senders because “orders have been issued from St. Petersburg to refuse payment…because the money is for the purpose of aiding the revolutionary cause.”

1906(15thof Shevat, 5666): Parashat Beshalach; Tu B’Shevat

1906: “In the lower sections of” New York City “the majority of the workers” removing snow “were Jews, refugees, young men and old” many of the latter of which were “too weak for the work and had to quit” due to exhaustion.

1907: It was reported today that faculty would have nothing to say about charges of discrimination against Jewish student until they were officially informed that such behavior existed.

1908: In St. Louis, MO, 28-year-old Leopold Cronbach and 24-year-old Ruby Lowenhaupt gave birth to Washington University trained sculptor Robert M. Cronbach

https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/robert-m-cronbach-papers-7553

https://www.incollect.com/listings/decorative-arts/objects/robert-m-cronbach-american-abstract-bronze-sculpture-columns-by-robert-cronbach-247129

1909: It was reported today that labor stoppage by the United Hatters of Amerian would center around the factor of the Samuel Mundheim Company since Mundheim is president of the National Hat Manufacturers’ Association.

1910: Forty-nine-year-old Jules Guérin the anti-Semitic journalist who helped to found the Anti-Semitic League of France and was active in the campaign to smear Captain Dreyfus passed away today.

1911(12th of Shevat, 5671): Madame Fakima Modiano, a prominent philanthropist from Salonica, passed away.

1911: At the request of the Hahambashi, the Turkish Minister of War directs his officers in every Army Corps to provide money for Jewish soldiers to buy Matzah and kosher food during the 8 days of Passover.

1912: De Witt Seligman saw his brother Washington Seligman, both of whom were the sons of James Seligman founder of J & W Seligman & Co, for the last time today at the brokerage firm of Post and Flagg noting that his brother “appeared to be in the best of spirits at that time” and giving no hint that he was about to commit suicide.

1912: Birthdate of Herbert Baum, “the Jewish member of the German resistance against National Socialism who was either hanged or decapitated by the Nazis in Moabit Prison

1912: Birthdate of Heinrich Josef Krips, the son of a Jewish-born convert to Catholicism, who gained game as conductor Henry Krips.

1912(22ndof Shevat, 5672): Sydney James Stern, 1st Baron Wandsworth the eldest son of Viscount David de Stern, senior partner of the firm of Stern Brothers, and Sophia, daughter of Aaron Asher Goldsmid passed away today leaving “estate of 1,555,984 pound sterling most of which was bequeathed to charity, over a million being given to found an orphanage in his name which was actually used to found Lord Wandsworth College.”

1913(3rdof Adar I, 5673): Sixty-eight-year-old Patterson, NJ merchant Marcus Cohen passed away.

1913: Birthdate of Charles “Charlie” Thompson a native of Brookline, MA who helped to smuggle three surplus B-17 Bombers into Israel as she prepared to fight for her independence. The story of how he and Al Schimmer did this sounds like the stuff of a fictional spy-thriller, but it really happened.  These three planes were the only heavy bombers the Israelis had during the war with the invading Arab armies who were supported by modern aircraft.  He was imprisoned by the U.S. for 18 months for doing this but was pardoned posthumously by President Bush in 2008

1914: The completion of the first English translation of the Bible from the original Hebrew by a body of Jewish scholars representing all shades and schools of Jewish thought and learning was celebrated at a dinner in the great hall of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America tonight. Jacob H. Schiff gave the main address praising the work of the translators.

1914: “Twenty-nine prominent clergymen and churchmen, representing all denominations including Jewish organizations were appoint trustees of Andrew Carnegie’s Church Peace Union

1914: Birthdate of one of the world’s greatest harmonica players, Baltimore native Lawrence "Larry" Cecil Adler.

1914: Birthdate of Wausau, Wisconsin native Benjamin Walter Heineman, the “lawyer and corporate leader who took over railroads, created one of the nation’s first conglomerates and became a close confidant and adviser to President Lyndon B. Johnson.” (As reported by Denise Grady)

1915: Birthdate of Russian actor Vladimir Zeldin

https://www.rbth.com/arts/people/2016/10/31/one-of-worlds-oldest-actors-vladimir-zeldin-dies-aged-101_643635

http://www.playbill.com/article/vladimir-zeldin-worlds-oldest-working-actor-is-dead-at-101

1915: “Denies Pogrom Stories” published today described claims by Russia’ Foreign Minister that reports of attacks on Jews organized by the Russian government are untrue saying that the suffering of the Jews came because so many of them lived in Poland and those parts of Russia where war was being waged and that these reports were being spread by “the German Ambassador in American…in an attempt to create a feeling hostile” to the Russians.

1915: As he left today on a trip to the South, Adolph Lewishon said that “The question of equal rights for Jews, and also of Palestine will not doubt arise at the future peace conference and I believe that the Jewish question will be treated with more sympathy and friendship by the nations than at any other time” because of the ardent patriotism shown by the Jews.

1915: The list of the officers for District 1 of the International Order of B’nai B’rith published today included Herman Asher, Grand President; Abraham K. Cohen, First Vice President; Joseph Rosenzweig, Second Vice President; Solomon Sulzberger, Treasurer and Dr. Bernard M. Kaplan, Grand Secretary.

1915: In New York, Percy St. Straus, head of R.H. Macy & Co. and President of the Dry Goods Association told those attending the dinner marking the final night of the convention of National Dry Goods Association that “the department store men can afford to see a minimum wage law enacted without making any protest. (Editor’s note – 100 years later, in the United States, the battle is being waged over raising the minimum wage – the more things change the more they stay the same)

1916: Nathan Straus who is staying at a hotel in Long Beach, CA today mailed a check for $250,000 to New York “for distribution among the need Jewish children of Poland” and Mrs. Straus mailed another check for $100,000 for the same cause.”

1917(18thof Shevat, 5677): Raphael “Al” Hayman, the business partner of Charles Frohman with whom he established the Theatrical Syndicate, the dominant theatrical booking agency of its day passed away. Frohman, one of three Jewish brothers from Ohio who made it big in the world of New York entertainment, has died two years earlier when he was on board the RMS Lusitania.

1917: Birthdate of Edward Lawrence “Eddie” Turchin, the New York native who at the age of 26 played a handful of games with the Cleveland Indians in 1943.

1918: Judge Julian W. Mack, Colonel Sir Arthur Murray of the British Embassy in Washington D.C. and Ittamar Ben-Avi, a newspaper editor from Jerusalem were among the guests who attended a dinner presided over by Eugene Meyer, Jr., the Chairman of the of the Palestine Restoration at the home of Adolph Lewishohn where the future of the Zionist’s dream for a state in Palestine was discussed.

1918:  The International Ladies Garment Workers received a letter from Dr. Harry Garfield of the National Fuel Administration saying the will see to that “their shops are heated and lighted …Washington’s Birthday” – a holiday on which the Jewish trade unionists have agreed to work with the understanding that their pay for the date will go to the Jewish War Relief Fund.

1918:  Abdul Hamid II Ottoman Sultan passed away.  Sultan Abdul-Hamid II's is famous for his refusal to allow Dr. Theodore Herzl, the founder of Political Zionism, to settle Palestine with Jewish colonists. Herzl offered to buy up and then turn over the Ottoman Debt to the Sultan's government in return for an Imperial Charter for the Colonization of Palestine by the Jewish people.   Herzl probably thought that he was offering the Sultan a bargain, knowing that the Sultan's dearest wish was to rescue the empire from the indebtedness it had fallen into as a result of easy European loans.  While some saw this as a form of anti-Jewish bias others contend that Abdul Hamid’s response was based on internal nationality problems that were already troubling the empire.  Hamid had enough problems with indigenous groups without bringing a new nationality problem to his tottering empire.

1918: “Owing to the wheat conservation rules of the United States Food Administration, Albert Kruger, the director of a” Jewish “relief society on the east side, said” today “that the Jewish population of the country will have its supply of matzoth for the Passover season reduced by at least 30 per cent.”

1919(9thof Shevat, 5679): Annie Blatcky (nee Annie Sugar), the wife of Sol Blatcky passed away today.

1919: Two days afte she passed away, funeral services were held in Chicago for Johanna Levy, the mother of Mrs. Emma Zimmer and Maxwell Levy.

1920: In Chicago, Isidore Rabinowitz, the “son of Chaim Aaron Rabinowitz and Sura Mena Rabinowitz” and his wife Miriam Rabinowitz gave birth to Harry Rabin

1921: Birthdate of New York native Samuel “Sam” Deitchman who “played guard, forward, and center at CCNY from 1940 to 1942 when the team made repeat appearances at the NIT, the premier college basketball tournament of that period.

1922: Judge Max S. Levine was named chairman of the committee which includes Congressman Christopher Sullivan, Judge Morris Koenig, Joseph Levenson, Samuel Markewich and Joseph Marcus that was formed tonight “at a meeting at 485 Fifth Aveny that will work to raise five million dollars “for the Jews of Eastern Europe who are suffering from famine and war conditions.”

1923: Birthdate of Brooklynite Alex ‘Allie Sherman who was best known as head coach of the NFL’s New York Giants.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/sports/football/allie-sherman-giants-coach-in-the-1960s-dies-at-91.html

1923: Texas Tech University was founded as Texas Technological College in Lubbock, Texas. Today, Texas Tech boasts a small, but vibrant Hillel about which you can find out more by seeing http://www.orgs.ttu.edu/hilleljewishsociety/.

1924: It was reported today that Henry A Dix is he honorary chairman of the upcoming bazar designed “to raised funds to establish trade, vocational and agricultural schools among the Jews of Eastern and Central Europe.

1924: “About Books, More or Less” published today provided an in depth review of The Jew in Civilization by Ada Sterling.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1924/02/10/issue.html

https://www.amazon.com/Jew-Civilization-Ada-Sterling/dp/1258051508

 

1925(16thof Shevat, 5685): Jacob “Jay” Pike, the brother of Lipman Pike, passed away today. Lipman was a famous baseball player. Jay played in only one major league. In 1877, he got a hit while playing in the outfield for the Brooklyn Hartfords who on that day beat the Cincinnati Red Stockings.

1926: Poet Chaim Nachman Bialik, delivered a speech in Yiddish to 4,000 people at Mecca Temple in New York at an event designed to raise funds the United Palestine Appeal.

1927: Birthdate of Austrian born British novelist, story-writer and memoirist Jakov Lind author of Landscape in Concrete and Ergo.

1927: Bantamweight Herman “Kid Silvers (Herman Silverberg) scored a knockout in his bout tonight at the Engineer’s Amory in New York.

1927: “Two Jewish student…were seriously injured in new attacks…at the School of Commerce” in Bucharest.

1927: “A further step toward ameliorating unemployment in Palestine was taken” today when the Zionist Executive, the Centraol Cooperative Bank and the Workers Bank advanced a loan of twenty thousand pounds to the Solel Boneh, the Jewish workers’ cooperative building society.

1928: In St. Louis, during his “tenure as a professor of history at the University of Illinois” Abram L. Sachar and his wife Thelma Horwitz gave birth to the first son historian Howard Morley Sachar author of such “big books” as A History of Jews in America and A History of the Jews in the Modern World.

http://www.thebrandeishoot.com/articles/6474

1928: The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported today the District Court of Jaffa ruled that “compulsory Sabbath observance is in contradiction with Article XV of the Palestine Mandate that states: “The mandatory shall see that complete freedom of conscience and the free exercise of all forms of worship, subject only to the maintenance of public order and morals are assured to all.  No discrimination of any kind shall be made between the inhabitants of Palestine on the ground of race, religion or language.  No person shall be excluded from Palestine on the sole ground of his religious belief.”   The District Court was overruling a decision by a Tel Aviv magistrate who had fined a Jewish shopkeeper named Altschuler for violating the city’s ordinance regarding the observance of the Jewish Sabbath.

1929: Birthdate of Jerry Goldsmith the prolific composer who wrote hundreds of film scores and television theme songs, including music for the films Patton and Basic Instinct and television's The Twilight Zone. He passed away at the age of 75 in 2004.

1929: Birthdate of Elaine Edna Kaufman, founder of owner of Elaine’s, the famed restaurant on the Upper East Side that she made into a New York landmark.

1929: Flyweight Moe Mizler fought his 26th bout at Whitechapel, London

1930(12thof Shevat, 5690): Sixty-seven year old Galicia native Jacob Geller, the husband of Sarah Geller with whom he raised eight children, who was an Orthodox Rabbi in Galveston before beginning his service at Adath Israel in Houston, TX in 1929 passed away today.

1930: In Manhattan, Beulah and Adolph Lobl gave birth to Elaine Lobl who gained fame as award winning children’s author E.L. Konigsburg. (As reported by Paul Vitello)

1931: In Jerusalem, Isaac Benzvi opened a meeting at the Nathan Straus Health Center attended by three hundred Jews who “paid tribute to the memory of two prominent Americans” – Louis Marshall and Nathan Straus.

1932(3rd of Adar): Yiddish author Mordecai Rabinowitz (Ben-Ammi) passed away today.

1932: Fifty-six-year-old English author, Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace, passed away today four years before his works would banned by in Germany “because of rumors that the writer was of Jewish extraction” – a charge vehemently denied by his daughter Mrs. Frere Reeves.

1934(25thof Shevat, 5694): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

1934: The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee announced today that it fund raising chairman, Rabbi Jonah B. Wise has set a message to about five thousand Jewish leaders” in the United States and Canada on the subject of German-Jewish relief in which said that, after a year of Hitler, it is obvious that the conditions for the Jews in Germany will get worse and they will require more assistance.

1935: “A new country-wide effort to raise $3,250,000 this year for the relief of Jews in Germany and other European countries and for the settlement of Jews in Palestine was started today by the United Jewish Appeal under the combined efforts of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the American Palestine Campaign.”

1935: “Early American Jews” published a review of Early American Jews by Lee M. Friedman which presents a different picture of the Jews “from the conception most commonly held” about them including that “although the Jews are generally thought to be comparatively recent arrivals, they have really been here from the earliest days, ‘long before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth…’”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1935/02/10/87877821.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1936: With the unification of the police and the SS, the Gestapo became the supreme police agency of Nazi Germany. Gestapo Law was enacted in Prussia, giving them exclusive right to make arrests, and entitled to investigate all activities considered hostile to the state. The same law gave the Gestapo complete independence from the courts.

1936: In Berlin the Ministry of Justice “has issued new regulations” that for all intents and purposes “prohibit the admission of German Jews to the Bar” and ordering all “German lawyers to dissolve all associations with Jews or half Jews.”

1936(17thof Shevat, 5696): 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 passed away today “in his 59th year.”

1936: At Cambridge, Massachusetts, “Wassily Leontief, a political refugee from the Soviet Union, a Nobel laureate Economist who pioneered computer modeling, and poet Estelle Marks” gave birth to Svetlana Leontief the American art historian who married in 1958 and became Svetlana Alpers.

1937: At 7:30 pm, WEAF is scheduled to broadcast “Let’s Be Sensible About the Supreme Court” featuring Representative Emanuel Celler.

1937: Edward Isaac Lending a high school teacher received a passport today ten days before he sailed for Europe where fought with the Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil War.

1938: The Palestine Post reported from London that the Colonial Secretary, Mr. Ormsby Gore, made a clear reaffirmation of the British desire to proceed with the partition, as recommended by the Peel Report and the Mandates Commission of the League of Nations. Gore repeated that partition was the best means to establish a Jewish National Home in Palestine.

1938: Harold Jacobi, the President of the Schenley Distillers Corporation announced he would chair the Greater New York Campaign of the United Palestine Appeal “because the Jews of Central  Europe and Eastern Europe have been plunged into profound despair and hopelessness by the new restrictions and threats of expulsion hat be made by the Government of Rumania and because of the anti-Jewish measures in German, Poland and other lands.

1938: G.W. Kunze, national director of public relations for the German American Bund led a delegation of “gray-uniformed Nazi into Syracuse” where they were met by a belligerent band of men from the American Legion”

1938: The Palestine Post reported that a British Army sergeant was killed by an Arab terrorist near Tulkarm.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that the final allocation of 31 seats at the Jerusalem Community Council was: Labor 10, Revisionists four, Hapoel Hamizrahi and Sephardim three each, and the rest were divided between nine smaller parties. The total number of votes cast was 9,368.

1939: Pope Pious XI passed away.  The Pope earned high marks from the B’nai B’rith which featured him on the cover of its monthly magazine in 1939 hailing for his stag against fascism and racism. In 1939, The Jewish National Monthlydescribe him as "the only bright spot in Italy has been the Vatican, where fine humanitarian statements by the Pope have been issuing regularly".

1939: Jewish converts were banned from Evangelical-Lutheran churches in Thüringen, Germany.

1939: “…One Third of a Nation…” starring Sylvia Sidney (born Sophia Kosow) and Sidney Lumet who appeared with his father Baruch Lumet and with music by Nathaniel Shilkret was released in the United States today.

1939(21stof Shevat, 5699): Sixty-four-year-old Ernest Lesser who “who was called to the Bar by the Middle Temple in 1900 and whose Jewish communal activities included serving as Warden of the New West End Synagogue passed away today.  (Lesser was a man born before his time as can be seen by his support for the “enfranchisement of female seat-holders of the United Synagogue” and his description of “the problem of augunot as ‘a canker in our midst.’”

1940(1st of Adar I, 5700): Parashat Terumah and Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1940: Rabbi Samuel H. Goldenson is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “New Cults and Old Religions” at Temple Emanu-El,

1940: Rabbi Louis I. Newman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Lincoln Speaks” New Anecdotes of the Great Emancipator” at Temple Rodeph Sholom.

1940: Rabbi Samuel M. Segal is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Sanctuary” at Mount Neboh Temple on West 79th Street.

1940: Rabbi Alexander Segel is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Gift and the Giver” at Fort Washington Synagogue.

1940: Rabbi Harold H. Mashioff is scheduled deliver a sermon on “The Protocols of Zion – a Myth Exposed” at the Temple of the Covenant in New York City.

1940: Rabbi Hyman Judah Schachtel delivered a sermon on “Edmund’s Candle in the Dark” at the West End Synagogue.

1941: “Two French mining engineers, Arman Mayer and Pierre Lion have been retained in office by an order published today exempting them from the regulations discharging Jews from public employment.”

1942(23rdof Shevat, 5702): Thirty-seven-year-old Baruch Kremer, the husband of Batia Kremer and father of Joshua Kremer was murdered by the Nazis in his hometown of Kurenets.

1942: As of today, “the approximate ghetto and concentration camp populations of German Jews in Riga and the vicinity were: Jungfernhof concentration camp, 2,500; the German ghetto: 11,000; Salaspils: 1,300. Of the Latvian Jews, about 3,500 men and 300 women were in the Latvian ghetto.”

1943: Birthdate of St. Louis native and award winning astrophysicist Gerald Jay (Jerry) Fishman’

http://www.shawprize.org/en/shaw.php?tmp=3&twoid=90&threeid=179&fourid=305&fiveid=150

https://www.revolvy.com/page/Gerald-J.-Fishman

1944: Birthday of Geoffrey Alderman, the native of Middlsex and Oxford graduate who in 2006 “was awarded the degree of Doctor of Letters by the University of Oxford for his important work on Anglo-Jewish history” and who is the father of Naomi Alderman the of Disobedience, for which she earned the 2006 Orange Award for New Writers.

http://www.geoffreyalderman.com/

1944 (16th of Shevat, 5704): Dr. George Bernhard, exiled editor and political economics of pre-Nazi Germany who had been living in the United States since February, 1941 passed away today at the age of 68 from the effects of pneumonia. A native of Berlin, Bernhard was part of a Jewish family that had lived in Germany for centuries.  Bernhard’s enjoyed a successful business career before devoting his time to government service and the publishing industry.  “Dr. Bernhard’s Pariser Tageblatt was considered the world’s first anti-Nazi daily” and “was read all over the world by German speaking Nazis” before the Nazis took control of it in 1936.  Bernhard stayed one step ahead of the Nazis, publishing in Paris until it fell in 1940 and then moving on to Marseilles before had to leave Vichy France in 1941.  Dr. Bernhard who had been a deputy member of the Agency for Palestine as a representative of the German Jews and was a member of the executive committee of the Jewish World Congress was a member of the staff of the Institute of Jewish Affairs from the time he arrived in the United States until his demise.

1944(16thof Shevat, 5704): Fifty-year-old Yiddish author Israel Joshua Singer brother of two other Yiddish writers, Esther Kreitman and Isaac Bashevis Singer, passed away.

 1944: The first ship to break the British blockade of Palestine arrives in Eretz Israel. Worldwide publicity of "illegal" immigration of Jews to Israel was an important factor in England's ultimate decision to give up the mandate. Most of you know the story the “Exodus” which Leon Uris used as basis for novel of that name that later was a big screen Hollywood event.  The story was based on an actual event that took place in 1947.  However, it was only one a series of blockade runners seeking to bring Jews from Europe to Palestine despite the White Paper banning immigration and the military might of the British Royal Navy.

1944: Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt was honored today for her work in helping to rehabilitate 40,000 refugee children in Israel. More than 1,000 persons attended the meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel where she received the first citation and cash award given for humanitarian work with children by Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, in memory of the late Henrietta Szold, founder of the organization.

1944: Birthdate of Georffrey Alderman the British historian whose works include The Jewish Community in British Politics and Modern British Jewry. He is the father of British authoress Naomi Alderman who was born in 1974.

1944: U.S. premiere of “Lady in the Dark” the film version of the Broadway musical created by Kurt Weill, Ira Gershwin and Moss Hart.

1944: “Song of Russia,” a war movie directed by Gregory Ratoff and produced by Joe Pasternak and Pandro S. Berman.

1945: Lt. (JG) Leon Rankel began a three-month tour “as a pilot of carrier based torpedo bomber’ during which “he participated in twenty strikes against” Japanese shipping, airfields and other installations.

1946: “A drive for $2,000,000 for destitute Jews throughout the world was started this afternoon by the United Jewish Appeal of Greater New York at a meeting in the Barbizon Plaza Hotel.”

1946: In “Franz Boas vs. Hitler” published to R.L. Duffus provides a detailed review of Rae and Democratic Society by Franz Boaz, who “began answering Hitler before Hitler was born.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1946/02/10/93044535.html?pageNumber=116

1947: Following the Paris Peace Conference of 1946, the Paris Peace Treaties were signed between the victorious Allied Powers and Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Finland.

1947: Dov Rosenbaum, Eliezer Kashani and Mordecai Alkoshi were convicted by a British court of carrying firearms.

1948: The Central Committee of the Communist Party indicted Dimitri Shostakovich and other leading Soviet composers as "formalists," enemies of the people. This bogus charge and all that flowed from it caused one critic to describe 1948 as “the worst year of Dmitri Shostakovich's life;” a year in which the Stalinist government would fire him from two teaching positions, ban his works and take away his livelihood.  Shostakovich, who was not Jewish, responded to all of this travail by setting eleven texts from "Jewish Folk Poetry" -- a collection of Yiddish folk poems published the year before in Russian translation -- for soprano, alto, tenor and piano. This musical work would gain fame as "From Jewish Folk Poetry." Shostakovich's orchestration of the cycle would not be heard in public until 1955, two years after Stalin’s death. [Ed. Note: Shostakovich was not Jewish and I do not know why he chose this way of thumbing his nose at Stalin at a time when the Soviet dictator’s anti-Semitism was reaching a new crescendo]

1949: Arthur Miller's play "Death of a Salesman" opened at Broadway's Morosco Theater.  How Jewish was Arthur Miller?  He was Jewish enough that when Marilyn Monroe married him she converted to Judaism.

1949: Lehi Leader Nathan Yellin-Mor was sentenced to 8 years in prison after having been guilty of being part of the leadership of a terrorist organization for his role in the assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte.

1950: Seventy-seven year old, French sociologist Marcel Mauss, the nephew of Émile Durkheim, passed away today in Paris.

 http://www.aaanet.org/committees/commissions/centennial/history/092mauss.pdf

http://www.freewords.org/graeber.htm

1950: Birthdate of Mark Spitz, Olympic Games swimming gold medalist.

1951: Birthdate of Robert "Bob" Iger, “the president and chief executive officer of The Walt Disney Company.”

1950(23rd of Shevat, 5710): French anthropologist and sociologist Marcel Mauss passed away.  Mauss was the nephew and intellectual heir of Émile Durkheim.  His most famous work is The Gift.1952: Birthdate of Zvika Greengold the native of the Kibbutz of the Ghetto fighters who earned Medal of Valor for his heroics during the Yom Kippur War.http://www.badassoftheweek.com/greengold.html

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that a strong explosion shook the Soviet Legation building in Tel Aviv, injuring three members of the staff. Israel expressed "horror and detestation" at this cowardly act. The owner of a Soviet bookshop in Jerusalem was threatened. This violence came as a wave of anti-Semitism swept across the Soviet Union. 

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that The Haifa Technion opened a faculty of agricultural engineering.

1954: Birthdate of Peter Wennik Kaplan, the Manhattan born Harvard graduate who spent 15 exciting years as the editor of the New York Observer. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

1954:Archeologist Max Mallowan who worked several sites in Mesopotamia including Ur, reputed to be the Biblical home of Abraham resigned from the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve

1958(20thof Shevat, 5718): “Reverend Joseph B. Freedman of Springfield, MA,” the husband of Lena Freedman and the father of “Rabbi Jacob S. King” passed away this evening.

1958: Birthdate of Yitzhak Nakash  an associate professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies at Brandeis University who is the  author of The Shi'is of Iraq and who has contributed articles to "Foreign Affairs, Newsweek," and the "New York Times.

1960(12thof Shevat, 5720): Seventy-five-year-old New York City native and NYU Law School grad Abraham Landau, an executive with clothing manufacture Julius Schwartz and Sons which later “became a personal investment firm” starting in 1922, a “president of the fifteenth Assembly District Republican Club” and “a trustee of Beth Israel Hospital” who with his wife Hannah raised two daughters passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1960/02/11/105178222.pdf

1962: Ray Lichenstein’s first solo exhibition which included the canvas “Look Mickey” opened today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_Mickey

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_Mickey#/media/File:Look_Mickey.jpg

1963: In Montreal, Ray and Moishe Applebaum gave birth to their third child, Michael Mark Appelbaum, the future mayor his native city.

1965(8thof Adar I, 5725): Fifty-year-old screenwriter Arnold Manoff who was a victim of the blacklist passed away today.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9401EFD9143CE733A25751C1A9649C946491D6CF

1965: The United States Figure Skating Championships, in which Taffy Pergament placed seventh, opened today.

1964: “Strange Bedfellows,” directed by Melvin Frank who co-wrote the screenplay while serving as co-producer and starring Melvyn Douglas was released today in the United States.

1966(20th of Shevat, 5726): Billy Rose composer and band leader passed away. Born William Samuel Rosenberg in New York City, he began his career as a lyricist.   Two of his most famous efforts were "Me and My Shadow" and “It’s Only a Paper Moon." 

1966: “Bunny Lake is Missing” a thriller directed and produced by Otto Preminger and featuring Lucie Mannheim was released in the United Kingdom today.

1968: Birthdate of New Jersey native Dr. Garrett E. Resiman the astronaut who “was a crewmember of of NEEMO V.”

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/reisman_garrett.pdf

1969: “The Guru” with a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala was released today in the United States.

1970: Three days after he had passed away, funeral services are scheduled to be held this morning for seventy-four-year-old Joseph Brainin, the veteran of the Jewish Battalion that fought with Allenby during his successful WW I campaign turned journalist and author who was the husband of “the former Salomea Neumark.”

https://www.nytimes.com/1970/02/09/archives/joseph-brainin-is-dead-at-74-aide-of-weizmann-institute.html?_r=0

1970(4thof Adar I, 5730): Three Arab terrorists attacked an “airport bus head for an El Al plane at the Munich airport” killing 1 Israeli passenger and wounding 8 others including actress Hanna Maron who had to have her leg amputated after being injured in the grenade blast.

1970(4thof Adar I, 5730): Just 4 months shy of his 100th birthday, Rabbi Tobias Geffen, “the Coca Cola Rabbi” passed away in Atlanta, GA.

http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishFeatures/Article.aspx?id=169154

1971(15thof Shevat, 5731): Tu B’Shevat

1971: “The House of Blue Leaves,” directed by Mel Shapiro, opened today Off-Broadway at the Truck and Warehouse Theatre, where it ran for 337 performances with a cast that included Harold Gould.

1973: Birthdate of Ramat HaSharon native, Naor Zion the multi-talented Israeli performer who was the son of “Persian Jewish Parents.”

http://www.naorzion.com/

1974: In Givat Haim, Asher Lider and Warsaw Ghetto survivor Dalia Lider both of whom had immigrated to Israel from Argentina gave birth to their third child Ivri Lider, one of Israel’s most popular pop rock singer-songwriters.

1977(22ndof Shevat, 5737): “Hotel owner and operator Monis Lansburgh” passed away today in Miami Beach, FL.

1977: In the Bronx Yehonathan Netanyou Lane was named in honor of the Bronx-born Israeli soldier who died freeing hostages in Entebbe Raid in 1976.  Netanyou was the only Israeli soldier to die in the daring rescue mission.  His brother would build a political career based on the fame garnered from being Jonathan’s surviving brother.

1978: “Blue Collar” a crime drama co-starring Harvey Keitel and Yaphet Kotto and featuring Milton Selzer was released in the United States today.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Prime Minister Menachem Begin rejected the US position that the Jewish settlements in the administered areas are illegal and an obstacle to peace. He said that Israel offered Palestinians a local autonomy which was "more than anything they had been offered by the Arab states which ruled them in the past ­ Jordan and Egypt."

1979(13thof Shevat, 5739): Sixty-two-year-old Rephoel Baruch Sorotzkin, the Rosh Yehsiva of the Telz Yeshiva in Cleveland, the husband of Rochel Bloch, passed away today which was the same date on the Hebrew calendar on which he was born.

1980(23rdof Shevat, 5740): Nathan Yellin-Mor, the leader of Lehi who had been born at Grodno in 1913 and whose political transformation led him to become “a radical pacifist who support negotiations with the PLO” passed away today.

1981 In Houston, TX, Karen Lee Finn and her husband gave birth to Mindy Lis Finn, the 2016 Vice Presidential candidate, founder and president of Empowered Women and husband of David Feinberg, the father of her two sons.

http://forward.com/news/world/352799/mormons-love-jews-they-dont-know-vice-presidential-candidate-mindy-finn-is/?utm_content=daily_Newsletter_MainList_Title_Position-1&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Daily%202016-10-31&utm_term=The%20Forward%20Today%20Monday-Friday

1983: “Peace Now!” held a demonstration in Jerusalem.

1983(27thof Shevat, 5743): “Right-wing terrorist Yona Avrushmi” murdered IDF veteran and teacher Emil Grunzweig and injured nine others including Abraham Burg and Yuval Steinitz when he threw a grenade at a peace rally in Jerusalem.

1984: “Unfaithfully Yours” the movie version of the novel  by the same name directed by Howard Zieff, produced by Daniel Melnick, with a script co-authored by Barry Levinson and co-starring Albert Brooks was released today in the United States.

1986: Gary Jacobs fought and won his sixth about meaning the Scottish welterweight is undefeated after six fights

1988: Publication of the “Survivors of the Spanish Exile: The Underground Jews of Ibiza.”

http://www.jcpa.org/jl/hit12.htm

1990(15thof Shevat, 5750): Tu B’Shevat

1990: The New York Times reported that based on a poll created by Steven M. Cohen, a sociologist at Queens College of the City University of New York, and by the study's sponsor, the Israel-Diaspora Institute, a Tel Aviv-based public policy center that deals with relations between Jews in Israel and elsewhere officials of American Jewish organizations, although highly distrustful of the Palestine Liberation Organization, say that Israel should talk to the P.L.O., a national survey has found.

1990: On Off-Broadway revival of “The Rothschilds,” a musical based on Frederic Morton’s biography opened at the American Jewish Theatre.

1991: An American official said today that Air Force F-15's had destroyed a Scud surface-to-surface missile launcher in western Iraq, but it was not the one that lobbed another projectile into Tel Aviv, Israel, wounding 26 people.

1991: During Desert Storm, the Israeli Army allowed some West Bank and Gaza Palestinians to return to their jobs in Israel today for the first time in three weeks.

1994 (29thof Shevat, 5754): Naftali Sahar a citrus grower, was killed by blows to his head. His body was found in his orchard near Kibbutz Na'an.

1995: “Billy Madison,” a comedy starring Adam Sandler who co-wrote the script was released today in the United States.

1995: Eli Rosenbaum has been named director of the Office of Special Investigations (OSI), Jo Ann Harris, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division, announced today. OSI is the unit of the Criminal Division that identifies and takes legal action against those who participated in persecutory activities of the Nazi regime during World War II.  "

1996(20th of Shevat, 5756): Seventy-five year old Haskell L. Lazere, who was executive director of the New York chapter of the American Jewish Committee from 1969 to 1989 and helped found various human rights coalitions in New York City, passed away at his home on the Upper East Side.(As reported by Wolfgang Saxon.

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/13/nyregion/haskell-lazere-75-executive-who-led-jewish-committee.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm

1997: In Manhattan Beach, CA, “Charles Rosen, an orthopedic spine surgeon and Liz Lippincott, a former journalist gave birth to UCLA and Arizona Cardinals quarterback.

1999(10thof Shevat, 5759): Eighty-five-year-old Gideon Rafael, who engaged in a variety of clandestine activities in the 1930’s and 1940’s before becoming one of the founders of Israel’s Foreign Ministry in 1948 passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/12/world/gideon-rafael-85-a-founder-of-the-israeli-foreign-ministry.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-gideon-rafael-1070457.html

1999(10thof Shevat, 5759): Seventy-two-year-old Newark, NJ native Herbert “Herb” Krautblatt who played college basketball at Rider before being drafted by the professional Baltimore Bullets passed away today.

https://www.thesquander.com/herb-krautblatt-net-worth-2018-what-basketball-player-worth-2022292131

2000: Russian actor Vladimir Zeldin was awarded the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 4thClass “for outstanding contribution to the development of domestic theatrical art.

2001: Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues" was presented to a crowd of 18,000 men and women at Madison Square Garden.

https://jwa.org/thisweek/feb/10/2001/eve-ensler

2001(17th of Shevat, 5761):  Abraham “Abe” Beame, first Jewish Mayor of New York City passed away. (As reported by Robert D. McFadden)

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/11/nyregion/abraham-beame-is-dead-at-94-mayor-during-70-s-fiscal-crisis.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

2002: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently published paperback edition of James Atlas” Bellow: A Biography, the encyclopedic portrait of the writer Saul Bellow in which the author beat all the bushes to trace his personal life and achievements, drawing on more than a decade's worth of research.

2003: Eighty-seven-year-old journalist Herb Brin was interred today “in Jerusalem, overlooking the Temple Mount.”

http://www.davidbrin.com/herbbrin/obituary.html

2003(8th of Adar I, 5763): Ron Ziegler, Press Secretary for Richard Nixon during the Watergate Scandal passed away. (As reported by Tina Kelley)

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/11/us/ron-ziegler-press-secretary-to-nixon-is-dead-at-63.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm

2003(8th of Adar I, 5763): Antoinette Feuerwerker, a French jurist, veteran of the WW II Free French forces and the wife of Rabbi David Feuerwerker, passed away today in Jerusalem at the age of 90.

2004:”The Commission for the Indemnity of Looting Victims, a government panel, said France should pay remaining compensation requests of $154 million to the families of Jews whose property was looted in the Nazi occupation of World War II.”

2005 (1st of Adar I, 5765):  Playwright Arthur Miller passed away. (As reported by Marilyn Berger)

http://theater.nytimes.com/2005/02/11/theater/newsandfeatures/11cnd-miller.html

http://www.arthurmiller.org/

2005: Russian actor Vladimir Zeldin was awarded the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 3rdclass “for outstanding contribution to the development of theatrical art and may years of creative activity.

2006: In “Beating Swords Into Photographs” published today, Menachem Wecker reviews the wrong of David Seymour.

http://forward.com/articles/1652/beating-swords-into-photographs/

2006:  Sheloshim ends for Judy Rosenstein (nee Levin) of blessed memory.

2006: An animated film, Curious George, based on the character created by Hans Augusto Rey and Margret Rey featuring Will Ferrell as the voice of the originally unnamed Man With the Yellow Hat, was released. (The Reys are Jewish- Ferrell is not)

2007: “Musical Genius” Chen Halevi performs together with five musicians from the Tel Aviv Soloists Ensemble in a Classical-Romantic-Modern program featuring works by Mozart, Dvorak and Paul Ben-Haim at the Israel Conservatory in Tel Aviv.

2008: The Sunday New York Times featured a review of Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again by Jewish author David Frum.

2008: The Sunday New York Times featured a pre-Valentine’s Day interview with Ben Karlin, Wisconsin alum and former member of Hillel based on his book Things I’ve Learned From Women Who’ve Dumped Me

2008: Jerusalem Post on-line reported that “anger boiled over in Sderot on as residents took to the streets, demanding that the government take stronger steps against the rocket fire from Gaza following a Kassam strike that shattered one local family's Shabbat.

2008: At the Tucson Jewish Film Festival in Tucson, AZ a showing of “Samuel Bak:
Painter of Questions,” a documentary that explores Bak's work and life through the lens of his childhood experiences.

2008: The 12thNew York Sephardic Jewish Festival continues with showings of “Sallah Shabati,” “Souvenirs,” “Operation Mural: Casablanca 1960,”The Jews of Lebanon” (le Petite Histoire des Juifs de Liban) and “My Love (Aviva Ahuvati).”

2009:Adelphi University Cultural Events Lecture Series presents a presentation a lecture entitled “Israel and the United Nations”  by Ambassador Danny Carmon, Deputy Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations followed by a Q & A session.

2009: Kinky Friedman “confirmed to the Associated Press that he was still interested in running” for governor of Texas.

2009: In Little Rock, Arkansas, the Chabad-Lubavitch Center for Jewish Life, under the dynamic leadership of Rabbi Pinchas Ciment, presents a lecture on the power of prayer by Dr. Lisa Aiken, entitled, “Dear G-d, is anyone listening?”

2009:  Israelis go to the polls in the only free, democratic elections (in the western sense of that that term) held in that part of the world. Kadima captures 28 seats and Likud captures 27 seats in the inconclusive race to control the 120 seat Israeli Parliament.

2009: Eighty-nine-year-old Leo Alan Orenstein, who directed and produced over 150 television shows at the CBC will be laid to rest today at Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

2010: Today, the Antiquities Authority said that “archaeologists in Jerusalem have discovered an ancient street which confirms the accuracy of the 1,500 old Madaba Map which depicted in a mosaic floor of a church in Madaba, Jordan, that shows Jerusalem as it was in the Byzantine period, between the 4th and the 7th centuries.  (As reported by Nir Hasson)

2010: Maggie Anton, author of the outstanding trilogy about Rashi’s Daughters, is scheduled to speak at Milken JCC in West Hills, CA.

2010: The 14thNew York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to present the New York Premiere of “Azi Ayima” (Come Mother), “a story of transition, cultural crisis, social survival and also lots of faith, optimism, joy and dignity, told for the first time by Moroccan women of the first generation to immigrate to Israel.” 

2010(26thShevat, 5770): First-Sgt. Muhammad Ihab Khatib, 26, was stabbed to death at the Tapuah junction on this afternoon by Mahmoud Hattib, a Palestinian Authority police officer from Yabed.  Khatib was waiting in his Sufa jeep in a queue of traffic when he was stabbed in the chest through an open window. In the soldier's attempt to speed away, the vehicle overturned. Khatib was evacuated to Petah Tikva's Beilinson Hospital, where he succumbed to the knife wounds. The soldier is survived by a father, a mother, two brothers and three sisters. Several years ago, his uncle was killed in action. In the Second Lebanon War, his aunt was killed when a Katyusha rocket fired by Hizbullah hit her house.

2011: “Five Brothers,” “The Loners” and “There Were Nights” are scheduled to be shown at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.

2011: Opening night of the Jewish Film Festival in San Diego, CA.

2011: Laura Cohen Apelbaum, Executive Director of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington and Archivist Wendy Turman are scheduled to present an illustrated lecture of Jewish Life in Mr. Lincoln's City, detailing Civil War-era personalities and events in Washington and Alexandria.

2011: Dr. Nathan Abrams is scheduled to deliver an illustrated lecture entitled “(Jewish) men and (gentile) women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way” based on romantic comedy, “When Harry Met Sally.”

2011: At a ceremony for the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, Defense Minister Ehud Barak told an audience today in the United Nations General Assembly hall that “an independent, strong, thriving and peaceful State of Israel is the vengeance of the dead.”

2011: It was announced today that three authors who attended the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop are among five finalists for the Sami Rohr Prize in fiction for Jewish Literature. They are Allison Amend for “Stations West,” Julie Orringer for “The Invisible Bridge” and Austin Ratner for “Jump Artist.”   Top prize is $100,000 and a $25,000 Choice Award will be given to the first runner-up. Established in 2006, the annual prize honors the contribution of contemporary writers in the exploration and transmission of Jewish values. It is intended to encourage and promote outstanding writing of Jewish interest in the future. Fiction and non-fiction books are considered in alternate years. Other finalists, announced by the Jewish Book Council, are Nadia Kalman for “The Cosmopolitans” and “Joseph Skibell for “A Curable Romantic.” Finalists will meet with the judges March 15 in New York, and the winners will be announced shortly thereafter. The 2011 award ceremony will be held in New York City on May 31.

2011(6thof Adar I, 5771): Tel Aviv University Professor Michael Harsegor, one of Israel's most-prominent historians, passed away today at the age of 87. For decades Harsegor taught history at Tel Aviv University and was considered an expert on Late Middle Ages European History. He was most well-known to the Israeli public for hosting the long-running Army Radio program "historical hour". Harsegor was a native of Romania but moved to Israel in 1949 at the age of 25. In Romania, he was sentenced to 20 years hard labor for being a member of the HaShomer HaTzair Zionist youth movment, but was released in 1944.After arriving in Israel, following a short imprisonment by British forces in Cyprus, Harsegor became a member of Kibbutz Zikim, and also gave the kibbutz its name. (As reported by Ben Hartman)

2012: In New York, an exhibition of the work of Ilan Averbuch, an Israeli artist who creates sculpture using wood, stone, copper and steel is scheduled to come to an end.

2012: The 92ndStreet Y is scheduled to host a Tu B’Shevat Dinner this evening.

2012: Jews around the world can participate in the International Young Israel Movement Mishloach Manot Campaign 2012 starting at 10:AM www.iyim.org.il/mishloach-manot/ 

2012: Israel's Defense Ministry said this morning that it had conducted a successful test of the Arrow 2 missile defense system.

2012: The Knesset's Judicial Selection Committee approved Justice Asher Grunis as the new Supreme Court President today.

2012: A general strike in Israel's public sector will continue today, after negotiations between the Histradrut Labor Federation and the Finance failed to resolve the gap between the two sides late yesterday

2013: In Washington, DC final scheduled day for “Matzah Without Dogma: Four Centuries of Secular and Humanistic Judaism” featuring Rabbi Adam Chalom, North American Dean of the IISHJ

2013: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to present “The Queen of H Street, a one-woman show that tells the true-life story of Anna Shulman, her arrival in the U.S. and in Washington, and her impact on the H Street neighborhood, home to Jewish merchants in the 1920s and 1930s

2013: At the Grammies, “The Jewish Canadian singer Drake won an award for Rap Album of the Year and the indie pop band “fun” whose leader singer Antonoff is Jewish won the Song of the Year with “W Are Young.” (As reported by JTA and The Jewish Press)

2013: The Baltimore Zionist District and United Against a Nuclear Iran are scheduled to join forces today with more than a dozen other organizations — Jewish and non-Jewish --  in front of the Baltimore Convention Center during the Motor Trend International Auto Show to call upon auto manufacturers to stop doing business with Iran.

2013: “Orchestra of Exiles” a film about Bronislaw Huberman, the man who saved 1,000 musicians, their families and their friends, is scheduled to be shown in Iowa City, Iowa.

2013: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and Posen Foundation are scheduled to present: “Jews and Words: A Celebration of Jewish Writing, Language, and Expression” – a series of panel discussion including such literary luminaries as Jonathan Sarna and Dora Horn.

2013: Four hundred police officers and 200 private security guards were on hand at Teddy Stadium in the capital as Beitar Jerusalem played a high-tension match against Arab squad Bnei Sakhnin tonight.

2013: Barack Obama will be making his first presidential visit to Israel next month primarily in order to tell Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in person to hold off on any military intervention in Iran, it was reported today

2013: 2013: A float satirizing local politicians dressed as Nazis holding canisters of Zyklon B gas is to take part in a carnival parade in the Belgian city of Aalst which is scheduled to take place today. (As reported by JTA and Forward)

2014: A version of “Threshold to the Sacred: The Ark Door of Cairo's Ben Ezra Synagogue” based on the exhibit at the Walter’s in Baltimore is scheduled to come to a close at Yeshiva University.” (As reported by Menachem Wecke)

http://forward.com/articles/173384/what-lay-behind-maimonides-door-in-cairos-ben-ezra/?p=all

http://thewalters.org/events/eventdetails.aspx?e=2568

2014: The Tulane University Jewish Studies Department led by its chair Dr. Brian J. Horowitz is scheduled to host a lecture by Jennifer Richard entitled “Passover and Politics: Remember the Jewishness of Hannah Arendt.”

2014: “Putzel” is scheduled to be shown at the 14th annual the David Posnack JCC Jewish Film Festival.

2014: “Five Hours from Paris” is scheduled to be shown for the first time at UK Jewish Film Festival.

2014: The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported today that Mark Zuckerberg and his wife were the most generous American philanthropists in 2013, with a donation of 18 million shares of Facebook stock valued at more than $970 million to a Silicon Valley nonprofit.”

 2014: Abraham H. Foxman announced today that he would be stepping down as head of the Anti-Defamation League in July of 2015.

2014:”A red alert sounded in the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council early this afternoon after a rocket launched from within Gazan territory was detected.”

2014: “The crisis at Hadassah’s two Jerusalem hospitals intensified today as nurses and administrative employees joined doctors in a strike that has been going on since last Tuesday.” (As reported by Aron Donzis)

2015: Florida International University is scheduled to host a lecture by Dr. Juan Gil on “Conversos in Seville and the Empire, From the Coast of Africa to the Indies.”

2016: The JCC Manhattan is scheduled to host “Israel in Love.”

2016: “A Life for Football” which “dramatizes the story of Munich-based soccer team FC Bayern and its club president, Kurt Landauer, a Jew who returned to Munich after the war to reinstate the club and the game in the city” is scheduled to be shown at the 26th Annual San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

2016(1st of Adar I, 5776): In an ecumenical quirk of the calendar Ash Wednesday coincides with Rosh Chodesh Adar I.

2017(14th of Shevat, 5777): On the Jewish calendar, “Yahrzeit of Rabbi Yaakov Yehoshua Falk better known as the "Pnei Yehoshua," which was the title of his book of Talmudic commentary”

2017 (14th of Shevat, 5777): On the Jewish calendar Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan.

http://www.sephardicstudies.org/kaplan.html

2017: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled kick off Parent’s Shabbat with Orthodox and Egalitarian Services followed by a three course Friday Night Meal.

2017: In Coralville, Iowa, Agudas Achim is scheduled to host is annual New Member Dinner.

2017: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Temple Judah is scheduled to host its annual Tu B’Shvat Seder.

2017(14th of Shevat, 5777): Ninety-five-year-old Miles Cahn who along with his wife founded Lillian founded Coach, maker of the famous Coach handbag, passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/11/business/miles-cahn-dead-coach.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2018: As the northern border heated up again, “Iran and Syria today denied that an unmanned drone Israel said it shot down violated the Jewish state’s airspace, calling Israeli allegations “lies” and saying the drone was on a regular mission gathering intelligence on Islamic State.”

2018: “Shalom Bollywood: The Untold Story of Indian Cinema” is scheduled to be shown this evening at the San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

2018: “Israel’s military attacked 12 Syrian and Iranian targets in Syria today in a new wave of strikes it described as a ‘large-scale’ attack, following exchanges of fire earlier in the day sparked by an Iranian drone infiltration from Syria.”

2018: A “charity cycle ride” to raise money for the Oxford Food Bank supported by The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to take place this afternoon

2018(25th of Shevat, 5778): Parashat Mishpatim and Shabbat Shekalim

2019: In Amherst, MA, the Yiddish Book Center is scheduled to host a screening of “Itzhak.”

2019: The Breman Museum is scheduled to host “teen actors from Atlanta’s Jewish community perform scenes from Michael Slade’s Vedem-inspired play ‘And A Child Shall Lead.’”

2019: An exhibition “Remembering the Kindertransport” which marked the 80th anniversary of this life-saving event is scheduled to come to an end at the Jewish Museum in London.

https://jewishmuseum.org.uk/exhibitions/kindertransport/

2019: The Breman Museum is scheduled to host a “Historic Jewish Atlanta Tour with a one-of-a-kind trolley tour of the Jewish connection to Atlanta’s Civil Rights Movement” which will “explore the role Jewish institutions played in the fight for integration with tour stops at The Temple, Prior Tire, the Rich’s Building, the Peachtree Manor Hotel, and the American Motor Hotel.”

2019: UK Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host screenings of “Budapest Noir,” a film centering around the “mysterious death of a Jewish woman” in Glasgow and Manchester.

2019: The American Sephardi Federation, Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America, Binghamton University Department of Judaic Studies, and American Jewish Historical Society are scheduled to present “International Ladino Day: A Celebration of Words and Music” at the Center for Jewish History.

https://mailchi.mp/asf/international-ladino-day-a-celebration-of-words-and-music?e=9870a7a862

2020: In Mountain View, CA, “as part of the American Associates of Ben-Gurion University Silicon Valley meeting,” the Computer History Museum is scheduled to host a cocktail with former U.S. Middle East envoy Dennis Ross

2020: The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival opened its 20th anniversary series today, just weeks before the first casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic was announced.

2020: The University of San Francisco is scheduled to host“Arab Music and Jewish History in North Africa” during which “Chris Silver of McGill University talks about Jewish-Muslim relations in the region”

2020: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “The Unorthodox” directed by Elliran Malka.

2020(15th of Sh’vat, 5780: Tu B’Shvat – the New Year of the Trees

2021: As part of virtual “Purim 101” Rabbi Ruth Adar of Hamaqom | The Place is scheduled to explain “the basics of the holiday.”

2021: The Jewish Arts Collaborative is scheduled to present online “JLive Music with David Derrick who “is a composer, conductor, music educator and Yiddishist based in Boston” who is also “the musical director of A Besere Velt, the chorus of Boston Workers Circle.”

2021: In Palm Beach Gardens, FL, Temple Judea is scheduled to host a virtual “Noon Lunch and Learn with Rabbi Yaron Kapitulnik talking about “The R-Rated Version of the Book of Esther.”

2021: “Covid-19 Conversation from the Front Line” a series sponsored by Congregation Sherith Israel is scheduled to continue “with UCSF professor Dr. Jonathan Fuchs in discussion with UC Berkeley professor Jonathan Graf about S.F’s neighborhood Covid-19 vaccination policy.

2021: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host online Ahan Hirsi Ali who “issues a forceful warning about the dangers the West faces by refusing to take seriously the challenges of integrating into their societies young men raised in a world of institutionalized polygamy and lack of legal protections for women.”

2021: The National Museum of American Jewish History, for which Mitchell Levin is an “official content provider” is scheduled to host a screening of “the 2014 concert documentary ‘Flory’s Flame’ about living Ladino musical legend, Flory Jagoda.”

2021: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to present Sina Kahen talking about his “newly-released book Ideas: Shemot.

 

 

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